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Marrow’s Next Step, Edited

A little housekeeping to start off the day then the good stuff.  A little transposition got me off in my day count at the beginning of this 2009 revival of 1000 Days.  I corrected that yesterday, so you no longer need to worry about the missing 100 days.

I don’t normally resort to gimmicky writing exercises like I did last night when perfectly good blather is to be had by the fire-hoseful.  I enjoy porting artistic practices to my writing where I can.  If you didn’t follow the link in yesterday’s post and then follow the link in that post over to Gorilla Artfare then you should click on this one to see what a skilled artist can do with 30 seconds of time.

Now that I’m back to writing and not doing so much screwing around with the layout I too am annoyed by the purple links and the poorly executed text-color contrast.  Usually my interstitial commentary is grey while the text you’re meant to read is nicely black.  I’ll do something about that when I can.

Last week I promised weekends would be for editing.  Today minus two-hundred days provides me with a day called “Marrow’s Next Step“.

“If you thirst, quench your spirit. Your body will wait.” My forearms lean on the lentil of the low door. I’m adjusting to the light and being upright.

“Is it true,” he asks.

“You cannot know the key and not know the truth.”

“I’m a skeptic, not a coward.”

“There’s a difference?”

I shuffle into my small home, surprised his presence doesn’t feel intrusive. After this many years alone I expected some annoyance. I motion to the barrel and the dipper; he waves a no. Zealot. “When I’m thirsty I don’t kneel.” I dip out two cups and force his into his hands. “Drink it and wait.”

“If you thirst, first quench your spirit. Your body will wait.” I support my weight by pressing my forearms into the lentil of the low door.  My eyes adjust to the darkness inside and my guts to being upright.

“Is it true?” he asks.

I consider dissembling or, more simply, pretending I didn’t hear.  Instead I answer as he before me answered: “You cannot speak the key and also not believe.”

“I’m a skeptic, not an Unbeliever…or a coward.”

“There’s a difference?”

I shuffle into my small home, surprised his presence doesn’t feel intrusive. After so many years alone I expected some annoyance. I pull the dipper from it’s perch on a rafter and  motion to to the water barrel; he flicks his hand to indicate no. Zealot.

“When I’m thirsty I don’t kneel.” I dip out two cups and force his into his hands. “Drink it and wait.”

There wasn’t much text to work with here–this post is the extension of the day’s prior post.  Unsurprisingly it relies on that post for much context.  Mostly I feel the first effort was overly cryptic in the narration.  It’s suitable for the dialog to be cryptic, but not the narrator’s thoughts–at least, not too much.

I’m still not happy about the “Zealot” thought in there, but I’m not sure how to get that across.  This seems like the kind of thing my narrator would immediately think, but not something he’d think much about to get to that conclusion.  So ultimately I’ve got to pre- or post-explain why not drinking the water makes the son a zealot.  It would help if I knew.

Day 331
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In 20 More Minutes

I last did this work out in May.  I ought to do it more often as it really feels like a fun exercise.  Though maybe now I’ve done my warm up I should get to the real stuff?

  1. Crickets and insects from all angles along the ground and all arcs through the canopy rendered the jungle a screeching mass of noise.  Occasionally a monkey
  2. John stepped from the tub nearly naked.  Yes, nearly–not fully.  He’d thought it prudent to shower in his socks.  These public showers were notorious for
  3. Underpaw, the fallen leaves crackled as the fox strutted through the shadows near the edge of the glade.  Rabbit blood on his whiske
  4. The armada gathered.  Each member snipping in from underspace in about the same order they’d entered from the staging
  5. You just don’t think robots get rusty.  You don’t imagine them with shoddy paint jobs, dings around the joints, or rotten rubber hose dangling from gaps in
  6. Julie sat motionless near the base of a tree.  She held a crumb of bread in her hand and waited on a nearby robin.  None were coming and her arm ached.  But she had money on
  7. Colin gritted his teeth.  He pressed his finger tips and then the palm of his hand to the rear of the dead-battery Chevy and sealed his skin to the blue metal
  8. Drifting upward then sinking downward.  Drifting upward then sinking downward.  Hugh expected the sailboat to continue this way in it’s moorings till the end of time.  It , in fact, did not.
  9. “I will not do that again.” Jennifer told her sister.  She stamped her foot down for emphasis, but hit the edge of a stone in the pathway and the
  10. His face wore age the way toddlers wear heavy diapers: badly.  Lines molded his cheeks and forehead into
  11. The fabric evaporated from her body in the light breeze as if it were not attached to any part of the rest of itself.  The sun illuminated it
  12. Anger swelled in Christian’s chest like dead cat in the hot summer sun.  He’d seen
  13. Teacon paced to the edge of the stage and fired up his pad.  It booted quickly and charts were on the screen in front of the audience as the gunmen came into the auditorium from the
  14. Pip. Pip. Pip.  Scratch.  Flutter.  The wren never stopped moving.  Russell glared at it and wiggled a knob on his camera to
  15. The car ate other cars for breakfast and the writer cringed at the cliché.  He’d meant to right something a little more exciting about th
  16. The car fucked other cars sisters and then bragged about it.  It was sleek and red and never stopped looking like it was moving fast even when it wasn’t moving at all.  From the rear spoiler to the front end grill
  17. Leave off the car for God’s sake you’re sucking at it.  Maybe you can go with that old stand by of a leaf and a tree.  Doesn’t seem like you did that too obviously above and maybe no one notices.  Maybe.  Shit, 14 seconds left.  What are you going to write next?
  18. Travis scuffed his bare feet along the dirt road.  High bushes to his left obscured the dropoff cliff the
  19. Magic sloshed around in the room like a sailor still drunk three days into his leave.  The mages tried to capture it.  Tried to tame it.
  20. But in the end they were only able to guide it–more or less–toward the sword they’d intended to imbue.  Drips of manna seeped into the patchwork floor but most made it into the weapon.

Thanks Online-Stopwatch!

Day 330
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Three Green Rocks

Three Green Rocks lays abandoned on the ocean.  The [fish], the [other fish], and the [other other fish] gone for the season.  All dry-land goods, like flour and fruit, eaten or tossed rotten into the water.  Blankets, cooking gear, and lanterns stowed in the rafters out of reach of even the highest tides or packed on canoes and taken back to their [seasonal] home.  All gone except Trida.

Alone on the veranda encircling Three Green Rocks like a teak and crenelated skirt she looked Outward.  Right now nothing wasn’t hers.  She owned the rail she leaned on, she owned the deck below her feet, and she owned the entire fishing camp.  She probably even owned the entire ocean.  When this quiet day gracefully slipped into the water behind her and the spray of stars dared the black sky to wipe them clean she would own that too.

In the morning she would begin her dive-hunt.  She would find a single [cool fish name] hidden among the purple anemones and coral.  She would eat it’s pancreas raw.  And she would kill the baby that grew inside her.

Day 239