The exercise:
Write about something that has been: crushed.
Presentation submitted with a good hour and a half to spare. It's impressive how in my head I can get even for a recorded presentation. Makes me super excited to see what happens when I have to actually do one before the Board...
2 comments:
I can't quite tell what you mean by 'in your head'. Do you mean that you got so wrapped up in it that you found it easier than you expected in the end, or that you focused on it so much and to such an extent that when it was all over and done you couldn't really believe you'd finished it? Either way, well done on completing it, and I hope that you get the best mark in the class for it!
Crushed
There was pumpkin everywhere. Not just everywhere, but everywhere. Orange and yellow smears covered the side wall of the house up to head height and there were chunks of pumpkin on the gravel path and in the grassy side-borders. The flower-beds a little way in front of the house had more chunks of pumpkin and the flowers had been crushed or pushed aside by them. Pumpkin seeds clung to the trunks and branches of the trees that overshadowed the path as it took the corner round the house and the green, fibrous pumpkin stem had been tore into shreds and scattered across every flat surface in a ten metre radius. Even the rhododendra were draped with it. The smell of freshly crushed pumpkin was everywhere as well; as Miss Hood walked up the path toward the house she could smell it: a bright, slightly earthy smell. It reminded her of her grandmother.
"Miss Hood! You've come!" A woman who must be in her early twenties saw Miss Hood's familiar red riding cape and waved a long, pale arm. She hurried down the path, her gauzy dress swirling around her legs, slowing her down, and her heavy black lace-up boots that reached to her calves stomping on the gravel path. Miss Hood took this in with just a moment of surprise and then adjusted it to the professional smile of a hired detective.
"Cinderella?" she asked as the woman slowed, reaching her. The look of affront on her face was all Miss Hood needed to realise that she was going to have to do some backtracking.
"No! My name's Symphonia, Miss Hood. I made the call to you; Cinderella is probably in bed with a hangover still."
Ah, Symphonia. One of the two legitimate sisters who lived in the house. Miss Hood's research had turned up that Cinderella was the late Baron's youngest daughter, and illegitimate, and that the identity of her mother was a source of not-at-all-idle speculation.
"I'm very sorry," said Miss Hood carefully, making sure she had plenty of sincerity in her tone. She made and held eye contact, and Symphonia seemed to accept this. "I was told Cinderella was excitable, so when you came running to greet me...."
"Of course," said Symphonia. "I completely understand. Well, you're here, what do you need?"
"What happened?" asked Miss Hood, looking at the pumpkin-strewn house and grounds. "Was it trick or treaters?"
"Something crushed the pumpkin carriage," said Symphonia. "It simply exploded."
Greg - just overthinking things, mostly. I found it incredibly difficult to relax into doing the recording, even knowing I had as many takes as I needed.
In the end I submitted my first take, which I had begun recording with the intention of only doing the first couple slides and then stopping to make sure I was speaking loudly and clearly enough for the microphone to catch.
And I don't think they'll be posting everybody's marks, but I got my final grades the other day and was quite pleased with how everything ended up :)
Okay, well, you've ended with the only question I wanted answered as I read your opening. This better get a continuation!
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