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A 20-minute Writer's Inkwell writing exercise, based on this "bartender's challenge" prompt: Cucumber

She peeled the cucumber lengthwise then cut it into thin, transparent rounds. Dress it with half a cup of light cream, a chiffonade of shallot, some capers, a tablespoon of vinegar and another of sugar, salt, pepper, and it’s done and ready to chill. The perfect summer side dish.

She pushed back from the sink and blew the hair out of her eyes. Now, nothing to do but light the candles on the dining room table and wait for him to arrive. And wait. And wait.

Three hours later, she had long ago given up on waiting, blown out the guttering candles, and gone to bed. There was no other explanation. He was stepping out on her. Either that or he was dead as the result of a multicar pileup on the interstate. At this point, she didn’t much care which one it was; she was done. Half a dozen unanswered calls, all of them straight to voicemail. No one got to treat her that way twice.

As she lay tossing in her sweaty sheets, she suddenly heard someone in the kitchen, fumbling with cabinets and the refrigerator. She rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen, determined to get an explanation from him. Instead, she flicked on the overhead light to find a very young, very drunk woman digging into her cucumber salad with a serving fork.

“Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”

The woman peered at her blearily, trying and failing to focus on her.

“David told me to come in and get him something to eat and bring it out to the car. This looked good, so I thought . . .”

“Yeah, I doubt you’ve been doing much thinking this evening. Otherwise it might have occurred to you that trying to steal food from your f*ck-buddy’s girlfriend was a bad idea.”

She goggled at me unsteadily. “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, girlfriend.”

There was a long silence followed by a sudden convulsion as the milk dressing decided it didn’t like where it was sitting and decided the floor was a better idea. She stumbled out the door and into the driveway, wrenching open the passenger side door before she was overwhelmed by yet another convulsion, this time on his upholstery. I made it to the front door just in time to witness his punishment.

20-minute writing exercise based on this writing prompt: There is writing on a creature or object that should not be there.

The astronomer squinted through the eyepiece of his backyard telescope at the surface of Mars, struggling to decode what he was seeing. There was something there, but what? No matter how finely he adjusted the focus, he couldn’t resolve the image. He needed the telescope at work.

With a muttered excuse to his wife, he rushed to his car and backed out of the driveway, headed to the observatory. An idea kept tickling the back of his brain, but he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept what he was thought he was seeing.

At the observatory, he convinced the reluctant grad student who had booked time in advance on the big scope to give him a few minutes to “check something out.” Eventually, a $20 bill and the promise of a beer afterwards were all it took.

At the console, he swiftly keyed in the coordinates for Mons Arsia, one of Mars’ largest mountains and waited impatiently until the telescope moved into the proper orientation. As he called up the highest resolution image possible, he felt his heart start to pound and his skin to turn hot. It was true. What he had tried to deny in his backyard was now undeniable. There, nestled at the base of the mountain, was an advertising banner painted in varying shades of regolith, proudly proclaiming “Busch, Head for the Mountains.”

That was when he knew that commerce would always seek to subjugate science to its own mercenary ends.