The exercise:
Write about: late breaking news.
Work was pretty good. The day passed very quickly at any rate. No major adventures, just trying to stay on top of things.
Also trying to keep the comment backlog here reasonable but that's proving to be a challenge.
Mine:
Good evening all.
Just a quick heads up:
The world is ending...
So you best get spending.
Buy all that you want:
The cars, the bling, the toys.
The price don't matter now,
So forget the why and the how.
Unaffordable? Who cares?
Soon there will be no one left
To knock on your door to collect
Your massive, out of control debt.
Anyway. Farewell to you
Watching at home -
It's been a wild and crazy ride,
But now it's time to say goodbye...
Sounds like a nice day, with no major challenges! I'm at work today because next Thursday is a public holiday in the Ukraine and the company has offered a trade: we work Saturday and take next Friday off as compensation, thus getting 4 consecutive days off work. Which is a pretty nice deal, though it didn't quite feel that way at 7am this morning when I realised I had to get up :)
ReplyDeleteI find myself hunting through your poem for a Trump subtext but that might just be because of yet another astonishing week from him. I'm now resorting to observing that he's given the media outlets and journalists the busiest days of their careers for most of them, and historians must be accumulating mountains of data to analyse and write about... so there is a silver lining. Still. Just.
But back to your poem -- I like the sentiment though I'm not keen on the rhyme scheme -- that's just me though. And the last stanza is a bittersweet summing up, which I did enjoy. So... all good, I think!
Late breaking news
"Well, that was exhilarating," said Frodo. He sat down at the freshly scorched table outside the Inn of the Shire and tried to pick up a mug of ale. The hot pewter burned his fingers and he let go of it again. "What's up with his Wizardliness then? I don't remember him being quite so... so...,"
"Trigger-happy?" suggested Mirthless. The noise of fireballs going whoosh through the streets of the Shire, and the whoomph of the thatch roof of the Inn igniting in one glorious moment of flame and fury had sent most of the surviving hobbits fleeing into the fields, but Mirthless had seen Frodo and bravely crept up to the walls by the Inn and waited out the conflagration. "The doctor said it was PTSD from the War."
"Doctor Stitchfingers is still here?" Frodo smiled, his teeth white in his soot-blacked face.
"Dead," said Mirthless. "He prescribed the wrong thing for Him Indoors." The hobbit, whose face was lumpy with boils and whose skin had the dull patina of old leather, gestured at the Inn for all it was unnecessary.
"What did he prescribe, Merry?"
"Mirthless. We changed our names after you left, Frodo, they just didn't seem right anymore. He prescribed a sense of humour and a dose of fresh air and two days with no killing."
"Gan-" Frodo was silenced by the slap of Mirthless's hand over his mouth.
"Don't say his name. It angers him. Something about vibrations in Ea's crystal veil, load of bull-droppings if you ask me."
Frodo rubbed his face, the skin reddening from the force of the slap. "Fine. Voldemort then, but he seems to enjoy his killing."
"Volder-what?"
"It's a joke," said Frodo. "The Elves were all passing around this samizdat book called The Twilight of the Hairy Potter" about a werewolf hunting for a Dark Lord. The werewolf was called Voldemort and the Dark Lord was Ron-Weasel.
"Oh. Ha. Ha."
"Well I wish I'd known this sooner," said Frodo with a sigh. "Late-breaking news: Gandalf terrorizes the Shire."
A column of flame roared up from the Inn, reaching fifty metres into the air. It burned for fifteen seconds and when it went out clouds started to pull in around where it had been.
"Told you so," said Mirthless.
"Still better than the bloody Elves though," said Frodo. He frowned and stood up, digging with both hands into his pockets.
"Push Tomfool's crispy bits off the table, will you?" he said. Mirthless looked nauseated at having to remove cremains but did as he was asked, and Frodo set a glittering fabric down in its place.
"What's that?"
"Ea's crystal veil," said Frodo. "It was... let's say it was lying around unattended in one of those rooms I was no good at cleaning."
Greg - I believe mine was inspired by Trump, though I managed to write it without making that obvious. So I'm pleased you were looking for it!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, that idiot is certainly keeping historians and journalists incredibly busy.
Pleased to see another Hobbit tale from you. Never lets me down :D