The instructions for Day 22 of the 30-Day Writing challenge reads:
Supposedly, Ernest Hemingway wrote standing up. On the other hand, Mark Twain wrote while lying in bed. Could standing up while you write give you extra energy? Could writing in bed help to relax your mind so that ideas flow more easily? Today, try doing one or the other and see if the physical change makes a difference in your writing...
My handwriting is atrocious and illegible. Even I have trouble reading it. So the question of whether I might get extra energy by writing standing up is moot and academic. I find that I get cramps in my arms and shoulders if I lie in bed. However, I can sit up in bed and write, (as indeed is the case, this very moment.) The physical change is therefore not conducive to making any positive or beneficial difference to my writing.
I am uncertain as to the compiler of this 30-Day Writing Challenge, but somehow the list of daily tasks included two “Day 8’s” and two “Day 9’s”. Because today’s challenge does not produce written work of any significance or interest to my readers, I have taken the liberty of using the “second” Day 9 task for today.
Originally, the “second” Day 9 brief reads: Marta, your character's neighbour asks your character a favour. Would your character mind taking in Marta's mail and watering her plants while Marta is away on an unexpected trip? Your character agrees and accepts Marta's house key. But when your character lets himself/herself into Marta's house for
the first time, he/she encounters something he/she certainly wasn't expecting....
My name is Fred Grassmeister. Although I have not reached the advanced years associated with retirement, I am enjoying an early retirement funded by the proceeds of a buy-out of my electronics business by a multinational company. I live on my own in comfortable suburban home, enjoying most mod cons without being ridiculously extravagant. Prior to the sale, I tended to be a careful spender, and, as they say, old habits die hard.
I look at the key in my hand. It is a standard Yale key, the sort that almost everyone has for their front entrance door. It is attached to an ornate chrome metal tag bearing an engraving of a cat. It belongs to Marta, my next-door neighbour, and I have agreed to be a kind of house-sitter whilst Marta is away for a while.
The house next door is very secluded and private, and I can see very little of it from my property. Until this morning, I had never seen anyone there, and this girl arrived out of the blue at my door. I still don’t know her last name, and come to think of it, I also don’t know where she has gone, or on what business.
I might as well go and take a first look at the place, check that all the doors and windows are secure and that all electrical appliances are switched off. Getting to Marta’s place involves leaving my property by the long gravel driveway, walking down the road to the corner, turning left into Victory Drive, and walking up the hill to number 54.
Number 54 is a stylish well-maintained double-story house, with an intimate and screened swimming pool surrounded by lush green lawn in front. There was little in the way of flowers or shrubs, just a high well-kept hedge along the boundaries, to ensure privacy. The house screamed “quality”.
If I’m to do anything resembling a proper job of house-sit, then I’d better take a walk around the house and note any irregularities or anything untoward, I thought to myself. And check all doors and windows, as there is no sign of a intruder alarm system. A side-entry door to the garage is unlocked. Noted. I open the door, and inside a gleaming Aston Martin Vanquish 2 litre, apparently spanking brand new. Marta is undeniably well-off. The car is locked, so this is one buggy I won’t be able to start up – just to keep the battery fresh, you understand – and maybe take for a quick spin…
The pool-house is locked, as is the case for what appears to be an outside store-room. That’s the exterior, no for inside the house.
The Yale key fits the entrance door perfectly, and the door swings open without a sound. No creaking door stuff here. What a house! Every room seems to be a candidate for first prize nomination for “Home of The Year,” stylishly and impeccably furnished in every way. I wonder how Marta or her husband, if there is one, earns their money, as this is most certainly a six-figure salary home.
Something I have never done and would normally never do in someone else’s home, is to open and pry in their cupboards, but I desperately want to find out more about Marta. But info in this regard is not forthcoming. Not even in the bedroom do her clothes or personal possessions give any indication.
At the end of the corridor between what appears to be two guest suites, is another door. I turn the handle, but it’s locked.
Yale. The door has a Yale lock. Strange. But wait, the front door has a Yale lock… I insert the key, and the door clicks open. Darkness inside. It’s a landing at the top of a staircase. Light… there’s a switch and the steps and area below becomes illuminated…
Look after the house… Sure, I’m looking after the house… Yes, and that probably includes checking on the basement… I can hear electric fans running – I think they are fans… Down the staircase into a cavernous basement.
Oh, it’s only pot-plants growing under artificial light. Pot-plants? Oh… that sort of pot! Hundreds and hundreds of green plants being cultivated under controlled conditions. Now I start understanding the luxury swimming pool, the Aston Martin…
Now I need some advice. Do I do the easy thing and get out and re-lock the door, and pretend that I have never been near the basement? Or do I do the correct thing and alert the authorities? But if, for argument’s sake, this is, say a mafia house with Marta merely a Girl Friday,would a report to the police send a message loud and clear to the mobsters that Mr House-sitter is a tattletale?
As I switch off the light at the top of the staircase, a cold feeling comes over me. Standing in the passageway between the two guest suites, looking straight at me, is a short stocky man dressed in a black suit …
* * * * *
The brief for Day 23: One night your character decides to leave home and never come back (you decide the reason). But at the airport, he or she encounters an old friend, and
they get in a conversation. Something about this conversation (you decide what it is) makes leaving home suddenly seem much more difficult than your character had expected…
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