I’m borrowing this from ‘Mind’s Eye’ by Hakan Nesser:
“He woke up and was unable to remember his name.”
Take 20 or 30 minutes and, using this as your first line, construct a story around it. Any takers, feel free to post the results here.
LG
August 9, 2010 by Lisa Guidarini
I’m borrowing this from ‘Mind’s Eye’ by Hakan Nesser:
“He woke up and was unable to remember his name.”
Take 20 or 30 minutes and, using this as your first line, construct a story around it. Any takers, feel free to post the results here.
LG
Posted in Writing Exercises | 7 Comments
Ok people, don’t make me be the only one. 🙂 I don’t know how to italicize in a comment. I used quotation marks instead. I spent about 30 minutes with minimal editing.
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He woke up and was unable to remember his name. He stared up at the ceiling, his lips forming different names to see if any seemed right. “Joe. John. Bob. Phil. Kurt. Bill.” While he knew an inexhaustible number of names, none sparked any associations in his empty mind. He could remember names but not one single individual attached to those names including himself. No warm memories of friendships, love, or frustrations with fellow human beings formed. He knew they should have been there. But, they were not. The stark white room provided nothing to jolt any memory loose either. The room was egg shaped with no furnishings except the table he was lying on. It felt like some kind of plastic. The ceiling emitted a soft cold glow with no apparent light source.
He sat up, stiff like a child’s doll. He suddenly noticed that he was naked but did not see any clothing to slip on anywhere in the room. He only saw one option: The unadorned door in front of him. He knew he would get no answers here in the emptiness. Surely there was something beyond that door that could tell him who he was, where he was, and what the hell was going on.
He stumbled back and nearly fell down as a cacophony of noise nearly knocked him over as he opened the door. He grasped the handle with trembling hands and lifted himself up. Ever so slowly it came into view. None of it made much sense. None of it was familiar. No answers, just confusion and chaos.
He stood upon a balcony in a strange city of spires, skyscrapers, bridges, and domes. He was high above the ground, a mass of bipedal beings moving far below. They were tiny from his vantage point but he saw an incredible amount of diversity of forms. He didn’t know why he knew but he knew that they were not all human. Slick vehicles sputtered below, stuck in traffic. Music blared from a loud speaker somewhere, a haunting voice singing in a tongue he didn’t understand.
He grabbed a hold of the railing as a creature appeared in the sky; something extremely large, too large to be aloft. Its bat-like wings pumped gracefully as it came closer. A creature with a long neck and tail swooped down towards him. “That is a dragon.” His tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “A real scaly, fire-breathing, flying, eat a maiden, freak’n dragon. Holy crap. Where the hell am I?”
Nice job, Nile! Love how you created such great atmosphere in so few words. You could add onto this, no problemo, and make it a longer work.
And don’t worry, I plan to work on mine this afternoon. Will post here when I’m finished.
Thanks for posting the prompt, Lisa! Here’s what came out…
He woke up and was unable to remember his name. It wasn’t the first time. Over the years, he’d established a routine for retrieving the lost information. It worked most of the time.
Lying on his back, he looked up at the ceiling, letting his eyes trace the outline of an area where the paint was a different texture. It looked like when whoever painted the ceiling ran out of paint, he or she accidentally poured semi-gloss into the roller pan, rather than flat finish, and then discovered the error after only a couple of swipes with the roller. The unknown painter was smart enough to discover the error, but not energetic enough, apparently, to correct it later.
As his eyes traced the haphazard W of semi-gloss paint he cleared his mind of everything else. The W became a missing puzzle piece. He pictured his memory as a box of mixed up puzzle pieces. He sifted through the box, looking for the one shaped like a W that would fit perfectly into that spot. All the pieces were white, the same color as the ceiling. All of them were a flat finish, rather than semi-gloss.
Because all the pieces were white, it sometimes took a while to come up with the right one. There were ones that looked a lot like the piece he needed, but upon careful examination, what looked like a nice W turned out to be a Z. The Z-shaped piece was his age, which was 43, he realized. Good to know, but again, not the information he’s looking for this time.
He visualized reaching into the box with his hand and coming out with a fistful of the white pieces. He handled each one individually with his thumb and forefinger. Is this the one? No, this one’s my home address. How about this one? No, this is my yellow lab, Daisy. As he finished with each piece, he dropped it in a pile beside the box. Mother’s name. High School. First girlfriend. Military rank. Name of the hospital he was in. Name of his CO.
None of those were the W. He dropped the last piece into the pile of discards and reached for another handful. He heard someone come in the room. A brief shadow crossed his W on the cieling. A friendly voice spoke to him, but he blocked it out, maintaining focus on the missing piece, that elusive W. Where could it be?
Here’s the make of his last car – Mustang GT – good, at least he had a cool car at some point. From the lack of sensation below his shoulders, he doubted he still owned it, or, if he did, could still drive it. He wondered what happened to him, but reigned himself in. That way lies insanity. First, find the W piece; the rest will follow.
This time it was the last piece in the box, hiding out under the second-to-last piece. Go figure. He reached out. His imaginary hand hesitated, then descended and grasped it firmly and brought it up to his eyes. Of course! He was Anthony Carretta, same as always.
Just read yours, Nile, nice job!
Mine went in a totally different direction! Like Nile, I couldn’t italicize, though in the original the main character’s thoughts are in italics.
He woke up and was unable to remember his name, much less why he was lying naked behind the bushes in front of the village hall. An intense throbbing behind his eyes gave him a clue as to where he’d been the night before, and a glance in the mirrored surface of a shiny brass plaque reflected lipstick kisses all over his face and down his chest.
“Oh my God.”
The memories slowly crept back. The night before had been his bachelor party. There’d been a stripper named Candy, and she’d… Well, some things are better forgotten. He’d gotten so drunk he would have gone along with anything. And apparently he had, seeing his clothes flapping in the breeze, run up the flag pole fifteen feet from where he crouched.
A quick check of his watch, the only thing he was wearing, told him it was 8:45. The Village Hall opened at nine, so he had about fifteen minutes to negotiate the distance between the bushes and the flag pole, lower his clothes, and run back into the cover of the bushes to dress. And then, it hit him like a wrecking ball. The wedding was at noon. And he had no transportation.
She is going to kill me…
But step one was getting from here to the flag pole and back as quickly as possible. Pulling a branch off the bushes he slowly began to rise, scanning for witnesses to his humiliation. Clear! he thought. Until he saw the daycare center across the street, children playing outside in the enclosed yard.
You have GOT to be kidding me…
There was nothing he could do about it. Covering his vitals he sprinted to the pole, lowered his clothes, and ripped them off the rope. Running back for cover he heard a little girl shriek, “I can see his butt!”
Dressing in record time, face burning, he realized there were still things missing. Like his shoes. And his wallet.
They are SO dead.
Then he saw them. His four best friends, otherwise known as half the bridal party, sitting in a car in the parking lot. Surprisingly, his best man (a term he’d recently been re-thinking), was able to hold the video camera still while laughing his head off. The others were holding up cell phones, capturing the moment.
“Funny. Really funny.” He started walking toward the car, red-faced and angry, then broke out in a run as the car turned around and exited the lot. He threw himself on the ground in frustration, palms grinding into his eyes, as he heard them driving past again, hooting in glee.
Across the street a little voice – he wasn’t sure if it was the same one from before – screamed out, “The crazy man is on the ground!”
Finally he started to laugh, so hard he was crying, making his head throb even more. Until he heard the siren wailing in the distance, getting closer and closer. Louder and louder. Raising his head he saw a daycare worker scowling back, pulling the little girl to the safety of the building.
He sighed, thinking of all those people dressing for the wedding, especially his fiancée. Someday she’ll think this is funny. I hope.
Claire – loved your piece! It never fails to amaze me what writers come up with on the fly, how much they’re able to pack into such a short piece.
Very nice!
LG
Loved yours, Lisa – hysterical! Thanks for the laugh.