Prompt Prose: Transported

“Pardonnez-moi?”

I turned at the sound of her soft, yet insistent, voice. “Mais qu’est ce que vous faites dans mon laboratoire?”

Yikes! I’d done it again. Meditated my way to another out-of-body experience during my morning tai-chi exercises. It was getting to be a habit. But, today, I had outdone myself. Not only had I traveled through time, I had crossed the Atlantic in the process. And landed in the lab – almost in the lap – of my heroine.

“Excusez-moi, Mme Curie,” I stammered. Fortunately, she saw my linguistic distress and asked again – this time in heavily accented English, “What are you doing in my laboratory? And, why are you dressed in those strange clothes? Answer me, or I shall call the gendarmes.”

Quickly, I explained that I was meditating and had no idea how I had landed in her lab, in Paris, on the very day that she and Pierre had succeeded in purifying radium.

“I am not certain that I understand,” she said, frowning in her puzzlement. “But as you are already here, would you like to see my laboratory?”

“Enchantée,” I replied, as I followed her. The lab quite resembled the set from the 1943 black-and-white film about the Curies. I was amazed at how well MGM had nailed all the details. Even the little crucible of radium was sitting on its stand, glowing proudly as though it had done something wonderful all on its own.

Suddenly, there was a crash and the sound of loud hammering. “Qu’est ce que c’est?” I exclaimed, shocked back into French.

“Just the construction workers starting up next door,” my husband replied as he walked out onto the deck. “Aren’t you done with that tai-chi stuff yet? It’s almost time for breakfast.”

“And, by the way, when did you learn to speak French?”

I heaved a sigh, whispered an “au revoir” to Marie, and went inside to dress.

A Note of Explanation: This prompt (Marie Curie + tai-chi) was the result of a random draw. Each member of the group wrote the name of a famous person on one slip of paper and an activity on a separate slip. The papers were placed into two envelopes, after which each of us drew a name from one envelope and an activity from the other. The challenge was to write a coherent story that included both the famous person and the activity.

Prompt Prose: Mardi Gras

Jaimie lay in bed, curled up on her side, feeling miserable. She had arrived in New Orleans the day before – just in time to catch the end of Mardi Gras. “It must be the hangover,” she groaned. “I couldn’t have seen him. He died before I was born.”

She had caught just a glimpse at first – recognized him from pictures that her Mom kept around the house. It was on Bourbon Street, just out front of Preservation Hall – the home of New Orleans jazz. He was beckoning to her, silently imploring her to come with him.

Jaimie tried to follow him, straining to keep him in sight. The kaleidoscope of colors and characters whirled all around – sometimes out of focus, sometimes in shocking clarity. But he was always out there somewhere ahead, leading her onward. “Where are we going?” she wondered.

At first, his movements seemed random; up one street, then down another, weaving through the crowds that went on and on. Then she understood. He was leading her back to her hotel room in the French Quarter. He was taking her away from the crowds. Away from the noise. Away from the groping hands and sloshing cups of beer that splashed her as she struggled to keep up with him.

She had almost caught up with him now. She saw him enter her hotel. And then he vanished. Jaimie went up to her room, half expecting to see him there. But the room was empty – a quiet oasis in the constant chaos known as New Orleans. “Must have been my imagination after all,” she thought. “May as well go to bed. I’m more wasted than I thought.”

And now it was morning. Had she imagined the whole thing? Had her subconscious mind protected her by drawing her back to her room?

“I need some air,” Jaimie thought as she opened the door and stepped onto her balcony. She surveyed the street below, littered with the detritus of last night’s revels: empty beer cups, stray strings of beads, sticky puddles of evaporated beer. A typical morning in the French Quarter.

Then she saw him, standing below, looking up at her – the man she saw last night. The man in the photographs in her Mom’s house. It was Joe. Her long-dead grandfather. Her protector.

And she knew. Jaimie rushed back into her room, grabbed her cell phone, and hit the speed dial. “Dad,” she stammered, as soon as she heard his voice, “what’s wrong? It’s Mom, isn’t it? Is she going to be OK? Yes, I know she’s worried about me. Tell her I’m safe. I’ll be home tonight.”

A Note of Explanation: The “prompt” for this story was multi-stage. First, each participant was asked to write down one male name and one female name. Then, we each were asked to write down a location – a city, country, or any physical place – on a slip of paper and put the paper into a common envelope. Finally, each of us drew a slip of paper at random from the envelope. Our “prompt” was a combination of the names we had selected and the random location each of us drew from the envelope. The “prompt” for this story became “Joe and Jaimie on a wrought iron balcony in the French Quarter of New Orleans.”

Prompt Prose: That Book

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.

She knew she was late and would miss her bus. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. Once she started reading, she was compelled to finish. It had taken her 15 hours – and cost her a night of sleep – but it was worth it.

It’s not as though Anna didn’t know the story. She couldn’t help knowing it – she had grown up with it. She first heard about what her grandmother had done in “the war” when she was just a toddler, too young to understand what it all meant. It was a story to be whispered among the grown-ups, lest the youngsters get scared and have nightmares.

As Anna grew older, she began to question. “Why, Grandma,” she would ask, “Why did you do it?”

“I had to,” was the unfailing reply. “It was the war. I did what had to be done.” After a while, Anna stopped asking.

Somehow, through the years, she managed to avoid That Book. Its very existence was disturbing. She didn’t think it would be wise or safe to delve too deeply. This time, though, she had no choice. It was required reading – part of the literature syllabus at the high school where she taught.

So last night, in trepidation, she opened a tattered copy at random and read, “Nice people, the Germans! To think that I was once one of them too!” Shocked, she flipped forward through the book, only to encounter, “There’s in people simply an urge to destroy…”

This would never do. She must begin at the start and force her way through. She must find out for herself – at last – why Grandma had behaved the way she did. Anna began to read. As she approached the story’s climax, she believed that she had discovered the answer she was searching for.

But, what now? This question occupied Anna as she absorbed the remainder of the book. It filled her mind as she walked outside and headed to the bus stop. Suddenly, she knew what she must do.

Abruptly, she crossed the street to catch a bus that would take her to the center of town – away from her school. Away from her daily responsibilities. She would be missed, of course, but that didn’t matter. She had to see for herself.

One hour and two bus transfers later, with whole sentences from The Diary of Anne Frank – it was no longer That Book in her mind – running riot through her brain, she found herself in the center of Amsterdam. Stopping for directions, she made certain of her route. She strode purposefully now – no longer in doubt; no longer questioning herself – “two blocks down, then turn right, cross the Prinsengracht canal and you can’t miss it,” the helpful police officer had told her.

All at once, she saw it. Prinsengracht 263-267. The Anne Frank House. After all those years of hearing the stories, after reading Anne’s Diary in a single sitting, she was face-to-face with her family’s past. She felt Anne Frank’s words reverberate through her soul, “[I]n spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Solemnly, Anne Frank’s namesake crossed the threshold into the factory building where, for more than two years, her Grandmother Miep had sustained the lives and the hopes of a handful of Jews, so many decades ago.

A Note of Explanation: This story was my submission to Round Eight of National Public Radio’s “Three Minute Fiction” contest. All stories submitted for Round Eight were required to begin with the sentence “She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.”

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