Tommi - Writer's Cramp 11/4 - 941 Words

Tommi was the memory of a sponge-it's always leaky out

          My brain is a sieve powered by anxiety and three lukewarm cups of coffee. I am Tommi, and if I don't write it down, I guarantee you I will forget it. Yesterday, I drove all the way to work, parked, got out, locked the car, and only realized I had left the engine running when Brenda from HR pointed out the idling Toyota still vibrating in the parking lot at 4:30 PM. I also forgot to turn off the shower this morning, so my apartment floor is now a low-grade swamp.

          So, lists are my life force. My rule has always been: Thou shalt not leave the house without a new, organized spiral notebook.

          This morning, the disaster struck. I stood in the kitchen, already late, scrambling my brain for the day's tasks, only to realize I forgot to buy the list-maker itself. My gorgeous, lined, purple notebook was gone--used up, discarded, and never replaced.

          Panic tasted like metallic sweat. If I didn't write things down, I'd forget to drink water, forget to feed the cat, or, more likely, forget where I worked entirely. I tore through the junk drawer, grabbing fragments of paper like a squirrel burying a nut: a ripped corner of an electricity bill, two gum wrappers (Cinnamon Surge), and a yellow receipt for dry cleaning I picked up three weeks ago.

          The scraps were so minute, they dictated a new, terrifying system: one word per note. No context. Just the harsh, unyielding truth of a single noun or verb meant to manage my entire existence.

          I scribbled furiously.

          My pockets were stuffed with crumpled mysteries as I rushed out the door. The day was chaotic from the moment I tried to decipher the first note I pulled out while waiting for the elevator.

          It read: GOLD.

          "Gold," I muttered, chewing the inside of my cheek. Did I need to buy something gold? Paint? Did I have a dentist's appointment about a crown? I remember seeing a television advertisement for estate jewelry last night. Ah, yes! I need to check my financial records. I wasted 30 minutes trying to log in to the bank's secure portal, convinced I was hemorrhaging nonexistent assets. (Later, I found out the note was a reminder to wear the ridiculous pair of oversized gold hoop earrings my mother insists look "chic.")

          The following note was a real curveball: OCEAN.

I was in the middle of a crucial quarterly planning meeting. I looked at the little scrap, then at my boss, Mr. Jensen. Why would I need the ocean? Was I supposed to call someone named Ocean? Did I need to plan a trip? The lack of context caused a slow-motion existential meltdown. The note must be vital. I needed to find the ocean. I excused myself from the meeting, saying I had an "urgent aquatic matter," and spent forty-five minutes on the sixth-floor scanning Google Maps, trying to calculate how fast I could drive to the nearest coastline.

          When I eventually returned, frazzled and smelling faintly of desperation, my pocket offered up another gem: AIR-PLANE.

An airplane. I froze. Oh my God, did I book a flight? Was I supposed to be flying somewhere right now? I started texting my best friend Clara, frantically asking if we had planned a spontaneous trip to Cancun that I had wiped out from my memory. (The note was a reminder to buy Clara's nephew a birthday toy, a small plastic airplane.)

          The afternoon wore on, and the notes became increasingly cryptic and menacing.

          MELTING ICE.

          I saw this note and immediately panicked about the freezer incident this morning. My apartment was going to flood again! I called my landlord, Mike, and delivered a high-pitched, unintelligible series of statements about catastrophic structural damage caused by 'melting ice.' Mike seemed confused, as he usually is when I called, and asked if I had spilled my cocktail. (In reality, I needed to buy a bag of ice for the office cooler, which was making alarming clunking sounds.)

          Finally, as the office began to empty, painting the window a brilliant hue, I pulled out the very last note.

          SUNSET.

          I stared at it. I had survived the Gold confusion, the pointless Ocean trek, the unnecessary Air-Plane paranoia, and the Melting Ice crisis. This felt like the grand finale. Did I need to be somewhere at sunset? Was this a secret rendezvous? Was I meant to be staring dramatically westward, contemplating the fleeting nature of time?

          I grabbed my bag, determined to watch the magnificent, fiery spectacle unfold, believing that somehow, the answer to the mysterious "Sunset" note would be revealed to me in the fading light.

          I rushed down to the street. The sky was magnificent, red, orange, and purple. Beautiful, I thought. But what am I supposed to do?

          Suddenly, my phone rang. It was Clara.

          "Tommi, where are you? We're supposed to be at the diner."

          "The diner?" I asked, looking up at the sky. "But... sunset?"

          Clara sighed, the sound of long-suffering friendship. "Yes, Tommi. We were meeting for dinner by sunset, remember? You wrote it down."

          I looked down at the tiny gum wrapper, realizing I had just spent a stressful, confusing, highly reactive eight hours based on a series of meaningless, one-word commands. I reached up to scratch my head and felt a strange knot of hair stiffening on the left side. Oh, right. I forgot to comb my hair, too.

          I needed to buy a notebook. Definitely, I pulled out my keys, ready to drive directly to the drugstore. Then I remembered I had left the Toyota running in the parking lot again.

Word Count: 941
Prompt: Gold, Airplane, Sunset, Ocean, Melting Ice