Friday, January 13, 2017

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! 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.

I'm sick, but y'all have at it. #breaktheblog

#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...

31 comments:

  1. January 3rd, she found the coolest desk calendar/appointment book.So cool in fact,she bought a smaller, matching one to put in her purse. Huge numbers, space for notes, organization was going to be her tool in starting her own business.

    At home, she twirled into the desk chair, pulled out the colored pens. Everything would say something different in its own special hue. Success was but a date away.
    The phone rang, late for an appointment- she jumped in the car and was off. Children home from school, awesome movie on TV, laundry, dinner, pets, work- day in day out.
    Finally there was time to once again,twirl into the office chair-
    December 31st...

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    1. You made me laugh, and the situation is so relatable.

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    2. Thank you. I wishing I had an office chair to twirl into, then I'll search for time.

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    3. Ah the best laid plans, so hopeful, so rich with promise and possibilities...then pesky Life intrudes. Yes, you made me laugh too. You penned a Universal truth with aplomb. Thanks for sharing it.

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  2. Man, Dan, the 2 Minutes Go! crew's got to pool our healing vibes and beam them your way. Can't be having the host of this weekly soirée and salon feeling so poorly. Here's my meager supply and a story or two I hope you can enjoy. Be well, amigo.

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    1. Dan, please feel better soon and hurry back. Not the same without you. Agreed, healing vibes and ink slinger incantations, perhaps a rubber chicken tossed into a paper bag and twirled over our heads, anything to assist in your rapid improvement. Seriously, rest and recover quickly.

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  3. Part 1

    He awoke just before the sun peeked through the bedroom window from around the building across the street.

    Experience had trained him to do this, as well as to near weightlessly untangle and escape from the bed linens and whatever warm, silken softness touched his skin that dawn.

    Once freed from the limbs upon which he had once again crucified honesty, he scooped up his clothing and padded to the door. As always, he was careful not to awaken the angel who had caught his fall from grace.

    He reasoned it was better this way—easier than any awkward, insincere conversation, let alone goodbye.

    He suppressed a laugh. No one had ever spied him pulling on his pants in some doorway after all these hookups. Too early for morning rush, too late for the graveyard shift, he reckoned. His jeans now carefully and quietly zipped, he pulled on his black polo, palmed the keys in his jacket pocket and headed for his car. He’d parked it—carefully and legally—out of this graduate angel’s view.

    Maybe he’d text her later, but he wouldn’t call. He never felt guilty about not speaking to these young women again, just momentarily uncomfortable.

    Sunlight crawled over the rooftops behind him and fell into the quiet canyon below, glaring off the top windows of buildings and bouncing off the mirror-polished hood of his car. I love you, my sweet ride, he thought as he oozed into the embrace of the driver’s seat.

    Firing up the black BMW, he checked his mirror. No cars approached from behind. He saw only dense steam rising and spreading from manholes, lending a ghostly glow to the scene as the sun intruded even more on his getaway. Once more glancing over his shoulder, he pulled out of the parking place, turning the corner back onto the street where last night’s angel still slept.

    As he drove past her building he looked up through the car’s moonroof to where he thought her window was and grinned.
    Turning his attention back to the street, he was more than alarmed to discover a ghostly delivery truck bearing down on him. The truck driver, a bit groggy after finishing a night’s work, didn’t see the low-slung Beemer through the luminescent steam clouds until it was almost too late. Each driver awoke to the reality of the moment, adrenaline-injected and with a sudden need to pray.

    “Jesus Christ,” he grunted, pulling the car hard right, jumping the curb and slamming to a stop amidst a wall of streetside trash bins. His head slammed to a stop a micro-second later against the steering wheel. He had seen the face of God and God’s eyebrow read “Isuzu.” Then, blackness.
    ....

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  4. Part 2

    In his next sensate moment, he thought he heard the voice of an angel. He opened his right eye, the only one that would open. The steering wheel had caught him a wicked shot across his left brow, leaving him with eyelids the rearview mirror showed had already begun to look like frowning collagen-plumped lips. He turned to see last night’s angel hammering on his window and tugging on his door handle.

    Unlocking the door, he was glad she had come down to help him. Her dewy eyes showed concern.

    “Paul, I mean, Professor, are you all right?” she said.

    Bless you, Hon.

    “I think so. How’s my car?” he said.

    He noticed one of the trash cans resting on the hood. From inside the car, it looked like a steel beetle caught in a sparkling spiderweb of lines criss-crossing the right two-thirds of the shattered windshield.

    “Will you look at that? Where’d that son of a bitch go? You just can’t roll somebody over and take off like nothing happened. What about me? He didn’t even care to see how I was. I could have died and he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. Doesn’t anybody take responsibility anymore?

    “Oww!”

    In his rage, he hadn’t noted the angel’s expression change around the red-rimmed puddles of her eyes. He didn’t see her fist come from his blurry left and give him a searing shot to his injured eye. Hands to his face, he didn’t see her foot swinging up from below. From a seat on the Beemer’s floorboard, he didn’t see her run back into her building. He didn’t hear her sobbing, either.

    When he collected himself, he pushed the trashcan off of the car’s hood. While backing the car off the curb, he could hear sirens.

    He would have slammed the car into gear and blazed out of the neighborhood, but, because the right side of the windshield was broken and his left eye was swollen shut, his field of vision was the size of a catcher’s mitt just in front of the steering wheel.

    He slowly drove across town to the tiny flat he shared with Herself. After fussing with the lock, he kicked open the door, slammed it behind him, shoved some ice into a Zip-Loc bag, and held that to his face as he fell down across their queen-sized bed. He reflected on the preceding night and the morning’s events, replaying everything slowly, each nuance, innuendo and truth.

    Why me? What the hell did I do to deserve this?

    With no classes to teach today, he thought sleep would come, but it wouldn’t. Only a bright white pain shared his bed. She was on the road with her job again.

    Rolling to a sitting position, he picked up his phone and punched in her cell phone number. Five rings.

    “Hi, it’s me, Babe,” he said softly. “Did I wake you? Oh, last night? I went to a ballgame and didn’t get home until late. I didn’t want to wake you. I know, I know, you worry about me when you’re on the road, sorry. I love you, you know. Why do you think I’m calling?”

    His heart sank and his eyes—but not his eyelids—were opened.

    “Uh, whose voice is that, Hon?”

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    1. Several thoughts leap to mind, just desserts, comeuppance, not to mention Karma biting you in the arse. All done so eloquently, I enjoyed it twice. His moments of only being "momentarily uncomfortable" are probably in the past now that his world has taken a rude 180 degree turn. Deservedly so. Great job and thank you for sharing it.

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    2. Love the edge and the vivid details in both parts 1 & 2! Payback's a bitch and you penned it perfectly, leaving enough space to see between his shortcomings to believe there's a reason for them and squeeze out just a little pity.

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  5. Manolo Esteves crept from hiding, keeping the sun to his back lest he not see the approaching shadow of someone coming up on him from behind. He knew he’d committed too many sins, probably assured himself his own place in hell, to make the holy treasure his own. He pushed his sombrero back on his head and let out a long sigh.

    Making the Sign of the Cross once, twice, three times, the old bandit knelt in the dust and looked once over each shoulder before he reached beneath a dry bedstraw bush into a horizontal crevice hidden within the red rock. He pulled from it a flat parcel encased in oiled leather.

    Slowly unwrapping it, old Mano blinked as the bright desert sun flashed off a gold cross mounted with dazzling red and blue jewels. He was certain this was the monstrance that Padre Marcos de Niza, the first white man to come to Arizona, had carried the Cuerpo de Cristo, the holy host, in his mission to convert the Yavapai.

    So blinding in light, fortune and holiness was his prize, Mano never noticed the former Army scout Heck Langdon drawing a bead on him from the rocks above and behind him with a new Winchester repeating rifle. With a crack and flash of the rifle, flushing a cloud of small birds from their shady rest within a golden-blossomed brittle bush, the one-time bandito of the Sonora fell with his holy treasure upon the red earth.

    When Langdon scrambled from the rocks to Mano's body, he picked up the ornate cross, already sticky with the old man's blood in the desert heat. He was transfixed by the potential fortune in gold and precious gems he grasped in his left hand.

    Gold fever, the obsession to make the big strike for the treasure some said could be found in the rocks of these mountains, had blinded many a man before Langdon. The Spanish gold in his hand and all he could see was the riches he’d have for the rest of his life.

    And that was true. However, that same blind dream caused Langdon to not notice the young Mescalero Apache called Kutbhalla silently slip up behind him to cut his throat.

    Kutbhalla had stalked the white man for miles, envious of the great golden treasure he now held in his right hand. Not Manolo Esteves's secret golden church vessel of the Brown Robes he clutched in his left. The young Mescalero prized more the dazzling golden-toned Yellow Boy Winchester Langdon had flashed like a beacon across the pommel of his saddle all the way from Fort Huachuca.

    But the shine of gold attracted not only men in this wilderness. Mojave rattlesnakes, like the one who lived in the rear of the crevice from which Manolo pulled Padre Marcos’ monstrance, also were drawn to its flash and glitter.

    As Kutbhalla held his new rifle up to the sun, it captured and reflected its holy glow back into his gold-blinded eyes, the rattler rose and struck, sinking its fangs into the young Mesclero’s leg. Kutbhalla fell upon the cross between the two thieves, the snake’s poison ending his life in but a minute or so.

    As the rattler slithered out of the searing August sun back into its rocky lair, a breeze came up and covered the men, the monstrance and the rifle with the red dust it scoured from these desert mountains. It committed the holy and unholy artifacts of life and death back to the land, which glowed and glittered like red-gold embers as the sun buried itself below the horizon.

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    1. This had me from the first paragraph. Gripping and richly told. Men's greed is ever thus but sometimes divine intervention or possibly just Fate, decides otherwise. Thank you for sharing it. A wonderful read.

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  6. Somehow I feel compelled to keep digging at this guy...

    There was a crooked man
    Who ran a crooked race
    And with his crooked words,
    Put opponents in their place

    He chopped them down, one by one
    'Til a single foe remained
    On merit, she'd have won hands down,
    So he painted her with disdain

    This shameless huckster's style
    Was totally 'in your face'
    At any time in memory,
    It would have brought him great disgrace

    But that isn't how it happened,
    Not in this odd campaign
    His way: relentless bullying,
    Name-calling a repeating refrain

    Eventually he nabbed the post,
    But owing to immense conceit,
    Could not admit (though we all knew)
    'Victory' came through lies, tricks and deceit

    He sold snake oil by the barrel,
    Promised a big, beautiful wall
    Folks bought the hype, even those who knew
    There was no such elixir, no magic cure-all

    Some were actually fooled
    Their desire to believe replete
    But he couldn't fool all of us
    And the vigilant shall not retreat

    He has a gift for distraction,
    Has perfected the strident squall
    No matter how minor the issue,
    Check Twitter for a public brawl

    He lied and lied and lied and lied,
    And then he lied some more
    What makes you think he'll tell the truth
    When it's you he's gunning for?

    His action plan: cheat, swindle, deflect,
    Twist, turn, dodge, prevaricate
    Spread fake news across the land
    To fuel fear, despair, mistrust and hate

    Whenever he is challenged,
    His spite comes to the fore
    That's when his true self really shines,
    Illuminating a rotten core

    There was a crooked man
    On that there's no debate
    And given all we've seen so far
    Still think he'll make our country great?

    * * *
    © 2017 by M.P. Witwer • All rights reserved

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    1. Hell, no! but nice job with your words!

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    2. Without getting too political, I will say a deft hand and good choice of words. I will confide I would have sooner eaten guano than voted for either of them. Tough to choose between a snake oil salesman and a flim-flam artist, so I did neither. A waste of a vote but one I could live with.

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  7. From the lanai, we had a wonderful view of the ocean below. The Ah-ha lava shone a dull black against the turquoise waters of the Pacific.

    Dinner of sauteed Ahi with Mai Tais fresh from the blender. So relaxing as we watch the sunset dinner cruise ferry happy howlies from all over the planet down the Kona coast. Off in the distance, beyond the westernmost point of West, the sun appears to literally slip beneath the waters of the offing. And suddenly, just for an instant, a bright green glow announces the true end of day Hawai`ian time.

    Aloha

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    1. I live in Florida and have seen my fair share of exotic and tropical beauty, but the picture you painted was so vivid and lovely, I wish I was looking at turquoise waters and stone black lava. A breathtaking scenario and story. Thank you.

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  8. She sat and thought long & hard about how to start her story. It somehow felt wrong to use, "Once upon a time". People usually figured that anything that begins that way, ends with, "happily ever after". Once upon a time, she did too. Not now, but then.

    40 years ago tomorrow, she completely believed. Way back when, she drove through a snowstorm while her dad asked her to reconsider. She laughed & thought, he doesn't understand. The road to the altar had been bumpy, but wasn't that typical? You needed some challenges to know it was real, right? Like the time, not long after he had proposed, she suggested they "take a break" before they fully committed. She had read an article in some magazine...maybe Cosmo, where they had suggested it would be a good way to see if you had found the right "life partner". Long story short, they took the break, albeit via a fight. She dated most of his friends, out of spite. He was more selective, he chose only her best friend...and slept with her. In hindsight, that was telling but at the time, she was naive. She believed him when he came to her apologizing. Thinking back, she remembers that his proposal came after being denied sex...as if that would make her say yes! Don't laugh, remember naive.

    The rest of the 40 years fly through her mind like hyperdrive on the Enterprise. Some make her smile but the more recent ones, well up in her eyes and make the page in front of her blur. Maybe tomorrow, she'll come up with the end of the story since the beginning had already been written.

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    1. Wow, this is powerful. The facts may not be the same but the intent hits close to home. And only a few of my memories make me smile. And that last line just leveled me. Thank you. Bittersweet and I would feel compelled to give you a hug if we were in the same room. Then buy us each a really big glass of wine to trade war stories over.

      P.S. At least she wasn't my best friend but a complete stranger to me.

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    1. Replied in the wrong space. That's how much the story affected me.

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    2. I love you, both the reply in the wrong place and the other. Sounds like we were both in the wrong place at the wrong time!

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    5. We should consider writing a cautionary book. "If Your Fiancé Does This Now, Run For the Hills..." But alas, love is blind and even had we known, it's so easy to trust and believe. Which is what I have bubbling around in my head so I should try to write a little something along those lines. But in the meantime, I hope we both find what we seek eventually. Take care.

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  10. And because there was a feeling of love found and lost, happiness, peace, contentment that was fleeting in some of the works this week, I just decided to write this...

    The book was musty and stuffed into a corner of the old bookstore. She turned it over in her hands, seeing the dustcover was a little the worse for wear, but the book itself was in very good shape aside from the smell. But that was a minor point. It was a First Edition, a copy of The Blind Beauty she held. She smoothed her fingers lightly over the pages. An unfinished play by Pasternak, only discovered and published nine years after his death. She wondered if it was as romantic as Doctor Zhivago, if his lyrical romanticism was penned as strongly. Did his fervent belief, that two Universes existed still ring true. One he felt was Time and History. The second Universe was Eternity. Difficult concepts to grasp but she looked forward to reading the book she held. Pasternak believed that artists were endowed with a special gift, to see eternal Harmony, and were imbued with the ability to heal and redeem their readers. A lofty notion.

    She looked at many more shelves, considered a few other worthy finds and added them to her small basket. Several more books to add to her personal library, to pour over and assimilate, tomes to cherish but she looked forward to The Blind Beauty the most. Reflecting as she walked home to her loft, perhaps she'd finally find some answers she had long sought. Questions of beauty, and our own failings, our blindness in some regards. Did writers, in fact, have that ability to heal, redeem? And if they did, why more often than not were they able to see others' blindness but not their own? So many seemed to live both the extremes that others might often be lucky enough to escape. The agonies and ecstasies of life and love. Was that the price? Was the glimpses that they saw of eternal Harmony paid for by their own lack of happiness so often? Did they see too much to ever be able to find true peace and harmony in their own lives?

    So many questions and too few answers but if she was lucky, she just might see into his soul and find a hint of what he knew. One could always hope. She glanced at her own manuscript lying on the roll top desk. She'd pick that back up tomorrow, but for tonight, a nice glass of Cabernet and her Pasternak book would be her companions. Just for tonight, she had no loftier goal than that.
    -Tamara McLanahan

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  11. When we are truly happy, we become placid, satisfied & satiated. There's little need to seek answers or further fulfillment. Perhaps the price of being an artist is never quite reaching our goal, once we do, we might stop seeking.

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  13. Thank you so much for this material! I think such lessons are very interesting for your students. By the way, last week I was looking for a writing service http://essays.io/ You know, it is time of session now, and I have to do a lot of things. And fortunately I found a good service and got the content of a very high qiality.

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  14. He couldn't afford an attorney. That I can understand. He needed what little money he earned shoveling walks and raking leaves to buy cheap wine. He told me once he dreamed he had a huge cellar like Amontillado's, but he couldn't calm the tremors in his hands to bring down the wall. I can believe whatever rumors I hear about old Captain Bill "Useless" Grant, but then a neighbor who attended one of his court appearances for vagrancy told me what Grant said to the man in the black robe: "I don't appreciate being judged. Who are you to judge me?" After the court exploded in a confetti of raucous laughter, Bill was hauled off for contempt, now quoting from his own diary about how the world was unfair, the judge should be fired, and the price of Thunderbird Wine had better come down.

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  15. Thank you! I guess practice is the most important tip! Because without big practice you will never improve your writing skills. I have normal level in writing, I can write essays and other works. And when the teacher asks me to write a very difficult essay on ususual topic, I ask for the help writing service when I need to write my essay reviews. Thanks a lot!

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