Friday April 26th, 2013

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: the split.

Inspired by the migraine currently trying to split my head in two. Which is also, aggravatingly, going to keep me from catching up on your comments like I had planned to do tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

This morning we picked up a couple more loads of wood chips for spreading around our strawberry plants, then spent most of the afternoon transplanting onions. Going to be doing more of that tomorrow morning, with help from our farmer friends in Cawston.

Looking forward to seeing them again, getting their help, and for one of them to meet Max for the first time.

Mine:

The silence in the room was not a pleasant one. Much was said through sharp gestures and hard stares, more than had ever been expressed with words. An agreement needed to be reached, and eventually it would... but there was no going back after a night like that one.

And sitting patiently in the middle of the room, the source of all that tension, the take from the bank robbery waited to see which man would go home with the largest cut.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Hope you can sleep the migraine off! I hear they're pretty unpleasant.
Sounds like a busy weekend, but it's always more fun with friends :)
And nice little piece today, very atmostpheric (again; you seem to be working on your atmosphere building at the moment!)

The split
"Where is my dinosaur?" Sylvestra's voice made the shadows darken and the air chill and she wasn't even shouting yet. Dr. Septopus hunched down and hoped she wouldn't look under the table.
"It split," said the Green Lightbulb, sounding faintly defiant as only the ignorant can be. "It though it saw a female dinosaur, I think."

g2 (la pianista irlandesa) said...

I'll admit: the idea for mine sounded much better in my head, and it was difficult to get into four lines.

Ah well. That's what rewrites are for.
- - - - - - - - - - -
The Nadagas kept a watchful eye over the rest of their retreat as they fled through the foothills under the night. They had run side by side though separately, but at some point some stars peeked out through a window in the clouds and Divana suddenly snatched up Shotek's hand. She had no reason to be nervous, not anymore, but now they had broken out of the circle of routine, away from anything she had known, she was suddenly afraid something would pull apart.

But he held fast, as tight as she, all through the rest of the night, and as the sky lightened to their right, and a small band of people came up over the hill, he squeezed her hand: within the split of the old there was a glimpse of the new starting to build, its outline starting with a nod from the Avo and that morning's grin from Shotek.

g2 (la pianista irlandesa) said...

Also, completely unrelated to this and an (initially) unintended nudge, I found a great quote in relation to Lunacy this evening: "Is it possible a lunatic is someone with too firm a hold on his own mind?"

Marc said...

Greg - not intentionally, but thank you for your comments :)

Aw, has the dinosaur left already?

g2 - great description of their flight. Very hopeful.

And yes, that is a great quote! Perhaps it will inspire me to get back to that...