Write A Story That Begins With A 3 A.M. Phone Call

An exercise from my writer's group meeting last night. Let me know what you think.




The blast of the phone at 3 a.m. annoyed Draven. She was busy, after all, her insomnia on high alert. She was busy pacing around her apartment, cigarette in one hand, vodka rocks in the other, busy obsessing about her insomnia.

Good news never came at 3 a.m.

She looked at the table that held the phone, eyeing it warily, but never getting close enough to look at the caller I.D.Finally, the phone stopped. Or at least, it stopped for a few seconds, then started blasting again.

Draven sighed. Her alcoholic mother, on the other end with ice cubes tinkling in the tumbler of cheap wine from a box?

Maybe her jailbird big brother, locked up yet again for some stupid bar fight and looking for bail money?

Certainly not her baby sister tucked snugly in her marital bed up in Tuxedo Park, with Frank,the Wonder Husband.

The phone stopped again.

Draven took a big swig of the vodka in celebration.
Then it rang again.

With a scream, she ripped the phone cord from the wall and stomped across the highly polished, hand made, bamboo floors and yanked open the garbage compactor and threw the entire phone,receiver, base, and tangled cord, into the gaping mouth of the disposal. She hit the "on" button and enjoyed hearing it crunch into pieces.

After the drinking the last dreg of vodka in her glass and crunching the ice furiously, she thought maybe, maybe, she could finally sleep.