Aooga, Aooga – here there be prompts, so dive right in
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
outside our bedroom
a light dusting of new snow
weighs down daffodils
This week’s prompts are:
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
The stranger was a big guy, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, narrow-waisted, with biceps bulging and threatening to tear the sleeves of the black tee that clung tight to his torso. He had longish hair, but not too long. He wore it in kind of a Jackson Browne way.
Cheryl did not mind. She liked big guys; in some ways, she grinned to herself; the bigger, the better. After all, a big strong guy can carry more groceries, make short work of home repairs, and things like that. She smoothed down her skirt, sucked in her gut, thrust out her chest, and wove her way through the tables to where he sat alone at the bar.
“You mind if I sit here,” she batted her eyes and asked.
He glanced at her and waved his hand dismissively at the empty stool, “Help yourself,” he replied. He brushed his hair behind his ear.
“Thanks,” Cheryl said and took the seat. She waved at Dennis, who was pouring drinks down the bar in the other direction. He held up one finger to acknowledge Cheryl and returned to work, pouring drinks.
Cheryl studied the hunk she was sitting next to. He hadn’t seemed very outgoing, but she wanted desperately to speak with him. She opened with, “So, you probably hear this all the time, but do you know you look like Jackson Browne?” The big guy didn’t react, so she pressed on. “Well, that is, if Jackson Browne was built like you. If Jackson Browne were a ripped body builder, he would look exactly like you.”
She paused, and the big guy only shifted his eyes a bit. She imagined that would be how he might track a pesky fly on a summer day.
Dennis sauntered down, “Hi, Cheryl!” he said, “You want the usual?”
“Oh, hi Dennis, I’ll have…” she pointed at the big guy’s glass, “whatever this guy’s having.” She touched her fingertips to his forearm and inhaled a sharp breath of desire as Ripped Jackson Browne pulled his arm back and Dennis moved to grab a bottle of Jack Black, from in front of the mirror.
When her drink came Cheryl concluded that if she was in for a penny, she might as well be in for a pound. She started talking.
“I don’t know how your day’s been,” she started, “but I’ve been looking forward to a drink since about noon. It was a heckuva day at work.” She glanced at Ripped Jackson Browne and saw him shift his eyes towards her, then rapidly away again. She continued, “Mr Fusco was in a mood, and I couldn’t seem to do anything right.” She sipped her bourbon, “I don’t think Mr Fusco’s been getting any lately! You know what I mean?” She nudged him with her elbow to suggest a camaraderie that didn’t yet exist.
When her reluctant drinking companion grinned crookedly, she took heart. She turned on her barstool and looked straight at the side of his head. His eyes remained fixed on the mirror.
“I’m Cheryl,” she said. She held out her hand and waited for him to shake and introduce himself, but when he didn’t take the bait right away, she said, “Hey, Mr Browne, Are you gonna get up and leave, or are you gonna introduce yourself?”
As if realizing he had no choice, he held out his hand and took hers. “Archie,” he said, “name’s Archie.” He brushed his hair behind his ear again, and this time, Cheryl noticed a ‘V-shaped’ notch was missing from the top of his ear. It had obviously happened a long time ago. It was not a fresh wound.
“Nice to meet you, Archie. It is a bit early, but I’d like you to stick around a while. You look like someone I might want to invite home. Maybe get you to tell me what happened to your ear.”
This week’s prompts are:
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
reaching into my Pea Coat pocket, I fished out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes
and dug my finger around inside, hoping to hit pay dirt
I pulled the only remaining bent butt from the packet, straightened it as best I could
and snatched it up between my lips
Damn, no matches
I patted my pockets, looking for fire,
a nameless, red haired woman wearing short shorts and a navy blue gauze crop top
knotted tight, just below her pert breasts
flicked a Zippo open and shut a few times to get my attention
She leaned against the red brick wall outside the “Boom Boom Room”
Altering course, I swerved in her direction
she struck the lighter, and I cupped my hands around hers to
shield the flame from errant breezes and light my smoke
red lacquer coated her nails
red lip-gloss reflected the streetlight
I pulled deeply on the cigarette and exhaled out the side of my mouth
“looking for a date, Mister?” she pushed the gob hat she wore down low on her brow
and rose up on her toes, she gazed into my eyes, and gave me a peck on the cheek
leaving scarlet prints and a floral scent
I shook my head and breathed out a rumbling, sonorous whistle
She wiggled her fingers below my chin, spun on her toe, and provocatively strode
back through the door of the “Boom Boom Room”
I didn’t get her name, but
her likeness will remain etched in my imagination
forever
This week’s prompts are:
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
It was a fine Spring day when Scooter Boyle walked seven miles through the woods to call on Miss Savannah Jean.
He got there and found her house in complete disarray. Dishes were piled high in the kitchen, the bed was unmade, and garbage overflowed the bin. Neither Miss Savannah Jean nor her old yellow dog was anywhere to be found, so he searched. He eventually found her unconscious in the outhouse. She sat propped on the seat, leaning against the wall with her knickers around her ankles and bare feet in a pool of vomit. Her mouth was open wide; she snored loudly.
Scooter carried her over his shoulder and sat her up against an old stump in the yard while he fetched a bucket of water. Then he stood back and tossed the bucket of cold water on her from about eight feet away. She was soaked.
Savannah Jean blew water from her mouth, shook water from her hair, jumped up and screamed when she tripped over her knickers, which were still around her ankles.
“What’re you doing, Scooter? You horse’s ass!”
He stopped her right there, “No, you’re the horse’s ass, Savannah Jean. You promised to give up drinking, and here you’ve been in yer daddy’s Korn! I walked all the way from my momma’s place to come courtin’, and here you are, drunk as a skunk. You oughta…”
“I’m just doing what the doctor told me to do, Scooter,” she interjected as either an explanation or an excuse.
“The doctor told you to drink till you pass out in the outhouse and puke all over your feet?”
“Well, not in those exact words, but he told me not to keep things bottled up.” She studied Scooter to see if he was buying it.
Scooter was doing his share of studying Miss Savannah Jean. He liked how the bucket of water had made her clothes cling to her curves. He could see the dark of her nipples trying to push through the light blue fabric of her blouse. He thought she looked a bit sad with her hair all wet and hanging down. He smiled.
She smiled.
They walked back to the house and she fell asleep on the Davenport that had been her Mama’s.
This week’s prompts are:
Holy Shit! Three Hundred, do you believe it?
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
She waited for the train to cross and cursed silently when it stopped in the crossing. That was when she saw, the spray painted portrait, the graffiti, painted on the side of the dusty box car that blocked the road in front of her.
Do you know this girl? Her name is Irma Gerd. She used to live in Saunders County Nebraska, and went to Wahoo HS – class of ’76. I want to ask her to marry me. My name is Marshall Benjamin. Call me, please Irma!
I think about you constantly.
“518-555-0115”
She remembered Marshall from a long time ago. He’d been cute, in a Country Bumpkin kinda way. Maybe he was still cute. She pulled a ball point from the centre console and copied his phone number on the back of her left hand. She should call tonight, before she washed it off.
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
Image source- Pixabay, artist- Victoria
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
Emberly Mae Adams finally had her fill of Mr Dawes and she walked out in the middle of the lunch shift at Crispy Biscuit Diner. She didn’t care; if he couldn’t keep his hands to himself he could wait tables himself. She wasn’t going to do it anymore.
She pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen, took off her apron, dropped it in the middle of the floor and continued out the front door to the car park where her red Ford Ranger waited. She got in her truck, started the engine, gunned it a few times and drove straight to The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offices, in the new building at the corner of Tower and Pine. She’d show them the bruises on her bottom. Mr Dawes would regret his behaviour before this was over.
Em worked only a couple of weeks for Dawes before she’d had enough.
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
His pale horse stood tethered behind,
waiting,
patient
I knew who he was. I’d been looking for him.
Death himself leaned over the back of the headstone and smiled
Like he was accustomed to being in charge
He carried no scythe – a clipboard instead
He wore no dark, tattered cloak – preferring blue coveralls, apparently. Neatly pressed; creases.
Scarlet piping along the seams, buttoned cuffs, an embroidered nametag: “Mort.”
His face was not shrouded, shadowed maybe, with about three days of growth.
Studied his clipboard
and pulled a pencil from behind his ear
Puzzled a bit
“You must be McGilker?” he said.
I shook my head.
He flipped pages, slowed, stopped, and asked
“Kunz?”
I didn’t answer
“Then who are you? You might be in the wrong place.”
Straightening his back, he stood taller, waiting for my response.
“Or you might be,” I spoke calmly, “I’m not here by chance.”
“Chance?” he flips more pages slower and slower.
“Oh, here you are, Jack Chance. You’re early.”
“I’m not early,” I closed the space between us,
“You’re late.”
A bone-handled, straight razor appeared in my hand as I moved closer;
Mort began backpedalling.
I struck,
I struck again,
and again.
I decided to keep the pale horse.
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
Junior’s earliest memory was watching his mother picking weeds in a small patch of grass that he assumed was somewhere in Kansas.
But, he couldn’t tell Dr Ambrose that. Dr Ambrose wanted something to happen. He wanted action. So Junior lied.
“It’s hard for me to say for sure, Doc.” Junior paused to study the therapist and think of something dramatic to tell. “I have a lot of early memories that seem to stand alone; I lack context for them. Don’t know why I even remember them.”
“Hmm,” the Doctor intoned as he worked to assign great import to that observation. “Which one seems earliest to you, Junior?”
“I guess that would be my mother crying as she worked in the kitchen. I don’t know what she was doing, probably cooking, and I don’t know why she was crying. As I said, I don’t even know why I remember this. Just that I do. In my memory, she is wearing a frilly white apron and facing away from me. I must be sitting in my high chair. She might be looking at the sink, at the stove, or out the window. I only remember that she was crying.”
“Any others?” Dr Ambrose asked.
“Well yeah, I have a rather vivid memory of my father and me. He’s driving the car, and I’m lying on the passenger seat. I remember my dad drove a grey and pink station wagon. Well, maybe I don’t recall the car itself, but I’ve seen photos of it. I might just be assuming that was the car here. He has a cloth bag filled with cash. Well, I presume it’s cash. He keeps pulling what I remember as paper bills from the sack. He laughs as he covers me in money. I’m crying, and he’s driving fast.
“I believe, Doctor, that you know of my father and who he was. He was Ethan Barden. He was a bank robber. Not a very good one. Wound up getting himself killed by the FBI during a gunfight just over the river in Missouri. I think I was almost five years old.”
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
Raymond woke in a hospital bed. His entire body ached, and he began taking stock of his various appendages, starting with his head, which hurt like a motherfucker. There was a cast on his leg (hanging in traction). His left buttock was numb although the feeling returned about halfway down his thigh. He glanced downwards and pulled his hospital gown out of the way. Bruises and red discolouration wrapped around his hip from the back and almost reached his manly parts. There was a lingering sulphurous odour permeating the air. He tried to move, he tried to get up but the elevated leg precluded that. An alarm began to sound.
A nurse hustled into the room; shaking her finger at him, “Please Mr Avendano, stay in the bed, you can’t get up. Not yet anyway.”
“What the hell,” Raymond said as he eased back onto the bed, plastic crinkling noises almost masking his question. “What happened? Where am I?”
“You’re at Pinnacle General, but you know that.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know that. Who are you?”
“I’m Nurse Manners, but you know that too. We visited for almost an hour last night.”
“Nurse Manners? Is that what I should call you?”
“Yes. That would be fine.”
“Well, Nurse Manners, even though we have already discussed these things, my original question still applies. What happened and why am I at Pinnacle General?”
“You don’t remember, do you?” Nurse Manners shook her head slowly back and forth, pityingly. We’re not sure of all the details, but Carter James told Sheriff Meeker that your little European convertible went off the road just this side of Blanket Creek. The verge is pretty smooth there, so you went all the way to the Rosillaquipo Ranch fence. That’s at least fifty yards or more. You took out five fence posts and hit a power pole. The pole broke and one of the wires caught a rattlesnake. The snake was killed or almost killed, right next to your car.
“By the way, Roger from the service station towed your car into the shop. He says the front end is busted up pretty bad, and he wants to talk with you before he starts working. I told him we’d let him know when you felt well enough to do that.” She paused and looked at me, nodding her head with a questioning look haunting her eyes.
I waited for a few ticks and figured that she must be waiting for me to acknowledge something. “OK,” I said, and she picked the narrative back up, ‘Well then, where was I? Oh yes, Carter says that you shook your head and stood up on the seat. When you went to jump over the door and get out, he saw a big flash, like lightning. The doctor thinks that you probably hit the power wire with one hand and touched the metal car body with your foot. You got electrocuted, and that’s probably when your hair caught fire. You know that nothing smells worse than burnt hair.
“You fell, broke your leg, and landed on the snake. He bit you on the butt. Carter James called 911, and that’s how you ended up here, at Pinnacle.” Nurse Manners reached over and patted me on the leg, “Can I get you something, anything? Maybe some ice chips or a drink of water?”
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
Martie was 12 years old and in grade seven; when she noticed the first grey hair. It grew at her hairline, just to the right of centre of her forehead. She panicked and plucked it out. That afternoon, when she returned home, she hurried to the bathroom to look in the mirror. A close examination revealed that two grey hairs now grew in the spot where she had, just that morning, plucked the one.
She pulled out the two new ones, did her homework and went to the kitchen for a snack. Her mom was there, fussing over something: probably dinner, but maybe not. They visited for a while before Martie headed back to her room.
She wanted to call Sherry. Sherry was currently feuding with Elaine, and Martie wanted to catch up on the situation. She glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of her door.
Shit! More grey hair. She peered closer at the mirror and saw four of them. Carefully, she isolated each one, wrapped them individually around her index finger and pulled them out by the roots.
Damn, this is beginning to hurt. Mom had a few grey hairs, but Mom was old. Grey hair was normal for seniors.
Martie inspected her hairline but was unable to spot any more silver. She phoned Sherry. They gossiped for almost an hour about Elaine. Martie learned that Rose was now feuding with Sherry. That was OK, though.
Because Rose was a bitch anyway.
Martie decided to see if she could help her mom with dinner, but she glanced at the mirror again. Shit, more grey hairs? What’s going on? She left them this time, determined to hurry and ask her mother about them.
“Mom,” Martie began when she got to the kitchen.
“What’s up Mar?” her mother answered.
“Look at my hair, Mom. It’s turning grey.” Martie told her as she pointed to her hairline. “I don’t think I’m old enough to have grey hair. That’s for old people.”
“Hey,” Mom stopped her, “Hey, I’m beginning to get grey hair.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean. You’re old. I’m not.”
Martie’s mom leaned down and looked where her daughter was pointing. She studied the situation for a bit, pushing the hair around some. Finally, she sighed and said, “You might be right, Babe, but I’m not that old, and you don’t have that many grey hairs, maybe eight or so. I don’t think you need to be concerned.”
“That’s the problem though, Mom. This morning I had one. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and now I have eight? I pulled the one I found this morning. Two grew back, and I plucked them, then there were four, and now you’re telling me there’s eight. What’s up with that?”
“You’ve been pulling them out?” Mom asked with a hint of urgency in her voice. “Don’t do that. If you pull out a grey hair, two grow back in its place. Every time you do that, you double the number of grey hairs! My mother taught me that. I thought you knew it too.”
When she graduated from High School, Martie flipped her hair to the other side of her head. That allowed her grey streak to shine. When Principal Chavez shook her hand and gave her her diploma, he leaned in and said, “I love your hair tonight. Grow more sparkles, Martie Spencer. Brighten the world.”
This week’s prompts are:
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun! All the best!
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