November 2, 2006

Prompt: Not sure!

Somewhere between Milan and Geneva, the train slivered through the arms of the Alps under a bed of scintillating stars. The train gently rocked the passengers – some slumped over the arm railings with little children burrowing their small heads in their laps. An old man with wirey glasses slept soundly, his mouth a deep tunnel of snores.

Andrew, however, was awake, feverishly searching through his bag. Passport. Check. Train ticket. Check. Wig. Check. The teenager stretched out his long legs and despite the joy he experienced earlier of being anonymous, his heart felt heavy under the exposed sky. He had left abruptly. He knew by now his sisters would have noticed he didn’t return from soccer practice. His Mom likely, at this very moment, is thinking about him and analyzing the seemingly banal morning routine hours earlier. She is searching for signs that Andrew wasn’t himself. She would think he didn’t finish his omelette, the symptom of an erratic appetite under stress. She would remember that for a moment, he looked purposeful when he left. He had hugged her a little tighter. And she would remember that his eyes had darted about, memorizing what he was leaving behind – embedding it somewhere safe in his memory. He knew she’d be worried and sleepless. How odd to imagine her turbulence, when now he was surrounded by placidity – the gentle curves of the valleys, the sleeping faces of a carload of strangers.

December 7, 2006

Prompt: “Lies will follow”

Jamie had enjoyed being gatekeeper of their finances, transferring funds to and fro, orchestrating an elaborate dance of charging to one credit card, consolidating it on another to hit up the 0% interest deal, then sliding one cool hand into savings to pay it off while the unsuspecting husband did not notice the missing bank statement.

Shame, really, when her shopping craze severed her lifeline in an auto accident in the CostCo parking lot. The officer admitted he rarely sees fatalities in parking lots, but Jamie’s elephant-sized shopping cart budded heads with a Ford Explorer, and that was that - a limp suburban wife lifeless among her five-foot boxes of cereal and milk and 20-lb. humidifier she aquired for only $19.99.

“Jeff speaking, Landview mortgage.”

“Hi sir, this is Jonathan Sail, police chief at the Phoenix Police Department. I’m afraid we need to see you at the station.”

“Ha ha,” Jeff snickered. “This isn’t a call from Phoenix – you are in Bangladore, admit it!! You don’t fool me. And I’m not donating to your police association either, even if you weren’t outsourcing…”

Jeff slammed the phone down and aggressively pushed the “Do Not Disturb” feature on his phone. Little did he know that his apple-cheek wife was being carted off the Costco lot, that the flashing light of police cars even outrivaled the store Christmas decorations and some chum with his 26-ounce Coke and footlong hotdog sighed, “Dude, this is intense,” as he padded his weiner with relish.

It wasn’t until Jeff entered his dark apartment when a foreboring feeling smacked his gut. The usual smell of mac and cheese or pizza pockets was absent. He did notice, however, in plain view on the kitchen table, an enveloped addressed to his dear wife.

“Jamie has an account at Bank of America? I’ll be damned!”

November 10, 2007

Prompt: write a positive experience and a negative experience using the same setting.

POSITIVE

He drenched himself headfirst into the cool water. Immersed. Complete. Sunlight, as it hit the water, shifted its forward march into a playful amble, and the particles of light tickled him. Below was only – swish, swish. The swish of columns of kelp, towers of long slender leaves floating back and forth with the ebb and flow of the water beating on the rocky shore.

And wasn’t he lucky! All skin, no limbs, just a hairless, smooth back and belly. Nerve endings satiated. Cold bliss. Immersion. Completeness. God.  Next to him was a fellow seal tangled in seaweed, engaged in some sort of dance with light and water.

And he began to rise, letting his buoncy elevate him, riding the currents to the rocky beach. The sun hit him and the cold evaporated completely. Dozens of seals laid out, belly up with infectious grins under their wiskers. Now this is what life is about. His flippers applauded creation, a cute seal snuggled against his belly and they both were enveloped in sunlight.

NEGATIVE

The long-hair luddites high on marijuana and low on deodorant formed a tight line around the defensive animals. Ok - Julie thought – they weren’t really luddites as she saw the guy with the spandex shorts arrive in a Ford Explorer. And he wasn’t high. And his hair was short. And he smelled good, come to think of it. But that’s besides the point! What the hell were these people doing on Children’s Beach - the only place she couldn’t take her kids because of the damn seals?

“Get the hell out of here! Julie roared at the six individuals toiling with some weird fuzzy fabric. Soon enough, these hippies dressed themselves as seals - all but one who beat on his drum for dramatic effect. Julie’s 3-year old squealed in delight.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look at those seals, MOMMY!” Julie was angry. All she wanted to do was roll her towel out, unravel the latest Oprah magazine and count the clouds between her toes. Her stroller already was packed to the brim with beach gear and now she looked as menacing as a hummer. “MOMMY, MOMMY! Look at the seal, it’s like Disney LAND!”

The hippies began their activist show with the real seals oblivious to the spectacle.

“Seals, seals! Let’s keep this beach real! For the children, for the future!”

Are you kidding me? – Julie said, frustrated. It didn’t stop her, as she forced her SUV stroller into the theater performance.

“DAMN you! Let my kid play with the seals!”

December 23, 2007

Prompt: Silly exercise where my writing partner and I exchanged receipts we had in our wallets.

“Julia! There’s a package in the reception area. Can you fetch it?”

What was she, a dog? – Julia scowled under her breath. Eric, on the other hand, was playing it cool. This ought to impress her, he thought, tapping his foot on his swivel chair carpet protector. He watched the lithe redhead bumble out of the room and unconsciously admired the name plate on his desk.

ERIC KOLBAS – SENIOR MANAGER

He loved the authority of his name splashed across fake granite. “Ah yes,” he said out loud. “Senior manager, indeed.”

Julia walked crookedly into the reception area, eyeing the clock. “Half past three? Damn! When will this god-forsaken day end?”

Before she could curse further, she was shocked to see not only a handsome package delivery man with sleeves rolled nicely around his tight biceps, but four large bouquets of flowers: tulips, daffodils, yellow crocus and a pickwick crocus. A gasp involuntarily fled her mouth.

“Sorry honey. Unless your name is Eric, these aren’t for you.”

Aw shit, she thought. But she looked over him anyway.

“I’d rather have your phone number than these flowers anyway!” she said, surprised at the words coming out of her mouth. He grinned, jotted down his number and pressed it into her eager fingers. He winked and left. Julia beamed with glee.

She re-directed her attention to the flowers strewn across her desk. What, did someone die? – she thought.

Julia couldn’t resist checking out the tags. She pulled out her reading glasses. “Hmmm. Dear Eric, thank you for all of your support. Sincerely, Boys and Girls Club of New Bedford.”

No way! – Julia thought. She kept reading “Large Cupped Narcisi… Ah ha! Eric and narcissism – finally something makes sense around here!”

Her secretary phone buzzed. “Julia Nichols, State Farm Insurance Office.”

“Julia, where are you?

“Oh, Eric. Yeah, you got some packages,” she huffed. Eric thought he had her figured out, but this woman still seemed completely unimpressed!

“Did you see who they were from”” Eric asked desperately.

“Let’s see,” she said, sounding bored. “Boys & Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities and… Arthritis Foundation? What – not getting enough calcium?”

“Ummmm,” Eric cursed himself. He spent $79.98 on these flowers and all he gets is “not enough calcium?” Wasn’t she going to praise him for his philanthropic spirit? He slammed his name card face down, followed shortly by the phone.

Julia quickly and unceremoniously plopped the flowers on his desk. As she left, she smiled to herself as she fumbled with the phone number in her pocket. “Now THAT’s what I call guaranteed delivery!”

October 28, 2006

Prompt: I actually wrote this exercise wearing a mask. This was all in the spirit of Halloween!

It was a time when chaps were the hippest accessory, when we zig-zagged the Shanendoah highways without tourists slowing us down. Bonnie rode behind me, her acrylic nails scratching my leather chest excitedly. Her smoky voice would whisper, “Keep it rolling, baby!” and we’d catch a 70 mile-an-hour wind! Sometimes she’d wrap her finger around a strand of my curly hair. Around us a landscape of green, yellow and orange would emerge. We’d be up and out!

On nights we’d set up basic camp along the Skyline Ridge Highway with a blanket for two and a mandolin that I’d strum until midnight by a ravenous fire. Bonnie would bend her neck backwards to take in the stars, braids of blond would unravel like Rapunzel and we’d listen to bluegrass tunes dance off my strings. Yes, we were outlaws by nature. She was a wild child who ran away from home at 16. I, long ago, abandoned my hometown in Campton, Tennessee. I bought a motorbike at age 19 after two summers hustling in an auto garage through humid summer heat.

Bonnie and I lived like nomads that summer. That was before the money ran out. That was before reality set in. We learned whole stretches of National Parks – from the Grand Canyon to Assateague. But that much on the run runs you down.

October 28, 2006

Prompt: From an excerpt written by Terry Tempest Williams

Dear Laura,

Thank you for thinking of me and taking the time to chart out your family history. My fire had no longer burned, but you re-ignited it. No one has thought of me for 50 years. My life ended 70 years before you were born. Yet now, spontaneously, you reach out to my spirit and I’m thankful for that. I know you often imagine my life as one of hardship. You imagine me, the daughter of German immigrants, widowed with a three-year old child. Yes, I was widowed at 26 in 1867, and I lived with four siblings and my parents. Dad was a mason and I worked in a factory making sewing bags. But remember to look beyond what you read in the Census. I’m sure my sense of humor, my manner of being, the identity of my best friends, aren’t in the Census records. I was a little like you, as strands of my nature passed through me to you through my son. I too stayed up at night wondering about my own German ancestors and the land my parents left behind. And someday, I promise, one of your descendents 100 years from now will study you and remember you. Your spirit too will twitch from a deep slumber. Your energy will already be spread back into the cosmos, but you will reawaken. Keep honoring the past, Laura.

Sincerely, Johanna Ziller

Johanna,

Thank you for connecting with me. I know if it wasn’t for time and space, our beings – along with every other being - would collapse into one. We would not be separated by time. I spent evenings imagining your life and your little son. I wonder about his father, who died so young. I know if it wasn’t for your short marriage, I wouldn’t be here, so thank you for raising him and working so hard to give him and his descendents a good life. I will no longer assume too much from what I read in the Census. You were human and so much more than that. Keep your spirit with me, so I can live with your perserverance.

Love,

Laura

October 28, 2006

Prompt: “There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls” (Quickie Exercise)

That night, she broke her silence. From somewhere in her battered core, her frigid heart, she found a word, which for the first time her lips allowed her to fashion in an assertive manner: “No.” Two letters, one syllable, simple yet direct. She had always cowered, always drowning beneath the strain of untapped vocal chords. But tonight there was music from her lips: “NO!”

October 28, 2006

Prompt “Things that go bump in the night” (Quickie exercise)

Insomiacs pacing their bedroom floors as their lovers snore; palm fronds whistling in the wind; cicada and cricket sounds colliding like jazz music; soft footsteps of a shadowy cat; a 5am engine hum marking a truck driver’s departure on his first shift, sobs from a window of a widow as the sun rises: another day without him.

October 26, 2006

Prompt: “Subject to Change”

Right now, honestly, everything is subject to change. It makes sense (and dollars!). A stranger could bet on it, regarding a woman with a soccer-ball size uterus passing him on the street. “Yep,” he would think. “She’s got it coming.”

Nothing is more subject to change than a seven-month pregnant, first-time mother.

First, one body will diverge into two, which she has heard is painful thanks to Genesis. Her arms will reshape themselves under the weight of a seven-pound bundle of baby. The bags under her eyes won’t make it past airport security. Her hair will be a disheveled pile quickly styled into a braid. And maybe her eyes will be different, imbued with a protector instinct, of a lioness protecting a cub.

Oh boy, is she subject to change.

Time itself will feel different, punctuated with crying and cooing. Days will be measured by feedings, not timecards. Will she even have hormones left? Will a whole new suspense accompany every act, like simply putting a glass on the edge of a coffee table?

And how will her friend react with two in the place of one? Her grandmother? Soon she will be a mother in a long lineage. Yes, she epitomizes change, but she wouldn’t want it any other way.

October 19, 2006

Prompt: “The Burden of Memory”

What compels impulsive behavior? – he was afraid to ask. As the desert landscape crunched under his Nissan wheels, he felt exposed, naked as a man with apple breath on the eighth day of creation, naked under a vast and uncompromising sky. Around him: brown land with thorny cacti and thirsty plants. His own demeanor: a porcupine with a hungry soul, ravenous and ready to pounce on life.

Jacob lived among the Tucson mountains with suaro companions and no wife. Why did he do it? His breath skipped and bumped like the car on the dirt road. He was escaping himself in his beat-up sedan.

As Tucson receded further away, the lonely forms and shapes of dry rocks that emerged from all directions struck him with an odd eeriness of being alive. He felt like he was in Salvador Dali painting faced with the structures of his unconscious. There they were: childhood failures, repressed sexuality manifesting shamlessly on the phalic-shaped rocks and ugly landscapes.

The shapes, indeed, seemed to expose to all desert life why he had committed the crime.