This is a new series of A to Z prompts, created by Dr. Lee Zacharias.
She is a professor emeritus of English, at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She has written five nonfiction and two fiction books. She has contributed one chapter for “NOW WRITE! NONFICTION” and it is titled “Riffing”. That means to brainstorm and explore ideas. In that chapter, Dr. Zacharias wrote up a list of word prompts for writing enthusiasts to riff on and spark pieces of writing. That list of words has almost every letter of word from B to W. It is missing words starting with A, N, V, X, Y, and Z.
Right now, I’m ignoring the missing words, and calling this list the A to Z list of prompts. I might include my own few words, to fill up the gaps A, N, V, X, Y, and Z in the alphabet list.
This post uses letter L for “loud“, as a prompt.
The story starts now:
July 7 2026 is the day sounds were heard and nobody knows origins of sounds.
In the wee morning hours of July 7, 2026, at around 3:40 am, raindrops pelted on something in the immediate vicinity of our house, or the next door neighbor’s. The noise was really loud. Like “Bok, bok, bok, bok, bok, …….”. The noise started almost right after I was jolted awake by a weird dream.
I got up from bed, walked to our window and listened. No, not from our side of the grounds. I walked to another window, which was next to the boundary wall separating our unit from the neighbor’s. “Bok, bok, bok, bok, bok, …….” Really loud and confirming the sound came from there.
The neighbors next door were awake and talking. They had been awake even before I was awoken. Two of them were discretely talking about having done something, to no avail. Their intention was to inform me they had sent the dream. The message in the dream was not in alignment with my life’s objectives. I knew that was not my own dream.
Since some other residents next door could still be sleeping, I didn’t talk or make noise. The two people didn’t mention the “Bok, bok” sounds as that would pointedly make their position obvious; that they blame the noise on me. They thought the noise came from my side of the grounds.
Later in the morning, the neighbors started talking again about “Bok, bok”. They denied the sound was from their compound. They said they thought the noise was from my garden.
Related:
Other posts in this “A to Z prompts series” –
(1) https://artmater.com/a-to-z-prompts-series-b-for-basement-of-memories/
(2) https://artmater.com/a-to-z-prompts-series-c-for-cemetery/
(3) https://artmater.com/a-to-z-prompts-series-dark-is-when-the-fun-starts/