The result of a fun writing prompt.

Especially pertinent to this blog's title, I am sharing the result of a prompt from a writer's group I attended today. We free-write for all prompts, so that means you keep your pen going, you don't cross out and you don't judge what you wrote. Except for a few minor edits, I have left it alone. For this particular prompt, we had 10 minutes for "You were just told that a spaceship crashed into Cristo’s Over the River drape in the Arkansas River." Read on for my fictional, satirical, locally-relevant work. (For my sake, imagine that OTR is already built):

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Who knew a spaceship would become a rivership?

Upon hearing the news, I imagine the catastrophe in my mind’s eye: a ripped drape, a broken spaceship, the gawking tourists. Karma had struck Mr. Cristo and the heavens had spoken: no Over The River project would be blessed.

As I inwardly survey the wreckage, questions fill my mind and the gaps. Are there people aboard this ship? Or is it a UFO, now clearly identified in the light of day? Will traffic be stopped in the canyon for days, like seems to happen often? Can rafters get out before the swift current smooshes the raft and dumps out its contents?

Of course, the hullabaloo in Salida will be the Over The River wreckage, the political aftermath, and more local fighting to ensue. The town of Crestone had begun séances, the informant told us, to plead the universe to bring peace as well as protection from extraterrestrials.

Traffic would be bad because of the tourists, not just efforts to clean up the mess, and all the reporters staking out to catch a glimpse of any survivors on board. I want to see the carnage myself, to not rely on secondhand information, but inevitable traffic jams stave off my impulse.

Of course, economically, the local commissioners secretly couldn’t be happier: all those reporters, extra tourists and the opportunity to erect a someday-historic sign: “Site of the 2012 spaceship crash”. Maybe the Mayan’s were right: there’s something strange about this year.

 
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