Wednesday June 23rd, 2010

The exercise:

Our prompt today shall be: explosions.

Went to see The A-Team last night - good times.

In celebration of only three days left in Vancouver, the sun has come out. Thanks sun!

Mine:

The air was much too full of sand for my liking - the damned breeze kept throwing it in my face and embedding it in my recently shampooed hair.

And the insects! God, they were everywhere - ants exploring the picnic basket, flies and bees crisscrossing overhead like fighter jets at an air show, and mosquitoes treating me like I was a gourmet buffet table. And the seagulls, ugh. I know they're technically not insects, but they sure as hell act like them!

I took a tentative nibble on a cracker with a bit of mystery cheese on it and, unsurprisingly, found the cracker too salty and the cheese tasteless. What a bloody gong show.

Jonathon returned to our picnic blanket carrying a bottle of cheap wine and two wine glasses that he'd probably bought at a thrift store. In the poorest section of town.

His goofy smile died on his lips as he looked into my eyes and saw the explosion waiting to happen.

5 comments:

Heather said...

Marc- I really like this combination of characters. It adds to the feel of sympathy and wanting to see the good guy win. Very well done.
------


The explosion was gruesome. Blood splattered the wall, her leg, and smeared across her trembling hand. She looked at the mess in amazement; humored she was capable of such a brutal act; concerned about the amount of evidence she would need to clean up. Still, she smiled, pleased with her accomplishment. Wet paper towels in hand, she began cleaning herself up while humming a tuneless melody of triumph. The thought of killing again sent a tingle down her spine and she knew she wanted more.... and soon.
-----

It's Mosquito season.

Greg said...

@Heather: That's a fantastic little story, really evocative! And the last line -- "It's Mosquito season." -- delivered in such a dead-pan way really kicks as the punch-line. Just amazing.

@Marc: The wine-glass description made me smile, it's so nicely put together, and I love the fretting, angry feel that comes across from the whole story. I'm kind of waiting for the explosion to happen too now!

Explosions

"Landmine-man?" The jug-eared journalist who was dating a prostitute with... well, this is a family publication, so let's just say a something... of gold looked up from his notepad. The alleged superhero in front of him, a skinny guy with bad dandruff in what was left of his thin, black, combed-over hair nodded, his eyes wide and his stare intense. "So what's your superpower?" The journalist looked at his notes again, and hazarded, "You can find landmines just by looking at an area?"
"Um, no."
"Oh. Shame, that would be really quite useful. Can you detonate them remotely? That might be almost as good."
"Er, again, no." The man's voice was thick as though he were swallowing custard.
"Well, what then?"
"Er, I can explode violently and spread myself over a wide area." Landmine-man's bottom lip trembled a little.
"And then reassemble yourself?"
"Er, no." The man pulled his sweater, an arran knit with what the journalist hoped was toothpaste stains down the front up. Strapped to his chest was a landmine.
"Ah," sighed the journalist. "You know that they require a good hundred pounds of pressure to detonate?"
"Um." said Landmine-man, tears welling up in his eyes.

morganna said...

@Greg: Very sad and creepy at once.
@Marc: The end is not what I was expecting when I started reading. Nice work!
@Heather: Nice!

Little boys yelling Boom! Boom!
G.I. Joes falling over
Tanks tumbling down
Tiny sand dunes into the
Garden hose flood at the bottom.
Sister on the swing,
Rolling her eyes.

Marc said...

Heather - thanks :) By the end of that I was quite irked at my narrator!

Great descriptions in yours, very nicely done. Also: death to all mosquitoes!

Greg - thanks muchly :)

You actually managed to make me feel quite sorry for a man who'd willingly strapped a landmine to his chest. That's good work!

Morganna - thanks!

As for yours... that was like reading a scene from my childhood! Thanks for bringing me back there :)

Eddie said...

lol I know I'm super late with this one :-P but I just posted it on my blog



It was the last weekend of June. Although, it might as well have been the middle of July. The city had been assaulted by a massive heat wave. Every day that week had been at least in high 90s. This weekend seemed to be the peak. All the newspapers and reporters were advising folks to stay in doors and under a fan. But most city people are stubborn. To the parks, they went, where the squirrels and mosquitoes anxiously awaited their free meals. Families were having barbecues. Kids were ignoring their parents and running around and splashing each other with what ever they could find that was wet. It was on a day like this, that John and Mary were celebrating their 8 month anniversary. John wanted to do something special for her, but Mary was surprisingly a girl of simply tastes. A nice picnic at the park was all she needed to be completely satisfied and John was definitely going to deliver. They had set themselves up near a tree, not too far from where the kids were running around. Mary always enjoyed children. John had made sure to prepare all of the foods that he knew she enjoyed. This was going to be perfect. They had just begun to eat and talk about how great it was to have lasted this long, when a water balloons were introduced into the massive water were that was going on. John and Mary paused for a moment to glance at the kids running passed them a few feet away then glanced back at each other smiling. As he looked down to get a small bag of green grapes from the basket, he noticed a weird shadow. It didn't look like a shadow that a tree branch would make. No. It looked circular. The shadow also seemed to be getting bigger by the second. John quickly looked up and saw a big red jiggly ball-like object hurling towards them. It was much larger than your typical water balloon. Apparently, someone cheated and used a real balloon. So much for things being perfect.