Writing Prompt-A Thief

The writing prompt I stumbled on was a "thief steals something from the Garden of the Sun." Which felt appropiate because it had just enough a shade of epic and the upcoming MTG set is ancient Greek themed and it made me think of Prometheus.

But I am awful at writing fiction. This blog is proof of that so I wanted to try something different.

In this situation the thief steals anxiety. Because the garden of the sun is actually a prison. It looks good for sure. It features a koi pond cut into a well manicured divot into a hillside surrounded by sedges and non-invasive cat tails. The fish themselves are fat mythical dragons the color of old amber. Around this pond there are butterfly bushes that are ever blooming. The whole space is well lit. True to name, in the Garden of the Sun it is always high noon so there are no shadows. At the center of the garden is a polished cedar pedestal holding the MacGuffin on anxiety itself. And anxiety is huge. Because everyone is anxious. About world war 3. About their health. About politics. About their children. About work. As you get older one realize that few people know what they are doing but those we perceive as better skilled are just pretending until they get by. You could say I am strong writer if you were to compare me to a freshmen English major.

So because we have been on a precipice for the last 30 years (Anxiety briefly shrunk after the Soviet Union fell and people agreed with the End of History point of view of world politics. But it recovered) anxiety is huge. It has no true form itself but the thief has studied what others have described. The shape is both deeply personal yet common. Cutting and quite mundane.

People describe seeing a lotus head filled with holes.

People describe seeing a single blue tile askew to the pattern in the bathroom floor.

They see a DMV form drowned in blue ink and the space in the boxes for one's personal information shrinking.

Its a child standing on the busy road shoulder as both sides of the rural highway fill up with F250s.

Sometimes its a feeling like a piece of popcorn husk shucked into your gums A partner saying we need to talk. A panicked co-worker saying what should we do. The feeling of sitting in the driveway of a relative's house knowing the weekend is already lost. Its seeing your crush and boiling the courage to say something to then realize this will be like all the other times.

But the thief takes anxiety because the thief has the special containment device. Its like the ghost trap in Ghostbuster but instead of it being made of metal and plastic and rubber it is made on a giant damn Cymbalta pill. A pill the size of a milk crate with the inside lined with all the rainbow colors of Paxil and vaporized Zoloft running through the internal honeycombed walls. And there are pipes made of gummi candy that carry chilled Proseco for cooling.

While anxiety is huge (The thief later reports that at seeing the box, Anxiety morphed into a hurt inky black pool of ink) it shrinks next to the containment device until it is the size of  tennis ball and into the box it goes. It can never be destroyed but in the box it can be contained.

Free of anxiety the world becomes braver and bolder. The honesty crushes some (Even crushes some businesses and governments) but it lifts others. The robbery is a rising tide that sweeps some boats high and others under.