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Yet another 20-minute writing exercise, this time for Halloween, with the direction to take a scene from a horror movie, then rewrite it with a terrible twist. My movie choice: Tremors

Perfection revisited

The tremors came again just as they had settled down to a fitful sleep on top of the stone outcropping in the desert. Val and Earl instantly awakened, tensed for another attack. They were down to a single stick of dynamite and a single match to light it.

Val whispered, “Where do you think it’s coming from? I might be able to get to the truck ahead of it if it’s far enough to the south.”

Earl said, “Don’t risk it. We don’t want to stir it up any more than we have to.”

Val said, “And I don’t want to die of thirst out here on this damn rock.”

At this, they both fell silent and waited for dawn.

As the first fingers of sunlight filtered through the mountains, Val suddenly made a decision and stood up. He grabbed the dynamite and scrabbled in his pocket for the match.

Earl said, “Val, I told you not to be going off half-cocked. Let’s wait until—”

Val said, “I’m done waiting,” and began slamming rocks into the loose dust at the base of the outcropping to draw the thing out. The tremors began again, this time headed directly for the outcropping. With a remarkable economy of motion, Val struck the match, lit the fuse, then threw the dynamite into the dust roughly 15 feet from the base of the outcropping.

As Val had hoped, the thing grabbed the dynamite in its mouth and Val’s heart lurched with joy. That is, until the thing spat it back into his face two seconds before the explosion.

Yet another 20-minute writing exercise based on this writing prompt: Cerulean

The child's eyes were a deep, intoxicating blue, verging on cerulean, with a hint of green near the irises. I took a deep breath and tried to recenter myself. It was foolish to become fascinated at a moment's notice with a child I'd never met before and would likely never see again. I turned to her mother.

"Your daughter has lovely eyes. Does that color run in the family?"

The mother dismissed my remark with a grimace.

"No, she's . . . unique. Just like I wanted."

I drew back in shock -- mothers typically love it when some praises their child. Why did this one seem bitter, almost offended? I decided to try again.

"Is she an only child?"

Again, the grimace. After a few seconds, she unbent enough to respond.

"She's an only child now. Her sister passed away before she was born."

I scrambled to find something to say to mask my embarrassment, but ended settling for a few apologetic noises.

The girl stood up from her seat suddenly and squeezed past me as she disappeared down the train's aisle. The mother stirred herself to speech once again.

"She's not really mine. I mean, she's mine, but I didn't give birth to her."

"Adopted?"

At my questioning glance, she said, "Not exactly . . . more like acquired. But at least she came with a 20-year warranty."

A 20-minute writing exercise based on this "bartender's challenge" writing prompt: Lemon

I turned the key and pressed the accelerator with little hope of hearing the engine catch. No, I could never be that lucky. I sat still for a long minute, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to attain some measure of equanimity or zen or something that would keep me from taking a sledgehammer to this absolute lemon of a car that my father had foisted on me years ago.

“Oh, it’s big enough to keep you safe in case someone sideswipes you out on the highway,” he said, just before he demanded $800 f*cking dollars of my hard-earned cash to “pay him back.”

At the moment, getting out on the highway wasn’t likely. All I could hope for was to get it started so I could go home.

The car was never a beauty, probably not even when it was brand-new. A ’73 Plymouth Fury was never anyone’s dream car. By the late ‘80s, it was a rolling nightmare, complete with a peeling landau top and an engine that would usually only start after generous applications of ether. At least the Plymouth Fury in Christine did its own bodywork.

And then an idea came to me. After judicious application of a can of starting fluid, I was rolling toward the other side of the tracks.

As I pulled up to the rural railway crossing, I looked both ways, then inched forward and stopped. As it was wont to do, the car promptly stalled. And gosh darn it, I was out of starter fluid. Now, all I had to do was climb out, wait and make sure my insurance was up to date.

20-minute writing exercise based on this prompt: Pickle

They met for the first time on the apartment building’s doorstep. Juggling her clumsy bags of groceries, she nearly tripped over him as he lay sprawled on the stairs, clearly pickled, even though it was just 9:30 in the morning. Being that drunk that early in the day bespoke either a professional level of dedication to forgetting something terrible or simply being too stupid to find anything better to do than drink. She didn’t know which one it was and she didn’t much care. She just wanted him off her stoop. She edged cautiously around him, then knocked on the landlord’s door and demanded his immediate removal.

The next few times she saw him were much the same—him blackout drunk, her annoyed. Finally, a few months later, she actually met him before he went comatose. It was not an inspiring encounter. Surprisingly, he actually recognized her, at least enough to know that they lived in the same building. He immediately tried to hit her up for a “loan,” which she denied with her usual claim to be broke herself, then trying to borrow money from him.

After that, they settled into an uneasy compact consisting of almost indistinguishable nods from across rooms and a muttered “’Sup?” now and then. Whenever he looked like he was about to hit her up for money, she employed her tried-and-true technique of asking for a loan. It worked like a charm every time.

As Christmas time approached, he switched tactics, now claiming to be “fundraising” for a children’s charity that was being heavily promoted in the media. In response, she pivoted to the “I gave at the office” gambit to block his attempt to guilt her into a donation. If he could be relentless, she could be too.

The last time they met was at the morgue when she was called in to identify his body. It was a sobering place. So much so, in fact, that the cold of the slab woke him up. So, not quite dead after all.

He glanced up at her blearily and muttered, “Lend me a quick fifty?”