Monday December 23rd, 2013

The exercise:

On the eve of Christmas Eve, our writing shall begin with the first line from the Little Drummer Boy: Come they told me

Max has very definitely caught himself a cold. We're doing everything we can for him and he's basically fine during the day. It's just the struggle of sleeping with a congested nose that's the main problem.

On the plus side temperatures were above zero today and I had the chance to play a couple games of Scrabble with my mom tonight. I won the first one by a narrow margin, and then... well, let me just say that she took her revenge in the second.

Mine:

Come they told me. There is glory and fortune to be found at the end of our blades. More drink and food than I could ever imagine. I would have my pick of the finest women in the land.

They made it all sound so grand. Fascinating, isn't it, what can be accomplished through omission.

There was no talk of sleeping outdoors on rainy nights. No word of enemies who struck from unseen locations at unexpected hours, leaving nerves wrecked. I heard nothing about the open wounds, the death of comrades, the nightmares.

The endless nightmares.

Now, here I stand, in some godforsaken meadow, watching the sun rise above the horizon with only dead men and terrified horses for company. Not knowing what happened by the light of the moon. With no direction or destination to guide me from this place.

There was definitely no mention of this.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Heh, sounds like your mother has been waiting for this chance at revenge! I hope she was a gracious loser and pretended that she couldn't even remember that you'd beaten her that much in the past :)
And, poor Max. I suppose he smells exactly like Vicks VapoRub when he goes to bed now? :) Let's hope it doesn't linger.
Wow, I can quite see how your narrator ended up sounding shell-shocked! And he's the only survivor again... I'm detecting a theme in some of your work lately :)

Come, they told me
"Come, they told me," murmured a voice in Uruk's ear. He jumped, achieving a decent two feet vertically, and when he landed he was drawing his sword, not knowing if he was going up against a Frost Dragon or someone who'd just sneaked up on him.
"It'll be fun, they told me," murmured the voice. Even though it was a murmur it was oddly toneless and droning.
"You'll get to sing, they told me." Uruk poked his sword forward experimentally, but the blade only encountered air. Then something floated in from his left, drifting rapidly past him like snowflakes in a driving wind, and came to a billowing halt thirty feet from the Frost Dragon.
"I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played and pleased the Lord." The spectre's voice boomed around the cavern, deep and mournful, suddenly filled with all the emotion that the murmuring had lacked. The Frost Dragon halted immediately and its eyes sought the spirit. As it continued singing the eyes glazed slightly and the eyelids, huge, horny things the size of Uruk's paunch, began to droop.
Uruk slipped off into the darkness and out of the hall. He had no clue who the spirit was, or David, or this Lord for that matter, but it was a diversion, and that's all he needed.

Marc said...

Greg - oh, she's a much more gracious winner than I'll ever be. And Max has been smelling like a more natural version of Vicks rub that, I think, is far more pleasant.

That's an impressive tie in to the prompt! I'm glad my struggles with finding something workable for you were successful!

And "... the eyelids, huge, thorny things the size of Uruk's paunch..." is just fantastic :D