A close friend asks you to help him kill his wife and, to his surprise, you agree without hesitation—not because you particularly dislike his wife, but because she’s the only person who knows this one deep, dark secret that could ruin your life forever. Write about how you confront her and how the murder plays out.


"Mitch! Mitchell!" Sara screamed, backing away from me and into an end table, sending a vase full of fake lilies and marbles cascading to the wood floor of her oh-so-prestine 1920's manor. God, I hoped Mitch moved once we took care of this. Everything was so dark here. Perfect setting for a murder. The cherry wood with gold trim, the ornate rugs and uncomfortable furniture--it was just awful.
"Mitchell's not coming," I told her, taking two steps forward, holding out the syringe.
"Mitchell!" she yelled again. "Is this about your mom? I won't tell. I swear."
I stepped on a howling dog toy and kicked it to the side. "My mom? Sara, you're a nurse. She had liver, kidney and colon cancer. She was dying. What kind of son would I be if I didn't help her out of her suffering when I had the means to do so?"
"That doesn't make it right," she whispered. 
Idiot, I thought. Even begging for her life Sara was still going to be uppity about her morals. Fine. That'll just make this easier. I did what my mom would have wanted if she had be lucid. Let her go easy. End the pain. Sara didn't know. She watched patient after patient we cared for die, but none of them were her family. 
"I've told you before, when my dad died of cancer after eight years of being in and out of treatment, she made me promise I would never keep her living on meds and machines," I said.
She backed into the kitchen. "You got a six million dollars inheritance," she said. 
She's probably going for a knife on the counter next to the sink or the alarm system next to the backdoor, I thought. "Mitch and I already removed anything you could use for a weapon in here and disarmed the alarm," I told her.
"You? Mitch?"
"That's right, sweetheart. Mitch asked me for this." I smiled. "It has nothing to do with my mom. That's just an added bonus. Kind of like a six million dollar inheritance that you seem to think an oncologist who went to Harvard would so desperately need he'd kill his mother for it and risk losing everything."
"But. I. He? He doesn't know. I never told him what you did." She had reached behind her back toward the counter by the sink, hand grasping for the knife set that wasn't there.
"He seems to have his own reasons," I said. I had her now. Back against the sink, she was cornered. 

Newest addition to the writing prompt I did with the holes a couple of weeks ago:

I wake with the sun and remember what I was doing, the confusion of the night lifts with the return of day. At first I was scared of how often I forgot where I was. Now, sometimes I think it’s a blessing to forget.

I had understood that they were going to do it. Knock me out, take part of my liver, stitch me up and wake me when it was over. I knew it would be painful. But I was supposed to get $40,000 for it. Do you know how much money that is? How much food that can buy? Heat, water, food. If I just did it, then we’d be set. With Dad dead, I’m the one to do it. I am the man. Take care of your mother and sister he had said. I can’t make enough at the meat factory and they just laid Mom off. They probably kept me since they can pay me less. Woo for child labor.

            I just thought the liver people would snip off the part they wanted and pay me and send me home. Now, here I am with less than half a liver, digging holes for crazy people. Murders, probably. I look over at my shovel from where I’m lying in the narrow strip between two holes. Would one of these holes be my grave? What’ll happen when I get to the edge of the clearing? He’d said dig six foot by six foot holes spaced three feet apart until the entire field was full. The field is barely the size of a soccer pitch. What happens when I’m done?

            I stand and immediately fall back on my ass, leaning into the nearest hole, barfing. I put my fingers on the scar. How long has it been? I sit up and count the holes. Sixty-six. Sixty-six holes divided by two holes a day plus the three weeks (give or take) I was at the chop shop, “the hospital” where they took out sixty percent of my liver and didn’t pay me a dime or send me home. That means fifty-four days. At least. Fifty-four days I’ve been gone and Mila and Mom have been without money. Sixty-three days after my seventeenth birthday. If it really was three weeks before they brought me to the holes. I’d gone into the surgery without Mom knowing six days after my birthday. Six days after she cried because we couldn’t afford dinner and a cake and a gift and all we had was canned corn, bread and butter and a beautiful chocolate torte without the nuts—too expensive—for my birthday.

            I grab my shovel and thrust the tip into the ground, pulling myself up on the handle, supporting myself to stand. I went to Kosovo to sell my liver piece, but I’ve no idea where I am now. I could be in any field in any country. The air is crisp, fall is coming, and it smells like dirt, soil. Holes. My gnarly, black hair flops to the top of my ears, dirt lives under my fingernails and probably in every crevice of my body and bones jut out everywhere, stretching my skin. No one would recognize me now without my usual buzz cut, scrubbed raw skin and muscles.

            I start digging.

Someone is watching. There is always someone watching. I tried to run twice and gotten whipped like a racehorse in a close race: swift, hard and with a mean sense of urgency. Breakfast comes when the sun looms over the trees. 

     I get really excited when people ask me what I'm reading. Have a book discussion with me while running or biking and I may just die and go to heaven.

Things I'm living for today:

Having two dressers in the same location so I can have 2 underwear drawers and my basketball shorts can be separated from my running shorts.
Someone wonderful telling me my Wednesday night class is a week highlight.
When Pandora plays my favorite Coldplay song live and then the album version.
Burrito truck chicken burritos with my hermanito at the Street Theater, so called because whenever you go to that parking lot there's some kind of show to be seen. Tonight it was 3 bleach blondes with mustaches. One may or may not have been female.
When my class tells me I made them my bitches tonight, but they still stayed extra time to finish the workout.
Knowing that tomorrow brings sand volleyball and midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with Courtni!!
Having an awesome book waiting for me to read upstairs.
And chocolate. Always chocolate.

Writing prompt: New end to Cinderella. 10 minute free write.


     "It fits!" Drizella cried.
     "It. It. Fits. It. Fits," Prince Charming said, unable to look up from Drizella's calloused heels and yellow toenails and look at the face of the girl he now had to marry.
     "It fits?" Demetri the Prince's attendant asked.
     "It doen't fit!" shouted Anastasia. "She's cheating!"
     "Now, Anastasia," Lady Tremaine said, "you should be happy to your sister, after all, she soon will be your queen!"
     "Oh, my Prince!" Drizella lunged off the chaise, tackling Prince Charming, who had been kneeling in front of her, to the ground.
     "Well, there will be flowers to order, food to prepare, guest lists made! Oh, I have waited so long to plan this wedding!" Lady Tremaine said.
     Wedding? Queen? My Prince? Prince Charming thought, staring up at the ceiling.
     "Let me try that shoe again!" Anastasia grabbed Drizella's ankle attempting to rip the shoe off.
     "Well, madame, I'm not sure Prince Charming is ready for marriage, maybe the two could get to know each other a little," Demetri said. Demetri wouldn't even think of marrying this ogre with her ape arms, stork nose and mousey eyes, let alone have Prince Charming marry her.
     "No, no! The decree says he shall marry the one the shoe fits. The shoe fits," Lady Tremaine said, starting her note-taking for the upcoming nuptials. She pushed her reading glasses up her nose and didn't even look up at Demetri while she talked.
     There must be a way out of the decree, Demetri thought.
     "Cinderella!" Lady Tremaine cried. "Get over here! I'm too excited to write. Take notes for me. We'll need to go to the palace right away so Drizella can be fitted for a dress. Anastasia and I will need dresses and shoes as well. They must have rooms made up for Drizella, Anastasia and I immediately. Please pack up Lucifer and his catnip. That should be all we need to bring. Now that we'll be royalty, I'm sure the king will want to outfit us appropriately."
     Prince Charming looked up from the floor and saw a girl wrapped in a homespun dress, charcoal on her cheeks and dust in her hair. Her head was down, scribbling the Lady's notes. Is this woman so crass as to allow her servants into the room while he was here? he wondered. While the woman paused, Cinderella stole a dashing glance up from the list, meeting Prince Charming's eyes. She was pretty. Too bad she's a servant girl, he thought. Her eyes seemed so like those of the girl from the ball.
     He rolled Drizella off of him and jumped off the floor.
   

Free write challenge 10 minutes (because this is what I do when I'm bored at home and should be doing more productive things). Writing prompt: "You’ve been outside digging a large hole for several hours when you realize that you can’t recall why you are digging it. Retrace your steps to try to discover your motivation."


     Damn! A blister the size of a peach pit splits open on my palm. I drop the shovel and stare down at the ripped flesh. It's kind of oozy. I look up, out of the hole at the night sky. The moon glows orange against the black sky. Wait, what? Out of a hole? Zander, what the hell are you doing in a hole? I ask myself.
     Yep, the shovel, the dirt, the digging. Digging a hole. Why am I digging a hole? 
     Dirt covers my Timberland boots and dust streaks my jeans and flannel shirt, which is ripped across the front like a werewolf clawed my chest. Blood. My chest is bleeding too. How am I going to get out of this hole? The sides are just taller than my head. Where is all of the dirt I got out of this bad boy? What if it caves in on me? 
     My chest tightens. Breathing hard. Eyes bouncing to the ground, underground all around me, up, up and out, only able to see sky, where is the ground? 
     I'm in the ground. 
     I grab a root and try to hoist myself up. Pulling, scrambling out, grasping for grass, lugging body out of hole. Out, out of the ground! 
     I lie on my stomach, feet dangling over the mouth of the hole, left cheek resting on the grass. Breathing, sweating, blister oozing. When I look up, holes. All I see are holes. 
     I can't see far. The tangerine moon is the only light, but I know in the blackness are more holes. Holes like the one I just crawled from. Six feet wide, six feet deep. If I reach to the right, I can stick my arm in a hole. If I reach to the left, same thing. A cloud drifts over the moon, leaving me in complete darkness. 

Update: Winis is a kind of sausage in Spanish. Of course it is.

     One of the guys at the gym told me today that he had chestadrawers disease.
     I said, "What's chestadrawers disease?"
     He said, "It's when your chest sags down to your drawers."
     Gotta love some man boobs.

     My family is at our cabin at Johnson Lake this weekend. The lake is near Lexington, Nebraska, which has a large Mexican population and, thus, excellent, fantabulous Mexican food. My brother and I live for taco vans/good Mexican food/street food in general and decided we were going to hit one up today after going into town to work out.
     We pull up to the taco van, the door is open and music is blaring, however, no one is inside. We hang out, reading the menu, hoping someone will come to take our order. On the menu, we see "juevos con winis." Spanish was one of my majors, but I've never heard of winis (which, of course, made us giggle--even better though juevos are eggs and slang for balls so balls with winis).
     It's over 100 degrees here so I don't blame the taco van man for not being in the taco van so we left. When we got in the car, we started looking up "winis" in our translation apps and online. The only thing we got was "Did you mean 'anís'?" Winis, anís, I love words.