2020

Below, the prompts from @mariannewest are italicized and spaced off, followed by five minutes of writing on each prompt.

Kurt was a huge, comfortable man, whose body dropped fast into any inviting spaces.

He sat on chairs and benches, desks and tables, coffins and podiums. He blossomed when he was allowed to get comfortable there, though. Vines extended from him and began to take up more and more of the room around him, or wriggled tirelessly, futilely, on cement sidewalks or cobbled paths. The vines themselves were works of intricately latticed blooms separated by mossed over stones so that he appeared to be wearing suits of living armor. Whenever he walked the armor would retract into him, and his level of comfort certainly determined the thickness of this makeshift carapace.

He was known in town as the flower guy. He was thought of for funerals and quinceaneras. His eyes always rolled when someone asked him to sit and get comfortable for these occasions, even when he should have been reverent or somber. The townspeople didn't mind it so much, though, because the flowers that he could create were so charming that they could send off any beloved - into life or death - with a palpable beauty and grace. The fact that Kurt never asked for money was exemplary not only of his character, but of the character of the town.

She thought: What a tremendous lot I have failed to think through! Yet I always thought I thought through things so well!

Such was the complaint of a woman who had asked Kurt to get comfortable one evening so she could have primrose tea.

“Meta…” Kurt shrugged. It was women like this that made him want to do what he did next: shuffled around his pockets and pulled out a small cigarette case wide enough to hold maybe six sticks. He put one in his mouth and blinked, the end of the cigarette lighting in an instant.

“Should you be doing that?” the woman asked, and he could feel the pretense of a long winded admonishment. It was not the familiar sheen of condensation on her skin, but sweat. Her eyes widened. She walked over to him and was about to snatch the cigarette out of his mouth when a vine extended from him. A blossom of nightshade, violet and azure, opened just inches from her face. The most enchanting fragrance she had ever smelled filling her lungs.

It was true that the townspeople annoyed Kurt occasionally, and that often demanded he work his duty of flower boy to the fullest. They were not always grateful for having him around, and never paid him any respect, or even any cash. But he knew the self-destructive nature of what he was doing not only because he could enchant people far more easily just months before, but because he had started to grow flowers that faded, wilted at the ends of the petals and stamen. He needed no woman to ask him rhetorical questions.

a whiff of strong-smelling soap

wafted into Kurt’s own lungs, and he looked for the sterile source when he realized that it was the same blossom that he had used on the woman.

“You know, I went to a funeral today. Young man,” she said, looking down. He began to feel the effects of the bloom: clouded vision, heart palpitations, increased suggestibility. The psychic connection that allowed him to seduce her, to enchant her into stopping her gait, was doubling back in a recursive circle that swirled beyond his control. The words prompted a rush of dark images, his father, how he had died of lung cancer. How it had been a sick addiction that had controlled his life. That’s what it was, an addiction. Something beyond his control, and something that would spiral out of control for himself like so many other things. His annoyance at the townspeople coming from not a lack of spare change but because he was so obviously different to them. Because he blossomed and they didn't, but they used him for his blossoms. This made him feel pangs of insignificance, though the lattices of flowers he gave away were lattices themselves of the most significant thing in the world. Himself. He offered himself in a way that he had never appreciated before.

The woman had worked his soul. Huh. Look at that.

Thank you for reading my work. I appreciate your time and comments.

This is my first weekend #freewrite and I hope I have done it correctly. I really liked how it pushed me to flesh out a continuation of my figurative thoughts. Please share any comments, whether they be critical or not.