501 Creative Writing Prompts: Prompt #5 - Maurice the Mole Finds a Tunnel (creative writing exercise)

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 Prompt #5: Maurice the Mole Finds a Tunnel

Maurice the Mole had made himself a cup of blueberry coffee first thing in the morning. His claws clinked lightly against the ceramic cup as he picked it up off of the Keurig. He measured out a couple of tablespoons of monk fruit (he was watching his triglycerides) and watched them disappear beneath the brown liquid. Then he poured his cream and sipped the bulging surface.

Today, he wanted to meet with his best friend, Margot the Mole. They didn’t have a specific time planned. Just… eventually.

He had used up almost all of the monk fruit, so he had to go down to the basement to refill his jar.

Maurice lived by himself, and it scared him to go down to the basement. You had to go in a way before you could reach the chain that turned the light bulb on and off. He opened the door.

“...Hello?” he called out at the top of the stairs. The whiskers on his snout shook. He wanted to give anybody who was secretly living in the basement the opportunity to be friendly.

He carefully felt his way down the stairs with his slippered foot. He tripped and fell straight into the shelf with the monk fruit at the bottom of the steps.

“Ouch!” he said, rubbing his arm. He glared at the shelf. Then he noticed something odd. He had knocked over a couple bags of rice and beans and shaken the dirt from the wall quite a bit, and behind all of that was the faint outline of a sealed tunnel.

He took the rest of the items off of the shelf and pulled it away from the wall. It was definitely a sealed tunnel.

Digging was Maurice’s favorite pastime, so he dug into the crusty earth with his long claws and reopened the tunnel. 

The tunnel ended up being quite elaborate. It took him up and down and east and west.

Finally, he came to an ending that seemed very abrupt. He decided to keep digging. When he saw the light again, he was in front of something: a small stack of dishes.

“Hello?” he said. “Hello?!”

The door on the cabinet opened.

“Margot!” he exclaimed.

“Maurice! What are you doing in my kitchen cabinet? And so early in the morning!”

“I’ve been meaning to come see you!” he said. “Is this a bad time?”

Margot thought for a moment. “No. But I’m in my pajamas.”

“I don’t mind,” said Maurice. “Actually, so am I!”

“Would you like some lemon cookies?” Margot asked.

“That sounds delightful. I haven’t finished my coffee yet!”

“Well, you can have some here!”

Margot went to another cabinet and placed a small stack of cookies on the plate in front of Maurice. She went to her percolator and measured out the coffee before pouring a pot of water into it.

“What are your plans for the day, Maurice?”

“Well,” he said, between mouthfuls of cookie, “my plan for the day was to come see you! But now that I’ve done this, I suppose I need new plans.”

“Ms. Peeper’s tadpoles just hatched over in the pond. I’ve been meaning to go say hello to the new little ones.” Margot sat down at the kitchen table and began consuming some of the lemon cookies.

“Could I join you?” asked Maurice.

“I was hoping you would!”

I have to decide whether to be a cop or a firefighter. (dream)

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DREAM

I pass by a desk. A cop and a firefighter are relaxing on either side. I have to pick which job I want to have. I pick cop, because fire fighters are too nice to be me. I watch myself as I train, and there's something different about me that makes me stand out among the others. It's in my personality. A depression. But it's a part of me and I see from this outside vantage point that it's endearing. 

I'm watching Paul Blart 2, and there are some pretty cliche scenes. "These movies really follow a formula!" remarks a coworker who majored in film for a while. But I actually like parts of it. In particular, I like this one lady who runs around sleeping with everyone but the balding office dork. She saves the planet by kissing an alien and giving it herpes. 

Then, I'm on a starship with Captain Jean Luc Picard. He's allowed an alien species on his ship, but they've stolen his droids, like R2-D2 and C-3P0. He learns that there's a price to pay for being too open and free with his friendship as he scrambles to get the droids back (and does).

INTERPRETATION

I think the first part of the dream points out how self-esteem can impact where you end up in life. I don't know what to make of the fact that in the dream, my depression was something lovable. Maybe that's connected to the theme of self-esteem. I think it's very easy to feel unloved when you're depressed, but that's not necessarily the fuller picture. 

I liked how in the part with the lady who sleeps around, we're laughing at this nature she has to be very sexual, but it also ends up being the thing that saves us. 

I think there's a similarly mixed message at the very end of the dream. Yes, there's a price to pay for being too trusting too fast, but he also had the inner resources to manage the situation so that everything turned out okay in the end. 

A dream too random to title. (dream)

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I've been having some dreams that I just haven't taken the time to write down right away upon waking up, so I'll typically forget all the details. Some of them had the potential to be pretty cool in written form. There was the dream about Spider-Man in which the twist was that he was a very thin woman. There was the dream that I was on a team which was responsible for training the new Emperor. The new Emperor had spent his whole life on a farm, and he was a humble, hard-working, likable kid in his 20s. And now, he had a lot to learn about being a public figure. And then there was the dream that I went to a gym with the softest leather couches. And we would hold these bath-bomb-like, scented things that had to be electronically charged with an extra-large USB-C outlet as a meditative practice.

But last night's dream is just plain random. I had decided the night before to write down the dream regardless of what it was though, so here it is.

DREAM

I see a boy monkey with a crush on a white, girl monkey in a high school. I wonder what their story would be like if they made it to the cuddling on the couch stage, but no farther. So I put them in that scenario and watch. I can't decide if he should be at her house, or if she should be at his.

I slip out of my bunk bed the next morning and put on some clothes I want to show off on social media.

My father and I pile into a car. It looks like we're in a really, really crowded, dystopian urban area. Punks on bikes cross the street rapidly, but I manage to cross the street in my car and not hit anyone.

Pretty soon, the car has a dad (who has switched from being my dad to being one of my professors) seeking to find his lost or kidnapped daughter in it. He exits the car in an alley.

I see that I have an apartment. There's an old lady who says they don't know who's in that apartment, but I know it's me. I don't say anything. The walls are vertically striped in baby blue and pastel pink and there's a tight spiral staircase in the center.

Then we see a diorama of a place. The father bumps into someone in the alley who he says just wants to see his son walk to school from Greenland. He says this with judgment.

We get back in the car and the diorama becomes a music video. I arrange the clips like a midi maker. A guy comes out and tries to sell us his H.R. Giger alien/Barbie/Buddha barbeque diorama accessories. He pitches it like he's making a profound fashion statement. I feel powerful when I decline, but he seems to be handling the news badly. He's confused about why I declined. Now that I see he's hurt, I realize I probably shouldn't have gotten wrapped up in getting annoyed by his audacity. All art needs audacity. Probably all sales too.

INTERPRETATION

You know, I typically see how the events of my real life are reflected in my dreams, but this dream seemed almost completely random. The most I can say about how this dream connects to my real life is that I do feel powerful when I decline offers (and I recently declined a large offer), and I do believe that the professor/father in the dream cares a lot about his daughter in real life, and sometimes when I'm driving, it really does seem like these random pedestrians crossing the street have a death wish and I really need to get where I'm going without hitting them. 

I'm left out of the youth group film project. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm heading into a store. Times are kind of rough in the world. So going into this store feels luxurious, even though it's just a large chain store with that same underlying warehouse feel that chain stores have. There are at least expensive items for anyone to look at and touch, even if they can't afford to buy them. 

I see a display, and I pick up a book about plants and cooking from a small stack of them. I know this is a hot book right now, and I don't think everyone here in this store appreciates what a catch it is. I think rather smugly to myself, The fools! There's no malice in this feeling though. I'd just like to show other people what they're missing. I'm excited. I try to start up a conversation with someone else at the display, but the conversation doesn't go anywhere. 

Then I realize I might have made a mistake. This is last month's hottest new book. Maybe that book over there is this month's. I stop my hubris and take the time to actually check the dates much more carefully. Maybe buying this book isn't as great an idea as I thought it was just a couple of seconds ago. 

I wander out of the store into the mall that it's a part of. I bump into someone who I know is an indie filmmaker. We chat for a little bit. He's filming something today on the upper levels. Then I bump into a group of people from my youth group. We exchange a quick, "Hi," but I notice where they're heading, and I notice that they didn't invite me to join in the fun on the film crew. I'm hurt. 

INTERPRETATION

That pain of being left out is very old, and very familiar. I used to feel left out of my youth group very often when I was a preteen. 

I have been going through something for the past three weeks. Every morning, I wake up to painful feelings in my stomach and a tumble of negative thoughts reminding me of my past mistakes and regrets. Or maybe the negative thoughts are repeatedly telling me that my future is going to be a catastrophe. Or they just tell me that I'm a really bad person. I'm just in a lot of pain these days. I didn't have a relationship go bad. I'm not sick. I'm doing things I would ordinarily like. Nothing significant is going wrong in my life. Yet I'm in the grip of something very dark. So I'm not surprised that these old, painful feelings are being thrown back up in my face in a dream. 

What's more of a mystery to me is the first part of the dream. Could that just be how I always feel like I need to check things a second time? I have been reading code documentation for a library I am not familiar with, so I've definitely had to go over things multiple times recently, checking and rechecking my assumptions. I've also been considering how everyone has a reason for the hurtful things they do. And maybe it's worth trying to go back over those memories to figure it out. If you really understood where they were coming from, wouldn't that lessen the amount of hurt you feel? 

501 Creative Writing Prompts - Prompt #4: The Museum of Love (creative writing exercise)

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Prompt #4: The Museum of Love

Carl had fallen asleep at the wheel and woken up tumbling after the car had fallen off of a winding mountain road. He hovered over his mangled body as an explosion rocked the car. Fire began to consume his body, but it didn’t matter to him. He was watching, and he felt fine. He was dead. There was no other explanation for being free from that body in the burning car.


At first, he was concerned for his teenaged kids, but he was shown that his kids would go on to live a full life without him. And so he let go.


He shot up into the air, up into outer space, and he suddenly found himself in a small outdoor theatre watching the most vivid projections he could imagine. He would end up spending what felt like years reviewing all the mistakes he’d made. Every thought and feeling was replayed and relived. And every time he’d done something that resulted in someone else’s harm, his memory of the event was replayed alongside the memories of the person he’d hurt. He could feel their pain and see them going on to do harm to themselves or others.


In particular, he’d treated a boy very sternly in his classroom, and now he felt all of the anxiety and the trauma he’d caused. The boy felt pain in his stomach whenever he did an assignment in school and the boy would fear the responses he would get from teachers after he was in Carl’s class–all the way into college when his anxiety caused him to drop out.


But all of this embarrassment occurred while he felt the most profound feeling of being loved and cared for–just for existing. There were deceased friends and family beside him watching these mistakes too. But he could allow himself to feel the others’ pain, because he knew that there was love for him in spite of his mistakes. The love in the afterlife was a love unlike anything he’d ever known during his lifetime–even from the people who had cared for him the most. He bathed in it.


When the review of his mistakes ended, an Asian man walked down an aisle in the back of the garden-theatre. His smile and calm composition radiated compassion. “I’m Mukti,” he said. “Let me take you to the museum I curate,” he said.


They flew through the sky to a building that looked like a library. He entered. They passed several people looking through the shelves. Mukti went up to a computer kiosk with a large screen and passed Carl a headset that floated in the air.


Carl took it. He put the headset over his eyes. A memory played–just like the memories of all the mistakes Carl had made in his lifetime. But this was different. The memories were just as vivid and just as inclusive of others’ memories, but instead of being embarrassing, this was pure bliss.


He heard Mukti say, “This museum includes a collection of all the times you treated people or animals kindly, with love in your heart. You can revisit any of the events of your life, but this is your highlight reel! All you have to do is think of this collection to know how to come here.”


Carl smiled. He played the first memory. His son was excited to come see him after a long day of work. Carl had stopped by the grocery store and while he was there, he bought his son a little Easter present: a yellow plastic chicken that laid eggs. He saw how much joy his son got out of the surprise and knowing that his dad cared about him. He saw all the joyful moments his son had playing with that chicken right up until a leg broke off and he was tired of it and threw it away.


“Are these in any particular order?” asked Carl.


“Just watch. You’ll get used to summoning them in any order you feel like.”


Carl smiled. And just as he had spent many years reliving the harm he had caused, he spent many years reliving the love that he had put into the world. He had a lot to learn in this new life, but one thing was clear. Possessions didn’t matter. Status didn’t matter. Competition didn’t matter. All that had ever mattered was love. And it was eternal. He was at the very start of his journey into eternity.

501 Creative Writing Prompts: Prompt #3 -- The Place Where You Grew Up (creative writing exercise)

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Prompt #3: The Place Where You Grew Up

This is the church where someone betrayed you. Where he kicked you out into your car on the night of a winter’s storm when your father was out of his mind, wide eyed and talking about spaceships that would take him up for 1,000 years. 

This is the parking lot where you slept that night. There’s no public restroom in the store.

This is the pet store where you had shopped 100 times. The manager told you you’re a job hopper and they don’t want an employer-employee relationship with you. 

This is the fast-food restaurant where the drug addicts from Texas worked. One of them threw a hot oil poker like a spear at his most loyal friend–who didn’t want him to be fired afterwards. 

This is the university where they allowed you to drown in hopelessness and anxiety. Where they allowed you to be discriminated against for the mental illness you were self-diagnosed with. 

This is the mental health clinic where they sent you to the hospital against your will, where they trapped you and treated you cruelly, called you names and charged thousands of dollars to not give any help. 

This is the house where your ex-roommate spread rumors about you like she did with everyone else behind their backs. She got you fired from that indie filmmaker’s set. 

This is a place of one bad memory after another. They say you can’t run away from your problems, but leaving this place really set the reset button.

501 Creative Writing Prompts: Prompt #2 - The FBI has my crush. (creative writing exercise)

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Prompt #2: The FBI has my crush.

It was hard to believe that this was their prime suspect: a 5ft tall female in her mid-30s pulling all of this off with no partner. But this was her house. And if there was going to be any evidence connecting her to the murders of forty-one prostitutes whose bodies were dumped along highways in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, they’d find it here. 

Agent Knight was ready for surprises and hidden connections behind pedestrian objects, but he knew what would help the prosecutor: fentanyl, footprints, DNA, and that laptop on the messy desk. And he wanted to help the prosecutor. He wanted to be wrong, but he knew by now that his coworkers were rarely wrong by the time they’d reached this stage. 

He turned on his UV light and pointed it towards the laptop. It lit up immediately. It was time to get out the first chemical test that would detect leftover traces of blood: Luminol. 

***

Duncan had run some water through his hair at the McDonald’s he’d stopped at just before coming to Tiffany’s house, and he felt clean and excited after arriving back home from a case in LA. He’d gotten himself a cheeseburger and Sprite and Tiffany had asked for a salad and an iced coffee. He’d had such a big crush on her from 3rd through 6th grade! He never imagined she would reach out to him on LinkedIn 30 years later. This would be the third time this month they would hang out, and things were going so smoothly. He had been single for a long time and seriously hoped that these hangouts would evolve into official, romantic dates, but so far, they’d spent most of their time reminiscing about elementary school and discussing hypothetical legal situations that were a little outside his scope of expertise as a patent lawyer. They sometimes discussed her job as a freelance life coach for women. 

He supposed that in the back of his mind, he knew that something was probably going very wrong with Tiffany’s life for her to contact him out of the blue the way she had. Freelance life coach didn't stand out to him as a stable job. But when he pulled up to her house and saw several unmarked police cars outside running their lights, his heart sank.