Assignment Number Thrice

How’s about we try writing a story about a picture of a landscape/scene we connect with. This picture can be of a real place or a painting. You can put your character in this scene or talk about the place itself.
Example:

Staring at the Sun

“Harold, stop picking at it.”

Harold continued to pick.

“Harold, don’t.  It’ll get infected.”

“You don’t know that, Diane,” Harold grumbled as he let his hand drops from the thin crust that had formed over his eyes.  

He was still in bed. Two weeks had gone by and he had only gotten up to be led to the toilet, to the shower and to have his clothes changed. He hadn’t imagined it going quite like this.  

“I still don’t understand why you did it,” said Diane.  He could hear her tapping her wedding band against the kitchen chair that she had pushed up against the bed.  

He turned away from her. How soon could he bring up the dog?

They sat this way in silence until the doorbell rang.  Harold heard Diane get up out of the chair and rush out of the room.  

Almost immediately, Harold started picking.  The scabs were easier to pick off then he thought, for they weren’t really scabs, but dried ointment that Diane had administered the first day. For the first time in two weeks, he was able to crack his eyes open.  The sliver of white light sliced across his scope.  This was curious.  He expected to see nothing but black.  Inky darkness for the rest of his days.  He squeezed his eyes shut. It didn’t hurt exactly, but the light was so bright, it felt like it should have been painful.  He took a deep breath and tried again, slower this time. The light distilled into the familiar shapes of the furniture in his room.  Everything looked fuzzy and out of focus. He zeroed in on his walnut bureau that sat squatty across from his bed. Three feet tall, five feet long. He tried to focus on the knobs, round and shiny.  Suddenly, the outline of folded clothes emerged.  Stacks of clothes, neatly folded.  The clothes insidethe bureau. They were morphing from outlines to the actual clothes.  He could see his fisherman sweater, the ribbed knit of the wool, the color of oatmeal.  He scanned to his underwear drawer.  Folded plaid boxers.  The blue, green and black tartan, the red and black buffalo checkered.  He shut his eyes.  How could this be?  How did this happen? He knew how it happened, he just didn’t think it would happen.  What did he think would happen, when over his lunch break, he stood in the parking lot of his office and had a staring contest with the sun?  He thought he’d go blind or close to it, that’s what he thought.  He didn’t blink for over ten minutes.  And even after he blinked, he continued to stare for another twenty.  And then everything faded to black.  Until now. He heard Diane’s footsteps coming back down the hallway. He cracked an eye open.  She stood at the foot of the bed.  He opened his other eye. 

“Harold!” she gasped.  “Your eyes!”

He saw her, dressed in a pale floral dress, then her underwear and bra came into vision, white and practical, then just her flesh, the body he had known for over thirty years, then muscles, tendons, bones, organs, veins. The body of his wife stood before him, her insides seemingly on the outside. He squeezed his eyes shut.  He had not planned for this.  All he had wanted was a dog.  He had wanted to go blind and to be led around by a trained golden retriever. He would name it Murray if it was a boy and Rose if it was a girl.  He had always liked dogs but Diane didn’t think a house was a place for animals. 

Suddenly Diane was beside him, fussing over him and burrowing her face into his neck. He felt a tear drop from her face and slide over his collar bone.  He wiped it away.

“Diane,” he said. 

“Your eyes,” she said into his neck.  

“I can see, Diane. Better than before.  Things I’ve never seen.”

He opened his eyes and pulled her away so she could face him.  There she was again.  First Diane with her large brown eyes and grey hair, full lips and slender nose.  And then red gleaming muscles, white tendons pulled taught, her skull, the color of cream, her teeth, the gold fillings in her bottom molars, her wet tongue inside her mouth. He stared at her. 

“Your eyes, Harold.  They’re completely white.  Like crystals.” 

He watched her jawbone hinge, up and down.  

“Your iris, your pupils, they’re…gone.” 

He watched her spit slide down her esophagus.  

“Harold, I’m serious. I don’t see anything.  There’s nothing.”

He looked at the bumps of her slick, pink brain, the strands of nerves sprouting from the stem.

“That’s funny, Diane, because I see everything.  And I want a dog.”