Tonight's Game (which was focusing on what to do when you get stuck story wise): Take an old story. Come up with 12 ideas of where it could go. Choose one, write a page.
Pop cans weren’t her favourite, but they did in a
pinch. Exxon Valdez knew she wasn’t supposed to. She knew she had promised her
psychiatrist, her boss, her mother and her husband that she would take her
pills and stop trying to eat every bit of metal that came along, but this was
just a treat; a reward for eating regular human food all week. She ripped apart
the Pepsi can and popped the tab into her mouth.
Her fingers ran over the sharps edges as she
walked home. The jagged edges cut her tongue, yet somehow, when she reached
home she had eaten so much of the Pepsi can she was craving a second helping. The
house was empty when she got there, so she ran to the recycling bin, digging
out the empty soup cans Mobil had thrown out after dinner last night. She
wouldn’t eat the lids. Mobil was right, those were too sharp, but the can
itself wasn’t. She grabbed one with the label ripped off and started gnawing as
she flipped on the tv, letting the six o’clock news serve as background noise
as she put water to boil and started slicing tomatoes. Mobil would want pasta
for dinner. She would eat a few bites and sneak down for a real meal later.
“Campbell’s is doing a product recall after a local
plant found green rocks had been mixed in with their can production” the news
anchor said. “The rocks are from an unknown origin and it is doubtful eating
the food contained in the contaminated cans will cause serious harm, but
consumers are being urged to return all of the following products until
Campbell’s can ascertain what the green rocks are.”
The news anchor went on to list a number of
canned soup varieties. Exxon turned on the blender and missed the whole thing.
She hummed to herself as she sliced tomatoes, tossed them in the blender and
chewed on her tin can. By the time the tomatoes were pureed, it was time for
the weather. Looked like rain tomorrow and Mobil’s golf game would have to be
cancelled. Exxon made a mental note to stay out of the garage until she could
think of a better way to make her husband’s golf clubs look unappetizing. Recycled
soup cans were one thing. Mobil’s Titleist putter was quite another.
Exxon lifted the lid off the pot. A cloud of
steam met her face as she looked down into the boiling water. Absently, she
felt around on the counter for the spaghetti noodles. With impressive force,
the box of noodles snapped into her hand as if they had a mind of their own.
Exxon pulled back and stared. Had the spaghetti just, had she just . . . . no
way, that would be too weird.
She looked at the blender and held out her hand.
It sped towards her so fast it spilled half the tomatoes on the way there. Exxon
stared at the blender, then at the tin can on the counter, the Campbell’s soup
can, with her teeth marks all over it.
She raced to her computer, and Googled “Campbell’s
product recall.”
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