Challenge: ask a friend for three prompts and use them in a five hundred word fictional story

Prompts: chocolate milk, flip flops, Star Trek

---

Dust and grime stuck to fingertips as they slid across hardwood floor. The edge of a faded flip flop revealed its location behind sagging shoebox, just barely out of reach. A cold nose nudged his shoulder as he wondered how the footwear had gotten pushed so far under his bed

Belly to floor, he lunged forward and grasped the strap. In his haste to remove it from its hideaway, his elbow made contact with cardboard. The shoebox spilled its contents across the floor. 

A momentary hesitation indicated his desire to leave everything in the dust and proceed with his mission, but experience had taught him better. With a sweeping motion of his arm, he drew the scattered objects from the blackness beneath his bed and into the glow cast by his window.

Staring back at him were little trinkets and scraps of paper. These were reminders of people or events that were important. A barely legible ticket stub reminded him of the first concert he had ever gone to without his parents, and the feeling of freedom that came with it. He silently named the faces in a photograph taken outside his highschool, shining with the naive belief in all the wonderful opportunities that life had to offer. His mouth twitched into a half-smile when he saw the Star Trek action figure–vintage, 1974. It was Spock. 

Spock was rotated in his hands a few times. The chipped paint and mildly disproportionate facial features did not take away from the serene expression on his face. 

He wished he could be like Spock sometimes. 

Emptiness began to open up inside his chest as he felt his body grow heavy with emotion. Eyes scanned the room, seeking relief, but finding only more pain. Dirty laundry strewn across the floor in lifeless heaps, giving off the odor of disappointment. An empty carton of chocolate milk on his bedside table smugly reminded him that he had spent the entire previous day binge watching TV. Amazon boxes, gutted and abandoned, packing material drooping from the side, seemed a summary of his existence.

Closing his eyes, he unwillingly confronted the darkness of his own mind. It was vast and crushing. It was a black hole within his very being, threatening to suck him in and annihilate him. It was extinguished motivation. It was despair. It was death.

Spock resisted the crushing force of his left hand. As he loosened his grip, he felt the phrase from Season 2 Episode 1 ignite the darkness within him. 

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.

Most of the people in his high school picture were married now. A few had kids. All had good jobs and beautiful homes. Still, in their eyes he recognized the black hole. 

Happiness was not wanting or having. It was a choice made in every moment. 

Cold wet nose nudged his shoulder. 

He made his choice.

(C) 2021 Barbara Gray – no content may be used or reproduced without permission of the author.