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.

Failure

My eyes won’t open. Why won’t my eyes open? I keep telling ‘em. I say, "eyes, open the fuck up." Ain’t nothing getting done if you don’t. But it ain’t like I can’t open my eyes. Not like can’t can’t. You hold a gun to my head, and I’ll get those eyes open. But I won’t see. You can’t make me see, no matter how many ways you try to do it. 

My brain is on fire. I feel the heat. I don’t like any part of it. Like that red-cheeked shame you get when you smile at a girl and she whispers into her friend’s ear, laughing. 

I tried to climb the mountain, Sisyphus got me. The rock got me. I rolled it up, but I never got anywhere with it, so I sharpened this stick. See that point? Like a dagger. Now, you hold it still. I’ll pry my eyes open and you can jab ‘em right out.  We can cook them like marshmallows, watch them drip into the burning resonance of shame. 

#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...

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.

(The last few weeks I've been putting up flash exercises I've done with students. Hence, the prompts. But they were written in roughly three minutes and I didn't edit. Plus, rules schmules.)

Happy

The boy sat on the side of a small trickle of water. You wouldn’t call it a stream, but the boy did. And there were crayfish in there. There was the sound of water. In his imagination, the stream was broad and full of fat trout. In reality, it was a choked-off spring dying in the suburbs, trash floating like so much flotsam and jetsam.

The boy did not see the trash. The boy saw opportunity. 

He started on a Monday afternoon. He grabbed one of those big, black trash bags they have for gardening. Started filling it. It took the better part of a week, but when he was done, the stream was beautiful. The weeds just licked the surface of the water. He swore it even sounded better. And it smelled like moss, like water, like life.

The stream was ignored by everyone except the boy and the county workers who had to clear the drain where the stream passed under the road. The boy did not want anyone at his stream. And that is exactly the way he thought of it. 

He would stand for hours, or lie on the soft ground and think: I have this. And he would smile.

#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...

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.

You can play it any way you want, any key. It ain't changing the fact that the facts been locked down. What? You think folks is blind? You think we can't hear that caterwauling every night. Even simple folks know what those sounds mean. They mean meanness. And Sin. Every word you say is a snake in the grass, and we don't need it - take it, bleed with it. Cross your T's - we got plenty of eyes. 

See, folks around here are respectable. And that ain't got nothing to do with money. That's got to do with callouses on hands ands backs sore from honest work. Knees that hurt from kneeling while we pray. We don't even have the same vocabulary. Like whatever you call that fancy blonde lady what takes care of your little ones. Sounds like some kind of fancy yoghurt from the mall, but it just means lazy. 

You can't even take care of your own.

That's what I mean. It's like trying to make a possum fly. Won't work, and you can't be mad at the possum. It ain't in a possum's nature, and it ain't our business to go messing with His designs anyhow. So, you can wipe that cookie-stealing grin off your face. I'm not about to fight you. I'm not going to be a spying neighbor or make you leave town. I could. I sure could. 

The word Mayor means something here. 

But I ain't doing nothing to you except, well, I'm gonna help you. Ain't nobody so high falutin' they can't be saved.

All you gotta do is believe.

#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...

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.

Plot

It’s like candyland. I don’t have any interest in winding my way through your narrative unless I get to stop and have some good conversations along the way. Go ahead and plot out everything you got. Put it on 3x5 cards and force it into flow charts. Let the plot drive, but plots aren’t alive. So, unless you’re lucky, be prepared for one hell of a boring ride. Or one hell of a crash.

Me, I’m letting the characters drive. Less work for me, and they always seem to find the places I wouldn’t have thought of. How can I write the characters’ story? That would be like them trying to write mine. They’re alive, damn it. They live in my mind and they don’t pay rent, so let them pick up some of the slack for all the time I’ve spent.

Now,  if you’ll excuse me, I have some people to invent.

#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...

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.

Hunger

She looked into him with wolf eyes, but he didn’t see it that way. Maybe it was the noise from the jukebox. Maybe it was the bourbon he’d stripped his stomach with. All he saw were red lips and tight dress and possibility. I wasn’t in on it, but I knew the score. I knew he’d  leave with her, and I knew what would happen afterwards. His wallet would be a lot lighter. That might be it. If he was lucky.

I didn’t have a stake in the game, so I drank and let it dangle. I watched it flutter in front of me. And I wasn’t laughing, but I had one of those smiles. One of those hidden smiles because I knew and he didn’t. I could see the wolf inside the sheep’s cocktail dress.

I could see it all laid out before me like a straight flush. 

And it was a goddamn mess.

#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...

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.

Beneath the angry sun, the old man sat. At his feet, there was an old dog the color of the sand. He nodded at the mutt and it nodded back. The dog was licking the man's feet. Trying to clean the blood from them. It wasn't working. 

The man had long ago run out of water and ambition. He had one piece of beef jerky he was saving, a loaded gun, and many, many regrets. 

He was thirsty, the dog was thirsty, but you can't drink gunpowder. He chuckled in spite of himself.

"Aren't we supposed to be put out to pasture, boy?"

The dog nodded.

"Not the middle of the goddamned desert..."

The dog whined and it turned into a low rumble. The dog was not scared, nor was the man. They were resigned to it. They were too tired to be angry anymore.

"Let's stop walking, boy."

The old man looked off into the distance. He had taken a half-assed shot at a jackrabbit earlier, but he had more than enough ammunition to end their pain. The dog thumped his tail. 

"You always did know what I was thinking, huh?"

The dog smiled and walked several paces away, looking off into the horizon. It was time for the old man to fix things. He knew the signs. The tight lips. The smell of resolve. The man would make it right.

The man pulled the gun from his pocket and looked at it. He sighed. If only it could be the other way around, but, then again, he wouldn't wish that on his dog. Or any dog for that matter. 

He aimed, closed his eyes. The dog did not move. He fired, but it took his several minutes to open his eyes and turn the barrel. 

#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...

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.

Tell me to keep marching, but I won’t. I got Phil Ochs in my pocket, and we’re through with the fucking marching. I’m sick to death of it. I don’t want to be a good soldier; that was never my aspiration. I aspired to a certain honest dignity and that meant no marching. Not unless fish-related and on my terms. I don’t march for anybody but me. On that, and many other things, Phil Ochs and I agree.

I’m not going to get my gun. Not that I have a gun, but I’m not even going for the metaphorical quick-draw. I told you. I’ll go fishing. You make the cole slaw. Not because I said so – that’s like telling someone to march. No, just make it because it will taste good with the fried bream, and we can both do our part.

I don’t want to see the tomb of the unknown soldier. I don’t want to go back to Gettysburg. I’ve been there. I just wanted to sit in the grass, but they kept telling me it was greener from the blood spilt. Which seemed like a lot of bullshit at the time. Still does. I won’t address it. Lincoln beat me to it and did it better than I ever could.

I just want to do what I should.

And that’s a bold statement for a wannabe misanthrope to make, but you get what you get and you take what you take. If golf is a good walk spoiled - like Twain said - then life is an interesting adventure tainted by the screaming of hypocrites and liars. I don’t want to be thrown into that patch of briars.

I just want to hug my girls, love my wife, write, and catch a fish every so often. There’s not a lot of time for anything else. So, I'll fight my battles. Stop trying to enlist me in yours.

#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...