The prompt this week was
- Character: Psychologist
- Object: Ketchup
- Genre/Tone: Speculative
As much as I enjoy writing flash fiction, sometimes I just don’t feel like I click with the story I’m writing. And with the time limit, there’s really no chance to change tack and try something else. The moment I started writing this week, I just wanted to go back and make different choices, but that inexorable timer told me it was not possible within our agreed upon parameters. “I hate this, this is so bad,” and variations on that theme popped up between both Robert and me the whole time we wrote. Robert read his story out loud, and I love what he wrote! I wish that I’d written it! It’s charming and funny and unexpected. I dithered around, trying to avoid reading mine, and finally ripped off the bandage. And, well, Robert didn’t hate it. He even liked the ending. It just goes to show that you’re not necessarily the best judge of your own work. Or maybe, your feelings aren’t the best judge of your work. Be gentle with yourself, work with someone you can trust (if you can!), and be open to both critiques and to praise. Funny how both hurt sometimes.
If you join us in this prompt, or any of the others, please let us know! If you’re joining us for the first time, here’s the primer on this prompt system. Happy writing!
Priscilla James stared at her notebook and rubbed her forehead, eyes closed tight. A condiment tray and a pair of cheap sunglasses sat in front of her. This was an odd case – her patient was seeing things. Cass was convinced that she’d seen another world through her sunglasses after eating a hotdog from a mall cafeteria. The blood and brain scans were all coming back normal, according to the doctors. Priscilla was convinced it was probably just expired ketchup and some mild food poisoning. But the odd thing was that Cass wasn’t recovering, she kept claiming to see castles rising into the sky, and dragons, or dinosaurs, or something flying around turrets. Otherwise though, Cass was just normal, no other expressed delusions or breaks from reality. Cass had left her sunglasses, and swiped the condiments from the cafeteria for her. “I can still see the castle, even without the sunglasses now.” She’d whispered as she left.
Priscilla put on the sunglasses again. The room looked darker, but otherwise just the same. She looked out the window, and no amount of squinting could convince her that the towering clouds in the sky were turrets, that the birds were dragons. She tossed the glasses across the room onto the couch. She picked up the red, cylindrical ketchup bottle. She sniffed at the contents. Ketchup, only cheap ketchup. This needed to be tested by a lab. But she somewhat absently squeezed a drop of ketchup onto her finger and licked it off. Vinegary ketchup overwhelmed her tastebuds. She glanced out the window and nothing had changed.
She got up and fetched the glasses again. The world wobbled, like a sheet of water rushing across the windshield, for a moment everything was a blur of blobby shapes and colors. She looked outside. The clouds enfolded a massive grey stone castle – it looked close enough to touch, but somehow impossibly far away at the same time. Around the biggest turret, a red dragon flew, spiraling around like it was guarding a treasure.
She sat on the couch facing the window with Cass at her next appointment. “You see it too.” Cass whispered, the moment she saw Priscilla’s face. A green dragon circled the turret this time. Priscilla pointed out the window, “I think the next step in your, well, our treatments, is to find out how we get there.”