Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Siren

Write at the Merge Week 5

This week, I give you a French phrase (you are not required to use the phrase verbatim, but you can) and a photograph:
La Douleur Exquise (French): The heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have.
************








Trifecta week Sixty-two

1a : the natural opening through which food passes into the body of an animal and which in vertebrates is typically bounded externally by the lips and internally by the pharynx and encloses the tongue, gums, and teeth
  b : grimace <made a mouth>
  c : an individual requiring food <had too many mouths to feed>
2a : voice, speech <finally gave mouth to her feelings>
  b : mouthpiece
3: something that resembles a mouth especially in affording entrance or exit: as

Please remember:
  • Your response must be between 33 and 333 words.
  • You must use the 3rd definition of the given word in your post.


(I've attempted two prompts in one this week)


He wasn’t immediately aware of the music. It started low, worming its way into his conciousness slowly, until he found himself humming along with the melody. Swaying to the soft beat.

He smiled, an involuntary twitch of lip. He stopped his work and leaned back in his wheeled desk chair to listen more closely. The harder he listened, the farther away the music became.

A frown crossed his brow. He rose and went to the small window of his office. The window wasn’t made to open. The door, however, was.

Soon he found himself on the sidewalk in front of the building. He cocked his head, honing in on the direction of the haunting notes and in a semi-daze, he followed.

The journey through the city went unremarked. He almost noticed the rural land he passed as day became evening, then night. By morning, he’d entered a wooded tract and was following a small, forgotten river.

It was afternoon when he reached the mouth of the river, where it emptied into the sea. The trees still clinging close to the banks, roots reaching out to the water. He didn’t feel the cuts on his arms from pushing through brush. He didn’t care that his shirt was in shreds, or his shoes waterlogged and muddy.

All he knew was the song. Sad and sweet and full of unfulfilled promises.

He found its source. A monstrous gatehouse of stone. Empty windows in its upper reaches, watching his approach.

Without hesitation he climbed ancient, lichen covered steps. Higher, the melody quickening the closer he came. At the top of the stairway, a room. From the fading light of the window he saw the singer. A woman, of sorts. At his gasping entrance, she silenced.

His heart broke at the quiet, his arms reached out, pleading. She turned swiftly to the window and leapt to the sea below, her jeweled scales flashing in the last rays of sunset.

With a cry of pain, he followed.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Duty


Master Class #3
Roxanne’s choice of opening sentence for this week’s class promises to generate some more creative and off-the-wall writing. She chose Kelle Groom’s book I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl whose opening line is:
Morphine makes me weightless, airborne.



Morphine makes me weightless, airborne.  That wouldn't be useful just now.

So, I embrace the pain. Ripping my body, searing my brain with fire tipped knives.

Oddly, it keeps me focused.

When my thoughts stray from the job, the pain invades and shreds the edges of my sanity.

Morphine makes me fuzzy around the edges. I forget the face of my target. When it wears off, I'm reminded of my duty with punishment harsher than before.  

Acid tipped knives.

I embrace the pain, focus on the face.

Squeeze.

Relief that outclasses morphine floods my exhausted flesh. 

I'll be airborne, until the next face floats into the margins of my vision.



Sunday, January 27, 2013

Careless Love...

My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog












The red dress brought out the highlights in her hair.  She brushed a stray brown strand back into place, as she  chewed on her lightly glossed lower lip.  

She sighed, as she gazed across the room. Covertly watching him, curly blond hair and discreet musculature. His arm possessively wrapped around a honeyed blond...

The honey blond glanced longingly, at every chance, toward the painfully shy young man. Thick black hair crowning his face, that unbeknown to him, was made for Hollywood...

Hollywood sighed, and gazed across the room at the petite brunette in the red dress, chewing on her lip.


100 words inspired by David Bowie’s Soul Love.


Relaxing

Trifextra:  Week Fifty-two


The weekend challenge:  This weekend, we're sending you back to English 101 to revisit the concept of literary devices.  We want you to give us a 33-word example of personification.  Wait.  What?  You forget what that is?  It's the practice of attaching human traits and characteristics with inanimate objects, phenomena and animals (http://literary-devices.com). 




No one sits at the desk

Yet, the tiny amber eye blinks in thought
.  
Processing private processes in ones and zeroes.

Until someone interrupts its humming reverie with a click of its mouse.


.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Joy Ride

Write at the Merge: Week 4
This week we were given two images, I chose this one;
Groucho Marx Quotes

        They'd been riding since dawn,the shaggy ponies kept a steady but leisurely pace. Liam  dismounted  at the top of the highest point in the area. The small specks in the distance encouraged him to remount and coax the quickest pace the animals were capable of maintaining without over taxing them.

       After a few hours he said, "We're about to be overtaken, lassie. We'll need to be findin' some cover quick."

       Anne Marie cast an exasperated glance at her traveling companion. "Who wants to kill you this time, Liam?  Some angry husband, perhaps?"

       "Are ye sure it's not yerself they're a trackin' girlie? It seems I've pulled ye outta a scrape or two."  Liam had alit and given his pony a slap on the rump.  The stocky animal lumbered a few paces away and began munching on grass. "Stupid creature. They'll eat ye if they kill us."

       Anne Marie sniffed the air, "I'm fairly certain I don't know this pack."  She chuckled at Liam's discomfiture over her gift.  "It's you they want.  I just want to know why."

       He sighed in resignation. "They think I've disrespected them in some way, I imagine."  Liam looked back at her, "Sweetling, if ye want t' live, I suggest ya get off that lump and draw that slice o' iron ye're a carryin'".  The distant sound of hoof beats was closing on them.

      "I don't use my blade to kill honest men." She turned her pony toward a stand of trees as if to leave.

      "Though I admire yer high principles, I never said they was honest, m'dear.  And ye'll find that out if they kill me."  Liam's eyes roamed her form, "they'll see ye as the spoils.  Even dressed as a man, ye're very comely."

      Anne Marie snorted, then smiled sweetly, "In that case, perhaps my best option is to kill you.  Leave your pretty body where they can find it, and escape while they grieve your loss.  Or rather, the fact that they didn't get to kill you themselves."

"If'n ye kill me, darlin', ye'll not find yer treasure.  So ye have need of me, and ye'd miss me.  Besides, ye just said ye didn't kill men."

      "I said honest men, Liam.  That doesn't apply to you."  She grinned as she dismounted, drawing the iron great sword. "Though, I might miss you.  A little."  She could hear the laboured breathing of horses.  The party was almost upon them.

      "That's me girl!"  Liam chuckled and together they turned to face the eight riders that entered the clearing.


For those that recognize these characters, this event is before Liam undergoes the change that makes him immortal.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

All That Glitters...

Trifecta: Week Sixty-one
This week's word is:

BITCH (noun)
1: the female of the dog or some other carnivorous mammals
2 a : a lewd or immoral woman
   b : a malicious, spiteful, or overbearing woman —sometimes used as a generalized term of abuse
3: something that is extremely difficult, objectionable, or unpleasant
Please remember:
  • Your response must be between 33 and 333 words.
  • You must use the 3rd definition of the given word in your post.
  • The word itself needs to be included in your response.
  • You may not use a variation of the word; it needs to be exactly as stated above. 



    "What in the name of God have you done?"

    My sister, Abby, and I jumped at Aunt Lyds' screech, sending a cloud of pink and purple sparkles shimmering into the air.

    "Shit," I muttered as I tried to contain the iridescent dust settling over the table.

    "What just came out of your mouth, Christine Diane!"  Great Aunt Lyds screeched again. 

    "Nothing, Aunt Lyds."  I rolled my eyes, hoping she didn't catch that.  "I'm just helping Abby decorate some Valentine's card with glitter."

    "Glitter?"  She sneered.  "Demon spawn!  That's what it is!"

    "Wha..." Thankfully, Mom came to see what the ruckus was.

    "Lydia, what are you doing our of your room?  Stop scaring the girls with your nonsense."  Mom took her Aunt's arm and gently led her back to her room.  "Christine, you girls clean up now.  It's almost dinner time."  She called over her shoulder.

    Abby and I got busy brushing the stray glitter into the trash can.  I knew what Aunt Lyds meant, getting all that stuff cleaned up was a bitch.

    At least I thought I knew.  

    Aunt Lyds stopped coming out of her room a few days later.

    "I warned you!" She hollered almost hourly in her usual screech, "Demon spawn!"

    That's when I started to notice.  First, a small winking pink line began to creep out of the seam where the halves of the dining table met.

    Then, a pink sparkle oozed from between the couch cushions.

    One morning, Abby started screaming hysterically at breakfast.  Her oaten O's were dotted in glitter.  At that moment, the cat raced by yowling in panic.  A stream of glowing purple dust trailing behind her.

    "Mom? Mom!  I think we have a problem!"

    "What problem, honey?" she called from the kitchen.

    "The glitter, Mom, it's everywhere!"

    "Don't be silly, honey," She came up behind me as I turned and watched her pink glittered nails fussing with her purple glittered hair. "It's only glitter."  She smiled through shiny, glittery teeth.




    Monday, January 21, 2013

    Some Days


    Our opening sentence this week is from "Emma Donoghue’s “Room 
    The first sentence is:   Today I’m five.



    Today I am five.

    I am five today because I want to sleep beyond four am.

    I want to get up late and play with my toys.

    I want to play with my toys and my friends and their toys.

    I want to watch cartoons and laugh hysterically for no reason.


    I want to stomp my foot when I don’t get my way.

    I want to stomp both feet when no one listens to me.

    I want to say what I want without a filter.

    I want…I want to throw a tantrum.

    So, today, I will be five!