M. L. Hollowell

Everyone else has retired for the evening.

I'm scrolling prompts, checking out some other options, even though I've left open the page window from last night, the random prompt generator.

54 fanciful phantasms for frightening fictions.

For fuck's sake.

A newly divorced woman retreats to her late mother's farm where a haunted hay baler... A what?

Oh, boy.

I return to the random prompt generator, pleased by its symmetry and simplicity.

After this morning's dust-up with Marielle, I'm even more stopped up.

Once again, I resolve to do whatever the prompt commands.

I click Proceed.

The screen goes through the same interminable gyrations as before, but finally yields... Walk to the school in the middle of the night...

That seems a mite specific.

The high school's a mere handful of blocks away, but it's not a bad idea.

I could use a walk, get some exercise, take the air, get the creative juices flowing.

Because they are starting to flow, I can feel it.

I squint at the fine writing underneath.

Second person, present tense.

Prompt number two.

You walk down the center of Norwood Court.

To the right, on the south side of the street, are the two-story colonials that line the street.