Eric Levy
ENG200
1 July 2021—Grammatically edited on 7\9\2023 with very few alterations to avoid repeated usages of words and the like. This edit allows the originally intended story to unfurl.
*This is a >SevenHundredFifty word prompt. This is a work of fiction that I completed during an eight-week creative writing course, along with a world civilization class, after leaving my job due to multiple stressors relating to relative events.
At Least We Got New Plumbing!
Working from home certainly has its perks, Sally contemplates, as she leaves her P.J. bottoms on and gets ready from the waist up. As her brain struggles to fully wake up, a dream hula hoops around her mind, like a faint movie being projected in an ever-repeating loop. She tries her best to ignore this though and start her days work. Sally heads to grab a glass of water but is interrupted by who could only be one person knocking at her door, surely scheming how to get their next fix.
A quick gulp reveals to her that the water filter in the refrigerator should have been changed several months ago. Heading to the door, she is overcome with feelings of vertigo. Sally drops the cup as extremely weird visions play out in the interior rooms of her mind. Through her distorted vision, bright green flashes implode in a spiral in front of her. Each flash appears to have a sly smile fixed to it, but no recognizable faces. Though silent, it’s as if each of the sideways smiles know what’s goin-
“-g on Sally? You know you can just push up on your door, waggle the lock nob, and it opens? You should get a new lock, don’t want any bottom feeders coming around snoopin’!”
Looking up with a groan, Sally grabs her face and says, “Bottom feeders, yeah. What do you need Tony?”
“Plumbers from the Government came to my apartment to install some more efficient system this morning. More of the same green vans pulled up here as I came in. Whole country is getting em’ installed.”
“Great, and I bet we’ll pay for it come tax season too…” Sally says in a hurry, “I’ve got a job for you! Here’s $50, can you go get filters for my refrigerator? You can keep the change, just don’t spend it all in one place.” She gives Tony a stern, yet loving, look while handing him the money.
“You know I’m going to!” Tony yells, jogging off with a half-assed wave goodbye.
Sally, relieved Tony has gone, realized mid-conversation that she had wet herself while witnessing that odd vision. She wonders if she had just had a seizure and plans to make an appointment with her doctor. She goes to clean herself up and puts on fresh clothes–Although indistinguishable in style from the ones worn prior.
Tony did spend it all in one place.
Stretched thinner than a single angle hair noodle—She couldn’t stop working with the deadlines in place. She turns on the T.V. for background noise but every channel reads the same message ‘* WATER IS NOW GREEN, TOTALLY SAFE TO CONSUME! *’
Quickly reaching for her phone, she tries to dial Tony, but is met with a robotic recording, “This is Special Agent Randal DingleBop, and your continued ability to function concerns us, please… have a glass of nice cold water!”
Sally runs out into the hallway of her complex and is met by apparitions of her neighbors, wandering aimlessly like cicadas, eyes red and shiny. She runs back inside her apartment, and is met by a balding, cheerful, yet sinister, white-haired man. Randal DingleBop!
She runs for the bathroom, ripping the light fixture rod from the ceiling to blockade the door. She sits, in a lotus style, and focuses her breath. There they are! Sly smiles on green flashes! Sally gets a flood of information and undoes her pants.
For once, without hesitation, Sally trusts her intuition. She drinks her urine, which now has a purple hue. Instantly, she feels a fog lifted from her. It’s as though a visual film has been impeding her from seeing the Truth. Everything becomes clear in a flash of green sly smiles, “Filters! Not my refrigerator, ME! They’re using US as- “
DingleBop kicks the door down, “Yup.” and shoots Sally dead with his electron blaster.
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