This is a piece written for my Fiction writing class I’m currently enrolled in. In this class, we’re required to do a variety of writing exercises to help us expand our imagination, and strengthen our skill set. I’ll be posting them on my website here as the class continues so you all have the opportunity to see my writing in a different realm/light. I hope you enjoy~!
Prompt: Take a walk, or go someplace where you can have a rich sensory experience – preferably someplace where other people are present. Record everything precisely on the page, using as many senses as possible. Don’t try to interpret it or tell us what it means; everything will get “developed” and “fixed” later. For now, just record.
The air found its way up my sleeves, dancing with the tiny hairs on my arms as the sun soaked into the skin on my face. I was cooking, I could smell my flesh, the scent of heat and pollen in my pores. Ants scurried alongside me in the sun erratically, the sight of a mass about five hundred times their size a cause for panic. Faces passed me by as I sat on the concrete – regardless of their skin being different shades, whether they were a man or woman, the faces all appeared the same. Tired, stagnant, wired by a sense of constancy that determined each and every one of their steps. It made me wonder, why those steps appeared scripted, as they sauntered to their next destination – may it be to class, work, or home, no place seemed to condone even a thread of excitement. I suppose my own face would appear like that too, but for now I stare, perplexed, curious, the cold of the concrete seeping into my spine, the scent of cooked skin and pollen still filling my nostrils. I wondered if they could smell my skin too, through their mechanical, darkened faces, with their plaid printed backpacks filled with smiley face buttons and biohazard symbols, with their hoodless sweatshirts, and tattoos of infinity peace signs on their ankles. And in moments, my curiosity seemed to vanish. It was time to go inside myself, back into florescent lights and wide open spaces that still find ways to sap the air from your lungs. My own constancy begins.