The exercise:
Write about: golfing.
A friend of Kat's is in town for a few days with her family. We met up with them at the beach last night but I stayed home tonight because I am old and get tired easily and two work nights in a row is too much for me.
Anyway, they went mini golfing at LocoLanding, so that's where the prompt was uncovered.
3 comments:
You could have said you stayed home to look after the kids, which sounds much more responsible and less like you just prefer not being other people for long periods ;-) Which, by the way, I agree with you totally on.
I really like Bovine Amelie as an addition to East Wallingford, by the way. She's quite a character, I hope she makes another appearance or two this year :)
Golfing
There had been a storm that afternoon and though the mini-golf course had opened up again afterwards there were few patrons as the evening gradually drew in. The outdoor lights had been turned on, and the neon signs that illuminated four of the holes were flickering just a little sporadically, probably due to the rain earlier. At the third hole were two men, one leaning on his mini-golf putter and the other standing with his legs carefully apart to balance his weight, and his attention firmly focused on how he was going to get the ball to navigate an upward-sloping slalom of a hole.
The man leaning on his putter was dressed like a fireman for a promotional calendar; his heavy jacket was open and his undershirt was open to mid-chest revealing modest musculature rather than the solid-packed muscle that the calendar photographers seemed to prefer. The other was dressed like a newly-minted school-teacher: preppy polo-shirt, slacks, and an oddly-coloured belt that seemed to slither around his waist of its own accord when you only caught it from the corner of your eye.
The school-teacher tapped the little white ball firmly and watched as it plinked and plonked its way along the slalom, losing momentum at the end and rolling backwards from the actual hole to rest against a chipped, white-painted piece of plywood. He sighed, glanced at the fireman who nodded at him, and stepped over to tap the ball into the hole.
"Two," he said. "Damnit."
The fireman set his ball up. "It's a par three, Bill," he said. "And there's plenty more opportunities for holes-in-one. You're being a perfectionist again. I bet Hench isn't doing as well as you." He glanced at the course and hit the ball hard. It bounced over the slalom walls, ricocheted off the side of a windmill that belonged to hole eight and clattered to a halt next to Bill's feet. "See? I got two as well."
"Do you think we should be calling our henchling Hench? It seems like we don't know their name." The two men picked their balls up and walked over to hole four.
"We don't know their name anymore. It got burned out of existence by that Priest of Utcanputatl, remember?"
"Was that where Hench lost an eye?"
"Nearly lost an eye. They didn't actually lose it until we were on the ship coming back and that albatross though they were some kind of large anchovy.
"Oh yes, I remember. So we're calling them because they haven't picked another name yet?"
"No, I think they did, but I can't remember it. I got used to calling them Hench already."
They paused their chat and looked at hole four.
[Yeah, this was never going to fit in one post. Sorry!]
"This seems a bit easy," said Bill. He scratched his shoulder. "I was expecting there to be some kind of obstacle in the way. Not just a flat path to the hole. And it's quite a big hole, too."
Ben tucked his thumbs into his yellow suspenders and let his club fall to the ground. "It looks new," he said after a moment's study. "I think we were supposed to put the ball through the clown head and it would come out at random on the other side. But now there's a path through the clown's mouth that, well, short-cuts it all."
Bill set his ball up, examined the path carefully, and tapped the ball. "One," he said with a measure of pleasure.
"One," repeated Ben thirty seconds later, and they went to collect their balls and go to hole five. Which also seemed to have been modified recently to make it significantly easier.
"The leaning tower of Pisa clearly would have made things difficult," said Ben, staring. "Until it collapsed completely and then something bulldozed a path through the rubble. Quite a sharply defined path too."
Bill started humming, a tuneful operatic number that Ben recognised, and then joined in with. After nearly eight bars of Figaro they both stopped.
"Hench is ahead of us," said Bill. "We made them go first because we don't know what resonance will do when we unlock the door hidden under the lighthouse at hole ten."
"Yes, but you think Hench is ripping up the course? We must have really annoyed them to ruin our fun like this."
"No," said Bill, drawing the word out. "I was just thinking, we only bought tickets for us right? So Hench might have gone for the cheapest option."
"Club only?"
"Yes."
"Then what are they using for a ball?"
"Where did we leave the Sphere of Annihilation after we... borrowed it?"
Ben thought for a moment. "The golf-bag," he said. "It was... golf-ball sized. Oh."
Ahead of them there was the sound of a large wooden structure collapsing catastrophically.
Greg - well, Kat had the boys with her so I was home by myself. Figured I'd just be honest about it :P
And glad you liked Madame Bovine. I suspect there will be more sightings of her this year, as she strikes me as a difficult sort to get rid of...
Really enjoyed the setup in the beginning and, obviously, the back and forth of the dialogue throughout. And I must be tired, as I did not see the Sphere coming at all.
Post a Comment