Writing circle #2

Freewriting off a prompt

I missed this meet, but I did do the assignment—an exercise from Janet Burroway’s Imaginative Writing:

Make use of these prompts or trigger lines for easy freewrites. Pick one of them—quickly: don’t think about it too much—write it down and keep writing. Anything at all. Whatever the prompt suggests. A little bit more.

I chose the first prompt: ‘This journal is,’ and freewrote.

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This journal is confidential. It belongs to someone whose identity is confidential. All of it. It contains their medical history. Most of it. It narrates their experiences and anecdotes. Much of it. It holds a transcript of their feelings. Some of it. It does not contain any real information. None of it.

I’ve never been known to keep anything confidential.

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This journal belonged to a witch who boiled plants alive, their roots still deep in the ground. He claimed the plants didn’t feel a thing. But on the last inked page, covered in dark reds, purples and greens like a plant crime scene, suggests otherwise. It contains no text. But an drawing. Of Hank. The witch. Struggling to climb out of a bubbling stew like those he made for medicine.

Hank was a witch. Skilled. But he couldn’t find a cure to his illness. He searched every book. He asked every witch and wizard. But no one knew. And no one wanted to help. Because he boiled plants alive.

Every witch boiled plants alive, once upon a time. It was costumary. No one blinked an eye. No one but plants. But following the witch movement of sustainable and ethical witchcraft, no one ever boiled plants anymore. Not alive. Not in public. Not in daytime. No one but Hank.

But Hank was behind his time. And ahead of his time.

Hank was a witch so powerful and knowledgeable he didn’t need to boil plants alive. But he did. For fun. For a while. But when it came to his illness, he didn’t know any other way.

He wasn’t particularly upset by that. He made it clear below every recipe he noted down. “Plants don’t feel pain. Neither do frogs. And neither do humans. If you boil them well.”

I wonder if the plants boiled him well.