The exercise:
Today we write about: the sisters.
Wanted to mark the occasion of The Sisters Brothers joining the ranks of my Recommended Reading page, but saw that I'd already used 'brothers' as a prompt. This was the next best option.
We had a pretty big harvest this morning for local orders, with 21 bags of various greens going out to good homes. And we'll be starting with the restaurant on Wednesday, which is exactly a month earlier than last year.
Plus the sun was shining. All day!
Also: happy birthday to my Dad. I'm sure Mom spoiled you to bits today.
Can't ask for much more than that out of a Monday.
Mine:
Eliza watched her sister as she approached the coffee shop, purse clutched tightly against her stomach. It was difficult not to shake her head in disgust, but Eliza managed it. Her third cup of the afternoon helped greatly in this endeavor.
"Over here, Daisy," she called out once her sister was safely off the sidewalk.
"Oh, thank goodness you're here," Daisy said as she slumped into the chair on the far side of the table. She took a few deep breaths before she was able to continue. "There was this strange man following me for the last five blocks. I just know he was planning on robbing me, or worse!"
"Of course he was," Eliza said with a sympathetic smile. She was going to need another coffee to keep this up. "You poor thing."
"I don't know how you stand living in this insane asylum of a city," Daisy whispered, glancing around to make sure there was no one close enough to overhear. "Are you on some sort of medication to handle the anxiety? Can I have some?"
That's an impressive harvest! And makes me feel hungry all of sudden too; I'm thinking of omelette aux épinards, which I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of finding near work :)
ReplyDeleteSorry about my absence yesterday, I was back and forth to Paris for a meeting (which, being only an hour and a half long, did not justify five hours of travelling and sitting through two other, unrelated meetings!).
I think you brought out the difference between the sisters rather nicely there; as well as the obvious ones the more subtle ones of where they live and how they handle it work very nicely in character development.
The sisters
Once upon a time she was called Shanghai Suzie and had done things that had made men weep, including robbing them blind, and marrying them for just long enough to clean out the house of the family heirlooms and then fleeing the town. Now though, she was dressed much more soberly in a white, starched wimple and a long black, hessian habit and greeting people to the Sisters of Perpetual Misery Nunnery.
The man sat on the other side of her desk couldn't stop staring.
"Your daughter would be welcome here," said Suzie. "We are an observant nunnery, so there is a full timetable of prayer, meditation, and of course, hard work. The nuns work as hard as they are able, and God grants us the strength to grow that we might work harder still, and so praise His glory through our efforts." To her annoyance the man didn't seem to be listening. "And if that doesn't fix her," she added acidly, "we know a couple of slavers who are always looking for white women to sell in the Far East."
"That sounds wonderful," said the man, his eyes never leaving her face. "Do you know a friend of mine?"
"I doubt it," said Suzie, a cold frisson of fear tiptoeing down her spine. "I don't get out very much."
"His name's Hank," said the man. "Goes by Red a lot of the time, hangs around with a guy called Ben. Ben smokes cigars."
"Those two have no real friends!" said Suzie before she could stop herself, and Marshall Jenkins, sat opposite her, smiled broadly.
Side by side,
ReplyDeleteIn mischief together, through
Silly and sad
Times, there for each other
Racing through life -- who can get there first?
Sisters.
Damn it! I wrote a little entry and it disappeared. It was about mi hermana Tica.
ReplyDeleteGood to be able to read your writing. I'll do more of it when I am back stateside again.
¡Pura Vida!
It's very late, Nearly three so although I don't have a finished piece, I have a start.. Maybe I'll expland on it tomorrow (err later today?) for Protag...
ReplyDeleteWere as different as night and day
How in the world did we turn out this way?
My eyes of gray and yours of brown
You’re shy and quiet while I’m a clown
I often wonder how it came to be
That we fell out of the same family tree
Greg - awesome bit of back story, I highly enjoyed that! Now I just have to find time to add another chapter...
ReplyDeleteMorganna - love it, I think that sums up a lot of sisterly relationships :)
Heather - boo, Blogger :(
I'm having issues as well right now, as I cannot do anything other than comment in Firefox. I'm having to use IE to write posts, but then I can't view the blog after I publish. Aggravating.
Anyway! Good to hear from you!
Morrigan - that's a neat little starter, I'd love to read the rest of it :)