Did you ever see the movie Melancholia? Well, don't! That movie still freaks me out! Anyway, your story reminded me of it. "I'm sorry. These things happen." That's the whole thing, right there.
Blood was everywhere. The continuing carnage was an unexpected counterpoint to the pale florals the invitation had sweetly, strongly suggested. How had the lions escaped their bounds? Mary expected to read lengthy analyses in the papers, on the news, flooding the socials. She was surprised to be thinking all this amid the terrifying sounds of massacre below. But she wasn’t on the lawn anymore. That tree had saved her. There was no hope for the ones in summery party dresses, who were the first targets. Same for the men in pale linen, with their slippery new loafers never meant for athletics. But Mary, clad in dusky tones because she just wasn’t going to buy a new wardrobe for one occasion, who’d finally, recklessly, decided to wear what she wanted, had jumped onto a table under a sheltering tree as the slaughter began. She’d leaped for a low branch and clung to the tree trunk, found a handhold and started climbing. Now, nestled among the leaves, safe in the crook of sturdy branches, she heard far-off sirens as a backdrop to the screams. Mary looked away. Too late for most. Still, she’d probably need help getting down.
That you looked fabulous was never in doubt. I was worried that I’d gone too far and had to periodically remind myself, “She’s at a WEDDING. She doesn’t have time to read this stuff.” I hope the wedding was lovely. Thanks for the energizing prompt.
Had a great time! My entire former family was there (from my previous marriage). So, I went in a bit nervous but it was all really fun and even loving. And now I can collapse!
“No one was injured, but a woman was startled on Saturday when a meteorite pierced the roof of her home, ricocheted off the floor and struck a bedroom ceiling.”
I just want to pause for a moment on the word, 'startled'.
To me, startled is just one little notch up from surprised, perhaps I'll mention it to my partner when she gets home, maybe in a couple of days on the phone to my brother, 'Oh yeah, and also this meteorite hit the house the other day,' but way down, considerably way down from terrified/astonished/filled-with-awe/found a new respect just for being alive.
What else happens to this woman, daily, such that she's startled only.
That, and the ricochet part of the story while she is…startled…the lump of metal pierced her roof and ricocheted off the floor. It didn’t lie there like a good little meteorite should. Oh no—it bounced and struck a bedroom ceiling. Where is it now, the reader wonders? In some hapless person’s bed—someone who is now—-startled? Or did it fly back outside?
Of course, the meteor fell on the house. Why not? Pretty much everything else had gone wrong by then. We bought just before the market crashed spending $1,000,000 on a house that two years earlier had sold for $650,000. We thought we were getting a bargain, because we were too dim to understand that that kind of growth is not sustainable. We thought that with some repairs we could double our money. Anna’s father said, “Don’t do it. You watch; tech’s big plans are going to change once they get around to really looking at this place. Little airport, bad schools, no hospital, no roads that can be scaled up, limited water. It’s going to bust.” But did we listen? No, because Anna’s old man is a blowhard. We also ignored the inspector. His report initially flagged the possibility of mold, but he deleted that after we slipped him some cash. I think the sellers probably slipped him some too because he also didn’t notice the crumbling foundation and leaky roof. I suppose we’d have bought anyway because we were under the mistaken impression that we knew how to fix things. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, two years in we were living in a toxic construction zone, constantly coughing and arguing with over $200,000 in new debt on our credit cards. We were heading toward bankruptcy, divorce, and the lung clinic.
The evening before the meteor fell, we had a terrible fight, and as a consequence I was sleeping in the car in the Walmart parking lot at the moment of impact. As awful as everything was between us, I never wanted Anna to be squashed by a meteor. I was devastated. Although, slightly elated too because, you know, insurance. There’s a lot more to tell – like how they didn’t find any human remains in the rubble and for a while Anna’s father thought that I’d done her in earlier in the evening and dumped her in the ocean. How he came up with that one, I have no idea. Like I said, a blowhard. Anyway, it all worked out in the end, more or less. Shortly after the smash, the insurance company noticed that both of us had filed separate claims which led to our happy reunion. At least happy for now. You never know what’s coming your way.
I was so aggravated that I had to buy that dress. Flowers and frills and . . . lace? I mean, come on, who am I anymore?
But buy it I did. And off to the wedding I go in this dress. Damn brides. Fly here, stay there, wear this. Isn’t it enough I have to sit through the damn ceremony then listen to damn speeches then dance like I had any damn idea what I'm doing?
But you know what, it wasn’t so bad. I found a solution. Or it found me. See, I’m terrified of things, things like cars and trains and planes. And Vespas. I hear the vroom vroom of a Vespa and I jump out of my skin.
It wasn’t planned, but you know, serendipity. Outside the church, there we are. Milling around, waiting to go in. Quiet street, I’m enjoying the breeze under the catalpa tree. My dress does this cute swirl around my legs.
Then, vroom vroom. You got it. Vespa.
I jump and you’ll never believe it: When I come down my skin stays up there. And it’s wearing the dress! A breeze, and the skin and dress float to the left. I step to the right. Another couple of steps and I’m behind the tree and my skin inside the dress floats down and there I am, standing there. Except I’m not. I’m behind the tree. Feels a little weird, I have to say, and a squirrel keeps eyeing me like he's looking at a new kind of acorn. But he lets me pet his head, which, don't. Squirrel fur is gross, especially if your skin is detached and dancing.
They had a great time, my skin and my dress. The bride sent the loveliest note, mentioning how thrilled she was at my dancing. So loose! So flowing! She couldn't get over how low I could go doing the limbo.
The dress is in the back of my closet now. My skin is where it should be. But what's new since the wedding is that once in a while I get an itch to dance and I put the dress on and go mill around outside a nightclub waiting for a Vespa to show up. One always does.
It was around three in the morning when the drama began. Our 1917 craftsman house, like the others along the block, was built before all the bars and coffee shops arrived. I often wished we lived further away from the delivery trucks, car alarms going off, and drunks yelling goodbyes to their buddies in the middle of the night.
I was used to hearing shouting and car doors slamming, especially when the bars let out. It must have been an hour later when the evening grew quiet. My whole body jerked out a deep slumber when I heard screeching brakes, then a car honking over and over, then a man’s voice yelling, then another man, all in quick succession. My eyes flew open just before the gunshots rang out, the shots fired seemed to be very close to our bedroom window, which was facing the alley. I flipped the blankets off my legs, my heart pumping wildly, piling the bedding onto David.
“David, wake up. I heard a gun.” I said.
“What are you doing?” David said, still sleepy, but awake enough to be annoyed.
“Didn’t you hear that? How could you not hear that?”
“It was a car backfiring. Go back to sleep.” This came out as an order. He punched his pillow and put his head back down.
“No. It was gunshots. I’m calling 911.”
“Don’t. Do not. It wasn’t bullets. Stop it. It’s a car backfiring.”
We argued back and forth, time wasting, me out of bed, David still half asleep. He put the pillow over his head as a buffer from my panic. I paced our small, dark living room with the cordless phone in my hand. I ended up feeling as if I shouldn’t call the police, and I didn’t, even though I knew what I heard. If it was gunfire, surely someone would. Why did I cave in so easily? I knew I was right. It was early in our marriage, I’d moved into his place, and I still felt as if I was in his house, almost a guest.
I was confused and felt unsure of myself.
But the next day on the news, a man was being interviewed about being shot. He named the street corner (ours) and that no one called 911. He'd had to crawl over to the pay phones by the grocery store, and with bloody quarters, he called 911 himself. After that, I said to myself, it's not so bad being anxious. Sometimes we are just more aware.
Your description in this of your anxiety, your less than supportive partner--the way you describe his actions with the pillow say everything the reader needs to know about him. This is terrifying to read.
He never thought it would be a meteor, he was always sure it would be a small plane that crashed directly into his apartment.
He is right.
It is late, his husband has gone to bed, but he is still on the computer in his bedroom. A one-man Cessna arrows through his apartment roof, plunging right into his 2nd floor living room, lodging in his floor as if it had aimed specifically for that spot.
It’s impossible to describe what that kind of shock feels like. In a millisecond, a drastic new reality supplants another.
The next few seconds move in slow motion. Mark doesn’t quite scream so much as take huge gulps of panicked breaths while emitting a sort of unearthly half-yell.
Some force outside of himself gets him out of his chair, just as the bleary-eyed Dave comes out of his room. In unison, they cry out, “What the fuck!?” Mark barks, “Get dressed, quick!” David runs into his room to do so.
Mark moves down the hall fearfully, sees there is a pilot passed out at the plane’s controls. Just as he gets close enough to touch him, David yells from behind.
“What are you doing, he’s dead! C’mon!”
“Maybe he’s not!” Mark yells back.
Suddenly, they both hear the sound of trickling fuel. “C’mon!” David repeats urgently, before he bolts down the stairs, telling himself Mark is right behind him.
Mark reaches out and feel the pilot’s neck for a pulse, finding one. He tries to shake him awake-- the pilot only moans. Mark glances at the door, back at the man. He has the useless thought that he’s kind of handsome. Exactly a moment later, the leaking fuel explodes.
Fortunately. Mark’s death fulfills completely the fantasy he’s always had about how he’d most want to die. He is front page news, a hero, no less. And they use a good photo of him, thank God, plucked off his Facebook page.
What’s unexpected is that David makes a surprisingly articulate and telegenic widower, and with news cameras and microphones in his face, says things Mark might have scripted: “You have no idea what we lost. He was such a generous and funny person. And a brilliant writer. Brilliant!”
David eventually gets a huge settlement from Cessna, but he lets profits from the giant jump in sales of “Ink from the Pen” go to Mark’s sisters.
Well, that was my goal, so it makes me happy to hear that. Although it was pretty easy, because I really have had exactly this fantasy for years - and I suspect most of us who fear dying unheralded have had adjacent imaginings.
Wow. I hope you don't live too closely to an airport. Steve flew Cessnas--got his license at 17--so this one is a bit close to home for me. Love the way you have flipped the script on this one and even worked in your highly successful posthumous book sales!
Did you lose a husband whose Cessna crashed? Sorry if that's the case!
There was a crash of small plane not far from here that landed in an apartment living room about ten years ago, and it always stayed with me. Killed the man in the apartment, and the pilot, of course.
I think you'd be better off suggesting for me to stay out of a car, which is a billion time more likely to cause my demise than getting hit in by a small plane that crashes into my apartment, but I appreciate the sentiment. I'm not going anywhere, but I do enjoy the fantasy of posthumous fame, (although would much prefer pre-humous fame!)
No. Steve doesn’t fly any longer—it was expensive when we were young married folks, and he used to fly back and forth to a lake cabin we rented when the kiddos were little. Now, he longs to fly—I think the urge never leaves people who love it. Eventually, I hope he goes up with an instructor and gets some hours in that way.
She opens the front door and a brown wave rushes in. Up to her thighs, knocks her backwards. Hits her head on something wooden, something stunning, brain whirling, nothing clear but the wave rushing her on and this time her head bangs the fridge and she is swallowing water smells of shit tastes worse, she coughs and chokes on it.
She thinks will that save me, wake me up, up on feet.
She grabs the fridge. She thinks how can you grab a fridge with wet and shitty hands anyway this fridge is floating off round the kitchen like a doomed virus-laden cruise ship in the Atlantic off West Africa how can you think such nonsense at a moment like this when you're still trying to stand up in a wave of sewage and storm water and what else?
Hail? Hailstones like tennis balls bobbing in on the tide! The car! Why didn't I put it in the garage? And the dogs? Where are the dogs? Windowsmash big hailstone like a rock. Water swirling in more. Get up and shut the fucking door!
Chair. Floating. Grab it. Pin it down, sit on it. Now stand. Wade to door. Current pulls on legs. Do not fall. Dogs splashfloat in panicking crash against legs stay standing! Go away boys if I can shut the door I'll help you! Kitchen table bobbing around here boys climb up on this. Good boys, good boys, stay, stay!
Now the door. Open wide. Where is all this shit coming from? River overflowed? Push against the current. Harder, harder.
Door breaks off hinges.
Smashes back, wallops my head to splintering sound. Door or head? Blood on my hand.
Water rising. Getting dark. On your feet, girl. Candles, matches, you know where. On your feet, girl. You know where.
On your feet.
Latest: Emergency services find body of young woman among riverbank trees as floodwaters subside. Thought to have been in water for two days.
Well, disasters are kind of sad... And I was conforming to the prompt, making it scary and edgy...
As for the real-life events that inspired it, there wasn't just one woman but about three and about three men. We were having supper in an isolated farmhouse in a valley near a stream. A storm created a flash flood. In no time we had three feet of water in the kitchen. We stashed papers and valuables as high as possible. We had to go outside to climb a ladder to the attic above. Carrying the dogs. I had mine over my shoulders. He was long-haired and sopping wet. Climbing the crappy old ladder with water swirling below was just a little worrisome. Once everyone was in the attic, where there were old mattresses and things, we could try to sleep. But wet and cold. Then a lot to clean up, broken stuff to replace. No joke, but no one was hurt (dogs included). (As for cats, they'd sprinted up the ladder right at the start).
It was hard to believe. A storm stayed at the same spot for a couple of hours and chucked buckets of rain down. We were eating I don't remember what and drinking red wine when someone said "The sink's gurgling". Then the electricity went bang. If we'd locked and bolted the big front door and plugged under the door with cloth or something, the water wouldn't have come in (not three feet of it, anyway). But ha-ha we opened the door to see what was happening, and in came the water.
Yikes. This one moved from dark and shitty (not your writing--the content) to even darker. Wow...Per your comment below, I'm glad it didn't get worse for you IRL.
Man alive. Sheesh this had me on edge! I just took an emergency preparedness class, and we had to name all the possible events and what we'd do...I should share this with the group. So good.
It's based on a real-life experience, which helped with the details (the frightened dogs wobbling on a floating table, for ex). Fortunately, we were half a dozen and the worse we suffered was a miserable wet night.
Sheesh. There's a place in our city where people built fancy houses, and they shift and slide. One slid off into the Puget Sound years ago. Horrible. Another time, a house shifted, and a man and his dog were trapped when a giant fridge pinned them down. He was like that for HOURS but he lived, and so did the dog. But my god, the trauma.
Strangely, I was not at all bothered by the prospect that this meteorite, had a gust of wind decided to blow ever so slightly, may have actually landed directly onto my head rather than my brand new sofa that I had just bought a week ago. Part of me kind of wishes that it did. Perhaps that gust of wind did, in fact, occur, but someone nearby had sneezed and the two forces canceled out, inadvertently saving my life. I think they made a movie about that. The fabric is currently on fire, I’m not sure what to do.
I quickly run to the kitchen to grab a pot to fill with water. Five-ply stainless steel capable of holding 4 quarts of liquid, compatible with both traditional and induction cooktops, and oven-safe. I haven’t used it in months.
I can’t help but crack a bleak smile at the whining of the fire alarm. She used to rely on that as a sign that her steak was done cooking. Well-done, dry as a bone, with a side of steak sauce, I couldn’t stand to see it. I always joked that I could finish my steak before hers was even ready to plate. My hands get wet as the pot overflows.
At the center of the crater, a small, jagged stone smolders as the life within desperately struggles to breathe. I watch as the fire vanishes and the red hot glow wanes into a dull, sad gray. I’ll probably have to buy another couch now, it’s easier to replace things than repair it these days.
--
Hi Mary, first time poster. I got excited to do my first writing prompt here and I may have missed #3 saying it should be thrilling. I don't think this exactly classifies as that but I hope you enjoy regardless.
Calvin, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Love the flashback to cooking steak by someone who relies on the smoke alarm. Maybe I see myself in that just a bit. This has great descriptive parts throughout! Keep writing!
A fiery meteorite six feet in diameter woke families all over Northern Ohio with a loud boom on Saint Patrick’s Day. It was first sighted over Lake Erie at 9 am by a redhead incel whose arms, chest and legs were covered in lewd tatous. He had stayed up all night doomscrolling as he listened to Fox News recount the U.S. victories in Iran: “let’s bomb them into the Stone Age” he repeated, his face illuminated by the sheer joy of a struggle he felt intimately part of. Seeing the fireball and hearing the sonic boom, he immediately concluded that the explosion was part of the Iranian riposte to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that had been wracking their country since February 28. Ready to defend his own country against the ungodly aliens, he went upstairs into the attic, grabbed an AK 47, an MK 153 SMAW, an anti-drone laser device and climbed up onto his roof to get an overall view of the countryside. He would have taken a Patriot surface-to-air missile, had he been able to steal such a device. (Since they are somewhat more cumbersome than the missile launchers he already owned, he would need to coordinate with his Telegram buddies.) As it was, he had in the last year amassed a cache of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms, about 11,000 rounds of ammunition, about 130 magazines, and four pairs of night-vision goggles.
Heading out toward Maggie’s farm, just west of Akron, he stopped at a baseball diamond. The meteorite hunters were already there, scouring the ground in the hopes of finding the detritus of a rare type of meteor. Iranian spies? He stopped the car and got out the AK 47.
Maggie’s Farm is where he usually meets his buddies, Maggie having returned her vest since her time in the Weather Underground. Also, the meteorite landed west of Akron so the place may be crawling with Iranian spies.
I have collected all of my what nows in one document. It's now over 80,000 words. 80,000! I don't post them all, but it has given me a gift I never thought I would receive: confidence that the well does not run dry. I was terrified of this before. Terrified to the extent that I hardly wrote a word for nearly 20 years. Silly and illogical and melodramatic, but it is true.
Well. Mary - you know, I hope, how I feel about this and your generosity, and also everyone here who has been part of this group.
Now, I am still writing my what nows, but I am also, alongside that, pushing into longer projects, which is something I have never ever done before. The fear made me snap everything shut within a thousand words or so. I would look for the ironic, or absurd, or 'clever' conceit to just close it off. Not because I thought it was right, but because it was safest to do so. It cost less.
Now, from the confidence what now has given me, I have managed to push through. I wrote a few things that got to the 2 or 4 thousand mark. Then for one, I just kept going, and going, and going. It had a momentum. I got to ten thousand words, then another voice took over, a different character and in a completely different mode. It is quiet, it is present, it is not trying to force it to go anywhere or to find meaning, or to be part of a plan or conceit.
I find... I don't know how to think 'novel'. I read short stories daily, and I think I have some just subconscious feel for how they function. I have some habits of thinking that I can sort of lean on. But, for a project the length of a novel, I have no idea at all. For those of you (and I know there are many) that DO have experience of writing longer projects, even of finishing or publishing novels, I wonder. How do you think (or not think) in order to get the first draft down? I know there are loads of books about how to structure etc. But I mean something different: how to think or not in a way that is different from the short story way?
Hey Niall. (thank you for your kind words here.) As someone who has published two novels, I can speak for my own process. Which comes down to VERY LITTLE THINKING and just pressing ahead, paragraph by paragraph, day by day. Eventually, the piece of clay starts to look like something. And then, it starts to clarify in my brain. I keep going and going until I get to the "end." Then, I look at the whole thing and eventually figure out what the "real" story is. I see why I wrote the whole damn thing in the first place. I see what needs to be tossed, moved, rewritten, changed, added to. The short story is a strange and difficult compressed puzzle. The novel is open and free. You write and you write and you write. You go off on tangents, wondering where they may lead. Some of them lead nowhere and get deleted or put in a file. It's a completely different process and animal! In a short story, everything counts. Everything is leading to the heart of the story. Not so in the novel! In the novel, the writer gets to write! It's all about allowing yourself to just go go go, knowing that there's plenty of time for it all to come together. I find writing a novel a million times easier than a short story. Also, one you have a draft, THAT'S when you start thinking about structure. Let me know if you have questions.
Some people like to write with the structure in mind, and of course, if you write a murder mystery, you already know the whole story when you start writing. But that's a different kind of writing. When I wrote my books, I had a vague idea of where I was headed, but was always open to letting that ending change. It's all in the rewrite--at least for me. And yes, writing a novel is to give yourself permission to write. The taming comes later.
Also, Niall--next week ask your question again, but on the first day, if possible. That way, more people will see it here in the comments and perhaps get back to you.
Like you, Mary's challenges gave me a kickstart after 20 years!! I'm now working on a collection of linked short stories that some people keep saying might be a novel - there appears to be a bigger arc that stretches above the whole thing.
Everyone works differently, but I find that just letting the characters show me where they want to go has kept me moving forward. I look forward to seeing what others have to say about your last question...
They were lying on the bed sweating, waiting for their heart rates to return to normal after some pretty athletic sex, when the black Cadillac slammed through the front of the house.
“What the fuck?” Benjamin bolted up, wrapping a sheet around his nakedness.
“Wait here,” he hissed at Felicia as he raced into the living room. He’d been flirting with her for months and finally persuaded her to visit during her lunch hour. Not waiting, she jumped up and found her underwear.
The big car had split the credenza below the bay window, sending the enormous pink turnip-shaped vase that Benjamin’s wife Margie had inherited from her great aunt flying across the room spewing pussywillow branches, and continued into the middle of the living room, shattering the glass coffee table before shuddering to a stop. The woman in the driver’s seat opened her door and stepped out. She was a compact black woman with a shaved head, several earrings in each ear, and a muscle shirt. Her body looked like an ad for a power-lifting program. She seemed undamaged.
“What the hell?” Benjamin said.
“I’m so sorry,” said the woman. She didn’t sound particularly sorry. “I was parking in front and I got distracted thinking about what I had to say to you. Slammed my foot on the gas instead of the brake.”
“Are you crazy? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a private investigator,” she said. “Name is Becker, of Becker and Decker. I’m sure you’ve heard our commercials.”
Benjamin had indeed heard their commercials.
Felicia, with most of her clothes back on, was trying to be invisible as she headed toward the front door. Becker grabbed her by the arm and sat her down on the couch to the left of the pink vase, which had landed there unbroken.
“Your wife hired us,” Becker said, “to catch you cheating. Gave us a deposit yesterday to get started. Unfortunately, we found her body this morning behind the dumpster in our office parking lot. I thought I should come chat with you about it before talking to the police.”
Benjamin’s knees began to buckle. He barely made it to the couch, elbowed the pink vase out of the way and sat. Benjamin had hated that vase from the moment he’d seen it. He’d often thought his marriage was doomed from that day.
“Behind the dumpster?” he stammered. “She’s dead?”
Thanks, Angela. Not planning on going further with this - but the vase features prominently in something else I’m working on, and it just crept in here :)
The back row of pews yawned. Empty as she slipped through a side door at the back of the nave. Jolie puffed a quiet exhale and smoothed the skirt of her little black dress. Pastel fairyland on all sides—sweet flowers, sweet spring dresses, and groomsmen in pastel-colored ties. Sole mourner at this vernal wake, she slid into the corner of the polished wood bench. Yup. Jolie ignored the dress code accompanying her invitation. And really, did anyone look good in pastel pink? She risked peril via the tsk-tsking aunties at the reception. But she had her reasons.
A bridesmaid, sedate in dusty lilac chiffon floated onto the center aisle. Her gown matched the bow tie of the groomsman standing three beyond the groom.
How cute.
The groom. That curl of blond hair not so carelessly tumbled onto his forehead. A month ago, (?) she had smoothed it back. Memory and Jolie shrank into the pew’s back.
A second bridesmaid faltered and stumbled as seven minor staccato chords sounded from the balcony. ACBABCB.
A sylph in dusky blue chiffon, she recovered and strode on as the plucked notes repeated–ACBABCB–rising above the muted tones of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
Murmuring. A ripple of whispers among groomsmen and wedding guests. Discreet. Curious. The groom, his eyes wide, stared at the balcony and raised one arm, palm outward.
“Stop!” He coughed.
Jolie turned her head to see three women, their arms around each other’s waists, all in dusty pastel pink chiffon. All of them grinning as their voices rose,
“Oh! Well imagine, as I’m pacing the pews in a church corridor…”
Wedding guests spun toward the performance. A third attendant in dusty green chiffon stopped mid-aisle to watch.
“No Lorelei!” The bride’s mother moaned as her daughter stepped into the balcony and sang,
“What a beautiful wedding!” And all four belted,
“Yes, but what a shame! The poor bride’s groom is a whore!”
A screen dropped from a ceiling panel behind the groom. The bride yelled,
“Everybody out!”
Her companions descended and ushered people out of the chapel.
“Oh, Julia!” She pointed to the attendant still mid-aisle. “Stick around and watch the fun with Michael!” She pointed to the screen.
Pandemonium as wedding guests gazed from Lorelei to Michael, back again to Lorelei, and shuffled to the exit. Each of her pink-clad companions grabbed the arm of a groomsman—a processional through the side door.
Michael blustered,
“You don’t understand!”
His words were drowned by a thunderous rumble from overhead. The floor shook. A fireball shattered the wall of stained glass behind him and sizzled as it burst into flames between he and the stunned bridesmaid.
“How…startling.” The clergyman’s only words as he followed Jolie and Lorelei to the reception hall.
Sirens wailed in the distance as the two women entered the reception singing,
“Well, this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne…”
Yeah. So do I. I think this one begs to be developed more, but I tried to hold it to 400 words (and failed at that too). I'll probably go back and play with this one.
“Whoa!” someone yelled as the plane suddenly lost height. There were screams and curses. The plane bounced as it hit another pocket of turbulence. Jim closed his eyes and imagined he was riding ocean swells. It always helped when he was flying through agitated air.
“Flight attendants, please end cabin service and return to your seats” said the Captain.
“Folks, we’re going to have some bumpy air for the next 20 minutes or so. Nothing to worry about.”
An overhead bin snapped open, a can of beer rolled down the aisle, trailing a frothy tail. This is rough for a Monday thought Jim. A baby was crying, 24A seemed to be praying quietly. The plane lurched and skidded across the sky. The waves in Jim’s head were now crashing against their frail tin tube.
“My God!” shouted 23C, “Look at that!” He was pointing directly over the port wing where a bright, pulsing light was rushing past them towards Earth 40,000 feet below, trailing dust and destruction.
It’s a bird!
No.
It’s a plane!
No, it isn’t.
It’s, ah Superman!
Don’t be an ass, Wilbur. It’s a meteor.
A meteor, you mean..?
Burning a hole in the sky, headed in our direction.
Can’t be.
I’m afraid we are the dinosaurs now, Wilbur.
There was a moment of silence.
But our plans. The party tomorrow. The children.
I’m sorry. These things happen.
Well, what is going to happen, exactly?
You see the meteor don’t you. The burning ball, getting larger all the time.
Of course I see it.
Well it’s going to hit the earth just about here, Wilbur, right where we’re standing, and keep on going, deep, deep down.
That sounds like a death sentence.
It’s nothing new, is it?
Well. I don’t know. How much time do we have?
Does that matter?
It matters to me all right.
Counting the seconds, are we? Cutting it that close, after all this time?
Well, yes, of course. Everything second counts.
There was another moment of silence. Then . . .
Did you ever see the movie Melancholia? Well, don't! That movie still freaks me out! Anyway, your story reminded me of it. "I'm sorry. These things happen." That's the whole thing, right there.
Haven't seen Melancholia, but now I've got to, of course, to see what freaks you out.
Don't say i didn't warn you!
I just want to add:
"Something tells me we're going to be oil one day. I feel it in my bones."
I can't help but picture a talking pig and spider imagining themselves to be dinosaurs and accepting their death by force majeure.
When life gives you meteors, make bacon?
Well done! There’s a story beyond the meteor with the line: “cutting it that close, after all this time?”
I wondered about that.
Cool as a cucumber, that one, what with the impending dinosaur status and all.
“The burning ball, getting larger all the time” From that point on I was just waiting for impact.
nicely existential!
I never thought of that. Maybe I'm getting numb.
Not numb - philosophical.
how much time do you have?
that's what i want to know
Look up in the sky : ) Count backwards.
Blood was everywhere. The continuing carnage was an unexpected counterpoint to the pale florals the invitation had sweetly, strongly suggested. How had the lions escaped their bounds? Mary expected to read lengthy analyses in the papers, on the news, flooding the socials. She was surprised to be thinking all this amid the terrifying sounds of massacre below. But she wasn’t on the lawn anymore. That tree had saved her. There was no hope for the ones in summery party dresses, who were the first targets. Same for the men in pale linen, with their slippery new loafers never meant for athletics. But Mary, clad in dusky tones because she just wasn’t going to buy a new wardrobe for one occasion, who’d finally, recklessly, decided to wear what she wanted, had jumped onto a table under a sheltering tree as the slaughter began. She’d leaped for a low branch and clung to the tree trunk, found a handhold and started climbing. Now, nestled among the leaves, safe in the crook of sturdy branches, she heard far-off sirens as a backdrop to the screams. Mary looked away. Too late for most. Still, she’d probably need help getting down.
Oh, my god! This is too hilarious! I DID end up wearing what I wanted to wear. And may I add, I looked fabulous....
That you looked fabulous was never in doubt. I was worried that I’d gone too far and had to periodically remind myself, “She’s at a WEDDING. She doesn’t have time to read this stuff.” I hope the wedding was lovely. Thanks for the energizing prompt.
Had a great time! My entire former family was there (from my previous marriage). So, I went in a bit nervous but it was all really fun and even loving. And now I can collapse!
Now THAT’S our Mary! Well done! Love the “sweetly, strongly” suggested, by the way.
Thank you. Mary gave a great prompt (disaster strikes!) and what with the discussion of wedding attire, the two immediately seemed linked.
I’m traveling down that same pathway. Strange, wild, and fun.
Thank goodness for the tree! Who would prompt us if that tree hadn't saved Mary?
I always suspected that she was very resourceful.
well, that's what happens when the lions hear about a wedding. Talk about a Wedding Crasher. . .
Very fun! Love the last line.
Very witty tie-in to Mary's intro.
Thank you.
Stardust
The meteorite crashed through
my bedroom ceiling last night.
I had been dreaming of a sparkling spring
where the watercress was perfectly ready.
I woke up thirsty.
The kitchen rattled as the flaming rock
landed on my bed, on my pillow
on the indent of my own head.
It lay smoldering, a rock
the size of my fist.
After the roof is repaired,
after my ceiling and bedding restored,
will I ever sleep again?
Or is this my wake-up call?
Life is unpredictable,
and danger lives among us.
We may as well carry on living
our lives as fearlessly as the stars.
We all turn to dust in the end.
We must sparkle while we are able.
Love this poem!
Yes indeed, sparkle while we can.
“No one was injured, but a woman was startled on Saturday when a meteorite pierced the roof of her home, ricocheted off the floor and struck a bedroom ceiling.”
I just want to pause for a moment on the word, 'startled'.
To me, startled is just one little notch up from surprised, perhaps I'll mention it to my partner when she gets home, maybe in a couple of days on the phone to my brother, 'Oh yeah, and also this meteorite hit the house the other day,' but way down, considerably way down from terrified/astonished/filled-with-awe/found a new respect just for being alive.
What else happens to this woman, daily, such that she's startled only.
She does not need Klonopin, obviously.
That, and the ricochet part of the story while she is…startled…the lump of metal pierced her roof and ricocheted off the floor. It didn’t lie there like a good little meteorite should. Oh no—it bounced and struck a bedroom ceiling. Where is it now, the reader wonders? In some hapless person’s bed—someone who is now—-startled? Or did it fly back outside?
"What else happens to this woman, daily, such that she's startled only." Ha! Exactly.
More meteorites than we know?
Ha!
Of course, the meteor fell on the house. Why not? Pretty much everything else had gone wrong by then. We bought just before the market crashed spending $1,000,000 on a house that two years earlier had sold for $650,000. We thought we were getting a bargain, because we were too dim to understand that that kind of growth is not sustainable. We thought that with some repairs we could double our money. Anna’s father said, “Don’t do it. You watch; tech’s big plans are going to change once they get around to really looking at this place. Little airport, bad schools, no hospital, no roads that can be scaled up, limited water. It’s going to bust.” But did we listen? No, because Anna’s old man is a blowhard. We also ignored the inspector. His report initially flagged the possibility of mold, but he deleted that after we slipped him some cash. I think the sellers probably slipped him some too because he also didn’t notice the crumbling foundation and leaky roof. I suppose we’d have bought anyway because we were under the mistaken impression that we knew how to fix things. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, two years in we were living in a toxic construction zone, constantly coughing and arguing with over $200,000 in new debt on our credit cards. We were heading toward bankruptcy, divorce, and the lung clinic.
The evening before the meteor fell, we had a terrible fight, and as a consequence I was sleeping in the car in the Walmart parking lot at the moment of impact. As awful as everything was between us, I never wanted Anna to be squashed by a meteor. I was devastated. Although, slightly elated too because, you know, insurance. There’s a lot more to tell – like how they didn’t find any human remains in the rubble and for a while Anna’s father thought that I’d done her in earlier in the evening and dumped her in the ocean. How he came up with that one, I have no idea. Like I said, a blowhard. Anyway, it all worked out in the end, more or less. Shortly after the smash, the insurance company noticed that both of us had filed separate claims which led to our happy reunion. At least happy for now. You never know what’s coming your way.
"Although, slightly elated too because, you know, insurance." Ha! These two deserve each other. Very fun ending
Those mixed feelings: devastation, elation. The one constant was the blowhard. I'm glad you could count on him.
Nice O'Henry twist at the end.
"As awful as everything was between us, I never wanted Anna to be squashed by a meteor."
Lovely line, that.
Oh Deborah. I’d follow you anywhere. But not with my checkbook!
haha "because, you know, insurance"
Glad Anna turned up to file her claim!
Very fun!
I was so aggravated that I had to buy that dress. Flowers and frills and . . . lace? I mean, come on, who am I anymore?
But buy it I did. And off to the wedding I go in this dress. Damn brides. Fly here, stay there, wear this. Isn’t it enough I have to sit through the damn ceremony then listen to damn speeches then dance like I had any damn idea what I'm doing?
But you know what, it wasn’t so bad. I found a solution. Or it found me. See, I’m terrified of things, things like cars and trains and planes. And Vespas. I hear the vroom vroom of a Vespa and I jump out of my skin.
It wasn’t planned, but you know, serendipity. Outside the church, there we are. Milling around, waiting to go in. Quiet street, I’m enjoying the breeze under the catalpa tree. My dress does this cute swirl around my legs.
Then, vroom vroom. You got it. Vespa.
I jump and you’ll never believe it: When I come down my skin stays up there. And it’s wearing the dress! A breeze, and the skin and dress float to the left. I step to the right. Another couple of steps and I’m behind the tree and my skin inside the dress floats down and there I am, standing there. Except I’m not. I’m behind the tree. Feels a little weird, I have to say, and a squirrel keeps eyeing me like he's looking at a new kind of acorn. But he lets me pet his head, which, don't. Squirrel fur is gross, especially if your skin is detached and dancing.
They had a great time, my skin and my dress. The bride sent the loveliest note, mentioning how thrilled she was at my dancing. So loose! So flowing! She couldn't get over how low I could go doing the limbo.
The dress is in the back of my closet now. My skin is where it should be. But what's new since the wedding is that once in a while I get an itch to dance and I put the dress on and go mill around outside a nightclub waiting for a Vespa to show up. One always does.
Yes, it was exactly like that!! How did you know?
Love this one ! The skin and the dress had such a great time dancing, but what about Mary behind her tree?
Well now I had to go add something about Mary behind her tree. Details like that elude me, and I'm a virgo!
Oh, Mary behind the tree fell into a conversation with a squirrel. The hours flew by.
"My dress does this cute swirl around my legs."
WHAT? THE. HECK.
now I know the Kind of Person (KoP) you are, I hold tight to my dress.
It's always advisable, Ruth.
“The vroom vroom of a Vespa” would make a great Vespa ad.
Love the squirrel piece: “But he lets me pet his head, which, don't. Squirrel fur is gross…”
wild and surreal! I love it
I'm tempted to photoshop skinless Mary behind the tree. Of all the superpowers one could have, I don't think I'd choose that.
(But I liked how you stepped into another gender. We don't do that enough.)
Delicious Kevin!
Thanks, Christine.
Ah. Just saw this, a moment after I posted. Great minds, etc.
Indeed! Although different outcomes for all involved.
It was around three in the morning when the drama began. Our 1917 craftsman house, like the others along the block, was built before all the bars and coffee shops arrived. I often wished we lived further away from the delivery trucks, car alarms going off, and drunks yelling goodbyes to their buddies in the middle of the night.
I was used to hearing shouting and car doors slamming, especially when the bars let out. It must have been an hour later when the evening grew quiet. My whole body jerked out a deep slumber when I heard screeching brakes, then a car honking over and over, then a man’s voice yelling, then another man, all in quick succession. My eyes flew open just before the gunshots rang out, the shots fired seemed to be very close to our bedroom window, which was facing the alley. I flipped the blankets off my legs, my heart pumping wildly, piling the bedding onto David.
“David, wake up. I heard a gun.” I said.
“What are you doing?” David said, still sleepy, but awake enough to be annoyed.
“Didn’t you hear that? How could you not hear that?”
“It was a car backfiring. Go back to sleep.” This came out as an order. He punched his pillow and put his head back down.
“No. It was gunshots. I’m calling 911.”
“Don’t. Do not. It wasn’t bullets. Stop it. It’s a car backfiring.”
We argued back and forth, time wasting, me out of bed, David still half asleep. He put the pillow over his head as a buffer from my panic. I paced our small, dark living room with the cordless phone in my hand. I ended up feeling as if I shouldn’t call the police, and I didn’t, even though I knew what I heard. If it was gunfire, surely someone would. Why did I cave in so easily? I knew I was right. It was early in our marriage, I’d moved into his place, and I still felt as if I was in his house, almost a guest.
I was confused and felt unsure of myself.
But the next day on the news, a man was being interviewed about being shot. He named the street corner (ours) and that no one called 911. He'd had to crawl over to the pay phones by the grocery store, and with bloody quarters, he called 911 himself. After that, I said to myself, it's not so bad being anxious. Sometimes we are just more aware.
"it's not so bad being anxious. Sometimes we are just more aware." Let's hear it for the Anxious People! My peeps!
Exactly! If it weren’t for us hearing those weird noises in the night or loud noises and not sleeping through shit, everyone would be dead!!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
Right???
Your description in this of your anxiety, your less than supportive partner--the way you describe his actions with the pillow say everything the reader needs to know about him. This is terrifying to read.
It's fun to take events and dramatize the shit out of how things unfolded!
Sea===That does it
I'm just going to quit worrying about you
you need to move to a safer environment
Perhaps a padded cell :)
We rarely have shootings up here! It’s lovely… but I still lock the doors.
Stop craving in!!
He never thought it would be a meteor, he was always sure it would be a small plane that crashed directly into his apartment.
He is right.
It is late, his husband has gone to bed, but he is still on the computer in his bedroom. A one-man Cessna arrows through his apartment roof, plunging right into his 2nd floor living room, lodging in his floor as if it had aimed specifically for that spot.
It’s impossible to describe what that kind of shock feels like. In a millisecond, a drastic new reality supplants another.
The next few seconds move in slow motion. Mark doesn’t quite scream so much as take huge gulps of panicked breaths while emitting a sort of unearthly half-yell.
Some force outside of himself gets him out of his chair, just as the bleary-eyed Dave comes out of his room. In unison, they cry out, “What the fuck!?” Mark barks, “Get dressed, quick!” David runs into his room to do so.
Mark moves down the hall fearfully, sees there is a pilot passed out at the plane’s controls. Just as he gets close enough to touch him, David yells from behind.
“What are you doing, he’s dead! C’mon!”
“Maybe he’s not!” Mark yells back.
Suddenly, they both hear the sound of trickling fuel. “C’mon!” David repeats urgently, before he bolts down the stairs, telling himself Mark is right behind him.
Mark reaches out and feel the pilot’s neck for a pulse, finding one. He tries to shake him awake-- the pilot only moans. Mark glances at the door, back at the man. He has the useless thought that he’s kind of handsome. Exactly a moment later, the leaking fuel explodes.
Fortunately. Mark’s death fulfills completely the fantasy he’s always had about how he’d most want to die. He is front page news, a hero, no less. And they use a good photo of him, thank God, plucked off his Facebook page.
What’s unexpected is that David makes a surprisingly articulate and telegenic widower, and with news cameras and microphones in his face, says things Mark might have scripted: “You have no idea what we lost. He was such a generous and funny person. And a brilliant writer. Brilliant!”
David eventually gets a huge settlement from Cessna, but he lets profits from the giant jump in sales of “Ink from the Pen” go to Mark’s sisters.
Oh, man, I laughed at this one. "he's kind of handsome." And "they use a good photo of him." And then the sales of your book! So funny
Well, that was my goal, so it makes me happy to hear that. Although it was pretty easy, because I really have had exactly this fantasy for years - and I suspect most of us who fear dying unheralded have had adjacent imaginings.
I'll never admit to it....
Wow. I hope you don't live too closely to an airport. Steve flew Cessnas--got his license at 17--so this one is a bit close to home for me. Love the way you have flipped the script on this one and even worked in your highly successful posthumous book sales!
Don't go anywhere though, ok?
Did you lose a husband whose Cessna crashed? Sorry if that's the case!
There was a crash of small plane not far from here that landed in an apartment living room about ten years ago, and it always stayed with me. Killed the man in the apartment, and the pilot, of course.
I think you'd be better off suggesting for me to stay out of a car, which is a billion time more likely to cause my demise than getting hit in by a small plane that crashes into my apartment, but I appreciate the sentiment. I'm not going anywhere, but I do enjoy the fantasy of posthumous fame, (although would much prefer pre-humous fame!)
No. Steve doesn’t fly any longer—it was expensive when we were young married folks, and he used to fly back and forth to a lake cabin we rented when the kiddos were little. Now, he longs to fly—I think the urge never leaves people who love it. Eventually, I hope he goes up with an instructor and gets some hours in that way.
She opens the front door and a brown wave rushes in. Up to her thighs, knocks her backwards. Hits her head on something wooden, something stunning, brain whirling, nothing clear but the wave rushing her on and this time her head bangs the fridge and she is swallowing water smells of shit tastes worse, she coughs and chokes on it.
She thinks will that save me, wake me up, up on feet.
She grabs the fridge. She thinks how can you grab a fridge with wet and shitty hands anyway this fridge is floating off round the kitchen like a doomed virus-laden cruise ship in the Atlantic off West Africa how can you think such nonsense at a moment like this when you're still trying to stand up in a wave of sewage and storm water and what else?
Hail? Hailstones like tennis balls bobbing in on the tide! The car! Why didn't I put it in the garage? And the dogs? Where are the dogs? Windowsmash big hailstone like a rock. Water swirling in more. Get up and shut the fucking door!
Chair. Floating. Grab it. Pin it down, sit on it. Now stand. Wade to door. Current pulls on legs. Do not fall. Dogs splashfloat in panicking crash against legs stay standing! Go away boys if I can shut the door I'll help you! Kitchen table bobbing around here boys climb up on this. Good boys, good boys, stay, stay!
Now the door. Open wide. Where is all this shit coming from? River overflowed? Push against the current. Harder, harder.
Door breaks off hinges.
Smashes back, wallops my head to splintering sound. Door or head? Blood on my hand.
Water rising. Getting dark. On your feet, girl. Candles, matches, you know where. On your feet, girl. You know where.
On your feet.
Latest: Emergency services find body of young woman among riverbank trees as floodwaters subside. Thought to have been in water for two days.
Oh, this is so sad. Did the dogs make it out? Your writing here had me on edge....
Well, disasters are kind of sad... And I was conforming to the prompt, making it scary and edgy...
As for the real-life events that inspired it, there wasn't just one woman but about three and about three men. We were having supper in an isolated farmhouse in a valley near a stream. A storm created a flash flood. In no time we had three feet of water in the kitchen. We stashed papers and valuables as high as possible. We had to go outside to climb a ladder to the attic above. Carrying the dogs. I had mine over my shoulders. He was long-haired and sopping wet. Climbing the crappy old ladder with water swirling below was just a little worrisome. Once everyone was in the attic, where there were old mattresses and things, we could try to sleep. But wet and cold. Then a lot to clean up, broken stuff to replace. No joke, but no one was hurt (dogs included). (As for cats, they'd sprinted up the ladder right at the start).
Oh, my god!!! That's incredible!
It was hard to believe. A storm stayed at the same spot for a couple of hours and chucked buckets of rain down. We were eating I don't remember what and drinking red wine when someone said "The sink's gurgling". Then the electricity went bang. If we'd locked and bolted the big front door and plugged under the door with cloth or something, the water wouldn't have come in (not three feet of it, anyway). But ha-ha we opened the door to see what was happening, and in came the water.
don't you know that horror film rule? "Don't open that door!"
Well, sounds like one horrifying, yet amazing, adventure and you lived to tell the tale.
Unless I'm a g-g-gh...
Yikes. This one moved from dark and shitty (not your writing--the content) to even darker. Wow...Per your comment below, I'm glad it didn't get worse for you IRL.
Man alive. Sheesh this had me on edge! I just took an emergency preparedness class, and we had to name all the possible events and what we'd do...I should share this with the group. So good.
It's based on a real-life experience, which helped with the details (the frightened dogs wobbling on a floating table, for ex). Fortunately, we were half a dozen and the worse we suffered was a miserable wet night.
Sheesh. There's a place in our city where people built fancy houses, and they shift and slide. One slid off into the Puget Sound years ago. Horrible. Another time, a house shifted, and a man and his dog were trapped when a giant fridge pinned them down. He was like that for HOURS but he lived, and so did the dog. But my god, the trauma.
It's frightening and funny, when the furniture starts getting a mind of its own.
Gets the pulse running. Really like “Dogs splashfloat” and “Windowsmash”
Yes, those were great descriptions!
Thanks, John.
Strangely, I was not at all bothered by the prospect that this meteorite, had a gust of wind decided to blow ever so slightly, may have actually landed directly onto my head rather than my brand new sofa that I had just bought a week ago. Part of me kind of wishes that it did. Perhaps that gust of wind did, in fact, occur, but someone nearby had sneezed and the two forces canceled out, inadvertently saving my life. I think they made a movie about that. The fabric is currently on fire, I’m not sure what to do.
I quickly run to the kitchen to grab a pot to fill with water. Five-ply stainless steel capable of holding 4 quarts of liquid, compatible with both traditional and induction cooktops, and oven-safe. I haven’t used it in months.
I can’t help but crack a bleak smile at the whining of the fire alarm. She used to rely on that as a sign that her steak was done cooking. Well-done, dry as a bone, with a side of steak sauce, I couldn’t stand to see it. I always joked that I could finish my steak before hers was even ready to plate. My hands get wet as the pot overflows.
At the center of the crater, a small, jagged stone smolders as the life within desperately struggles to breathe. I watch as the fire vanishes and the red hot glow wanes into a dull, sad gray. I’ll probably have to buy another couch now, it’s easier to replace things than repair it these days.
--
Hi Mary, first time poster. I got excited to do my first writing prompt here and I may have missed #3 saying it should be thrilling. I don't think this exactly classifies as that but I hope you enjoy regardless.
So happy that you posted! Great job! All of my directions can be broken--they are only there to "prompt" you.
Thanks Mary! Looking forward to the next prompt 😀
Pretty thrilling indeed. I really like how you slid 'her' in, and what's happened to her.
Welcome. I think this was pretty thrilling. I know I wouldn't want to nap on the narrator's new couch after reading this.
Thanks Deborah! I don't know, there's a saying that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Does that apply to meteors too?
Good question.
Definitely thrilling.
Calvin, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Love the flashback to cooking steak by someone who relies on the smoke alarm. Maybe I see myself in that just a bit. This has great descriptive parts throughout! Keep writing!
A Choice
get out of the house
imminent danger
total collapse
raucous
knocking on the door
threatens
stay in to die
open the door
to die
an unknown death
a death
all the same
Well, now i'm wondering what this person chose!
This one has a brilliant streak of claustrophobia that makes the reader's heart beat faster. Nicely done.
thank you
A Meteor Rattles Ohio With a Loud Boom
A fiery meteorite six feet in diameter woke families all over Northern Ohio with a loud boom on Saint Patrick’s Day. It was first sighted over Lake Erie at 9 am by a redhead incel whose arms, chest and legs were covered in lewd tatous. He had stayed up all night doomscrolling as he listened to Fox News recount the U.S. victories in Iran: “let’s bomb them into the Stone Age” he repeated, his face illuminated by the sheer joy of a struggle he felt intimately part of. Seeing the fireball and hearing the sonic boom, he immediately concluded that the explosion was part of the Iranian riposte to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that had been wracking their country since February 28. Ready to defend his own country against the ungodly aliens, he went upstairs into the attic, grabbed an AK 47, an MK 153 SMAW, an anti-drone laser device and climbed up onto his roof to get an overall view of the countryside. He would have taken a Patriot surface-to-air missile, had he been able to steal such a device. (Since they are somewhat more cumbersome than the missile launchers he already owned, he would need to coordinate with his Telegram buddies.) As it was, he had in the last year amassed a cache of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms, about 11,000 rounds of ammunition, about 130 magazines, and four pairs of night-vision goggles.
Heading out toward Maggie’s farm, just west of Akron, he stopped at a baseball diamond. The meteorite hunters were already there, scouring the ground in the hopes of finding the detritus of a rare type of meteor. Iranian spies? He stopped the car and got out the AK 47.
Wow. This one is scary. Well done, getting my heart pumping.
Thank you Mary!
What goes on at Maggie's farm?
Maggie’s Farm is where he usually meets his buddies, Maggie having returned her vest since her time in the Weather Underground. Also, the meteorite landed west of Akron so the place may be crawling with Iranian spies.
Wow, Maggie must be seriously getting on by now, and still trying to turn on horny young incels!
Well--oh my god--! This one has me on edge. Nicely done. Love your description of this guy.
Thank you Angela !
Oh my goodness!
What a wonderful story!
Well told !
Thank you Judy !
I have collected all of my what nows in one document. It's now over 80,000 words. 80,000! I don't post them all, but it has given me a gift I never thought I would receive: confidence that the well does not run dry. I was terrified of this before. Terrified to the extent that I hardly wrote a word for nearly 20 years. Silly and illogical and melodramatic, but it is true.
Well. Mary - you know, I hope, how I feel about this and your generosity, and also everyone here who has been part of this group.
Now, I am still writing my what nows, but I am also, alongside that, pushing into longer projects, which is something I have never ever done before. The fear made me snap everything shut within a thousand words or so. I would look for the ironic, or absurd, or 'clever' conceit to just close it off. Not because I thought it was right, but because it was safest to do so. It cost less.
Now, from the confidence what now has given me, I have managed to push through. I wrote a few things that got to the 2 or 4 thousand mark. Then for one, I just kept going, and going, and going. It had a momentum. I got to ten thousand words, then another voice took over, a different character and in a completely different mode. It is quiet, it is present, it is not trying to force it to go anywhere or to find meaning, or to be part of a plan or conceit.
I find... I don't know how to think 'novel'. I read short stories daily, and I think I have some just subconscious feel for how they function. I have some habits of thinking that I can sort of lean on. But, for a project the length of a novel, I have no idea at all. For those of you (and I know there are many) that DO have experience of writing longer projects, even of finishing or publishing novels, I wonder. How do you think (or not think) in order to get the first draft down? I know there are loads of books about how to structure etc. But I mean something different: how to think or not in a way that is different from the short story way?
Hey Niall. (thank you for your kind words here.) As someone who has published two novels, I can speak for my own process. Which comes down to VERY LITTLE THINKING and just pressing ahead, paragraph by paragraph, day by day. Eventually, the piece of clay starts to look like something. And then, it starts to clarify in my brain. I keep going and going until I get to the "end." Then, I look at the whole thing and eventually figure out what the "real" story is. I see why I wrote the whole damn thing in the first place. I see what needs to be tossed, moved, rewritten, changed, added to. The short story is a strange and difficult compressed puzzle. The novel is open and free. You write and you write and you write. You go off on tangents, wondering where they may lead. Some of them lead nowhere and get deleted or put in a file. It's a completely different process and animal! In a short story, everything counts. Everything is leading to the heart of the story. Not so in the novel! In the novel, the writer gets to write! It's all about allowing yourself to just go go go, knowing that there's plenty of time for it all to come together. I find writing a novel a million times easier than a short story. Also, one you have a draft, THAT'S when you start thinking about structure. Let me know if you have questions.
Thanks Mary... permission to BE ME? To write big? Thanks for that... seriously, I have been trying to TAME me, not BE ME, I think. Permission.
Some people like to write with the structure in mind, and of course, if you write a murder mystery, you already know the whole story when you start writing. But that's a different kind of writing. When I wrote my books, I had a vague idea of where I was headed, but was always open to letting that ending change. It's all in the rewrite--at least for me. And yes, writing a novel is to give yourself permission to write. The taming comes later.
Also, Niall--next week ask your question again, but on the first day, if possible. That way, more people will see it here in the comments and perhaps get back to you.
Like you, Mary's challenges gave me a kickstart after 20 years!! I'm now working on a collection of linked short stories that some people keep saying might be a novel - there appears to be a bigger arc that stretches above the whole thing.
Everyone works differently, but I find that just letting the characters show me where they want to go has kept me moving forward. I look forward to seeing what others have to say about your last question...
They were lying on the bed sweating, waiting for their heart rates to return to normal after some pretty athletic sex, when the black Cadillac slammed through the front of the house.
“What the fuck?” Benjamin bolted up, wrapping a sheet around his nakedness.
“Wait here,” he hissed at Felicia as he raced into the living room. He’d been flirting with her for months and finally persuaded her to visit during her lunch hour. Not waiting, she jumped up and found her underwear.
The big car had split the credenza below the bay window, sending the enormous pink turnip-shaped vase that Benjamin’s wife Margie had inherited from her great aunt flying across the room spewing pussywillow branches, and continued into the middle of the living room, shattering the glass coffee table before shuddering to a stop. The woman in the driver’s seat opened her door and stepped out. She was a compact black woman with a shaved head, several earrings in each ear, and a muscle shirt. Her body looked like an ad for a power-lifting program. She seemed undamaged.
“What the hell?” Benjamin said.
“I’m so sorry,” said the woman. She didn’t sound particularly sorry. “I was parking in front and I got distracted thinking about what I had to say to you. Slammed my foot on the gas instead of the brake.”
“Are you crazy? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a private investigator,” she said. “Name is Becker, of Becker and Decker. I’m sure you’ve heard our commercials.”
Benjamin had indeed heard their commercials.
Felicia, with most of her clothes back on, was trying to be invisible as she headed toward the front door. Becker grabbed her by the arm and sat her down on the couch to the left of the pink vase, which had landed there unbroken.
“Your wife hired us,” Becker said, “to catch you cheating. Gave us a deposit yesterday to get started. Unfortunately, we found her body this morning behind the dumpster in our office parking lot. I thought I should come chat with you about it before talking to the police.”
Benjamin’s knees began to buckle. He barely made it to the couch, elbowed the pink vase out of the way and sat. Benjamin had hated that vase from the moment he’d seen it. He’d often thought his marriage was doomed from that day.
“Behind the dumpster?” he stammered. “She’s dead?”
Now that's a great opening sentence! Love this little story. Oh, Benjamin, that stammer ain't fooling anyone.
Thanks, Mary!
Great beginning to a crime fiction piece...are you taking this further? Nicely done. Love the vase references.
Thanks, Angela. Not planning on going further with this - but the vase features prominently in something else I’m working on, and it just crept in here :)
I think Becker and Decker have a future out there :)
Mary, this was fun. Again.
The back row of pews yawned. Empty as she slipped through a side door at the back of the nave. Jolie puffed a quiet exhale and smoothed the skirt of her little black dress. Pastel fairyland on all sides—sweet flowers, sweet spring dresses, and groomsmen in pastel-colored ties. Sole mourner at this vernal wake, she slid into the corner of the polished wood bench. Yup. Jolie ignored the dress code accompanying her invitation. And really, did anyone look good in pastel pink? She risked peril via the tsk-tsking aunties at the reception. But she had her reasons.
A bridesmaid, sedate in dusty lilac chiffon floated onto the center aisle. Her gown matched the bow tie of the groomsman standing three beyond the groom.
How cute.
The groom. That curl of blond hair not so carelessly tumbled onto his forehead. A month ago, (?) she had smoothed it back. Memory and Jolie shrank into the pew’s back.
A second bridesmaid faltered and stumbled as seven minor staccato chords sounded from the balcony. ACBABCB.
A sylph in dusky blue chiffon, she recovered and strode on as the plucked notes repeated–ACBABCB–rising above the muted tones of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
Murmuring. A ripple of whispers among groomsmen and wedding guests. Discreet. Curious. The groom, his eyes wide, stared at the balcony and raised one arm, palm outward.
“Stop!” He coughed.
Jolie turned her head to see three women, their arms around each other’s waists, all in dusty pastel pink chiffon. All of them grinning as their voices rose,
“Oh! Well imagine, as I’m pacing the pews in a church corridor…”
Wedding guests spun toward the performance. A third attendant in dusty green chiffon stopped mid-aisle to watch.
“No Lorelei!” The bride’s mother moaned as her daughter stepped into the balcony and sang,
“What a beautiful wedding!” And all four belted,
“Yes, but what a shame! The poor bride’s groom is a whore!”
A screen dropped from a ceiling panel behind the groom. The bride yelled,
“Everybody out!”
Her companions descended and ushered people out of the chapel.
“Oh, Julia!” She pointed to the attendant still mid-aisle. “Stick around and watch the fun with Michael!” She pointed to the screen.
Pandemonium as wedding guests gazed from Lorelei to Michael, back again to Lorelei, and shuffled to the exit. Each of her pink-clad companions grabbed the arm of a groomsman—a processional through the side door.
Michael blustered,
“You don’t understand!”
His words were drowned by a thunderous rumble from overhead. The floor shook. A fireball shattered the wall of stained glass behind him and sizzled as it burst into flames between he and the stunned bridesmaid.
“How…startling.” The clergyman’s only words as he followed Jolie and Lorelei to the reception hall.
Sirens wailed in the distance as the two women entered the reception singing,
“Well, this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne…”
Wild chaos ensues! Yes, that was exactly like the wedding i was at--how did you know
My first hint was the dress code.
What a rollercoaster, I still have so many questions haha
Yeah. So do I. I think this one begs to be developed more, but I tried to hold it to 400 words (and failed at that too). I'll probably go back and play with this one.
“Whoa!” someone yelled as the plane suddenly lost height. There were screams and curses. The plane bounced as it hit another pocket of turbulence. Jim closed his eyes and imagined he was riding ocean swells. It always helped when he was flying through agitated air.
“Flight attendants, please end cabin service and return to your seats” said the Captain.
“Folks, we’re going to have some bumpy air for the next 20 minutes or so. Nothing to worry about.”
An overhead bin snapped open, a can of beer rolled down the aisle, trailing a frothy tail. This is rough for a Monday thought Jim. A baby was crying, 24A seemed to be praying quietly. The plane lurched and skidded across the sky. The waves in Jim’s head were now crashing against their frail tin tube.
“My God!” shouted 23C, “Look at that!” He was pointing directly over the port wing where a bright, pulsing light was rushing past them towards Earth 40,000 feet below, trailing dust and destruction.
I hope we have somewhere to land thought Jim…..
Glad I read this AFTER I got off the airplane!
Hope you had a turbulent free flight!