The exercise:
Today's theme: cravings.
The clocks went ahead an hour here this morning and I've been out of synch ever since. Time changes always screw me up.
Mine:
The cravings have grown stronger and stranger with every passing day.
They started out innocently enough: a hotdog from a street corner vendor, smothered with relish. Sure, I'd been a strict vegetarian for the entirety of my adult life. But if my baby wanted me to chow down on a frankfurter, who was I to deny him?
Besides, it's not like I could be sure there was really any meat in there anyway.
That was just the beginning though. One night I found myself in Henry's Grill, ordering a rare porterhouse steak. When my knife sliced into it my plate was covered with spilled blood. You'd think my stomach would have rebelled and I would have come to my senses, right? Hell, Gary turned a miserable shade of green just from me telling him about it!
But I dug right in, finishing that bad boy off in record time. That's what the waiter told me, at any rate.
Today, though, today was too much. I've locked myself in the bathroom and I'm not coming out until this one passes. I was walking by the elementary school and caught myself watching the girls on the swings, licking my lips. I wasn't seeing them as they were, though. Not all happy and yelling and full of life.
No, in my mind they were barbequed and topped with ketchup and sauerkraut.
I think the clocks go forward at the end of March over here, so I've got a couple of weeks of you appearing to post early :)
ReplyDeleteI like where the cravings took your character! I wasn't quite sure what was going on at first, as I didn't realise she was a woman until about half way through, but then it took a beautifully sinister turn. The paragraph about the steak is really well done (unlike the steak!).
Cravings
Cravingn.
A portmanteau of crazy paving, deriving from the early nineties as a response to the excesses of the eighties. It is considered much more genteel to refer to the "garden craving" than to brag about your "crazy paving", though in those sad, regrettable cases where the entire garden has been 'craved' it is perhaps better to keep the curtains drawn and feign extreme myopia.
marc, eww, you surprise me! ha! are you sure you haven't transmogriphied into greg?
ReplyDeletegre, neat piece.
mine...later, busy now...
marc, actually, when i ceased being a vegetarian, i have enjoyed eating red meat ever since and my steaks are now medium rare as if i am making up for lost time, so i really understand your piece.
ReplyDeletemine...
Cravings
’Chocolate and tinned peaches, chocolate and tinned peaches, gotta get some, who’s gonna be open at this time?’ I thought. It was early on a Sunday evening in February. The weather was hot, dry. The grass crackled like the yellow straw it was. Rain hadn’t fallen in months. I smelled smoke in the air and the odour of charcoal on the wind - lingering scents from the devastating Ash Wednesday bush fires that cooked half the State.
In a rural environment far from a small country town, nothing, and I mean nothing, was going to be open, but my cravings wouldn’t abate.
I went next door but not to borrow a cup of sugar, although my sweet tooth beckoned.
I tapped on the flywire door, it was loosely attached by rusty hinges to the frame and it rattled when you tapped it.
“Come in!” the neighbour said. She took one look at me and knew, in her mature, intuitive way, what was up.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Um, yeah, good, ta...” I answered awkwardly.
“Sure?” she smiled, waiting for me to say something.
“Ah, yeah, um, I was wondering if you had any chocolate and tinned peaches?”
“I think I do. Baking a cake, are we?” she continued to prod.
I greedily opened the packet and begged for a can opener. “No, just this mad craving I’ve got...” I answered, drooling melted chocolate as I spoke.
“Ah!” she breathed, before biting her lip shut.
“What? Whhaaatt” I insisted.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked, carefully.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, the craving, and you have a certain sparkle...” she let anticipation hang in the air between us. “Is it possible...?”
She worked out the age of my first born, did a quick calulation and worked out something which took my fuzzy brain a little longer to fathom.
“Oh! Do you think...? Yes, it’s too early to tell, but yeah, I think I might be, I must be...!”
“Congratulations in advance, then, my dear, how lovely for you! Let me know when you’re sure!”
Craving always seem to go hand in hand with pregnancy don't they. I suspect I knew how Mrac's was going to turn out... No idea why, but somehow I wasn't surprise, pelase thoughdefinately please... *giggles*
ReplyDeleteGreg - I think I missed somethign in the 80s, that I think I'm glad I did... does that have anything to do with 'they paved Paridise and Put up a parking lot...' ops, well I've got that song stuck in my head again... thank you grocery store clerk days.
Ha ha writebite glas it was just her and theneighbor. my second pregnancy got called out at my husband's cousin's wedding reception (by the Father of the Bride in a really loud voice). I'd JUST had it confirmed by the doctor's office earlier that week, but wanted to wait for the 3 month mark to tell anyone... *sigh*
Hm... Cravings.
Rachael
"I've never been normal," she tells me. I really should know that, since I created her. "I know, you didn't mean to go as far as you did with the whole half werewolf thing, but..." She shrugs as she sips her Vidal.
Her eyes are unforcused as she remembers the past, the furture, the present. It's alwys hard to tell what state a charcter is in when you're not actively working on thier story. She looks back at me.
"But the cravings being half Nueri give me are nothing to my own imbalance. Well," she snickers, "What others would call imbalance." She smiles, with that come hither if you dare look that attracts so many to her. "Sure you can blaime it on my extended periods of Deep Sleep." I see her shudder at the memory. "But how do you know I wasn't already a Nympho and an Adrenal Junckie before that?"
She has a point. She was writen to explore the effect of sex on relationships, she just took it a lot further than I ever would. The Adreanal Junkcie part, that has always been there too.
Funny the things we can crave and become adicted to. I guess fictinal characters are just as suseptable as we are.
My internet connection is intermitent for the past couple of days. Will see if I can post in a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe doctor said that I needed to cut back on fat, meat, and sugary drinks, my cholesterol was through the roof and he was wondering how I had survived this long. “I don’t eat fat, meat, or have any kind of sugary drink,” I told him. “I’m a vegan. I don’t even have dairy.”
ReplyDeleteHe looked at me flummoxed. “Well…in that case I will have to prescribe you some medication to try and take care of it.”
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “That’s it,” I said. “I’m a vegetarian, my cholesterol is too high, so you are baffled and just throw drugs at me? No thanks.”
At least he had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “I guess I could run more tests?” He didn’t sound too motivated.
I walked out of his office fuming. People on the street kept giving me odd looks as I kept a running stream of expletives all the way down the block. Suddenly I stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk. “Okay,” I said to the telephone booth. “I’ve been a vegetarian all my life and obviously it is screwing up my body, so I change. What are you looking at asshole? I’ve always craved meat and dairy products anyway, so good bye whole wheat bagels, hello meatloaf and cheese. No I wasn’t talking to you just keep walking lady. Shit I’m going to have to learn how to cook all over again. No I don’t want cooking lessons from you pervert. Get lost. Fuck, all my friends are going to hate me. Well screw them, it isn’t their body. Yeah well fuck you too buddy.” Looking around I noticed quite a few people were glaring at me, I guess I wasn’t making any brownie points harassing everyone who walked by. “Hey anyone know where I can get a good steak?”
Each year I live through a tale of woe
ReplyDeleteThat haunts me before each winters snow.
A switch is flipped, the die are cast
My mind a blank, my needs are vast.
Consumption starts and does not end
Until we pass the year's dark bend.
I did not ask, I did not pray
For this damned ursine DNA.
We all crave a good carb load now and then
But this gnawing need is no mere 'yen'!
All hail the bright light and sun of spring
Which casts out that mindless eating thing!
Alas! Now that I do not sup so deep
It seems I need twelve hours of sleep!
I just get my internet squared way yesterday and the whole bloom'in block goes out this morning! It's a Conspiracy I tell ya!
ReplyDelete< >
I don't crave just any old sweet,
It's chocolate, that's what I like to eat.
If I were Willy Wonka, I'd put all types to the test,
Just to figure out which one I liked the best.
Then I'd chase them all down with a Coke and a smile,
Knowing the caffinated sugar high would last quite a while.
You see with my vices at hand I'm as happy as can be,
But without them i'm cranky, so I suggest that you flee.
So that my friends is how I make it through the day,
I don't drink coffee so I stay awake this way!
nice rhyme krystin!
ReplyDeleteGreg - thank you, I thought you might approve :)
ReplyDeleteAh, I've missed your clever definitions. Nicely done with this one.
Writebite - Greg just hangs around so much he just kind of seeps into my writing. Just wait, it'll happen to you too :P
Really enjoyed the... I don't know if 'realness' is the word I'm looking for. There was just something comfortingly authentic there.
Cathryn - ah, I do enjoy a good character/author interaction!
Also: ooh, awkward way to have your pregnancy announced, haha.
Iron Bess - glad your connection allowed you to join in!
Loved the ending part with her on the sidewalk. Great injections tossed about at just the right intervals :)
GZ - ha, excellent! The 'ursine DNA' might be my favorite part.
Krystin - the plot thickens!
Haha, I'm with Writebite. Fun poem :D
marc, it was real
ReplyDelete