What Happens if Ashtrays Had Thoughts...
I don't remember if I mentioned this in my last post or not, but in a support group I am in for NaNoWriMo has been doing video chat groups and the other night we had another one where we did word sprints and talked in. And the first sprint that we did was a picture prompt. In the picture was a metal table with two chairs and what looked like an ashtray and a couple drink coasters on it. When it comes to writing prompts and sprints like this I tend to start writing without thinking about specific characters. Which is how I came up with this paragraph.
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| Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash |
"Sitting on the unoccupied table the ashtray felt the
ambiance of the sidewalk as people strolled past minding their own business. It had
made friends with the drink coasters that rested on the table with it. Emblazoned
with the logo of a neighboring restaurant the coasters didn’t make a sound when
patrons of the restaurant used them for their drinks. When no one was sitting
at the table the ashtray felt cold and sometimes lonely. But when people sat
there it fell warm and alive. In the evenings when the restaurant closed the
ashtray didn’t want the server to empty the ashes out of it, because the ashtray
enjoyed the feeling of the cooling ashes being tapped into it from the ends of
the customers' cigarettes and cigars. When that happened the ashtray knew that
people would return the next day to add their ashes to it again. The ashtray also
enjoyed the days when the server forgot to come and empty out the old ashes.
Because that meant that they only left when a gentle breeze blew down the
sidewalk and moved some of the stray ashes on top out of the tray. And when the
stray ashes left on the wind the ashtray made a wish on them. Like one makes a
wish on a dandelion or a star."
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