Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write.
You can write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.
Have a good weekend!
She was not made of electricity, but it sure seemed that way - she almost glowed, sparked your knee when it touched accidentally. These were magnolia days. Days of 'kick the can' and closeted cigarettes. These were BB gun, late night, sleepover days.
You didn't know what to do about the electricity. The charge. You had some vague forewarning that shit was about to really change. And you were right. Your basketball game stopped improving at that same moment. You stopped playing kick the can with the same intensity. Your thoughts were now tied to that electric kite string, apocryphal or not, and how it would drag you forward.
You had a healthy fear of electricity.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope you dropped a ... your two minutes. Write forth!
There was a strange look in her eye. The kind that suggested she' d not take the least bit of shit from anybody.
ReplyDeleteHodson involuntarily stepped back. He'd seen that look before. Seen it, got the worst of it. Lost a limb as a consequence.
Lilly Colby was not a lady to be messed with.
I love short, punchy flash pieces like this - stark with massive backstory. Thanks much for stopping by and joining in. We're here every Friday. Please do join us again.
DeleteI will. I find this kind of thing fun. And it's a nice break as well..
DeleteAgreed. :)
DeleteWhen people hear me talk about my sister they are envious. Although Sarah was quite ill and didn't go to school with me, she was the perfect sister. She always made me feel that I was the most wonderful girl in the world, even when I didn't feel so wonderful. Everyday, I would rush home to tell the one person that always had time to listen everything I had to say about every detail of my day. Sarah would look at school work, silly poems, and childish drawings and praise them all equally. She was my biggest fan and closest friend for all those years and her loss left a huge hole in my life.
ReplyDeleteI still don't understand the disease that made Sarah my sister at just the right time in my life when I needed a big sister. But today I know they call it Alzheimer's and that Sarah was actually my mother's mother. I do know that having her as a sister forever changed the way I look at people regardless of their age. People are precious children inside and at anytime a bit of that child leaks out for others to see if they only look. I see this now as I watch my daughter chatting happily with her grandmother and I feel Sarah is somewhere near smiling at me pridefully.
No jokes this time. That was lovely. Thank you.
DeleteYou don’t need a weapon to kill. All it takes is a look, a word, a wave of a hand, a signature on a form. You can mark me off as surplus goods, you can load me onto a wooden pallet and shrink wrap me and mail me off to the auxiliary office in Katmandu, it is a way of killing without a gun or blade. Just render me redundant, leave me off in the parking lot, erase my name from payroll and I’m as good as gone. So why go back? Easy. To get what is owed. And you look like I’ve gone crazy, like you should call security and have me once again removed from the premises. Hah. You can do that all day long but you can’t remove my spirit, you can’t eliminate my secrets, you can’t shut me up.
ReplyDeleteDang, lady. Tell it! Well in.
DeleteYou’ll never feel the knife go in until you see the glistening tip sticking out the other side. You won’t notice because you’re falling asleep in front of the hockey game. You won’t notice because the whisky numbs the pain. You won’t notice because there is food in the fridge and the lights turn on and the hair dryer works. You won’t notice because you’re a good two tracks behind the album of my life, and I’ll be long gone before you get to the flip side. You’ll wonder where to find the light switch, and the electric company’s phone number, and the key that never fit the front door to begin with. You’ll wonder why it’s so quiet at night and why the bed is so empty and why the cat doesn’t have any food. Because she’s the only one who’ll notice that I’m gone.
ReplyDelete"...you’re a good two tracks behind the album of my life, and I’ll be long gone before you get to the flip side." - SO good. Strong pieces today, lady. Really well done.
DeleteAgreed. Really top notch stuff.
DeleteWe leaned on the railing overlooking the catwalk after hours and made plans, easing the overtime stress, laughing away the ridiculous deadlines. You were going to become a yuppie in Connecticut, drive a BMW, marry a Kennedy. I had no idea what was coming next, but this sure wasn’t it. Hearing the inhale and exhale of machinery night after night, the last one out of the building, the last one of the last ones who used to like each other, before the entire cast changed. You said that when you finally arced, everyone would know it, because you’d be driving the forklift. I only drove one in my imagination, into a plate-glass wall, just to feel in my bones how it would sound.
ReplyDeleteYou're on fire, lady! Hopefully not literally. Great pieces. I love the exploration.
DeleteSo, I'm looking at the clock and the hands are waving. I'm not trying to be cute. I can't get em to stand still and it's driving me traffic-crazy. The clock watches me all day long and I hate the fucking thing. It's like being covered in fire ants. You try not to move, but you can't and then you're burning.
ReplyDeleteI saw the dust fly when the door closed. The whole neighborhood heard it. We smelled that sour smell - onions and sadness and something you can drink if you aren't afraid of blindness.
Some people don't give a shit about clocks. I wish I was one of them. I'm not though. I'm one of those anxious types when it comes to time. Because it always moves too fast or two slow and my attempts to right the scales usually turn out wrong.
Love this: "...onions and sadness and something you can drink if you aren't afraid of blindness."
DeleteThanks, G.
DeleteAgree one hundred percent with Laurie.
DeleteThanks DA. :)
DeleteI signed my name. I did not read what preceded the signature line. I was in a hurry. Okay, what it comes down to is a simple admission on my part of incurable stupidity. I've been afflicted since cradledom and I suppose it will continue, grow even worse, with time.
ReplyDeleteI signed my freaking name without looking down my bifocals at the almost microscopic contract print. Did I expect the one who handed me the pen, the one who smiled to my distraction, never having seen such sharp incisors in my entire life? I had things to do, places to go, people to see.
"Thank you, Sir."
"Huh?"
"You bought the sauna."
"The sauna? I thought it was a commitment to donate cans of food to the homeless."
The one with the sparkling incisors laughed uproariously. "No! No! You donated your soul to the fires of Hell!"
"My what?"
"Here, check out your signature. This you?" I nodded. "See you later, Alligator," he said. I returned his pen.
Man, I absolutely love the calm yet powerful tone in your pieces, Sal.
DeleteBruce shook his head. “Next you'll be telling me there's a tooth fairy.”
ReplyDelete“Honest, it's true. I'll prove it.” Reaching into my inner jacket pocket, I pulled out a utility bill. A final demand typed in red, threatening imminent disconnection of my internet services and further additional charges to be paid. Due today.
“And you just put your unpaid bill in the box and aliens pay it?”
“Exactly that. One every month. No more than that or else there's consequences.” I slotted the bill in the box, waited for the actinic flare and then drew it out again. “Look,” I said, “Paid in full. Written in large green letters.”
“So why isn't everyone doing this? There has to be a catch.” My friend looked at me sceptically, still not believing.
“There is,” I began, hesitantly, ”a qualifier. You have to always bring someone for them to abduct...”
Ha! Great finish. And you taught me a new word. Actinic. Another cool piece, my friend. :)
DeleteThe toast landed jelly side down on the floor again. His fingers don't work like they used to. Every day a little less function.
ReplyDeleteDog was happy. That's her name. Dog. She tensed, eyes flicking back and forth between the man and the toast.
"Go ahead, it's yours now", he shouted.
Soon. He will have to do it soon, while he can still pull the trigger.
Whoops, reply is below.
DeleteThis is brutal and surprising and tender. Just the way I like it.
ReplyDeleteI've come to the realization that working for Geri has come to an end. Just the same, the work at my mother's house seems to have no end. I've spent the last two days clearing the path through the woods so I could haul out the lumber. Just as I thought it was possibly too much work for me, my boy called, "I'm ready to get the hell out of Vegas, dad." It was music to my ears. The boy is twenty one now, but I was no where near finished making a man out of him. I left that toxic city over a year ago, and it was high time he followed suit. I've got plans for that boy...big plans.
ReplyDeleteDear God no one should ever have to spend ANY time in Vegas. Thanks for dropping by bud. On point as usual.
DeleteThanks bro. I spent 25 years out there. That was enough. It was good when it was good, but the bottom dropped out, so to speak.
Delete*This Dumb Matador*
ReplyDeleteThe light's dwindling fast from a fresh spring day.
"There's a shiny black Crown Victoria top of yonder rise."
"Heat?"
"That'd be my guess."
"Keep driving, then?"
Out there the moths arrive, gather, start to cluster around streetlights. Gianluigi blinks, sighs, gets all righteous pissed.
"Carlos, you pull a U-turn here, and assumin' that's a cop, might as well scream you a badass motherfucker, see if you can't catch me. Seriously. You some kind of dumb matador type?"
Ha, matador type! Made me laugh. Ain't even Spanish. Though I can't help but remember things: the bright, late sun shining off of warehouse walls, broken cinderblocks, graffiti mockery, reeking garbage, a dead dog beside a blackened grate, was only a half hour ago, if that.
"Yeah, well. Whatever. Hey, been wondering, since when did everyplace end up with them automatic doors with the yellow-and-black stickers?"
"Huh? What?"
"You know, science fiction shit. That shit's everywhere."
"Uh. Enough. I ain't interested in any goddamned freakish thing you say no more, not ever. Shut the fuck up and drive."
"Sure, not a problem. Sunset's pretty, huh?"
Ever hear a wolf pack start to howl? Think about crystal chandelier tsunamis? Bridal falls in a hellstorm? How ladybugs get the worst STDs? Those are truths, like it or not.
Gianluigi looks right at me, his dry raisin eyes hard as bessemer coals. Harder.
"You're a fat, oily caucasian with nothin' to redeem you, and I'd save a chickenshit nazi child molester before I pissed on you if you were fully ablaze."
"Ha. Well, that's the chalk calling the snowfield white."
"Nah, puttano. Sicilian. That ain't caucasian. Ain't nigger, either, before you say it."
Don't want to say it but think it: Sicilian? Nah, brother, you plain American. Like me. Like most all of us. You think these delicate green leaves give one fuck about those ancient buried roots ten brown lifetimes below? Yeah? Exactly.
We both hold our breath but the cop never chases us, if he even is a cop, or ever was a cop, and before you know it we are far away from the big city when the bombs start fallin' like toxic black raindrops and I realize I'll never smell Sofia's neck again or ever again feel her sweet, warm breath on me, whatever. The horizon ignites and shears, over and over, while we drive.
You ever watch an iguana twitch on the end of a spit? Given the chance I'll roast all you fuckers alive, see if I don't. You see if I don't.
If you wrote that in two minutes, I'm handing in my laptop. ;) I love this piece. I think it's one of my favorites of yours. It's up there for sure. Casual urgency - you do it so well, brother.
DeleteLOL, my timer keeps "breaking." ;)
DeleteThanks, G. Casual urgency, I like! I've said it elsewhere but I swear the standard of everyone's pieces here keeps going up, every week. Its awesome to read each and every one of these.
I agree. Everyone's game is getting tighter. Fuck a timer. ;)
Delete