This week’s writing exercise was given by Mark.  Below was his emailed instruction:

Use an anagram for inspiration.

Visit http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ and enter your full name to generate a list of anagrams. Now choose one of the anagram results as your title and use it as an inspiration for a poem, short story, or essay. Word count should not exceed 350 words.

Enjoy!

My name, Orven Enoveso, yielded only less than a hundred anagrams.  Too few.  Probably owing to the two v’s in my name.  Others here who’ve tried it got a lot more hits because of their longer names and low score ‘scrabble-letters’.  One got more than a thousand results. 

I ended up having to develop my own anagram because I didn’t like what the website produced, hence my title, and work, below.

Noon’s Eve Over (350 words)

The glare of the chandelier grew stark.  Zoe liked it that way.  Staring straight at the amber glow strained her eyes, just as she wanted it to.  It helped her stay awake.  She tugs at her crumpled blanket, pulling it to her chin to shield her fragile frame from the icy November breeze blowing through a half-opened window.  “I must not fall asleep.  Not yet,” she whispers to herself as her eyes trace the soft undulations of the curtains dancing to the breeze. Her faint words echo in her thoughts, like a lullaby floating softly across the room.

Numbness creeps in. “Aaaaah!” Zoe wakes up shaken.

A deep sigh, a quick toss of the blanket and she is off the bed.  The tiled floor feels cold against her bare feet as she shuffles towards the ornately framed mirror.  Brushing aside unkempt hair, Zoe is shocked to see her weary eyes.  Her now gaunt face shows the strains of her nightly distress.

It is day forty of her ordeal.  The dream, always the same dream, had been haunting her every night at midnight, the witching hour, or as she likes to call it, noon’s eve.  There was no escaping it.  She had tried every night to stay awake just long enough for midnight to pass but always failing, always waking up to her own horrified screams. 

“Run away.  Run away!”

She finds an open door, and tracks the faint moonlight marking the end of a long corridor. 

“The balcony!  Need to reach the balcony!”  Her walk quickly gives way to a sprint.  The air caresses her determined countenance.  She reaches the open door at the end.  The moonlight bathes her pale skin in a faint glow as she pulls herself onto the railings in one fluid motion.  She pauses and stares straight down.  The wind here is fierce and bites at her sallow cheeks.

Numbness creeps in. “Aaaaah!” Zoe wakes up shaken. 

She loses balance and steps into the night.  She falls to her end.  Thankfully.

Her dream will no longer haunt her because it has finally come true.