Pull five books, either at random or by choice, from your shelf and place them in a line before you. Write down the first sentence from the first book. With the second book, write down the second-to-last sentence on the last page of the story (not the index, &c.). From the third book you will need to write down the ninth complete sentence from page thirty-three (33). Write down the last sentence from your fourth book (again, the last sentence of the story, not the index, &c.). With the last book, write down the title.
Use all that you've written down to write a short story (no excerpts or incomplete stories allowed; there is no required word count).
So many steps had tortured the grass which grew in front of the jail in Prison Lane, so many eyes had been waiting for an answer to the questions which haunted their curious hearts. Whoever was supposed to walk through the heavy gate into the gray daylight was going to be history, infamous forever. I was there that summer morning, and I knew nobody in town would be so stupid as to miss this show. After all, this was what we were born for; we didn't just stare into the face of guilt: we reassured the treasured traditions of our ancestors, thinking we were pure and saint-like, condemning anybody who showed the slightest trace of human fallibility.
I was there, but my eyes were not at all fixed on the iron-clamped oaken door. No, my gaze went beyond that, into a vast green meadow covered with stones of all sizes and shapes. It was home to hollow bodies which sought nothing but rest. Someday I should find my place among them, and I hoped silently that day would come soon, for I could not resist my people's thirst for public shame and holiness. Of course, this constant thought could not come out of my lips, as I wasn't able to speak my mind under any circumstance. "Don't tell anybody anything, much less everything," I kept telling myself whenever my eyes met someone else's. My only chance to let my voice and feelings run free came during my sleep, and thus I longed every day for night to fall. Of course, I could not manifest this either, for I could be mistaken for a witch.
As I stared into the silent cemetery, it dawned on me that the eternal darkness which engulfed it couldn't just mean the ultimate rest, but also an opportunity to scream at will, to rant and rave into a vast nothingness. Once again I longed for my arrival into that ghastly paradise, laden with ivy and moss. I still wonder, when will I finally be there? My cowardliness has never let me take my own life.
The crowd began to murmur and stir as the oaken door creaked, and my head was violently brought back to reality. "She's going to walk out," somebody said. "She must be shameless," added a shrill voice. My eyes were so attracted to the calm garden of eternal silence that I was late to catch the first glimpse of a coarse coffin being slowly taken into the path that led to the cemetery. She had not survived prison. There was no shame for her to display like a giant banner for the rest of her life, as she had no life left.
"She took her sin to her grave," whispered someone. "Not a single chance did she have to let us enjoy it. What a pity. No one will know."
I tried to locate the faceless voices who spoke, but I couldn't. If only they understood that silence is a mere façade, that the dead in Boston speak with rage until we, the living, wake up in the middle of the night, washed in cold fear...
A moth made its way through the crowd onto the coffin. Did it know what I knew then? Could anybody imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth?
***
Excerpts used:
1. "The grass plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants in Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door." The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. "Don't ever tell anybody everything." The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. "It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured traditions of the ancients." Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls (short story within Mark Twain's Best), by Mark Twain
4. "I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
5. We the Living, by Ayn Rand
