Open the Envelope Weekly Teaser:EL, t...

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anonymous user
Registered: 12-31-1969
Open the Envelope Weekly Teaser:EL, t...
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Mon, 06-17-2002 - 10:44pm

Open the Envelope Weekly Teaser:EL, this one's for you...m


Okay, this is this week's teaser. Have fun with this, remember to write from the heart, and chose your critique level. End your short story of 500 words or less with this sentence: "And they all got hit by a truck."

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-18-2002 - 4:42pm

yeah, go on, blame me. LOL n/t


Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Tue, 06-18-2002 - 10:46pm

OKAY, JOKE'S OVER, HERE'S THE REAL ONE...m


Insert this into a short story of five hundred words or less. "...ten minutes to ten, I..." Have fun, Sammi

Avatar for portraitinflesh
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 11:38am

Ow, this gave me a paper cut


Now that I've reread this it seems even goofier than when I first wrote it. It's a first draft, so level one comments please.

Ramona

===

Marissa looked over her newspaper and across the kitchen table at the man she loved. “Will you stop picking at it?”

“Can’t help it,” the object of her affection replied. “It gets a scab and you know how I feel about anything growing on me.”

Marissa knew her nagging would do no good. Jim had tried to hide his scab-picking ways during the early months of their relationship, but along with his pungent bouts of gas – “I only do it because I’m comfortable with you, baby” she remembered him saying – it became a regular occurrence over which she had little control.

“Ooh, got a bleeder,” Jim said. He pressed a napkin to the spot where he’d removed the scab and walked to the bathroom. Marissa could hear him rummaging around for a Band Aid in their well-used first aid kit.

Flipping through the newspaper, Marissa sipped at the last of her coffee. A short news story toward the back had caught her eye.

Jim emerged from the bathroom with his new Band Aid. Marissa had intentionally bought a box of Band Aids with the faces of the Backstreet Boys printed on them. Jim used them anyway.

“It’s ten minutes to ten, I gotta find a blank tape to record on,” Jim said. “Once I do I’ll come in and clear away the breakfast plates, K?” Marissa was too engrossed in her story to reply with more than a soft grunt.

After inserting the tape and pressing the record button on the VCR Jim returned to the kitchen to find Marissa smiling to herself and shaking her head.

“What’s up?” Jim asked, as he picked up their plates and headed toward the sink.

“You remember old Reverend Van Dyke?”

“The one who became a hellfire and damnation revival preacher?” Jim started filling the sink with warm soapy bubbles.

“Yeah, that one,” Marissa replied. “Looks like his son Lemuel made the news. He went into the People’s Peephole store – “

“…what, the adult store off of Route 63? The preacher’s boy?”

“…yep.” Marissa tried her best not to giggle as she told what happened next. “He walked right in and the guy behind the counter told the paper that Lem said he was there to destroy ‘Satan’s temptations.’ Then Lem grabbed a box of Perky Peckers and walked right back out. Tried to get away with it on his 10-speed bike. But he dropped the box and it burst open and – “

“What? You mean there was a pile of Perky Pecker wind-up toys lying in the middle of Route 63?” Marissa could hear the amusement in Jim’s voice.

“Mmm-hmm,” Marissa replied. “Right in the middle of rush hour. And they all got hit by a truck.”

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 12:36pm

Oh lord, I laughed 'til I cried (m)


at your ending. Portrait, you are a sneaky thang, slipping both teasers in there like that! I loved the story and it flowed well. The only feedback I have is, I wondered why you put in the part about him picking his scabs. It didn't gross me out or anything, it just didn't seem to go anywhere in particular.

Cute story, hilarious ending. Loved it.

Linda

cl-ozarker

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." - Ernest Heminway

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 2:21pm

Okay, here's mine.(m)


A not too quick but dirty first draft, so level one only.

Linda

"Quarter to three, no one in the place except you and me ..." Bette Midler caressed the song from a jukebox at the front of the bar. I shivered and glanced at my watch. Ten minutes to ten. I had crouched in the corner booth, in the dark, for nearly two hours, sipping my tequila sunrise, wondering what the hell I was doing there.

I'd moved into the small, grungy apartment above the bar a month ago, after a messy divorce. It had ended forty years of ups and downs marriage and, through my own wounded disbelief, had left the other woman with the house and damned near everything else Carl and I had accumulated in that forty years except the small monthly pity payments.

"Anything else, Ma'am?" I startled at the twenty-something blonde that stood expectantly by the booth.

"No ... yeah, bring me another tequila sunrise, please." She smiled and moved away.

"... I'm feelin' bad. Wish you'd make the music dreamy and sad..."

God, I hated this! But, after a month of bland, lonely nights, punctuated by pink neon flashes and burger-with-fries smells leaking into my dark rooms from the bar below, I'd finally dragged myself away from the old misery and into the new.

"What's an old gal like her doing in here?" I heard the sniggering whisper between the two young guys at the bar whose eyes had plumbed the dimmness all evening for prey. I wanted to get up and slap them, but I was frozen to the plastic seat by embarrassment.

"Here you go."

I was so grateful for the waitress's interruption, I shoved a ten toward her and muttered, "Keep the change." I wanted to suck down the drink and disappear into some kind of oblivion, but I knew better. So I sipped it, still frozen in shame, while I decided how best to escape without having to walk by the two men.

"Uh, excuse me. Can I buy you a drink?"

I looked up into Jersey cow brown eyes, surrounded with laugh lines. He seemed to be about my age, and something in deeply etched cheeks suggested he'd had his own share of disappointments. "Sure," I said, pointing across the booth.

He slipped in, then actually extended his hand to shake hands. "I'm Jake Thompson. My son used to own the bar." He hesitated and looked around with a look of soft, sad rememberance.

Bingo, I thought. "Nice to meet you Jake. I'm Carla. I just moved into the neighborhood ..." Unsure of where to go from there, I sipped the drink in silence.

He smiled and leaned back, one arm resting on the back of the booth. "Nice to get out for a while, sometimes. Isn't it?."

"Yeah. It is kind of nice." I lifted my glass and smiled back as Bette crooned in the background ...

"So make it one for my baby, and one more for the road..."

cl-ozarker

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." - Ernest Heminway

Avatar for countrygal23
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 4:15pm

I enjoyed this...the humor and the creative flair, and what an ending! n/t


Photobucket

Avatar for countrygal23
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 4:53pm

Don't stop...(m)


I want to read more,as you can tell, I'm intriqued!

One comment and I don't know if it falls under the level one or not, but I noticed a run on sentence.

Neat characters and loved how it all tied in with the song.

Maria

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 5:00pm

here's mine (m)


"And they all got hit by a truck!"

"Uh huh," I say, and realize it's the punchline. "Oh, yeah. Right." I simulate a laugh, and turn my attention to my notebook.

"Then there's this other one …" He leans forward. "Hey, you're not writing about me, are you?"

"Uh huh." I turn the page and take a sip of coffee.

"See, I got this great idea for a book. A real good idea, it'd be a best-seller, we'd all be rich …" He drones on for a while. "So, you wanna write it?"

"It's interesting," I say, not having the faintest idea what he is talking about. I look at my watch. It's ten minutes to ten, I am beginning to want to throttle him, and I cannot concentrate. "Why don't you write it yourself?"

He frowns. "Well, I don't know. Hey." His face brightens again and he bounces in his chair. "What's invisible and smells of dead worms?"

"Rob." I slam my notebook shut. "I don't want to hear any more jokes, I don't want to see you poking around with cutlery, picking your nose, or doing anything other than reading. This house has hundreds of books. Why don't you go and look at some of them?"

"I wish you had a tv. Okay." He looks miserable for about five seconds. "Go on. Guess."

"Guess what?"

"What's invisible and-"

"Bird farts. I told it to you last week."

"Oh. Yeah." He slumps in his seat, then leaps up. We hear the front door open. "Here's mom. Hi mom."

"Hi honey," she says. We exchange an amused glance as he ducks to avoid her kiss, and she says to me, "Everything okay? Sorry I'm late. Did you get some work done?"

"Nah. Doesn't matter." I grab hold of my annoying, wonderful grandson. "Give me a kiss goodbye, then."

"No way." He wriggles away, grinning, and scratches a mosquito bite on his arm. "Hey, gran, can I come visit next week?"

"Okay," I say. "Hey, Rob. What goes green, yellow, green, yellow, green, red?"

"Dunno. What?"

"Tell you next week."

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 7:52pm

You Couldn't Resist, Could you...m


...to insert both into your piece? But I'm LMAO. You did well with what you had to work with. This is written well, and got me involved, because I wanted to throttle the kid's throat too. LOL. Good read, El, Sammi

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Wed, 06-19-2002 - 8:00pm

ROMCLMAO!!!!...m


I haven't laughed so hard since I don't know when! And you think this is dumb? This story definitely works. I was right there as Jim picked at his scab and then later as he put on the bandaid. I could almost taste the coffee, and I could hear Jim laughing as she read the article. Yeah, this story definitely works. Job well done considering what you had to work with. LOL. Sammi

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