I should write something about departures today. Or planes. Or evenings in Colorado.
But I won’t.
I also won’t write about continuing practice on this keyboard. It’s scrunchy and imprecise.
Charming Venda has drifted to mind in the past month a few times. Nothing new drifted in with her, so I haven’t tried to write anything more about her. I like the idea that I ought to give her a bit of the Parker-Stone treatment.
Charming was born of the combination of three captures: the word sacerdotal, a picture of dermatography, and a picture of Koh Panyi. I’ve devoted some time to two of these three, but left one entirely alone.
Familiar but unreadable words rise on the skin of Charming’s thighs while she is working at her sugar coral shop.
Therefore…she tries to hide them by putting on a wrap-skirt.
But…they itch so badly she can’t focus on sales.
But…a fellow vender notices and asks what’s wrong.
But…two words in the jumble become intelligible: DROWN [character name].
But…she can’t find a pin to hold up the skirt and the wrap’s ties are torn.
But…they rise on her arms as well and she thinks her face.
Therefore…she leaves a fellow vender in charge of the shop while she goes home to investigate in private.
But…her booth-seller intercepts her and demands back rent.
But…[character who drowns] confronts her publicly for his money.
But…her shop swells with customers before she can gather her belongings.
But…the skin writing disappears before she can get to privacy (leaving her curious if she imagined it).
But…authorities arrive to arrest her for the murder of [character who drowns].
I am not paving new ground here, but I do like the results and the variety.
Also, a nuance of the Parker-Stone technique I’ve just uncovered is that some of the situations that drop out of this effort can be thoughts rather than actual events. Instead of having to choose the best one or two, or having to pile them all on, some can just be a character’s thoughts and fears. This seems like a good place for both the obvious ones and the more outlandish ones that surface.