3WW LIX

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Hopefully, this week's words will be a treat.

Welcome to Three Word Wednesday. Each week, I will post three (or more) words. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something using all of those words. It can be a few lines, a story, a poem, anything. I'll also attempt to write something using the same words.

Leave a comment if you participate. Many fun and interesting people might visit your blog.

This week's words are:
Phone
Stumbled
Windy

You never realize how ear-splitting the ringing of a phone can be until it rings in the middle of the night, piercing the formerly silent darkness and causing the mind to race and the heart to pound.

Kari fumbled around on the nightstand until she felt the phone. She didn't recognize the number. She looked at the clock. It was 2:18. She sat the phone back down.

Out wasted again, she thought to herself. Needing a ride. Or needing money for bail.

He called again. And then a third time. She fought the urge to answer, then waited for a fourth call. But it never came.

She lied awake wondering if he would get a ride, if he would have a place to sleep. A tree brushed against the house, reminding her the night was chilly and windy. The urge to give in one more time was continuous. But he had gone too far. He had pulled a knife on her. He was out of control.

Still there was no satisfaction in knowing she had made the right decision. She wasn't even sure she had. The only thing she felt at that moment was pain. Immense, unbearable, sleep-depriving pain.

Miles away, he stumbled out of a phone booth and sat down on the pavement. Out of change, tired, weary, but completely sober for nine days and twenty-two hours.

"I haven't had a drink in nineteen days. My eyes are clear and bright without that haze..."