Random Sentence Prompt

October 24, 2016

I was looking for a way to unwind and feeling somewhat down for having written so little in the past year. Work has been pretty mentally stimulating, but that also means more taxing than it used to be, too. I don’t have as much downtime to listen to music, which usually helped inspire me with little plot ideas here and there, and those would evolve into story points later that day when I was home again.

I’ve also been inspired for two years in a row now by my talented boyfriend, an artist who participates in Inktober each year. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a motivation to draw something (in ink, preferably) every day for the month of October. I’ve always been intimidated by National Novel Writing Month in November (NaNoWriMo to those who know), and something shorter seemed appealing to me, something I can more easily fit into a typically hectic month of my life.

Anyway, I just looked up a random sentence generator and went with what it gave me for the opener. Fun fact – this is basically the same way in which I began my first book, although I’ve long since edited the original sentence out of the story. It was for an English assignment… :B

Here’s some random drivel, though. Just because it’s been quiet in this part of my brain for too long.

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I am never at home on Sundays.

On Sundays I have to serve my shift at watch, just like everyone else. For me, my day has always been Sunday.

I never put much thought into it one way or the other. On Mondays and Tuesdays I work my allotted time at the laboratory, aligning glass slides before the computer lenses. On Wednesday I have time down at the kitchens, and I wash, stir, and serve before washing again, eating my meals fresh enough that I don’t notice the granular compound. On Thursday and Friday I sort through clothes and old items and distribute things to the recalibration equipment, and on Saturday I have time for anything I want. But every day except Sunday I come home and sleep at night.

Sunday I sit in the tower and move the camera left, left, left, all the way around. Each time it settles into its next position, I press the button to update the records. Click, it falls into the groove, and click goes my finger on the dash. Sunday, I don’t need to sleep, because the watchman’s chair plugs into my spinal port and the time slips by in a trance. No powdered meals on Sundays.

When I get home it is after midnight. When I leave my studio it is a few minutes before midnight. So I am never really at home on Sundays.

I don’t know why I thought about it for the first time one day. It was just another Saturday and I was getting my clothes together, laying out the items I would need before stepping in to the sanitation chamber. But it occurred to me that I always left just a few minutes before midnight, that I was tired only until I sat in the chair, and then the fatigue and hunger slipped away.

I wondered for a moment why that was. I always had over twenty minutes of extra time when I arrived at the watch tower, and it took less than five to ascend, to place my hand on the panel and activate the security door, and to assume my position in the chair. I only lived ten minutes from the border wall, and there was never any need to rush as I walked down the silent streets.

I continued to follow my routine, dressing in my normal jumper, but as I ran the zipper up the side, my hands moved slower and slower. I laced my shoes, but it was suddenly very important to me that I allow fewer than twenty minutes of extra time at the tower. There was no real need for that much time.

I had nothing else to do, however, so I simply stood in my studio, just in front of the door, for the last seven minutes, watching the digital timepiece blink, blink, blink, until the clock read 00:00:01.

It was after midnight, and I was home on Sunday. Just for a moment. I studied the clock and wondered why this felt so important now, after thirty-two years of following my designated citizenship plan. There was no explanation I could think of.

When the clock read 00:00:59, I realized I needed to leave because there could be construction on the sidewalk and I may have to take a longer path, so I would arrive early. I could not abide the idea of arriving to the watchtower later than my designated shift time, and I still had to walk.

I reached for the door panel and the time changed; 00:01:00. I stopped my hand before I activated the opening mechanism, and looked about me, at my empty flat, and wondered if this was the life we had worked so hard to achieve.

I didn’t know where that thought had come from. It simply seemed born out of nothing. I wondered immediately afterwards what it was that we recorded the watchtower sessions for. In all the years I had followed my assignment, no images had ever appeared on screen aside from the same flat horizon that always was.

I wasn’t sure why we even had to operate the camera to begin with. Why couldn’t it move on its own? I had never heard anyone suggest our involvement wasn’t absolutely critical, however, there was neither any evidence to suggest its necessity.

The clock changed to 00:02:00 seemingly from nowhere. I touched the panel and murmured to myself, “No sense in delaying the inevitable, then.”

The door slid open. A creature stood on the other side, bulbous eyes fixed upon me. I was so surprised that no words escaped my throat at all as I stared at its horrible slimy skin, small rivulets of mucus slipping over the ridged, grayish-blue flesh.

It opened a mouth too wide for its head, the eyes resting immediately above the lips with no nasal passages at all. It moved a thick, green tongue and said, “You should not be at home on Sundays.”

And its heavy, gooey forelimb wrapped about my shoulders and pulled me to the jaws.