{"id":2754,"date":"2025-02-13T16:08:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T23:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/?p=2754"},"modified":"2025-02-13T16:08:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T23:08:25","slug":"all-i-can-do-is-laugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/13\/all-i-can-do-is-laugh\/","title":{"rendered":"All I Can Do Is Laugh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

prompt: Start your story with the lines: \u201cThe room is unfamiliar. I don\u2019t know how I got here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room is unfamiliar. I don\u2019t know how I got here. Perhaps, if I was hung over, I\u2019d have a clue, but I feel like I\u2019ve had a good night\u2019s sleep for the first time in recent memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to remember waking up and moving to where I stand, but there\u2019s nothing. If I\u2019d slept on the small sofa or in one of the armchairs that made up the totality of the room\u2019s furnishings, I would be stiff and sore, not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thought tickles something in my mind \u2014 the case. What case?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I examine the room. Aside from the sparse furnishings, the room has nothing interesting to offer. The walls are covered in pictures of books on bookcases. The sort of thing that could be used as a backdrop for a play or movie. Light comes from a dozen recessed fixtures in the ceiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oddest thing, though, is the lack of any door, window, or other opening. Just to be sure I\u2019m not dreaming, I pinch myself \u2014 too hard. It hurts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s too much I don\u2019t know about what\u2019s going on. I take stock of what I do know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name is Carmen Carina Alvarez, but I hate it. I go by \u201cCC\u201d instead of the names of my dead grandmother and great aunt. I\u2019m 32, a police officer with a masters in criminal justice \u2014 so new the Captain says the ink is still wet on the diploma \u2014 and well on my way to making detective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thing I can remember before this room is the Garvey kidnapping case. I was canvassing the apartment building\u2026no, wait, I finished canvassing the building and was walking back out to the cruiser\u2026. It\u2019s all blank after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I got in here somehow, and that\u2019s how I\u2019m getting out. I walk along the walls, feeling the slick wallpaper with its images of books on shelves. There has to be a seam somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stop halfway along the second wall. Even if I can\u2019t find a seam, I can make one. I reach for my knife in the pouch on my duty belt, only to realize I\u2019m not in uniform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m wearing my work clothes from my old construction job, pre-academy. Old cargo pants and a flannel shirt. No knife in my pocket, but I do have a pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I open it, press hard against the wallpaper and drag it back and forth over the same spot to get a hole started. It feels a little wrong to mess up my pen this way, but getting out takes priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A small hole becomes a larger hole, becomes a place to grab hold and rip. I work both directions from the hole, exposing the dull grey wall behind. With a three-handspan tall strip across the whole wall, I move on to repeat on the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s while I\u2019m ripping a strip out of the third wall that I find the door. I wonder how they managed to paper over it on the inside for a moment, then decide it\u2019s better just to get out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no hinges on the inside, so the door must open out. I give it a push, but it doesn\u2019t budge. Without being able to determine which side the hinges are on, I try shouldering it open, first from the left, then the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When trying the right side, I hear a slight crack. I back up and try again. Another crack but more faint this time. I need more mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I flip the sofa off its legs onto its upholstered back. It slides on the wood floor without much effort. I start from the far side of the room and run the sofa into the stubborn door like a battering ram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crack is much louder this time, and I see the door flex a little. I do it again and the sofa gets caught partway through the now open door, where a broken lock bracket hangs from the wall. Just beyond the sofa and door is a toppled bookcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I climb over the sofa and bookcase and examine the new room. Where the previous had a few furnishings and pictures of bookcases full of books, this one has bare, grey walls lined with mostly empty bookcases. Real bookcases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t see another door besides the one I just stepped through, so I examine the dozen or so books. They\u2019re all textbooks I used in the past. Curious, I pick up the Intro to Criminal Justice book from my freshman year. I flip through it and see all my highlighter marks and notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just the same edition, it\u2019s the actual book I used. There\u2019s a rude drawing on page 317 that was already there when I bought it used from the campus store. I take a few minutes to look through all fourteen books in the room and verify that they\u2019re all my copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I finish examining each one, I put it on a middle shelf in the order I used them in school. Placed all together like that, they seem small and meaningless in a room full of empty shelves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If these shelves were my life, would they have anything else on them? Well, pictures of family and friends, for sure. I\u2019ve got trinkets from every city I\u2019ve ever visited arranged on shelves at home. Nothing very big, just something I can stuff into my pocket or carry-on and remind myself of a trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tin that used to be full of Almond Roca from the factory in Tacoma, Washington is the largest of them, while the smallest is a half-inch lapel pin that I picked up in a truck stop in Tijuana, Mexico.  It doesn\u2019t look like I\u2019ll have a chance to do any shopping wherever I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With no other doors in here, and another wall to strip the paper off in the first room, I decide to give myself a break. I search the shelves, looking for some small, forgotten item on the backs of the highest or lowest shelves. Climbing one of them, I feel something loose in the carved facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I jiggle it and a carved flower falls into my hand. Just under an inch, made of wood, and stained a deep brown, I turn it over a couple times and squeeze it in my left hand. Souvenir \u201cshopping\u201d done, I return to the first room to rip the paper from the last wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of the room as I\u2019d left it, though, I find all the walls repaired, the sofa back in place, the door still open, and a creature lounging on the sofa. I guess that she\u2019s a demon or devil of some kind, based on the deep red skin, black horns and hooves, and the way she\u2019s twirling the end of her tail in a clawed hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot important,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat is important is, what you are going to do now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can fight, or you can give up. It\u2019s up to you.\u201d She has a gleam in her solid black eyes that makes me nervous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mean I\u2019m dead,\u201d I say more than ask, \u201cand now it\u2019s time for judgement. Well, if you mean to take me to hell, I\u2019m not going. I\u2019ll fight.\u201d I pull my pen out and brandish it like a weapon. It\u2019s not much against those horns, but it\u2019s better than nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing quite so final or dramatic as that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen what?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can go through the door,\u201d she says, waving at the wall behind her that opens into a bright room, \u201cor you can choose to rest here a while. I\u2019ll fill the shelves with all the books you might want to read until you\u2019re ready to start over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStart over?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. You can rest as long as you like\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShut up,\u201d I cut her off. \u201cI\u2019m not staying here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look into the bright light of the open room behind her and recognize the surgical lights shining in my eyes. Without waiting for a response, I run toward the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWait! You can\u2019t take that! Not so\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel myself slam into my body as pain jolts throughout. I can barely hear her voice trailing off, \u201c\u2026fast, it\u2019ll hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m awake and aware on the operating table. The anesthesiologist is in trouble for this one, but I don\u2019t care. I feel the wooden flower held tightly in my hand. It was real, and I\u2019m alive. All I can do is laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

prompt: Start your story with the lines: \u201cThe room is unfamiliar. I don\u2019t know how I got here.\u201d available at Reedsy The room is unfamiliar. I don\u2019t know how I got here. Perhaps, if I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[208],"tags":[216,210,209],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trunk-stories","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pxT7i-Iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}