I was watching a movie in which this happened to one of the characters: He moved to a new apartment, and found hidden inside the place was a home video tape along with some belongings. This idea struck me so I decided to turn it into my first prompt.
In the Writing Gym, a Prompt will be an exercise where I am given an idea and can write as much as I like about it. I will have other kinds of exercises as well, but this is how we will begin!
If you have ideas for prompts in the future, please leave them in the comments! If you would like to try your hand at writing to the same prompt, please comment with a link so that I can 1) see what you wrote and 2) support your work, maybe even share your version with my subscribers. Please let me know if you have any thoughts, comments, or constructive criticisms as well!
Enjoy!
Prompt: Your Character has moved to a new apartment and found a homemade video recording within the place.
“Well,” I said to myself, “that’s the last of ‘em.” I placed the box down on top of the others. I walked around the apartment—it felt smaller now that the boxes were in it. I’m not even sure I had everything I needed, the move was so quick.
I opened the sliding door to the balcony, and was instantly blasted by a gust of cool, fresh air. It was nice—felt almost peaceful, serene. The apartment was on the 10th floor and overlooked some trees and greenery, though just beyond the trees were more shops, stores, cars, and chaos. I smirked, Can’t ever escape it. At least I could have fresh air.
My stomach rumbled—it was 2pm, I had blown past lunch just to get everything in quickly. As good a sign as any to take a break. I sat down on my cramped low sitting futon—my knees stuck up like mountains—and ordered a pizza from my phone. I can watch an episode of Hamsterdam, right? One episode can’t hurt. I went searching for my laptop—I had put it in a backpack and stashed it away so it wouldn’t be in the way of all my boxes of junk. I was still finding my way around—the apartment had a quaint little walk-through kitchen, one bathroom, a spacious living room, and a fairly small bedroom. They had told me it was “comfortable luxury” but of course everyone would say that, wouldn’t they? This is a cramped, tiny, 10th floor apartment just like all the others in the world.
I ransacked the closet which was haphazardly stacked with loose but essential items, I think this was where I put my backpack. I reached into one of the four corners and touched on something that felt unfamiliar. It was hard plastic of some kind—really wedged in there against this wall—if I can just work it over the lip—one last effort—aha! It looked like a lunch box, it was black and had a silver handle, and two silver clasps next to the handle. It wasn’t mine—I liked utilitarian things, this was something else. Maybe the previous owners had left it?
Oh, there’s my laptop—the bag was sitting right under my nose in this closet. I grabbed it and took it and the lunchbox back to my futon, and set the laptop down on a box. I turned the lunchbox over in my hands—there were some things inside. One little look, eh? I opened the box, and inside were one DVD case with a DVD inside and a little soldier figurine. The DVD had a label on it that said, “For Dad”.
I just finished moving, I was tired, I was going to watch something anyway—This is fine, I told myself, I’ll bring it to the front desk right after I eat. Yeah. This is fine.
I powered on my laptop and put the DVD in the disc drive, and pushed it in. The video popped up. I pressed play.
-
The camera is on a table, half the screen is filled up with the table, but sitting in front of it is a boy, maybe nine or ten years old. The boy has curly dark red or light brown hair, he’s wearing pajamas. He’s looking at something, then he looks into the lens and he smiles. “All RIGHT!” he says, “It’s working!”
He picks up the camera and disappears behind it, showing more of his surroundings. It’s the apartment! There’s the balcony—they had plants and a string of Christmas lights, there was a lawn chair out there too. That’s a good idea. He turns the camera around and shows a more comfortable looking sofa where my futon is, some shoes on the floor near the door, there’s steam coming out of the kitchen—he goes there. “Mom!” he says, “It’s working!”
“Don’t thank me,” she says, “Thank your Dad!”
He turns the camera around to show a comically distorted view of his face, and says, “Thanks Dad! This is great!” He turns the camera back around and runs down the hall. “This is Mom’s room, I can’t go in there,” he narrates. “This is the bathroom,” he knocks on the door, a muffled but familiar ‘just a minute!’ echoes out.
Where have I heard that voice before?
The boy goes back out to the balcony, and holds the camera over the edge, looking down. There’s other people on their balconies, on some of the nine floors beneath them, but they are too far away to see. There’s a parking lot beneath him as well. He then turns the camera up towards the sky. It’s a blurry, washed out, bright blue mess—but it slowly comes into focus. The boy says, “Whoaaaaaaaa” with childlike enthusiasm, and zooms in—you can see the dark silhouette of an airplane flying lazily overhead. “That’s coooooool!” he says.
-
There’s a knock on the door in the video just as there was a knock on the door of my apartment, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Pizza palace!” a man called out. I fumbled to pause the video and went to answer the door. The delivery guy did a double take—”I, uh…”
“…one large pizza and a coke, yeah?”
“Yes sir.”
“Yep that’s me.” I snatched the food from his quivering hands.
“Sign here, sir!” The man found his voice, I signed, and he said, “Have a nice day sir!” and left in a hurry.
I took my food back to my seat and got the video started again.
-
The dark silhouette of an airplane is on the screen. The boy says “That’s coooooool!” There’s a knock on the door.
“Dad!” The boy shouts. He turns around without zooming out, and shakily runs across the apartment. “Dad, thank you! Thank you! It’s the BEST!” he says. “Look there’s a zoom and you know—you know what I saw outside? An AIRPLANE.”
“An airplane, wow that is cool,” the Dad says lazily.
Dad starts talking to Mom in the kitchen— “Thanks for keeping an eye on things. What are you making?”
The boy runs back outside and realizes he’s been zoomed in. “Whoops!” he says and the screen comes back into focus—it’s those same trees outside.
There’s a door that opens and closes. Dad acknowledges another person—the person with the familiar voice. While the boy is zooming in on squirrels in the trees, I can hear Dad say “Ah, didn’t know you were still here.”
The familiar voice responds, “I’m on my way out. Thank you for letting me look around. Lots of memories here.”
Mom says, “Oh not a problem. I am glad you stopped by.”
“I’ll be leaving now, but would you mind if I return sometime?”
Dad says, “Sure, no problem, just let us know. Billy! Come say goodbye.”
The boy—Billy—jolts from his squirrel-seeking and turns around.
-
I hit pause and had to put down my slice of pizza. There, staring at me on this screen, from a video I only just found—
—was me.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy! Come back next week for another writing exercise!
God bless!
Nice twist ending.