Didn't see it Coming

Prompt 4 of 366! This is a very special story for me as it is my first to be rejected on vocal. My first detention! I am assuming that this due to a shortcoming on my part in the amount of waffling I did to reach a lower threshold of acceptable verbiage, and thus I am editing accordingly. However, I think I will take these otherwise hollow words and use them to lay out my position on the notion of submitting a microfiction per day for 2024. For the record, I do not intend to complete this undertaking. This is for several reasons, the first of which is that I am back in work next week. But beneath that is the fact that I don't think anyone, even me, needs 366 mini Hannah stories popping up in their feeds over the next year. I also think this would rob me of the opportunity to do other things, and has the potential for me to psychologically turn a pleasure into a chore to be completed, something I am very good at.

I was thinking yesterday about prompts, following L.C. Schafer's earlier article about them, and I recognised that it is not the prompts that ignite my excitement that I value most. My issue is rarely that I can think of nothing to write, but rather that I struggle to see that any idea I have is worthy of investment. Prompts are like little permission slips. Prescriptions, doctors orders. "Have a little go" shoves. And it is the prompts that make me go "Oh dear, I cant...." that open the door to "...but then I like a challenge!" And I want scope to engage in those challenges. This is where multiple brains are so helpful. I am limited by being just one brain, and I am unlikely to think of ideas I haven't thought of.

This is not to say that I do not think that the notion of setting a consistent writing habit is not a valuable for those taking part. For my life, right now, it is not the right priority. If I am going to increase consistency, it needs to be in sleep, and in not having my face in a screen all the time when I am with my children - I may feel that I am available to them, but I know from my own experience that it doesn't feel that way from the outside. Never the less, I may try to honour the spirit of the challenge in writing something most days. Sometimes that may be in this form, but other times, that may be a beginning to a challenge response, or take the form of a letter to a friend, or even a carefully crafted report or email at work. All of these are valid forms.

However, yesterday I would like to present this microfiction piece. I hope you enjoy.

*

I don't know what made me think I could drive the car. I mean, I had learnt to drive, before the accident. And they go on so much about getting back to the things you used to do, not letting it be a barrier, overcoming. Well, if you're 19 and drunk, you can overcome anything, or so it feels.

Dan said he had done this before, but the person who operates the wheel has to be blindfolded. Rich and I were daft enough to believe him, though afterwards he said he'd only seen it on YouTube.

So I sat behind the wheel. No need for a blindfold there. Rich lay with his feet on my shoulders and his head between my knees, hands on the pedals, and Dan was supposed to call instructions from the passenger seat. Thing is, Dan gets his left and his right muddled.

We stalled a few times - its not that easy operating foot pedals with your hands - but we made it out the car park and onto the road. Dan was yelling in my ear "steer soft left, brake, now gas, more left, more left, SHARP RIGHT SHARP RIGHT SHARP RIGHT BRAKE FOR FUCK'S SAKE", and Rich was slipping down so his knees gripped my thighs and he was taking his weight on his head trying to operate the pedals. He was laughing like an idiot down there, and I had both hands on the wheel, gripping the vinyl like my own cock. The exhilaration was amazing. Then Dan started just shouting "TREE, TREE, TREE" until we hit the tree.

It wasn't as if I could take the blindfold off, was it. Dan didn't say that he had forgotten that, but he had obviously forgotten that. I wish I could.

We were lucky really. Even the tree. We were only going about seven miles an hour. It felt like seventy though. I never thought I'd drive again. I guess now I probably wont. Which sucks, to be honest. I'd only had my licence three months. But those guys. When something like this happens, you realise who your friends are, and I won't ever forget what they did for me.