Image by Don Amaro on Flickr
I remember the situation clearly, but the other, I'm not so sure about.
The rays of sun streaming in through my window were so crisp I could crunch them in my hand and eat them, like ice. Which was a weird image to think of, since it was 90 degrees outside and hadn’t snowed in at least ten years.
My mouth felt dry as cotton. If I only got up two hours earlier, it would still be cool and pleasant. But I told myself this every morning, so obviously it wasn’t that big of a deal to me, or else I’d be doing it, right?
For some reason I thought of my high school basketball coach. He always say, "Get with the program or get out."
Get out where? I wanted to say. But I didn’t dare. None of us dared.
The man standing at my door that morning looked kind of like my former coach. A big imposing forehead like the edge of a tractor. He was holding up an empty bag of Doritos. Pointing at it, then pointing at me with stern disapproval.
Was he implying that I littered? I wanted to tell him I don’t even like Doritos. But he didn’t seem like the negotiating type. He motioned for me to follow him.
A trance came over me in that moment, and I complied.
We walked down a winding path. As we got lower, the temperature dropped considerably. Unfamiliar vegetation appeared.
Elephant ears as tall as redwoods. Clusters of bluebonnets running up and down trees, as if someone had plastered them there.
It grew darker and darker. We approached the mouth of a giant Venus Fly Trap. From top to bottom, it must have been as tall as a two-story building, at least. A thick, syrupy substance dripped from the fangs.
“Wait!” A woman came running from behind us down the path, two purses dangling around her neck and swinging from side to side. Her mascara ran in streaks down her cheeks as her sandals slapped against the dirt. “Please!”
“Well, come on now,” the man I was following told her, scowling. “We don’t have all day.”
At that point I realized, the man was not as menacing as he had appeared on the surface. He wouldn’t even kill the bacteria in his armpits.
The Venus Fly Trap began shooting giant pinecones at us. A memory came to me of the batting cages. Goddamnit, I hated the batting cages. But when I told my friends I didn’t want to do it, they’d call me "pussy" or "gay boy," so I learned to just "man up," as they say.
The man slid the empty Dorito bag over his hand — like a glove — and glove extended, began to catch the pine cones. The woman opened one of her purses and started doing the same. Each time they caught a pine cone, they grew bigger and bigger, like characters in a video game.
I searched for a “glove” and couldn’t find one. As more cones flew by, I realized the inverse was happening to me. I was growing smaller. It was easier to avoid the cones, but the consequences were more dire. Any one of those cones would probably kill me.
I looked at the woman imploringly. Maybe she would let me jump into her purse. But she towered above me now — far above me and my little concerns.
I only had one choice. To go into the Venus Fly Trap — to dive into his gaping mouth. As I jumped, I stretched out my arms, sinking into the embrace of its pink flesh.
Image by Amanda on Flickr
This is my entry for @mariannewest's Daily Freewrite Challenge: a 3-Part Freewrite. We write on one prompt for five minutes and then move on to the second and third prompts. The prompts are in bold.