Insomnia- Mike F

PROMPT: Insomnia STYLE: Choose your own adventure--poems, short stories, (screen)plays, whatever you wish. LENGTH: Again, up to you! Post by Sunday morning-ish PST and if you want critiques let us know!

DISCLAIMER: I will be attempting to write this whilst in the Munich airport and aboard my flight to NYC. It might suck.



She reached under the passenger seat for a tin of mints, popped one in her mouth, and slid the tin across the dash. Neon signs flooded red and blue through the windshield and French held the keys up to the light one by one. She rocked forward and slid the key in the ignition, fired the engine up, sat back.

She would get home without Lincoln having know she had gone, drunk himself but at least able to keep his eyes shut the duration of the night. Her kids might hear her. She would play with the boys for a bit, slide cars across the floor, let them play Angry Birds while she poured a scotch. She'd tuck them back in within fifteen minutes time. Then maybe slip on some sweat pants and watch home shopping channels, muttering alone to the hyper enthusiastic shit-show of grandma jewelry and plastic cookware that was paraded out.

The drive home was uneventful. French knew the favorite spots of the cops and avoided them, though she was confident in her ability to pull off the song and dance should someone pull her over. She was getting back from a trip to see her sister upstate, she would say. A shade over forty with mom hair and tasteful makeup, she didn't fit the role of drunk or degenerate; there had been no problems flirting and “I'm sorry, officer”-ing her way out of these things in the past. She pulled to the curb a couple blocks away from home, rolled down the window, and lit up a menthol.

How long could this continue? Lincoln and she had gotten married young, shortly after the birth of their only daughter Angela. The boys came a few years later. Though they had never been rich, their life had been settling into a comfortable groove prior to Angela's accident. Lincoln's writing was getting noticed, he was publishing stories in certain national reviews, and was wrapping up his third novel though he had no publishing deal.



AAaaand probably the daughter died and the mom can't sleep. and so on.

I would have loved to have gone on and or edited but my laptop ran out of juice on the plane... then I lost interest.