A wee dram

This was meant to be an entry for Jeffrey Hollar's Monday Mixer, but I cut it too fine, as a colleague came in for a chinwag and that pushed me behind schedule. Oh well, there's always next week. Happily, this isn't an autobiographical account.

If this animation doesn't loop endlessly, go watch it in all its glory here

A wee dram

Just like the first rains enjoy their own special scent, the first drink has an emotional petrichor. The tempting nectar isn't the only thing to emanate from the bottle. It also emits a broth… a silent susurrus of castigation, self-flagellation and defiance.

As the level in the bottle quickly sinks, the murmurs become more vexing and you can't hide from the specious rumours running midst your mind. To combat it, the allure of conversation raises its head. You become expansive and liberal with libations for others - anything to capture their ear and drown out the sounds in your own head.

But by the end of the evening once more you're alone and maudlin drunk. If the demon drink hadn't seduced you out of all your ducats, perhaps there'd be the option of some meretricious company for the evening.

But booze is a harsh mistress and will brook no opposition.

True Wisdom

Wow, it is good to be writing again after an enjoyable holiday. Here's my entry in the Monday Mixer, Jeffrey Hollar's weekly challenge over at the Latinum Vault.We need at least three of the nine prompt words, but I chose five (luminary, compendium, chirrups, slapdash, ethereal), so I am shooting for the overachiever.

Picture from here, they have a lot more cool images and some good advice for making castles

True Wisdom

Once his litter was carried down to the beach, His Holiness seemed to get a second wind. The wizened, pain-wracked face was suffused with childish glee... tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, his breath came in whistling chirrups past his few remaining teeth. Patiently the luminary shaped the sand into ethereal turrets and dug a moat. Not a childish slapdash castle, it was a work of art that was a joy to behold. The senior monks stood to one side, watching with puzzled frowns. They were listening for any gems of wisdom to add to his compendium of sayings. Finally, one cleared his voice and asked "Master, what lesson do you wish to show us?"

His Holiness sighed. 

"I am truly sorry. I have failed you all in your teachings. Sometimes, a sandcastle is just a sandcastle." 

With a final smile, His Holiness left this plane.

For the Hoard!

The climb was steep, and many times we’d thought about turning back. But we finally made it to the top of the volcano.

Although it was dormant, the fearful inhabitants of the nearby  village  claimed they saw the occasional wisp of smoke still arising from it... the caldera was said to be the demesne of a truculent dragon. Pfft. Dragons! Who believes those things are still alive these days? But there might still be some of the hoard up there, especially when the local populace is so lily livered.

The climb was steep, and many times we’d thought about turning back. But we finally made it to the top of the volcano.

The crater was huge, rocky, and (of course) devoid of large, scaly reptilian monsters. Unfortunately it was also depressingly treasure free. There wasn’t even a cave to build our hopes up. Just... lots of bones... scattered around...  everywhere...

Picture source

The word choice for this week's Monday Mixer was obvious once I'd read them, the story finished itself in no time flat. 

Monday Mixer - Student entries

I love getting my kids to do work to send to friends, or to enter into competitions. For the past few weeks, some of my students have watched me do (and given their input on) my Monday Mixer. Last week, I decided I was going to get them to do it but then promptly forgot. So, I inflicted it on them this week. The language is a bit hard for them, after explaining the words, I also gave them some they could swap out for them (only fair since they’re third graders with varying levels of ESL). I know the definitions don't line up 100% with some of the words, but it'll do. I typed them up with only the minimum of error corrections, mainly fixing typos and tense. Since it's not my work, I can't enter them in the competition, but I did tell them there's a chance of extra bribes for any that readers like, so feel free to lavish praise

This is by the student who gave me pointers. After reading her work I asked her if she could jam in another one of the prompts and go for overachiever, and so she went back and edited her work, swapping mountain out for beach. Quite frankly, I think her entry is better than mine.

The Artist
Yesterday at early dawn as I was strolling across a peninsula in Australia, I saw a dilettante sitting beneath a tree, sketch book in hand, pencil drawing slowly. As he finished, I had decided to buy it, so I took out my purse and handed the artist five dollars. I looked at the picture. “How interesting” I thought, as I stared at the picture I had bought. The artist had started to draw yet another picture. He drew the same picture of the beach I had bought and they were both identical. I looked around but there was no beach in sight. The artist was looking at me. He smiled and turned the page of his sketch book and quickly drew another picture and gave it to me. I offered him five dollars but he didn’t accept it. “You’ve done enough for me.” he said. I walked away, smiling.

***


Another overachiever, though the brusque replacement has morphed into an adverb. Close enough is good enough, I reckon.


When I go to the beach
Yesterday, my family went to the beach. My dad and I had a swimming race. I am good at swimming so I swim faster than my dad. But when my dad lost he said he is happy when I win. When my dad and I went to swim, my mum is cooking with a spatula to make barbeque for me and my family. When we were playing my baby sister looked like a lazy person lying on the sand and had some rest after eating lots of sandwiches. When my dad is tired of playing he sits down and read the newspaper. He said that a woman has lost a handbag at the bank. If anyone see it call her by this number 08 67589 911. Then we played happy at the beach with my baby sister then we are hungry and ate barbeque.

***

This story had to be highly edited back down to 150, it lost a bit of cohesion, and the monster turned from an amalgam of a few animals into just a fox. She also had to hack out a heap of wonderful language to get it under the word count.

The Humphrey
On a beach, there was Humphry. Humphrey is a big fox. There was a rude lady who went to the beach. She didn’t meet Humphrey. But an artist did, because he needed to draw a picture of Humphrey.
“Why did you come near Humphrey to draw a picture? Don’t you know what he looks like?” the lady asked.
“No,” the artist replied, “I need to come to Humphrey to see what he looks like. Humphrey’s harmless.”
“Whatever!” the lady thought “is the artist telling the truth?”

The lady soon saw Humphrey. It roared at her. “The artist lied!” the lady said. When she met the artist, she said to him “You lied! He just roared!”
“I told the truth. Humphrey’s harmless to good people. He roared at you because you’re rude.” the artist said. Then the lady left.

***

Yet another over-achiever. I’d like to say that they look on me as an inspiration, but that’s a pretty big lie.

Saturday and Sunday
“Today can I go to the beach with Peyton?” asked Anna.
“Alright,” said mom, “But make sure you come back before 6:30 PM, OK?”
While Anna was walking she met her friend Emily.
“Where are you going?” asked Emily.
“To the beach,” answered Anna. When they got to the beach, they asked Peyton if she wanted to build a sand castle.

After that, they went for a swim. At 3:30 PM Peyton saw an artist and asked if she could draw a bank next to a cemetery. After 3 hours it was time for Anna to go home. When Anna got home, she started writing quickly in her diary. Then her mother took her to buy some handbags and a purse. The next day Emily came to Anna’s house for about 3 hours. Then Anna went to the library with her father. At the library she met Peyton and they went out for dinner.


***


This story was just finished in the time limit, so she didn’t have a chance to revise.

The Weird Bank
Once in a beach there was a bank. Inside the bank there was a spatula, a pan, and a cook. One day an artist came in and said “This is a perfect place for my job!” So the artist started to draw a cook, a spatula and a pan in a lazy way. After a while the bank teller said “This is a weird bank because there is a cook and an artist inside and there should not be one in the bank.” she yelled it so loud that everyone heard her.

She said “I quit!” and left, and shut the door with an angry face. The artist said “It was more interesting when the bank teller was here.” Then the bank teller came back with a happy face. She said “I’m sorry for shouting at you guys.” They all worked better and stayed together happily.

***


Another that just scraped in within the time limit

Angry Artist
Once there was an angry man. He lost his handbag at the beach. Then he looked and looked for it, but he could not find it. Then he said if I don’t have that handbag I will lose my job. The job for the angry man was being an artist. In that handbag there was a lot of artist things. The angry artist still had his money. Then he went to the bank and got more money. Then when he was lined up for the money he saw his handbag on the woman’s back. Then he said “Hey! That is my handbag!” The woman said “No, this is not your handbag.” The woman opened the handbag and he looked inside for any artist things. But there were no artist things inside the handbag. Then he went back to the hotel and he saw his handbag on the chair.

***


I do have a couple more students (only 10, so it's a breeze!), but they didn’t complete their stories in the allotted time.

Sunset

I got my students to do the Monday Mixer as well (their post is here, so if you want to have a look at them, feel free).

Picture from here

I loved to travel along the peninsular and find a quiet place to sit and watch the waves roll in. I’d always take my gear with me, but I was too much of a dilettante to do much more than get my sketch book out - and most of the time that went unopened. It was just too enthralling watching the breakers come crashing over the rocks, collecting shells or wishing on the first few stars. Every week I’d gesso up some frames, thinking this time I’d capture it, but there was always something that took my breath away. This time, it was the way the last rays of the sun hit the spume flung up by the breakers. Hypnotizing. And much more pleasant than mucking around with oil and paints. I’d tried photographs before, but they didn't do it justice. Maybe I’m not really an artist, but I don’t really care.

Watchtower

Once again, this Monday Mixer is written with advice and suggestions from one of my students, she decided if Bran was going to live or die. I think for tomorrow's writing task, I am going to give them a simplified version of some of the words and see what they come up with. I managed to fit six of the words in this time: firth, hillock, caltrops, nocturnal, pensive, profligate. The others didn't fit the tone of the piece. Next time, I'll try and take it somewhere warmer. And happier, too.

Picture from here

The onshore wind rustled the tussocky grass sprouting from the hillock. A profligate worrier (certainly not a warrior) Bran had scattered the rocky path that wound up from the firth with caltrops - a futile attempt to slow any raider who came seeking revenge. Deep in thought, pensive about how exposed he was in the watchtower, Bran hunkered down under his cape awaiting either the dawn or vikings.

In the past others had been found asleep at the post, but thoughts of danger about the nocturnal posting petrified the crofter too much to even consider shutting his eyes. Staring at the horizon in the darkness for hours on end like this was mental torture, the worst  thing Bran could imagine. He was wrong... in the early hours of the morning, a longboat silently made its way up the coast. Sobbing in fear, Bran sounded the horn then ran for his farm.

Heraldry

"Aye, I can do it, but it's not a very... regal sort of animal." the blacksmith said.

"Screw those sanctimonious bastards, and their notions of heraldry!" The knight drew breath, and from his previous visits to the smithy, Danny knew he was going to start his long winded tirade yet again. He nodded his head at all the relevant places, pumped the bellows as quietly as he could, and wished he would just pay up and leave. "Beggin' yer parden sir, but if'n you want me to finish this today, then it's best you leave and lets me get on with it." A curt nod and the knight left him in peace.

Danny shook his head in confusion. Lions, dragons or eagles all made sense on a shield. To some degree he could even see the sense in a stag, noble looking with the antlers. But a manatee? A manatee?

Picture from here

I started the Monday Mixer yesterday, after work. There were still a couple of kids in the classroom, waiting to be picked up. One had some input in the story, naming the blacksmith and telling my off for my spelling and swearing. She also suggested trying for the overachiever award, but I couldn’t comfortably cram more words in. She of course loved the toilet definition of garderobe. Sanctimonius, smithy and manatee were enough for this piece though. There were some coats of arms with manatees on, mainly drawn by kids. But when I saw the horribly wonderful pun on the t-shirt, I couldn’t resist selecting that picture.

The Ogre's Arms

I missed last week’s Monday Mixer because we were visiting the in-laws for Tet. A nice peaceful time, but internet free. The words I picked for this week are derisive, taproom and cosh. Looking for a picture to go with it, I had to pick this one from World of Warcraft. It’s making me homesick a bit, but while I enjoyed my time spent there, I’ve moved on now.

Picture from here, nestled in scenic Loch Modan if I am not mistaken

“You call this a stout? It’s paler than an albino’s ghost!” The derisive comment was greeted with a range of chuckles from the assembled drinkers. “About as full bodied, too!” Such comments were common in the taproom of the Ogre’s Arms, and nowadays Magnus let them wash over him. Occasionally he’d even join in berating his own stock. Not so when he’d first opened his doors. Back in those days, before his beard was even long enough to braid, he’d leap over the counter, cosh in hand, ready to blacken eyes and split lips for insults to his family’s recipe. Nowadays though, he was older and wiser. In the lowlands, things were different. Dwarves were still dwarves, but sense of self superseded that of clan and kin. Looking round at his regular patrons, Magnus realised that they were now dearer to him than those he’d left behind in the Clanlands.

Monday Mixing

I missed last week’s Monday Mixer, because I had stuck the Latinum Vault in my RSS reader, and thought that’d notify me when it was on (I'm not good with time. The word Monday in the title wasn't enough for my memory). But it seems RSS doesn’t work when it’s not the main page of a site - or far more likely I’m doing something wrong. This week though, I got a personal invite which was great... I’d lost track of what day it is due to the Tet holidays. So I thought it was only fair that I try and put more of the words in than the bare minimum. Instead of 3, I used 7 - all the adjectives of course, and two from each of the other categories.

This is the picture source

Down in the lowlands the river was tumultuous - thick with silt and full of small boats, hawking an unbelievable array of “wonders”. But for real magic, they came to the cabana next to the torpid rill that was its source.

Old Gammer would be waiting on her porch, rocking. Unbeknownst to the petitioner the philtre, tincture or unguent they had come for had been prepared hours before their arrival, summoned from the ether by her intrinsic arcane ability.

But the crone knew that the main part of the magic was in the showmanship. She’d squint and cackle. Be all crotchety and querulous. Muttering things about fantastic ingredients like dragon bone, wyvern’s fur, and the sclera from a cyclops. Grabbing a handful of those props, she’d mash them to a paste in her mortar and pestle. Just before her customers became bellicose, Old Gammer would produce their flask, and then disappear.

Silver Tongue

I’ve just recently stumbled onto the Monday Mixer, which due to time-zones is a productive way to spend my Tuesday mornings. The idea is to pick one word from each of the three lists: location, thing, adjective and do a piece of flash fiction that's exactly 150 words. You can be a sucker for punishment and try and jam all nine prompt words in, but I figure that's a bit much when I'm trying to mark tests.

Picture from Wikimedia

The wind howled over the remnants of the battlefield causing banners to flutter listlessly. The moor was littered with the dead and dying. Broken shields, hacked limbs and viscera were scattered about, the bulk of them displaying the insignia of the Renegades.

Victory was not yet secured though, as Silver Tongue was yet to be accounted for. With luck, his corpse would be amongst the fallen, and this miscarriage of a revolution would finally end. Inspecting the dead was gristly work, but the reward posted for his head more than made up for it.

Behind a clump of furze a pair of boots kicked feebly as their owner tried to rise. Teeth gritted and a bandana pressed against his side in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of blood, Silver Tongue looked up at my approach. “Not so loquacious now, ye bloody bastard!”

The land would know peace once more.