Fifteen Minutes of Scrawl

The impish witch of Halloween did like to have fun. Most Halloweens she would pull some minor tricks, make decorations move on their own or multiply people's candy supply, but this year she felt a curious itch, so she decided to cast a little spell at a few Halloween parties. She flew over the houses and sprinkled her magic dust and watched as the spell took effect. Alan, who had been dressed as a fireman, suddenly began to blow out all of the candles at the party. Then, he spotted the disarmed smoke detector. "Kate, do you realize what a fire hazard this is?" he demanded, holding it up in the air. But, where Kate had just been standing, sat a black cat, calmly licking its paw. Kate was no where to be seen, although the cat's eyes did, somehow, remind Alan of Kate. "What's going on here?" demanded Laura, flipping open her detective's notebook. "Looks like something may be afoot." She then took out her magnifying glass and began huntin

Beatrice loved being an aunt. She liked being called Aunt Bea, she liked taking care of her niece Daisy, and she liked knowing that she helped her sister out when she came over. This time, Aunt Bea, as she liked to think of herself, and appointed herself to help Daisy get over her fear of horses. See, a few months earlier, a horse had gone a bit wild and had gotten away from its owner. It broke away and came at Daisy at a terrifying speed. Her mom, being the quick reactor that she was, grabbed her out of the way so she wasn't hurt. However, while Daisy's body was free from scars, her mind clearly wasn't. She had been scared of horses ever since. She refused to hear stories about them and made her mom throw out any toys that were horses and any books that had horses in them. Her mom, of course being a smart and prudent woman, hadn't actually thrown the horse things away, she had just hidden them in a closet. Daisy's mom had relayed all of this to Aunt Bea over a

"Hey, what ever happened to Elizabeth's husband?" asked Ruth as she sipped her cocktail at the Blue Whale. She and her friend Nancy were having a night out to celebrate being empty nesters finally. Well, it's not that they were exactly happy being empty nesters, but they needed to get out of their empty houses. If only there had been a better place to go in Collinsport than the Blue Whale. "You know," thought Nancy, "I'm not really sure. She never did tell us, not that she got in touch with us much after she got married." "She always did think she was too good for us," muttered Ruth. The Collins family ran this town and while the three of them had been close once, as they got older, it was harder to be friends with a member of the "haves" when they were distinctly the "have nots." "Oh, come on," countered Nancy, "cut her some slack. You act like being in that nutso family would be easy."

Sally didn't think she would ever be able to make a difference and she certainly didn't think she'd make a difference by the age of 18. Yet here she was, about to get a commendation for her app, Talk2Me. She fidgeted nervously as the ceremony went on. Sally had always been a bit of a loner, which was mostly fine, but she began to really struggle in high school. The new pressures of new faces, new classes, new clubs, new things to plan for, and new social situations all began to press down on her. It wasn't that she had no friends, she certainly had a few good ones, but she didn't feel like she could reach out to them or her family. Everything had just felt like too much and it seemed like everyone else was doing just fine. So she pretended she was just fine and things just kept getting worse. Eventually, Sally realized that she could be depressed and, regardless of if she was or not, needed help, but didn't know where to turn. She struggled to find resources

James had told Steven this was a bad idea. When was it ever a good idea to go back to high school? James hadn't been particularly popular and he was in touch with the few friends he wanted to still be in touch with. He didn't have any favorite teachers and the principal, Mr. Jones, had been one of the worst people he'd ever known. His parents had long moved out of the town he'd gone to high school in, so they weren't even a reason to go. But Steven had wanted to get to know James's child and teenhood, so when there was an invite to his 15th high school reunion, they had RSVP'ed yes and headed out in their blue truck. Now, due to fate wanting to drive home what a bad idea this had been, had thrown a dead body into a science lab. Although, it wasn't actually fate, it was someone who had been at the reunion. The dead body was, in fact, their old principal who was retiring that year. Not that that was making the night any easier. James and Steven sat tog

Donald and Thomas sat down at a table at the Blue Whale like they did most nights. They had spent a long day fishing just off the coast of Collinsport and needed a drink and the Blue Whale was the kind of bar that made you want to have a drink. Not in a way that was fun and cheerful, but in a way that told you you needed one to survive the atmosphere and decor. "Wonder if they're ever going to find that Evans girl," muttered Donald as he took a sip from his watery beer, "Sam sure is real shook up about it." Thomas nodded. Sam, Maggie's father, had been a drinking buddy of theirs in the past, but ever since his daughter went missing he had, understandably, not been around much. "I still think it's weird that ever since that new Collins moved to town there have been a bunch of women getting attacked." "You're just getting paranoid again, nothing is weird about the Collins family." "Everything is weird about the Collins

I had been in desperate need for new jeans for a while, but I hated spending the money. My previous jeans had gotten torn or scraped and really just weren't suitable anymore, but I still didn't want to buy new ones. Finally, after some egging on from friends, I went to a thrift store to look for some. It took a while, but I finally found a comfy pair that wasn't about to fall apart. Happily I bought them and went home. As I always did with clothes from thrift shops, I decided to wash the jeans before I wore them out. Thrift stores always say that they've cleaned everything, but who knows if they did and, even if they did, how many people have tried them on since they were cleaned? As I was about to put the jeans in the washing machine I, out of habit with my other pairs of pants, reached into the pockets to clear out any junk. I found a slip of paper, but I first put it aside as I started up the wash. After the washing machine got going, I grabbed the piece of paper

Gertrude had finally realized she had a problem. No, it shouldn't have taken the stack of newspapers collapsing on her to realize this, but that is ultimately what did it. It's hard to ignore your problems when they're literally hitting you over the head. After she managed to surface from the flood of newsprint, covered in an dusty layer of ink, she knew she had to change. That night, she began sorting things to get rid of them. She first threw out the things that were easy to throw out: the old newspapers and other periodicals that were all online these days. She snapped pictures of a few particular articles and downloaded them to her laptop so she could be sure she'd always have them. That took up most of her first night. The next day, Gertrude decided to weed out other things that could be digitized. She found a service that would digitize photos from rolls of film and she mailed them all off. The photos she had that she didn't have digital versions or negati

Erin woke up in the dark, as she always did. Not much light got this far down in the ocean. It didn't matter though, they wouldn't be submerged for too much longer, soon enough it would be time to surface and head back to the lab with their findings. Erin didn't mind life on a submarine so much. Sure it was cramped and dark and she didn't have ways of getting in touch beyond emergency calls, but that was okay. The close quarters weren't so bad because she really loved her team. They had been together for a few years and she loved them like they were family. The darkness could sometimes get to her, but the team had fun pulling pranks on each other with it. Besides, she never slept so well as she did in the darkness of the deep ocean. She would, at times, get homesick and be sad she couldn't reach out to people, but she also liked getting a break from social media. Plus, if she'd had a bad date recently there was no better excuse than "Going to be subme

Eric was nervous as he passed the note back down the line of desks in his class. Even at fourteen he felt this was a bit juvenile, but, as a fourteen-year-old, he didn't have any better ideas. He had written one of those goofy "do you like me?" notes to Hank with little tic boxes for yes and no. It wasn't that Eric was nervous to find out if Hank liked boys (Eric actually knew that he did because they'd had a conversation about it a few weeks back), he was just nervous to find out if he  was one of the boys that Hank even could  like. Eric thought, from what Hank had said, that he could be. Hank said he liked funny boys who were also smart. Eric had always thought of himself as funny and he knew he was towards the top of his class. None of these thoughts swirling in his head helped him be less nervous though. Although, they did pass the time until Julia, the girl who sat directly behind him, nudged him to pass the note back to him. Eric wondered if he shoul

"Goddammit," Flo muttered to herself, "how do I always do this?" She had planned this grand trip to Europe, wanting to enjoy and explore her freedom after a bad break up and here she was, as she always seemed to be: lost. She had been enjoying the latest stop on her Europe tour, Amsterdam, until now. She had had a tour of the canals (somehow none of the layout of the city stuck with her), had spent a ton of time at the Rijksmuseum (which she now couldn't tell you how to get back to), and had taken a cycling tour that had tested her muscle memory (of course she remembered none of their route now that she had to). If she had splurged on international data, this wouldn't be as big of a problem. Sure she could open Google Maps and see the tiny blue dot that was her, but what good was that when she didn't know where her hotel was? Why hadn't she taken her friend's suggestion to pick a hotel close to some big tourist landmark? Now she needed to f

This was a harder prompt than I thought it would be. I think it is in part that I often have trouble taking a compliment. I like to deny or evade or quickly move on to a different topic. Or I just don't take compliments truly to heart; I think people say them just to be nice or polite like when you compliment someone's outfit and they quickly do a scan of yours to find something they can compliment. Or maybe, for some other reason, compliments just aren't that memorable to me. Perhaps I'm alone in this. Or maybe not? I avoided this prompt for a while because when I thought about it, I could only think of a blank page. I could think of some small compliments people had given me, but they didn't mean a ton to me. This afternoon though, I finally thought of it. My Wi-Fi kept me out of writing a post for a while and my nap delayed me further, but here I am! My favorite compliment came when I was in high school. I was at our math team picnic and was preparing

"I can't believe we finally did it!" exclaimed Lia. She hoisted the metal box above her head, her adrenaline allowing her to do it with ease. Ben just stared at her. They couldn't have actually done it. Could they really have caught a ghost? No, right? Ghosts couldn't actually be real. "But...ghosts aren't real," he said dumbly. He had only seen the end of the catching, as the last bit of the ghostly form was snapped into the trap, but he had no doubt what he'd seen. "Uh, then why were you a ghost hunter if you thought they weren't real?" asked Lia, teasing, as she started packing up her stuff so they could get the ghost back to their office. Ben didn't want to tell her why he had been a ghost hunter. Truth was, he was looking for something ever since his parents died. He hadn't found it with a therapist and he hadn't found it in his hometown church and he hadn't found it in any books he'd read, so he thou

Becky had dreamed of this day ever since she was little. While there were a few phases where she wanted to be a sheriff or a veterinarian, she pretty much always wanted to be a chef. She had loved cooking with her parents and grandparents when she was little and, when she was a bit older, with her siblings and cousins. She tended to take charge int he kitchen, directing people to do what she wanted. This didn't initially result in the tastiest dishes, but eventually it all worked out. She used to think it was because she was the oldest of all the kids, so she was their natural leader and, well, what little kid doesn't enjoy bossing adults around? But later she realized it was because she cared so much how the food turned out. When she had that epiphany is when she realized that being a chef was the only job she could ever have and be happy with. After years of culinary school and working her way up in other kitchens, she started her own YouTube channel called Beck's Kit

Ariel, Keith's little sister, had convinced him it would be fun. He had fought her on it for weeks, but she kept asking. He finally gave in when their parents were out and he was stuck babysitting, it was harder to distract her then. "Pleeaaaasssssssssseee," Ariel whined, "It'll be so fun and so preeettttyyy!" "No, let's watch a movie," Keith tried to suggest. "No," Ariel pouted and looked up at Keith with her big, blue eyes. Keith sighed heavily, "Okay, let's paint my nails." Ariel lit up and hugged Keith tightly before running to her room. Keith could hear the clattering of her nail polish containers as she threw them into her little carrying case and raced back downstairs. She grabbed Keith by the hand and took him over to the couch. "Okay, so what color should I pick?" asked Keith. "No," said Ariel, "We're not ready yet." Ariel then went to the kitchen and, with the hel

Zach sighed as he looked out over the fall day. It was actually quite lovely out, the sun was shining, the wind was calm, and the leaves had turned lovely shades of orange and red. He had gotten to campus a little early so he could eat his lunch leisurely and enjoy some fresh air. He pulled out his lunch box from his bag, noting that it felt light, but not thinking much of it. He figured it was because he'd forgotten to put his cutlery in it this time and had had to throw the cutlery in his bag as he ran out the door. He dug his knife and fork out of his backpack along with a paper towel. He gently put the paper towel down on the picnic table and put his fork and knife on it. Zach wasn't a very fancy guy, he didn't normally set the table before eating, but he knew the kind of gross stuff that had been on these picnic tables, so he felt the need to protect his knife and fork.  His lunch box was one of those retro metal ones. He had had it since he was a kid an

This was one of the stupider situations Alexis had found herself in. She had been babysitting her niece and nephew and thought it would be a grand time for them all to play frisbee. She had always loved tossing the disc around with brother, so she thought she'd pass on the tradition to his kids. She should've foreseen that the two would gang up on her. They weren't bad kids, they were just young and goofy and didn't know their own strength yet. They had ended up figuring out a way to whip the frisbee at her way too hard. In her shock, she hadn't even managed to block or catch the disc. Nope, she took it right in the eye. The world went pretty blurry in that eye and her niece and nephew started to cry. They felt terrible that they had hurt their aunt Alexis and Alexis felt terrible that she had to call her brother and sister-in-law away from their day out. She felt even worse that her brother then had to take her to the hospital. "You'll be okay in a f

It was the annual office clean out day and Marie was ecstatic. She loved having everything just-so. She loved when the office smelled vaguely of faux-lemon cleaner and all hints of dust had been moved into bins. However, her office was always so busy that she, and anyone like her, never had the time to do this. That was the beauty of cleaning day though, time to refresh the office and dig out your desk. There was another reason that Marie was excited for clean out day though. About nine months ago, she had been in charge of a marketing project for their latest product: sunscreen that smelled like cherries. The company, and Marie, had had high hopes for this product. Surveys had shown that the smell of sunscreen was one of the main complaints of average consumers. The team thought cherry would be a fun choice and went ahead with it. As part of the marketing, Marie was in charge of coming up with some freebies for the product. Since it was sunscreen, she thought sunglasses wou

Zane and Stuart desperately wanted to earn   new merit badges. They had fewer than anyone else in their troop. They somehow always had a family thing or were sick when the troop was finishing up their badges and they never managed to finish things on their own. The other boys had started teasing them so they wanted to make it up. At first, they looked for the easiest badges to get, but found that those were pretty much the ones they had already. Instead, they decided to get creative. They tried to figure out how many badges they could get all at once. They found there was a 'Swiss Army Knife' badge where they had to make use of at least 10 of the tools in a project. There was also the 'Responsible Knife Owner' badge where they had to learn about knife safety and some minor first aid. They also found a few art-related badges and an idea was born. Zane and Stuart amassed some fabric, clay, paper clips, and sticks. They convinced their parents to buy them each a Swiss

When they were kids, Ryan and Erica had always talked about having a house together. As they got older, and their friend group expanded, they thought how nice it would be if they could all own a lake house together. "It'd be like a non-scammy time share!" Ryan exclaimed during one of the group's goofy brainstorming sessions. "We could all bring our families so that are families get close and our kids become friends with each other," Erica added. "The group could have a generation 2.0!" They had never expected these idle chats with high school friends would grow into solid plans. Some people fell out, but in the end there were six people who were really committed: Ryan and Erica, of course, but their middle school friend Brendan remained sold on the plan, and their high school friends Liam,Calvin, and Mark also loved the idea. In college, the group began to set just a little aside for the lake house. It started out as a joke, whenever they f

Fiona was feel a little schlubby this Saturday morning. She wanted a snack and nothing in her house appealed so she rolled out of her house, still in her pajamas, which had little puppies on them. She had bought them years ago and they showed their wear and tear, but they were comfortable so who gave a shit? It wasn't like people went to the Walgreens on the corner in evening gowns or anything. She'd get her snack and go back to bed to binge some Netflix. As she browsed the aisles of junk food, she noticed a woman kept turning her head to look at her. Fiona tried to ignore her, but the woman just kept staring. Fiona moved a little farther away, trying to get some distance. She noticed the woman not-so-sneakily take out her phone and snap a picture. Fiona rolled her eyes internally. Yes, she was a grown woman wearing pajamas in public, how hilarious. Luckily the woman left her alone after that and she could continue her leisurely browsing of the salty, sweet, and delicious.