The exercise:
Screw it, I think it's been long enough since the last time - we're going with another round of the Random CD Prompt.
So take the first line of a song, chosen as randomly as you can manage, and use it as the opening line of your poetry or prose. Then take it from there to wherever your imagination directs you. Credit where it's due, as always.
Mine:
"What if the storm ends and I don't see you?" he asked as he stared out at the blizzard that had trapped us in the cabin for the last three days. I wondered if he was hoping for it to end, or to continue until we ran out of supplies and died there together. It was hard not to suspect the latter.
"Why wouldn't you see me?" I countered, wriggling deeper into my blanket. "I'll still be two doors down, same as always."
"I guess." He sipped his coffee tentatively, knowing he should let it cool a little longer but too desperate for its warmth to wait. "But Kevin will be there with you."
"Of course he will - he's my roommate. So what?"
"I just... don't like him."
"You just don't like me sharing a place with a guy," I said. "Even when we're not romantically attached."
"There's just too many opportunities for misunderstandings, mixed signals, that sort of stuff. Besides, he's probably just waiting for the smallest indication you like him and he'll be all over you. Trust me, I know how guys work."
4 comments:
Yours reminds me of that weather-disaster film where North America freezes over, though I'm not sure you're suggesting anything quite so dramatic! I like the slightly stilted conversation, which suddenly seemed so natural when she calls him Dad at the end :) Very nice misdirection going on there, I thought. The line about the coffee was absolutely perfect too -- written from experience?
Glad you liked Gorillamumps by the way; there is a scheduled story on it on my blog, probably somewhere around Thursday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kobdb37Cwc&feature=related
I don't like Mondays – the Boomtown Rats
The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload which is an odd setting for silicon chips for most robots. This one had been especially designed by Luigi della Equazione according to specifications laid out by Adam Asciugimento, and only three such chips had ever been made. The robot it was now in was Charles Asciugimento (Head of Building Security)'s idea. It was a modified dog-bot and looked a lot like the K-9 robot from the old Doctor Who programs. It even barked using a looped recording of an angry Pug. Now that the chip was on overload though it caused power surges in several small but robust units throughout the dog-bot's body, and its wheels suddenly span up to six times their normal speed. The dog-bot launched itself to nearly forty miles an hour from a standing start as its head folded back and became more streamlined and sharp, and spikes sprouted all over its trapezoidal torso. The dummy of a shoplifter that Grace, Charles's luckless assistant that day, had set up was reduced to a large cloud of straw and foam.
"Hmph." Charles turned away, and Luigi della Equazione looked worried. He hurried after his boss as he marched down a tiled corridor, his shoes clicking smartly with every step.
"No good?" he asked, panting slightly as he tried to keep up.
"I don't want the shoplifters killed," said Charles, startling both Luigi and Grace. "A dead shoplifter is a complication, a live shoplifter is proof that our policies are working. The dog-bot shouldn't kill unless it has too. Jewel-thieves with guns, perhaps. Or hostage-taking chainsaw-wielding Liberal wets. Or pensioners."
"Of course, boss," said Luigi, taking notes. Grace coughed softly, and Luigi looked up.
"Mr. Asciugimento has his own definition of pensioner," she said discreetly. "Anyone over the age of thirty-six, anyone who thinks things are groovy, rad, or bodacious, and anyone who's never heard of Lady Gaga."
"But I've ne–" began Luigi, but was cut off by Grace putting her hand over his mouth and firmly shaking her head.
Greg - the coffee line was from experience with hot chocolate :P
But, and I don't think I've actually mentioned this here, I am having a cup of coffee every now and again these days.
Great scene, in so many ways. Enjoyed the ending sequence in particular :)
Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather.
-Velvet Underground. Venus in Furs
Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather.
Mr Wonderful.
And all he had besides his name was his shiny, shiny boots. As gangly as they come his legs sprouted from the black leather like beanstalks wilted at the knees. Face like an eagle his hooked nose pointed only to the places that made his soul stir.
Well, that’s what he said anyway.
Hair grew like wild blackberries from his crown, tumbling down to just north of his heart. Most often he could be seen in clothes so worn they hung like ash to skin. Blown away by a foul wind, a fast car or a romance soured, then naked he would walk with nothing but his shiny boots. Black like onyx.
Some folk said he was a cross roader: A shark of the cards who’d bet his life but never his boots. Fester Bullton said Mr Wonderful could turn his tricks, disolve your worth and still have you thanking him after. You only ever played Mr Wonderful once. Fester lost his house. Old Jack lost two of his donkeys, a carton of milk and a wheelbarrow. Reverend Kind lost 3 pews, 2 nuns and a stick of dynamite. What Mr Wonderful could offer the table? . . . . Well that was a mystery his victims never told. Some say his insoles were made of gold.
He told me he was the richest man he ever knew.
“All one ever needs is a good pair of boots.”
Inez - really love your descriptions, they paint such a vivid picture :)
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