I’m sorry not to have posted for a few weeks, I’ve not been well. Hopefully I’ll get back on track in the next few weeks.

I saw this the other morning while I was rushing home from the local shop in the rain. Someone had left a black plastic bag of rubbish on the pavement. A fox had visited in the night searching for tasty morsals, and had torn open the bag, leaving the rubbish spread liberally across the street.

In the middle of all that rubbish I saw this key pad, glistening in the rain. I probably looked a bit odd, crouching over a load of someone elses rubbish to take a photograph, but the obejct itself grasped my curiosity (I have a short article on the science of curiosity for writers here for those who are interested).

It looked to me in that moment like the kind of keypad that may be attached to a safe or a panic room, and I began to wonder how it ended up on a rainy pavement in a slighlty run down suburb in outer London.

I don’t actually know how common it is to have a safe or a panic room in the UK, but it feels like to me like only the really wealthy would have such things, and we do not live in an area where the really wealthy live.

But I could be wrong. You never really know what the ordinary looking front doors of your neighbours houses may conceal behind them. It’s entirely possible that some of the modest semis in my area conceal all sort of hidden wealth or criminal undertakings.

What do you think the combination to this keypad unlocked?

Why do you think it was torn away and discarded like this?

Could it have been an emergency, or a robbery gone wrong?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.