Perpetual projects and daily obsessions.
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Take some of your own writing and rewrite it in a different POV.
Those of you who’ve read Hidden Things, pull it out and read page four.
Done?
Right. Here we go:
Mikey took the phone from me with his bad hand – the one that looked wrong. “She sounds… nice.”
I snorted, because it was funny. Ridiculous. My eyelids sagged. So tired. “Sure.”
He fidgeted, the way he used to, tugging at his clothes as if they were stuck to him. “I’m glad you decided to stay.”
“For now.” I tried to meet his eyes, but his face… The whole house, really: right and wrong. I remembered playing here, the two of us, sun fuzzies floating in the light through the window, the room so warm you’d get sleepy. No sun, now. The wind pushed at the walls, tested the windows, sent little rattling things over the roof or down through the walls — that at least hadn’t changed. “Long enough to get this straightened out.”
“You mean fix it.” His face was ugly. Ready to cry on one side, one step short of a screaming fit on the other. Ugly.
“I suppose.” I made myself stand straight — forced the slouch out of my shoulders and rolled my neck. “I made a promise, didn’t I?”
“And you always keep your promises.”
Had he always been so angry with me?
I turned away from the face. Stared out the window. “I try.”
“You try.” The thing’s voice was bitter. “Not when you won’t even look-”
“Shut…” I bit down on my own anger; on what it tried to make me say. “Just… shut up. I’m going to try. We will.” I looked back, forced myself to see him — really see him — but couldn’t hold it. “Maybe we can’t.” I turned away. The window was safer: easier to look at him in the reflection. “If we can’t, I’ll head home and try to figure something else out.”
“Head home?” I saw his window ghost hunch. Contract. “You are home, Josh.” His reflection faded. I heard the rasp of a dragging step behind me — his bad foot. “I thought you knew that.” The skittering in the walls changed – there was snickering now, and scraping, building up, like cicadas in the summer, but harder, harsher. Worse than I ever remembered.
Like him.
My heart squeezed in my chest. I turned, trying to find my brother in the dark of the room.
“Mikey?”
Thirteen seconds later, I was dead.
Ooh. File this under “I almost wish I’d done it like that in the first place.”