Monday May 6th, 2013

The exercise:

Write about something that is: flawed.

It is freaking hot here. Like summer arrived overnight hot. Like seasonal transition? Screw seasonal transitions hot.

I may have melted a few brain cells while working in the strawberries this morning.

I don't think Max cares for it either.

Mine:

"I don't believe in flaws."

"What?" Natalie was genuinely confused. "They're not like unicorns or something."

"Precisely." Mrs. Edwards nodded her head sharply, obviously pleased to have found someone who agreed with her. "Unicorns exist. Flaws, on the other hand, are the creation of young minds with not enough work to keep themselves occupied."

"I'm not sure that's entirely true." Natalie wanted to ask how much work would be sufficient to keep those young minds properly busy, but she reined herself in. Down that road lay madness, along with better than average odds of additional homework assignments.

"That's because you're too young to have learned otherwise," Mrs. Edwards said, looking away with a loud sniff. Disappointment that yet another potential ally in the fight against flaws had evaporated right before her eyes settled on her shoulders, pushing them earthward. "Now get back to work."

"But it's nearly midnight!"

"Precisely." Mrs. Edwards returned her gaze to her mouthy student, her nostrils flaring slightly. "So if you want to get any sleep tonight I'd suggest you perform this next song as perfectly as it was intended to be sung when Mr. May first wrote it."

"But...

"Once more, from the top!" Mrs. Edwards clapped her hands together with enough force to blow the hair away from Natalie's face. With a heavy sigh, her student returned to center stage, took a deep breath, and began to sing.

"Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer..."

5 comments:

Greg said...

Yeah, we seem to have mostly skipped Spring over here as well. I'm hoping we don't skip autumn though, as that's my favourite season.
I like Natalie, she seems hard-working and intelligent. Mrs. Edwards on the other hand seems a little monomaniacal and inclined to push people to achieve things that she can only see through them. They make a nice pair for the theme today :)
That's some nice detail with the carol at the end as well!

Flawed
The snooker table was flawed, anyone could see that. Right in the middle, where the baize should have been smooth green over well-set slate, there was a lump. Ronnie stood back and signalled to the referee, who looked puzzled.
"The lump," said Ronnie, pointing. "That's not right."
"Play on," said the referee, nodding. His eyes were glazed over, Ronnie suddenly noticed.
"I can't," he said. "There's a lump in the middle of the table."
"Play on, or forfeit the match," said the referee. For a moment there was silence, and then he suddenly yelled, "Offside! Offside, that boy!"
Ok, so the table was flawed and the referee was flawed. Possibly broken. Ronnie looked at his opponent, and saw that she had opened an inspection panel in her chest and was recalibrating something, probably to take into account the lump in the table. Why was he playing a robot?
He woke with a start, and rubbed his aching head. Too much cheese before bedtime, definitely a character-flaw.

g2 (la pianista irlandesa) said...

Perhaps it's a flaw, perhaps it's normal, but it's rather inconvenient in any direction.

It's getting to the end of term in my neck of the woods, and everyone's been mentally done for a good week or two, some for far longer. There have been some who have been checked out following the first week of class. And I will admit, I have been some degree of done for a good week or so.

But here's the thing: I'm one of those people that when the end of term rolls around, I don't just check out. My head moves out of This Semester and starts moving into The Next Thing. I'm excited for all the stuff I've to think about over the summer---and there's a lot of it, and hardly any of it is small---and I want to start thinking about it more because this semester has been devouring me alive (what else is new?), but I can't because I still have three papers and a presentation to do.

This invariably happens to me every so often, I'll start wanting to think about other projects at the precise moments when I'm far too busy to hardly think about breathing. AP exams coming up? Get some ideas for a story project. Midterms? Lots of thinking about mechanics of fictional universes, crossovers, and alternate outcomes of Disney movies.

This time around, though, my head's trying to move in and pick out curtains for a pretty substantial project for next year: I'm going to be putting together the start of a radio serial. Writing, recording, editing, all that fun stuff. And, I'm thinking to flesh out and use the story of Shotek and Divana I've been sharing here (with the blessing of Marc and Greg to borrow Mejaran and a few of its inhabitants as I've used them).

It's a lot, but I'm incredibly excited. So excited that even three papers and a presentation aren't enough to keep me from giving it intermittent sidelong glances.

(By the by, we've hit the beginning of May and have a sojourn to make)

morganna said...

More from Emily
-------------
Emily was ready to cry. It turned out that her plan to come to Ireland and hide out with Jim had a fatal flaw -- while she had been in England, he had hooked up with Wendy, and Wendy had moved in with him in the flat. Now there was no room for Emily. Okay, Jim and Wendy had been making heroic efforts over the past few days, but the couch just wasn't working for Emily any more.

And Jim was having a lot of trouble hiding his irritation with Emily over being pregnant. Yes, it was time to move on. But where? Where could a criminal girl go, when she was pregnant, her ex-partner was hooked up, her current partner was dead, and some very scary people were after her?

Emily paced the tiny apartment, thinking, all morning. Jim and his new girl were out, and she had the place to herself. Finally, she accepted the inevitable. She would have to go home.

MosesMalone said...

There was a pretty little girl who wanted a pretty little life. According to her novels something was definitely missing. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but happiness wasn’t really present in herself or the people around her. She did what any girl would do… she searched for a man.

She met a beautiful boy who wanted to share his pretty little world. He picked the curtains, he picked the sofa, he picked the house. She could share all of his pretty little things, but she didn’t like those curtains, the sofa, or the house. She especially didn’t like that his mother picked all those things instead of her. She crushed everyone, and she did not marry the beautiful boy with the pretty little life.

She met a rough and tumble sort of boy with a questionable family and a big heart. He said he would give her everything he could, and it could all be hers. She asked if she could pick the curtains, the sofa, and the house. He said sure, and you can name all of our children and choose their school. She married the rough and tumble sort of boy and he kept true to his word. She picked and ok curtain that was on clearance at Pennies for their small starter home that came with a sofa. She kept having babies and naming them because babies are easy to love, and love is happiness, right?

She is 67 years old and just sold that small starter home that she has always hated. She is disappointed that her children do not visit her messy 2nd home. She hates that rough and tumble sort of boy because he never does anything for her. She was never happy, and she never knew it was all her fault. Her quest for happiness was flawed from the beginning. Only you can create your happiness, and she is still expecting everyone else to rise to the occasion.

Marc said...

Greg - yes, I'd say the ref is also flawed. Dreams like that always throw me for loop...

g2 - yeah, I remember getting like that around the end of each year. And thank you for the Mejaran reminder :)

Morganna - ah, I have missed hearing from Emily. Thanks for the update!

Mo - really like this one. Nicely setup, and the ending really drove the point home.

I think far too many people live their lives this way...