Written on the fly as the words highlighted in bold caps were read out every ten seconds. A lot of fun!
The RED wine spilled from the broken bottle, staining the white cloth. Marcia stared at Alan, seeing the STORM gathering on his face. She’d done it this time. He would be furious, but she’d been HELPLESS in her own rage at his comment.
How could he do this to her? Had he FORGOTTEN his promise, the day of their wedding less than a week ago, to love, honour, cherish?
Now, here they were, poised on a CLIFF edge, from which they could either retreat or jump. What would jumping mean? Falling into an ABYSS of grief, loneliness – and singleton, all over again. Is that what she wanted? No. If she jumped, she would have to CLIMB back up – again. She couldn’t do it. Even an angry Alan was better than than black aloneness.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered.
His eyes changed from anger to REMORSE. ‘I’m sorry too,’ he said. ‘My temper, sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I said.’
‘No, it’s okay.’ Marcia held out a placating hand. ‘I’m DETERMINED to do something about it myself, I promise.’
His eyes lit like SUNSHINE. ‘You’ll succeed,’ he assured her.
She pushed the chocolate-heavy dessert away, smiling. ‘Step one, ‘ she murmured.
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TEN COMPULSORY WORDS
Red, storm, helpless, forgotten, cliff, abyss, climb, remorse, determined, sunshine.
For the first time in her life, Lisa saw red. After all, the broken photocopier wasn’t her fault but her boss stood there berating her, nevertheless.
“Useless,” he screamed. “Your useless, Lisa. You can’t even operate a photocopier without breaking it.”
“Not my fault,” she responded calmly once her anger over his tantrum had subsided, thinking the entire episode was just a storm in a teacup. “I can’t help it if the paper got jammed and the machine caught fire.”
“It is your fault – especially if you put the paper in the wrong way,” her boss persisted. “It’s not hard to work out, you know. Or are you that helpless.”
Lisa had forgotten the last time her boss had treated her with any sort of consideration, let alone respect.
At times she felt as if every time she came to work she was falling off a cliff into an abyss with his rantings and ravings. She wasn’t alone. Her boss treated almost all other employees the same way – raising his voice and yelling every time they did something he didn’t like or approve of.
Today, it was her turn. For some reason, the paper jammed, despite her having replaced the cartridge hundreds of times before without incident. And before anyone could move, sparks flew and flames erupted from the machine.
The complexion on her boss’s face was gradually returning to normal, but Lisa knew it would be a long climb back before he began to treat her like a normal person again. As for him showing any remorse, well she may as well have tried flying to the moon for all the good that would do.
However, she was determined to not let him get under her skin. Three had to be a ray of sunshine somewhere in all this.
“Perhaps we can get it fixed,” Lisa offered hopefully. “And let’s hope it’s covered by the office insurance.”
Do you still have to put the paper in the right way?? Fun doing this, isn’t it – might do more of them.
Love it. Not sure if this is evidence of quick thinking or your natural talent shining through 😂
Both I suspect 😀