A to Z Challenge 2013

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Class Writing Prompt #1

Henry’s gift to Clara was a cruise to the Arctic, just for her. He’d been planning this for months. The day he was ready to present it however, Clara was late coming home from work. 5 PM came by. 6 PM. Where the heck could she be? Her law firm was known for late hours, but he didn’t know of any pending cases she was working on.

“Yes, I’m looking for my wife. Is she in a meeting?”

“I’ll have to check, Mr. Robbins.” The hold music dragged on. “I’m sorry Mr. Robbins, Mrs. Robbins has left for the day.”

Too many unspoken questions waited on his lips. He didn’t want to cause a scene , but he was getting worried. Clara was too well known by the city’s underbelly. Death threats were almost becoming commonplace, despite her assurance that they amounted to nothing. Truth be told, he was the timid one. Clara was a bulldog with a law degree.

“Thank you for checking. I’ll call her on her cell.”

He hung up and dialed again, knowing that she wouldn’t answer. Clara was a stickler for turning off her cell phone while driving. The fact that she should already be home didn’t escape him, but Henry was ignoring the warnings pounding in his head.

There was a knock on the door. Clara wouldn’t knock. He jumped towards the door and yanked it open, but he wasn’t surprised by the badge and the gun. Henry just leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. Too late.

7 comments:

Matthew MacNish said...

Great short Eric, thanks for sharing.

Shameless promotion:

I have an awesome guest post today on my blog by Cole Gibsen.

This one is pure query/submission gold folks in which she shares the ACTUAL query that landed her an agent and the correspondence that ensued.

Please stop by to read, comment and follow.

Thanks!

Michelle H. said...

That is a great short! I could feel the tension build in just a few sentences, and you get to know the characters immediately without yet giving up to much to continue on. Can't wait to see what else you create.

Eric said...

Matthew - Thanks for stopping by and your nice words. I had to rush over to your blog to check out what Cole had to say. That was really cool.

Michelle - Thank you. What's really interesting about this is how much other people focused on the gift and yet how little I did. I will definitely post each writing exercise or homework that I do in class though, so feel free to comment/critique/advise on any of them.

Glynis Peters said...

You certainly produced something great from your promt, thanks for sharing.

Michelle H. said...

Well, I'll be sure to give what little writing knowledge I have in the hopes it can help. There were a few things that stuck out to me about this. If you want me to say it here in the comments, that's fine, or I could email you about it or make other arrangements. Let me know...

Michelle H. said...

Duh! It would be good to give you my email.

michhickman@gmail.com

Eric said...

Glynis - Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.

Michelle - Muhahahaha, now I can sell your email address to spammers and earn enough money for a new...something expensive, I'm sure.