Day 5

Power's Out.

The rapid staccato of his heart against his chest increased as the bulb above him flickered. The power couldn't go out now. Not when he was so close.

“Jeremy….” said a low, soft voice, heavy with metallic feedback. “Hurry up, Jeremy…”

Jeremy’s feet pounded against the concrete, desperate for a door, a window, anything out of the dark, damp hallway. He could hear scrabbling noises behind him, but he didn’t dare to turn around. Instead, he flung himself around a corner and put as much distance as possible between him and whatever was behind him. Every 30 feet or so, he saw one of the rusty gray intercom boxes, alongside a small, wireless fish-eye camera. Anger stabbed through the wave of fear in his stomach. They would pay, whoever the voice was on the intercom. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of watching him die.

A low whine and more scrabbling, closer this time, made him try to put his feet to the ground even faster, but the dark blood from the gash on his hip had finally begun to seep onto his shoes. He stumbled, and quickly had to roll sideways as a black mass of hot fur launched itself out of the darkness. Its eyes reflected the light of the bulb overhead, and in the two black orbs Jeremy could see his face, covered with dirt and gore. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted further down the corridor, once again turning the corner. The animal, he had had no time to register what it was, let out a fierce moan as it stumbled and crashed against the wall.

Finally, Jeremy saw a break in the wall, too small to be another hallway. He ran toward it and saw a industrial steel door, flanked by two floodlights and several cameras.

“Good…. Good… You found me, Jeremy.”

Jeremy panted, bloody hands on his knees, and stared furiously at the cameras. He quickly searched the area around the door for something to break it down with, eyes combing the empty floor and wall, but there was nothing. Jeremy staggered over to one of the cameras and said ferociously as he could, “Let me in, damn you!”

“Oh, I will…. But first…”

Jeremy heard the scratch of nails on the floor. Down the hall, the black creature stopped and emitted a whimper, then tore toward him. Jeremy’s heart leapt into his chest.

“Power’s out.”

With a click, the lights down the hallway began to shut off. The animal, it looked like a cross between a bear and an enormous hound, ran ahead of each bulb as it turned off. Then, as the thing reached him, Jeremy looked up. The light above him had not gone out. He jumped, not a moment too soon, and felt the back of the feral animal underneath him. Then he caught the lightbulb in his hand and brought his full weight down on top of the beast. There was a sharp crack, then a fizzle, followed by an unnatural scream as sparks surged through the broken bulb. It was only for a moment, but it brought the animal to its knees. Jeremy’s entire body shook. He had been a conduit for the electricity for a split second, and his heart felt ready to leap out of his chest. Clumsily, he drew his hand across the floor, until his fingers touched the wire he had ripped from the ceiling. He hurried to the animal, which was starting to recover its footing, and quickly wrapped the wire around its neck.

He pulled. It struggled, trying to shake him off, but he forced himself on top of its neck. With a yelp, it bucked and wriggled, but it could not move Jeremy. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, it finally wheezed, shuddered, and died.  

Jeremy rolled to the floor and stared up at the blackness, which was speckled with tiny red dots. The cameras were watching him silently. He didn’t care.

He heard the snap of a deadbolt. The steel door swung open.

A small figure walked over to him.

With a shock of recognition, Jeremy croaked a single word before the darkness consumed his consciousness.

“Grandma?”

Day 4

Write about how it feels when you can’t focus.

I need to get-what was that?
...
Okay, it was nothing. Let me-is that an article I've seen before?
Let me check Facebook.
Hmm. It's not that interesting.
Okay. Back to the matter at hand, good sir.
...
Damn, is that the time already? Let me switch the laundry.
Okay.
Time to type.
...
Once upon a... ugh. Where the hell was I.
...
Okay.
Here we go.
...
Well, that took forever. Last time I do laundry at 10 at night. Okay, so she's going to get on the train.
What was it that she wanted from him?
Oh yeah. But wait, would that be right, for that time period?
Let me check.
Oh, wow. I can't believe the governor is approving that. That's the reason this state is in the tank. Okay.
Trains.
Trains in that era were... oh crap. Well, that won't work. I'll have to go back and rewrite that. I need some lemonade.
Okay. Can't get up until I finish! Wait, what now?

Day 3

Write about your feet.

Each press into the earth, a shock of pain. Every moment, a dull ache. Every tendon on fire, each joint worn sore. Like two spades, they trudge through the earth. Sometimes, they move lightly and quickly, excited to meet the ground beneath them as they step towards a goal and a purpose. Other times, they fear each adventure towards the floor, not knowing what the next moment may bring: simple sensation, or blistering pain. It is the pain that they fear, from the heel to the sole, and especially the dreaded leg-fire. It is the leg-fire which has made them timid, the leg-fire which makes them not so reckless as they ought to be.
They are the arbiters of the future, but they have no choice in the matter. They tell me where I will go, but never when I will stop. They know no end to their travel, but when at last the glowing orb sets beneath the horizon, and they can lose their heavy load, they sigh with relief. Luckily, they themselves rarely see danger. They know how much I depend on them.
With them, my body and mind have been places I could have never dreamed. With them I have lost ground and won it. With them, I have traveled tall hills, and down into tunnels, through miles and miles of concrete streets and, once, to a place between summer and winter.
With them, I have gone paths which many have trod, but none should ever have need to go down.
They will serve me until the bitter end, but they have become calloused and weary. They need time to heal, time to get back the vigor of their youth. They whisper to me, telling me to carry on, telling me I can go just a little further.
I hope do not let them down.

Day 2

Imagine the scents and sights of a bakery and write.

Colin rolled each dough ball slowly, his knotted hands aching. He forgot to take the arthritis medicine last night. It's not like it did much to dull the pain anyway, he thought. Ever since Helena died, he couldn't remember the little things. They just didn't seem that important. The work was, though, and he moved methodically through the process, breathing in the familiar smell of yeast. He had already mixed the dough to the right consistency, adding in a little bit of crushed clove to taste as he went, the "secret ingredient" that his customers raved about. He glanced out the window, and remembered the day that he had bought the shop from it's previous owner. It had taken him four months, and no small amount of blood and sweat, get the inside remodeled to exactly how he wanted it, but when that 'Grand Re-Opening' sign went up, people wound around the block to come taste his Morning Special Bagels. A sigh escaped him. There hadn't been a line like that in years, although he still did a good business. All the dough balls had sat for long enough now. He enjoyed looking at them, each one remarkably similar but subtly different, like a litter of puppies or a collection of flowers. He punched a small hole in the middle of each ball, then began to season the outside with poppy, caraway and sesame seeds, plus salt, garlic and onion. He knew a lot of bakers thought he was simple-minded for seasoning them before boiling and baking, but he had learned long ago that the flavor would seep into the dough, and he knew it was flavor, not advertisements or promotional schemes, that kept customers coming back. As he slid the first round of bagels into the oven, he wiped his gnarled digits on his apron and glanced around with pale blue eyes at his little shop. The upholstery was fading, sure, and maybe the chromium that lined the tables and chairs wasn't as shiny as it was 30 years ago, but he kept his business clean. Who could say he didn't? For the first time in almost 4 years, he paused from the long list of things he had to do to before opening and buttered a piece of rye bread. He frowned at his hands. They hadn't always shook like that, dammit. Another sigh slid from his mouth. Maybe he should let Arnie buy his business. His son was a dreamer, but he could manage it. Shaking his head, he put thoughts of the future to the back burner and moved to the cutlery drawer, pulling out utensils to start making his famous Colin's Twist Donut. Tomorrow was a mystery, but in a couple hours, he knew people would be hungry.

Day 1

Write about something you lost.

I don't like thinking about lost things. Lost things make me sad, thinking of the little trinkets and nic-nacs in gutters and between couch cushions, the lost words in the wind and the lost years spent in pursuit of goals never achieved. It's difficult for me to think about anything I've lost because it means that I will remember how I felt when I had whatever it was I misplaced. The good luck charm I kept in high school, with thirteen different symbols of how I felt about my life. Where is that now? My trusty knife that always stayed in my pocket. Did I leave him behind? The lost hours of rest, pushing through hard training and lonely nights, when the only light seemed to be the harsh fluorescent above my bed that illuminated every flaw of the barracks walls. Walls so old that they seemed to have thousands of cracks, and if I closed my eyes the ceiling would come tumbling down.
Where are the lost days of happiness, the times when I could have been smiling and carefree? If I hadn't signed on the dotted line, would I be where I am now? How many answers to questions have I lost by not asking them, and could the answers to those questions have saved a man's life?
Once, there was a watch I had. I remember the flat black plastic band, how it felt around my wrist, thicker than the other watches I owned because it held an atomic clock with a GPS. $175 I spent on that watch, and when it came I was so excited; I had never owned anything so expensive in my life. It survived a week, and then it was gone. Did someone steal it? Or was I just careless with a fine piece of merchandise.
I feel that as the years wind, I lose more time than anything else. Time runs in rivulets, they say, but really time to me feels like the first attempt at driving a manual shift transmission. Steady. Stop. Grind. Crunch. Stall. Forward and on until crunch. Stop. Go. Stop. Time only goes slowly when you watch the clock, or when you don't want something to happen. The rest of the time, you lose it in leaps and bounds.
There was a lot I lost when I fell down the stairs. I lost days and weeks under the medication, and when I refused to take it I lost the thing which had been such a part of my identity that, even now, years later, I still wake up at night looking for my boots.
I don't like thinking about things I've lost.
But, I've lost a lot of my illusions too. If there is anything worth losing, it's your illusions. Maybe that's what I'll write to my son in the book I write to him.
I lost the loneliness, the deep and hateful sense of being alone. Now, I lose days of silence and contemplative thought in exchange for changing diapers and driving from one place to another.
Those things I don't mind losing. Silence and loneliness are good for the soul, but only in doses in the hundredth of a percent. Too much time on my own makes me stir-crazy, and strange ideas come into my head which I can't lose.
I'm glad to be lost of the people and things that drug me down and caused me anguish over the years. I think everyone is, but it's still hard sometimes to think about the places you used to go, the things you used to do, and the people who were in your life that made it better at the time. In hindsight, they probably weren't worth the trouble.
I've lost the sense of dread I feel for the moment of death I know will come. When I was young, I watched the Terminator movie, and it terrified me when he went down into the molten metal, and his red eye blinked out of existence. Wouldn't that loss be the worse, I used to think. Now, even my short time, I can see that death is nothing but an end, and not a loss, unless it comes too quickly.
I'm glad I haven't lost many friends.
I grieve for those that have.
Most of all, I've lost the desire to make my life harder. Life will be what it will be. I've spent so much time agonizing over this and that, wondering ig the bills will get paid on time or the pain in my knee will subside. If I could lose all the worry, though, I don't think I would, because it lets me know I'm still here. Still trudging down the path. I hope I lose more ignorance in the years to come and more of my illusions. I hope that I lose bad feelings and thoughts, and I hope I keep what I've found, my family and friends and the lessons life has taught me. Those aren't trinkets, but jewels.