Tag Archives: Daily Prompt

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Inside the Bubble.”  A contagious disease requires you to be put into quarantine for a whole month (don’t worry, you get well by the time you’re free to go!). How would you spend your time in isolation?

Bubble Think

If I were to be quarantined for a month, I would see it as serendipity’s way of forcing me to confront some tasks I’ve been putting off for too long.  First of all, there are the boxes in the garage cupboards that I have been neglecting to deal with for 14 years–old tax records going back to 1964, a life’s correspondence, sets of slides of Bob’s and my art that we used to jury into shows, Bob’s stone carving tools.

Also on the shelves are boxes of art made at the beach and boxes of art supplies from when I was doing art activities with the girls at La Olla orphanage last year. Other boxes of art supplies from this summer’s art camp sit on the floor in front of the cabinets along with assorted things taken out of the back of my car to enable other things to be put into it.

I want to deal with these things.  I want my garage restored to its former neat order, but I dread finding places for all the supplies and disrupting my studio I just got back into a semblance of order.  And I dread going through those old letters for two reasons.  First, because they may be too dull to deal with and secondly because they may not be and may dredge up old feelings, sadnesses or stupidities.  But most of all, because I saved all those things thinking I might someday want to write about them and if I read them, I might feel the obligation to do so.  Note that I didn’t say compulsion.  If I felt a compulsion, it would be wonderful; but then what things would I have to put off doing to make time for this new compulsion?  My blog? My art that I haven’t been doing for the past year anyway?

I don’t know why I put off things I would really like to do.  I just keep shoving them to the back of my mind, where they niggle at me from the darkness like an especially good chocolate bar saved  for last from my Halloween bag of pleasures.  They have been stashed for fourteen years or one year or six months.  The layers most easily dealt with are on the outside of the dread cupboards, saying, “Deal with me.” Why don’t I do so?

Perhaps it is because something is telling me to simplify and to do only what I want to do.  So I do the blog.  Overdo the blog.  I’m compulsive about it.  Is there a prompt left undone? The other thing I’m compulsive about is daily exercise in the pool.  Today is overcast and there was no hot water yesterday due to a break in the main pipe, so my compulsion rests for the day.  Friends are coming for Mexican Train and comida, so I have a replacement activity.  The pork loin and carrots are in the crock pot.  Spuds prepared for baking.  Lettuce for the salad disinfected and dried. My blog is about written (or so you perhaps hope.) Should I sort just one box? Or do another prompt?

If you have an especially visual imagination, you can perhaps envision me with a thought bubble coming up out of my head.  “What to do?” it reads.  I sit in front of my laptop at the dining room table.  I’m still in my nightgown.  Morrie sleeps in a curlicue at my feet.  Guests are not due for another four hours.  What to do?

If I were quarantined for one month, I wouldn’t have to choose.  I’d have time to do them all.

Newer boxes taken out of the car and never dealt with are boxes of art made at the beach and kids’ art supplies that need to

“Las Mananitas” and Other Less Lovely Bastardizations of the Spanish Language

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“Las Mananitas” and Other Less Lovely Bastardizations of a Foreign Language

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The prompt: What was the #1 song when you were born?  Write about how the song relates (or not!) to your personality.

The #1 song in the U.S. on the day I was born was “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba Chihuahua (My Bambino Go to Sleep) ” by Perry Como.  Although I would advise against it, you can hear it HERE.

I guess the song, which I had never heard before today, reflected the attitude of most U.S. citizens at the time–that being that any language other than English was just gobbledegook and no one would notice that you weren’t speaking it if every once in a while you threw in a word they would recognize (in this case “Chihuahua”) which at even that early date had managed to blast its way over the border. Somehow, it escaped notice that “bambino” was Italian and “chihuahua” Spanish.

The song itself crosses all borders from innocuous, irritating and of small musical originality to mildly insulting to the culture.  It is probably in atonement that at the age of 54, I myself crossed that border going in the opposite direction and although I, too, butcher the Spanish language a bit, at least I use real words to do so.

So here I am, Mexico, many years later and a bit worse for wear but here to atone for the ills of my birth year.  Do with me what you will.  Stream slightly off-key banda music into my ears nightly from regions down below. Awaken me to the strains of “Las Mananitas” (Little Mornings)–a lovely serenading song that unlike that other silly song meant to lull me to sleep so many years ago, does not offend at all.

On any given morning somewhere in Mexico, its strains may be heard outside some early morning window.  It might be used to propose, to declare love or to honor a mother on mother’s day, but it has also come to be the traditional song sung on birthdays.  The first time I heard it, and still the most lovely rendition I have heard, was in the movie ” Boys on the Side” with Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Mary-Louise Parker.

Here is Mexico’s favorite, Vicente Fernandez, singing that song.

And HERE is where you can watch “Boys on the Side”–one of my all-time favorite films.

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Druthers

What child does not plot and yearn to turn into a teen?
What teen does not look forward to leaving that age between?

Adults can drive and travel and stay up rather late.
They never have to introduce their parents to their date.

Adults do as they wish. They live at their own bidding–
at least until they marry and start in their own kidding.

Then once again they hustle to their family’s beck and call,
so it would seem that no one has a favorite phase at all.

For family life may leave us feeling exhausted and harried.
I guess the ideal phase, then, is perpetually unmarried!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Golden Age.” If you had to live forever as either a child, an adolescent, or an adult, which would you choose — and why?

Seer

Her statement that she’d had a vision
was met by general derision;
so though she tried to warn them all,
they heeded nothing but “last call!”

So while she stocked up her provisions,
they hemmed and hawed with their decisions
and had a round of boozy toasts–
gave their laments, boasted their boasts.

Then they went west while she went east
and thus were eaten by the beast
or overtaken by the flood.
Soaked in water or in blood.

The moral of this little tale
is heed your mystics, or learn to bail
or run faster than the beast
lest you become his morning’s feast

or starve to death in time of drought.
Her warnings met with only doubt
instead of action to stem the tide,
by those who stood as one. And died.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Decisions, Decisions.”How are you more likely to make an important decision — by reasoning through it, or by going with your gut?

Reading

The book I’ve chosen for the plane ride
sits open on my lap
as the stranger on the plane
opens himself—
his life pulled leaf by leaf from his family tree.
His words come faltering and sputtering at first,
like water from a tap newly opened,
then rush out cool and even,
telling of a life that is a richness
of jobs held, wives loved, children raised.

He is going back to Mexico for the saints day
of the small pueblo where he was born.
The parade. The effigies. The life-sized santos
standing in their boats to tour the lake like kings.
I’ve been to this celebration; and as he speaks,
I sit like an honored guest beside him,
reading my memory as well

“Come,“ he tells me, giving me directions and a date.
I do not tell him I have been to that fiesta years ago.
“Perhaps,” I say, sliding his instructions to his family’s house
to form a bookmark in the book now closed upon my lap,
then go on, listening.

What were we born for
if it was not to read each other?

In the rush from the plane, that old man falls behind
and it is you I see as I come out into the world of Mexico,
leaving the plane ride, immigration and customs
in its place behind the swinging doors.
This flower that you give me is a mystery book.
I read it—stamen, pistil and corolla—
as well as the hand that holds it out to me
and then the warm embrace that you enfold me in.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Middle Seat.” It turns out that your neighbor on the plane/bus/train (or the person sitting at the next table at the coffee shop) is a very, very chatty tourist. Do you try to switch seats, go for a non-committal brief small talk, or make this person your new best friend?

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Take a Chance on Me.” This is by no means the biggest chance I ever took, but sometimes we should really heed that inner voice that says we should not do something.  In this case, it involved eating at a restaurant when from the beginning, I felt there was something wrong!

DSC00991 How a hamburger and fries should look!

                                                           Dinner at Uncle Zack’s

It’s hard to believe that someone has had a presentiment of disaster after it has happened, but since I am the one who had the premonition, I’m going to remain true to myself and admit that I had a feeling of disaster the minute we walked into the restaurant. It wasn’t our first choice, or even our second, but we knew the first choice was closed and when we arrived at the second, although it seemed full of people having some kind of a meeting, the sign on the door said, “Closed.” I was all for stopping by McDonald’s for a fast hamburger, but my friend said she didn’t like fast food, so we settled on our third or fourth alternative, depending on which of us was making the choice. We opted for Uncle Zack’s.

It was a stark room with two other tables of diners and a table near the kitchen that sported a big chunk of prime rib that someone must have been carving on since lunch time, since when my friend asked if they had any rare, the owner, overhearing, came and said that they had carved away all the rare meat. Hard to believe, since one would think the rare meat would be in the middle, but I judged her to be lucky not to be eating any meat that must have been sitting there most of the afternoon. It was 5 o’clock, we were fresh out of seeing the movie “Blue Jasmine,” a bit depressed and pretty hungry for a dinner that would lift our mood.

Right.

Our adventure began when my friend asked the waiter if they could serve her a Cosmo. “Well, I don’t know what that is, but I could probably figure out how to mix you one,” he admitted, without too much enthusiasm.

My friend opted for water, unsure of whether she wanted a barman/waiter who had never heard of a Cosmo to mix her one.

“Well, to me alcohol is just something you clean out a wound with,” he admitted, as he hurried off for her water and my Diet Coke. I swear to God he said this.

They arrived in tall glasses with plenty of ice and a lemon slice. Her water was fine .   My Coke was flat and tasted of disinfectant.

When the waiter came back for our orders, my friend was unsure of what she wanted to order. I told the waiter about the Diet Coke and asked for a glass of water and a hamburger, well-done with fries.

A very very very long time later, our waiter returned, apologizing by saying he had been attending to my last complaint. By that I took it that they were washing the disinfectant off the soda dispenser and aerating it, yet he offered me no new glass of Coke, and I had no intention of ordering another one.

My friend asked if the turkey Reuben was fresh turkey or luncheon meat. After a trip to the kitchen, he admitted it was luncheon meat but then in a flash of inspiration, admitted they might be able to use the turkey they were cutting off the same steam table that contained the bones of the Prime Rib.

In the interim between the time we ordered and the time we finally got our meals, I experienced a few additional sights that made me regret our decision to eat with Uncle Zack. The first was the sight of the other waiter picking pieces off the prime rib and eating them. The other was the sight of him scratching his nostril soon after and making no hasty exit to the sink to wash his hands.

I knew if I mentioned this to my friend, that we would be out of there. He was not our waiter, we hadn’t ordered the prime rib, so I remained mute. It was her hometown. I didn’t want to embarrass her, and to be truthful, I didn’t want to embarrass myself by appearing to be a difficult customer. Hindsight. Only in hindsight did I gain the knowledge that we should have left then.

Our meals arrived some time later. I bit into a fry enthusiastically, only to discover that it was soggy on the outside, raw on the inside. When I commented, my friend slid the only crisp French Fry out of the stack and pronounced it fine. I then handed her one of the limp others, which she agreed was still raw. I bit into the hamburger, which sort of rebounded off my teeth. It was the consistency of rubber—slightly resistant to chewing. When I tried to cut it, I had to saw at it as thought I was trying to slice a rubber ball. I took a bite. Tasteless. I cut it in half horizontally, thinking it might help and that I could at least eat the cheese and bacon, but they were equally tasteless.

My friend ate most of her Reuben, which she pronounced as tasteless as the hamburger, if not as difficult to masticate.

At the end of our meal, the young man waiter asked if I wanted a doggy bag for my hamburger and fries. No. I did not. When he brought the check, he asked if we had enjoyed our meals. No. We had not. I suggested that he instruct the cook to actually cook the fries and that the hamburger had a rubber consistency reminiscent of meat left in the freezer too long. “Oh,” he said.

“I’m now going to McDonald’s to get a real hamburger and fries” I said. We paid the bill, left a 20 % tip to let him know we weren’t just trying to stiff the establishment and the waiter, and drove to McDonald’s, where in place of an order of fries (I was totally “off” hamburgers at that point) and a Diet Coke, we were served a regular Coke and a Diet Coke instead.

As we sat at the drive-up window waiting for our correct order, my friend told me that when the people in the booth next to us were served their prime rib, she heard the waiter apologize and say, “The next time you come, we’ll give you a bigger serving. We sorta ran out of prime rib tonight.” Will they be back? Will we?

Sometimes, it’s better to eat at home.

Note: The name of the restaurant has been changed to protect the guilty.  Perhaps it was just an off-day?

Abba – Take A Chance On Me

The Dating Game

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The Dating Game

The prompt I generated on JNW’s Prompt Generator was: “tender opportunity.” I hit the generator button again and got “repulsive industry,” When I saw both prompts together, a perfect topic came  to mind. These prompts, in tandem, seemed to describe the two sides of the online social-introduction industry perfectly, so I decided to try to use both prompts. Although this poem sounds a bit bitter, it is really meant tongue-in-cheek as the first phrase was tweaked a bit by the second. I’ve met some really nice guys in the past six years I’ve been on social sites, but just none where both of us wanted to make it permanent.

In the past couple of years, OKC has changed a lot and doesn’t seem to be the special place it once was. They’ve taken away journals, forums, awards, search engines and erased the first few years of information. I’ve pretty much replaced it with blogging, which seems to work better for really getting to know people and the focus has changed from searching for love in all the wrong places to forming real bonds with words, not faces. A few good friends have even followed me from OKC. You know who you are. Here is my little ditty on the subject of the two prompts mentioned above:

When I Joined OkCupid

I considered it to be
a tender opportunity.
Instead I fear it just became
a sort of endless dating game.

Crabby grandpas, lying spouses,
hermits shut up in their houses,
voyeurs looking for a thrill,
twenty-somethings with time to kill.

Men who say they want to talk
who, when asked questions, merely balk.
Whatever it claims to be,
It’s a repulsive industry—

a place that doesn’t want to match us
but rather just to try to catch us
in a web of constant circulation–
a type of lovelorn masturbation.

Years later, I’ve made special friends
and yet the cycle never ends.
Though I’d like love with every fiber,
I fear my love life remains cyber.

 *

Do You Envy Me a Fresh Prompt?

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Do You Envy Me a Fresh Prompt?

(The Prompt: Green-eyed Monster--Tell us about the last time you were jealous.) I did this prompt in January.  You can find my post on this subject HERE.

In lieu of writing on this subject again, I’m going to use Jennifer’s new prompt generator.  I’ll post my today’s blog on this site when I finish. (Oops, posted this in the wrong place so actually I’ve already posted my new post. ) Find my today’s post here: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/08/22/the-dating-game/

If you are looking for a fresh prompt and would like to use the prompt generator, you can find it HERE.

“The One Who Got Away” Devil #3, Part II (Conclusion)

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.” Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it? This is the conclusion to a true story that was begun yesterday. I don’t think you want to read the ending without reading the beginning first.  To do so, go HERE.

“The One Who Got Away”

Devil #3, Part II

Perhaps if I acted normal, it all would go away–
this little game they’d started that I didn’t want to play.
I said, “Please let me out right here, a friend lives down the block!”
But silence met my pleas, as though they couldn’t hear me talk.
As the three of them kept talking about which way to turn,
the man I’d danced with quickly turned cold and taciturn.

He had said he was a stranger who came from the east coast,
yet he didn’t ask directions of the one who knew the most.
“Which way should we go, man?” He asked the one behind
as though there was a certain road he wanted to find.
Of me they took no notice–as though I wasn’t there.
The driver just looked straight ahead with a hardened stare.

My life’s worst fear had been to be in someone else’s power,
so the thought of what was happening made me want to cower
and beg and plead and scream and cry; but I did none of that,
though I felt like a bird first toyed with by a cruel cat.
My heartbeat raced but my thoughts raced ahead of them to find
escape from what must have been planned by his devious mind.

They took the road past houseless land—a golf course and a farm.
I knew the way led out of town—a cause of much alarm.
“Turn right here,” I said as we approached a lighted junction,
but as he turned left I knew that there would not be any unction.
I won’t go into all the times I pleaded with them to stop.
“My friend lives down this road,” I said, “Just leave me at the top!”

“Are we heading out for Casper?” said the stranger on my right.
I wondered what would happen if I chose this time to fight.
To slug him once and climb over to jump out of the car,
but with three of them I knew that I would not get far.
I also knew the stretch of lonely road from here to there.
The bodies found along that road—and knew how I would fare.

When I had left my house a party had been going strong.
I wondered who would still be there for I’d been gone so long.
Yet it was a plan and there were neighbors who might hear my screams,
so I gave them an alternative to their frightening schemes.
“It’s so far to Casper,” I said in a normal voice,
“Perhaps it would be better if you made another choice.

A good night’s sleep and food and drink is what might serve you best.
I live alone, my house is near. Why don’t you come and rest
and start out again tomorrow for wherever you are going?
If you are strangers here, then you could have no way of knowing
how far it is to Casper with no place to stop for gas.”
My suggestions fell on deaf ears. No one answered me, alas.

Once on the open road I would have no chance to escape,
What would happen next? Would it be Torture? Murder? Rape?
In less than a mile we would reach the Interstate–
the beginning of the ending of this ill-fated date.
I thought of all the stories where women were abducted.
It was a grim sorority into which I’d been inducted.

How would they tell my mother, my sister, my best friend?
Would I be another story for which no one knows an end?
I tried to think how I could end it, but could see no way.
No knife, no gun, no poison to aid me on this day.
I looked at the glove box. Was there a gun inside?
Was there at least one bullet in it? Enough for suicide?

Years ago when I first worried how I’d fare if I were one
of those unfortunate women snatched for a sadist’s fun,
I thought I’d get a capsule of cyanide that fit
on a chain around my neck in case I needed it.
But that seemed so excessive, so improbable and crazy.
Now I chided myself for being too damn lazy

to cover every angle to protect myself for what
I realized was happening –and this was the cruelest cut.
How did I feel? Not panicked, just the deepest sort of dread
of all that they could do to me before they left me dead.
Though I’m brave, I don’t do well with pain, so I have to say
I’ve always known if tortured, I’d give everything away.

There was no chance these men’s intentions were anything but grim,
so I kept my eyes upon the road and never looked at them.
Then I shifted to the dashboard. Was there any help for me
I was overlooking? And then I spied the key.
What if I grabbed the keys out and threw them in the air
into the grass beside the road. I wondered, did I dare?

Then I saw two headlights in the mirror, far back, but coming fast.
At nearly 4 a.m., I knew this chance would be my last.
As the truck got nearer, I reached out for the keys,
ripped them from the ignition, and then fast as you please,
hurled them from the car into the tall grass by the side.
The car came to a rolling stop as the engine died.

The man next to me grabbed out for the handle of the door,
but the driver screamed out to him with a mighty roar.
“Don’t leave the girl,” he said, and then he told the other guy
to hop out and find the keys—and then I knew that I would die
if I didn’t make a move and so I wedged my back and feet
and catapulted from the front right into the back seat.

I rolled over the car’s rear trunk and it was just my luck
that I landed in the road just as the headlights of the truck
came up behind and brakes went on and I went running back,
pursued by all three members of that frightening pack.
The driver of the truck was young—twenty-two or twenty-three
I beat upon his window, saying, “Help me! Please help me!

These men are trying to kidnap me! Please, let me in your truck!”
By then my former “savior” had arrived to try his luck.
“Don’t believe her, she’s a con artist. She’ll hit you in the head
and make away with all your money. Leave you in the ditch for dead!
She tried to do it to us, man. We were trying to find a cop
when she grabbed the keys out of the car and brought us to a stop!”

“My name is Judy Dykstra. I teach English at Central High.
Please don’t leave me with these men, for if you do, I’ll die!”
The driver then called out to him—angry to the core,
“You’re making a mistake, man,” as he opened up the door.
I ran around and climbed inside. The last things we could see
were three backsides in the grass, searching for a key.

We knew they couldn’t follow us, but still he floored the pedal
while I went on and on about how he deserved a medal.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said three times or more.
Then, “Why did you believe me and open up the door?”
“Because two of those characters looked so low down and crass,
but mainly ‘cause my sister had you last year for a class!”

This story that I’ve told you could have had a different end,
But as it was I spent the night with a longtime friend
who persuaded me that I should never ever tell
what happened on this evening, for it had turned out well.
“Do you know their plate number? Can you describe their car?
Could you tell their face descriptions? Do you know where they are?

And even if they find them, what could you possibly say?
They’ll say that you were just a girl picked up along the way.
They met you in a crowded bar. You asked them for a ride.
They walked you to their car and you chose to get inside.
You asked them all to stay with you, but they all said no.
Then you suddenly got angry and said you had to go.

They didn’t want to let you out and leave you all alone.
They said that they would rather take you safely to your home.
But you were drunk and even though they all said, ‘Lady, please. . . ‘
You reached out and suddenly you grabbed for the keys.
You threw them in the tall grass and jumped out of the car
a totally different person than that lady in the bar!

You convinced some poor kid they were kidnapping you.
And there was nothing else that they could think of they could do!
They didn’t try to stop you or to argue if you please.
They simply went back looking to try to find their keys.
Can you imagine in a trial what they would make of this?
You know you are the sort of person that they love to diss.

A female teacher out at bars who had been heavily drinking,
closing down the barroom. What could you have been thinking?
Your friends all say that when they left, you just didn’t show.
So you left the bar at 3 A.M. with someone you don’t know.
You get into his car with two more men you’ve never seen
For a teacher you appear to be other than squeaky clean.

You could lose your job for this, and your reputation!”
She ended her soliloquy in a state of great frustration.
So tell me please what do you think, was I right or not
In not reporting these three men, so they were never caught?
All I can say is that I wonder to this very day
how many other women died because they got away.

*

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Devil # 3

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.” Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

Okay, I was going to give this prompt a “miss” and went to the new prompt generator I’ve been using for the past few days.  I hit the button and was served up the two-word prompt: “Ill Devil”.  At first I read this as #3 Devil, and I must admit, I got a chill, because what I immediately thought about when I read the prompt was the third time I was in a near-death situation where I felt totally helpless.  What are the chances, I thought, that these two prompts would line up?  This must be something I’m meant to write about.  But then reason stepped in and I realized this prompt always gave an adjective and a noun.  What they probably meant by the prompt was ill Devil. (Changing the capital to a small “i” clarified the prompt.) But then I realized that ill devil described the occurrence I am trying not to talk about as much as #3 devil did, so I guess, prodded on twice by fate or coincidence or synchronicity, I will try.

I have written to a similar prompt twice in 2015, so probably most of you who read my blog have chanced upon one of those posts, but when I wrote to a similar prompt in June of 2014, I wrote a different piece and since I had few of my present-day readers then, I’ll mention that THIS is what I wrote.  It may not be obvious that the topic given in today’s prompt was what I was really talking about then, however, because it was a poem where I actually stood to one side of what I was really remembering and wrote about the subject as an onlooker rather than a participant.  I only alluded to the real subject, which is what I’m going to attempt to write about today. That real subject is Ted Bundy and how otherwise respectable women sometimes fall prey to such predators.  Okay, deep breath. I’m going to tell to the world something I have actually told to very few people. Yes, this is a true story.

Devil # 3

Nineteen seventy-something. In the bar with friends.
When you are in your twenties, the partying never ends.
It was rodeo season  and the big one was in town.
As one by one they ordered drinks, I couldn’t turn them down.
We were a rather rowdy bunch of teachers in our prime
Devoted in the classroom, but wild on our own time.

The bar was crowded hip to hip, the music barely heard
over the loud cacophony of laugh and shouted word.
It was my turn to buy a round. I struggled towards the bar.
My polite “Excuse me’s!” really hadn’t gotten me too far
when a guy appeared in front of me and moved the crowd aside
as though he had appointed himself to be my guide.

As I returned with eight full drinks, again he stemmed the tide
by walking close in front of  me and spreading elbows wide.
He smiled and then departed, back to the teeming mass.
Impressive that he had not even tried to make a pass!
My friends all wondered who he was. I said I had no clue.
Tall and dark and ivy-league, he vanished from our view.

This story happened long ago. Some details I’ve forgotten,
and any memories he retains, you’ll learn were ill-begotten.
I think we danced a dance or two. I know we talked awhile.
I liked his fine intelligence, his low-key polite style.
At three o’clock the barman’s bell commenced it’s clanging chime
and I made off to find my friends, for it was closing time.

Two lines of men had split the bar, lined up back to back.
Their hands locked and their arms spread wide–they moved into the pack.
One line moved east, the other west, forcing one and all
Either out the front door or towards the back door hall.
I was forced out the back way–out into the alley.
My friends and I had made no plans of where we were to rally

and so I walked around the block, sure that was where they waited,
but there was no one there at all–the crowd had soon abated.
I went back to the alleyway to see if they were there.
but all was dark and still, and soon I began to fear
that both carloads of friends had thought I was with the other.
I had no recourse but to walk, though I prayed for another.

I combed my mind to try to think of anyone at all
living in this part of town where I could go to call
a friend to come and get me and furnish me a ride
for 3 a.m. was not a time to be alone outside.
There were no outside phone booths and I lived so far away
I simply had to rouse someone, but what was I to say?

But since I had no other choice I thought I’d check once more
if any single soul was waiting at the bar’s front door.
And as I left the alley to be off to see,
I saw a new familiar face looking back at me.
It was my dancing partner, his face split in a grin.
It seems that he was going to save me once again.

He had asked me earlier if needed a ride,
but I had told him wisely that I had friends inside
and so I thought he’d left, but I could see he was still there.
Yet, ride home with a stranger?  Did I really dare?
And yet I had no other choice, abandoned as I was.
And so I said I guess that yes, I would, simply because

I knew there was just one of him and I was young and strong.
And he seemed kind, polite and gentle.  What could go so wrong?
His car was just a block away. Our walk was short and brief.
And when he pointed out his car, I felt a great relief.
For it was a convertible–and easy to escape
If I detected the first signs of robbery or rape!

He opened up the door for me. I got in the front seat.
But as he started up the car, my heart skipped a beat.
For from the bushes, two more men emerged and jumped inside–
one man in the backseat, the other at my side!
He pulled out into the street, though I protested so.
I didn’t really want a ride, so please, just let me go!

(And here I have to beg off and say I’ll finish this story tomorrow.  Right now my heart is pumping and my head throbbing as though I’m re-enacting this whole tale physically as well as mentally.  I’m totally exhausted.  Why I decided to write this in rhyme I don’t know. Perhaps I thought it would be easier, or more fun or more lighthearted, but there is simply no way to write this from any other frame of mind but the terror I felt that night. So, sorry, but I will resume tomorrow. You all know that I’m here telling the story, so be assured that the worst didn’t happen…but the story is by no means over, so join me tomorrow for the rest.  I, for one, could really use a drink, but it is only 1:40 in the afternoon so I’ll find some other means of escape.)

To see the conclusion of this poem, go HERE.

If you’d like to try out Jennifer’s new prompt generator, go HERE.