#writersstudio

Writer’s Studio, Assignment #1

Write a 300 word (exact!) fiction story, with the theme ‘pop-culture paranoia’, and these 7 words: Sasquatch, polkadot, repressing, clavicle, rationale, delectable, rectify. 

Mia gently presses the tapeline to my clavicle. Her fingertips add up the numbers, up until the slope shifts into a cliff. She writes down the final scores, nibbling her upper lip, then suddenly drops her utensils to the floor. Our mathematical problem is encountering some difficulties.

                 “All the numbers match…” Mia’s eyes aimlessly cross my face, cooking up new theories, possibilities. Repressing the facts. There’s no problem: each calculation proofs that X really is Y.

                 “Are you certain you –“

                 “It’s not me. Show me.”

                 Two ovals on one piece of paper, drawn quickly. Straight lines intersect the circles. Distance between eyes, nose-to-ear-ratio, width of shoulders compared to face – no discrepancies. Rationally, or mathematically, it must be me. Nobody but me. Even the cleft chin. But not that delectable glance, and why can’t I recollect any of it? A polkadotlike rash spreads from my palms up to my elbows.

                 A sudden move from Mia; I’m back in the living room. The illuminated screen in her hand penetrates her thin-skinned hand, causing it to glow. Another message. Another friend in disbelief, anticipating a rectification.

                 Don’t I?

It’s become dark, I hadn’t noticed. A man’s face fixed to a laptop screen becomes a sinful sight when daytime shifts into night. We unsuccessfully search the still for hidden details. How will I ever obliterate this image? Countless faces, and there, in the centre, a masked man, fleeing, frozen in time a second after an agent ripped the upper backside of his costume. The Sasquatch’s head tumbling down, revealing a face dripping of sweat, dark eyes more monstrous than the black beads that covered it. The mystery revealed to the public, at least up to the chest.