If you find yourself inspired, jot a poem, a few words, a sentence or even story, in fact, anything that comes to you, and I will post it with next weeks Writespiration.
Heres Mine:
My legs kept betraying me. Every step closer to her office, they shook harder. I could feel my colleagues averted eyes desperate not to look at the dead man walking passed.
“Good luck,” I heard someone whisper. A last salute before I got crucified.
The door towered in front of me, dark and ladened with the blood of victims before me. Each one brutally criticised, crushed and finally, sacked.
My hand reached for the door knob, a surge of adrenaline fired through my body. I stood straight, shoulders back. I could take her. I wasn’t going to let the bitch beat me without a fight.
“Yeah,” I said to myself, eyes wide, and poised on tip toes ready to pounce into the room.
“Yeah,” louder this time.
“COME IN.”
With two shrill words, I was cut from my prime. I shrank back and trembled my way inside her office.
***
Ok, my bad – I know they should of actually been criticised, but you know what it’s like, you start writing, the words flow, you don’t know where you end up!
To last weeks Writespiration
Geoff le Pard turned the prompt on its head and wrote this touching tale:
Marcus was a little boy with big ambitions. To be an astronaut. His dad had said, ‘If you want it enough, you’ll get it’ and Marcus believed him. He believed him, too when his dad lost his hair and said it was to make his plane go faster so he was home quicker. He believed his mum when she told him his dad was still flying and would be waving from behind a cloud, like she said he did on the day they planted his special box. He understood not to ask his mum too many questions because she forgot her words a lot so he took himself to the end of the garden, him and the space rocket his dad had given him for his sixth birthday. In it he wrote his dad a message: ‘When I’m in my rocket I’ll come and bring you home’. He tried to pump the air into the rocket as his dad had showed him but he wasn’t strong enough. So instead he held the rocket tight in his fingers and he threw it up, up, up as far as he could. He knew, because his dad had told him, that it would always come back again but that, on the way up and down it would pass through the sky; and Marcus knew, without anyone having to tell him that it would pass the cloud behind which his father would be forever waving.
100-word drabble:
“We’re going to a wedding, not a funeral! Look happy.” she told me as she put on mascara, her face inches away from the mirror.
I sat on her bed watching her waiting for my turn in front of the mirror. I was happy. But did she remember the way she spoke to me minutes ago?
“Don’t wear your hair like that. Those shoes don’t look well with that dress. You’re going to put on make-up, right?”
Sure, I was happy to go to the wedding. It was just hard to be happy sitting in the same room as her.
OOOH ouch. I really felt for the character. You feel the weight of their sadness as she sits on the bed. And what a bitch! Love this Rachel thanks for joining in 🙂
Glad you liked it! Thanks.
Mr Gilbert (based on a true story)
Charlie Gilbert taught us French in the first form (year 7 these days). He was as old as the planet, had whiskers that picked up radio waves for fun and hated, as in became demented, if you spoke while he was talking.
Whoever timetabled French lessons for the first period after lunch in a warm September was barking. The only ways to keep awake while Mr Gilbert devoted his time to explaining the beauties of avoir were (a) to jab your thigh with a compass (b) try and go cross-eyed or (c) talk to your neighbour.
Mr Gilbert heard the whispering. His voice could have been used in place of CPR to bring people back from the dead. ‘WHO SPOKE?’
Necessarily no one confessed.
If you can see the Great Wall of China from space then, despite the vacuum I’m certain you could hear Mr Gilbert’s next question. ‘CONFESS OR DIE!’
Still no one spoke.
Mr Gilbert was small, barely higher than desk height and despite his age he was sprightly. ‘RIGHT.’ He turned and dragging his desk to the blackboard, an old fashioned thing that was on a loop inside a large frame. We watched as our mad French master climbed onto the ledge at the top.
Someone sniggered, then three boys and eventually we were all laughing. Despite the fact his moustache hid his mouth the twitching told us he too was amused. He began to tell us about his time in Normandy during world war two. He always did that when he relaxed.
‘Where is your…? Oh, there you are Mr Gilbert. Dusting perhaps?’
The headmaster, passing our classroom and noting (a) the absence of a teacher and (b) hilarity amongst the pupils had entered to be confronted by the unexpected sight of Mr Gilbert practicing his Buddha impersonation.
‘Yes. Sorry, head. I was, er… The thing is…’
‘Your chalk sir. It got stuck.’
‘Chalk?’
The Head turned from the class to the Master and back, bemused. Mr Gilbert shrugged, sheepishly. The head mirrored him and left.
Slowly Gilbert walked towards my desk. The speaker had been the boy, Colin Budd, who sat next to me. ‘Which of you two miserable wastes of air spoke?’
My neighbour pointed at me so I pointed at him. Mr Gilbert sighed, studying me carefully. ‘Le Pard you are a weasel but no rule breaker. Budd you break more rules than the rest of this class breaks wind. You are no doubt the guilty party. But I cannot prove that. You will BOTH go to the head and explain why you decided to try and make him believe I’m bonkers.’
Colin Budd strode out, happy, no doubt to be avoiding more French. I trailed behind, thinking hard about my behind and the likely outcome of a visit to the head’s study. We waited outside for a lifetime. When called in Budd explained, implicating both of us. The head nodded. Then he asked, ‘Does Mr Gilbert often sit on the blackboard?’
‘Yes sir,’ we both chorused because in truth he did.
‘Poor man. Still suffering from the war I suppose. Always the urge to reach higher ground.’
He sent us on our way.
Your teacher sounds mental – like proper crazy! I didn’t quite understand how he sat on the blackboard though??? The head did make me giggle ! Thanks GLP for joining in ?
Difficult to explain. The board was a sort of black painted scroll in a box that you could pull round. He sat on the top of that box about ten feet up.
lol, total nut job then!
The Prequel
“Dave; you’re good, but you’re not that good.” I was in a one-on-one meeting with John, Head of Programming. It was our preliminary meeting about the proposed wildlife documentary.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I replied, getting to my feet to press home the point.
“Sit down, Dave. Your proposal for this documentary is just not on. It’s not going to happen. Not the way you’re asking, anyway. Five camera crews? Five? Really? And how many sound men do you expect?”
“Ten, John. Two for each crew.”
“You can forget that for a start. Listen, Dave. We don’t have an unlimited budget. We all have to work within constraints. Your crew for this job will be two cameramen, two sound men, director, research lead and four support.”
“Ten?” I asked.
“Ten,” he replied.
“I can’t do this justice with only ten crew. You, of all people, should know that.”
“Then I’ll find someone who can.”
Incensed, I leaned forward towards him. “You know there’s no-one can give you the result I can, and no name is as well-known as mine. My name on the credits is enough to push the ratings up by 20%. You said that yourself, when you renewed my contract.”
John stood up and walked away from his desk. Having worked for him for eight years, I had come to expect this, his trademark move. I knew now, that he would wander around the room, hands clasped behind his back, while he delivered a lecture.
“Dave, Dave, Dave. You must be the most naïve man on the planet. I said what I had to for you to sign the contract. Yes, this job is important. Yes, it’s a story that has to be told and yes, you will tell it well. However, if you think that your name and the audience draw that you imagine you have is going to convince the Board to increase the budget for this job by two hundred percent, just to satisfy your ego, you’d better think again. Now bugger off and redraft your proposal with a crew of ten. I want names, jobs and full details of what you need in terms of location accommodation and support equipment, too.”
“Yes, boss,” I said as I got up and left John’s office. I was elated. I got exactly what I wanted. Even after all this time, he hadn’t recognised that by asking him for a great deal more than I need, I had given him loads of room to make his cuts. He was, no doubt, feeling very self-satisfied, having beaten me down yet again.
hahahahaha this is brilliant. Love the twist at the end Keith 😀
The sequel to the prequel is on Esther’s challenge this week.
Hi Sacha, here is my entry this week. Cheers, Ali
“This has been going on long enough,” she says, pressing her lips together into a thin hard line of disapproval. “This won’t do at all. You look a mess.” Her eyes rake me over, leaving scars no one can see, but which I continue to feel long after she has gone.
I force a laugh, patting my hair self-consciously. “I’ve just had a baby. Nice clothes and make up aren’t that important to me right now,” I say.
She humphs self-righteously. “Well they should be. You don’t want Mikey’s eye to wander do you?”
I stare at her, aghast. My mouth drops open, but no words come. Fortunately, he wades in to my rescue. Or so I think.
“Come on now, mam. I’m nothing like dad, and you know it.”
She says nothing. She doesn’t have to. She just spears him with her ‘mother’s always right’ gaze and he backs down, just like he has always done, just like everyone has always done, and I realise that I can never win.
You honestly have such a knack of creating such powerful emotion. I need to learn this from you <3