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. 

501 Creative Writing Prompts - Prompt #1: The Shadow (creative writing exercise)

I just bought a book called 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Creativity and Spark Inspiration, and I thought I would try out some of the prompts and post the results. I won't post the actual prompts for copyright reasons--just what I myself type out in response after about 20 minutes of working on it. 

Here's the first one.

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The Shadow

“Meow! Meow!”

Chelsea woke up to the sounds of her cat crying. The crying went on for what felt like a long, long time before the fog of sleep lifted enough for guilt to kick in. The room was pitch black save for the faint, white impression Snowball left. Chelsea stood and the blood rushed from her head, making her dizzy. She reached out blindly and braced herself against the wall. The meowing and little cat gurgles got more excited. She could see Snowball's pale radiance trotting out of the bedroom door. 

She flipped on the light switch and something immediately startled her. In the quiet and the calm that followed, she had to think about whether or not she really saw what she thought she did. She thought she saw a copy of her shadow dart away from the wall out the bedroom door. 

Heart thumping, she turned on the lights to the hallway. She saw it again: the copy of her shadow pressed against the wall. But this time, it didn’t run. It snuck very carefully into the living room, merging once again with the dark. 

Chelsea went through the first story of the house, turning on every light switch. When she got to the kitchen, Snowball was anxiously awaiting his midnight snack. But she also saw her shadow on the wall. And it appeared to be holding the hand of another shadow: the distinct outline of a little girl. Her shadow seemed to be having a conversation with it.

Chelsea stood in front of the pair of them. They seemed to ignore her. She moved her own shadow in front of the two of them. When the two shadows locked, she had a warm, falling sensation, and suddenly, she was in a place of white light, experiencing the conversation her shadow was having with... herself as a little girl. Now, with a sudden new download of information, it was as though this conversation had been inevitable. She could see how everything in life had brought them to this point.

Journaling because I feel sad. (rants)

I was feeling down this morning, and my friend encouraged me to do some journaling. I did some journaling in private using pencil and paper and didn't feel as though it was enough. So here's some more journaling (unrelated to dreams). If you want to know what I'm dreaming about, it's related to this song about Sonic:

The following questions are from this Medium article: https://medium.com/bouncin-and-behavin-blogs/20-journal-prompts-for-deep-thinking-and-reflection-503fd5630157 

If I had all the money and time in the world, what would I be doing?

I would be earning a PhD in physics, but I honestly don't know if there's an easy enough program for me to complete it! I would want to have the time to balance that with creative writing and acting classes. What I'm doing right now is going down a similar path, so when I think about it, I guess I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing. I'm just anxious about what I'm doing because I don't have all the time and money in the world.

What do I need to stop doing and start doing?

I need to stop allowing stress to keep my fight or flight systems triggered--especially for long stretches of time. I need to start recognizing stress and responding to it by unclenching my body and taking deep breaths. I did a meditation by Declutter the Mind for anxiety, and it suggested labeling anxious thoughts as a separate entity with its own name. I've started using my imagination to do that exercise. 

What does “success” mean to me?

Success to me means having warm memories to reflect on in the quiet times.

A woman struck by lightning develops a psychic soul tie to a dolphin. (dream)

I fell asleep to this video about a woman being struck by lightning, which must have partly inspired this dream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQhOb63E_do). 

DREAM

I'm with a small group of friends at an outdoor encampment. One friend is doing the dishes. I don't like what I see. A huge, expensive, copper pot I've brought with me looks deformed as my friend scrubs the exterior. It was perfect when I brought it here. I choose not to say anything. I come back later as she's drying the pot and I see that the metal lid has warped, and there are patches of melted and soldered metal on the bottom. I laugh, in spite of the expense. Because it's my friend. This just seems to be the kind of mess she'd get into.

Then I see a map of four small towns in Alaska. I see roaring, green-gray water in one corner. A patch of fireweed in another.

Then I'm in one of the towns--a town of lavender. I see a field of wildflowers demonstrating the town's natural beauty.

A tall, middle aged woman with brown hair has been struck by lightning. When this happened, it created an intense psychic connection to a big, long, white dolphin who is now like a soulmate. I see the dolphin cut in half alongside the woman.

The woman and her dolphin are in an icy bay. A rope runs from the dolphin's head and drags the woman, who stands on an ice floe in her tank top and shorts.

The dolphin swims up to me with a small, furry, brown animal in its mouth. I get the dolphin to open its mouth, and I pull the animal up onto the snow. It's my cat, Peaches. She's half dead. I can't help but feel that it's the dolphin that almost killed her, and I'm angry at it. But I know the dolphin is a precious, perhaps sacred animal, and I know it is still just an animal itself.

The dolphin returns to the woman across the bay.

I breathe through a fine mesh for a tent, like a mosquito net. It's quiet. Meditative. The mesh doesn't impede my breath. The veil is almost refreshing.


INTERPRETATION

I think there's an acceptance of both the nature of the dolphin and the nature of the friend who warped my pot and injured my cat. I think there's an acceptance of the whole situation of warping and damage and injury.

The state my cat was in in the dream reminded me of just how sick my cat was in real life a couple days before we put her to sleep. I think there's an inclination to cling to every moment with a sick pet or loved one, and in my past, there's been a scrambling to blame others for their deaths--as if it wasn't natural, inevitable, and their time. The hospital gave them pain killers and that hastened their death. The cat would have survived another couple weeks if we'd just kept chasing her down and stabbing her with a needle for subcutaneous fluids while she cried the most confused, pained cries.

I don't just see this tendency in myself. I recently recognized this same exact pattern of desperate searching for causes and blaming and feelings of guilt in a friend who called me about some deaths in her life. I think I want to let go of that inclination towards denial and blame in the face of serious illness and death.

I have a pet right now. The last time I took him to the vet, they called him a senior. I don't want to be as confused and blindsided as I was with Peaches when it's his time. I don't want to be confused and blindsided when it's my own time. Or when my friends and loved ones get sick.

Injury and deformation are a natural part of this life. In the case of my friend deforming the pot, there can even be something joyful in understanding and contemplating the story of it all.

3rd dream diary? (news)

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Last night I dreamed that I started going to Harvard for Computer Science. It was already really hard on the very first day!

But I'm not here to talk to you about a dream I had. I'm here to talk to you about a collection of dreams I've had.

I've finally gotten through the first edit of my third dream diary collection. Will it come out in a couple months? Will it come out in a couple years? I don't really know the timeline. But I think there are enough dreams that are interesting enough to release as an eBook on Amazon eventually! But I have a lot of editing to do. So stay tuned. 

I am a soldier because I can't afford my cozy lifestyle. (dream)

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DREAMS

I'm a soldier in a slightly different, slightly futuristic world, and I'm being shipped for deployment. I find a place to sit near the rear opening of the truck. One soldier has to hang out of the back, holding on to bars on the door. 

After driving for a while, a woman who's an officer tells us we need to be extra quiet along this stretch of the trip. (We're passing a Walmart and I assume we need to be quiet because it's respectful.) The guy hanging out the back was causing the most noise with his struggles to stay on the truck! Now he has to stay silent on top of it. His feet morph into metal frog feet that attach securely to the bar on the back. 

We switch vehicles. Now we're in an open jeep with a large truck bed. We sit in there. We go into a tunnel. After a while, I see some bullets spraying from further back in the tunnel. A group of rebel hooligans has broken into the troops' transport system with guns. 

The guy who was hanging out of the back of the truck has a gun, and he fires beside me at the advancing group of rebels, but I don't have a weapon. One of the hooligans is clearly targeting me. My guy fires at him, but green, holographic armor blocks each shot. The hooligan shoots me repeatedly in the stomach. I know I won't survive.

There's a nice funeral for me at the house I used to live in before I became a soldier. It's fall, and there are leaves drifting in the yard. There are friends and neighbors visiting inside. It was very cozy and comfortable living the life I did, but I didn't have the finances to stay there forever. I see how I would have paper doll outfits that I would wear, like trout-patterned dresses. I see how I would have grumpily cared for five german shepherds had I survived into old age in that lifestyle.

Then I wake up. I pee and I give the cat a 3 a.m. snackie. 

Then I'm squatting next to a pond. The person in charge of the pond explains that they're going to solve all of their problems with this: a small tube full of tiny snails. I have a good feeling about this.

Time passes, and I'm attending a church service. And the guest speaker is talking about how the greatest danger of our time is the snail. According to her, we think we're solving all our problems with food by breeding these giant snails for meat, but they completely take over ecosystems and destroy all other aquatic life. I have a feeling of correctness about what she's saying.

But I think back to when I was at the pond. I had the same feeling about what they were doing too. And the current warning here at church doesn't make me think the owner of the pond was doing anything bad. They were doing what they had to to survive. But both can be true at the same time: the pond owner needed the meat, and the snails take over aquatic ecosystems. 

INTERPRETATIONS

The first dream is a metaphor for how I feel like I can't afford to live the life I would prefer to live: staying at home cooking and entertaining guests. Wearing my cute little outfits. But instead, I have to prepare for battle with a ruthless world. And I know good people with struggles of their own will try to help me, but the lifestyle will kill me anyway. 

(I'm sure that this metaphor is an exaggeration of my fears.)

In the second dream, it seems to me like that's just the scenario we're constantly finding ourselves in as we navigate social media and even traditional, legacy media like newspapers. One group of people tries to profit off of the message that there's an awesome new technology and it has the power to revolutionize all of our lives. Another group tries to profit off the the message that we must beware this new technology that "they" are all trying to get us to adopt, because there are consequences that "they" aren't talking about. 

Well, isn't the truth almost always somewhere in the middle? We adopt new technology like new medication because we had a problem that needed solving, but there are usually risks, side effects and possible unforeseen consequences. 

There are too many algorithms that reward hyperbolic, grandiose stories instead of thorough, neutral, accurate teaching.