Today’s random writing prompt is brought to you by the lovely people over at http://writingexercises.co.uk/subjectgenerator.php. “If I were invisible, I would…”
GO!
“Truth or dare?” Shawnee asks. Her dark legs are pulled underneath her like she’s sitting on a carpet in a kindergarten classroom. Her plastic cup of something from her mother’s liquor cabinet is nestled in the empty space.
“Truth,” I answer. The only really safe option after Nico was just forced to run through the sprinkler out in the rather public front yard completely naked.
She smiles and throws a dark curl back over her shoulder. “If you were invisible for one day, what would you do?”
“That depends,” I buy myself time with the stalling lead in. “Do I know I have exactly one day?” Truth is, I don’t know how to answer this. My brain immediately starts thinking of cliche answers and possible book scenarios. But if I woke up tomorrow invisible, I have no idea what I’d honestly do.
“I’m hanging out in some kind of communal shower place,” Nico answers from the doorway where he’s rubbing his short dark hair with a towel. “Like the women’s locker room at school or something.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
I manage to stop myself from rolling my eyes. I did mention the cliche answers that were rolling around in my brain, right? He just decide to be the mouthpiece for one. I wonder how long it will be before some of the other ones come out. Bank robbing, enjoying the quiet from an otherwise stressful life, or spying on some weirdo in your life. These are the answers that people expect you to give. Sure, they’re all full of weird hangups. They could all spark conversations. Plus, they’re all build on a stupid premise of something impossible. The truth is, none of us are going to wake up invisible tomorrow. Certainly not me, I’m not that lucky.
“It’s Kim’s question,” Shawnee says. “She has to answer or take a dare.”
I don’t want to back myself into a corner here. The dares they come up with on a regular basis are pretty insane. I can’t imagine what they’d choose as punishment for not completing a truth. “I’d probably, um, go to a bunch of movies totally for free.” That’s not even true, I don’t think. But it’s an answer.
Nico tilts his mouth into a cute little sideways smile and nods. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. Like screen jumping, but you didn’t pay for the first movie either.”
“I’m down, we’ll all go for free movies when we’re invisible,” Shawnee says.
“Wait just a minute,” Carlos adds from beside me. He actually throws his hands out as if our words are things that can be grabbed. “You didn’t say we were all invisible. That changes everything.”
“Yeah? Alright, big man, how are you spending your invisible day?” Shawnee asks as she takes a sip from her plastic cup. I notice her lips pucker just a little like whatever is in there is sour. But it’s gone, replaced with her smile again before I can give it too much thought.
“I have no idea but it would, for sure, involve being in public,” Carlos answers.
This raises more questions. Would we be able to see the nakedness of our invisible partners in crime? Would we even have to be naked? Surely our clothes weren’t magically invisible for a day along with our bodies. Why am I overthinking this? Why am I worried about this stupid question? “Whose turn is it?” I ask.
“Mine,” Shawnee says. She takes another big swig. “Dare.”
Of course. She seems like the classic I-can-handle-anything-you-throw-at-me kind of girl. Confident, determined —
“I dare you to go for a walk right now pretending you’re invisible,” Carlos says.
“What?” Shawnee says exactly what I was thinking.
“Go outside, walk around, and pretend you’re invisible. Be shocked if someone can see you. That kind of thing,” he explains.
“That’s stupid,” Shawnee says. “Someone come up with something else.”
“That’s not how this works,” Nico says. “You said so yourself. Whatever dare you’re assigned when you choose dare you have to do.” He laughs. “The real question is, are you doing this with or without your clothing?”
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