The Fine Art of Flopping

This month’s AW Blog Chain Challenge is a good one for me.  Setting the Scene: write a location description, and make us feel as if we are there. I’m lousy at this sort of thing, so it’s good for me to stretch a bit. I asked my husband to pick a location for me to describe and I got to work. Please click the links after the snippet to read writers who are much better at this stuff than me. I’ll be updating the links as more writers join the chain.

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It had never been a pretty building. It had been built ugly and had only gotten worse as the years passed. The floors were uneven, the thinning walls held up by the multiple layers of paint and the hidden spaces crammed with a million cockroaches. It smelled of must and rat poison, of sweat and tears and hopelessness.

I spent my nights chain-smoking and listening to the neighbors through the open windows.

“Dude, remember the night Charlie took that beating and all the blood in the snow . . .”   followed by hysterical laughter and the sound of yet another beer being cracked open.

All the residents of the flophouse had stories, though people were careful never to ask. The woman who slunk down the hallway,  never ever making eye contact; the skinny guy who looked like he was dying of something painful. They all just sort of faded into the garish seventies wallpaper and the broken furniture and after a while everything seemed normal.

The bed had an enormous sagging spot right in the middle and it took a lot of mental strength to not think of all the people who had slept and sweated and fornicated in it. I was just the latest. Turning the mattress was not a good idea. The other side had an equally enormous stain caused by something I didn’t want to imagine, but couldn’t help pondering. My dreams were as vile as my surroundings.

Leaving was always a simple pleasure. From the dank gloom to the endless California sunshine, the possibilities were suddenly endless again. The palm trees, furry and overgrown, stood guard over the entrance, the crumbling steps splattered with the remains of a drunken date with a bad burrito.

I dreaded returning. Nevertheless, I called it home.

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orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
juniper – http://www.katjuniper.com/ (link to this month’s post)
LadyMage – http://www.katherinegilraine.com/ (link to this month’s post)
You are here
jkellerford – http://jennykellerford.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
AuburnAssassin – http://clairegillian.com/ (link to this month’s post)
pezie – http://www.erinbrambilla.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Inkstrokes – http://drlong67.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
WildScribe – http://DionneObesoBlog.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Guardian – http://daewrites.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Lyra Jean – http://lyratorres.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
egoodlett – http://wordlarceny.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
cwachob – http://www.corriewachob.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Aheïla – http://thewriteaholicblog.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
faerydancer – http://digitalinkwell.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
TheMindKiller – http://www.jabberwocky.ws/ (link to this month’s post)