Friday August 6th, 2010

The exercise:

Four lines of prose about: the fire. There have been a lot of forest fires around here lately and the valley is getting rather smoky today. Hopefully a nice breeze kicks in soon and clears things up (and maybe some of those fires get put out too).

A couple more pictures for you today. First, some more sunflowers (these are called Firecracker) in the garden:


And a picture of the beach our honeymoon resort was on:


Back at the farmers market tomorrow morning after taking last Saturday off due to some event that required our attendance.

Mine:

Get to the river - if we can get to the river we'll be okay.

I must have repeated those words in my head a hundred times as we raced between the trees, bone-dry pine needles crunching underfoot and an inferno on our heels.

We fell more than jumped into the river when we finally reached it, the cool water a soothing balm on our singed skins, and we floated slowly downstream on our backs as we struggled to refill our lungs with air.

Our position provided us with a perfect view of the lone spark as it arced overhead to land on the far side of the river.

3 comments:

Greg said...

The beach looks lovely, I really like the cliffs that form an edge of the bay there. Did you get a chance to stand up on them? The flowers are pretty sweet too :)

I'm not sure why, but your piece today reminded me of Lessons in the Dust, so I had double the enjoyment from it. Which reminds me further, it'll be NaNoWriMo too soon....

The fire

The alchemist quivered with excitement: wisdom held that fire was indivisible, but here, at last, was proof! Proof that his methods worked, proof that phlogiston had a vital spark all of its own. His hand spasmed arthritically as he struggled to write down how he'd got there, while behind him his workshop burned. And kept burning, immune now to simple water....

Zhongming said...

Marc - Lovely pictures! I wish i was there. I really like your piece, i think you pictured it perfectly :)

Greg - That was really interesting to read!


The fire

They were looking tired and exhausted in the no-man’s land, not exactly part of the plan. Initially they just wanted to have fun among themselves but they felt rather restrictive to places that they could visit. They wanted to venture out of that pre-scheduled timetable to seek excitement and they slipped out when nobody was watching. Too bad, they didn’t know anything about that no-man’s land until they see molten rocks erupt from that volcano, fire expelled and they were lost!

Marc said...

Greg - we didn't make it up there this time, but we did have a fantastic walk up in the hills. I shall have to share a picture or two!

Hmm, yes, NaNo is a coming. I've not had any ideas yet as to what I'm going to write about, but I'm sure something will come to me eventually.

Love those final two lines :)

Zhongming - thanks very much!

I liked the way you set the scene up, and I definitely wasn't expecting that ending :)