Generator Used: Character Complication
My Roll:
🎲 2 — Stubborn
🎲 6 — Values honesty, hides the truth
🎲 6 — Doesn’t see what’s right in front of them
🎲 4 — Emotional trigger: Betrayal or deception
🎲 6 — Refuses help even when needed
🎲 4 — Change or the unknown
Before we get into it:
Story Lab isn’t where finished stories come to show off. These are creative kickstarts—rolled, written, and shared before I can polish all the weirdness out of them. The point isn’t perfection. It’s to take what the dice give me and see where the hell it goes.
Here’s What I came up with:
**The dice didn’t necessarily give us six new things to add to Miss Alma. They may have identified six things that were already emerging in her.
“Was that Zachary?” Miss Alma raises one grey eyebrow as I walk through her front door.
“Yeah, Zack stayed over last night.”
Both of Miss Alma’s eyebrows raise.
“On the couch!” I quickly clear up my statement.
“I see.” She smirks as she turns to the coffee maker on the counter. “He’s a fine man. If I was twenty years younger—”
“Miss Alma!” I gasp.
“Did I say twenty? I meant thirty. If I was thirty years younger.”
My jaw drops. Thirty years would still make her a cougar.
Miss Alma turns and offers me a mug of coffee. “Why aren’t you all over that boy?”
“We’re friends. He’s like a brother to me.”
Miss Alma snorts at my protests.
I sip my coffee while doing my best to check out her eye without being too obvious. That scumbucket son of hers. I silently fume. Purple and dark black bruising surrounds her eye.
“Heard from Pete today?” I ask, setting my mug on the battered wooden table.
Miss Alma stiffens slightly, then sets her mug down opposite mine.
“Pete won’t call for a few days,” she whispers, sounding on the verge of tears.
“Good.” I reply and reach for my coffee.
Miss Alma shakes her head gently. “Not good.” She looks me directly in the eye. “He won’t call, but my grandson will. When Pete is in jail, or the hospital.”
She sucks in a breath and purses her lips.
“How old is your grandson?”
I’ve known Miss Alma forever, and this is the first time I’m hearing about a grandchild.
Why doesn’t he come to visit? I wonder.
Miss Alma picks up her coffee and sips at it, eyeing me over the rim.
“Robby is…” She stalls. “Different.”
Tipping my head to the side, my eyes scour her face. She’s lying, but I’m not sure why.
“Different?”
I get up and take my empty mug to the sink. I start to wash it as I wait for her to answer.
“It’s nothing.”
Miss Alma’s chair scrapes across the floor. She stands and turns toward me. I reach to take her mug, but she skirts around me.
“Marla, I am perfectly capable of washing my dishes. You’re not my maid,” she scolds me lightly.
Changing the subject.
Stepping to the side, I watch her pick up the rag I set down and begin to wash the mug like it’s the most interesting thing she’ll be doing this morning.
The message is clear. The subject is closed.
“I guess I should get going,” I announce as she rinses the damn mug, still avoiding eye contact.
“Oh.” She turns and smiles like the awkwardness of the past few minutes never happened. “What are your plans for today?”
She winces as her smile pulls the skin around her eye.
“I…” I stall. I actually don’t have anything planned.
Junior the Jerk called and told me I didn’t need to come in to work this morning. Lila must have needed the extra hours, or Junior really needed to “discuss” the migration habits of polar bears in the walk-in with her…again.
Miss Alma waits expectantly.
“I guess I really don’t have anything planned.” I smile. “Junior gave my hours to Lila,” I explain.
The shrill ring of the phone cuts off whatever Miss Alma was going to say. She straightens up, her shoulders stiffening as she walks to the old nineties-style wall-mounted telephone.
“Hello?” she answers tentatively, her voice dropping to a low mumble.
I make myself busy wiping the already spotless countertops.
“When?” she questions the person on the other end of the line.
“I don’t know, he’s thirteen.”
I can hear the tinny sound of the voice but can’t make out what they’re saying.
Who? Robby?
I move across the kitchen and scrub the tabletop.
Miss Alma turns slightly so her back is to me.
“I don’t have the space. I really don’t know if I can.”
Doesn’t have the space?
I raise an eyebrow. She has the empty second bedroom she keeps offering to me.
Eyeing the trash can, I set the rag back across the spigot, then grab a fresh trash bag from the cupboard.
What the fuck is going on?
Pulling the trash bag from the can, I tie it up and set it aside.
“I suppose, if there’s no one else,” she responds to the caller.
Fuck. What did I miss?
I put the new bag in and march the full bag outside to the can as fast as possible.
Not fast enough.
Miss Alma hangs up the phone, resting her hand on the receiver as if she’s bracing herself.
Sighing loudly, she says, “Marla, you should go home.”
I stop in my tracks, dumbfounded.
She has never sent me home so abruptly.
“Miss Alma?” I step up behind her and rest my hand lightly on her back. “Are you okay?”
“You should go home,” she repeats softly.
“If there’s anything I can do?”
“You can go. Now.”
Her voice is still soft but firmer this time.
I step back, dropping my hands to my sides.
“Okay,” I agree. “If you need anything, anything at all,” I emphasize, “please let me know.”
I open the door and step out onto the porch.
I drag my feet as I slowly make my way off the porch. Peeking in the window just before I hit the first step, I watch the tears track down Miss Alma’s face as she drops into a chair at the table.
Miss Alma looks up before I can move away.
Fury like I’ve never seen on her before replaces the anguish of seconds ago.
Your turn. Have fun with it!
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