The exercise:
First day back at Public Works. To celebrate, I bring you: Nirvana Week.
Seven days, seven different Nirvana songs as prompts. Connect them if you wish - that was my intention when I made the selections - or take them on individually. Either way, I hope you have fun.
Let us begin with: About A Girl
4 comments:
Just popping in to say that I realize Nirvana Week is an odd way to celebrate going back to the cleaning job. I actually thought of the weeklong theme a while back and was looking for a good time to run it... then it occurred to me that my first week back would be pretty ideal.
Also: day one went fairly well. Looking forward to being fully back into the swing of things tomorrow.
I hope you contribute a couple of posts to Nirvana week since it's a theme week and I'm guessing that when you thought of it you had some ideas for tales to tell as well :) Well done on a successful Day One, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the things you encounter on the job this time round!
I've had a little trouble picking from amongst my characters (how exactly did I end up with this many people to write about? I blame you, Marc...), so I've decided to go with the one most likely to tempt you to join in. Bill and Ben were frontrunners for a while, and I considered seeing what Charles Asciugimento, Head of Building Security was up to. Dr. Septopus and the Green Lightbulb were checked-in on, and there's always the staff at WrongStart and other Sixticton-eers. But...
About a girl
The rustle of a foil wrapper was loud in the silence of the gallery, and seemed to go on forever. A couple of heads turned after five seconds: how long could it take to unwrap something? The slim, attractive red-head smiled serenely, popped the salted caramel in her mouth, and then started balling the foil up, rustling it even more.
"Young lady," said an elderly woman. She was wearing a heavy coat covered in white cat hair and leaning on a modern metal walking-stick: it had six rubber tipped feet in a circle at the bottom to make it more stable. "Manners are not the prerogative of the elderly."
"You would know," said the red-head slightly indistinctly through the caramel, "since you're being very rude in addressing me in such a condescending way. If you'd like to buy some manners I know a shop where you can get them a good discount. Slightly tatty in places, but suitable for most social situations."
"Lead the way," said the elderly woman icily. "If there are any left after you've bought your own I'd be delighted to get a top up."
Heads turned away as the gallery owner decided that now was the right time to step out and introduce the artist who was exhibiting that evening. As he waved his hands in what he thought was an Italian way, and prattled nonsensical compliments, the red-head casually moved so as to standing next to the elderly woman.
"Nice outfit, Red," she said sotto voce. "Cross-dressing suits you."
"It's damn itchy," muttered a surprisingly deep voice. Red 5, vigilante graffiti artist and practising master of deception, scratched at himself in a rather unladlylike spot. "The picture's at the back, on the left. He's titled it About a girl and he's made a pretty clumsy attempt to produce some similar art, but it's definitely a Tanguy. Keep an eye out for who's pretending to be not interested."
"There are two people, one man and one woman who haven't even walked to the back of the gallery," said Emma, the red-head, immediately. "They're staying well away from each other, but they arrived in the same taxi and got out two streets away. Kind of unfortunate for them that I was in the sweet-shop there at the time."
Red chuckled, managing to turn it into an asthmatic-sounding cough.
"Young lady," he said sharply. "if you must marinate in perfume, please stay away from me. I have allergies."
"It's not perfume," said Emma gliding away. "It's aftershave from the men I keep having to drive away from me. If you ask me nicely I'll tell you what it's like to be young and attractive sometime."
Hoping this week allows me to do a little character development for one of the characters in my novel. Without further ado, here's Melanie.
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Pampered her whole life, the only adversity she had faced was the hatred her mother felt for her. She was completely unprepared for the mountains, and what she found there.
Greg - I did have some vague thoughts about how I'd go with the prompts but I'm not sure when/if I'll be able to write them down. I'll try to find some time though.
You do indeed have a lot of characters to choose from. I will say though that I am especially pleased you chose these two :)
I enjoyed your disguised Red and Emma's dialogue the most here, I think. And you've set things up nicely for an intriguing week ahead!
Morganna - I'm glad you're taking this opportunity to do that, and I look forward to discovering more about Melanie!
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