I have been loving the prompts for their very variety. But I feel like the most challenging writing prompt may actually be coming up with a writing prompt. I find that funny. Here is my prompt. I hope it is up to snuff.
Pick a book that you love. A book that you have read multiple times because you love the story. Write the equivalent of a fan fiction piece that is based on the book. This could mean writing a different ending, prolonging an existing scene, adding a prequel or epitaph, or whatever else. But do this without trying to mimic the actual writing/writer.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Phil Collins (or, the Monkey Love Man)
Jacob's Saturdays consisted of chores. When he woke up, he cleaned his apartment. After college, when he'd first started teaching, he had roommates and rented a house and had to deal with yard work and plants to satisfy the lease. His roommates were all graduate students who were too busy to do chores.
He did homework. He went shopping. Jacob shopped three days out. When he was in college, he'd read in a sociology class about all these couples who'd met shopping. Jacob thought it was all way too Lethal Weapon 2 and look how well that one turned out, with the girl drowned and the guy a drunken, rabid anti-Semite, but he still stuck to the frequent shopping. He always told himself he would cook something but he never did.
He went to a small, local grocery, owned and operated by an older married couple, pictures of them through the years on the wall, along with pictures of their kids growing into adults. It was downstairs from his apartment. He just had to walk out the front of the building, down the stairs and it was to his right. On the left was the Italian restaurant where he spent way too much money; across the street was a Chinese takeout place where he didn't spend enough.
The wife was pleasant enough, greeting him as he entered. Jacob had been shopping there since he moved in, almost two years ago, but he still hadn't become a regular. Their prices weren't terrible--convenience stores, for example, charged more--but it was pretty clear he would never be a regular. The son and daughter worked summers and they remembered him and were very friendly. If they ever took it over and Jacob never moved out of his apartment, he'd be a regular. He'd also have killed himself, but he would be a regular.
He smiled at her, said "hello," and took a basket.
He walked through the produce, looking at everything. He didn't know how to cook any vegetables he actually liked. He could boil and he could steam, but when things got more complicated than either of those processes, he was lost. Jacob didn't know what simmer meant until he was twenty-seven. He was cooking dinner for a girlfriend and had to call his mom to tell him.
Asparagus, a vegetable Jacob loved, confused him. Artichokes too--his one attempt at cooking artichokes had been an unmitigated disaster. It permanently ruined a pot and temporarily had Jacob and his roommates swearing off green vegetables. They also had to air out the kitchen for a week; luckily, the Oregon winter was temperate.
But he still pretended he might get some celery or carrots. Maybe lettuce for a salad. Even a bag of lettuce or just a pre-bagged salad. He didn't.
The butcher counter started at the rear of the produce section and Jacob pretended to look there too. He had a George Foreman Grill still in the box, a gift from an aunt when he got his first apartment. Jacob had always worried, like his mother had, about showing use of gifts people had given. No one ever visited Jacob though, so he never had to worry about it. He didn't even really communicate with his aunt. They were Facebook friends, of course; they never really talked.
He got some roast beef from the butcher, listened to the other shoppers talk about sirloin and other things he didn't know anything about, and picked up a loaf of French bread on his way to frozen dinner section. Since it was a somewhat pretentious grocery, they had some nice organic brands, which Jacob bought, though never in the portion control variety. He felt gypped if he didn't get a little dessert. He got one with apple crisp and two with cherry crisp. He didn't really care what entree he was getting.
The line was never short--especially on weekends, families stopped in for little things, snacks maybe, when frequenting the park across the street (though even weekends were nothing compared to weeknights around six, when there would be nine people minimum in line for the single register)--and Jacob passed the time playing on his cellphone. Thirty-one years old and he'd played more video games in the last year since he got the cellphone than he ever had before.
After he checked out with the wife, who treated him politely and impersonally as usual, he stood around in front of the stairs up to the apartment building, enjoying the breeze. He was also waiting for some of the people to move along. They mobbed in front of the grocery, waiting to cross the street, chitchatting with some neighbor they hadn't seen for a while. He hated going up the stairs to his apartment feeling like he was on display.
Once he did get upstairs, he put his microwave dinners in the freezer and put his beer in the refrigerator and went into the bedroom to take a nap. It wasn't even noon. Sometimes Jacob would get done with all his chores by two in the afternoon and have nothing else to do all day. He could find social things to do--his coupled friends all found it amusing to have him go along to dinner and to a show, just because he always had stories (like kids smoking pot in class)--but it was the time in between. From two to seven, a tenth of his days off per week, he had nothing to do. Sundays were worse, but he could justify doing nothing since he'd done it all on Saturday.
Plus, he took a long nap on Sunday, every week, as he dejectedly prepared for another work week. He'd sleep five hours, from noon usually, and still go to bed around ten.
His nap lasted forty minutes. His soothing sounds of the forest hadn't even finished when he woke up. He stayed in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, then got up and started some laundry. Jacob did laundry multiple times a week too; every time he went shopping downstairs, he come upstairs and start some laundry.
His life hadn't always been so mundane. He used to wake up on the floor of his bathroom Saturday afternoons, almost no memory of the night before, certainly not coming home. Then he grew up but he did it out of sync with his friends--he got a career first, most of them got paired up first, then got careers.
At work, at lunch, he'd talk to the guys a few years older than him who talked about dating services. They all made single women in their thirties sound like monsters. Jacob hadn't looked into any dating services, but he had thought about what he'd write in his profile.
It all sounded great until he realized he was making it all up, compositing himself with the Compsons, which was especially depressing given Jacob thought he'd been making it upbeat.
He had his windows open for the breeze. One of his neighbors was listening to Phil Collins. Something from a movie, Jacob didn't remember the title--his mom had liked it.
Even with the nap, his chores were done at ten to three.
His coupled friends were still busy, his single male friends only wanted to go places to meet women (nothing more appealing to the female sex than thirty year-old men loitering around a college campus on a Saturday), his single female friends only wanted to go places to meet men (Jacob's single female friends hated his single male friends and vice versa). Jacob wasn't even sure he liked any of his friends anymore. It wasn't a recent development; he was pretty sure he'd disliked them for years, just maintained the relationships to give himself something to do.
Vivienne's number was on his caller id. He wouldn't have it otherwise. How cheesy would it be to call her with "One More Night" playing dimly in the background. Like when he'd been thirteen calling a girl he liked with Barry White playing on his mom's turntable.
They could go see a movie. Maybe go to the botanical gardens, they were having a special seasonal exhibit, he'd seen advertisements up on buses when driving to work. Or maybe the batting cages. Jacob used to have a friend who always said batting cages were great for early dates.
Debating whether or not to call, Jacob decided "One More Night" had an effective chorus, but the actual content of the song wasn't catchy at all. It also wouldn't sound good playing in the background for his phone call. His phone call where he asked out the girl--the woman--he'd turned down for a date maybe sixteen hours earlier.
He thought about going through his music and trying to find something good, but then he realized she might not answer.
All of Jacob's music was on his computer--he wasn't sure if his neighbor had loud computer speakers or still actually had a CD player--and he made playlist of all the songs he could play in the background for a phone call to Vivienne.
The list started with thirty-nine songs, but after listening and considering and lots of cutting, Jacob got it down to six songs.
Of course, it took him most of the afternoon and before he'd even finished listening to the final playlist, his friends were calling, offering him something to otherwise occupy his time.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
It was kinda long
So, firstly: I'm not sure I agree about sexy Phil Collins although I think he has nice legs. I've been noticing legs lately. Especially nice legs.
Secondly: This *was* kinda long, but for the sake of blog navigation, I pared it to two paragraphs.
I'm wandering now.
Thirdly: Chatroulette is a really excellent word, despite what it means. I thought it was a French theorist, so I'm a little disappointed.
***
“You’re lying,” the German noticed, “but I will take your order because I notice something about you.” And she patted Swallow's back, pushed her fingers into Swallow's stringy hair. At that, Swallow pulled away, dragging against the stranger paws, but then the German flung her away and stood up.“You need to take me back,” the German said. “It’s time for you to buy a computer and let me go. Can you do that?”
Swallow felt her eyebrows pulling her forehead, and was hit by the silence of not knowing, of not possibly making it past the truth of isolation, but it was with a tingle somehow, an option out, and she so she stood up, the linen falling away, and reached out to grab Alina’s elbow, their skin brushing, but only in a brief proportion. “Sounds good,” Swallow said, before moving the German past the bureau and its filmy reflection. “I’ve always wanted to see your room.”
“There is no home for the likes of me,” muttered the German, as if reading Swallow’s desire. Swallow stopped her with a hand pressed against her face, at first missing the mouth and covering the German’s nose, but then slipping down and pressing, not gently, against her lips. Swallow shook her head, trying to knock something loose, and then removed her hand and led the German through the door and down the stucco hallway, pausing them only briefly at Letta’s door as if to assess the silence, before continuing down past the library.
Love that library, she had thought, delirious, the German’s elbow in her thin toy fingers. So traditional, and so incredibly immense, like a ballroom or a church—larger perhaps in her mind, but this too she knew. Its tables—three different ones, including two wooden and one plastic, and the two wooden of different eras with different commitment to baroque ornamentation—set at different angles and with different piles of clutter or neatness, as if Letta had decided beforehand which would been given over to chaos, and why. The most curlicued table was also the messiest and held, from the catalogue of Swallow’s memory, mostly seeds and seedpods, whereas the plastic one was set for papers and notebooks, tucked into exceedingly tidy piles along the five feet of its surface, one after another after another. If Swallow had to guess, which she did, the third—wooden but plain—was Letta’s actual workspace, and couldn’t be condemned as messy any more than it could be lauded as neat. It seemed, from an outside perusal, to be an accurate tsunami of thought: feathers and three slides with something intrinsically tiny and complex, two notebooks—one open with neatly penned numbers (Swallow felt guilty, wondered if she was doing enough work) and the other closed and maybe covered stern to bow with neat figurations in Italian, a plate rimmed with the refuse of olive oil and a tomato stem, seven cups (Swallow had counted, amused: four that must have held coffee, two blank, and the last with a reservoir of red liquid and several floating bodies, fruit flies perhaps), and then a random smattering of napkins, paperclips, a stapler, plastic bags, an ashtray with tiny seashells, leaves, an old-fashioned typewriter with a flier caught in its wheels, several clay sculptures obviously made by the same person (who seemed to have a fondness for metaphorical dick-vulva combos), and a pair of running shoes with socks stuffed into their body. And all this without regard to the bookshelves lining every corner of the room, including the small section behind the door.
Secondly: This *was* kinda long, but for the sake of blog navigation, I pared it to two paragraphs.
I'm wandering now.
Thirdly: Chatroulette is a really excellent word, despite what it means. I thought it was a French theorist, so I'm a little disappointed.
***
“You’re lying,” the German noticed, “but I will take your order because I notice something about you.” And she patted Swallow's back, pushed her fingers into Swallow's stringy hair. At that, Swallow pulled away, dragging against the stranger paws, but then the German flung her away and stood up.“You need to take me back,” the German said. “It’s time for you to buy a computer and let me go. Can you do that?”
Swallow felt her eyebrows pulling her forehead, and was hit by the silence of not knowing, of not possibly making it past the truth of isolation, but it was with a tingle somehow, an option out, and she so she stood up, the linen falling away, and reached out to grab Alina’s elbow, their skin brushing, but only in a brief proportion. “Sounds good,” Swallow said, before moving the German past the bureau and its filmy reflection. “I’ve always wanted to see your room.”
“There is no home for the likes of me,” muttered the German, as if reading Swallow’s desire. Swallow stopped her with a hand pressed against her face, at first missing the mouth and covering the German’s nose, but then slipping down and pressing, not gently, against her lips. Swallow shook her head, trying to knock something loose, and then removed her hand and led the German through the door and down the stucco hallway, pausing them only briefly at Letta’s door as if to assess the silence, before continuing down past the library.
Love that library, she had thought, delirious, the German’s elbow in her thin toy fingers. So traditional, and so incredibly immense, like a ballroom or a church—larger perhaps in her mind, but this too she knew. Its tables—three different ones, including two wooden and one plastic, and the two wooden of different eras with different commitment to baroque ornamentation—set at different angles and with different piles of clutter or neatness, as if Letta had decided beforehand which would been given over to chaos, and why. The most curlicued table was also the messiest and held, from the catalogue of Swallow’s memory, mostly seeds and seedpods, whereas the plastic one was set for papers and notebooks, tucked into exceedingly tidy piles along the five feet of its surface, one after another after another. If Swallow had to guess, which she did, the third—wooden but plain—was Letta’s actual workspace, and couldn’t be condemned as messy any more than it could be lauded as neat. It seemed, from an outside perusal, to be an accurate tsunami of thought: feathers and three slides with something intrinsically tiny and complex, two notebooks—one open with neatly penned numbers (Swallow felt guilty, wondered if she was doing enough work) and the other closed and maybe covered stern to bow with neat figurations in Italian, a plate rimmed with the refuse of olive oil and a tomato stem, seven cups (Swallow had counted, amused: four that must have held coffee, two blank, and the last with a reservoir of red liquid and several floating bodies, fruit flies perhaps), and then a random smattering of napkins, paperclips, a stapler, plastic bags, an ashtray with tiny seashells, leaves, an old-fashioned typewriter with a flier caught in its wheels, several clay sculptures obviously made by the same person (who seemed to have a fondness for metaphorical dick-vulva combos), and a pair of running shoes with socks stuffed into their body. And all this without regard to the bookshelves lining every corner of the room, including the small section behind the door.
Lost
Hello there. Thing one: around the 2:03-2:06 mark on the video, Phil Collins suddenly seemed really sexy. Thing two: this little piece was inspired by the prompt and Chatroulette.
---------
I press play.
I press next.
I see a large penis vigorously stroked by a faceless man, and I look.
I press next.
I am told that I look 37 by a Brazilian boy, who then tells me I am a pervert.
I press next.
I am told that I am ugly by two teenage girls.
I press next.
A man from Montreal asks me what the meaning of life is. I write ‘meaning of life=living it,’ he smiles and shrugs.
I press next.
I am told to take my sweater off by a naked man lying in bed, and I do.
I am encouraged to show nipple, and, after considering it for a moment, I do.
What? I do? I take my shirt off and I let a stranger, who may or may not be French, masturbate to my cleavage? This can’t be. What would my parents say? What if this is being recorded? What if it is reposted all over the Internet? I will suddenly become that idiot who showed her tits to a stranger. This wasn’t what I came for. I couldn’t tell you what I expected, but tweaking my own nipples and using my elbows as a makeshift miracle bra wasn’t it. And yet I push up the ladies, make sure my face is hidden, and consider taking my actual bra off altogether. The man has a blue tattoo on his left pectoral muscle. The sun is shining through a window out of the camera’s scope. He has sheets with little cherries on them. Oh god. Please. Please. Take me home! I don’t remember where, exactly, home is, but it has got to be around here somewhere, along with my commonsense and dignity. Take me home, and I’ll wear cardigans and start a garden and volunteer at a senior citizens’ center. I will do rigorous exercise five times a week! I will eat more kale! Just take me home. Take me home, away from this flasher I have suddenly, inexplicably, become. Take me home and put me to bed. I will wear flannel nightgowns! I will make myself cups of chamomile tea! I will be good. I promise. I promise, just take me home. Wherever that may be; I can’t quite remember. If you do this for me, I will make you a sandwich. If you do this for me, I will show you my breasts. Wait, no. I will not do any such thing. Once I’m home, my breasts will be tucked inside loose fitting tunics and bulky hand-knit sweaters. I will keep them secret. They will only come out for mammograms and other special occasions. But, if you want a peek before we get there, well, what’s the harm? Some man in Belarus found them quite to his liking. I pressed next, but maybe I should have stuck around. You never know when you’re going to need a friend in Belarus, and what were we, if not bosom buddies?
Next.
A couple in South Dakota.
Next.
The smallest penis I have ever seen. Poor guy.
Next.
A man with a sock on his head.
Next.
Can I ever get back to where I started?
Next.
Please. Please. Just take me home.
Next.
Because I can’t remember.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
---------
I press play.
I press next.
I see a large penis vigorously stroked by a faceless man, and I look.
I press next.
I am told that I look 37 by a Brazilian boy, who then tells me I am a pervert.
I press next.
I am told that I am ugly by two teenage girls.
I press next.
A man from Montreal asks me what the meaning of life is. I write ‘meaning of life=living it,’ he smiles and shrugs.
I press next.
I am told to take my sweater off by a naked man lying in bed, and I do.
I am encouraged to show nipple, and, after considering it for a moment, I do.
What? I do? I take my shirt off and I let a stranger, who may or may not be French, masturbate to my cleavage? This can’t be. What would my parents say? What if this is being recorded? What if it is reposted all over the Internet? I will suddenly become that idiot who showed her tits to a stranger. This wasn’t what I came for. I couldn’t tell you what I expected, but tweaking my own nipples and using my elbows as a makeshift miracle bra wasn’t it. And yet I push up the ladies, make sure my face is hidden, and consider taking my actual bra off altogether. The man has a blue tattoo on his left pectoral muscle. The sun is shining through a window out of the camera’s scope. He has sheets with little cherries on them. Oh god. Please. Please. Take me home! I don’t remember where, exactly, home is, but it has got to be around here somewhere, along with my commonsense and dignity. Take me home, and I’ll wear cardigans and start a garden and volunteer at a senior citizens’ center. I will do rigorous exercise five times a week! I will eat more kale! Just take me home. Take me home, away from this flasher I have suddenly, inexplicably, become. Take me home and put me to bed. I will wear flannel nightgowns! I will make myself cups of chamomile tea! I will be good. I promise. I promise, just take me home. Wherever that may be; I can’t quite remember. If you do this for me, I will make you a sandwich. If you do this for me, I will show you my breasts. Wait, no. I will not do any such thing. Once I’m home, my breasts will be tucked inside loose fitting tunics and bulky hand-knit sweaters. I will keep them secret. They will only come out for mammograms and other special occasions. But, if you want a peek before we get there, well, what’s the harm? Some man in Belarus found them quite to his liking. I pressed next, but maybe I should have stuck around. You never know when you’re going to need a friend in Belarus, and what were we, if not bosom buddies?
Next.
A couple in South Dakota.
Next.
The smallest penis I have ever seen. Poor guy.
Next.
A man with a sock on his head.
Next.
Can I ever get back to where I started?
Next.
Please. Please. Just take me home.
Next.
Because I can’t remember.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Starting something.. (a day late)
Jacob spent most of the trip wishing Gemma was being a complete bitch. He didn't just want her to be awful to him, he wanted her to be awful to other people too. He wished she was rude to waiters and waitresses, instead she--independent of him, because he did the same thing--carefully stacked up her plates for them. When someone at the theater was bumped into her, almost knocking her down (and turned out to be an old lady there to see the show because she'd been in it years before when it had first opened on Broadway), he wished she would have yelled at her, instead of asking if they could get a coffee or a piece of pie after the show to talk about it.
Mostly Jacob spent the trip hating himself, because there wasn't a single good reason he shouldn't have been in love with Gemma. He'd lay in bed at night and his eyes would tear up with his self-loathing. Then he'd get even more upset with himself for being such a jerk and he'd think about telling her he was a jerk and then he'd wonder whether he was any more special of a jerk than anyone else. If what he was experiencing was normal. If self-loathing was just a facet of dating and he'd somehow missed it until now; maybe it had been the failing factor, why he was still single at thirty-one.
"What are you reading?" she asked him at breakfast. Their hotel had a restaurant, which wasn't complementary, and then a breakfast buffet, which was included. He'd woken before her and gone down to the buffet, just because it meant free coffee and donuts.
He showed her the book, a legal mystery (Jacob didn't think of them as thrillers unless the protagonists life was in danger and, in this one, it wasn't) he'd gotten from the shelf in the room. They were staying at a hotel with books in the rooms. In New York City. Because someone was going to run out of things to do. Then again, when Jacob had gone to San Francisco the year before, he ended up sitting around the pool hating himself for reading a Michael Crichton novel, but it wasn't like he stopped reading it (or went out and did anything touristy).
"Is it any good?"
He wanted her to take the book, which was a reviewer's copy in hardcover, and bash his head in. He really did. He stopped himself in the middle of the thought and considered it and decided he was correct. He really did feel so bad talking to her, he wanted her to cave his skull in so he wouldn't have to be such a shit to her anymore.
But, of course, he just shrugged and told her it was "all right."
They went for breakfast across the street at a diner, which was better than the hotel restaurant for breakfast food. CHeaper too. But Jacob was spending way above the budget for the trip; he recognized his actions--he figured spending a fortune would make it more likely she'd have a good time and regret it less later--and accepted them.
She got the french toast and he got an omelette. She got orange juice, he got coffee.
He kept bargaining with himself during the breakfast, trying to make himself feel better, like less of a jerk. Like if he told her she'd somehow obsolve him of all the guilt, like she'd immediately understand and forgive him. Or maybe she'd just laugh and tell him it didn't matter.
Jacob was terrified he'd some day end up in AA--which seemed unlikely, given it being, essentially, a Christian organization and wholly dependent on one prostrating him or herself to a superior being--and he'd have to do the apology step and he'd have to apologize to her. He just wanted to get through the trip. There were plenty of things Jacob already hated himself for, plenty of people he'd hurt worse--there was the woman who had to take the morning after pill and she got sick from it and Jacob made her feel guilty for not having condoms (he figured, at the very least, Gemma was getting a nice vacation)--so knew he could take it, but Jacob didn't know very many nice people. With Gemma, he was probably exploiting the nicest person he knew, in fact.
He knew, even if he told her, even if she knew, she wouldn't hate him for it. She wouldn't even be mad about it. She might be a little hurt, but she'd understand. He didn't want her to understand. He wanted her to reach across the table with her syrup-coated knife and stab him in the hand.
It was during this trip, maybe for the first time, Jacob realized he really didn't like himself. He usually just let that feeling pass, not take too much off of him; but watching her eat her French toast, sip her orange juice, smile at him, talk about the trip, Jacob knew just what a jerk he was being to her. And he was never going to forgive himself for it.`
What's that you say, Sir Indefatigable?
Why hello, everyone.
This prompt involves song lyrics and Phil Collins. I have to preface it by saying that it is no way intended to be ironic or tongue-in-cheek or McSweeneys-ish or side-eyed or anything like that. For real. Basically it is motivated by my Gen-X personal history, which was periodically crosscut by Mr. Collins' musical oeuvre. I've always loved his songs, and it just so happened that "Take Me Home" came up twice on my car radio this past week. There's something about hearing his voice and music while driving alone late in the eve-n-ing......
Anyhow. Here's the prompt:
1. View the video for "Take Me Home":
2. Read through the song lyrics:
Take that look of worry I'm an ordinary man They don't tell me nothing So I find out what I can There's a fire that's been burning Right outside my door I can't see but I feel it And it helps to keep me warm So I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Seems so long I've been waiting Still don't know what for There's no point escaping I don't worry anymore I can't come out to find you I don't like to go outside They can't turn off my feelings Like they're turning off a light But I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Oh I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind So take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home, oh lord Cos I've been a prisoner all my life And I can say to you Take that look of worry, mine's an ordinary life Working when it's daylight And sleeping when it's night I've got no far horizons I don't wish upon a star They don't think that I listen Oh but I know who they are And I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Oh I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind So take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home, oh lord Well I've been a prisoner all my life And I can say to you But I don't remember Take, take me home...
3. Write/make/do something that is either a) inspired by this song or b) uses at least one line of lyrics from the song.
Yep. That's pretty much it!
This prompt involves song lyrics and Phil Collins. I have to preface it by saying that it is no way intended to be ironic or tongue-in-cheek or McSweeneys-ish or side-eyed or anything like that. For real. Basically it is motivated by my Gen-X personal history, which was periodically crosscut by Mr. Collins' musical oeuvre. I've always loved his songs, and it just so happened that "Take Me Home" came up twice on my car radio this past week. There's something about hearing his voice and music while driving alone late in the eve-n-ing......
Anyhow. Here's the prompt:
1. View the video for "Take Me Home":
2. Read through the song lyrics:
Take that look of worry I'm an ordinary man They don't tell me nothing So I find out what I can There's a fire that's been burning Right outside my door I can't see but I feel it And it helps to keep me warm So I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Seems so long I've been waiting Still don't know what for There's no point escaping I don't worry anymore I can't come out to find you I don't like to go outside They can't turn off my feelings Like they're turning off a light But I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Oh I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind So take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home, oh lord Cos I've been a prisoner all my life And I can say to you Take that look of worry, mine's an ordinary life Working when it's daylight And sleeping when it's night I've got no far horizons I don't wish upon a star They don't think that I listen Oh but I know who they are And I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind Oh I, I don't mind No I, I don't mind So take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home Cos I don't remember Take, take me home, oh lord Well I've been a prisoner all my life And I can say to you But I don't remember Take, take me home...
3. Write/make/do something that is either a) inspired by this song or b) uses at least one line of lyrics from the song.
Yep. That's pretty much it!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
a section of a piece
“I’m just going to say it one more time,” Bastion instructed without looking at her, “but I’d really prefer it if you went away.”
But apparently it didn’t matter what Bastion preferred. She didn’t hop down, and as he looked back over his shoulder, he could see the top of her head as she sunk further down against the back of his seat. He sighed. Probably she would die on his watch; likely it was always scripted in the stars, maybe the Catfish constellation, or maybe the one he had recently named the Gangrenous Clubfoot. Its lower right star, there twinkling and grinning at him, him grinning back as he tentatively puffed the cigar Will had given him. That star, that very one: thou shalt be doomed to be at fault when thy sister dies. But also it will be due to her sheer perverse stubbornness, and your unwillingness to do anything but sigh and press on, he also told himself, irritated with his own passivity as he tentatively reached out his hand and pulled the lever back into gear again. First gear though. What with Merlot sitting behind him, primed and ready to fall out under a enormous wheel, and the deep and sloppy mud that had been showing up from under the thin billowing grass that the tractor trundled over: probably best to stay in first.
The machine grunted forward as Bastion put a little pressure on the pedal, and then jerked to a stop when Bastion gasped at the suddenness of the movement and stomped his foot back on the brake. Same as a car, same as a car, he chanted to himself, and it was almost true except that nobody had taught him how to drive a stick shift, and also the gas pedal on the tractor appeared to have forward and reverse built into it, depending on which way you rocked the pedal. Stupid system, he thought, and tried to press his heel down instead to get the tractor into a better position to rocket through the two small alder he was trying to squeeze between. Behind him Merlot snickered.
“Are you planning on going anywhere? Or just sit here belching all day?”
“You just shut up, or I’ll push you off myself,” he responded. “I didn’t ask you to come along.” As a matter of fact, Bastion had thought he had certainly gotten up early enough to make sure she didn’t tag along, but just as Bastion maneuvered the machine out of Will’s garage and down the driveway to the hedge, she had darted so quickly in front of him that he had nearly screamed in fright. Indeed it was fortunate that the damn machine was so slow, because otherwise he would have already fulfilled his destiny and mushed her quite to a pulp.
“Ho!” she had shouted as she scrambled up the back of the wheel-cover and clambered around trying to find an appropriate nook, “Trying to sneak off without me?”
“Merlot,” he had said, panicking with the thought of her commentary more than the possiblity of mushing her (he tried not to enjoy the cartoonish image of her being pressed into the mud and then stuck, nearly flat, as the tractor rolled right on through), “I’m not going more than thirty feet, and it’s going to be boring.”
“Don’t mind,” she responded with a sweep of the hand. “Don’t see too much else happening around these parts.” This was, if anything, an understatement in a place that pretty much only had the turning of leaves going for it, thought Bastion. Still he liked it, and liked it quiet if possible without all the girls constantly crawling all over him. You going to put it over there? Why are you doing that? Is that enough room? Are you sure? Always with their questions, and what did he do but take care of them, really. What did he ever do besides that? And for that matter, how could he even be thinking about turning down the job offer? Yes, he would be leaving them for long periods of time, but he would also be providing for them, wouldn’t he? He’d be contributing financially, and they didn’t really need him there all the time, did they? Maybe they’d find ways to be happy if he weren’t always there, making things happen for them. Maybe they’d be better without his constant help. That doesn’t make sense, he told himself, with a sigh.
“Let’s get going then,” he said finally when Merlot tossed a dirt-clod at a tree directly behind them. Reversing the tractor slowly, he enjoyed putting his hand on the bucket lever. Not that he needed it yet. Wished he could have been digging a big hole. How much fun that would be, maybe he could find an excuse later to do that… like a pond for the family or something. With koi, or maybe just goldfish. He pushed the lever up and down a little, jiggling the tractor as it started its slow, relentless march across their yard. No reason to move it, but no reason to not move it, right? He wondered if he put the bucket all the way down against the ground and then kept pushing the lever, whether it would lift the tractor right up. If Merlot weren’t there, he might have tried it. He sighed again. He should take the job. It was so perfect, him and the water and the boat and the other guys. No mother and sisters and sisters. Quiet. Maybe he could finish stacking all the wood today and then they would be set for the winter, so it wouldn’t really matter if he went away. Plus, maybe Will would look in on them, make sure they were okay.
He just wished they were okay more frequently. But no, they were never okay, he had to admit to himself. His mom was probably clinical. Probable no doubt. Hadn’t they always known it? He and his sisters scrambling for the ends, jumping to the corners of the trailer back when they had one, always ready to move and then move again, hustle out of her way, hustle back when she called. Crawl in her lap and smell that even red smell of her skin, like pepper or something. And then the others, Swallow so bad she had to leave; without her, the tight constraint of Naomi’s shoulders, the sharp slap way she had of talking to the others. Like they had nothing in common anymore, not even the pleased smirk they had always shared. Lord knows they couldn’t have looked more differently than each other: Bastion couldn’t even have qualified as a looker if he began wearing paper bags with lookers painted on their surface, but Naomi nearly made people shine just to look at her… well, since she had grown up. So no, they hadn’t had much in common but hadn’t they always had that smile, they glint of humor sparking between them without even having to face each other? That at least, the sign of their twinship, but now it was like she was gone too except maybe her bitterness.
The tractor reached the pile of wood and so Bastion stopped and remembered to push the brake extra hard and pull the knob that locked it into place. He rubbed the bucket lever again, felt the hard black smoothness of it, resting in the center of his palm, and then lifted it gently with his index finger, felt the tractor jolt with the heaviness of its own parts. He felt a fondness for it, mentally thanked Will again for letting him use it for the weekend if he looked after Rodney. He’d give Rodney an extra treat this afternoon. Bastion looked over, but couldn’t see if the great beast was watching through the kitchen window, so turned his attention back to the levers. After positioning the bucket where he wanted it, he pulled the second level until it had flattened out—its opening almost directly facing the sky but slightly tilted towards the woodpile. The whole thing had become such a burden, he thought as he climbed slowly out of the tractor, hampered by his incredible bulk—his thick ankles nearly caught in between the bucket cogs and the wheel cover.
On the ground, he stood up straight, caught the crick in his back, and stretched. Despite his obesity, he was not only strong but also surprisingly flexible, surprisingly fit. He stood up taller and looked at the woodpile, which he was going to slowly transfer into the bucket and then cart over to the woodshed for stacking. Maybe this was all it was going to take to keep them warm. Maybe that was the first step, he thought; maybe then things would be okay. He started over to the pile and began tossing pieces into the bucket.
Up in the tractor cockpit, Merlot had lifted out of her corner and slid into his seat. She placed her hands on the wheel, and then one hand on the levers. “Hey, Bastion,” she asked, “Can I drive it over to the woodshed?”
Bastion pitched a few more pieces of wood, and then straightened to see her resting her arms and head on top of the wheel, looking down at him. She tilted her head to the side and thrust her lips out beseechingly. Bastion smiled, and bent back down to the wood.
“Not unless you climb on down and help me do the actual work,” he said, and waited to see if she would climb down. But she didn’t, and instead watched him from under her sweatshirt hood, no doubt sulking and mentally berating him. Bastion wondered again if it would always have to be him, and unconsciously doubled the pace of his wood tossing while thinking of the way the water splits into foaming halves when a fast escaping boat goes through it.
But apparently it didn’t matter what Bastion preferred. She didn’t hop down, and as he looked back over his shoulder, he could see the top of her head as she sunk further down against the back of his seat. He sighed. Probably she would die on his watch; likely it was always scripted in the stars, maybe the Catfish constellation, or maybe the one he had recently named the Gangrenous Clubfoot. Its lower right star, there twinkling and grinning at him, him grinning back as he tentatively puffed the cigar Will had given him. That star, that very one: thou shalt be doomed to be at fault when thy sister dies. But also it will be due to her sheer perverse stubbornness, and your unwillingness to do anything but sigh and press on, he also told himself, irritated with his own passivity as he tentatively reached out his hand and pulled the lever back into gear again. First gear though. What with Merlot sitting behind him, primed and ready to fall out under a enormous wheel, and the deep and sloppy mud that had been showing up from under the thin billowing grass that the tractor trundled over: probably best to stay in first.
The machine grunted forward as Bastion put a little pressure on the pedal, and then jerked to a stop when Bastion gasped at the suddenness of the movement and stomped his foot back on the brake. Same as a car, same as a car, he chanted to himself, and it was almost true except that nobody had taught him how to drive a stick shift, and also the gas pedal on the tractor appeared to have forward and reverse built into it, depending on which way you rocked the pedal. Stupid system, he thought, and tried to press his heel down instead to get the tractor into a better position to rocket through the two small alder he was trying to squeeze between. Behind him Merlot snickered.
“Are you planning on going anywhere? Or just sit here belching all day?”
“You just shut up, or I’ll push you off myself,” he responded. “I didn’t ask you to come along.” As a matter of fact, Bastion had thought he had certainly gotten up early enough to make sure she didn’t tag along, but just as Bastion maneuvered the machine out of Will’s garage and down the driveway to the hedge, she had darted so quickly in front of him that he had nearly screamed in fright. Indeed it was fortunate that the damn machine was so slow, because otherwise he would have already fulfilled his destiny and mushed her quite to a pulp.
“Ho!” she had shouted as she scrambled up the back of the wheel-cover and clambered around trying to find an appropriate nook, “Trying to sneak off without me?”
“Merlot,” he had said, panicking with the thought of her commentary more than the possiblity of mushing her (he tried not to enjoy the cartoonish image of her being pressed into the mud and then stuck, nearly flat, as the tractor rolled right on through), “I’m not going more than thirty feet, and it’s going to be boring.”
“Don’t mind,” she responded with a sweep of the hand. “Don’t see too much else happening around these parts.” This was, if anything, an understatement in a place that pretty much only had the turning of leaves going for it, thought Bastion. Still he liked it, and liked it quiet if possible without all the girls constantly crawling all over him. You going to put it over there? Why are you doing that? Is that enough room? Are you sure? Always with their questions, and what did he do but take care of them, really. What did he ever do besides that? And for that matter, how could he even be thinking about turning down the job offer? Yes, he would be leaving them for long periods of time, but he would also be providing for them, wouldn’t he? He’d be contributing financially, and they didn’t really need him there all the time, did they? Maybe they’d find ways to be happy if he weren’t always there, making things happen for them. Maybe they’d be better without his constant help. That doesn’t make sense, he told himself, with a sigh.
“Let’s get going then,” he said finally when Merlot tossed a dirt-clod at a tree directly behind them. Reversing the tractor slowly, he enjoyed putting his hand on the bucket lever. Not that he needed it yet. Wished he could have been digging a big hole. How much fun that would be, maybe he could find an excuse later to do that… like a pond for the family or something. With koi, or maybe just goldfish. He pushed the lever up and down a little, jiggling the tractor as it started its slow, relentless march across their yard. No reason to move it, but no reason to not move it, right? He wondered if he put the bucket all the way down against the ground and then kept pushing the lever, whether it would lift the tractor right up. If Merlot weren’t there, he might have tried it. He sighed again. He should take the job. It was so perfect, him and the water and the boat and the other guys. No mother and sisters and sisters. Quiet. Maybe he could finish stacking all the wood today and then they would be set for the winter, so it wouldn’t really matter if he went away. Plus, maybe Will would look in on them, make sure they were okay.
He just wished they were okay more frequently. But no, they were never okay, he had to admit to himself. His mom was probably clinical. Probable no doubt. Hadn’t they always known it? He and his sisters scrambling for the ends, jumping to the corners of the trailer back when they had one, always ready to move and then move again, hustle out of her way, hustle back when she called. Crawl in her lap and smell that even red smell of her skin, like pepper or something. And then the others, Swallow so bad she had to leave; without her, the tight constraint of Naomi’s shoulders, the sharp slap way she had of talking to the others. Like they had nothing in common anymore, not even the pleased smirk they had always shared. Lord knows they couldn’t have looked more differently than each other: Bastion couldn’t even have qualified as a looker if he began wearing paper bags with lookers painted on their surface, but Naomi nearly made people shine just to look at her… well, since she had grown up. So no, they hadn’t had much in common but hadn’t they always had that smile, they glint of humor sparking between them without even having to face each other? That at least, the sign of their twinship, but now it was like she was gone too except maybe her bitterness.
The tractor reached the pile of wood and so Bastion stopped and remembered to push the brake extra hard and pull the knob that locked it into place. He rubbed the bucket lever again, felt the hard black smoothness of it, resting in the center of his palm, and then lifted it gently with his index finger, felt the tractor jolt with the heaviness of its own parts. He felt a fondness for it, mentally thanked Will again for letting him use it for the weekend if he looked after Rodney. He’d give Rodney an extra treat this afternoon. Bastion looked over, but couldn’t see if the great beast was watching through the kitchen window, so turned his attention back to the levers. After positioning the bucket where he wanted it, he pulled the second level until it had flattened out—its opening almost directly facing the sky but slightly tilted towards the woodpile. The whole thing had become such a burden, he thought as he climbed slowly out of the tractor, hampered by his incredible bulk—his thick ankles nearly caught in between the bucket cogs and the wheel cover.
On the ground, he stood up straight, caught the crick in his back, and stretched. Despite his obesity, he was not only strong but also surprisingly flexible, surprisingly fit. He stood up taller and looked at the woodpile, which he was going to slowly transfer into the bucket and then cart over to the woodshed for stacking. Maybe this was all it was going to take to keep them warm. Maybe that was the first step, he thought; maybe then things would be okay. He started over to the pile and began tossing pieces into the bucket.
Up in the tractor cockpit, Merlot had lifted out of her corner and slid into his seat. She placed her hands on the wheel, and then one hand on the levers. “Hey, Bastion,” she asked, “Can I drive it over to the woodshed?”
Bastion pitched a few more pieces of wood, and then straightened to see her resting her arms and head on top of the wheel, looking down at him. She tilted her head to the side and thrust her lips out beseechingly. Bastion smiled, and bent back down to the wood.
“Not unless you climb on down and help me do the actual work,” he said, and waited to see if she would climb down. But she didn’t, and instead watched him from under her sweatshirt hood, no doubt sulking and mentally berating him. Bastion wondered again if it would always have to be him, and unconsciously doubled the pace of his wood tossing while thinking of the way the water splits into foaming halves when a fast escaping boat goes through it.
Academe
Just a beginning, but here's my sketchy start of something.
The guide walks backwards, the way they always used to do. Kate had read an article recently—where was it?—which mentioned that college campuses were doing away with this practice. Too many guides had been injured over the years, tripping backwards over a piece of uneven pavement by the library entrance or an exposed root on the path along the science building, drawing blood, concussions, loss of consciousness. Or was it that the imminent risk of such a fall had proven too great a distraction for the parents on the tour, already fearful and on edge about entrusting their own children to this campus full of unseen perils and walking hazards? This seems plausible enough—she notices the assembled parents warily watching their tour guide’s blithe backward walking, so young and so light footed, already free of her own parents influence. Were these parents fearful of the guide’s fall, or secretly willing it, the way people secretly hope that the worst will happen, to lend credence to their fears, the way Kate sometimes has to keep herself from flinging something vitally important (cell phone/briefcase/car keys/infant child) off the cliff when she hiked on steep trails to “get away” from it all? At any rate, the article reported, the parents were not paying sufficient attention to the merits of the Universities on display (or the colleges’ liability insurance rates were soaring) and so some Consortium or other decided to have their guides turn their backs to the audience from that moment on. And so came the end of an era. Or something like that. But the memo seems to have escaped the attention of the Admissions office at Brookshire College.
The campus is small in her dream, and the layout oddly cramped—Kate is surprised to find it bearing such a resemblance to both her windowless urban high school and the liberal arts college where she’d gone for graduate school. Her subconscious has cobbled together a strange assortment of cheaply made portable buildings arranged around red brick and ivy administrative buildings. Kate is the only one on the tour who has come on her own, no sullen kids hanging as far away as they can manage and still participate, no hovering parents embarrassing her with their shrill engagement, their endless questions about the food or the library holdings or the changing facilities in the new state-of-the-art sports center. She is a lone wolf, slinking through the tour…does anyone notice her? Not the parents who are too amped with anxiety to notice anything other than their own painfully vulnerable children. Not the children who are not able to actually perceive anyone over 35—to them Kate is relegated to terminal adult status: boring, unfashionable, and mercifully invisible. Like the parents however, she fears and hopes for the worst. She dreads running into Jonas here, but after all isn’t that why she has come? Why else would she be here in her dream, halfway across the country at the college where he teaches (according to Google), smiling a frozen polite smile while a blithe blonde coed enumerates the ways in which living on-campus has its benefits? Luckily, or unluckily, she has not seen him yet.
Not true: She sees him everywhere; he is every young male grad student with an untucked button-down shirt, a tweedy ill-fitting jacket with elbow patches, mis-matched socks, studiously tousled hair. He is hand-rolling a cigarette by the library; he is sitting in the commons reading Nabokov, Borges, Sebald; he is carefully demonstrating the only two chords he has taught himself on the guitar to a wide-eyed undergraduate and her slutty looking roommate. He is wondering which one of them he will sleep with first: virgin or whore? They are both sizing him up as well, making their own calculations as he closes his eyes for a particularly soulful strum. Kate wants to call his name, to see if he looks up, but she doesn’t want to be rude and interrupt the tour guide.
But if this is truly a dream, why is she so inhibited? Why not just cry out his name, why not just get it over with? For one thing, there are too many of him. It’s as though she is in a fun house campus, where hidden mirrors reflect back a multiplicity of Jonases. He could reject her in stereo! She would like to know how he has managed to stay so young, while she has aged in the 10 years since he left. No doubt he is older, paunchier, has grown a beard, has office hours. Has an office. Which building, she wonders?
The tour has gone on without her, and she must run to catch up.
The guide walks backwards, the way they always used to do. Kate had read an article recently—where was it?—which mentioned that college campuses were doing away with this practice. Too many guides had been injured over the years, tripping backwards over a piece of uneven pavement by the library entrance or an exposed root on the path along the science building, drawing blood, concussions, loss of consciousness. Or was it that the imminent risk of such a fall had proven too great a distraction for the parents on the tour, already fearful and on edge about entrusting their own children to this campus full of unseen perils and walking hazards? This seems plausible enough—she notices the assembled parents warily watching their tour guide’s blithe backward walking, so young and so light footed, already free of her own parents influence. Were these parents fearful of the guide’s fall, or secretly willing it, the way people secretly hope that the worst will happen, to lend credence to their fears, the way Kate sometimes has to keep herself from flinging something vitally important (cell phone/briefcase/car keys/infant child) off the cliff when she hiked on steep trails to “get away” from it all? At any rate, the article reported, the parents were not paying sufficient attention to the merits of the Universities on display (or the colleges’ liability insurance rates were soaring) and so some Consortium or other decided to have their guides turn their backs to the audience from that moment on. And so came the end of an era. Or something like that. But the memo seems to have escaped the attention of the Admissions office at Brookshire College.
The campus is small in her dream, and the layout oddly cramped—Kate is surprised to find it bearing such a resemblance to both her windowless urban high school and the liberal arts college where she’d gone for graduate school. Her subconscious has cobbled together a strange assortment of cheaply made portable buildings arranged around red brick and ivy administrative buildings. Kate is the only one on the tour who has come on her own, no sullen kids hanging as far away as they can manage and still participate, no hovering parents embarrassing her with their shrill engagement, their endless questions about the food or the library holdings or the changing facilities in the new state-of-the-art sports center. She is a lone wolf, slinking through the tour…does anyone notice her? Not the parents who are too amped with anxiety to notice anything other than their own painfully vulnerable children. Not the children who are not able to actually perceive anyone over 35—to them Kate is relegated to terminal adult status: boring, unfashionable, and mercifully invisible. Like the parents however, she fears and hopes for the worst. She dreads running into Jonas here, but after all isn’t that why she has come? Why else would she be here in her dream, halfway across the country at the college where he teaches (according to Google), smiling a frozen polite smile while a blithe blonde coed enumerates the ways in which living on-campus has its benefits? Luckily, or unluckily, she has not seen him yet.
Not true: She sees him everywhere; he is every young male grad student with an untucked button-down shirt, a tweedy ill-fitting jacket with elbow patches, mis-matched socks, studiously tousled hair. He is hand-rolling a cigarette by the library; he is sitting in the commons reading Nabokov, Borges, Sebald; he is carefully demonstrating the only two chords he has taught himself on the guitar to a wide-eyed undergraduate and her slutty looking roommate. He is wondering which one of them he will sleep with first: virgin or whore? They are both sizing him up as well, making their own calculations as he closes his eyes for a particularly soulful strum. Kate wants to call his name, to see if he looks up, but she doesn’t want to be rude and interrupt the tour guide.
But if this is truly a dream, why is she so inhibited? Why not just cry out his name, why not just get it over with? For one thing, there are too many of him. It’s as though she is in a fun house campus, where hidden mirrors reflect back a multiplicity of Jonases. He could reject her in stereo! She would like to know how he has managed to stay so young, while she has aged in the 10 years since he left. No doubt he is older, paunchier, has grown a beard, has office hours. Has an office. Which building, she wonders?
The tour has gone on without her, and she must run to catch up.
House Tour
Again, I go first. Ha ha. Ugh. So I took the prompt and kind of followed it. The rumination doesn't necessarily happen during the guided tour, and isn't as expansive as it could be if I were not working under the constraint of not using a certain word...or maybe that wouldn't change anything. This character/concept is something that I have been messing around with since the summer and do want to get into better shape. So kudos to JK for the prompt choice:)
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The last time I ventured out, it was to meet my mother for a tour of one of the historic neighborhoods in the area. For $25 we were given access to the living rooms and gardens of the stately, set back from the road, houses that belong to people with more money than most everyone I used to know. When I was younger, anytime my mother and I were in the car together, she would take the long route home just so she could pass these estates. She would ask me which was my favorite, and I would always point to a Victorian house on a corner lot, painted lavender with sage trim around the railings and windows. There were planters on the steps, and rocking chairs on the wrap-around porch, and I imagined myself corseted, with my hair up in one of those elaborate buns of the era, sipping tea and waiting for suitors. Mom preferred a house a few blocks down, composed mainly of brick, with large stained glass windows in the front, and ivy growing up one side of the house.
The tour was led by a perky retiree who clearly enjoyed the power of having so many keys in her possession and smelled faintly of cinnamon toast. She referred to the owners of the different houses by their first names, and provided little anecdotes about how a room came to be painted a certain color, or the amount of money spent to remodel a kitchen. Mom and the others on the tour exclaimed at window dressings, upholstery, gas ranges and hardwood floors. I looked at framed family photographs and commissioned portraits, imagining the secrets behind these pristine presentations of home.
We did stop at my former fantasy house. I sat on the porch, watching the others admire shrubs or meander through the parlor room. I had a few quick flashes throughout the day, but extremely fragmentary ones. My best friend in third grade, Sally, remembered making pancakes in my kitchen, and how illicit it felt to be up before my parents. Billy thought about our trip to Greece, and the feel of my hands on his shoulders and my breasts against his chest as we floated, loosely entwined, in the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean. A girl I babysat once remembered my showing her what happened when you mixed baking powder and vinegar together. In a particularly jarring moment, as I was sitting on that house’s porch and she was inside with the rest of the group, Mom recalled our drives and my fondness for the house she was exploring.
These recollections were not overly disruptive to me. Sally hardly ever thinks of me, and when she does it’s always with a fondness I would reciprocate if I knew how. Billy can be a little more troubling. I have become accustomed to the way his flashes feel. It’s almost worse when he stumbles upon a time like Greece. When he relives the time I threw a shoe at his head, or called his brother a pompous jerk, it’s quite difficult not to then think about all the other uncharitable or insensitive actions I made during our relationship. Though it is hard to constantly face the worst of my character, I find it far more difficult to be reminded of my own former happiness. Mom also can have this effect on me, bringing to the fore the adjusted person I used to be. It breaks my heart that my meeting her for lunch at a Qdoba five years ago could, for her, be considered an example of ‘the good old days.’ She considers these relatively banal interactions precious, and there is nothing I can do to explain without giving her even more to worry about. I have attempted to fade from all my former friends’ lives in an effort to decrease the flashes (out of sight, out of mind) but I cannot break up with my mother. Each time we meet, I know I’ll see the experience again, at some point, from my mother’s perspective, and it will hurt. I will wince at her fear over the direction my life seems to have taken. Even when she has moved on to another topic, my day will be spent trying to shake off that residual worry she feels whenever she thinks of me.
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The last time I ventured out, it was to meet my mother for a tour of one of the historic neighborhoods in the area. For $25 we were given access to the living rooms and gardens of the stately, set back from the road, houses that belong to people with more money than most everyone I used to know. When I was younger, anytime my mother and I were in the car together, she would take the long route home just so she could pass these estates. She would ask me which was my favorite, and I would always point to a Victorian house on a corner lot, painted lavender with sage trim around the railings and windows. There were planters on the steps, and rocking chairs on the wrap-around porch, and I imagined myself corseted, with my hair up in one of those elaborate buns of the era, sipping tea and waiting for suitors. Mom preferred a house a few blocks down, composed mainly of brick, with large stained glass windows in the front, and ivy growing up one side of the house.
The tour was led by a perky retiree who clearly enjoyed the power of having so many keys in her possession and smelled faintly of cinnamon toast. She referred to the owners of the different houses by their first names, and provided little anecdotes about how a room came to be painted a certain color, or the amount of money spent to remodel a kitchen. Mom and the others on the tour exclaimed at window dressings, upholstery, gas ranges and hardwood floors. I looked at framed family photographs and commissioned portraits, imagining the secrets behind these pristine presentations of home.
We did stop at my former fantasy house. I sat on the porch, watching the others admire shrubs or meander through the parlor room. I had a few quick flashes throughout the day, but extremely fragmentary ones. My best friend in third grade, Sally, remembered making pancakes in my kitchen, and how illicit it felt to be up before my parents. Billy thought about our trip to Greece, and the feel of my hands on his shoulders and my breasts against his chest as we floated, loosely entwined, in the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean. A girl I babysat once remembered my showing her what happened when you mixed baking powder and vinegar together. In a particularly jarring moment, as I was sitting on that house’s porch and she was inside with the rest of the group, Mom recalled our drives and my fondness for the house she was exploring.
These recollections were not overly disruptive to me. Sally hardly ever thinks of me, and when she does it’s always with a fondness I would reciprocate if I knew how. Billy can be a little more troubling. I have become accustomed to the way his flashes feel. It’s almost worse when he stumbles upon a time like Greece. When he relives the time I threw a shoe at his head, or called his brother a pompous jerk, it’s quite difficult not to then think about all the other uncharitable or insensitive actions I made during our relationship. Though it is hard to constantly face the worst of my character, I find it far more difficult to be reminded of my own former happiness. Mom also can have this effect on me, bringing to the fore the adjusted person I used to be. It breaks my heart that my meeting her for lunch at a Qdoba five years ago could, for her, be considered an example of ‘the good old days.’ She considers these relatively banal interactions precious, and there is nothing I can do to explain without giving her even more to worry about. I have attempted to fade from all my former friends’ lives in an effort to decrease the flashes (out of sight, out of mind) but I cannot break up with my mother. Each time we meet, I know I’ll see the experience again, at some point, from my mother’s perspective, and it will hurt. I will wince at her fear over the direction my life seems to have taken. Even when she has moved on to another topic, my day will be spent trying to shake off that residual worry she feels whenever she thinks of me.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Prompt the 2nd: "Valentine's Day Love Story"
(Just kidding)
Okay, since I've been trying to steer myself into writing on the longer work I've been hacking away at, my prompt uses the instruction "select a character from a piece you've been working on," but I would like to note that this could also be a character from a piece you want to revise, a character from a long-since finished piece, a character from a piece you've been planning to write, or perhaps your favorite celebrity. Any of those would be excellent choices as well...
The Prompt: Select a character from a piece you've been working on, and determine the abstract concept most important to this character (for instance: love, loyalty, revenge, kindness, cleverness, etc). Then, write a scene in which this character is thinking about this abstract concept, but without ever actually using that specific word (love, loyalty, revenge, kindness, cleverness, etc). In addition to thinking about this concept, your character should either be:
a) on a guided tour,
b) operating construction equipment for the first time, or
c) on a shopping spree with someone they do not like.
Whala!
Okay, since I've been trying to steer myself into writing on the longer work I've been hacking away at, my prompt uses the instruction "select a character from a piece you've been working on," but I would like to note that this could also be a character from a piece you want to revise, a character from a long-since finished piece, a character from a piece you've been planning to write, or perhaps your favorite celebrity. Any of those would be excellent choices as well...
The Prompt: Select a character from a piece you've been working on, and determine the abstract concept most important to this character (for instance: love, loyalty, revenge, kindness, cleverness, etc). Then, write a scene in which this character is thinking about this abstract concept, but without ever actually using that specific word (love, loyalty, revenge, kindness, cleverness, etc). In addition to thinking about this concept, your character should either be:
a) on a guided tour,
b) operating construction equipment for the first time, or
c) on a shopping spree with someone they do not like.
Whala!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Just Right
We cannot know the silence and the small breaks into that silence as the mice duck their way out of holes burrowed deeply into dark ochre molding trimmed to the pine logs. Their noses twitching, the whiskers simpering back and forth on the tips of their pitched gray heads, sensors on high alert: silence… silence… and then, just as they detect the silence, it breaks into the sounds of their scramble. The mice tucking butt across the room, sinewy tails held aloft and whipping back and forth to maintain balance in their roughshod scamper across the pine floors, through the bedrooms, the bathroom, the living room with its scattered debris (gramophone whirling into its final decline), the kitchen with its empty pots, and into the dining room where the cedar slab perches upon its tiny legs—like a hippo upon high heels, sometimes appearing to tilt, undecided, unclear about the propriety of its selected attire. Up the heels they go, the small patter of feet shifting into long scratches and short bursts, then the scraping of dishware as the cooling leftovers are claimed from the near silence.
This we cannot hear, nor can we hear the breath being drawn in and out slowly and ever slowly as the form slightly shudders, and then wraps itself tighter.
Not the tapping of branches upon the windows, the clicking of the clock machinery in the study, the dripping of the faucet in the bathroom where a small rubber ducky studs the corner of the claw-foot tub, a small circle of mold growing on its underside, sticking to the stained porcelain. The occasional tapping of wind from the attic, which pokes up higher than the rest, just enough to attract owls, bats, spiders, and the occasional squirrel—all of whom pad around the empty window, daintily almost, quick quick slow, shuffling and looking out from the temporary vantage before smelling the down below and leaping to air in a frenzy, leaving more quickly than they arrived, more noisily. Except the spiders. They stick around, find a corner, tuck in, settle down, smile.
Nor can we feel the slight gust that enters through the open door, the half-cracked window, the unpacked lines between limbs. Its odor of moss and fog, the humidity eking from the muddy pathway and its surrounding garden. The white picket fence that has slowly turned dark with mildew, and begun rotting away in some locations, particularly along the east side, where the foliage is dense and a small pond broods and foments with its frogs and mosquito eggs.
The gusts like semi-hidden breaths—circulating mainly in the living room, where the scent of the dining room leftovers comes and goes, the rusty, burning odor—like rosewood with a teaspoon of umber—from the kitchen, and also the moth balls in their crisp crevices, the twig of rosemary tilted within a foggy vase standing firmly on the kitchen sill. From time to time, the gusts make their way up the stairs, past the locked guest room, and into the bedroom, where we do not feel them, but the form shudders again, pulls its knees up tighter against its chest, cheeks sweaty and pink, breath troubled and quiet in turns.
We are giddy in memory, we are sunk into the past. Holding it solid in inaccessible reservoirs, we do not know the shafts of light that slant for three seconds, move over, make room for a new stream, fade, and then starve in the condensing quickness of time, the movement of celestial bodies through leaves, through twigs and branches, moss that clings drearily waiting for its 30 seconds at 9:03, its 43 seconds at 10:17, and then the final stretch (1.46 mins), so perfect, warm and glorious, so precise at 3:22. The blue as well—there occasionally, in its various shades: cobalt, palatinate, periwinkle. It twinkles through, makes motions to invade, then gets shy and never delivers, never lands (only passes). The ineffable brown, nearly black, then damp, lit, misting, gaining, shedding, scratched, rubbed against, churned, and abandoned. We remember them, somehow, although we are always trying to remember—through death, through small rustles, through the mice that occasionally line up and dance about, rolling their eyes in mockery, slipping their hips from side to side.
“How does it taste?” we do not ask. Is it mineral-like and metallic? Musky, flaked like mica with a dash of raspberry, or more like the sluicing juices of the maple? We try not to dream of the variations: thick and tarrishly black, tarnished and black like coal, coagulated and nearly alive clay, baked into shape and formed like gingerbread, gingered, garliced, oniony and wild, poisonous and insidious, unknown but gustatory like mushrooms, the kind of mushrooms that permeate the common into umami, playing upon the palate like an unknown smell, scent, gust, touch, maybe sight that is, in our eternal limbo before rot, just out of reach. At the outer joints of our shorn limbs, our planed and smoothed surfaces. Our fluff and feather, hay and seam. The story.
Nor do we feel sympathy, empathy, kindness, understanding. Nor do we hold or clutch the form to us. Nor do we protect or betray, berate or chide, moralize or wish. It is not simple or complex and the lessons elude us. The collection—which began from the very surface that we once broke open, pried our way through, year by year, gained ground upon and crept through, sucked life from, and eventually discovered death from—began in a cave that evolved to a tent that evolved towards hut and trailer towards cabin (and yes, we do imagine that final frontier as an escape, an insulated and polystyrene, polysyllabic jettison of our tired, thinning corpses), a cave cobbled together of such ridiculous beginnings as feldspar and olivine with a thin sliver of copper like a twist of lemon upon our rims—yes, this, this is when we first felt our future. The bones and ravishes, the screams, dying throes, decaying shrapnels, and ground-down sinews of beginnings and endings we never knew, and never knew we would not know, but find ourselves in the midst of, like sheep grazing upon termite hills: drawn to the blade, not the bug. No, no, it’s true: we do not share nor understand your story, its strange terms, oblique angles, its cryptic colors.
What it’s like to find ‘just right’, or too much or too little or too too too, or fear, not the scent of red on claw—this we do not know, any more than we heard the saw blade. We did not hear the moment when I became We, nor do we feel our size, our contour, the texture of our difference. We do not smell the bones, the boiling water, the cooling morning. Not the sudden shatter as our smallest (chair-shaped) form bursts out across the living room. We do not hear anything returning, nor do we comprehend the trinity—the father, son, and holy mother as she sucks the remnants of her scalding meal from under the droppings of the absent mice. It’s not the shortening of the form’s breath, nor its sudden acrid scent, the shrieks and growls, bellows and grief, pleasure and violence, sun or soil, mineral or nail, last shedded memories, the scratching sound of the record as the needle leaves its vinyl surface. Not even the three forms (our alive shadows)—large, larger, quite impressively large—as they later settle, slowly, and become oblivious of even the smallest scuttle of movement again their silent, matted selves, bedded in charnel. No, we do not even feel that thin strand of gold, locked within a splinter of a body we once shared. Not even that.
This we cannot hear, nor can we hear the breath being drawn in and out slowly and ever slowly as the form slightly shudders, and then wraps itself tighter.
Not the tapping of branches upon the windows, the clicking of the clock machinery in the study, the dripping of the faucet in the bathroom where a small rubber ducky studs the corner of the claw-foot tub, a small circle of mold growing on its underside, sticking to the stained porcelain. The occasional tapping of wind from the attic, which pokes up higher than the rest, just enough to attract owls, bats, spiders, and the occasional squirrel—all of whom pad around the empty window, daintily almost, quick quick slow, shuffling and looking out from the temporary vantage before smelling the down below and leaping to air in a frenzy, leaving more quickly than they arrived, more noisily. Except the spiders. They stick around, find a corner, tuck in, settle down, smile.
Nor can we feel the slight gust that enters through the open door, the half-cracked window, the unpacked lines between limbs. Its odor of moss and fog, the humidity eking from the muddy pathway and its surrounding garden. The white picket fence that has slowly turned dark with mildew, and begun rotting away in some locations, particularly along the east side, where the foliage is dense and a small pond broods and foments with its frogs and mosquito eggs.
The gusts like semi-hidden breaths—circulating mainly in the living room, where the scent of the dining room leftovers comes and goes, the rusty, burning odor—like rosewood with a teaspoon of umber—from the kitchen, and also the moth balls in their crisp crevices, the twig of rosemary tilted within a foggy vase standing firmly on the kitchen sill. From time to time, the gusts make their way up the stairs, past the locked guest room, and into the bedroom, where we do not feel them, but the form shudders again, pulls its knees up tighter against its chest, cheeks sweaty and pink, breath troubled and quiet in turns.
We are giddy in memory, we are sunk into the past. Holding it solid in inaccessible reservoirs, we do not know the shafts of light that slant for three seconds, move over, make room for a new stream, fade, and then starve in the condensing quickness of time, the movement of celestial bodies through leaves, through twigs and branches, moss that clings drearily waiting for its 30 seconds at 9:03, its 43 seconds at 10:17, and then the final stretch (1.46 mins), so perfect, warm and glorious, so precise at 3:22. The blue as well—there occasionally, in its various shades: cobalt, palatinate, periwinkle. It twinkles through, makes motions to invade, then gets shy and never delivers, never lands (only passes). The ineffable brown, nearly black, then damp, lit, misting, gaining, shedding, scratched, rubbed against, churned, and abandoned. We remember them, somehow, although we are always trying to remember—through death, through small rustles, through the mice that occasionally line up and dance about, rolling their eyes in mockery, slipping their hips from side to side.
“How does it taste?” we do not ask. Is it mineral-like and metallic? Musky, flaked like mica with a dash of raspberry, or more like the sluicing juices of the maple? We try not to dream of the variations: thick and tarrishly black, tarnished and black like coal, coagulated and nearly alive clay, baked into shape and formed like gingerbread, gingered, garliced, oniony and wild, poisonous and insidious, unknown but gustatory like mushrooms, the kind of mushrooms that permeate the common into umami, playing upon the palate like an unknown smell, scent, gust, touch, maybe sight that is, in our eternal limbo before rot, just out of reach. At the outer joints of our shorn limbs, our planed and smoothed surfaces. Our fluff and feather, hay and seam. The story.
Nor do we feel sympathy, empathy, kindness, understanding. Nor do we hold or clutch the form to us. Nor do we protect or betray, berate or chide, moralize or wish. It is not simple or complex and the lessons elude us. The collection—which began from the very surface that we once broke open, pried our way through, year by year, gained ground upon and crept through, sucked life from, and eventually discovered death from—began in a cave that evolved to a tent that evolved towards hut and trailer towards cabin (and yes, we do imagine that final frontier as an escape, an insulated and polystyrene, polysyllabic jettison of our tired, thinning corpses), a cave cobbled together of such ridiculous beginnings as feldspar and olivine with a thin sliver of copper like a twist of lemon upon our rims—yes, this, this is when we first felt our future. The bones and ravishes, the screams, dying throes, decaying shrapnels, and ground-down sinews of beginnings and endings we never knew, and never knew we would not know, but find ourselves in the midst of, like sheep grazing upon termite hills: drawn to the blade, not the bug. No, no, it’s true: we do not share nor understand your story, its strange terms, oblique angles, its cryptic colors.
What it’s like to find ‘just right’, or too much or too little or too too too, or fear, not the scent of red on claw—this we do not know, any more than we heard the saw blade. We did not hear the moment when I became We, nor do we feel our size, our contour, the texture of our difference. We do not smell the bones, the boiling water, the cooling morning. Not the sudden shatter as our smallest (chair-shaped) form bursts out across the living room. We do not hear anything returning, nor do we comprehend the trinity—the father, son, and holy mother as she sucks the remnants of her scalding meal from under the droppings of the absent mice. It’s not the shortening of the form’s breath, nor its sudden acrid scent, the shrieks and growls, bellows and grief, pleasure and violence, sun or soil, mineral or nail, last shedded memories, the scratching sound of the record as the needle leaves its vinyl surface. Not even the three forms (our alive shadows)—large, larger, quite impressively large—as they later settle, slowly, and become oblivious of even the smallest scuttle of movement again their silent, matted selves, bedded in charnel. No, we do not even feel that thin strand of gold, locked within a splinter of a body we once shared. Not even that.
My incorrectly attempted piece
Wow... I totally didn't follow the directions. Instead, I ripped off Tom Stoppard w/o really realizing it until it was way, way too late.
The formatting is nowhere near done, but I can't figure out how to do dialogue tags w/ unnamed characters.
Explain again about the sword.
It's a weapon, primarily used for cutting or thrusting, occasionally clubbing.
No, why do I need the sword?
It's authoritative. It'll scare the hell out of her, no pun intended.
I think I'm going to be authoritative enough. I mean, the doors are going to open, she's going to see me, I'm going to have all the Heavenly light on me. She's going to be scared. She's a Danish girl living in the nineteenth century. She's never seen anything like me before.
You have to have the sword.
I have to?
Yes, have to.
It's preordained.
What are you, stupid? Of course it's preordained, is anything we do not preordained? You're going to do it, I don't even know why you're talking about it. It's not like you have a choice.
I'm just saying, if Anyone's listening, it's a little much. It's like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
That's not how it works. And get in the moment, it's Denmark, it's the 1800s, There's no knife fights. You're not Marlon Brando here.
You just said I can't get my lines wrong.
Well, no, you can't.
So, why do you care if I'm being anachronistic while I'm getting ready?
It just doesn't seem appropriate.
Like scaring some freaked little girl who's got a pair of possessed shoes on her feet with a sword.
You're going to scare her anyway.
You're arguing my point again, you do realize that, don't you? I just said the same thing you did. But I said it before.
Before what?
Before now. Just before now.
You're a inter dimensional, nonlinear being, there is no before.
Then why are we waiting? Why can't we just go?
You can't go yet. There are reasons. It's not ready.
Are we almost ready?
Not really, I mean, there's a while left.
Half way ready?
No.
Fine.
Not much longer, I promise.
You're promises are sort of empty--you don't have any control over whether or not you keep them.
I guarantee you, there's not much time left.
Fine. I believe you. It's not like you can lie to me.
How much time left?
Exactly the same as before.
But it felt like--what's the word--it passed.
It didn't. Doesn't work that way.
Oh.
Sorry.
Um. Red shoes, red shoes, angels wanna wear my red shoes, red shoes.
Don't sing that.
Something something their wings rusted something something angels wanna wear my red shoes.
It's really annoying. If you don't know the lyrics, don't sing it.
How do you think our wings rust? You've been out in the rain, right?
I've been out in the rain for an eternity.
An eternity? Really? I think that's overstating it. You just said you don't have any comprehension of time.
It's complicated.
This feels like it's taking forever.
It always takes this long.
I remember being out in the rain. It rained, it stopped. That's linear.
That's on the mortal plane. Sure, if you're perceiving linear time unfold on the mortal plane, it's going to seem linear to you, but it's not linear. You're not experiencing it linearly.
So I'm nonlinearly experiencing a linear event?
Yeah.
It's confusing.
Well, then it's meant to be confusing.
I never knew, is Elvis Costello's name supposed to have something to do with Elvis Presley or is his name just Elvis?
Why would I know that?
I could go look it up.
You can't leave.
I can come back. I'm sure I have time. I'm sure you're going to give me a countdown from a hundred before I have to go on, scare the crippled girl.
She's not crippled yet. And don't call it that, call it handicapped.
Seriously? Really? I have to be nice about it.
We're almost halfway there.
And then we're done.
Well, no. I mean, with the hard stuff.
You don't think this part is harder than the rest is going to be? This part's pretty lame, it's pretty miserable. It just goes on and on and on.
Well.
I know, I know, it doesn't really go on and on, but it seems like it does. As I perceive it, it does. Even though it doesn't. Ok?
This isn't a test.
Really, not a test? Everything around here is a test. I've got to go terrify some poor kid with my wings flared up and big giant sword. I mean, look at this thing, it looks like something you'd see in a really bad Broadway show.
Eh. No, stop. Remember? Anachronisms.
I can't get my lines wrong. I thought we'd resolved this--I can say whatever I want because I'm going to get my lines wrong. If I want to, I can't, right?
Right, but--I don't like the conversation. I don't like this conversation.
That's too bad. You didn't have to come. You're here because it's a non-test test. It's like a trick practice test. You say it's not a test, but then it turns out it's really a test.
It's not a test.
Everything's a test. The poor kid's being tested.
Would you stop calling her a poor kid? She's not a poor kid. She's ignoring her dying stepmother for a pair of red shoes.
Red shoes, red shoes.
Shut up.
She is a poor kid. Born in poverty, right? If I'm nonlinear and I'm affecting a linear existence, she's always poor to me. She's always the same, no matter where she is, right?
I'm not an expert on this subject. I just know what I know.
The song.
What song?
I won't get any older--think about those lyrics. I won't get any older. Now that angels wanna wear my red shoes. Now that angels want to wear my red shoes. It's causal. Elvis Presley won't get any older because angels--angels--want to wear his red shoes.
Elvis Costello.
Sorry. But, anyway, it's causal. He the mortal won't get any older because of us. Because of our desire. For his red shoes.
I don't want red shoes.
I don't either.
You're not visiting Elvis Costello. You're visiting Karen. Karen doesn't want her red shoes. Elvis Costello's red shoes are happy shoes.
You could say they're gay.
What? Seriously? Who are you, Mel Gibson? Gay jokes? Wow.
I don't have a choice in what I say, how can you be mad about what I say if I don't have a choice in it.
I'm not mad.
Maybe you're mad at Someone Else.
I'm not mad at Someone Else, I'm not mad at anyone. I just think gay jokes are dumb and whatever. I find them offensive.
It's a pun.
It's not a pun.
It was a pun. A pun is a play on words. You had a pun.
When? Don't say before, either. Don't even say it.
A pun is a play on words.
This is exactly why I didn't want to talk anachronistically. We talk time period appropriate and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
We don't have to talk time period appropriate. That's one of the perks of a nonlinear existence. Being an IDNLB has its perks.
I had to--I'm sorry, a what?
An inter dimensional, nonlinear being.
I had to tell you about that. You didn't know that. You just made that up.
When did you tell me about that?
I told you about it. Um.
Yeah, exactly. Um. I don't want to talk about Denmark in the eighteenth century. Nobody talks about Denmark in the eighteenth century.
Danes in the eighteenth century do.
They don't know there's an Elvis Costello to talk about. If they did, they'd talk about Elvis Costello. They'd talk about Slim Whitman if they could--or indoor plumbing. Please, these mortals wipe their posteriors with leaves and things like that. It's disgusting.
I don't think they--oh, you're on.
When?
Now.
.... open church door, she saw an angel standing there. He wore long, white garments; he had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth; his countenance was severe and grave; and in his hand he held a sword, broad and glittering.
"Dance shalt thou!" said he. "Dance in thy red shoes till thou art pale and cold! Till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton! Dance shalt thou from door to door, and where proud, vain children dwell, thou shalt knock, that they may hear thee and tremble! Dance shalt thou—!"
"Mercy!" cried Karen. But she did not hear the angel's reply ....
There, was that so bad?
But we're not done yet?
No, not quite yet.
I think we should just go.
You have to go back on.
You didn't say that. The girl didn't even hear my reply she's being tormented so much and now I have to go back on and do it some more?
No, no. It's all going to be okay. That's why you don't have the sword anymore.
I had a sword?
Oh, shut up, don't worry about it. You don't even have any lines. You just make her feel good.
She loses the shoes?
Her feet get cut off.
What?
She has to cut off her feet because the red shoes are grown into them. Or her feet have grown in to the shoes. It's not clear.
That's awful.
Well, you did condemn her.
I didn't have a choice. All those thous and thees, those aren't my choice either. It's not my choice.
I didn't say it was.
Thank you.
But you did condemn her.
Anyway. What happens?
She gets her feet cut off and then she gets these wooden ones put on. But you still don't let her into church on Sunday.
Nice of me.
Well, she hasn't asked for Someone's help yet.
Oh, that's not my fault. That's her fault. Maybe she should have been thinking of Someone Else, you know what I'm saying?
I know exactly what you're saying--it's not your fault.
I'm not responsible.
Exactly.
So then what?
She gets to Heaven.
She dies?
It's Denmark in the nineteenth century. She let some doofus chop her feet off--her condemned feet--and slap some fake wood ones the stubs. I mean, hello infection. But she gets to Heaven.
How do you know all this?
It's a famous story.
What's a famous story?
The Red Shoes.
The song.
No.
There's a movie.
No. The story. The fairy tale. Hans Christian Anderson.
Did Disney do a cartoon?
I don't know. Not a movie.
Wait, it's a story. I had to go into a story?
Yeah. I mean, you're there, so it's not like you can't not go.
I'm confused. How do I go into a story?
You just did. I don't understand the question.
So I have to go into stories too?
No, just this one.
Do I have to do it again?
No, not really. I mean, if you think of it like this, like stories are all there own dimensions, then you just were being a--I'm not going to say it.
An IDNLB.
Whatever.
Fine, but don't I have to do it every time someone reads the story?
Not you, no. A different you, yes.
Another me?
Right. Another IDNLB who does the same thing you do, only hasn't already done it.
Well, where do I go?
You go back on in a little while.
After I go back on.
I don't know.
This doesn't make any sense. All I'm good for is this one thing? I can fly, I can sword fight, I can sing.
You can't sing.
I can sing.
I've heard good singers. You can't sing.
I'm good at Trivial Pursuit.
That doesn't help much here.
Why the hell do I get stuck with this one?
Ours is not to reason why.
I have so many qualities.
I know. How do you think I feel? I'm stuck here with you, aren't I? It's not like I'm getting to do anything else.
Well, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have talked anachronistically. I didn't know it bugged you.
I did tell you.
When?
Shh, you're on again.
straight before her stood the angel of God in white garments, the same she had seen that night at the church door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its stead a splendid green spray, full of roses. And he touched the ceiling with the spray, and the ceiling rose so high, and where he had touched it there gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls
Wow, so she's got, like, blood poisoning leading to delirium too. That's not good.
No.
Could be worse.
Sure.
So this is basically it?
Kind of. I mean, there's a little more, then it's it.
I guess I feel a little better, I mean, I did help her out.
Sure; but not until she'd chopped her damned feet off.
That's supposed to be funny? That's terrible.
Hey, it's a pun. I thought puns were okay. Besides, it's not like I had any control over it.
I keep feeling like there's something I should do.
There isn't.
It just seems useless.
It's an important job. Look at me, I don't complain and all I do is talk to you. I don't even to make an appearance or anything. I just talk to you.
Maybe next time I can let her keep the feet.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
You know what?
No. And shut up. It's over.
The Laborers
So, I don't know, are we to post our attempts right here with no fanfare or hullabaloo? I'm going to do it, and I won't bother with disclaimers. I will say this though: my rusty writing brain has got some gunk in its gears:)
The thing of it is, she didn’t build that house. She wasn’t the one spending days on end in a cramped cottage, keeping the fire burning hot, her hands becoming a map of gingerbread burns; we were. Only we could tell the story of the original house (before the addition). It took years to find the exact confectioner’s sugar to water ratio for proper insulation. It took just as long to gather enough materials to break ground. We toiled. We baked and we built and we built and we baked, and in the end we created a beautiful house for an ugly soul. Once the job was done we expected to move on and pursue other passions, but the problem with working for child-devouring witches is that they hardly ever keep their promises. Suddenly we were conscripted and forced to scour the forest for loose breadcrumbs and covert trail markers. While we cringed when we heard the children’s screams (we were always surprised by just how many young people stumbled across those shortbread flagstones), what could we have done? It was better them than us. Did we feel responsible for the death of so many innocents? Lured, as they were, by our candy-laden design and construction? Well, yes, we certainly did. That said, when we saw the house go up in flames, we ran to its aid, hoping to douse the fire while ignoring the witch's wails. Of course, it was too late for the house. The smell of charred gingerbread lingered in our nostrils and hair for weeks.
The thing of it is, she didn’t build that house. She wasn’t the one spending days on end in a cramped cottage, keeping the fire burning hot, her hands becoming a map of gingerbread burns; we were. Only we could tell the story of the original house (before the addition). It took years to find the exact confectioner’s sugar to water ratio for proper insulation. It took just as long to gather enough materials to break ground. We toiled. We baked and we built and we built and we baked, and in the end we created a beautiful house for an ugly soul. Once the job was done we expected to move on and pursue other passions, but the problem with working for child-devouring witches is that they hardly ever keep their promises. Suddenly we were conscripted and forced to scour the forest for loose breadcrumbs and covert trail markers. While we cringed when we heard the children’s screams (we were always surprised by just how many young people stumbled across those shortbread flagstones), what could we have done? It was better them than us. Did we feel responsible for the death of so many innocents? Lured, as they were, by our candy-laden design and construction? Well, yes, we certainly did. That said, when we saw the house go up in flames, we ran to its aid, hoping to douse the fire while ignoring the witch's wails. Of course, it was too late for the house. The smell of charred gingerbread lingered in our nostrils and hair for weeks.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Prompt the First: "We, the...(people? woodland creatures? bystanders?)"
Write, using the first-person plural, an account of a well-known (or not-so-well-known) fairy tale, folk tale, or myth from the perspective of 2 or more minor/background characters. Feel free to invent minor characters as needed.
Whew. That wasn't so bad.
Whew. That wasn't so bad.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Line Up
Since as of right now there are six of us, I figured a roll of the die made perfect neurobiological sense, although I was looking forward to using my fancified Scotland hat to pull names from... And as for omens, there were nooooo repeats of numbers; everyone rolled the number they got. (Well, technically I rolled for them, but I attempted to channel their essence as I did so).
So, tomorrow's prompt will be brought to us by AKR, and I get a week to prep.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
fresh news!
So, we now have five of us signed on and I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of others who have expressed extreme interest, but have run up against some personal strife to sort first + one person who is just shy and irritatingly noncommittal. Don't worry, I will bully her into joining us and she will love us all for it. Anyhow, I feel like this is odd communicating to you in a post. Hi four other people, and how are you today?I just wanted to note that I changed the features so you are all admin like me, so also as much in charge as me. Add whatever you want... authors, links, gadgets, pictures, colors, background. Or invite other cool writerly folks (by going to "Settings" and then "permissions"). This Friday, I will put all of our names into a hat and draw them for our prompt-ordering. Not to say the ordering won't change if other of our friends stop being wimps and join in. It'll be cool.
By the way: I want you all to like my prompts. So, even if you don't like my prompts, please tell me that you like my prompts. I'm sensitive, so it's okay to lie to me.
Oh, and I should tell you how geeky I am: I dreamt about this blog having cool prompts on it (plus the roller derby girl I have a crush on joined up without me even inviting her because it was just.that.good). But, in my defense, the above picture is from a store just down the street from my studio, and they never asked me to weigh in on the proofreading of their sign. Soooooo...... you can see the result of not loving the geeks.
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