Today’s writing prompt, This is Madness, will allow you to consider different perceptions of reality, and uncomfortable emotions. Keep reading to see the full writing prompt and my completed version of it.
Today’s Writing Prompt: This is Madness
Today, write a scene in which a person is going mad, or seems to be losing their grip on reality. And write this scene from the third-person perspective, from the point of view of someone who is watching this person go mad.
Completed Version of Today’s Writing Prompt
This is Madness, by K.E. Creighton
When the doctor unlocks the door and I walk into the threshold of the room, she is curled up in a ball in the center of the floor underneath the fan. All I can see of her is her crooked spine and long black hair draped over her balled-up skeleton-like body. She’s rocking back and forth and humming a lullaby I used to sing to her when she was younger, a lullaby that still seems to soothe her. When I say her name, she stills for a moment but doesn’t look up. The doctor says that she says that she feels safe underneath the fan, which is hard to believe since I don’t hear her saying much of anything and haven’t since the day I brought her here about a month ago– the day she told me she was hearing voices that wanted to hurt her and everyone she loved.
I wasn’t sure what to do after she told me she was hearing mean voices on a random sunny Saturday afternoon after eating a deli sandwich. Especially since everything spiraled into darkness so quickly out of nowhere. I felt so helpless and scared, but most of all confused and shocked. All I wanted to do was comfort her and protect her, and the rest of my family. But I couldn’t. Because they’re all gone now, and she is here confined and locked away from the world and me. And as I stare at her dozens of drawings on the wall in this room, of a man dressed in black with a dark empty void instead of a face, hearing her hum as she rocks, I know I will never see her again.
[All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton and Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. All names and locations referred to are the product of the author’s imagination and are used entirely for fictional purposes. Any similarities to real-life persons or places are purely coincidental.]
Notes on Completing this Writing Prompt
While I was completing this writing prompt, I was inspired by The Pale Blue Eye which is about Edgar Allan Poe, and a book I was reading called Liar, Dreamer, Thief. Both of those stories were pretty intense, danced around the idea of madness, and put me in a more serious space when I was writing. I’m hoping someone shares a much less somber version of this prompt with us once they complete it.