Write It Out Wednesday

I am super excited about last week's challenge. I chose "B" - mother of three, future, on top a skyscraper. And yes, I did choose my letter before I let EXCEL mix it all up, so I didn't know what I would get. To be honest, I really didn't like my combination. I found it rather hard to think outside the past/present time period box. I can draw on history. I can draw on current events. But I cannot draw on future events. It all had to come out of my head.

Let me preface my story be saying, I'm not real big on the whole global warming issue. After all, it's March and it's still freezing over here!!! But, because I'm not into futuristic robots and spaceships, I chose to change the weather.

Some Sort of Clever Title

Erlise looked out over the city. She could see a long way from her favorite perch on top her high rise apartment building. All around her, high concrete buildings rose from the ground. Some, like her apartment building, were topped with a special glass dome with beautiful lawns, parks, or playgrounds snuggly protected underneath.

Things had sure changed since she was a girl. She looked down to the street below. She used to walk with her mother along that very street to the little ice cream shop on the corner. The ice cream shop that no longer existed. She sighed as her daughter’s voice brought her back to the present. “What is it, Shalyn?”

“Mommy! Danny won’t slide down. He just sits there, and doesn’t let anyone else have a turn.” Erlise drew her eyes away from the scene outside the dome and turned toward the playground. Sure enough. There was 3 year old Danny at the top of the slide and a whole line of children standing on the ladder. He must have gotten too scared to slide again.

“Come on, Danny,” Erlise assured her son as she walked toward the slide. “I’ll stand at the bottom and catch you.” But Danny would not budge. He shook his head vigorously.

“Make him go, Mommy!” shouted Shalyn, and without waiting for a response, shoved Danny down the slide.

Danny screamed all the way down to his mother’s arms. She scooped him up quickly to avoid a doggy pile as all the other children began to slide down in a fury.

“Are you ok, Danny?” Erlise asked.

“Yes, Mommy.” Danny’s scared expression turned into a full grin. “That was fun! I want to do it again.”

Jake, Erlise’s oldest son, reached the bottom of the slide just in time to hear Danny’s request. “No, Mom! Don’t let him. He always gets stuck up there. He’s such a baby.”

Danny scowled. “No, I’m not!”

“Well, technically, you are,” Shalyn explained, trying to help. “Jake is 8. I am 5. And
you’re just 3. So you see, you are a baby.”

Danny didn’t appreciate his sister’s knowledgeable explanation at all. “I am not a baby!!” He turned to his mother for help. “Tell them, Mommy! Tell them I’m not a
baby.”

Erlise smiled, ignoring the situation on hand. “Come on, kids. Let’s go sit on the bench at the edge of the dome and see what’s out in the big world today.”

Jake frowned. “Nothing more than yesterday, of course. Nothing ever changes out there, Mom.”

“Will you tell us about it all again, Mommy?” Shalyn put her hands together, looked up at her mother and pleaded, “Please!!!”

“Story. Story. Story.” Danny chanted as he danced in circles around his mother.

“Ok,” Erlise agreed. “Everyone to the bench!” The kids did not need any more of an invitation. They were off like lightening to obey their mother’s order.

“Look down there at the street,” Erlise began. “Tell me what you see.”

“Nothing,” Jake mumbled.

“The street.” Leave it to Danny to state the obvious.

“You haven’t told us what to see yet, Mommy.” And leave it to Shalyn to state the deep and profound.

“You see how the street has lots of cracks and bumps? Those have been caused by the hot sun over the years. When I was a girl, the streets were smooth and packed with cars. Horns honked. Drivers shouted. Everyone was in a hurry to get home after work. There were so many cars, that it was actually faster to walk and take the subway. So the sidewalk was packed with people too, all walking to the subway station.”

“That’s the tunnels now. Right, Mommy” Shalyn interrupted.

“Yes. The subway used to go through the tunnels taking people to where they needed to go. We still use them to get to places, but we walk or ride the scooters. There are too many people down there now to use the subway trains.”

“That’s why they took them apart and made them into little stores to buy food and stuff while we walk through the tunnels.” Shalyn interrupted again.

“Yes, Little Smarty Pants. They did.” Erlise smiled.

Danny looked earnestly at his mother. “Why can’t we go outside, Mommy?”

He asked this question everyday, and everyday Erlise tried to answer in a way he could understand. She cupped Danny’s chin in her hand and smiled broadly. “When I was 10, just a little older than Jake, my daddy came home from work and said that things were going to change. He took my mommy’s hand and said, ‘Sweetheart, it’s just not going to get any cooler. It’s just going to get hotter and hotter.’ My daddy was a weatherman and he had been worrying for several months that winter just wasn’t coming. It just wasn’t getting cold like it normally did.

“My daddy had lots of meetings with the mayor of the city and a lot of other important men. They finally decided to knock down all the short buildings in the city and build more big buildings like ours. They sealed up all the entrances to the subway station and opened up new ones in each of the tall buildings. They put these special glass domes on top of a lot of the buildings, so we can still grow grass, trees, and gardens.

“And just like my daddy said, it kept getting hotter and hotter. By the time I was 13, the sun had killed all the grass, flowers, and trees outside. It was so hot, we couldn’t go outside during the day or we would get very burned. We could only go out at
night.

“That’s why we can’t go outside now, Danny. The sun is too hot. You would get burned. This glass dome,” Erlise said, tapping it with her finger, “lets in the light, but not the harmful sun rays that would burn us. Now, we can grow green grass, yummy fruits and veggies, and pretty flowers inside our domes. And we go can go from building to building by walking through the underground tunnels. We can still live without having to go outside where it’s so hot.”

Jake looked thoughfully out the dome. He studied the now deteriorated scene below him. “Mom?”

“Yes, Jake?”

“Will it ever get cold again?”

“I don’t know, Son. I don’t know.”

Next week's assignment (once again, inspired by Creative Writing Corner's e-book) is to pick one of your favorite places... a vacation spot, a room in your house, or wherever else you like to be. Describe this place in five paragraphs using all five sense. The first paragraph should describe your spot with only your sense of smell. The second with your sense of sound. And so on, saving the sense of sight for last. This will help train your mind to begin thinking through your other senses, rather than always depending on your sight.

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