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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.