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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: DULL (05/12/17)
The bed is warm. The sheets smell of bleach … and a gentle spring breeze … on a sunny day. Mom line dries the bedding, when she can. I like the smell … except the bleach.

Dim light spills across the floor from the window. I can’t see out of it from my bed, but I can tell it’s not a sunny day.

Maybe it’s raining. I like the rain. I wish I could be out there … in the rain. I wish I could sit by the window and watch it. I wonder what it’s like … to be rain … a drop of water falling to the ground until it splashes harmlessly into a puddle.

Is it still a drop after it hits? … Does it lose itself in the puddle? … Does it hurt to evaporate?

I wiggle my toes as I stare at the end of the bed.

Mom says I likely have the flu … there’s a lot of it going around this year.

How does the flu go around? Is there a flu front that swirls across a region, like a cloud … like a storm system that can be seen by some special lens on a fancy camera on a satellite? Flu forecasters could show maps so we would know where to avoid. I wonder if the flu goes around backwards in Australia … like their storm systems … and their toilets.

Mom wants me to stay in bed until she hears from the doctor … or the fever breaks.

I just hate doing nothing. Is it possible to do nothing? If it is nothing, can you see it … or hear it? How would I know if it is nothing if there’s nothing to see or hear … or touch … or smell?

I wonder how much nothing can fit in my head before I go crazy.

I fidget with the pillows stacked behind me.

I need to sit up more … or maybe I need to lie down … whatever, I’m just not comfortable right now.

Am I crazy? Have I given into the insanity that hides in the dark corners of my mind? I feel as if my entire life … the essence of my existence has been crammed into this tiny room, and it’s ready to erupt. my body is smaller than this room … it’s smaller than this bed. Does my existence extend beyond my body?

I twist myself onto my side, and stare at the wall.

I want to tell them that I’m bored … I have told them.

“Just play your game, Sarah,” my mom said, when I complained.

I have. Seems like that’s all I do … play the stupid game. Playing a game I’m bored with does not ease my boredom … duh!

Do the characters get bored? The ones from the game … constantly running through the same caves … looking for the same treasures, over and over until the player can defeat the monster at the end.

I don’t believe in monsters, anymore … at least not the ones in the scary movies. Maybe I could watch one of those movies … maybe, if there’s one on a station … some station … somewhere.

I want to be in the park, playing … but it’s raining … and I’m sick.

I remember my mom always yelling, “Don’t go out in the rain; you’ll get sick.”

Does the flu hide in raindrops? Maybe it waits for someone to get too close, so it can jump out and stick to their face … like that monster … the one in that strange spaceship movie.

I turn my body away from the wall.

I don’t believe in monsters … but I’d watch that movie … it’s better than nothing. My mind can’t deal with all this nothing.

I want lunch … real lunch. I’m tired of chicken broth … or Jell-O.

I like watching Jell-O … watch it glisten in the light on my nightstand as it jiggles. I like pressing my straw onto it, over and over, until the straw is full … then slurp it all out. Sometimes I shoot the Jell-O from the straw … not here … and not when the cafeteria monitor is watching. I learned that.

I brush away a strand of hair that has fallen across my face.

How much longer? How much more nothing? If this doesn’t stop soon, I think I will lose it.
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This article has been read 570 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Lynda Schultz 
05/19/17
Wonderful description! Who knew it was possible to articulate so well what was being thought and felt when in bed with the flu?
Ellen Carr 
05/21/17
Right on topic! You kept me reading and interested right through, even though the MC was describing her extreme boredom. Great writing.
C D Swanson 
05/22/17
Interesting and nice approach to the topic.

Blessings~
Phillip Cimei
05/23/17
Outstanding way to nail a topic. I will certainly use this as a model for my future descriptive writing.

I hope some of those just beginning the writing process read this. So powerful in its active picture making.

It flowed from scene to scene with such ease and enticement.

The next time I get the flu I will be thinking of this story. I don't like the smell of bleach either.

This goes on to be one of my favorite stories. God bless.
Colin Swann
05/24/17
Masterly done, shouldn't be surprised to see this in the winners.
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
05/26/17
I absolutely love this. I found myself smiling throughout. I also worry that you somehow got inside of my head and copied my thoughts. I could definitely be Sarah. I've even had the argument about it being impossible to think of nothing. I thought this was delightful.