Sunday October 9th, 2011

The exercise:

Today we write about: the fountain.

We enjoyed a wonderful turkey dinner this evening; all told there were fifteen people gathered 'round the table. Although I suppose our niece didn't need a chair of her own.

This afternoon we decided to take advantage of the present help and hauled all our squashes out of the garden. I was not aware we had quite so many out there. It'll be a nice change from last year when we didn't have nearly enough.

Back to harvesting for local orders tomorrow morning - they're calling for rain though, so we might have to do it very quickly.

Mine:

Meet me by the fountain at midnight.

That was the note in its entirety. No hello, no name at the bottom - hell, not even a name at the top! How was I supposed to know it was really meant for me in the first place?

Well, yes, of course I went. It would have been rude not to! Worst case, it was intended for someone else's eyes and I could just let the sender know he or she needed to try again.

Turned out, I had no bloody idea what a worst case might actually look like. If I had, you could bet every last dollar you've got that I'd never have left my hotel room that night.

5 comments:

Greg said...

Fifteen people! That's a lot to cook for, well done! And equally well done on recruiting your visitors for gardening duty as well :)
That's an intriguing note, and you keep the suspense going! I am tempted to continue it... but I think Leslie wants to pay your blog another visit.

The fountain
The class were gathered around the large, ornamental fountain. On all four sides of them were college buildings, and through the windows students could be seen; studying, playing, and in one rather unfortunate case, doing something a little indecent.
Leslie sighed, and pointed sat on the edge of the fountain with his back to the display, confident that none of his students would realise he could still see what was happening in the reflection in the windows across the way.
"Your homework," he said, his tones as crisp as when he'd been the villain on the day-time soap opera All Mother's Little Helpers, "was abominable. It was execrable. It was unmitigatingly awful. I expect you'll all need to look all of those words up. I would recommend a dictionary if only I thought you knew what such a book was or where you might buy one." He paused. The class were looking attentive, and a couple looked mortified. "Who is Susan?"
A middle-aged woman in the front row of plastic chairs raised a shaking hand.
"Come here Susan."
Susan got up and trudged to the fountain, sitting nervously next to Leslie daFox. She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes, fondly imagining that she looked like the famous picture of Princess Diana. Leslie thought she looked like one of those 'realistic' toy dolls that wet themselves when you feed them.
"Susan's work was so dreadful that we're going to spend this lesson learning what nouns, verbs and adjectives are, and why you don't just pile them on the page like you're dropping them off at the landfill site," he said. As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and pushed Susan backwards so that she toppled into the fountain with a splash.
"Now, if anyone can tell me what a noun is I won't hold Susan's head under the water for thirty seconds."

morganna said...

Desert
Bubble, tossing
Water up, water down
Cool precious water soaking the
Hot air with sweet wetness -- such a relief
On a heated mid-summer day.
A guilty pleasure in
The so, so dry
Desert.

Marc said...

Greg - well Kat's dad did most of the cooking, as the dinner was hosted at their place. Kat did chip in by doing up a butternut and an acorn squash though.

I'm sad you chose not to continue it, but you more than made up for it with that little scene :D

Morganna - beautiful imagery!

Drake Davenport said...

I'm even tempted to follow up on that story. It's awesome! And considering my lack of inspiration of late...
---

It was dark. Well, of course it was dark. I mean, it was midnight. What else would it be? And, as luck would have it, there was only one streetlight in the entire area.

One streetlight, shining down on the fountain, illuminating a mass; a person. No. Not one person, but two people.

And then I heard it. The gurgling, the choking, the sickening sound of his head busting open on the concrete.

I didn't care what this would lead me to. I had to help, if there was any possibility of helping left. I ran to him as fast as I could. But as I saw the fountain water turn crimson, and felt the mass in my arms turn cold, I knew there was nothing I could do.

It wasn't until that point that I noticed. The knife that I had so hastily pulled out. The blood soaking my clothing. The other man was gone. Who better to frame than a foreigner?

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't feel much better than the corpse lying at my feet. My ID was still at the hotel. My passport was still at the hotel. In fact, I hadn't brought anything with me tonight.

And if they could get in to leave me the note, I was sure they could get in to retrieve it.

I knew that that horrid night was only the beginning.

---
I'm definitely in a rut here of recent. The words just aren't flowing like they sometimes do.

Marc said...

Drake - well, even if you're forcing them out, the end result looks pretty damned good to me.

Glad you chose to continue it, I really enjoyed that.