Hey, Space Cadets. I hope this fine Tuesday finds you well! I’ve hit an impasse on Operation Breakout. Namely, managing this blog takes more of my time than I really have. While I love the collaboration, writing stories needs to be my top priority. Soon, if I can’t find a solution, I might cut back to every other day posting. Either way, for today, I wanted to try something different. I’ll be doing a series of writing prompts, and today’s will use the image below as the starting point. My goal is to improve my ability to write shorter works, and you get to be my lab rats! I hope you enjoy the insanity that follows! Feedback is welcome. Negative, positive, grammatical, whatever you want to post. Ultimately, a writer grows by seeing their flaws and honing their craft.
She opened the door to her storage closet and braced herself for the horror that would come. Her normally ruddy complexion turned an ashen white as a hoarse voice whispered to her, imploringly.
“Just let me explain.”
It wasn’t how she expected to spend her Saturday morning, after a glorious Friday evening with her friends. She’d met up with members of her Imperial Space Fleet Academy graduating class, to reminisce about old times.
With long deployments, spread across Imperial Space, she hadn’t seen several of them in years. Many of them had exited the Navy, and entered the private sector. Enjoying lucrative jobs in the Imperial City, which allowed them to meet with their classmates.
The rest, well their time in service meant most were ready for their own class on ships captaincy. It was only their return to attend the Ship’s Captain Course, after so many good officers died in the insurrection that just ended, that brought them all together.
After so long apart, she’d just gotten through telling them how happy her marriage was. Droning on about how they’d stood the test of time and were still together after all these years. College sweethearts even.
What she didn’t expect was to go into the storage closet to find her husband joined in coitus with her best friend. The fact that he was wearing her high school prom dress and ‘that woman’ was wearing a tux only added fuel to the rage that followed. She knew she only had a few seconds to decide her next move.
Is the prison time worth killing them? Would it be better to take a picture, humiliate them both? What do I do?
Hope you all enjoyed this science fiction short, and I’ll try to do more of them in the future! Again, feedback is welcome. Heck, if I get an idea doing this that I like, I might just turn it into something more. If your feedback helps make that happen, you’ll get a mention in the acknowledgements. Or, I’ll make you a redshirt in the book and you can meet death with glory (in the story, of course).
Until next time, stay frosty and don’t forget to keep your powder dry!
JR
–> As usual, all images came from the Google’s “labeled for reuse” section or are images owned by JR Handley.
J.R. Handley Blog 
“The fact that he was wearing her prom dress…” sentence, didn’t make sense to me. If this is a reunion type setting why is there a prom dress/tux even involved? Maybe the narrator finds her husband and the other woman in the process of stripping.
Also does her husband/the other woman see the narrator? Do they know that they’ve been caught yet?
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She came home from a happy reunion to find her husband in coitus. And as for if they knew they were caught, the idea was that they were STUCK in coitus (never developed) and so pleading for help from her when she stumbled upon them. I wrote this as a stream of conscious approach, so it’s only so-so. I want to find a method that works for me.
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That makes more sense. I assumed that it was like a class reunion if you will and they were in a closet at the venue.
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Yeah, I didn’t think it through enough. I’ll try to fix that next time. In my head it was her home closet, the next day. Thanks for the critique!
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I may have overlooked that sentence too. And I’m glad to help.
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You should try a few of the short writing prompts!
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I should. I’m in the process of typing all my short stories right now. Maybe this coming September/October in preparation for NaNoWriMo.
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Or now, just cause! And, dictate-dictate-dictate!! It’ll get you there SO quickly.
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Take a picture. Use it as leverage to get everything in the divorce.
And leave them in their predicament while she calls an attorney.
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I like the cut of your jib! 🙂
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It’s terrible to have two people–your husband and your best friend–go behind your back and break your trust. Although I can’t help thinking, if he’s into cross-dressing (and why shouldn’t he be?), and it’s something that just ‘adds fuel to her rage’ . . . well, she probably married the wrong person on a lot of levels.
One level is that betrayal, of course. But it sounds like he never talked about this cross-dressing fantasy with her–so, for whatever reason, he felt he had to hide an aspect of himself from her. (Unless, of course, this wasn’t his fantasy but her best friend’s instead. In which case she might just be angry at his willingness to fulfill it.)
But my general sense is that this husband and wife were probably never a good fit. And hopefully someday that fact will help her heal.
Hmmm. Successful prompt fill, I’d say! This little story gave me lots to think about. 🙂
Meanwhile, I have no idea how you’ve managed to post every day! I go for four posts a week, and that can be rough! As a reader, I’d be more than happy with a post every other day to give you more time for your writing.
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Glad you liked the prompt! And I have cheated some, by having Marine Monday be about something I was so intimately familiar with. My world, being mine, was easy to fill blog posts on. The hard part has been not giving too much information. As for the daily posts, I’ve only been doing that since December 9th so not even a month and a half at this point. I think it DOES generate sales, if done right, since people have messaged me that they found me through my blog. However, none of that matters if I don’t keep writing so I need to find balance and an answer.
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I mean…look at that closet! You put a bed/bench/whatever-that-is in a closet and things are going to happen. I’m not excusing his behavior, I’m just saying a closet like that might make someone do something crazy.
Seriously though, fun post. I can tell this was sort of a freewriting exercise (just running with an idea and seeing where it goes). Which makes me wonder, “How often does J.R.’s stream of consciousness lead to cross dressing?” Hah! 🙂 Good stuff bud.
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LOL, note to self….. judge people by their closets.
Small closet, check.
Small closet, check.
Big closet, gasp,…. YOU FREAK!!!
As for the stream of consciousness….. well, I’ll never tell!!! 😉 Keep dreamin sailor!
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