Guys, I’m getting the book back out.
Remember this?
642 Things to Write About!
Ah, yes, this book has jump-started a lot of great short stories that are never short enough for me to actually focus on long enough finish…
But, today, I’m pulling another prompt from the book and just going for it!
So, today’s prompt is, literally, just… “A sneeze”.
Let’s see how far I can run with this!
“Kacee, are you, like, okay, girl?”
Kacee looked up at her friend and wiped the snot from under her nose, again.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just…” she started, but stopped, again, to blow out another mix of spit and snot into her sweater sleeve. “I’m on this new diet pill that I saw on Dr. Oz.”
Kacee’s friend, Meghan, turned in her place on the graying white couch and snatched a blue box of Kleenex, decorated with the doodles her younger brother made on it of “snowpeople” (because snowmen, he told her, is no longer the politically correct term to use) with Sharpie last weekend, and then tossed the box across the sofa seat between the two teenaged girls.
“But, like, what does sneezing so much have to do with anything?” she questioned.
Kacee yanked out the top tissue and went on to blow her nose before replying.
“Well… you know, when you sneeze, you essentially lose about 8 grams of mucus.” She paused and folded her Kleenex up in her fist. “So, since these pills make me sneeze about 20 to 35 times an hour…” She nodded at Meghan. “If I sneeze the max times every hour for 24 hours, I can loose up to 14 pounds a day!”
Meghan held back an oncoming laugh.
“Um,” she began to protest. “I don’t think that’s, like… how that works.”
Her friend shrugged at her.
“I mean,” Meghan continued. “How long have you, like, been on this ‘diet’ thing? And… how much weight have you lost so far?”
“Only two days,” Kacee answered. “And I haven’t lost anything, yet… but, I think I just have to warm up the first week or so to it. I mean, I can feel my abs coming in already!”
Meghan nodded.
“I can imagine that,” she commented, right before Kacee sneezed in another triple batch. “But, can you still eat like normal? Because I was, like, really in the mood for quesadillas from Five Guys tonight.”
Kacee blew her nose with two more tissues.
“They have quesadillas now?” she followed up.
“Yeah,” Meghan said. “They, like, put your burger in a food processor, and then they spread it on a tortilla like a smoothie!”
Kacee sneezed once more.
“Well, I can’t chew fast enough to swallow before I spit,” she claimed. “So, processed food is pretty much all I can eat right now, anyway.”
Just then, Brandon, Meghan’s little brother, ran into the room with a pistol-sized Nerf gun.
“Bless you!” he shouted, aiming his toy up and shooting a rubber bullet at Kacee’s face.
“Ow!” she yelled, slapping at her new ‘bullet wound’.
“Brandon!” Meghan scolded. “I thought you said saying bless was, like, not politically correct, too.”
“Oh, right,” he corrected, cracked his gun, and then aimed it at his sister’s face. “Gesund-fight!”
Well, I think I got that pretty far!
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my spontaneously written scene for the prompt “A sneeze”… so, let me know what you thought/think!
–Kari
Kari Lynn M. 