The weekend got away from me, so we’re catching up with three little nightmares.
This collection takes us to a library, a bakery, and a cemetery bench. There are books, cake, and coffee. I’ve provided several lovely things to enjoy while everything goes terribly wrong.
Choose an image, set a timer for ten minutes, and see where it takes you.
October 23: The Borrowing Fee
The prompt: A small library lends books that let you experience someone else’s memories. To borrow one, you must leave a memory of equal weight.
You offer an ordinary childhood afternoon.
The librarian places your memory on a brass scale. Her expression changes.
“Who told you this belonged to you?”
I would prefer to have this conversation sitting down.
For this prompt, give the borrowed memory a detail your character has always loved: sunlight on a kitchen floor, someone humming, a warm hand holding theirs.
Then introduce one thing that doesn’t fit.
Perhaps the kitchen belonged to a house they never entered. Perhaps the person holding their hand is still alive—and insists they’ve never met.
Questions to explore:
Why did someone give your character this memory?
What have they forgotten in its place?
Does the librarian want to help, or keep them from asking questions?
Try this: Describe the memory in a short paragraph. Rewrite it with one changed detail that makes the entire scene frightening.
October 24: The House Specials
The prompt: A new bakery sells tiny cakes shaped like houses in your town.
You buy the one that looks like yours.
On the way home, its sugar chimney begins to smoke. Your phone rings. A neighbor says your fireplace has lit itself.
Then you notice the cake beside yours in the box has a fallen branch pressed into its roof.
Outside, the wind picks up.
I’d like to know whether the baker takes returns. Immediately.
The danger here becomes personal through accuracy. Give the cake a feature nobody could have guessed: a cracked back step, a crooked repair, a tiny version of the spare key hidden beneath a flowerpot.
Once your character realizes the connection, make them choose what to do with the cake.
Keeping it safe sounds sensible. But icing softens. Cake crumbles. And sooner or later, someone will wonder why there’s a pastry under twenty-four-hour supervision.
Questions to explore:
Do changes to the cakes cause events, or predict them?
Who bought the other houses?
What happens when someone takes a bite?
Try this: Write the scene in which your character proves the connection with one tiny, apparently harmless change.
October 25: The Second Coffee
The prompt: Every Sunday, you bring two coffees to the cemetery and sit beside your best friend’s grave.
Today, the blanket beside you sinks under an invisible weight.
You hear the familiar sound of someone lifting a cup.
Then a stranger’s voice says, “They couldn’t come. They asked me to meet you.”
That is a considerable change to the afternoon’s plans.
Begin with the ritual before introducing the stranger. Let your character brush leaves from the bench, complain about the coffee price, or share something funny that happened during the week.
Those habits establish what this visit means. The interruption then threatens a relationship the reader has begun to understand.
Decide what the stranger knows. A private joke might earn your character’s attention. An incorrect nickname might make them reach for their keys.
Questions to explore:
What could prove the stranger was sent by their friend?
Why can’t the friend come?
What does accepting the second coffee allow the stranger to do?
Try this: Write a conversation in which your character asks three questions. Let each answer make leaving more difficult.
Pick Your Trouble
A memory that belongs to someone else. A cake connected to your home. An unexpected visitor on a cemetery bench.
Which one would you write?
Share your choice or your opening line in the comments. And if you’re catching up too, you can start with whichever image catches your attention. The nightmares will wait their turn.
