Thursday September 29th, 2011

The exercise:

My final cruise inspired prompt shall be: gluttony.

They had a dessert extravaganza at 10 pm one night. I found it... unsettling. So mine is my thoughts on the event, with the volume cranked up (meaning exaggerated just a wee bit).

Right, pictures of the ship's interior. Here's one of several lounges to be found on board:


And here we have a view of the library, from floor level (I did most of my writing on the cruise in here):


And finally, here's one of several bars on the boat:


I think that's all the photos I wanted to share from the cruise, so tomorrow we'll have a look at the new paint job on the house, if that's okay with you good folk.

Although, honestly, we're doing it whether you like it or not. Just so you know.

Mine:

They called it a dessert extravaganza.

It was well attended by portly patrons carrying overflowing bowls of chocolates, cakes, pies, and other items parading as food meant for consumption. Going for seconds was expected. Thirds were celebrated. Fourths were spoken of in awed whispers, secreted away behind sugar-coated fingers.

Heaven forbid, after all, that any of it go to waste.

The staff smiled encouragingly, all too eager to slice and scoop and sprinkle. Their evil intent was plain to see, for those with eyes to look for it.

For those like me.

They could call it whatever they wished. I knew it was just the first of seven smouldering steps on the fiery staircase down to hell.

4 comments:

Greg said...

The library looks really peaceful, I think I'd like to spend a week sitting in there and getting some writing done. Actually, I quite like the idea of cruising the world now, with a library to write in. And possibly your dessert extravanganza once a month :)
I really like the last paragraph today, it's a fantastic image to finish the piece off with!

Gluttony
The Simpson twins, Esurience and Edacity, had been practising for weeks. Rumour was that their aged mother, a grey-haired sweetheart who fed the ducks on Tuesday mornings while she waited for the post-office to open, and helped out at the homeless shelter on Wednesday and Thursday evenings unless her arthritis was particularly bad, had been chained in the kitchen to keep producing chicken pot pies for their practice sessions. It was definitely true that she'd missed Bingo that week, and Jenny from the knitting circle said she'd not shown up, but Jenny was an alcoholic who occasionally tried knitting with seaweed, garden twine or electrical cable.
So when they showed up to the pie-eating competition there was a mutter that arose from somewhere in the middle of the crowd and spread outwards in ripples. They looked like they meant business; they turned up wearing their own, matching bibs, they had highly-polished silverware in little carrying cases, and Esurience was already drooling, just on the short walk from the car.
Up on the stage, watching them approach, even Hefty Henry, last year's competitive pie-eating champion, looked a little nervous.
The referee braced himself, and the waiters, for some unknowable reason attempting a service russe, laid the first twenty pies in front of each competitor.
The whistle blew, and eight hungry men attempted to stuff as much food into their grossly distended stomachs as possible.

Marc said...

Greg - great stuff, though I have to admit to wanting to hear more about Jenny the alcoholic knitter :D

Drake Davenport said...

Your next couple of prompts are going to be pretty difficult for me. I don't think the subject of food is my strong point here.
---

Beans.

Twenty beans, to be exact.

Twenty beans is what Priscilla found on her plate today. That would have to hold her until tomorrow. Yesterday, she had gotten a roll and some soup. Not exactly soup. More like green goo.

She found it ironic that she lived in one of the nine biggest farming sectors in the country, and yet everyone here was starving. The capitol required all crops to be delivered immediately after harvest, and what they sent back in return was pathetic.

While their bodies ate away at their innards, the capitols were gorging themselves to obesity. Five hundred pounds of fat the lot of them were. Repulsive.

Priscilla had heard that the president was making a special appearance this afternoon. That explained the smaller-than-usual rations. It was customary to hold banquets for presidential visits. But since the capitol never wanted to give up any of their food, they would just cut normal rations in half for that day, and then give old, stale, sometimes moldy bread as their banquet feast in the evening.

Stale bread. Just the thought of it made Priscilla's mouth water.

---
Yes, I did indeed take another cue from the Hunger Games.

Marc said...

Drake - yes, well, that's why we're all here to practice, isn't it? ;)

I think you did great with that one. Makes me want to rise up in rebellion just reading it.