"I can't do it."
"Neither can I."
"Okay, goddammit, I COULD do it, but I don't WANT to. It's your turn."
"I do it all the time!"
"No you don't."
"I hate talking to them!!"
"So do I!"
Silence hung like a pendulum over the two people on the couch. The Dutch analog clock softly ticked away the seconds while they pointedly avoided looking at each other.
"Damn it, why don't we take turns?"
"Why don't we just not do it at all?!"
"You know I want this! Why do you always change your mind?"
"What the fuck does THAT mean?"
Finally, he leaned forward. "You know we have nothing here, right? We have to do this."
She nodded. "You do it, then."
He picked up the square device, punched in some numbers.
"Hello, Pizza Hut?"
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Topic: A tense conversation
For this challenge you will write a conversation between two people; the conversation will be an argument or some form of tense discussion. First or third person is fine. Have fun!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Narrator free
Just as he and his friends were about to leave the micro brew festival Kirk, reaching into his coat pocket realized he had 3 more beer tokens to spend. It seemed a shame, bordering on heresy, not to trade them in on 3 more glasses of beer. So, as his friends said their goodbyes he made his way off in search of new beers he was unlikely to find in the local stores.
It was Father's Day and as was the tradition he was at the annual micro brew fest, in the park but a short walk from his house. What was not a tradition was that, due to his family having various other commitments, he was batching it this Father's Day.
On this particular day he stayed much longer and drank far more beer samples than he typically did. He made small talk with strangers chatting with a casual air of beer and music, weather and ...well, beer. He listened to a live band and spoke with them afterwards. And on this particular day a drunk and charming young woman - in truth more drunk than charming - made the day of this nearly 48 year old man.
Kirk was walking towards a group of fellow beer enthusiasts when one of them, an attractive young woman with sunglasses and dressed for summer, fell to the grass. Or, laid down with a beer-assisted lack of coordination. She laughed and seemed fine so he continued to walk past. Then she waved him over and patted the ground suggesting he lay down beside her and look at the clouds. On this particular day he had had enough beer to laugh and lay down to see what she was looking at. As it turned out, nothing at all. Kirk look into the sky. The clouds were a solid layer of overcast gray; no shapes, no birds, no planes. This chick was wasted. Kirk laughed and thinking he felt his phone vibrate pulled it from his pocket. Turned out to only be the vibration of the music coming from the stage nearby and he put it away. But not before the woman cast him a disapproving glare. Whatever she was trying to say was drowned out by the music and Kirk decided it best to move on.
Later he ran into the girl once again and this time she had a friend in tow. Kirk took the opportunity to apologize for the phone thing feeling as if he had shown her disrespect. She hadn't given it a second thought. However, her new-found friend thought it prudent to strike up a pleasant conversation with Kirk for what was clearly a covert way of saying, "Dude, I have dibs on the drunk chick". While the drunk chick in question draped herself on the brewer pulling beer for customers Kirk and "her friend" exchanged pleasantries until Kirk excused himself and walked back towards the stage his eyes tearing from the effort not to laugh. When to a safe distance he pulled his phone and pretended to read a text to explain away a fit of hysteria.
The walk home through the woods offered him several more cameos into drunken scenes as small groups of party-goers made their way through the state park - hopefully NOT to their cars. It had been quite a Father's Day on this particular day.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Omens and Signs
Omens followed her as she drove north.
The first thing Adrian noticed was a fireball - a flash of flame against the searingly blue-white California sky, a daytime meteor. It fizzled out like a bottle rocket over Shasta Lake, reflected for a brief moment in the water between the eponymously named mountain and dam.
Adrian blinked, looking around repeatedly until she saw several people on the deck of a houseboat, staring upwards. Proof, maybe, that it had really happened.
In Weed, she stopped for gas. Huge, looming altocumulus clouds had begun to gather, and a cool breeze made her take off her ballcap and shake out her sweaty hair when she stepped out of the Jeep. The second omen came as she was standing at the register, holding out cash for a coke and a cinnamon bun. The building suddenly shook like it had been hit by a boulder, the lights cracked on and off, and the flash from the windows momentarily blinded the clerk, who was facing the outside window. Adrian gasped, and for the second time that day, looked wildly around. The clerk, rubbing her eyes with her hands and leaning her ample belly against the briefly-unstable counter said "Lightning. Does it all the time around here. Hit the lightning rod, thank god we got one! Dang, gimme a second...." Blinking, she finished handing Adrian her change.
The pilgrimage north continued through a sudden, driving rain, and then a tremendous hailstorm. The hailstones were so thunderously loud on the top of the Jeep that Adrian actually pulled over, letting a lone motorcyclist pass her on the highway. It rattled the vehicle like a hurricane, until Adrian finally stuck her fingers in her ears to block out the noise, which stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Adrian sighed, gunned the engine back to life, and pulled back out on the blacktop. She briefly fiddled with the radio, then gave up on it with another sigh. A third omen.
The fourth omen was a plague of locusts - or more accurately, mayflies. Passing through the river bottoms and fields near Klamath, they flew into the Jeep's windshield in clouds so numerous, she had to pull over again at the nearest gas station to clean them off - her wipers were glutted, and she found the motorcyclist there as well, wet and sticky with insect parts. He was wiping off his helmet, his jacket, and his windshield. Adrian waved at him across the parking lot. He grinned at her, shrugging the sticky helmet while rolling his eyes, and waved back.
Evening was falling by the time Adrian got to her destination - a motel in a small town, remarkable only for being equidistant between his point of origin and hers. She was silent when she got out of the Jeep, only speaking when she approached the front desk to get a room key. His car was out front. She knocked, and he answered the door with an open jewelry box, a glint of white and silver inside.
"Will you marry me?"
The first thing Adrian noticed was a fireball - a flash of flame against the searingly blue-white California sky, a daytime meteor. It fizzled out like a bottle rocket over Shasta Lake, reflected for a brief moment in the water between the eponymously named mountain and dam.
Adrian blinked, looking around repeatedly until she saw several people on the deck of a houseboat, staring upwards. Proof, maybe, that it had really happened.
In Weed, she stopped for gas. Huge, looming altocumulus clouds had begun to gather, and a cool breeze made her take off her ballcap and shake out her sweaty hair when she stepped out of the Jeep. The second omen came as she was standing at the register, holding out cash for a coke and a cinnamon bun. The building suddenly shook like it had been hit by a boulder, the lights cracked on and off, and the flash from the windows momentarily blinded the clerk, who was facing the outside window. Adrian gasped, and for the second time that day, looked wildly around. The clerk, rubbing her eyes with her hands and leaning her ample belly against the briefly-unstable counter said "Lightning. Does it all the time around here. Hit the lightning rod, thank god we got one! Dang, gimme a second...." Blinking, she finished handing Adrian her change.
The pilgrimage north continued through a sudden, driving rain, and then a tremendous hailstorm. The hailstones were so thunderously loud on the top of the Jeep that Adrian actually pulled over, letting a lone motorcyclist pass her on the highway. It rattled the vehicle like a hurricane, until Adrian finally stuck her fingers in her ears to block out the noise, which stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Adrian sighed, gunned the engine back to life, and pulled back out on the blacktop. She briefly fiddled with the radio, then gave up on it with another sigh. A third omen.
The fourth omen was a plague of locusts - or more accurately, mayflies. Passing through the river bottoms and fields near Klamath, they flew into the Jeep's windshield in clouds so numerous, she had to pull over again at the nearest gas station to clean them off - her wipers were glutted, and she found the motorcyclist there as well, wet and sticky with insect parts. He was wiping off his helmet, his jacket, and his windshield. Adrian waved at him across the parking lot. He grinned at her, shrugging the sticky helmet while rolling his eyes, and waved back.
Evening was falling by the time Adrian got to her destination - a motel in a small town, remarkable only for being equidistant between his point of origin and hers. She was silent when she got out of the Jeep, only speaking when she approached the front desk to get a room key. His car was out front. She knocked, and he answered the door with an open jewelry box, a glint of white and silver inside.
"Will you marry me?"
Driving
Marcus had been driving for three days. He had left the East coast on a bright and clear spring day, heading south and west through green rolling hills, skirting the low mountains always to his right. The first night he had stopped in a town that only tangentially contacted the interstate - three fast-food restaurants, two gas stations on opposite sides of the freeway, and a chain motel, clean but unremarkable. Marcus parked in a space directly below the door of his second-floor room and spent no more time there than it took for seven hours of sleep, a shower, and the span of time required to put his worn clothes into his small suitcase. He was back on the road by eight-thirty.
The second day was more tedious. The green had given way to brown as he crossed into the drought-stricken states away from the coast; the hills had become smaller and more infreqent until the road became a straight line vanishing into the distance ahead of him. He alternated between running his air conditioner at high until the interior of the car was so cold he was chilled, and turning the radio up to just past the comfort level - first, a classic-rock station, then alternative hits, and finally when he could get no other stations, hip-hop that hissed in and out. When that eventually disappeared completely he clicked the radio off and drove for a time in silence.
The second night he determined to push through as far as he could get. He drove until almost three, occasionally slapping his cheeks lightly or smacking the back of his neck to try to keep himself alert. When he finally acknowledged that he was past the point of safe driving he pulled into a rest area and stretched out in the back seat, his head on his sleeping bag. He slept fitfully for five hours, waking frequently to the sound of trucks rushing by. When he decided he'd gotten as much sleep as he was likely to he washed his face and hands in the stainless steel sink in the rest stop facilities and climbed back into the driver's seat. He merged back onto the freeway and continued on his way - south, and west.
The second day was more tedious. The green had given way to brown as he crossed into the drought-stricken states away from the coast; the hills had become smaller and more infreqent until the road became a straight line vanishing into the distance ahead of him. He alternated between running his air conditioner at high until the interior of the car was so cold he was chilled, and turning the radio up to just past the comfort level - first, a classic-rock station, then alternative hits, and finally when he could get no other stations, hip-hop that hissed in and out. When that eventually disappeared completely he clicked the radio off and drove for a time in silence.
The second night he determined to push through as far as he could get. He drove until almost three, occasionally slapping his cheeks lightly or smacking the back of his neck to try to keep himself alert. When he finally acknowledged that he was past the point of safe driving he pulled into a rest area and stretched out in the back seat, his head on his sleeping bag. He slept fitfully for five hours, waking frequently to the sound of trucks rushing by. When he decided he'd gotten as much sleep as he was likely to he washed his face and hands in the stainless steel sink in the rest stop facilities and climbed back into the driver's seat. He merged back onto the freeway and continued on his way - south, and west.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Topic: Invisible narrator
This topic is a bit of a change. Pick a topic of your own and write about it, but there is a challenge: you are to write with an invisible voice. The reader should be unaware of the narrator. Obviously this means no first-person POV, but in addition write with as little language that would draw attention to itself as possible - this is about the tale, not the teller (though it doesn't have to be a tale at all, just a scene...).
Bus stop
It was a bus stop only by technicality; there were no benches, no shelter - just a couple of signs bolted to a wooden utility pole that bristled with electrical boxes and that served as support for half a dozen cables. The wood of the pole was shredded and splintered, and scabbed with thousands of staples from a generation's-worth of posters that had been posted on its ragged surface - lost pets, garage band shows, used furniture for sale.
The two signs that marked the spot as a bus stop were a dirty industrial white; the top identified the location as a Municipal Transportation Authority Bus Stop and the lower, in brick-red type, spelled out the schedule - every twenty minutes starting at 6:15 a.m. and running to 10:45 p.m., 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
The bus stop was located in front of a small cluster of businesses near the college campus. One could step into a donut shop for coffee while waiting for the next arrival, or step next door for a soda or souvenir t-shirt from the small market there. Kevin usually had a large styrofoam cup filled up to the flimsy plastic to-go lid with cheap, bitter donut-store coffee, lightened with a dash of powdered creamer. He would wait for the bus, the 7:15 if he were running on time, the 7:30 if he were late. He would lean against the jagged wood of the pole or, if the weather threatened, would stand against the brick wall of the market, lacquered by years of car exhaust, taking shelter under the tattered awning.
Kevin usually waited alone. Not many others took the 7:15 to where he was going, though sometimes an older woman in a sensible uniform (the kind women wore at cafeterias that catered to geriatrics) would be there, intensely reading a celebrity magazine. Kevin and the woman had never spoken, never so much as exchanged a glance.
The two signs that marked the spot as a bus stop were a dirty industrial white; the top identified the location as a Municipal Transportation Authority Bus Stop and the lower, in brick-red type, spelled out the schedule - every twenty minutes starting at 6:15 a.m. and running to 10:45 p.m., 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
The bus stop was located in front of a small cluster of businesses near the college campus. One could step into a donut shop for coffee while waiting for the next arrival, or step next door for a soda or souvenir t-shirt from the small market there. Kevin usually had a large styrofoam cup filled up to the flimsy plastic to-go lid with cheap, bitter donut-store coffee, lightened with a dash of powdered creamer. He would wait for the bus, the 7:15 if he were running on time, the 7:30 if he were late. He would lean against the jagged wood of the pole or, if the weather threatened, would stand against the brick wall of the market, lacquered by years of car exhaust, taking shelter under the tattered awning.
Kevin usually waited alone. Not many others took the 7:15 to where he was going, though sometimes an older woman in a sensible uniform (the kind women wore at cafeterias that catered to geriatrics) would be there, intensely reading a celebrity magazine. Kevin and the woman had never spoken, never so much as exchanged a glance.
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