10 Characters

​So I signed up for Shaunta Grimes' Daily Writing Prompts (thanks mom!) and today's was to create 10 characters. They could be as descriptive or brief as you liked, just 10 original characters and who they are. So these are mine. Sharing out of deep and terrified boredom. Tell me which you like best and maybe I'll write more about them, Idk.

1) Harper
A millennial painter/artist/social media "influencer" living in Logan Square. There are succulents in every window, and she collects foreign records from the $2 bin at the store down the street, which she plays on her record player from Urban Outfitters. She wears her dad's "vintage" leather jacket, but doesn't know he got it at Macy's on sale in the late 80's. She mostly paints her feet (using her iPad, of course) or "abstract interpretations" of vulvas. Is a vegan but eats chicken nuggets when she's drunk. Hashtag sex positive. 

2) Michaela
Long blonde hair. Never wears make up but is drop dead gorgeous. Born and raised in Kentucky, works on her grandpa's dairy farm. Likes to go out drinking with her "guy friends from church" who all desperately want to fuck her. She's terribly dyslexic and only has about an 8th grade education, but charmed her way through high school. Believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible and meant to vote for Trump but genuinely forgot what day the election was. When she prays she pictures kneeling before the blonde-haired, blue-eyed painting her grandma always still has hanging above the fireplace. She has nightmares about the rapture because she worries about who will look after the cows when she's gone.

3) Dev
A thirty-two year old, second-generation Indian immigrant. His father was a dentist, his mother was a librarian, and he finished top of his class from NYU but people still ask him if he drives a taxi or works at a bodega. Born and bred in Brooklyn, but his folks live in Queens now so he barely ever sees them. This is just as well, because it would be hard to explain to them how he can afford his gorgeous, sunny, penthouse apartment. They think he works for an iPhone app start-up, but he actually has an incredibly lucrative career writing erotic queer fantasy/sci-fi books online. He secretly identifies as asexual, but he loves writing about 17th century gay mermen fucking.

4) Deirdre
Sweet, petite, little hummingbird of a lady. Lives with her dumb but handsome and well meaning husband, Robert, in a modest suburban home just outside Evanston. She works at an upscale infant clothing store at the mall, not because they need the money but because she loves talking to the expectant mothers. Robert and Deirdre never had children; she couldn't get pregnant after complications from an abortion. She tried talking Robert into fostering, but he says he's "too busy with his landscaping company." Deep down she knows it's because he's afraid they'll end up with a black child. She tells herself it's "just how he was raised." Deirdre thinks all babies are beautiful. No one knows (except for Robert) that she was in a sex cult from ages 18-30.

5) Yosef
A Hassidic Jewish man living in Vermont, who has always secretly dreamed of becoming an Olympic trampoline jumper. He snuck onto a trampoline at a street fair once and it was the closest he's ever felt to God. He's been chasing that feeling ever since...

6) Phillip
A banker from St. Louis, Missouri. He played the gay scene when he was in college and liked to party, but now the most action he gets is flirting with his spin instructor at the gym once a week. He has one sister in Phoenix but they rarely speak. Lately something has been feeling "off," a feeling he hasn't had since he was a little kid. He started buying women's clothing, just to try it on and see how it felt. Sometimes, when he's extra brave, he'll wear a smaller item under his clothes to work... Late at night he dreams sometimes that he is a woman, and he lives in a cottage in the woods with a husband and their kids. They grow herbs and have a chicken coop and sheep named Oscar the Grouch. She bakes bread for the church potluck and everyone wants her recipe, even Cynthia, that bitch who always comes early and sits in the front row. But it's a sign of flattery of Cynthia hates you. In these dreams, her name is Philomena, the Catholic Saint of Roses. Philip wakes up, and wonders if the spin instructor likes roses.

7) Oliver
He’s secretly thrilled the prom and graduation are cancelled due to the pandemic. He hates large crowds, and he didn’t have a date anyway. He’d rather stay at home and play video games. He likes how straightforward they are: a good guy, a bad guy, a mission. Some of the newer ones are more complicated, with harder decisions to make, but he likes those too. It’s just him and his mom, and she works two jobs. He wishes she’d play a game with him sometime, he thinks she’d like the escape as much as he does. But he knows she never will. One night he overhears his mother on the phone talking to his aunt. There had just been a school shooting, and his mom was crying. “Every time this happens and they describe the shooter, all I can think is how much they all sound like Oliver!” He’s never told her that he heard her that night. But he’s also never forgotten.

8 ) Layla
Her family thinks she’s a bit of a failure - late 20s, overweight, acne, single, works at Walmart, still lives at home - but none of them know she’s “internet famous.” She plays the ukulele on YouTube and is known for her covers of Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, and Iron Maiden, although her most recent cover of a My Chemical Romance song almost got a million hits. Her handle is Uku-Lay-Lay and she dreams of going on America’s Got Talent and getting the golden buzzer.

9) Madison
26, mother of 1 year old twin boys, Liam and Lucas. Every morning she takes them out for a 5k run by the lakeshore. Her husband, Tommy, didn’t seem to notice or care how quickly she lost the baby weight, but he sure loved showing her off at the office Christmas party. Sometimes she drinks too much Chardonnay for her Prozac prescription and starts ranting, and it’s always about the same thing… saving the bees. She stays up late every night reading about how the world is going to end because the bees are dying, and she wants to set up a flower box in their apartment window, but Tommy says no because of his “allergies.” She bought a beekeeper's suit once while drunk-Amazon shopping. Tommy doesn't know about it, but it makes her feel better knowing it's in the closet anyway.
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10) Toby
He's a seven year old who lives outside Chicago. His mama, Renee, moved them in with grandma after his big brother Andrew was shot and killed. Renee works at a nail salon in the mall and has a wicked drinking problem. She makes Toby sit on the hard, uncomfortable chairs while she finishes her shift. The smell of the chemicals hurts his head. Sometimes he wanders through the mall to eat the free samples from the food court. The teenagers at the pretzel place are always mean to him, but the nice older ladies at the Korean and Chinese places give him extra. Toby’s favorite thing to do on the way back is snoop by the small designer kid’s clothing store and watch the woman behind the counter. She looks so warm and friendly.