I recently subscribed to Prompts & Happenstance‘s text alerts. It’s a service where they provide you with prompts multiple times a week. I’m hoping this will further encourage my writing habit.
Her saccharine smile was nauseating; something about it was like a toxic vapor releasing unidentifiable, invisible particles, intent on murdering me. I flared my nostrils, huffing. That was when bile hit the back of my throat.
I gagged.
Something about the sweetness in her voice only intensified the putrid odor wafting toward me. “C’mon, Natalie,” she urged, that same sickening smile stretching widely. “It won’t kill you.”
I shook my head vehemently. This is how they tested mustard gas, was it not? On human subjects? I would go down fighting. I would be a revolutionary, remembered as the one who refused to surrender to the enemy. My cheeks burned as she slid the sample closer to me. Its smell called to mind its appearance.
Whenever folks tell you to stop to smell the roses, it must be meant metaphorically because every bouquet I’ve ever smelled smells the same. This smelled just the same as those flowers we are told to linger near.
Not necessarily an appropriate description, but the smell was verdant. The smell was green – if feeling charitable, one could describe it as natural. Grassy. It was the smell of a summer afternoon and grass clippings.
Truth of the matter was the odor was noxious. Its fumes perhaps deadly. Other allies had succumbed to ingesting this product, yet there was no news of their survival.
Rare intel occasionally described fighters like me going down under duress – screaming, their mouths held open, forced to swallow. Others, less heroic, cried. Tears cascading down their cheeks. Vulnerable in front of the enemy. Some merely shat themselves, creating a diversion.
She pushed the utensil toward me, hoping to entice me into consuming the product myself. I was no fool. Her blue eyes illuminated as I snatched the utensil from her. I could practically feel her heart palpitate as I ripped the spoon from her hands.
The poor fool thought I was surrendering.
I chortled.
I would die before allowing that abhorrent vegetable touch my lips. Broccoli. Even its name was vile.
I took the spoon, laden with the green specimen, and flung it away from me. It clattered somewhere beyond where she had sat me.
Vive la Résistance.
Isabelle Palerma 