04 Nov 2019
Today’s prompt: “You are stuck on the highway in the world’s worst traffic jam for at least two days. What happens?”
In the space of an hour, you inched ahead approximately two feet. That was the first day. Things gave up moving at all after that. People shut off their motors to save the gas.
After a few hours, people begin leaving their cars temporarily to relieve themselves behind the bushes on the side of the highway. They always return to their cars. Somehow they can’t bear to leave the dead metal giants that took them to work, to the grocery store, to kids’ soccer games, and finally to this freeway.
What could be going on up there? No accident could make things this slow. No construction.
You’re glad you filled up your Nalgene bottle before you left. But you’re famished. You dig through your belongings and find a Milky Way. You guess that’s dinner tonight.
You pull out a novel and do a little reading by the dome light. Eventually you switch it off to sleep, so you don’t drain the battery.
The next morning, you wake up to the same damn traffic snarl. You turn on the radio. Your regular station doesn’t seem to be working. You flip to another. No news, but there’s some music at least.
Hours later, and still nothing’s moving. The guy three cars up in the right-hand lane executes a 17-point turn in the tiny space between the cars surrounding him. He manages to pull off to the side of the road. The shoulder’s too narrow to drive on, though, and there’s nothing all-terrain about his vehicle. So he just gets out to walk.
You call out the window to him. “Where are you going? Police? Nearest place of business?”
“I’m going up there to see what’s going on,” he says, facing forward, the same direction as the traffic jam. “I’ll come back and let you know what I find out.” You watch him walk away.
People are starting to come out of their cars more and congregate, asking for help and pooling their resources. You trade some of your water for half a warm sandwich.
You keep your eye out for the man who pulled over and started walking, but he never comes back.
As the evening gets cooler, you pile back into your car. You turn on the radio. The new station is dead too, now. You flip through all the channels. Nothing.
On the third day, a small, exhausted, haggard group of survivors approaches from the direction you’d all been driving. And an equally exhausted and haggard group of survivors approaches from behind you. The zombies coming after them are slow, but they are nearly impossible to kill. They are relentless, and their numbers are overwhelming. You get your tire iron out of the trunk, but you know even then as you gaze out on the sea of dead eyes, you’re not making it out of this alive. You’re as dead as the radio stations. As dead as your car sitting unmoving on this freeway.
02 Nov 2019
Today’s prompt: “The orchestra on the Titanic famously kept playing as the ship went down. Describe the sinking of the Titanic from the point of view of the musicians playing in the ballroom – from their interactions to the sights, sounds, and sensations they experience as the ship sinks.”
The ship shudders.
You play on.
Passengers scream.
You play on.
Men and women run across your field of vision, stumbling as the ship lurches.
You play on.
Cold water splashes against your ankles, soaking your pant legs.
You play on.
31 Oct 2019
Today’s prompt: “Write a life as a series of postcards.”
Hello Pen Pal! Mom and Dad and my brother and sister and I are on a road trip to Santa Fe to visit Grandma. Dad said we should stop at Bedrock City. There were dinosaur statues and a volcano and a dinosaur slide. Dad said I should go down the slide, but the slide wasn’t very fast and I had to pull myself down the slide with my hands on the rail but then I just stood up because I was close to the ground. There was also a giant pair of teeth in the dentist’s office there. It was kind of scary.
[Insert-your-name-here]
Hello Pen Pal! I hope you enjoyed your visit to Santa Fe. Alas, I am stuck here in R’lyeh. I would be very curious indeed to see the giant teeth in Bedrock City. I wonder if they are anywhere near as large as my friend Sebek’s? He has a crocodile head, and very sharp teeth. Pretty scary!
Cthulhu
Hello Pen Pal! How are things in R’lyeh? I just finished unpacking in my dorm room at New York University. It didn’t feel like a proper trip until I’d written to you, though. I’m so excited to start film school! My first semester is going to be mostly core requirements, but that’s okay. I already have an idea for my first student film. It’s about a woman whose best friend is a werewolf, but she doesn’t know it even though all her other friends keep getting mauled to death. What do you think?
[Insert-your-name-here]
Hello Pen Pal! Congratulations on getting into NYU. I hear the film school is very prestigious. Things in R’lyeh are as non-Euclidean as ever. I think your film idea has legs, but may I make a small suggestion? Werewolves are passé. Tentacle-mouthed creatures with bat wings are where it’s at.
Cthulhu
Hello Pen Pal! I’m here in Costa Rica with my girlfriend of 3 years, Erin. Can you keep a secret? I’m going to propose. I’ve only told a couple close friends so far, but somehow I feel like I need to tell you. I’ve been corresponding with you for so long, and yet we’ve never met. But I can’t ever seem to go on vacation without writing to you. Plus I love those postcards you send. They’re so unusual. I’ll probably be back home by the time you get this. If you’re ever in the Boston area, look me up.
[Insert-your-name-here]
Hello Pen Pal! Wouldn’t you know it, I made it up to Boston. I took you up on your invitation and looked you up. I’m dropping this postcard I brought with me off in your mailbox personally. I hope you don’t mind if I swing by tonight for dinner.
Cthulhu
29 Oct 2019
Today’s prompt: “The last time you cheated”
You sneak a peek at Kenny’s test paper.
“No cheating!” says Ms. Groth-Golka. She pulls you from your desk with her thick pteranodon wings and rips at your flesh with sharp teeth.
27 Oct 2019
Today’s prompt: “Your favorite jeans”
Your Levi’s 501s snag on the barbed wire fence as you try to escape the werewolf pack.
25 Oct 2019
Today’s prompt: “Where will you be exactly one year from this moment?”
Still in that mass grave, just with a few more corpses piled on top.
23 Oct 2019
Today’s prompt: Your favorite newscaster’s hair
Your favorite newscaster’s hair stays as perfectly coiffured as always as he recounts the police arriving at the scene where your body was found pushed out of a skyscraper window. In a moment, he will throw to commercial, then move on to highlights from the mayoral debate and a heartwarming story about Make-a-Wish turning a little girl in the local cancer ward into a Disney princess for a day. All the while, his hair will look spectacular.