YDP #2

Natalie Goldberg, in her beloved book Writing Down the Bones, advises us to write.  No matter what.  Write. Every day.  Fill notebooks with words and ideas and dreams and gibberish.  Just keep writing.  Your Daily Prompt keeps me accountable.

One photograph.  Thirty minutes of writing.  A couple hundred words.  Light editing.

Feel free to share your prose or poetry inspired by the image.

It was the air that kept Connie awake.  It didn’t matter if it was Hong Kong, New York or London.  The air always smelled the same.  It always felt the same.  Heavy and layered with ozone and salt and the scent of strangers who called the room home for a day or a week.

She knew better than to think a budget priced room in an overpriced city could ever be considered home. 

It was near dawn and coffee was the only cure for her restless pacing.  Coffee calmed her.  It brought circumstances into focus and pulled together in sharp detail Connie’s task for the day.  Decisions came easily with caffeine.  She knew what she had to do.

A shower, then room service. Toast and scrambled eggs. A small orange juice.  She ate with brisk precision, folded the cloth napkin and stood to dress.

For this occasion she chose the dark green pencil skirt. She’d wear it with the sling back burgundy pumps.  They showed off her legs.  The tight cashmere turtleneck highlighted other assets.

An extra brush of powder softened the dark circles around her eyes and the slash of Revlon’s Really Red across her lips was distracting. Constance Harrow took one last look at her reflection in the mirror, slipped the Smith and Weston into her purse and stepped into the Emperor Hotel’s faux royal hallway. She smoothed her skirt and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  Then she closed the door to Room 421, rode the elevator to the ground floor and thanked the doorman as she walked out into the sun.