If any of the below skeleton stories appeal to you, please comment
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He sat at the bar, on the same stool he always sat on. One beer was following nicely on from the other, liquid nectar for his soul. This was his daytime, nights he worked as a bouncer in a strippers joint. He chatted with whoever sat next to him, he was one chilled character.
She entered the bar because of a sudden downpour, sat at the bar and ordered a beer. She hadn’t had a beer in years and it went down like water, she ordered another and started chatting to him. The weather, where she was from, what she was doing there – normal chitchat. All the time more beer was entering both their bodies.
At some point the two beer fuelled bodies turned to each other and sparked. They kissed.
The sun came out and she left, slightly buzzing from the interaction, shaking her head, clearing in the sunshine, she returned to the tour bus, she returned to her husband, she didn’t give it another thought.
He sat at the bar, on the same stool he always sat on. He drank his beer, he chatted, but something or someone was haunting him. A normal person, a woman with no agenda, with a good life, a pastor’s wife had kissed him. Him, a has been, never been, what was it about her that niggled. No longer chilled, wtf, it was just a kiss. But no matter how many times he said this to himself, he knew in his heart it changed everything, he was changed…http://media.disqus.com/uploads/forums/95/7532/favicon.png" width="16" />
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For a very specific reason I am reading Pollyanna by Eleanor H Porter. The specific reason is: I want to and am old enough to admit to liking 19th and early 20th century fiction aimed at young girls without blushing.
Protagonist: Pollyanna, optimistic orphan
Antagonist: Aunt Polly: strict, dour relatively young aunt, unmarried.
the glad game, the man and aunt Polly all are potential obstacles to a peaceful life.
There could be more and if I tried to I would think of them but then that would spoil the ending for me!!! (again) am only up to where she begins to meet The Man.
There are nuances that I read now as a Christian I have not seen before so have downloaded a truck load of this kind of fiction (more examples please) for my vacation to the States next week.
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this morning wrote a story based on raindrops for my son. I know I shouldn't do his homework! Amazing that your prompt is similar, thanks Joe, here's a little bit of it:
It was the rain I missed most. Growing up in Ireland you certainly got used to the soft days, the showers, the heavy downpours and torrential rain. I remember one summer; I must have been ten or eleven. It rained every single day for the entire summer holiday, then the first day of term; bright sunshine.
Sitting in the room watching raindrops fall down the window, like an ever changing waterfall, I remember that. The wind, there was always wind, would drive the rain against the window panes. The panes themselves would shudder and moan. They were the old type, two halves and a sash cord to raise them up or down, only one fixing in the middle. Designed to last, designed before house burglary became an occupation for so many, but they did like to groan.
The house was, I remember, fond of talking. Floorboards creaked as you stood on them, doors whined as you opened and then exhaled when closed. Tiles on the roof thought they were in a rock band, pounding rhythms with the rain, thrashing out da-dum,da-dum, da-dum. Presses and cupboards held their own secrets; moths, insects and spiders all vying to be top-dog of whatever press they were in.
Up the creaky stairs and along the corridor was the bathroom. For a young curious lad the bathroom held the most appeal. In the twilight, silverfish roamed the tiled floor, woodlice snuck out of the skirting board and made a dash for the underbelly, the dark side of the bath. Once I counted four different kinds of mould and fungi growing in the damp humid conditions, black mould on the walls, a turquoise growth in the corner of the bath. Under the sink was a platform, hewn from fresh timber for the ‘smallies’ in the house but it had aged and in the clammy dank darkness of the bathroom and had grown orange and yellow curly foils of fungi. My brother, the daft one, wanted to eat them but then he would eat anything; charcoal, turf, the dog’s dinner. He was always so hungry and so painfully thin.
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rules, keeping them, breaking them, following them religiously, creating a crack in the rule. I am more inclined to poetry when I think of rules rather than good English grammar and language in prose. Why? Because I was taught old-school grammar and language, not only at school which was horrific enough but at home, on vacation with my aunts, weekends with my grandmother. The only place where you could say, "me and you," without the retort, "It is you and I, Susan" was on the streets. Or perhaps the use of a double negative, quelle horreur in my family. Every aspect of the words I chose to use came under scrutiny, goodness, when I think of times I stupidly asked "Can I leave the table?" So I know I break the rules of grammar, I use language appropriate to the character's age, class, gender, culture, religion etc.
Poetry for me (apart from being really bad at it) is a release, there is a form called free verse so I can follow the rules of having no rules without breaking one - or can I? By adding structure - number of syllables per line, number of lines in a stanza, repeating words creating rhyme - oooh that is way uncomfortable to contemplate.
As it happens I spent the day writing different things, two pieces of leaving cert homework for my son, a poem, essay for my course, essay for myself, essay for my tutor, and this comment. This is the poem:
hope ?
She sat waiting
Waiting to be picked up
Waiting to be nurtured
loved
She waited
Noisily at first
With ever decreasing
Whimpers, moans
sobs
She waited
Until she cried no more
expected no more
hoped no more
lone
She stopped waiting
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My seventh birthday was the first I shared with my stepmother. My mom and sister shared a birthday and did stuff together on that day. Did I expect the same? No, in the previous week each family member, liberally covering the generations, made some sharp, pointed remark about the stepmother and I.
On the eve of my seventh birthday I spoke to the ether asking to be rid of my stepmother as a birthday treat.
On the actual day, the thirteenth day of a nameless month, the first "Witches Day" was celebrated in my room, alone with the ether. No one wished me a 'happy' one and I didn't solicit conversation.
The day after my birthday I was told that my stepmother, Gwendoline, was paralysed, had woken up on her birthday unable to walk.
That was the last birthday I celebrated, there was nothing in my life to beat the drum of commemoration. Now, because of me, because of the ether, I lost a father. He could no longer travel and leave his frail wife.
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