Wednesday August 26th, 2009

The exercise:

Today's prompt: Knight crossing.

Inspiration: Knight Street is the only major street I have to cross between here and work that doesn't have a light signal. The wait can be lengthy or brief, so my commute is always dependent on the smoothness of my Knight crossing.

Mine:

One sunny afternoon in May,
On a dusty road in Barclay,
Sir Grovelly of County Tick
Did cross paths with Sir Tallylick.

The knights did bow so very low
And on their way began to go
When suddenly there did appear
The Lady Tipsy of House Sheer.

Both men, being good proper knights,
Offered escorts with boasts of might.
Lady Tipsy giggled and swayed,
Impressed by the size of their blades.

"I cannot choose between you two,"
She simpered while fixing her do.
"Then only a duel can decide!"
Sir Tallylick jovially cried.

"Are you sure there's no other way?"
Sir Grovelly asked in dismay.
But as the words were being said
Sir Tallylick lopped off his head.

The happy couple onward went,
Chatting with so much merriment.
They dined that night at Flip and Dale,
Where she promptly poisoned his ale.

2 comments:

Greg said...

A ballad! And in true folk style, nothing good comes of most of the participants! I rather like it, and the last verse both surprised and impressed me -- I didn't think you treated your characters so badly as a rule!

Knight crossing

The local council has taken things a step too far in trying to help everyone in the community. On the main road we used to have a pedestrian crossing that would occasionally slow traffic down while some ugly school child scuttled across, head down and avoiding eye contact lest the drivers throw eggs. Those were the good old days.
Then we got a duck crossing due to the location of the village duck pond. This was mostly ignored by the traffic, though not the ducks, and so the ugly school children would occasionally get fluffy road-kill thrown at them when there were no eggs.
Next up was a dog crossing to cater for dog-walkers, quickly followed by a cow-crossing because the farmers' lobby is surprisingly strong. These both slowed the traffic a lot: dogs are agile and bite back, and cows do more damage to your car than you do to them. Ugly schoolchildren did get cow pats thrown at them now though, so it wasn't all bad.
Now they've created a Knight crossing at the behest of the local Society for Creative Anachronism. Fat, balding middle aged men with nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon than wear armour. And armoured men are hard to run down in a car.
So, I've taken matters into my own hands. I've concreted over the duckpond last night and bought a tank. Let's see any kind of crossing slow me down now!

Marc said...

Hmm, I suppose I am generally nice to my characters. It's quite fun being bad to them though :)

Laughed out loud at this: "Ugly schoolchildren did get cow pats thrown at them now though, so it wasn't all bad."