3AM Exercise 2: Imperative

Write a fragment of a story that is made up entirely of imperative commands. (500 words)

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Take the 7:45 train to work and make the connection to the Red Line. Sit in car 3 because that's where she is.

Open up your senses. Catalog, use each, discard nothing, remember the details and use them later, make them yours. Notice she's wearing her hair down today; her skirt rides above her knees, no ring on her finger.

Let her perfume remind you of High School and wanting to breathe her in, to happily drown in the scent. Remember what her lips tasted like - heaven and a shiver at the base of her spine. Make the connections - jet-black hair, dark brown eyes, olive skin, a crooked smile. Remember that ache and never forget that people more than things can be beyond your reach.

Remind yourself - she is here - even when you lose sight of her, even when she blurs around the edges.

Rip open the skin of the clementine, taste the sun pushing sweet into the flesh of the fruit. With each piece count the times friendship bled to lover and faded back to friendship. Let the citrus burn your tongue.

Listen to the conversation two seats back. Between the squeals of the brakes and the whoosh of the doors, make out the words: "Connect the dots."

Do not miss your stop and do not look back. Spend the workday wondering. Spend the workday dazed. Spend the workday hungry after skipping lunch and staring out the window at the Commons, knowing the trains glide beneath the grass and trees and roots and she is there, waiting.

Watch the clock and avoid conversation. Concentrate on the decision you have to make.

Leave late today, stroll out of the building into the evening air and breathe it in. Smell the oil and gasoline, methane, grilled meat from Parker’s Steakhouse, new cut grass, flowers starting to bloom – and a faint lingering of her perfume.

Descend the steps to the T station slowly and with confidence. Don’t scare her off. Don’t fuck this up.

Wait for the 19:45 train. Sit in car 3 because that’s where she will be.

Notice that this time, she doesn’t keep her distance. Make room for her on the seat as she sits down, leans in and smiles, her eyes bright as lightning. Make contact. Connect the dots. Realize she’s not real, not a ghost, not imaginary – that she’s a memory made real. Question her. Answer her.

Even though she has no reflection, even though her skin is cold, ask her what she wants to do. Ask her if she wants you. Smile and stroke her cheek, kiss her neck, breathe her in.

Let her take your hand and pull you to the back of the train. Watch as she opens the back of the car, setting off the alarm – as she forces the train to lock its brakes, filling the air with screaming metal. Don’t fall, don’t wait a moment. Follow her onto the tracks, into the dark. Follow her into electric torchlight, through static, and stone, and a thousand pins and needles to the other side of the Veil.

Forget your old life. Embrace the new.