The exercise:
Write about: the boat.
Work was busy this morning. Definitely still a lot of tourists in town after the long weekend, as the pastries flew off the shelf while the loaves moved at a more stately pace. I imagine it'll be more of the same tomorrow.
Sue biked down from where her and Jake are staying this week in order to keep Max entertained while I was working. No easy task, but it sounds like she was up to the challenge. By the time I returned for lunch Jake had arrived with the car and the fun was fully in progress.
After lunch I dropped Max off with his aunt and uncle at a park and went dishwasher shopping. Going to have a look in Penticton tomorrow afternoon to see what else is available.
Also got Max a bat and ball so he can practice his blast ball skills at home. I think that's the happiest I've ever seen a gift make him.
Mine:
It washed ashore, gaping holes in its hull and all, six days ago. The response from the castaways had been unanimously positive. Even Nancy had seemed excited and hopeful, and she had spent most of the previous month explaining to each survivor, in grim detail, precisely how they were going to die.
We can do this, we said. We can make this boat seaworthy again. We can sail it home.
But then Timothy disappeared the next day. There was some confusion about what he'd been doing last. Some thought he was in the jungle, foraging for wood to be used to plug the holes. Others thought he'd been working from inside the boat. Regardless, he was gone.
Then Morris vanished that night, while everyone was sleeping. It was suggested that he may have gone sleep walking again, but this time ended up in the ocean.
The next morning, Tasha was gone. No one could think of why. No one had any idea of how.
Owen followed suit. Then Linda. Sarah and Nancy went together, just this morning.
Now it's just me. Well, me and the boat. But not for long. One of us has to go, I'm quite certain of that.
So today I'm setting that thing on fire.
Having come to the comments late I find the whole dishwasher saga rather entertaining and a little intriguing: it doesn't seem like a white-good should be so tricky to find, or that there's really such a variety of them out there. Still, I'm sure you had fun with it all. And it sounds like Max benefitted from it too! I hope he's still out there practising his blast ball :)
ReplyDeleteI'd have been suspicious when a boat so unseaworthy managed to wash ashore myself, but maybe that kind of suspicion is why Timothy vanished first.... Well, it's a creepy little tale and sadly I don't think the boat will be quite so easy to get rid of as burning would suggest, but your narrator's left it too late to have any other choice now! Still, I like the gradual reduction in numbers and the rationalisations that your characters make. It's a shame it does them no good.
The boat
"Mother? Why is there a boat in the goldfish pond?"
"Because the dogs look adorable in their sailor outfits," said Lady Agatha. She was walking with her daughter through the grounds of her stately home, Schwermut. Behind them a pack of chihuahuas wearing tiny white sailor hats and little blue-and-white sailors' jackets snuffled through the grass and urinated on treetrunks, interesting patches of dirt, and the undergardener's ankles.
"But they can't sail a boat!"
"No dear, they can't. They're dogs, after all." Lady Agatha's tone of voice suggested that she was only being reasonable because the person she was speaking to was clearly severely retarded. "I have a captain to sail the boat for them. They are passengers, dear."
"I wish you wouldn't patronise me, Mother. Actually, my therapist said I ought to talk to you about that."
"Which one?"
"Galatea. She's new, she's–"
"Dead."
"–been helping me. What?"
"Dead, dear. Galatea Okinawa? In the papers this morning, chewed to death by rats. It's terrible the places these therapists live you know."
"You killed another one of my therapists! Mother!"
"Don't be silly dear, can you imagine me chewing someone to death? With my teeth? I imagine it was sewer rats since she lived on a houseboat."
"...that's why you have a boat, isn't it Mother?"
"You're a very suspicious child dear. Perhaps you ought to see a therapist?"
Greg - well, we need an apartment sized dishwasher for the space we have and... there are many, many more homes around here than apartments. It would have been much easier to find one in Vancouver... but then that would have posed other challenges (I'm sorry, there are how many appliance stores within five blocks of each other?).
ReplyDeleteOh, I went back after posting my last comment to see what you were talking about. I remember now. Unfortunately.
Ah, the return of the terrifying Lady Agatha. Nicely executed as usual... pun mostly intended :)