Okay so since no one seemed interested in the little prompt yesterday, guess I'll just post mine and move along...

Ahem...

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Another Saturday afternoon found Ahmad and Ahlaam on a day of grocery shopping. With their increasingly full schedules, they'd hardly found time to actually put food in their house, having to settle for fast-food and eating out on those busy school/work nights. This weekend, the two agreed to staying in for some peace, relaxation, and a home-cooked meal for their date night.

Both were equally excited for the date, though Ahlaam had been a bit reluctant about the shopping part of the plans. Ahmad pushed the cart along, with it over half full with all sorts of different foods and snacks, a multitude of ingredients for the various diverse foods the two liked to eat. Ahlaam held onto the side of the cart, pulling it with her as she grabbed boxes and items from the shelves to toss into the cart so they could get out of the crowded store as soon as possible.

Passing down aisle 18, she stopped in her tracks as her eyes narrowed in on one of the many appliances. Ahmad continued walking along, long through the list in his hand before Ahlaam raced forward, grabbing a box and returning to him. "Ahmad deary," she called, her voice sweet like honey. "My dear, beloved, sweet, and loving husband who never says no to his darling wife, would you be so kind as to purchase this for me."

Ahmad looked to the box in her hands, seeing a novelty waffle iron held mere inches from his face. Her fingers conveniently covered up the price on in the corner as she pointed out the various good qualities of the appliance, her favorite being the Aladdin and Jasmine character prints. Ahmad read through the label and looked up to see the 'puppy eyes' of his niqab-clad wife, begging him to say yes.

"How much is it?" he asked in consideration.

"Um, not...toooo much," Ahlaam shyly answered, her fingers slipping away from the price. Ahmad looked at the 54.99 sticker price and raised an eyebrow. "I know, I know, we can get one for half the price, but look at the pictures, Ahmad. Look at them!"

"What difference would it make having characters on your food? You're just going to eat them anyways. Actually, it's probably a little savage to be murdering them and stuffing them down your throat while the others look on in frozen terror."

"Nooo, don't say that. Besides, you owe me this after you broke the one we got for our wedding."

"Hey, we agreed that we were sharing the blame for that incident; and last I checked, you had 60% of the blame."

"Fine then,"Ahlaam huffed dramatically. "I'll just spend my laaaast $60 dollars to buy it and eat my waffles in poverty."

"You're such a bum," Ahmad laughed, taking the box from her and setting it in the cart. She knew as well as he did that he wasn't going to say no to her, or make her spend her own money things around the house. Ahlaam smiled behind her niqab and took her place beside the cart again, resting her hand atop his.

"Come on," she said, "We need to get flour and syrup and chocolate chips and whipped cream. Tomorrow we're going to stay in and have the best breakfast ever. Just us two."

"And your characters," he teased with a grin.

Ahlaam rolled her eyes but even with her face covered Ahmad knew she was smiling. They headed out of the aisle and over towards baking goods. There, they got the sugar, flour, and other staple foods for their household. Ahlaam got her chocolate chips and some cupcake liners, as well as some peanutbutter chips. She didn't like them, but she figured she'd use them when making cookies for Ahmad some time. After that, they were off to the breakfast food aisle.

The aisle seemed to be a little too busy for Ahmad to just maneuver through with the cart, but Ahlaam passed by to go and grab a bottle of syrup. It was then that she noticed a small scene at the end of the aisle. There was a woman and her three children, pushing a cart as she looked over a small piece of paper. The woman grabbed a container of oatmeal and one of her sons began to whine. "You said we could get cereal this tiiiiiime," he cried.

"We always eat oatmeal," his sister complained from beside their mom. Even the baby in the cart seemed displeased with the choice of oatmeal, slapping the box while babbling some unintelligible complaints.

"I know Mommy promised you cereal but this time we can't a- we can't get it this time because we have to get Susie's school supplies and more diapers for the baby," the exhausted mother explained. Despite her reasoning, the kids still continued to mope, forgoing any obnoxious fussing in place of long faces and sunken shoulders.

People continued to make their way past the family, either ignoring them or passing with up-turned noses, having unreasonable disdain for the mother who would't spend on her kids. Though she couldn't hear it, some whispered snide assumptions about her being a single mother or putting a drain on taxpayers being on welfare. Others regarded her as selfish, seeing the one decent thing about her attire, a pair of gold earrings, as frivolous spending whose cost could have gone towards providing for her kids. And further still, there were those who viewed her children as spoiled brats who were poorly behaved.

Ahlaam, however, saw differently. She heard the mother's quite words to her kids, as well as their rebuttles. Because her mind wasn't filled with preconceived assumptions, she could feel for the humiliated mother and her disappointed children. Without knowing her full circumstance, Ahlaam knew that it wasn't a situation to be placing blame or looking down on.

Taking her syrup bottle, she went back to Ahmad and whispered to him. "Honey, give me $20," she requested.

"What kind of fancy syrup did you find over there?" he asked with a confused chuckle, pushing the cart along. Ahlaam grabbed his arm and nodded towards the woman's direction.

"Come on, I want to get some cereal."

Ahmad shook his head and followed along, looking down at the list. Cereal wasn't actually included since neither of them really ate it, but he figured it'd be a decent thing to have for a quick meal sometimes. They could even eat it dry as a casual snack like granola. Ahmad stopped his cart just short of a character display for one of the famous cereal mascots, beside which stood a young child pleading with his mother to pleeeeease get him the cereal so he can be like a tiger.

Seeing the young Muslim couple approach, the woman called her child to her side as she headed out of the aisle. Desperate, the child tried one last time to make his case for getting the cereal in place of the oatmeal, telling his mother they can just eat a little every day so it lasts long just like the nasty oatmeal. He told her they'd like it even if they only got a little but oatmeal was too much, and like the dramatic child that he was, he swore that they always "eated" oatmeal and never had good food, ever ever.

Sighing, the mother looked at the paper in her hands and finally she caved. She agreed to a compromise, grabbing a box of off-brand cereal from one of the shelves and called her son along. This time though, her daughter grabbed a different box, insisting that the one her mother grabbed was boring and for old people. Her box was colorful, covered in pictures of cartoons and children enjoying the sugary breakfast, as opposed to the plain box and generic name on the cereal her mother had chosen.

Once again, the mother sighed, and tried to reason with her children. She told them that they could choose one cereal, but it couldn't be too much, and after they couldn't agree on one, she told them to just come along. Ahlaam, meanwhile, stood by, looking through the boxes whilst listening in. She turned to Ahmad, holding up two cereal boxes with her back turned to the family.

"What do you think?" she asked Ahmad, her eyes telling him her real question.

"Whatever you think is best," he replied, playing along as he pulled out his wallet. Ahlaam put both boxes in their cart and stood in front of him, taking out $20 from her own wallet and accepting a few bills from him as well.

When she turned back around, the woman and her kids were just leaving the aisle, and Ahlaam hurried along after them. "Excuse me, ma'am," she called out in a low voice, not wanting to draw everyone's attention. It took two calls, but the woman realized that she was the one being addressed and she turned around in confusion. "You dropped something," Ahlaam said.

"Oh, thank you," the woman said, looking down behind herself. It was then that Ahlaam inconspicuously handed over the folded bills, hidden from the view of others. Open realizing what she was being given, the woman began to hesitate, feeling shy to accept it but Ahlaam kindly smiled and pulled away.

"You're welcome," she replied, taking a step back. She didn't want to stick around too much and bring any attention from others, but when the mother looked at just how much she'd been given, she gasped and cupped her hand to her mouth.

"God bless you," she said, tears in her eyes as she looked up to see Ahlaam rejoining her husband. "God bless you both!"

"Thank you, may He bless you too," Ahlaam replied, intending a sincere du'ah for the blessing of Allah's guidance and provision upon the family. A warm sense of satisfaction washed over her heart, and suddenly she no longer regretted tagging along for the grocery shopping. Holding Ahmad's hand, she smiled, her mind and lips in agreement as she whispered "Alhamdulillah."

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Now for yesterday's post:

So, often times when we write our stories, we're so focused on getting to the point of our main plot that we forget to properly play out our scenes. What I mean is, we don't really have our characters interact with their environment unless it immediately plays into the exact plot plan. Sometimes we forget to really show any of the mundane or typical things in life as they happen which, though in a sense can be boring, sometimes it can play into character development.

Character development is a HUGE part of good storytelling, and yet some people miss the opportunity because they're so focused on making the main plot happen. Getting from point A to point B. And as the saying goes, it's about the journey, not the destination. The real reason a reader should care about what happens in the story is because they care about the characters, and if the character is just an empty sack that life happens to, it's boring.

So we should take advantage of moments that give us the opportunity to show who our characters are. Show, not tell. You can TELL me your character is a jerk, but if you show me a scene of him or her being rude to the waiter at a restaurant, even though the plot scene was them going out to celebrate a promotion at work with friends and reveal their proposal to another character, I still get the personality of the character and it didn't take any unnecessary exposition nor did you have to skip it to just get to the part of everyone happily eating and bam "by the way I'm asking so-and-so to marry me."

So the reason I've titled this post "In The Market" is because I have a small simple propmt for any willing participants. We're going to write a paragraph or short scene involving whichever character(s) we want from our writing and it takes place in a market. What they're there for is up to you, but the character(s) is (are) in the store somewhere and at some point in the market, they come across a kid and his mother having a bit of a noticeable interaction. What that interaction is is up to you, and how your characters react is also your choice, but try to make it a scene that displays the personality of your character and doesn't just strictly adhere solely to moving the plot to point B.

Let's see what everyone can do. Feel free to make the scene as long or short as you wish. Just do your best and have fun!

Btw I used different words because I didn't want to limit it to a grocery store or anything, so store, market, mall, etc your choice where it takes place.