The exercise:
Today we write about: the craft.
It's done, it's over, kaput, no more! For this year at least, the box program has come to a successful conclusion.
We'll still be offering a produce list people can order from for as long as we still have supplies remaining, but the majority of the work is in our rear-view now. Putting together seven boxes every week, while totally worthwhile and excellent business, has taken a lot out of me.
The knowledge that things are finally scaling down brings me great comfort.
Mine:
He was a crafty little man, was this Victor from the Dark Woods. I never felt as though I could fully relax whenever he was nearby. It's not as though, I should make clear, I expected him to do me harm.
Not physical harm, at least.
Why his presence was permitted amongst us was never properly explained to me, but I had my suspicions. Victor, with his shifty eyes and black humour, was the sort of man one might expect to excel at the sinister arts of blackmail and bribery.
Well, I certainly expected him to. The others did as well, if I were to judge by the way they avoided being alone with him.
Perhaps I was unfair. Perhaps I should have given him more of a chance to disprove my misgivings. Perhaps he would have surprised us all.
But I, I am not the sort of man to take such chances. I did not reach this great grey age by embracing foolishness and opening wide my door to unnecessary risks.
And so, Victor from the Dark Woods had to die.
Congratulations on a success box program year! And well done too, the first year often has lots of little problems and difficulties that were hard to foresee. I guess you've got things to take forward to next year though :) And... how many boxes do you need have ordered before you have to take on help to get them all done?
ReplyDeletePoor Victor, with a name like "from the Dark Woods" he never really stands a chance, does he? I like the way your narrator describes the issue he has with Victor, leading us all the way to agree with the inevitable conclusion that Victor must die. I feel complicit now!
You do a nice job with the short paragraphs as well of showing us how the narrator is thinking his decision through and justifying himself to us.
The craft
craft, n., orig. unkn.
Craft is an unusual word, starting off life as two words: corrugated giraffe and being steadily shortened and condensed down until it reached craft, where presumably it will stay until txt-spk turns it into cr@; by then we will all hopefully be illiterate anyway and so unable to understand this for the abomination is so surely is. This dictionary would never think to judge, but if you use a mobile phone then you are surely going to hell (one of your choosing, but I bet it's abbreviated...).
Ahem, words shrink and contract when they have heavy usage and are needed by many classes of society, but given the scarcity of corrugated giraffes these days it is hard for the modern denizen to conceive of how useful they must have been to have been contracted down to crafts. I shall only further note that I would find life without my corrugated giraffe utterly unthinkable, and I deeply pity those of you who do not own one.
Each word carefully chosen
ReplyDeleteEach bead carefully strung
Poetry and tassel-making,
Not so different in the end.
The Craft
ReplyDeleteWitches gather around the cauldron,
Boiling, bubbling, percolating muse,
Dancing, chanting, whirling skits,
Peering to find out what they will brew.
A lad waits in the moonlit night
Reacting, splashing, coloring bold,
Stirring, beating, adding parts,
Hoping to discover what his future holds
Witches croak in pure delight,
Frothing, cooling, congealing bog,
Serving, sharing, drinking lad,
Cackling at the new found frog.
Greg - thank you! Yes, we have learned many lessons this year that will help us next go around.
ReplyDeleteWell, we figure we can do about ten per day, so we're thinking of adding a second day next year (instead of a restaurant order) if we get enough people signed up.
I read your entry this morning while I was eating breakfast. Just about choked when I read 'corrugated giraffe'. :P
Morganna - very true! I quite like that comparison.
Cathryn - love the format you went with on this one. And the content itself definitely scratched my nursery rhyme itch :D
nice entries.
ReplyDeletegreg, a particularly entertaining and original approach.
The Craft
She lay them out on the large, flat rock she used as a makeshift altar, here, in the cave secreted deep in the woods.
There was her sword, which she placed to the east, the symbol of air; then came the wooden carved stick - a wand - which she placed to the south, for fire; then the pewter wine chalice which she placed to the west, for water; and lastly came the rough quartz crystal which she placed to the north, for earth.
With all the elements of her craft placed in their correct positions, she was ready to cast a circle and begin the magic ceremony.
With a voiced protective incantation and dramatic movements of her arms, the circle was cast and she began repeating the rhymes that would summon the Elementals whom she would order to do her bidding this night.
She summoned the air sylphs, the fire salamanders, the water nymphs and the earth gnomes and they hovered like some wispy hologram in front of her, carefully contained within the dimensional circular boundary.
She formed her wish in her mind and spoke it out loud to give it power. The Elementals heard her command and vanished as she performed her banishment ritual and dissolved the circle.
As she put her implements away it was tempting to re-think her wish, but that would be its undoing, so she wiped her mind clean and gave no more thought to it.
Tomorrow would be a new day and, in time, she would know if her wish came true.
A week went by and she’d pretty much forgotten the ritual she’d performed earlier, until a blond, blue eyed dream boat sidled up to her in line at the school cafeteria and offered to buy her a milkshake which she accepted. It led to a couple of dates and then they were going steady, she was his regular girl and the envy of the cheerleader set. Not a bad outcome for a gawky redhead from the boondocks.
She signed up for the advanced mailorder course of the Craft. If it served her this well already, who knows where it could lead?
Writebite - loved the description of the ceremony. You really filled it with some great details.
ReplyDeleteAnd a clever twist at the end to go with it! Nicely done :)