Prompts & Exercises 10/07/2014

Prompt: You wake up feeling refreshed, a new day a new — wait your favorite pair of pants is missing. Darting up from bed you hear a noise outside. A woman is wearing them and looking straight at you. What do you do?

From here: http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts/caught-pants-down

You tear away the gauzy curtains and throw open your bedroom window. “Lilliann.” You shout.

The woman stares up at you. She stands there and waits. Weak sunlight flashes in her marble eyes, but, beyond that, she is completely still.

“Lilliann,” You repeat her name, more softly this time. You try to make it sound sweet in your mouth to mask the bile rising in your throat. “What are you doing here, and why have you taken my pants?”

Lilliann rolls her head to the left, then back, then to the right. The joints in her neck going pop pop pop, loud as firecrackers. “You.” She says in that raspy drawl you love. You could sink right down into her voice like a hot bath. She wants you to. She wants to drown you. “You took something from me. I took something from you.”

Resist. “What-what did I take?” You ask. But she doesn’t answer. Instead, a grin breaks across her face. “Lilliann, I know you’re upset about what happened—but this isn’t how normal, human adults act.”

“Normal. Human. Adults.” She repeats.

“We talked about this…breakups are, they’re normal. This is a normal part of living life among people. Remember, Lilliann?” You realize you’re gripping the windowsill, your fingers are pale. “How did you get into my apartment?”

She points. You lean forward, just slightly, so you can see she’s pointing to the drainage pipe that runs from the roof down to the street. It is about three feet to the left of your window. You look back at her. She’s still grinning.

“Lilliann, this is not how you treat an ex.”

“You took something from me.” She repeats. “I took something from you.” She hooks her thumb inside the waistband of your favorite pants.

They are great pants. Comfortable, flattering, on-trend but not trendy. It would be a shame to lose them. You wear them all the time. You decide to play her game.

“Why my pants?” You ask.

“They are your most important thing.” She says. “They are what you love.”

You shake your head, try to dislodge the warm, fuzzy feeling creeping in through your ear canals. “So that’s why you took them? Because they’re the most important thing to me?”

“You love them. You always keep them closest to you.” She says.

Ah of course, you’d almost forgotten: for Lilliann, proximity equals love. When the two of you were going out, she always wanted to have some physical connection with you: a hand on your hand, her forearm resting on your exposed shoulder, the curve of her head in the curve of your clavicle. Of course she would be jealous of your clothing.

Some had made the transition more easily than others. For Lilliann, the jump from idea to flesh was particularly difficult. You can’t be sure (most of the time, you have no idea what she’s thinking) but your guess is that the physical world is too much for her. You guess this because, sometimes…sometimes, it’s too much for you too. You remember the feeling of her skin on yours: a flame on a thirsty blade of grass. If you are honest with yourself, though, the physical world is less spectacular than you thought it would be. You cut yourself the other day, didn’t even notice the dollop of blood drying on your leg until someone else noticed it for you. Don’t feel the coldness in your own fingers right now. Have you felt much of anything since you left her? Have you felt anything at all? It’s taken a while to realize, but you know what she’s talking about. What you took from her. “Lilliann,” You say. “Why don’t you come up and I’ll give it back to you.”