I'll probably get this up on my blog in a day or so, but I wanted to put it here as well. Enjoy.
Waiting To Jump
Kenny was waiting for Batlady to jump. When she did, that would be his cue.
The office was full of these inane motivational posters. Everest is waiting to kill you faced him every day across his desk. Zombie Biker dudes completed the Tour De France on the way to slaughter him whenever he walked down the hall. And behind the boss?s desk, Batlady held her torch above the clouds, her face trapped in that tortured vision that suggested somebody evil had nailed her feet to her perch, but he didn?t see the blood. Cleaned it up for the photoshoot probably. But one of these days, she?d pull her feet free, and so would he.
But when she jumped, he didn?t expect to be the one to catch her.
He was breaking the law at the time. He?d heard through the office gossip-chain that his head was on the chopping block. If they were going to fire him, he?d prefer to go out with everything he needed to blow enough whistles to bring every dog in the regulatory agencies barking to the door. He took everything he needed: books, phone-numbers, illegal correspondence, feeling more self-righteous and less like dog-doo on a shoe the further he dug into the darkness he?d worked in for so long.
He jumped up like the chair had shot thumbtacks in his ass when he heard her scream. And there she was, batwing cape flapping around her flailing arms, yoga pants on fire, bloody feet trailing helpless streamers as she fell.
Maybe it was his need to save something. Maybe he felt for her, trapped in the world for so long that she?d die to get out of it, like he would. Maybe he was high on either the gasoline fumes or the vindictive joy he felt in knowing he didn?t need to use it to bring down the corporate Dark Tower. But he flung himself at the poster, arms open wide, screaming for her to grab hold?he?d catch her.
They took the poster with them when they left. She carried all the information he stole, hidden in the folds of her cloak. He carried the gasoline, which he didn?t need anymore. He?d never really fit the image of a terrorist. She was so beautiful, and he gave her his shoes because her feet were so bloody.
Now they raise organic vegetables on a farm in Oregon. Kenny is happy in his Birkenstocks and wide-brimmed hat, and his blood pressure numbers are the envy of men half his age. And Batlady cards wool from their hair-sheep to spin into thread, which she looms into the cloth for all the batwing cloaks she sells. She?s happy too. Kenny calls her Lady Bee. The nail-holes in her feet barely show.
Process notes:
This took me 10 minutes.
I didn't look at the prompt more than three times.
I didn't make a mood board.
I didn't pick out a song for it.
I didn't plan it, plot it, do character work, or anything writerly at all, unless you count thinking about what I would end up writing.
This isn't to say a thing against anyone who does all those things! I firmly believe that there is no one way to write, and that pantsing doesn't make me more or less of a writer. But since this is about process, I wanted to go into my "process" just a little bit: imagining until something emerges out of the background and decides to be. Just in case there are any pantsers on here, who, like me, have sometimes felt that they weren't "real writers" because they didn't fit the mold.
Editing note: I have no idea why the apostrophes have been transformed into question marks.
Topic: Draft 1: Waiting To Jump (Read 4007 times)