ScreamPrompts

My brother’s asleep on the couch and I have a pen in my hand. At first I was going to draw on his face, but that would wake him up. So I turn the pen upside down and dangle the orange feather at the end just above his nose. “What are you doing, Allie?” he asks without opening his eyes. I sweep the feather across his nose. He looks and his face wrinkles up. “Orange.” “It’s just a colour,” I say. “I’m looking after you. Mum told me to.” He pushes me off the couch with one hand and I slump onto the floor. “You’re too little to look after me, Allie.” “But yo

 Mr. Glenn’s wife died the day before last. Of course, now all their children could talk about was what she would have wanted. “She would want a proper burial,” Gary, the eldest, said. “In the cemetery at Memorial Park,” Martin said. Gary shook his head. “Much too crowded there. She wouldn’t want to knock elbows with anyone. She would prefer be buried in the Green Meadows Cemetery.” “No,” Lisa Marie said, slapping her hand against Mr. Glenn’s antique table. “She wouldn’t want a grave. If she was here, she’d tell us to cremate her and spread her ashes a

If only she had the guts to actually do it, to just leap among the cold waves and sink in death among the fish.  She breathed in the smell and taste of saltwater, and water sprays hit her face, neck, and chest.  She shivered slightly in the breeze from the waves, but she wasn’t really bothered by the chill.  What weighed on her mind was something much deeper than the weather. A pang of apprehension penetrated her heart as she envisioned her body being plunged into the water and weighted down by the strong waves.  She thought about what it would be like to gulp in mouthful after mouthful of water, choking and never feeling any relief, b

Grier Van Canne hasn’t been whole for a while. Her eldest sister, Verity, finds her in her room one morning, trying to write a diary entry with her left hand.  Grier’s fingers tremble as they cling to the pen, and the book below her gradually begins to slide away on the desktop.   “You’re still getting better at it,” Verity tells her from the doorway.   Grier shrugs.  “You learn to write when you’re a kid, and fifteen years later you’ve got to learn all over again.  It’ll take another fifteen to get it perfect.” She shrugs once more, the stump of her righ

"Mommy!" The call shatters the peace I fumble to carry like a bell in an abandoned cathedral.  I can't stop myself from looking for the little girl whose voice pierces my heart. I can't find her.  The park is full of children - too full.  Shrieks bleed with laughter, buried under the heavy pounding near my temples. Children push against me, protesting as I rush by. Heads raise as nearby adults track me with wary eyes. They see a frantic parent searching for her child, but no amount of sympathy inspires them to do more. The sharp tang of fear burns; no matter how quick I am or how many times I search the colorful maze of jungle

I’d opened the window a crack earlier in the day, when the rain did its job in cooling off the air.  It remained ajar for the rest of the day; in the evening it let in a nice breeze.  It also let in the smell of nicotine, wafting down from the roof.  She was up there again.  I didn’t think much of it, but she was up there smoking for some time, longer than usual.  As much as I knew nature needed to take its course, I also knew that I would regret it if I stayed at my desk that night.  I threw on a coat while I slipped into my shoes. The fire escape ladder was gritty to the touch; I couldn’t remember the last time the landlo

     “In here.” Holly pulled her friend into an alley with a crude wooden fence across the opening. “Give me a hand with this.” She grabbed one side of the dumpster. Victoria grabbed the other. Together they wrestled it over to the fence at the mouth of the alleyway.     If they were lucky, that would hold against the pack of deadheads following them. She wished it was heavier. Maybe she could weigh it down with the loose bags of trash lying around. Holly started to ask for help again, but she stopped when she saw the way Victoria was cradling her arm.     “Hey, you don’t look so good.”     &ldq