Last week, I asked you to write out your weird fantasy life, accessing an alternative universe where you are in control.  Today’s prompt is similar.  Instead of asking you to completely fabricate an unlikely situation, I’d like you to imagine a point of divergence from something that actually happened.

I woke up late this morning, so I wound up on the train with those special high school students who shout at each other across the aisles.  The idea of sitting next to one’s conversation partner has apparently escaped them, yet they seem annoyed when someone takes a seat being used by their book-bag or feet.  I sat next to the least threatening of them and shut my eyes, letting their swirling chaos assault my ears.  Finally, they exited, and I was relived to say the least.  Civilization would resume. 

I must have forgotten where I was.  When the doors opened at Fullerton, an obviously blind man entered, white cane a-tappin’, and he headed directly for the one open seat on the train, which was a priority seat.  Oh good, I thought, I don’t have to get up.  Turns out I did though. Some able-bodied woman, or girl I should say based on her behavior, slid into the seat, opened her Red Eye and didn’t even bother to look guilty.  The blind man looked confused.  Wasn’t there just a seat there, and now there’s a person?  Are my spidey-sense off? So I got up, and a gentleman in the true sense of the word boxed out other would be seat usurpers.  I was so happy with the gentleman’s behavior that I forgot about Ms. Red Eye.  Oh, the withering stare I should have given her!  The lecture about who among us was really blind!  I certainly would have told her, if I was one of those types that, you know, confronted people.  Instead I blog about them.  Such nerve!

We’ve all had these experiences that, if we had our druthers, we’d do over, preferably with a script and ample rehearsal time.  So this time, instead of starting with a fantasy and working out what would really happen, you’re starting with a real, lived experience.  That’s a story in and of itself.  The fiction comes in when you make happen what should have happened, or what might have if you’d had the courage to sauce things up. 

Keep the sauce on the paper, and keep writing!