Three Days of Prompt Writings

Sorry to be dictatorial tonight, Jenny & Bob, but we all really need a kick in the slats to get us writing. It's better if we have to live up to an expectation, even a fairly little one. I decided a few days ago that I'd go back to prompt writing every night. It took a stern self-talking-to to get back into the groove of not having to make any sense, but I think I'm slowly getting there. What follows are the three I've done so far. I solemnly swear to post each night's writing the next day. Cross my heart. And I'm hoping to read something from each of you too.

June 30--Write about high tide--I sat upon a boulder that had been tumbled into a heap of other boulders and left in a jumble on the rocky beach. At low tide the ocean is just a glimmer far out across the grey tan sand that stretched along the shore. The smell of iodine from the seaweed and the call of shore birds scurrying to find a morsel, to dig up a tiny mollusk, or spear a silvery minnow caught in a rock pool floated on the breeze. My boulder was my throne when as children we stayed with our Grandma Tally when Daddy worked during the week. I remember the rock being much larger and the waves of the incoming high tide being vast and menacing as they rolled their steel green selves across the crackling sand to fling themselves into foamy death at my boulder's base.

July 1, 2008--The possibilities are endless--So many combinations, like gazing down the line at a sumptuous buffet. Charlie looked down at the students flooding out of the university buildings and licked his lips. He kept thinking words like "ripe" and "luscious" as he surveyed the taut young flesh parading before him. All for him, his choice, to pick one or two lucky ones to have the opportunity to glimpse the kind of sophisticated experience only granted to a few. He was tired of the game at times, tired of the proscribed steps, the menacing dance that led to release.

July 2, 2008--Shadows--The high midday sun beat down from nearly overhead. Objects barely cast a shadow but the thin sliver of shadow they did cast was as inky black as midnight. Ruth looked down at the thin slice of blackness next to her foot as she sat on the park bench in the sweltering sunshine and imagined that the deep black was actually a portal into the underworld. She amused herself with the thought of what sort of creatures might live down there. She even imagined that she heard echoes of scratching fingers and tiny voices coming from the Stygian stripe. Foolish, she told herself, you need to get out of the sun. She rose and walked toward the nearest grove of trees, never hearing the frustrated cries as the shadow disappeared.

Okay. I know they're short and I think each of these is just a jumble of thoughts and images, and 2 of the 3 creep me out and make me wonder where they came from, but I'm not arguing with any words that show up on my papers these days. I'm totally taking whatever I can get. You can too.

--Barbara