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…while taking my daily walk around my neighborhood, I took a fall. And not a simple, easy fall. But a major banger. Have I written about this before? My chin took most of the blow, and when I finally sat up to take inventory of all the hurt parts, it was clear my chin was bleeding. As was my knee. And the other knee. And both palms.
Oh, man, the bruise on my chin! I looked terrible for weeks.
My point is: One moment, I was fine. The next moment, I was on the ground.
I was reminded of that fall the other evening while at a dinner party at a friend’s house. We were sitting outside, enjoying wine and cheese before the meal. All was lovely. The sky was clear. The air was cool. The company, delightful. And then, out of nowhere—Joel’s chair collapsed. Just completely collapsed! I was sitting across from him and saw it all play out in slow motion. His hands reached out, his jaw dropped, the chair crumbled and suddenly he was rolling sideways onto the ground, hip first. It was spectacular! (He was fine. The chair was a goner.)
Shit happens.
My husband was clearing out debris from his mother’s yard. Nice son! But then something flew into his eye—a tiny piece of white fluff that lodged deep in the socket where we couldn’t see it. That fluff turned his eye bright red, and we ended up in a hospital emergency room where a young doctor with gentle hands managed to finally, gingerly, pluck the fluff out. Not exactly what we had been imagining for ourselves that afternoon.
Here’s a recent story by Francine Witte, published in Lost Balloon. In Cycle of Life, the couple know a storm is coming, but they don’t really know what they’re in for. One moment, they seem safe and sound. The next moment—well, read the story and see for yourself.
The point of all of this is: You never know. Anything can happen.
Okay, onto the prompt!
Write a story where something happens that is totally unexpected and out of the blue.
Have the totally unexpected thing upend a character’s life/world.
Show us the aftermath, as Witte does in her story (above).
If you need some ideas, the unexpected thing could be: coming home to find the pipes have broken and the house is flooded; the person next to you at the movies throws up; a character enters a store to find themselves the winner of a huge prize; a raccoon walks in the front door…
Note: I realize this prompt bears resemblance to one we did not too long ago when I wrote about a meteor falling through the roof of someone’s house. (Shrugging emoji here.)
That’s it!
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