Thursday May 31st, 2018

The exercise:

First line week continues as you begin your writing with: "On the matter at hand, I have some thoughts that I'd like to share."

2 comments:

Greg said...

@Marc: somewhere along the line I seem to have missed that you intended these to be the start lines to the prompts. I apologise profusely but... I don't think the Bill and Ben tale will work if I switch to making them first lines now. If I find some spare time though I'll redo the prompts as you intended :)

On the matter at hand, I have some thoughts that I'd like to share
"Fertiliser," said Bill. He wiped his hands on his plasticised smock. "Stock-piled, do you think?"
"Definitely," said Ben, shining the torch around. The room was stacked with large, brown hessian sacks of fertiliser and there was a stench of ammonia in the air like large mammals had used it as a toilet for decades. "But for what, I wonder."
"Both, probably," said Bill. "I mean, not at the same time of course–"
"–not unless there's a real problem ploughing–"
"–but the Communist Farmers weren't considered a peaceful organisation. They advocated the overthrow of landowners by fire and mercury and wanted to force their neighbours to buy oil-drilling rights for large sums of money."
"Did they ever find oil?"
"Nope. Didn't find a lot of the neighbours either, if you believe the history books."
Bill walked down the rows of the room counting sacks. "This one," he said, pointing to a sack that looked like all the others. "Should we check it first?"
Ben paused. "Well," he said. "We always used to...."
"Then we got Henched-up," said Bill. "Hench did these things for us."
"They were really good at them...."
"Take it to the Hospice and get Hench to open it?"
"Sounds like a plan," said Ben. "Is it heavy?"
"Nah," said Bill picking the sack up. "Light as a feather, mate." He started walking back. "Do you think they ever made bombs from this lot and then just kept them down here?"
"And on that matter," said a voice like molten butter, "the matter at hand, if you will, I have some thoughts I'd like to share."

Marc said...

Greg - no worries at all, you know I don't mind.

Ooh, I was not expecting a new character! Well played. I am hooked.