Prompt Challenge
Ellen’s Victorian sits in the historic district with a plaque by the door, a porch that sags in the middle, and paint gone chalky.
The vacant lots on either side look like missing teeth. Soft dirt. Cigarette butts. A shoe.
She meets me at the door, takes the twenty from my hand, and gives me a cream-colored sheet in return.
Prompt Challenge: The Closed Door
Forty minutes to write.
Read or pass.
Inside, the house smells of cloves, old linens, and dried flowers.
Linda’s already rearranging chairs in the parlor, like we’re staging an intervention. Or a wake.
Brad lingers in the foyer, whispering into his phone, narrating his next military thriller. Brad’s pages are full of heroes; men who know exactly what they’re doing, men who never hesitate.
Brad.
“Welcome, everyone,” Ellen begins. “Let’s all get comfortable, shall we?”
Margaret sits in the corner across from me, chewing her pen cap. Last week she wore a sundress. Tonight: faded Levi’s, black cardigan buttoned to the throat. She doesn’t look at me. Not since the night it rained and I drove her home.
“Now, for this week’s prompt, I want you to write about a closed door,” Ellen says. “What does a closed door bring up for you?”
Linda smiles like she helped choose it.
We lower our heads. Pens out. Forty minutes.
Linda’s pink fingernails tick atop her Surface Pro beside me. She corrects everyone’s syntax. Corrects mine. As if I don’t know the rules, when to break them.
“Remember,” Ellen says, “make the reader care. Give them someone to root for.” Her bracelets clink with every gesture. Same thin wrists as my mother. Same way of touching her throat when she laughs.
My notebook opens to a page I didn’t mean to keep—a torn corner where I ripped something out months ago. I rub my thumb over the ragged edge anyway, like I can smooth it back into place.
I don’t write about a door. Not exactly.
I write about a man who doesn’t answer a text. A man who watches his phone light up and lets it go dark. A man who tells himself he’s being responsible. Loyal. A husband.
I write fast. Too fast. Like I’m trying to outrun the moment that’s coming.
Around the circle: the small sounds of industry. The scratch of a pen on paper. Linda’s nails. Brad is whispering into his phone, even now, like he can’t be alone with himself. Margaret’s jaw works the pen cap as if she might swallow it.
Halfway through, Ellen claps once. Loud.
“Twenty minutes.”
Brad winks. Gives me a thumbs-up. Like we’re in this together.
Brad.
I finish early and stare at my last sentence until the ink dries. It feels clean. That bothers me. Clean never means true.
Ellen claps again. “Time.”
Chairs creak. Everyone comes back into their bodies.
“Who wants to go first?” Ellen scans us with her toothy smile.
Brad starts, of course. He reads two pages of a soldier at a door. Mud-brick, iron latch. Courtyard dark beyond. Sand in the teeth. Overwatch on the roofline. He builds. “Set.” “Standby.” The call: “Go! Go! Go!” Shock. Splinters.
Everyone nods for Brad. You’re so intense, Brad.
Linda offers notes. “Tighten the verbs.” “Watch your tense shifts.” She says it like she’s helping him build a shed.
Brad grins like he’s being reviewed by the Pentagon.
Then Linda reads. A piece about her father’s study. A closed door. A childhood fear. Crisp sentences. Well-placed commas. She gets a soft chorus of approval.
When Ellen looks at Margaret, the room tightens.
Margaret’s eyes flick up, then down. She clears her throat once, like she’s testing if it’ll work.
“I can pass,” she says.
Ellen’s smile widens. “No pressure.”
Linda tilts her head. Brad stops pacing and actually sits.
Margaret looks at the paper in her lap. Her hands hold it by its corners, like she’s scolding it.
“I’ll read,” she says.
She doesn’t look at anyone. She starts. Her voice, quiet, measured, quivering. The way people talk when they’ve rehearsed to make sure they don’t cry.
Her story begins with a door that won’t open. Not because it’s locked. Because the knob is slick, and her fingers keep slipping.
She reads about a room that smells like bleached towels and stale air—about a laminated evacuation map bolted to the back of the door. You Are Here, printed in red, and an arrow that doesn’t help.
She says the woman is holding something she didn’t buy—a glass bottle, it’s sweating. The label’s peeled, cold, and slick against her palm.
There’s a man behind her in the room. He laughs quietly, like he’s looking at something on his phone and doesn’t want to share it.
He calls her by the wrong name. Then corrects himself. Then he says it again, like the wrong name fits better.
She makes a joke. The joke doesn’t matter. What matters is how thin her voice sounds when she hears it, how hard she’s working to keep the mood from turning.
She says the man steps closer, and the door at the woman’s back stays shut. Not shut like a trap. Shut like a decision already made when she walked down the hall.
She reads that the woman’s phone is face down on the dresser because the screen kept lighting up. She says she turned it over so she wouldn’t have to see the name.
The man tells the woman she’s shaking. Then he takes her wrist like he’s checking her pulse. Like touch is something he’s entitled to offer. Or take.
She reads that his hand is warm and dry. That detail makes the woman angry later. Warm and dry, like this is ordinary. Like nothing bad is happening.
She reads that the man’s watch ticks softly when he moves—metal band, heavy face—the kind certain men like people to notice.
I glance at my own wrist without meaning to.
She says the woman tries the knob again. She says she hears the click this time and knows, in her body, that the door was never locked. That her hand was just trembling before.
She reads the line: I could have left.
She pauses.
Then reads: I didn’t.
She reads that the bedspread is tucked too tight. Hotel corners. Like someone wanted the room to look safe. Like the bed was staged for a version of the story that would sound better later.
She reads that he offers wine. She says yes because yes keeps things calm. She watches him pour it, careful not to spill.
She reads that he sets the glass down but keeps his fingers on the rim. That he holds her eyes while he does this.
She reads the line: Don’t make this weird.
She reads that he smiles at that.
She says her mouth goes dry, but the woman keeps talking. Weather. Traffic. Street names she doesn’t drive on—anything to stay ahead of the moment.
She reads that he doesn’t interrupt. He lets her talk. He watches.
She reads that he tells her she’s safe. That he says it like a gift.
She reads: Thank you.
Somewhere in the middle of her piece, the room holds its breath.
Linda’s nails stop ticking. Brad goes quiet. Ellen’s bracelets don’t clink. Even the candles seem to burn without sound.
Margaret keeps reading.
She says the woman notices, later, that there’s a bruise on her hip. Not shaped like fingers. Not clear enough to prove anything. Just a dark patch. Like a shadow.
She says she stands in her bathroom in the morning and stares at her own face like she’s waiting for it to accuse her.
She says she tries to write it down, but the words won’t hold still. They keep sliding into softer words. Words that don’t get anyone in trouble.
Awkward.
Misread.
Mixed signals.
I shouldn’t have…
She says she hears the man’s voice over and over, later, saying, You’re okay. You’re fine. You wanted this.
She says the worst part is that she never said no. Not once. Not cleanly. Not loudly. She says she never gave him the story he deserved to be afraid of.
She says she gave him the story he can tell his friends. The one where he shrugs and says, She came up to my room.
She reads the line, I walked back through the door.
She says she can still feel the knob in her hand.
Then she stops.
It takes a second for the room to remember how to breathe.
Ellen blinks hard. Once. Twice. Like she’s clearing a screen.
Linda’s mouth makes a shape that could become a smile if she forces it.
Brad shifts in his chair and looks down at his hands, as if he's just noticed he has them.
Margaret folds her paper once. Clean. Precise. Like she’s putting it away for later.
No one says anything.
Nobody says the word that’s sitting in the middle of the circle with us.
Linda finally clears her throat. “That’s… really intense,” she says. “But I think… craft-wise… you might want to consider—”
“Linda,” Ellen cuts in.
Ellen leans forward, bracelets clinking, elbows on her knees, matched fingertips. “This is a supportive space,” she says, voice sweetened, careful. “We’re not here to...” she blinks again, twice. ”We’re here to write.”
Margaret doesn’t look up.
Brad laughs once, a short sound that dies immediately. “I mean,” he says, “it’s powerful, sure, but like… what’s the… Like, are we supposed to—”
He can’t finish.
Ellen raises her palms. “Let’s remember our guidelines,” she says. “Critique should be constructive. We’re here to help each other grow.”
I watch Margaret’s hands. The paper folded, held between her palms—prayer hands.
I can feel the old impulse in me, the one that always rises when a room gets tense.
Make a joke.
Change the temperature.
Give everyone an exit.
I used to be good at that.
I look at Margaret. I don’t say anything.
I don’t ask if she’s okay. I don’t offer to walk her to her car. I don’t say, That wasn’t your fault, because saying it would mean I heard what she wrote.
And if I heard it, I can’t pretend I didn’t.
Ellen looks at me like she wants me to do something. Like she can feel the room tipping and wants a man to put his hand on it.
Linda watches me too, side-eyed, almost daring me.
Brad avoids my eyes.
Margaret stares at the folded page like it’s an invoice she doesn’t want to accept.
The silence stretches. Not oppressive. Not reverent. The silence before someone decides what they can live with.
I think about the night it rained. Margaret in my passenger seat. Her umbrella dripping onto my floor mat. Her wet hair made the car smell like herbal shampoo.
I think about how I drove her home slow, hands fixed at ten and two, like I was taking a test.
I think about the moment in her driveway when she didn’t move right away. When the dome light lit her face, the car felt like a small room with no witnesses.
I think about the thing that rose in me then. Not romance. Not love. Something simpler. Something selfish. The clean hunger of being seen.
I remember it like a chipped tooth you check all day with your tongue.
I said her name once. Just to see if it changed the air.
It did.
Margaret reached for the door handle and paused like she was waiting for a line. Like she was giving me a chance to ruin us both.
My phone lit up in the cupholder. My wife’s name. A text. Where are you?
I watched the screen fade.
Then I said, “You good?”
Margaret said, “Yeah.”
She got out. She left the umbrella behind.
And I drove home.
I told myself that it was integrity, that I’d done the right thing.
That’s the story I’ve lived in ever since.
Now Margaret’s story sits in the room like a body. And my story—my clean little story—starts to rot at the edges.
Ellen clears her throat. “Okay,” she says, a voice bright with effort. “Who’s ready for a little wine?”
Margaret’s head lifts a fraction. Just enough to show she heard that.
She stands without looking at anyone.
She walks to the foyer. Picks up her coat. Moves like she’s been practicing her exit for a long time.
Ellen says, “Margaret—” the way people say wait, without wanting to stop anything.
Margaret doesn’t stop.
I watch her go. I don’t follow.
I stay in my chair. Hands flat on my notebook, holding myself in place.
Someone starts talking again. About craft. About safety. About how writing can be misread.
I nod once, because that’s what keeps the room intact, but gather my things. Notebook. Pen. Manuscript in its folder. I stand, quiet.
Ellen looks relieved, like at least another problem is leaving.
Outside, the street is empty except for my car. Duct tape losing its grip on the headlight. Inspection sticker expired.
I sit in the driver’s seat. Turn the key. Engine cranks.
Margaret’s umbrella is still in my backseat.
I sit there and stare at it until the dome light dims.
I pick it up—broad green-and-white stripes—Mallard’s head handle.
I hold it for a long time. I imagine returning it, imagine not.
I set the umbrella on the passenger seat like a person and drive toward nothing in particular.