Prompt: Write a short piece that demonstrates a clear and vivid setting.
Katie sat stiffly against the cold stone
wall, aiming a weak flashlight beam at the thick brown door. Her mother had
gone out to check the barometers a while ago – was it thirty minutes? Forty?
She hoped no more than forty-five, but with no clocks or windows, she couldn’t
be sure. She pulled off her blanket. The room was small and offered no comfort
in its white walls and thin cots. Katie shoved open the heavy door and took a
deep breath.
The room beyond was large and drafty,
illuminated by small slivers of light from long, thin windows near the ceiling.
Rain streaked the panes and dark clouds obscured the small strip of sky.
Hugging herself, Katie walked around the tables and chairs littering the floor
to the large closet on the opposite wall. Silently she pulled out a large coat
and rubber boots. An umbrella would be pointless; she’d need her hands to pull
herself along the rope strung from the building to the meters.
She took another breath and refused to
wince as the wind and rain pounded the windows and rattled the door. Her mother
was out there, gone far longer than she should have been. Resolutely she
continued on, struggling with the many layers of clothes. She had barely
grasped the door when it flung open, causing her to jump back and reach for her
goggles. Securing them, she flailed for the slick rope, sighing when she
grasped it. She began pulling herself the fifty feet to the barometers. Their
old chicken coop bent under the wind and garden gnomes smashed into its metal
frame. Her mother’s plants were torn from their roots. Terrified, Katie doubled
over, barely keeping a hold on the rope. She yelled as she moved, but her
mother wasn’t in sight.
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