I have many projects underway and I overslept this morning (thanks, Daylight Savings Time–thanks heaps), so here’s another glimpse inside the world of FORCE OF HABIT (99 cents and cheap at the price):

Bel, meanwhile, crossed the lobby to the Inn’s front entrance.

She heard the barroom door open and checked to make sure Wotan Hessaphess wasn’t following her. No, only a Stokk, a slick-looking snappy dresser with Kelly green hair and lemon yellow skin. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, his lipless mouth showing his good teeth to advantage.

Bel went into the vestibule. From here, she could look through the Inn’s glass front into the street.

The brochures didn’t exaggerate: The city was beautiful. The buildings squatted and lumped, then soared into towers and minarets, their peaks lost in low clouds.

And the colors. Pastel was an insipid word for such vibrant tones, for architecture like an endless cluster of soap bubbles.

The Stokk came into the vestibule, too.

He seemed about to speak to her. Bel didn’t want him to speak to her; him, or anyone else. She wanted to be left alone, to look and enjoy.

She frowned and shook her head, and went out.

Out, into the street, where she had no business being.

Bel took a deep breath of the unfamiliar air. It had a different taste than Terran or shipboard air, different smells; it even seemed to have a different texture.

She could go to the corner without violating directives…too much. She could go to the corner and stand there for a few minutes, people-watch a little, then go back, and none the wiser.

A food vendor on the corner offered a soup made of fish and wine, and tiles made of dried meat spread with herbed cheese.

Bel bought and ate some, and washed it down with carbonated fruit juice bought from another vendor on the far corner. Still on the same block as the hotel, you see, just outside the walls; a mere eight inches or so from where she ought to be; practically still inside.

And so the adventure begins. Ah, Sophistry, thou plausible but misleading or fallacious argument, how thou dost make puppets of us all!

WRITING PROMPT: Pick a character from your work or from literature, film or television and have him or her attempt to justify an unjustifiable action.

MA