Week 13, Theme 5

Prompt: Sentence theme. Use the sentence “she woke up outside with leaves in her mouth.”

Father would die soon. The doctors said six months at most. Karen felt the urge to make his twilight memorable; for herself, at least. She had planned for them a four-day canoe trip.

They started at Source Lake, where Father had spent the summers of his youth at camp. The family had been famous at Camp Pathfinder; Father’s uncle had made all of the cedar canvas canoes with which the campers had navigated on ambitious canoe trips through the Canadian wilderness. On that first day they had paddled by the island where the camp had been located. Karen could make out the ruins of a few of the cabins and of a larger building. She supposed that that was the dining hall, the site of the fabulous summer-end banquets that Father had so often described to her. Karen was relieved that she was in the back of the canoe and could not see her father’s face as they passed the remains of the camp.

They spent the second night on Joe Lake. Joe was the Las Vegas of Algonquin Provincial Park—that is, populated with annoying tourists and relatively dirty—but they had been forced to stop because of fatigue. During the night, Father began to scream and writhe in his sleep, like he had so many times before. Karen exited the tent and went to sit on a rock by the dark lake.

She woke up outside with leaves in her mouth. She wiped herself off and sat up to watch the water spiders skirt over the still glass of the water’s surface. “Ka…Kar…Karen?”

Karen started. How could she have left Father alone for so long? She ran in the direction of his call. When she made it to the tent and campfire, though, she found not an old man in need of her help but instead saw, for one last time, the person she had known for all of her life. Father was sitting on a log, holding out to her a metal plate with a pancake. It was formed in the shape of a heart.

Week 13, Theme 4

Prompt: Free Theme

Bineesh Daadi hung up the phone and shook his head, sighing. Another disappointing article. It was hard to get good press for a regime that bans chewing gum and still espouses corporal punishment for minor offenses. But that was Bineesh’s job. The phone rang again. Bineesh listened and hung up. The wire transfer from Frankfurt had come in already. For Germans, these journalists were acting pretty French. What had happened to the days where one could simply pay a journalist or promise him a favor and then have a glowing article on one’s desk the next morning?

This was probably it for Bineesh. The regime had fired three Travel Bureau chiefs in as many years, and there was no reason to think that he would survive this scandal. There had been perks: the car and driver, weekends in Vietnam, the job at the airline for Preetha. All of that would be gone now. But so would the pressure.

Bineesh heard the door click in the foyer. He left his office to see Preetha standing on the threshold, her floral skirt ruffled and face muddied with runny mascara. She should have been on her way back to Newark by now. She barely got out, “Dad, I quit. I hate that place,” before she ran through the apartment and slammed the door to her room.

Bineesh stood in the foyer, holding the door to the apartment with his hand. It seemed that both of the Daadis had been under a lot of pressure since they had moved here. Singapore was odd: there was this oppressive sense of untouchable perfection, impossibly created on a tropical island that should have been covered with kimono dragons and poisonous spiders, a perfection that was impossible to live up to. Maybe it was time, Bineesh thought, to go back to their place in Kuala Lumpur.

Bineesh moved over to the window and glanced at the glass windows of the skyscrapers across the street. Singapore was the worst city he knew.

Week 13, Theme 3

Prompt: Free Theme

Hans’ alarm woke him at five. He searched for his Blackberry on the bedside table; Anders muttered something about going back to sleep. Phone in hand, Hans brought it to this face. There was an email from Christian. “Subject: ARTIKEL.” Finally. Hans opened the attachment. Sinapur ist die schrecklichste Stadt…

Oh God. Hans started at the email for a bit longer. He realized that his alarm was still ringing. He hit it absentmindedly, knocking it off the table in the process. It broke, but that was of no matter to Hans, who was already at the dark closet fumbling for clothes. In place of a shower he applied a quick spritz of cologne. Cursing the Welt am Sonntag, he gave Anders a peck on the forehead, wished him a happy anniversary, and hurried to his car.

Hans wasn’t surprised to see the Autobahn empty at this hour. For a capital of world finance, Frankfurt-am-Main was a surprisingly empty place. There were the bankers, the people serving the bankers, and that was mostly it. The glass towers of the city’s core had sprung up from a place with no history, replicating the urban canyons of New York or Tokyo but without any of the meaning. There were no Pulitzers for a journalist like Hans to win here. The Welt had assigned him here to oversee “human-interest stories related to finance,” the inane scope from which the Singapore assignment for Christian had had its inception.

Half of an hour later, in front of his laptop in his office, Hans sat back in his chair. Christian’s was a gutsy and well-written piece, certainly of more merit than what he would have produced had he followed the assignment. Against his better judgment, Hans decided to publish it. There was only the matter of wiring the bribe money back to the Singapore Travel Bureau. Hans picked up his phone and waited for a moment. “Yes, hello, Mr. Daadi, this is Hans at the Welt am Sonntag. I’m sorry if it’s a little late over there, I just needed to call you. Listen, about the travel article your Bureau was expecting…”

Week 13, Theme 2

Prompt: Free Theme

Christian awoke with a start as the cabin lights flickered on in preparation for landing. He was surprised that he’d been able to sleep. When his editor had told him that he would be on Flight 21, he had resigned himself to eighteen hours of torture. He looked out the window and saw a bright grid of yellow light.

As he left the plane he gave a nod to the pretty flight attendant with the sad eyes. He had not checked a bag—God willing, he would not be here for long. He went to the hotel, and slept…

He awoke to the sound of his mobile ringing. His editor was calling, asking about his progress so far. Christian looked at the clock. “Gut, gut,” he mumbled into the phone. Yes, he would have a draft sent tomorrow. Yes, he would remember what they talked about. The Welt am Sonntag wanted a travel piece about Singapore. A really dumb travel piece: so many bankers had to do business in the Oriental these days that the Welt decided to run an article to cater to those banker’s spouses who might be interested in traveling along. Christian suspected that the Singapore Travel Bureau had kicked a nice sum over to the paper in exchange for the puff piece.

Needless to say, Christian felt a little used. He had decided to do something different even before the plane had left Newark. Now, all he needed were stories. He hopped in the elevator and walked outside. People (robots?) marched in suits passed him. Christian decided to walk a few blocks, and within five minutes passed two Prada outlets and a billboard reminding residents about the ban on chewing gum in the country. Perfect. Trashing this spotless city was going to be easier than he had thought.

Christian went promptly back to his hotel room and began his piece. “Singapur ist die schrecklichste Stadt, die ich kenne.”

Singapore is the worst city I know.

Week 13, Theme 1

Prompt: Free Theme


Preetha Daadi threw on a bright tunic and a floral-print dress in the airport lounge bathroom. She was late. She hurried through the concourse with her small suitcase tumbling behind her. When she reached the gate, she flashed the pass at the attendant, opened the door, and, not slowing her pace, continued down the jetway. Stepping on the plane and heading to the galley, she avoided the disapproving looks of the other flight attendants. As she was storing her bag in the closet, Musa approached her.

“Where have you been?” His Malaysian accent was thick. “We’re boarding now and three more batches of hot towels need to be…” He stopped. Preetha was sobbing silently. Musa softened his tone. “It’s…um…okay, just straighten your badge. And…stop…crying.”

Singapore Airlines Flight 21 redefines long haul. Newark to Singapore nonstop, an all-business class Airbus A340 and an attractive, accommodating flight crew provide its moneyed passengers with every possible convenience. Competition for the positions on the flight is intense; it is an unsaid rule that bone structure matters as much as one’s emergency response competence. Selection of the flight crew is conducted by committee; pilots, executives, and human resource managers all have a say.

Preetha gathered herself in the airplane’s restroom. She would have rinsed her face with water had makeup not been so oppressively applied, as per airline specification, all over her face. She exited, took the basket with the hot towels, and doled them out to passengers with tongs as they began to take their seats. As she approached the front of the plane, Captain Lionel Henry emerged from behind the cockpit door. Preetha tried to avert her eyes but was not quick enough to avoid his predatory glare.

He whispered in her ear. “That was great, babe. Let’s do it again in Singapore.”

Quotation #12

"Now nothing mattered: going or not going to Vozdvizhenskoe, getting or not getting a divorce from her husband. All that did not matter. The only thing that mattered was punishing him. When she poured out her usual dose of opium, and thought that she had only to drink off the whole bottle to die, it seemed to her so simple and easy that she began musing with enjoyment on how he would suffer, and repent and love her memory when it would be too late."

-Anna Karenina

Quotation #11

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."