The exercise:
Write something that has to do with: glass.
This evening Becky helped me harvest all of the garlic in the garden - all 500 plants or so. I brought the truck over, we loaded 12 (I think) very full crates onto the back, and put them on Kat's parents deck to cure for a few days. The next big job will be cleaning them up and getting them ready for storage, which will likely take place over a couple of days next week.
Our heirloom tomatoes have now all been pruned and tied, and the potatoes have been mostly weeded. I think there's just a partial row left to go.
But tomorrow we're back to harvesting, as Saturday's farmers market awaits.
Mine:
It was a very unusual order. Claude Marcel du Pamplemousse had thought it was a joke at first, some sort of juvenile prank. In his many years as a stained glass maker he had never encountered anything quite like it.
The penmanship was laughable, the requested work was bizarre. Guidelines and details were few and far between and the dimensions of the window openings were approximated.
But then he saw the source of the request and everything made perfect sense: Church of the Children.
Of course, Claude thought. That was why they had listed (in crayon, no less) two cherry stained windows, three blueberry stained windows, a strawberry stained window...
3 comments:
I still feel that "garden" is rather an understatement when you can fit 500 garlic plants in it and still have room for raspberries, cherries, apricots, potatoes, etc. :) But that is a lot of garlic, and I bet it'll sell well too.
Pamplemousse... grapefruit :) I like it. I like the whole story actually, with the punchline neatly fitting and the fruit theme gently continued all the way through.
Glass
The clouds overhead were grey and gravid with rain. They moved slowly, sliding in front of one another like an oriental shadowplay, changing the light that reached the ground in subtle ways. The first few fat drops of rain fell and splattered on the pavement, and the citizens of Inukis silently fled indoors.
Diarmid was one of the few who didn't move. There was an awning above him, striped blue and white and tattered at the edges where it hadn't been maintained for years. It wouldn't shelter him for long, but his attention was still caught by the images in the soft-grey window in front of him.
The windows of Inukis were made with slow glass which captured light and trapped it briefly, releasing it so that what showed was what had happened previously. The amount of time it trapped light for varied, so with some windows the lag was just enough to break your concentration as you realised that your reflection wasn't quite synchronised, and with others it was like watching the past playing out in the present.
This window seemed to be nearly a minute out of sync and Diarmid was still waiting for his reflection to show up. The fact that it hadn't yet was starting to make him feel uncomfortable.
The rain started falling in earnest and the awning barely lasted ten seconds before ripping and shedding a load of water onto Diarmid. He cursed, shook himself, and squelched away to find somewhere to dry off, still not having seen himself arrive at the window.
Five minutes later his reflection arrived, but if he'd been there to see it he would have been very puzzled that in the window he had a woman on his arm and was walking under a cloudless blue sky.
Glass
Thomas barely felt the cold as he strode angrily through the snow, a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. His buddy at the liquor store had called to let him know that his nineteen-year-old daughter had tried to buy some alcohol from him. He hadn’t sold any to her or turned her in to the police, but instead had called her dad.
Ever since she had started dating that college kid, she had seemed to lose her sense of responsibility. She always went along with whatever he wanted to do, rather than putting her family first. And now she was buying alcohol and not coming home on time. But he knew where she was. He had seen the kid’s new sports car parked on the main road just around the corner from the turnoff to their house.
Now as he approached the vehicle, he could see the fogged glass that shielded them from his view. He gripped the bat with both hands and swung it repeatedly, smashing the windshield and showering the occupants with broken glass. He heard his daughter scream in terror and the kid shout in sudden fright.
He gazed at their shocked faces and spoke slowly to the boy, each word dripping with venom.
“What are you doing with my daughter?”
The boy’s hand shook as he held out a bottle of Glenlivet XXV 25-year-old single malt whisky. “Helping her wrap your birthday gift, sir.”
Jason looked down from the boy’s pale face to the gift wrap and ribbon on the front seat, then to his daughter’s tear-streaked cheeks.
Looking back at the boy, his scowl turned to a wide smile. “Welcome to the family, son!”
Greg - well, to be fair, the cherries, apricots, and other fruit are in the orchard surrounding the garden :P
Holy mercy this Inukis place fascinates me. Wonderful descriptions and that ending just leaves me with more questions than answers.
Aholiab - hah, nice turn around at the end there. Did not see that coming and it adds so much to the story :)
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