Picking a Prompt

At this week's writers meeting, organiser Oz brought in Kalum Kerr's short story anthology 31. You could do this exercise with any anthology book.

31 is a collection of short stories, numbered 1-31. Oz asked us to pick a number between these 2. We picked 27. She then read the first line of that story with the intention of using it as a writing prompt. It wasn't a good one, so we switched to 15!

Our new prompt: “I wanted to be alone.”

With ten minutes on the clock, here's what I produced. It's totally, y'know, fictional.

Cough.

I wanted to be alone. I'd spent the weekend in Blackpool with 7 other mates, all guys, giving and taking banter and force-feeding myself Jack Daniels and Takeaway burgers. I hada number in my phone from some blonde girl who'd kissed me in a club- Sanuk or something, I can't really remember- and, of course, I'd obliterated my meagre bank account over the course of 24 hours. My nasal tract was still clotted from the drugs, and, coupled with the effects of this car journey, the churning of my stomach was almost- almost- uncontrollable. I found the horizon past the field on the other side of the motorway, the trees whipping behind us with surprising clarity, considering the state I was in the night before, running down Blackpool's strip, the street lights blurry and comet-tailed. Even when you've lost your mates in a club and the ecstasy’s still coursing through you, the strangers you encounter still feel invasive and strange, talking in incoherent jive about some guy's attitude or some girl's skirt and why that dance floor wouldn't ever stop rotating. I was also going to have to have words with Apone- his attitude was going too far, whether he's on something or not.

But I'm not going to confront him now. Not in this state.

Puke. Sleep. Eat. Phone this girl. Then talk to Apone.