The exercise:
Write something which takes place: poolside.
Because one of Kat's friends here in town lives in an apartment complex that has a pool, and she invited Kat, Max, and some of our other mom and baby friends over to check it out this afternoon.
Today was a good day for that, since it was rather stupendously hot out. It's not even June yet, guys. I mean, I appreciate the sunshine, but can we cool it just a little bit?
Thanks.
Mine:
"What did I tell you, man? I told you this would be awesome, right?"
"That you did."
"And I'm so right, right?"
"Well, I can see the awesome from here..."
"Oh come on, dude! Hot babes all around, wearing nothing but bikinis? A crazy big pool? Enough alcohol to get a football stadium full of people hammered for a week? What's not to like?"
"Well, how about the fact that we're not hanging out with the chicks or swimming in the pool or drinking any of that booze because we're not staying or visiting here... we're working here?"
2 comments:
There's already been a news story over here that there's a 75% chance of this being the hottest summer in the UK on record. While I might suspect that the figure is just a newspaperly one, we've already had temperatures in May that I don't expect until late June, so I guess you might be getting summer early too.
But you were just complaining about winter... :-P
Heh, your story made me smile this morning; I did rather like the punchline. Nice work with the dialogue too, the voices are clear and I've got a decent idea of what each speaker must look like too!
Oh, and well done on catching up on all the comments!
Poolside
The pool was at the top of a steep little hill, and local legend had it that the hill had just appeared one night. The story went that Widow Jenkins had made a pact with the devil and offered up her children in return for eternal youth and beauty. The stars had gone out and a darkness that seemed to consume everything that fell into it had descended on the town, lasting at least ten minutes (though the stories often stretched it out to hours). When the stars came back, there was the hill, and at the top of it was a small, deep pool bordered by rocks.
They found the bodies of her children floating face down in the water, but they never found Widow Jenkins.
Hannah was sat on a large flat stone dangling her legs in the water. It was a hot day, but the water was icy, and when she pulled her feet out to check, her toes were turning blue.
"How deep is this pool?" she asked. Her brother, Rohan, was tying lures sitting on a rock some feet away, a fishing rod at his side. He didn't look up from what he was doing, but he answered.
"Deep, but no-one knows how deep. There's people that say it must go all the way down to the bottom of the hill, but there's people say that it goes further than that. Don't fall in."
"How can it go deeper?" Hannah was nine and still at the question-everything stage.
"Because they say that when the devil made the hill he linked it to hell and carried Widow Jenkins off with him. While she's there she never ages, so she stays young and beautiful, but she's trapped, alive, in Hell."
"Oh." There was a silence while Hannah thought about that, and then she kicked her feet in the water, splashing. Rohan looked up, annoyed now.
"Don't do that! You'll scare the fish."
"What fish live in a pool that's connected to Hell?"
"That's what we're going to find out, I guess."
Hannah looked down at her feet again, and was surprised to see a woman's face in the water next to them. She looked cold but beautiful, and she was clearly young. She smiled broadly at Hannah and something in her eyes, as green as seaweed, twinkled. Hannah gasped and leaned forwards, just as the woman in the water seized her legs and pulled.
Greg - oh dear! Well, I hope you manage to avoid melting into a puddle, should the forecasters prove correct. For once.
Hmm. Pretty sure I'd pack up my things and head for less sinister climes after that hill appeared.
I am intrigued by hellfish.
Also: that's a suitably terrifying ending to your little scene.
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