The exercise:
Write four lines of prose about: The Fly-by-Night Detective Agency.
Not sure where that came from, but it sounded like fun. Plus it might inspire something longer or ongoing or recurring from some of us. So here we are.
Work was pretty quiet this evening, other than a packed gym for pickleball. With so many players there's a lot of waiting around to get into a game, which means people are going to stick around as long as possible in the hopes of more time on the court.
Which means I get to kick people out at the end of the night so that I can go home.
Not my favorite thing, but at least they're all adults and can get out fairly quickly when told to. I just wish they didn't need to be told...
Mine:
"I see here that you require payment upfront," the elderly lady (who had thus far refused to give me her name) said before turning to page four of my three hundred page New Client Agreement package.
"That's right," I told her, shifting around behind my desk in my once-comfortable chair. No one had ever bothered to read that far before.
"And down here, in the teensy tiny font," she continued, holding up the page so that I could see the offending paragraph, "am I correct to say that this clause requires me to pay for all of your expenses - including... or is that especially... online pornography subscriptions?"
I still have problems with pickle-ball; this time my brain insisted that it must be an elegant dance where ladies hold martini glasses of pickle-juice with dill-pickles on cocktail sticks resting in them and everyone dresses in shades off off-yellow and faded green and gentlemen sneak off to the backroom to snort lines of mustard powder.... I may not be getting enough sleep.
ReplyDeleteI like your detective! I like his client even more though :) The lines in the contract are excellent and I think give us a pretty clear idea of how the detecting is going to go... slowly. There's some nice characterisation in just four lines here.
The Fly-by-night Detective Agency
Lord Campion, who was dressed as though he were going to the opera, sat behind a large, mostly-empty desk in a magnificent office and glowered at the young lady sat opposite him as though rage were the only thing that kept the office heating going.
"My grandmother had some more questions about this," she said, brandishing the 300-page New Client Agreement package, the pages suddenly freeing themselves from the staples and whirling around the room like an indoor blizzard. "Why is Donald Trump mentioned five times, what is the actual time period for the selection process, because you've got three different ones in six different places, and how many side projects do you expect to be undertaking while working for us?"
There was a long drawn out silence, and then Lord Campion said, his eyes narrowing to slits, "I've moved offices since your grandmother hired me, so how the hell did you find me?"
[OK, I've continued yours a little, and I think I've got a reference to every prompt you gave us this week in there :) Which makes me think there's a prompt suggestion for you there: now and then see how many of the week's prompts can be combined into a single tale.]
Greg - you may not be getting enough sleep, but that does sound like a fun event. To write about, not attend.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Haha, that's a fine take on the prompt and I very much appreciate your ability to touch on all the previous prompts of the week.
And I think you're quite right, that is an intriguing prompt idea. I think it would be most fun when I don't plan on doing it, in order to maximize the randomness :D