Skeleton In Your Closet - Literally

“Honey, have you seen my briefcase?”

            “Ummm…”

            I looked at my wife through the mirror that hung above the bureau in our bedroom. “Have you seen my briefcase?” I repeated, this time more slowly so she wouldn’t miss a word. “I put it on the chair last night, remember? So I wouldn’t forget it for my interview?”

            “Yeah, I remember. I just don’t know where it is,” she said, smothering her face back into the pillows and away from the light that I had flicked on.

            I spun around to face her. “Well, when I got up this morning I noticed that it wasn’t there- so unless a ghost ran off with it someone must’ve moved it.” I waited for her to get the hint.

            “Maybe a ghost did run off with it,” came the muffled response. I sighed and, still in only my boxers, hurried out of the bedroom to scour the rest of the house. Foyer, living room, kitchen. I checked all of the places where my wife could have moved the briefcase out of absentmindedness. Then I checked all of the places where she could have moved it out of spite. Neither search proved fruitful.

            Dejected, I decided that I would just print out another copy of my resume and carry it in a folder, even if it looked less professional. At this point it didn’t matter- the important thing was to get to the interview on time, and I wasn’t even dressed yet. I ran into the bathroom to shower and shave and then raced back to the bedroom to get dressed, towel flapping around my waist. But when I opened the armoire to get my suit out I nearly fell flat on my face.

            Staring back at me out of the darkness of the wardrobe was a creamy white skeleton, six feet tall, and fully clothed in my interview suit and power tie. In one hand it was clutching my briefcase. I dropped the towel to the ground and let out a yelp.

            “Why are you screaming?” my wife said, sitting up now to admonish me. “And why are you naked?” I looked at her, dumbfounded, then to the skeleton, then back to her, then down at my exposed midsection. I picked up the towel and looked back at my wife, who had her eyebrows raised.

            “Ummm…” I said, “I found my briefcase,” and shut the armoire door.

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This post was based off of the following writing prompt: When you go to get dressed one morning, you discover that there really is a skeleton in your closet. Write this scene—discover how it got there, why it is there, what to do with it now. Link: http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts/skeleton-in-your-closest-literally

Leaving Town Abruptly

            “Eddie, we gotta go. Now.”

            Through my squinted eyes I could just make out a shape undulating as it moved across the stripes of light that streamed in through the slatted blinds. I let out a half-groan half-sigh that I had been perfecting over the past forty years and ostriched my head back under the tangle of pillows and covers.

            “Come on. We don’t have time for this,” said the voice again. In an instant a draught of cold air hit the parts of my body that my boxers and socks (yes, I sleep in socks) weren’t covering as my sheets were yanked off me, presumably by the owner of the nagging voice. This was the most convincing motivation I had been given yet. I gave in and lifted my head from under the pillow to peek at my bedside clock. It read 4:14am. This was the deadest time of night, a time when it was just too late for mindless partiers to keep mindlessly partying and just too early for mindless farmers to start mindlessly farming.

            I sat up, swung my legs off the bed and slipped my feet into my cotton slippers. Standing up I took the opportunity to finally look at my assaulter. He was a tallish man in his late-twenties or early-thirties, wore brown hair with brown eyes and had a rather good-looking face that could have appeared on a magazine cover. And he was a complete stranger.

            My eyes did not have the chance to observe the man for very long as all of a sudden a gym bag- my very-seldom-used gym bag- was thrust into my arms. I looked down into it and closed the zipper over the socks and underwear and shirts that had just been stuffed into it. “’Kay, I got all your stuff. Let’s go,” the man said as he started for the bedroom door.

            The urge to resist is not so strong when you’re standing in the cold of your bedroom in nothing but your boxers and socks and cotton slippers as it is when you’re snuggled comfortably in your warm and cozy bed. So all I said was “Alright,” and I followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

            “You remember the old cruiser, don’t you, Eddie?” the man said as he pointed to perhaps the plainest and most boring car I ever saw, a gray ’04 Mercury Marauder. I crossed the threshold of my house after him and as I did I let out a cough, as the sharp February morning air filled my lungs. “Aha! Eddie!” the man had taken this as an affirmative.

            I opened the passenger door of the boring car and flopped into the seat. It didn’t matter at this point that my name wasn’t even Eddie- I just wanted to be somewhere warm again. The man slammed shut his door, revved the engine, and we sped off down the street, away from my cozy house, away from my cozy bed, and straight into trouble.

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This post was based off of the following writing prompt: A friend rings your doorbell way too early in the morning to be ringing doorbells. You answer the door in your PJs, and the friend says, “Pack a bag quickly. I have to get out of here now and need you to come with me.” You are intrigued. Link: http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts/leaving-town-abruptly