Writing Prompt 30: Grey Suit, Blue Wall
Please Take a Seat
This week is the third prompt from a series of film stills of the movie North by Northwest.
There sits a woman in uniform, hair neatly styled in a bun, a microphone a short distance from her nose. Behind her, their backs to us, are two men in suits, a white strip of shirt collar peeking up the back of their necks. The woman seems calm. The blue walls add to this feeling. What do you think? Is there a story here?
Everything’s stopped. Here we are back at the beginning. The man has a name. Nigel. Not a fancy name. A straight-forward English name.
There he is running for the plane. He's not fit. A running un-fit man is not a pretty sight. He's already changed his shirt once. We know what will happen. The gate will shut. He won't be able to travel. He will miss his flight. The one he needs to take to see the woman who is pregnant with his child. The woman who is not his wife.
He makes a joke. A joke about a bomb. The woman he is shouting at is also pregnant. What will he do? Go back to his wife? Wait for the next flight? His impulses have got him in a complicated mess.
(I'm not sure which is best for the story. I think he should wait for the next flight.)
He can't face his wife or look his firstborn child in the eye. He takes a seat and waits for the next available flight.
Time starts again. He opens up his bag. On top is a picture of his daughter, Evelyn. Guilt swells over him.
(How does that feel?)
An emptiness in his chest. Tears rising, welling in his eyes. He knows he's messed up big time. He caught a glimpse of her in the garden before he left, the back of her red hair in a morning tangle, sipping lemonade she wouldn't be allowed in the morning.
Before her, before Evelyn, Nigel never thought his heart could break. Now there was a crack, a fine line making its way through, making it bleed. He puts the photo away and drops his head into his hands.
Story first posted in April 2020 // Photo: Tanya Clarke 2002 - film still from North by Northwest, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959.
