Tag: maquette

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Brother Taig’s Maquette

Brother Taig had a knack for being both happy and lop-sided. When circled in casual conversation with his fellow brothers they would swear his left leg was at least an inch shorter than the right, but gathered again later in the day—maybe just prior to Nones—the same gathered group would swear the opposite: that his right leg was now the shorter of the two. His moustache would—depending on the time of the year—favor one side or the other as well. His fellows imagined him at the glass with his razor carefully matching one side with the other but always just a little uneven. They assumed he attended to one half till he realized the other was too long then switched sides to bring them up even only to discover he’d taken to wide a whack again. These same moustache appraisers then concluded that he eventually just stopped as to avoid a moustache breadth no longer in style. Asymmetrical being preferable to arcane. When he moved it was like bales being dumped out of the back of a hay truck. Presumably his leg length switched sides uncontrollably during locomotion.

He never once acknowledged his incongruity. He never said ‘I should just shave this whole blasted thing off’ or ‘Sorry for bumping into you. I’ve got two extra knees and elbows, you know?’ He just smiled, bobbed his whole upper half like a bow, and drew you in with a hello that made you wish you were as comfortable in your own misshapen body…your own imperfect life as he was in his.

260 words on day 747

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Four More Two-Sentence Maquettes

I know I’ve been stumbling through much of the last few weeks of writing. Bad timing and schedule interuptions have eroded my morning habit so much that I’m finding I struggle to to write when I formerly I did not. In part, I believe I need a serious planning session for each of my recent discoveries, but I won’t have the time for that till after Christmas. Until then I’m mucking around in a near empty jelly jar. What you’ve been reading lately is the sound of the knife rattling around in those corners.

I’ve also been reading more than usual.

Some two-sentence maquettes ought to grease the skids a bit…

John wore all his weight in his reddened face. His belly stretched the holes of a new belt every six months, but his cheeks and his jowls and his neck and even his forehead and ears summarized who he was and how much he weighed.

Aunt Jane cooked to make people happy. She wore her blonde hair up and out of the way, and a smudge of flour always decorated her chin and apron.

John looked up to most men, but what he lacked in physical stature he made up for in productive energy—painting portraits and scenes not Napolianic complexity. Men who couldn’t care less of another’s appearance often noted how neatly trimmed he kept his light brown hair.

I’m worried I have a thing for hair. Maybe I should do eyes?

Jane’s large brown eyes centered her soul for most women, but John found them glassy and uncommunicative. Her tits and low-cut blouses should have had him fumbling to help her at every opportunity; instead her cow-like eyes insisted she thought only of herself and turned him away.

299 words on day 620

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Two Two-Sentence Maquettes

I’m writing dark on light tonight instead of my usual bright on black…and now I’ve stopped that shit. Oh, sweet Jesus that’s better!

John could make his face smile without turning up the corners of his mouth or flashing his white teeth. He wore his black hair military-short which kept his greying temples a secret at a distance.

Jane would have made a great Hippie had she not been born in the late 80s. You wanted to see her in a peasant dress and hemp sandals; you expected ribbons mixed with her straight brown hair. Instead you’d most often find her wearing a babydoll tee with the Bat Signal or a Rubik’s Cube on the chest, low-rise cargos, bare feet, and a streak of pink dyed into her bangs.

139 words on day 618