Prompt Writing

Hey Everyone! Recently I have been looking at several websites for writer's and many of them have weekly writing prompts to help spur creativity and generate ideas for writing that might not come so natural. I decided to give one a try and posted my response on writers digest. It was my first try and so I thought I would share it with you all as well. Below is the prompt followed by what I was able to come up with. 

You’re at the doctor’s office for a regular check up when the doctor suggests you get a flu shot as well. You hate shots, so you try to come up with the most outlandish excuse as to why you can’t get one. Start your story with “You’re not going to believe this, but … ” and end it with “And that’s why I can’t get a flu shot today.” (500 words or less)

“You’re not going to believe this, but … ” As the words flew from my lips, my mind took a time out just long enough to be distracted by the heavy bass beat of my thudding heart. At thirty-eight years old, with a beard that would put to shame some of the founding fathers, I was afraid of needles. It was a fear that I had successfully hidden from almost everyone and as I looked at the face of Dr. Jones, I knew it was a fear that I could not publicize now.

         I was digging up a lie from somewhere deep inside when there was a quite but rapid knock at the door that brought me back to the heavily wall papered examination room. An older nurse barely pushing five feet cracked the door just enough to stick in her face and slightly blue tinted hair.

         “Excuse me Dr. Jones, I am so sorry Sir, but can you step outside for a moment?” Dr. Jones nodded a quiet yes, but his facial expression seemed pained. He wasn’t the most pleasant man and seemed to not like surprises, or at least not to like appointment interruptions.

         “Charles, I am sorry for the inconvenience. I will be back as soon as possible.” The Dr. swiftly stood up from his backless stool and walked briskly out the door leaving behind him the scheming mind of a man scared of a simple syringe. As seconds ticked by, each one louder than the last, my anxiety grew and manifested itself into little piles of paper torn from the sheet that was meant to protect the examination table.

         I’d just about decided to leave without explanation, and with no preventative flu shot, when the door opened and in waltzed the doctor once more. I knew that this was my chance to talk my way out of the sharp pointed spike that was determined to penetrate my arm. In a split second I decided to go with one of my go to excuses. I had the speech prepared and was poised to give a convincing soliloquy when the Dr. looked at me with concern.

“Charles, I’m sorry but it seems like we’ll have to schedule you another appointment for another time.” Those words stopped everything around me and I intently waited for him to continue. “It seems the flu is making its rounds quickly this year and we were a little underprepared.” Hope begins to build now and I realize I am holding my breath. “We’re out of the flu vaccine and the next shipment won’t be in until after next week.”   

As I left the examination room and parted ways with the doctor I decided to test my luck and walked right pass the front desk and my chance to reschedule for another day. I was feeling a little lucky and I decided to take my chances and see who would catch me first, if at all, the needle or the bug?

I open the door to my car and smile overhearing another free man’s explanation of his exoneration from the stick. I turn in time to see the little one thirty year’s my junior exclaim, “And that’s why I can’t get a flu shot today!”