Prompt 4: The Use of Mood

For this prompt, we will be exploring the use of mood. Probably what lingers most in our minds after reading a good book is the particular mood the author created. For this challenge, each of us needs to write a suspenseful fictionalized story that creates and maintains a particular mood of your choice. The key here is to be suspenseful. This could lend itself to a variety of genres (Horror, thriller, drama, crime detective, action/adventure, fantasy, science fiction, etc.) so have fun exploring the creative limits. This story does not need to be complete and can be an excerpt of a larger narrative.

To help work on maintaining mood, this prompt will need to be 700 to 1000 words long. Remember, it is most important to keep the mood intact and create suspense. Also, as a fun challenge, we will all need to incorporate the following words into our stories:

Banana

Ostrich

Pirate

Doctor

Paper weight

Flashlight

Picture Fame

Dodge(verb or noun)

The moment he lit the match, a sledge hammer smashed open the front door. Today was a special day. Today was his daughter’s 5th birthday. She was wearing a pink-princess dress on the day four men dressed in white jumpsuits stole into the home. Her hand-picked candle of a pink number 5 was wedged on top of banana cream frosting. The man touched the waxed tip with the lit match. The jumpsuits passed the foyer carrying large black trash bags. The man handed the cupcake to his daughter and licked a smudge of frosting from his thumb. She was sitting on the kitchen counter and her little legs hung freely over the edge while her heels bounced off the dishwasher. The men entered the dining room; one with a pirate patch carried a small black laptop. The man hoisted his daughter to his chest and carried her to the living room through the archway. His daughter held the cupcake with the lit candle and she smiled.

The jumpsuits entered the kitchen. Three of them started opening cabinets and drawers, but one walked straight to the counter in the middle of the room and picked up the man’s brown leather wallet. Walking towards the window, the man and his daughter looked outside. A neighbor walked by and stopped to wave. She had a look of pity on her face. They stopped waving and moved past the living room couch made of ostrich skin. The jumpsuits were emptying the contents of the cabinets into bags. Porcelain dishes and crystal glassware with gold rims collected into plastic bags. The one by the counter was leaning over the laptop and punched in numbers from a debit card.

The living room ended at the foyer. The man and his daughter paused by the front door. Wood chips looked like blood splatter on the marble floor from the wound in the door. He dodged the scene, covering his daughter’s eye, by turning toward the stairs at the other end of the foyer. The jumpsuits had cleared the kitchen and rushed to the living room. The front windows were opened. Household belongings were thrown out onto the lawn. An old clock, silver picture frames and a small collection of vintage books littered the grass. The man stamped up the stairs while the candle wax tickled his daughter’s hands. Half the furniture was out the window when the man in the kitchen closed his laptop.

At the top of the stairs, the man paused to catch his breath. The garage door opened, and four wheels and a soft motor sound left the driveway and slipped down the street. The jumpsuits finished the living room and came to the bottom of the stairs. The man limped his way down the hallway and passed the open door to the bathroom. They entered the room at the end of the hall and shut the door behind them. The jumpsuits reached the top of the stairs and pulled out more black trash bags from zippered pouches. The man and his daughter looked out the bedroom window. Two neighbors were talking to each other in the next door backyard. One pointed to the house, while the other concealed her mouth with her hand. The jumpsuits cleaned out the bathroom, taking even the open shampoo and conditioner bottles. The man took his daughter to the closet and closed the door behind them. The bedroom door flung open with a loud thud. The window was opened and items from the room hurled out of the second story.

The man sat his daughter on the floor. She held her cupcake with both hands very carefully. The wax splayed across the melted frosting. Ripping noises came from outside of the door and across the room. The man sat with his daughter between oversized clothes hung on racks and he looked at her face. They held the cupcake together. One of the jumpsuits was banging on the door. The man and his daughter looked at each other. The other jumpsuits joined in while the door handle rattled. Their eyes locked as the last flicker of light went out.

Darkness.

“Nurse, mark the time of death as 2:15pm.”

“Yes doctor.”

The nurse wrote on the paper attached to the clipboard labeled oncology. The doctor was putting items in a drawer next to a medical research paper weight that fixed the final documents to the counter.

“He fought all the way to the end, poor guy.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Nurse, did we ever get a family contact from him?”

“No, doctor. He always left it blank.”