I’m going to start keeping my writing sprints for The Christian Indie Writers’ here. Join in if you’d like! Take a stab at the prompt then post to TCIW’s social media accounts.
REMINDER – the rules state NO EDITING before sharing, so this is likely rather rough. Here Goes:
PROMPT: BLIND DATE
Marlene spun her half-empty mug in the puddle it had created on the bar and huffed a strand of bangs out of her left eye. She was frustrated – not because of the lack of available coasters in her hometowns lame-o excuse for a bar – or even a beverage napkin, for heaven’s sake – and not because the blind date her Mother had set her up on handn’t worked out.
No, she was frustrated with herself for expecting any other outcome.
After all, she was pushing thirty. Everyone knew the quality men were all snatched up by age 25. So why should it surprise her that the Man her mother was certain would make all of her dreams come true was a 37 year old model train enthusiast with a gigantic stamp collection and a case of chronic halitosis?
If only life were more like the movies, she mused.
Where is my knight in shining armor, come to whisk me away from this town, this life?
“This seat taken?” The voice was as smooth as the black and tan she was nursing, like the sound of summer thunder rolling through her bones. She did not have to turn around to know she would feel an instant attraction to the owner of that voice.
“It is now, I suppose,” she said, and to delay the gratification of meeting the owner of that voice, she focused on her purse, fishing around inside though she’d misplaced something important. When she came up for air she brandished a tube of “love that red” and a pocket mirror. Her Mother would have scolded her for reapplying at the counter, and that was exactly why Marlene did so as often as she could.
Of course, the pocket mirror expanded her peripheral vision to the degree that she could surreptitiously get a gander of the man who had brought her back to life with three little words.
But before she could see him, she saw her – turns out the Marlboro Man wasn’t drinking alone.
She wore cowgirl boots and a frilly skirt, complete with a rhinestone belt and a too-tight for wearing outside the house babydoll t-shirt.
Marlene rolled her eyes, snapped the compact closed, and tossed her mirror and lipstick back into her bag.
“What should I order?” This voice also went directly to Marlene’s bones.
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