Tag: Saturday Centus

Hey, it still counts. Jenny gives us a week to do each prompt.

Oh God, he thought. Oh God Oh God Oh God. Soon it’ll all be over. Just get through it. Just a couple more hours, then we’re done.

The pain was excruciating, but he knew that soon it would be over and he would have survived this horrible, horrible ordeal.

“You’re sure it’ll be over soon?”

“Yes, sweetie!”

He nodded. It was almost over. He was almost free of this agony, this torture.

Soon…there would be no more Twilight movies.

Apologies to fans…but really, Twilight is crap on toast!

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A word prompt this week. Looking over my entry, I’m wondering why my brain is going this way…I haven’t read or watched any horror in a while….

All arise! The first annual convention of the Hannibal Lecter Fan Club will come to order. Our first order of business is the singing of our anthem! All together now:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November:
One less day in those months
For us to maim and dismember!

Our second order of business is our inaugural dinner: liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti!

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Another autumnal prompt this week.

The box in my hand was both heavier than I expected and lighter than it should have been, as I carried it across the field to that single maple tree, alone in that field, that had already dropped half its leaves. She’d always loved October, and she’d loved this tree. When I got there, I cried a while; then I poured out her ashes and walked away. The leaves crunched under my boots until they didn’t.

A question: whose are the ashes, and who is scattering them?

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With my somewhat relentless focus the last bunch of months on other writing matters, I’ve lost track of this delightful weekly bit of writing ephemera. I’m glad to see that Jenny Matlock is still keeping the fires burning, with an autumnal prompt for this week. Here is my entry:

Two trees stood together, watching the world. They’d sprouted together, grown from sapling to full maple together. When they were big enough, their leaves would brush against one another in the breeze. How they thrilled to each other’s touch! And how they envied those humans who could touch each other at will.

Each year one tree said to the other, “How beautifully leaves grow old”. They said a goodbye of red and orange and gold, and then they would lose each other’s touch until spring.

One day their leaves won’t grow at all…but not this year.

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Wow, I haven’t done one of these in what feels like forever. I’ve missed the little community over there! The last six weeks or so have been really busy, though, between work, Easter, a vacation, finishing a draft of a novel, and starting a new one. Busy, busy, busy. Only the A-to-Z Challenge kept me producing new material for most of last month. But now, here we are. Hopefully I can keep this up now! This week’s prompt is pretty simple.

“Cream together butter and sugar. What’s that mean?”

“I dunno. Cream’s not even in the ingredients.”

“We don’t have cream…should we use milk?”

“Beats me. Whaddabout that other stuff? ‘Oleo’?”

“Nah. I went through that whole store and didn’t see any ‘Oleo’. I think they made it up, man.”

“Well, we can’t just leave out ingredients, dude!”

“This was a dumb idea. Let’s just go buy some Mallomars. Mallomars rule.”

“But they won’t be special cookies, dude.”

Silence….

“You think this Betty Crocker’s got a phone number we could call her at? ‘Cause I got some questions, man.”

“Me too, man.”

Did a scene like this ever take place in a Cheech and Chong movie?

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Arrgghhh, I missed another one. Oh well. Naught to do but get back up on the horse…this week we’re to have exactly 100 words. Looking at the other end of my “Humanity abandoning Earth” theme that shows up occasionally on these:

Larry cracked a beer as the light from the thrusters of the last ship to leave Earth faded in the sky. The other light, the one of the comet that was going to destroy everything, was getting brighter, but there was no way he was leavin’. Nosiree. He was 92 and he wasn’t like to see that spiffy new Mars they’d been buildin’ anyway, so he just sat back in his rocker, sipped his beer, and figured to enjoy the next nineteen days until the comet hit.

“Yessir,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m livin’ the dream, man.”

I always find something a bit fascinating about people who make the rational choice to accept the death they know is coming rather than keep going.

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Well, I’ve screwed this weekly writing exercise of late…I did one two weeks ago, but I forgot to link the bloody thing on Jenny’s site, so no Centusians are aware that it existed! And last week’s, I just missed entirely, because I just couldn’t think of a way to do that one without dwelling on death. So let’s see if we can’t do things right, this time! Instead of a word-based prompt, Jenny Matlock asks us to write a story in 25 words, using 5 sentences of 5 words each.

“Is that our new planet?”

“Yes, that’s it. We’re home.”

“I pictured it more blue.”

“Yeah…welcome to New Earth.”

“May it outlive the old.”

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I sat on this week’s prompt for over twenty-four hours after reading it, in hopes that something else would pop into my brain to do with it. Alas, nothing did, so I’m going with my first — and fairly grim — impulse.

The date had been set for months, but still, he wasn’t ready. He’d had his last meal, he heard (but not understood) the words of the priest and he’d talked with his lawyer and his sister. But still, before the last chair he’d ever sit it, Leonard Luther Allen’s knees gave out.

The chair dominated the small room, it was so big. But he barely saw the chair. There, in the air around it, were faces. Their faces. Staring. Judging. One laughing.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” they replied.

Leonard’s victims watched as the guards pushed him into the chair…and minutes later, judgment came.

This ties into an idea I’ve had knocking around my head for a supernatural thriller for quite a few years now. I haven’t written it, because I’m not sure if it should be a novel or a screenplay.

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