Prompt #58

I met the most amazing person last week.

Hair: Brown

Height: ?

Eyes: ?

Weight: Medium?

Obviously, I wasn’t really paying attention.  My brain was on my novel.  However, when she said her name – that’s when things got interesting.  Her last name was Gallows.  She started talking about how it was either her biological last name, or maybe her biological last name was something different…. I can’t really remember.  My brain had moved on.

You see, my first sentence up there is a lie.  It wasn’t last week that I met this person, it was about three and half weeks ago – a week before I started my book.  This is one of my favorite times to be alive.  The week before I start my book, in the last-minute planning stage, I walk around with my head in the clouds and a notebook in my arm.  Everything is inspiration – every person I pass, every song I hear.  I probably should not be allowed to drive during these times.

But just moments ago, on my ride into town, I had thought up this idea of having a character who was the daughter of the hangman.  How cool would that be?  I could go the scarred-for-life route, or the numbed-to-the-horrors-of-death route.  Endless possibilities!  My mind was racing, and I couldn’t let go of the idea.

So you can understand why I wasn’t really paying attention when this girl introduced herself.  The idea was mounting and then falling, being stretched and then smashed, sculpted and then squashed.  My brain was busy.  But her name!  It was genius!

The daughter of the hangman morphed into the hangman himself.  And his name would be Gallows.  No, he wasn’t born with that name, he was given that name.  But by who?  I didn’t know.  I had to write his story.  The day was busy, and it wasn’t until my lunch break that I sat down to write it.  Half an hour.

I only got about a thousand words down, but they told most of the story, and hinted at the rest.  This man had a fiancé, and a beautiful life planned out.  But then the monarchy devolved and the jealous and paranoid Queen began ordering the hanging of innocent people.  The village hangman ended up hanging his own innocent fiancé.  Then he ran away and threw a never-ending pity party for himself, renaming himself “Gallows” so that he would never forget his sins.

All this from a name. 

I met the most amazing person last week… or three and half weeks ago.