Brass Mama, sassmaster

So I’ve started this fiction writing exercises, since I need to get writing again (for my own sanity) from this book (Spilling Ink by Anne Mazer & Ellen Potter). This is the first one I did. The prompt is “Think of two people you admire. Now think of the thing you admire most about each of them. Combine those 2 qualities into one person and write about the following situation: She or he is walking down the street and a strange man hands your character a small sealed carton and says, “Don’t let anything happen to this!” Then the man sprints away. What does your character do next?”

So here’s what I wrote:

“Take this.”

A strange box was shoved into S.J.’s grip by a man in a tweed suit and a bow tie.

“What ever you do, don’t let anything happen to that box and don’t. Open. It.” The ran around the corner from whence he came and by the time S.J. got her wits about her enough to run after, he was gone. 

What’s this about? What should I do?

She forced her red (and I mean red, not orange) hair out of her face to examine the box. If she wasn’t supposed to open it, maybe she could learn something from the container.

It was made of off-white wood, tinted slightly… blue? Purple? S.J. couldn’t quite tell in the dim light of the winter evening. The box had a simple lock, the kind seen on children’s chests or diaries, the kind that all use the same key to open. The latch and hinges were made of a bronze colored metal. The box was a near perfect cube, sightly tall due to two small pieces of wood the ran perpendicular to the hinges along the bottom of the box. The sides bore Latin (or pseudo-Latin, S.J. didn’t know) engravings and on the top was a capital Omega the stretched almost the entire space, branded onto the wood and now worn away almost completely.

What what do I know? What’s next?

It was old, but not delicate as to have endured the abuses of time. The symbol; was Greek, but the writing Latin(ish), so it wasn’t ancient to the point of being made by the original Greeks or Romans. Someone made this for something specific, just what? It’s white; white represented purity, good, light… So whatever was in the box hopefully was more harmless than harmful.

…And that was about as far as S.J. was willing to assume. As one of her favourite television doctors said, “To assume makes an ass out of you and me.” A good bit of wisdom from someone named for a “quack”.

Who should I tell? Who could help me?

Then she remembered the history buff in her math class. If she was right, he specialize in the Greeks and, a little less so, the Romans.

Speaking (or rather, thinking) of math, that was where she was headed when Mr. I’m-a-loon-in-a-bow-tie gave her the box.

Crap, what time is it? Am I gonna be late?

4:37 flashed from her cartoon-y watch (so, she was still a kid at heart). Thirteen minutes to go a block and a half to the campus building, up to the third floor. and into the room before the teacher started taking roll. She was close to the end of the list, so she might have an extra minute or two. She better blaze!

She shoved the box into her bag and ran. She could deal with it more after class; she fully intended to the moment the lesson ended.

brokenheartedmuse:

swellgood:

thenadia:

justonegryffavenslytherpuff:

that-bearded-man:

The notes.

NEVER EVER NOT REBLOGGING

This will be the second time I have Reblogged this. Every time this turns up on my dash, I shall reblog. Every.Time. 

Reblogged this nine times now, and there is no chance of me stopping

BLOODY HELL OVER TWO MILLION NOTES