Friday Writing Prompt #011
"Hey, good morning, I’m sorry to bother you..." : A true story, and a resulting prompt
Hey, good morning, I’m sorry to bother you. I was just curious if you were home by any chance…
So begins the voicemail my neighbor leaves me at 8 a.m., which I hear half an hour later when I’m reunited with my phone. (I put my phone down all over the house, so if it’s not directly in my hand, I can guarantee you that I don’t know where it is.)
And if you are home, he goes on, if you, in the next short while, have any time to just go and see if Sam’s awake. I’m out of town, and Ann’s left for work already, and we’re just worried that he’s sleeping through school.
Sam is their 14-year-old freshman; he and my 14-year-old go to the same high school. But she walks there with a group of friends, and she left the house 45 minutes ago.
If you’re not home, please doesn’t worry about this of course. Anyways, I hope you’re having a good day, take care, thanks, bye.
I really like Jerry, my neighbor. His is a good and gentle soul. Sam, too, is a sweet kid. He and my daughter were super close when they were younger—Sam was the lone boy at her birthday parties—but then came video games and puberty and a worldwide pandemic. They still dig each other, but they don’t hang out anymore.
I walk over to my dining room window and look across the street. I text Jerry that Sam’s bedroom light is on. I assume this means he’s up and getting ready.
Great! Thank you. For some reason he’s just not responding to phone calls or texts.
There is a text that Jerry wants to send me next, but he stops himself. I’m sure of this. But he doesn’t have to send it, because I’m a parent too, so I know exactly what it says. I ask him if I should go knock on the door.
You are very kind. I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten back to me. Do you mind?
Then:
If he doesn’t answer, would you mind going in and just seeing if he is asleep? He is a very heavy sleeper. It’s possible he’s sleeping through his alarm.
When my daughters were younger, we briefly employed a sophomore boy as an evening babysitter: he lived around the corner, he was very nice, and he didn’t charge that much. He did a great job, too, except that after my kids went to bed, he’d lie down on the couch and fall asleep, and the lengths we had to go to to bring this kid back to consciousness once we got home were embarrassing to all involved.
Maybe if you just go and see that he is actually still in bed? Jerry suggests. I will continue to try to wake him up remotely.
Jerry and I traded house keys a decade ago. We catsit for each other; we borrow onions, milk, and cake pans; we exchange wine and the obligatory spiced nuts at Christmas. We’re in each other’s lives. But I deeply do not want to let myself into his house and wake up his sleeping adolescent son. I’m going to feel weird, and Sam’s going to hate it.
But I grab Jerry’s keys and go across the street anyway.
I can hear the alarm blaring as soon as I get inside. Who could sleep through this? I think. (Besides that babysitter, of course.) I hear the phone ring a few times, too, and then it stops.
“Sam!” I call. “Sam?”
My phone dings. It’s Jerry.
This is starting to feel like the start of a horror movie.
This sends a small jolt of panic through my limbs, though I’m pretty sure he’s joking. But then I start to worry that Jerry is actually worried, and so I hustle up the stairs, still calling Sam’s name and hearing nothing in response.
At the landing I can see the bottom corner of Sam’s bed, and it’s totally Jerry’s fault that my first thought is, “Okay, no blood.”
I’m still calling Sam’s name as I peek into the room. I spot his blond head in the covers, which is a big relief. But the alarm’s so incredibly loud—and I’m so loud—that my second thought is, “But could he be dead by other means?”
“Sam!” I basically scream.
And finally Sam turns over and rises, zombie-like, from the bed, because this is now a horror movie where nothing bad happens at all, except that a middle-aged lady and a high school freshman feel really weird about the situation they’re in.
“Great, you’re awake!” I say brightly, and then I basically run down the stairs, like, OK, have a nice day, good luck, kid! But Sam comes stumbling after me, dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday and then slept in, and he says in his sleep-hoarse voice, “What are you doing right now? Is there any way you can take me to school?”
I have mixed feelings about this request—annoyance is one; admiration is another—but I say, “Okay, sure,” because being his chauffeur is going to be way less awkward than waking him up, and way more pleasant than thinking, even for a hysterical split second, that something awful had happened to him.
So he grabs his backpack and we cross the street to my car. I get into the driver’s seat and Sam climbs into the back, and I drive him, before his eyes have even opened all the way, to high school. We get there before the tardy bell rings.
Note: Names have been changed to protect the tired. This happened yesterday morning, and last night, Jerry brought us a can of fancy peanuts and a rum mousse.
For today’s prompt, please write a scene in which your character is asked to do something they really do not want to do. It could be something minor, like my story, or it could be something much more serious. Do they do it? What happens?
If you’d like more constraints, consider using one or more of the following:
a window, a key, something borrowed, a loud noise, and/or a moment of minor hysteria
Happy writing!
Emily
P.S. I’ll be adding a few more older prompts to Good Ideas over the weekend, so check those out, too! Comments, shares, and likes are always appreciated.