Morning all. I get a word of the day e-mail from wordsdaily.com and I thought today’s word was fun enough to share. Bildungsroman – A novel dealing with one person’s formative years or spiritual education I like knowing there is a word for that. Anyway, I just thought I’d share. It has nothing to do with the morning prompt, just fun. So lets get back on track, set the timers for fifteen minutes and see what comes out of the brain this morning. Timers on and go!
Not quite sure where this is going, but I do kind of like the set up. Or at least the elements in the set up. I feel like it might end up being a haunted house scenario.
Tuesday, June 2nd: The door creaked open.
The door creaked open. There did not appear to be anyone behind it.
‘That’s not a bad sign at all,’ Dana thought.
Then a man stepped into the door frame. He was tall, his head nearly brushing the top. His suit was black, his shirt and tie were black. Even his hair was jet black. His skin was milk pale. For a moment it looked as though his face was simply floating in the frame, then her eyes caught up with her.
Jake smiled his salesman’s grin at the man as though nothing at all was peculiar. The man stood there as Jake gave the man the sales pitch. Dana was somehow not surprised Jake memorized it and then added a few improvements. Dana stood there with a polite smile knowing from the experience of the last fifty houses that Jake did not want nor welcome any input from her. She was his partner for this endeavor only because they were required to go in pairs.
As Dana had no desire to talk to most people or participate in a school fundraiser for any sports team let alone talk to people about the fundraiser for the athletic department that somehow involved mandatory participation, she was fine being paired with Jake and saying little.
Surprisingly, people seemed to like Jake. They were somehow top of the leaderboard for their class. Her parents were proud of her and used phrases that made her twitchy. Terms like ‘coming out of her shell’ and ‘blossoming’. Listening to them Dana mentally imagined some sort of aquatic flower blooming under water. As talk went on, she always imagined the flower leaving its shell and becoming somehow predatory.
She didn’t mind them being proud of her, she just wished they would be proud of her for something she actually did or wanted to exceed in rather than something mandatory she was just getting through because she couldn’t get out of. She also wished they didn’t sound so relieved when they praised her fundraising efforts. Growing up both of them played and excelled in sports. They each had athletic scholarships.
She took after her grandparents. They weren’t sports people either and had been shocked to find their children were. ‘Just as shocked as my parents are to find I’m not,’ Dana thought. She wondered if her great grandparents were athletically inclined and wondered what that could mean for any of her own potential offspring.
‘I’ll probably end up raising football players and cheerleaders,’ Dana thought.
She realized Jake stopped talking and blinked. The tall man with the milk pale face was staring at her. She smiled, aware that she missed any actual conversation. She looked at Jake. He nodded and smiled.
“And that’s why we’re here,” Jake wrapped up. Dana sighed with relief as she heard the familiar end to the speech. Jake was just pausing, she hadn’t missed anything.
“I am afraid I will have to decline,” the man said. He glanced at Jake. “Although it was an impressive sales pitch. You are clearly going places.”
Jake preened but Dana shivered. Somehow his tone conveyed the places he thought Jake was going weren’t where he would want to go.
“Thank you for listening,” Jake said. Jake turned away. Dana nodded and followed Jake down the stairs. The man stayed in the doorway and Dana could practically feel his eyes watching them. ‘Jake had to go to the creepy old Masterson House.’
Ten til Midnight 