I was somewhat surprised that more of our amazing brown creative writers weren’t doing NaNoWriMo with me; no worries, I read your comments and I understand. Writing a novel in one month, no matter which month you choose is a heady, harrowing thing– cheers to everyone who decided that in full compliance with IST, next month would be their time to shine and opine. May you all have more luck than I did during (after?) NaNoWriMo 2003, when I reached a devastating, untimely end to my participation during “official” November and immediately, earnestly resolved that I would pick up my mighty pen to write a good fight in December. One tiny problem. December is a wee bit hectic for Christians and Jews-by-association. No matter. I’m sure that our sepia/IST delegation of 2005 won’t have those issues though. 😉
Meanwhile, I imagine a few hundred of you took one look at my NaNoWriMo post and muttered, “Hell, no!”. Pas de probleme, mes petits choux– I welcome you back to our favorite space to write WAY shorter examples of prose on a weekly basis. While I didn’t have to dodge worried cafe-proprietors and police to post THIS week’s installment of 55-Fiction Friday, I did not do as well evading certain effects of one powerfully narcotic dose of Phenergan with Codeine. There. That’s my excuse for posting this almost 10 hours after I usually do. 😉
Perhaps I am overwhelmed with stress from moving out of my childhood home or maybe I’m exhausted from rushing all over Northern California to see some of you…either way, I am in one exceptionally sadistic mood. I can discern no other explanation for what I am about to issue, in way of challenge. As always, you are more than welcome to ignore my insignificant suggestions with regards to theme or content, and post or link to your fabulous 55 in our comments section even if you don’t follow a trend…but for a brave soul who is emboldened by a dare…I’m your huckleberry.
Have you noticed anything about this post? Something is not here, a word is amiss…I won’t have used it until I kill your curiousity by throwing down my writing gauntlet. I wonder…can you write a “55” without using that most ubiquitous of words? Can you, nay, will you be willing to introduce your nouns article-free?
55 words, none of which is “the“?
Blasphemy, they say. I say, go.
*I really wanted to name this post either “The Beat(en) Generation” edition OR “Armageddon Days (are here again)” edition, but since I couldn’t decide between two excellent songs, I went with a title which contains both of them.
Spookily enough, 1989’s “Armageddon Days” lyrics are terrifyingly apposite right NOW:
They’re 5 miles high as the crow flies
leavin’ vapour trails against a blood red sky
Movin’ in from the East toward the West
with Balaclava helmets over their heads, yes!
But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming
Honey you’ve got another thing coming
If he ever finds out who’s hi-jacked his name
He’ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave
Islam is rising
The Christians mobilising
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
It’s war, she cried, It’s war, she cried, this is war
Drop your possessions, all you simple folk
You will fight them on the beaches in your underclothes
You will thank the good lord for raising the union jack
You’ll watch the ships sail out of harbour
and the bodies come floating back
If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He’d be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart
But God didn’t build himself that throne
God doesn’t live in Israel or Rome
God doesn’t belong to the yankee dollar
God doesn’t plant the bombs for Hezbollah
God doesn’t even go to church
And God won’t send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it’s sown
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
Armageddon days are here again
“Mind Bomb” indeed. Will music ever be so brilliant again? Ah, “120 minutes”. If only you had never left me…
Anna, you guys really party it up in the West side, eh? And on a Thursday at that.
if by party you mean whimper under my down comforter while my ribcage explodes, yes, like andrew wk, i party hard, bitches! 😉
i was waiting for a med stuent/resident/intern/fellow drug addict to pick up on that. 😀
I watched as an elderly gentleman sat alone. Finishing his lunch, he picked up two trays from his table. One tray had an untouched grilled cheese sandwich and orange juice.
As he slid this uneaten food into a cafeteria garbage bin, I wondered why he kept buying her lunch. She died three weeks ago.
monarch singh, that was evocative, poignant and article-free. bravo! i lurved it, as brimful would say. 🙂
Si me preguntarÃas si pudiera escribir un cuento sin usar un artÃculo en inglés, la respuesta es que sÃ, claro. También, Dada es mi pintor favorito, ‘De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da, is all I want to say to youÂ’ la canción más encantante y ‘Jazz in Th MixÂ’ el álbum más súperhit.
Kate lay on her back; blue bikini contrasting beautifully with her bronzed body yet matching her large azure eyes, long auburn hair already bleaching slightly.
Raj, sunbathing next to his wife, didn’t know what to feel guiltier about; that his aged parents would never have a gharelu Indian bahu, or that he finally felt free.
Three MAs and a PhD later, and still those stories she wanted to write were stories that her mother had told her – old stories about their friends and family moving from Kolkota to New England. Minutely crafted like a Satyajit Ray film – insects skating across a pondÂ’s surface. Painfully dull, perhaps. But painfully human!
This was it. His curiosity was about to be satisfied. He knew that there was no going back; that what he was about to do would leave him forever changed.
He promised himself to go slowly and enjoy every second. After all, you never forget your first time.
He moved forward. 26.2 miles to go.
July: Hi, itÂ’s me. I just had a question… Call me.
November: Hi itÂ’s me. WeÂ’re in townÂ…wondered if youÂ’d like to have brunch. Or lunch. Or coffee. Or a tic-tac. Anything. Call me.
February: Hi itÂ’s me. IÂ’d like it if you might call me back…
August: Hi itÂ’s me. Again. Whatever.
September: Mom, I really need you to call me. Seriously. Do we have a family history of cancer?
oh, brown ballerina girl…that makes me want to sob. 🙁
(in other words, well-done, etc)
j.m.: sometimes i’m soo bored at work, that I come here, and encounter all these squares, so much so that when I look in the mirror, I begin to have doubts about myself… paco: I get it, you need somebody to insult, so fire away chum, I’ll let you know when it begins to hurt.
Ensconced by warm, safe shoulders, glittery eyes staring back at me, wispy tendrils etching moon-tinged halos, shucking armors, slipping into demilitarized zones. Wanting, craving, forging life amidst disintegrating pieces of this world.
Coming up for air in terror, what have I done, who is he, who are we. Shattered illusions shatter hope, and reinstall armor.
The illumination in my room suddenly doubles: I am swallowed up in pure light for half a second. Lightning!
Half a minute later, another flash from the sky. I go out to the window to look for clouds.
The atmosphere is clean and distant as eternity. No sign of rain, nor thunder attending the light.
Cramped house. Gray days unrelenting. Wailing baby. Haggard face.
Evening writing class lights shine bright. She writes poetry. His hungry eyes. Her sultry stare. Visits to bookstores followed by coffee, then more. Exhilaration. Rapture and fear upon flight.
Nights again grow long. He reads poetry alone and remembers mislaid past lives forgetting why he left.
JD tried hard not to ogle Elliot’s ‘naughty nurse’ outfit over his boss’s shoulder.
“Look, Katrina”, snarled Dr Cox, “I’m hurt that your teenage girl-on-girl crush is obviously more important to you than Mr Hooperman’s rapidly-failing ticker, I reeeeeally am, but maybe you can pay attention for just one minute and actually do your job.”
damnÂ… 7 am – rush hour traffic – go to work – go to class – back to work – have some lunch – work work work – rush hour traffic – feed the cats – clean the house – pack some clothes – pack the ipod – check the list – pack things forgotten – check list again – ad nauseam – ad infinitum – 6 am flight will sleep then.
…. and I wrote this before I knew about Anna’s “no article” rule. 🙂
And because Manish did it…. 😉
Mots.. les mots que lÂ’on dit quand on ne veut pas penser.. comme oui tu vas me manquer .. comme jÂ’ai pleuré deux fois dans ma vie (mais je sais bien quÂ’il ment). Si nous vivrons jusquÂ’Ã l’âge de 80 ans, je me souviendrai de ces mots. CÂ’est dommage que nous ne pouvons jamais s’aimer.
My 55 worder is here.
“I’m sleepy. I could just spend my night here,” she purred, her naked body glistening.
He smiled at her coyly. Having done their deed he just didnÂ’t see a reason for that step.
As he walked her downstairs five minutes later, he held hope that someday heÂ’d want a girl to stay. Just one girl.
“Meet him, that’s all I ask.”
I looked away.
“I’m not saying you to marry him.”
Blushing, I muttered, ”It’s disloyal.”
Enamel vs. Enamel. My mother was ruining her teeth.
“Right now, you’re still single. Meeting a Sikh boy won’t kill you. Why can’t you try?”
“Because I’m already in love with Aleem”, I thought.
“I’m not saying you to marry him.”
Like it, Anna!
She sat on a park bench. Glistening white hair, tied neatly. Kids played in front of her.
She had wanted children when they had been young. He had wanted to grow old with her.
Then he was called for war and two weeks later, when they were to be married, she had recieved his ashes.
Wow, there must be some weird current of synchronicity running in the air as my first stab at 55FF (ever) earlier today tried very hard not to contain “the.” It didn’t work, so here we go again:
Tears run down his cheeks since Mor left. Who will caress his hair when another walks out that door or carefully feed him portions of meatballs and lefse on Sytten Den Mai? Blue eyes have dried up and blonde tresses are truly dead now. “Gratulerer med dagen, Mor! I will never leave this basement again!”
The one I wrote before the theme was announced.
The one I just wrote:
Sunglasses make a girl mysterious. Large, Jackie O tortoiseshells, a jaunty scarf, sweetheart pink lipstick, an arched eyebrow and a knowing smirk. A Mona Lisa smile gets me every time. She holds her shoulders like Hepburn, simpers like Monroe, and saunters like West. If only she actually enjoyed it, instead of wondering who she is.
Having conquered all, the marauding army marched methodically to their last frontier. The last one, before they rested their blood-soaked weapons.
They could almost hear victory chants and could almost smell the familiar stench of burnt villages that they left behind.
Then they heard words that would haunt them ad infinitum– “These Romans must be crazy!”
Mine here
She ran through the building possessed, cutting through the files, chased by the guards. Her red and white attire was in stark contrast with the dark surroundings.
As she swung and launched the hammer towards the screen, she heard his last words – “We shall prevail.”
The world froze.
“Freedom, at last.”
Why 1984 will not be like 1984.
Does Android dream of electric sheep?
regular, vanilla Androids do dream of electric sheep. Paranoid androids, however, lose sleep wondering what happens when the sheep battery runs out.
When the sheep battery runs out, you go find a girlfriend. Problem solved.
Raju went to close the window slapped open by the wind. As he turned back towards the dark room, Arun Bhaiyya was not to be seen.
He shrieked in fear as an unknown force swung him around. Then he heard a familiar voice – “Raju, go and look at me through that shattered red window pane.”
She can’t resist challenges, sinking her teeth into proffered fruit. “Fine,” he says laughingly, “bite me.” She rises up, swiping with her fangs, purring at his delight. Out comes bloody rhetoric, witty repartee, incandescent knowledge. He absorbs her diamond mind while she marvels at his desire to be consumed by brain and fact and voice.
Disconnecting the phone, long-buried, half-forgotten furies resurfaced.
“We felt you weren’t quite right for the job.”
“But I met all your criteria.”
“We just had some candidates who were a closer match. I’m sorry…..”
His resumé taunted him from his laptop’s screen.
Why do we even bother ? he thought, changing Billy back to Balbir.
Andrea, that is awesome 🙂 Jai, how are you so 55-word prolific? It’s amazing. Paranoid Android, I had to google a bunch of stuff after reading your entries. I like you’re writing, it’s odd and unusual and that’s a good thing.
Here is my homage to Sylvia Smith, the un-Zadie (I stole that line – I like Zadie, but I thought it was funny). It’s not quite deadpan enough, but I’m working on it!
I had a bassethound. One day I took him to a friend. I rang her doorbell. Her cat came running as my friend opened her door. In a frenzy, her cat kicked and scratched – she had just had kittens.
He dragged me home, pulling at his leash, and looking back at me with reproachful eyes.
Umair — fantastic stuff. Slightly controversial too 😉
MD — thanks for the feedback. I’m assuming you understood what my earlier hospital-based 55 was about 😉 Anyway, here’s another one, for you and all the other medics on SM…..
“Mrs Mandalia, your husband’s probably gay.”
“Dr House, we’ve been married for 25 years !”
“No sex in decades, he’s happiest around his ‘buddies’, insists on separate vacations, and is more interested in his own appearance than yours.”
“What does this have to do with my breast cancer ?”
“Nothing. It’s a freebie. Happy Diwali.”
I saw this in my eye’s corner: he sits back on his heels, an upturned cart next to him, head in his hands. He is thin and grizzled and surrounded by broken bangles. Fragments of colored glass glitter under sunlight.
“That’s his whole livelihood,” he says.
“Yes. And it’s gone.” I say.
Jai, your last story! You’re mean 😉
Exactly 1,124 days ago I last saw him. We were in an airport somewhere, going somewhere else. He is tall and freckled and speaks like this:
“Heeeeeyyyyy, I (space) didn’t (space) tell (space) you (space) my (space) name.”
He shakes my hand.
I wonder where exactly he will be on day 1,126?
MD,
I think it’s a pretty accurate depiction of Hugh Laurie’s on-screen character, if you’ve ever seen that TV show 😉
‘Park along here.’
Inclined road. Downward. Is it wheels to my left or my right? Can she sense my hesitation?
Confused leftorright, I press down on some pedal and my car goes offroad into someoneÂ’s perfect spring-green lawn.
My hopes of getting a license, being mobile, taking dates out all summer lay crushed among the geraniums.
aargh…replaced ‘the’ with ‘silly’ in my last post.
Umair – Ha, brilliant!
Jai Singh, Andrea, Maisnon enjoyed your fittyfives much!
Saheli– interesting inversion that; really good…
Thanks Jai and Badmash!
I must confess, it was the “fatty fatwa” post that inspired me…
More food to eat. She looked away in distaste. Her 9 year old body refused to take in another morsel after that gluttony her grandmother forced her into regularly.
She lay curled on a worn mat, eyes closed as another wave of cramps shook her.
WasnÂ’t there more to her life and body than marriage?
Broken hearted as he stared out at the chalk line. Red blood stains were still on the ground. Sighing to himself he thought. Stepping over black bodies is how we get to work in amerikkka.
At 15. Shyness caught him again. Looking at her made his heart dance. She glanced back and smiled. For a brief moment in time there was no pain.
No, even though he has a brain the size of a planet…
Touching the ground he pulled the power from his ancestors. Stronger now he waded through their ranks. Throwing evildoers aside like they were small children. The demon with D in front of his name had pissed him off for the last time. You D with the evil in front of its name? Taste thisÂ…
She smiles at him and coos nonsensical words that only mean something to him. HeÂ’s tired and confused but when she touches his hand all his pain melts away.