Choices for the Story

Decisions...Decisions...
Option #1
She heard the north wall of her house crack and tear away, a sound that very few might be familiar with, but she knew in an instant what it was. The rumble of the house, the sudden beams of light bleeding through the cracks in her door and the gust of autumn wind that rushed in left her with little doubt as to what was happening. The wind brought with it the smell of trees.

A minute and half ago she had been asleep in her bed when an equally terrible sound had ripped her awake and violent shaking had tossed her to the floor. Now she was underneath her bed, tugging at her comforter to cover the gap between the floor and the box spring and moving a pair of shoes she hadn't seen for weeks in front of her. For a small moment she thought of her elbow which was still throbbing after her fall from the bed.

She stared at the doorway. She didn't know what would happen next, or why this had happened at all, and she waited for the door or the wall to her room to open.


Option #2
Tom had been wandering around the woods for at least an hour with no luck. He had been looking for an oddly shaped tree that resembled a man with one muscled arm and one withered one. He'd had a clever name for it in his youth and he'd been trying to think of it all last night as he lay in bed in his parents house, also with no luck.

It wasn't the bed he'd slept in as a child, or even the room. His dad had turned his old bedroom into a sewing workshop at his mother's insistence, and it was now a horrid pink and yellow shell of its former glory with piles of flowered fabric as far as the eye could see.

He felt free at last to get out of the house, which was about to be packed with older brothers and sisters and grandchildren. He relished the short walk he'd taken to the top of the hill above his parents house. Though the hill was steep, and dogs barked loudly from their side yard prisons, the smell and cool air of November was just what he needed. This sensation lasted just until he could see the old fence, and he remembered why he had climbed this hill in the first place.

The barbed wire fence held together by hundred year old posts was just as he remembered it, separating the street from the entrance to the woods a good 100 feet away. Right before he'd pushed down the old strands of rusted wire to step on the wild green grass, he turned his back to the forest. He looked at the valley and remembered the years he'd spent from birth to high school driving the streets, swimming in pools, clowning with his friends, kissing girls, and suffering in classrooms. Tom had spent a mostly happy childhood there. None of it however for better or much worse, held the magnitude of his time in those woods.

Now he was looking for a tree, and hoping that the item buried beneath it was still there.



Option #3
The chair that Tracy squirmed in was not helping her impatience. It appeared to have been built some time prior to the inauguration of Jimmy Carter. It looked like the bottom of an egg, but was much harder and though she had never sat in a giant egg before she could assume it was much more uncomfortable.

Her only distraction in the waiting room came from the other people she observed looking equally annoyed in the chairs next to, and across from her. They were all so different and Tracy who had a definitive talent for sorting and scrutinizing such strangers, was pleased with the collection that she had been provided with this morning.

The waiting room located on the second floor of a fairly anonymous looking building in a vaguely industrial part of town had no magazines. There were no pictures on the off-white walls or pamphlets in plastic holders on the end tables, and there was no receptionist to provide answers as to why she was here. There was simply a machine that dispensed numbers and a small wooden vintage looking sign above it with faded orange lettering that said "Take me please".

The pleasant woman's voice came over the intercom again and said "Number five, please proceed to room four in the hallway. All others please remain seated, and we will be with you shortly. Thank you for your patience."

A larger looking black man with a leather jacket, receding hair and a mustache stood and started to walk hesitantly to the hallway. He was older, at least 55 and he proceeded slowly until he reached a bend and disappeared around a corner. Tracy looked after him for another second then looked down at the number eight in her hand. She bit her bottom lip.