Unwelcome Dinner Guest: Odd Delusions Disrupt Family Meal (Psychological Mystery & Blues)

In The Noodle Trap, a father and daughter’s quiet meal is violently interrupted when a crazed individual with delusional thoughts storms into their lives. Early on, the father is thrust into a perilous situation, forcing the daughter into a desperate, life-or-death struggle to save him. As they are drawn into a world filled with mythical creatures and magic, she must summon all her courage to rescue her father before it’s too late. The 12-bar blues improvisation with saxophones and a clarinet perfectly captures the escalating tension and chaos of this high-stakes adventure.

#magicaladventure #fantasystory #fatherdaughterbond #highstakes #familyrescue #mythicalcreatures #FairyTale

Early in my writing journey, when I needed to get an idea, my first reaction was to run to NYC Midnight’s previous prompts, which were at the time freely available. With the list of locations and objects, I’d use Google’s random number generator to select the genre for the story. After getting the number and matching it up to the genre, I drew one of NYC Midnight’s combinations for a Fairy Tale. When the cursor stopped whirling across the screen, I discovered my tale would need to take place in a noodle restaurant and needed to feature a pair of mittens.

Despite having a rough idea of the story’s core, that was it. That is right until my mind does what it does when staring down a deadline. Sometimes characters will emerge from the depths of my mind and put on a show for me. And that was exactly what happened with this fledgling story. Between a couple of moments, a trio of individuals stepped out of the mental shadows and put on a private show.

It didn’t take long before the rough story unfolded and developed. Even though I possessed a rough sketch, it needed a lot of work. With each pass, I refined the shape of this story and ultimately crafted what felt like a wonderful fairy tale. When I let my daughter read the story, she loved it. Between the story’s daughter getting some mac n’ cheese and running into a talking unicorn, she thought it was an amazing tale.

However, given when I wrote this, it needed a fresh edit before getting narrated. Thankfully, that wasn’t the most troublesome part of the process for The Noodle Trap. That dubious honor belongs to the backing blues track. Originally, it was going to be a duet. And despite being a fun experience, by the time I finished the saxophone and clarinet solos simply didn’t mesh. Fortunately, the work I put into learning the solos wasn’t wasted, as it strengthened my fingers, allowing me to even play something like it. Before long, I pared down the clarinet to a simple accompaniment.

Support:
If you enjoyed the tale, head over to my Patreon site and become a patron. For $2 a month, you get access to the genre poll (a way to help shape the exclusive stories every month), three pieces of exclusive flash fiction (stories which don’t exceed 1000 words), and early access to all my artwork.
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Links:
Dead Man’s Hand: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Mans-Hand-Forgers-Book-ebook/dp/B0DHY1WMT8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0
The Noodle Trap: https://www.stevenmeehan.com/archives/2018/10/18/noodle-trap/