Send submissions, by Saturday 7/30, to 6words@andfam.net -- don't forget a title. If you're new, let us know if you want a link to yourself. If you have children who enjoy writing, they are welcome to participate.
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This Week's Entries are below!
Stumbled across old home movies
Trying to sketch a near-forgotten history
Astonished to find sugary-fake smiles
Fluffy, meaningless conversations
Were these really my closest friends?
Chapter Two: What is that?
Rising out of the water was Godzilla. Kumonga, swimming like mad, was soon at Kilt’s Dock. Kumonga sprang up into the air, and smashed the dock when he came back down with a crash. Jack ran as fast as he could, but white sticky string was falling all around, and Jack made it into Tokyo University before the webs tripped him and Kumonga caught him. “Prof. Fijimilk! Kumonga and Godzilla are out there! Summon the police station!” blurted Jack. “Well, well, here is are little crazed boy—!—!” a crash came from the ceiling an rained plaster on Prof. Fijimilk. Kumonga came down onto the desk, crushing it. Fire burst through the windows and whacked Kumonga off the desk; Godzilla came marching through the door and grabbed Kumonga as if he was a drumstick, and whacked and whacked and whacked Kumonga on the floor. Then he threw Kumonga out the window, as Godzilla almost crushed a sketch of a fish that is extinct. Kumonga came crashing again through the plaster wall, almost crushing an old couch. Prof. Fijimilk and Jack ran as fast as he could, dropping the lunch box (which his mom, sweet as sugar, packed a salmon and tuna sandwich in) on the ground, astonished at the gaping holes in the University. A big fluffy (hairy) spider was making a lot of noise, and Godzilla, who had been filmed in movies so many times, was burning the place up. Soon another group of professor’s and doctors came running out of the university. Godzilla sent Kumonga whirling like a Frisbee through the air and into the bottom of the sea! The big splash sent a piece of driftwood smashing into Jack’s head. Everything went black.
I can't sugar-coat this: I don't think I have the time to devote to
sixwords any longer. Perhaps that doesn't astonish anybody. I could
whip up a fluffy little sketch every week, but that gets old in a
hurry. I'd like to write some 'real' contributions, but I'm slowly
realizing that takes more time than I have. Sorry everyone! Perhaps
in the fall, perhaps not.
Kelly
Send submissions, by Saturday 7/23, to 6words@andfam.net -- don't forget a title. If you're new, let us know if you want a link to yourself. If you have children who enjoy writing, they are welcome to participate.
Click here for about sixwords (rules and stuff)
Bonus Challenge - Last week's challenge didn't get a lot of traffic, for who knows what reason. If you're feeling particularly clever or bored this week, try for 12 words, this weeks 6 and last week's 6!
This Week's Entries are below!
Meditation on having only one bathroom
The light turns green. The door opens.
The gridlocked traffic moves:
a child walks out; a child possessively jumps in.
Toddlers are locked in or locked out.
Locked-in toddlers busy themselves
climbing the ladder of laundry,
endlessly trying to reach the knobs on the dryer,
or the knobs in the sink.
We are all unfriendly during long red lights.
---------
Meditation on the one bathroom also being the laundry room
You need to keep an eye on the luggage. It has a tendency to jump, full and dirty, up on the top of the washing machine and the dryer, despite the fact that that space is designated for clean laundry waiting to be folded.
The laundry multiplies, but inconsistently. When you try to keep on top of it, there is only a half to three-quarters of any given load waiting to be washed. Left unattended, though, it has the destructive tendency to form piles up to the ceiling.
The laundry waiting to be washed, whether on the floor where it belongs or the washing machine where it does not, does not care that there are children waiting to go to the bathroom. The laundry waiting to go into the dryer does not care either.
The only laundry that cares about the children in the bathroom is the clean laundry, piled high on top of the washer, which gleefully takes advantage of any child-produced opportunity to "accidentally tip over" in order to cover giggling children and babies and then commingle with the dirty laundry below.
He slipped through the night, from one shadow to the next, trying to escape the enemy's ever-present eye. He was very glad to be off the ladder, but knew he was far from safe.
He paused in a doorway, catching his breath. He thought he would much rather be in some quiet office job, typing and filing, than running for his life yet again! But his mind immediately berated him for his inconsistency, and he knew that he loved his job, regardless.
He moved on through the city, hiding in doorways: first a grocery, then a shoe store, here a luggage shop, there a hat shop.
He finally reached the airport. He felt in his pocket for the locker key, and, finding it, opened the locker and pulled out his meager luggage.
Now to get a ticket. He desperately wished he could get a ticket HOME, but knew it was impossible, until his mission was complete. He looked at the flights getting ready to depart, and finally settled on the one that was going to be landing not too far away, so he could double back when they weren't expecting him.
He approached the ticket counter.
(A True Story)
She tries not to cry as she eyes the place where the still unpacked luggage isn’t. At this rate she’ll be up all night packing and they still may not be able to go. She is stressed and frustrated with her inconsistent filing ability. WHERE are the other birth certificates? Why were only some filed away where she thought they were? Why didn't she look for them sooner? She swallows a destructive urge and prays the Lord will direct her to the documents, soon.
Godzilla was in Jack’s thoughts. The night before, Godzilla was seen in the harbor, eyeing an exiting ship. When the ship reached Tokyo Harbor, the ship had hit something, burst into flames, and sunk. Local authorities and sailors and officers and the Navy, all blamed Godzilla. The few survivors claimed it was a mine. One survivor blamed a Chinese ship, because he didn’t feel a thing before it blew up. He claimed it was a Chinese cannonball. No one thought about a bomb dropped from a Chinese airplane. When Jack got to school, he asked the kids about seeing Godzilla. No one had thought about it, except the teacher, who had a video of Godzilla the night before climbing onto Monster Island. When Jack got out of school, his father was home. His father had been on the Japan Fright when the “Godzilla Mine” hit the ship. His father had seen a spiky ball in the water, and was about to call out “All hands on deck” when another mine hit the ship, sinking it. The mine that did not blow up was nowhere to be found. His father thought it was a mine, but a Chinese ship in the distance and a Chinese plane overhead, it was hard to decide. No luggage had been saved. His father was on the ship because his job was filing important papers. His father had survived by hanging on to the gunpowder barrel that caused the biggest explosion. The mine hit the far side of the gunpowder room, blowing it up. Such an explosion, Jack’s father was lucky to survive the burns when the mine hit the side, because he was passing the gunpowder room when the mine hit. When Jack came back from school, he saw a small spider way off in the water. He peered closer. It wasn’t a small spider, it was Kumonga! As Kumonga swam closer, Jack could only think of the spider because of the destructive blows it used. Godzilla pierced the air and rose about 30 feet behind Kumonga. Godzilla was very inconsistent. Sometimes he helped the city, other times he would destroy Tokyo after a war because he hated them fighting, while he admired his one fights. Kumonga swam into Tokyo harbor, when he burst in to flames after a blue fire struck him in the bottom, and Godzilla entered a little later!
Send submissions, by Saturday 7/16, to 6words@andfam.net -- don't forget a title. If you're new, let us know if you want a link to yourself. If you have children who enjoy writing, they are welcome to participate.
Click here for about sixwords (rules and stuff)
This Week's Entries are below!
An unfriendly voice emanated from behind the desk. "What are you doing in my office?"
He edged toward the door, and flipped on the light before answering. He was relieved to see that the desk was manned by a human. "Hiding from the enemy, Sir," he replied. "Is there another way out of here?"
"Well." The man's disapproving look was starting to be a bit disconcerting. "You *could* jump out the window, but the traffic might get all snarled up by a dead body in the road." His face wrinkled at the thought. "I suppose, since you're desperate, I can let you use my rope ladder. I guess."
The man stood up slowly, opened the window, and dropped the ladder out. He stepped to one side, hovering possessively. "Well, go on."
He nodded and stepped out onto the ladder. Glancing down, he saw that he was about fifteen stories up. He closed his eyes for a moment to squelch the dizziness, and started down.
The repairman was very possessive of the ladder he used to repair the traffic light for fear an unfriendly person would jump on it while he was at the top.
Send submissions, by Saturday 7/9, to 6words@andfam.net -- don't forget a title. If you're new, let us know if you want a link to yourself. If you have children who enjoy writing, they are welcome to participate.
Click here for about sixwords (rules and stuff)
This Week's Entries are below!
Mary stared at the pattern before her. She was supposed to sew this? It looked so hard. Mary sighed and went out for some fresh air.
"Mary!" Mom called her.
"Yes?" Mary answered.
"What are you doing outside? You have to finish the quilt before Saturday."
"Oh my. It is Tuesday. How am I uspposed to finish it before Saturday?"
"You go inside and start sewing."
"How long do you think it will take?"
"Listen. It won't take you long."
"Okay, I'll do it."
"Oh yes, remember to hurry. You have to take care of Ellen Smith today."
"Why does she need so much caring about?"
Mom was already in the house. Mary went in. She saw a photograph of Ellen Smith. In the picture, Ellen was sitting on a chair, looking as cute as you can imagine.
When she was going to Ellen's house, she could hear Ellen talking to her doll.
"You nawty, nawty doww! I have a notion to give you a panking. Be dood, ow I wiww have to give you one. Wouwd you wike dat?" 'No, I wouwdn't, Mommy. I wiww be dood.'"
Mary wanted to laugh.
When Mary was done caring for Ellen, Mrs. Smith handed her a card. "Just sign your signature here, and I will pay you on Friday," she said.
Mary went home. Her big sister Jane was sitting at the table, cutting out cloth squares.
"I thought I would help you with the quilt, Mary."
"Oh, thank you, Jane!"
Everything went perfect. The quilt was done Thursday night.
A pattern, a pattern, is there a pattern this time? He had a notion
there was a pattern. He is pretty sure there was one before but he was
having trouble remembering. The thing is...does he care? Does it even
matter? If only he had a brain that remembered things better...one of
those photographic brains that could recall things in exact order. He
signed the paper in front of him and then looked at his signature. Aha!
There it is! The pattern! With an air of relief Charles Chad Chapman
turned and walked out the door.
Part I: The Cave
The mysterious things in the cave were spooking Alan. Strange writings on the wall of the cave and strange prints of claw feet in the sand…and the moaning in the cave. The air had strange scents. Alan had photographed many things that were strange or confusing in the cave. There was something strange about the wall… it seemed to be a pattern. Alan was caring for his food, which was mostly peaches and orange juice, and had a lot of notions why to turn back. Alan turned into a corner and spied a strange marking on the wall. Pushing his torch closer, the three markings came into view. They were three letters, and made initials and a word: HAS.
HAS were the initials of his great-grandpa, who disappeared and was never found. Henry Alan Sprites. Alan almost fainted at this. He moved the torch ahead of him, but it bumped against a dead end. Turning around to go back, he saw a straight line going up. It made a square around the initials. Alan inserted his pocketknife into the crack and squared it all the way around. Then, he inserted his hand and pulled out the block. A dark hole went through the wall. The block was seven feet long. When Alan threw it over to the dead end, it shattered and fell with a skull and bones to the ground. Alan crawled into the hole and fell into a darkened hallway. He lit some other wood in the torch holders and walked threw the lit hallway. Another mysterious maze to walk through.
Alan found a candlestick and lit it. To his surprise, the candle formed a bigger flame. When the room lit up, Alan spied something. The initials: HAS
I looked carefully at the photograph in my hand. Once upon a time, it had been my prized possession. Once upon a time I had had a notion that it really mattered if a picture was inscribed with a signature or not. I had spent a great deal of time hunting down that picture in the stores, a great deal of effort deciding exactly which one I should buy, and too much money purchasing that autographed photo of my favourite singer. No longer caring about that precious piece of paper, I ripped it into shreds, and tossed the pieces in the air. The pieces fell in a pattern all around the wastebasket. I sighed, picked them up and threw them away.
The rich old man wept as he listened to the photograph, listened to the pittern-pattern of little feet running in and out of the notion, caring back memories of the family vacations he'd missed. Busyness, he had always been away on busyness. He ran his fingers through his air. He sneezed: Signature! Signature! and wondered what his life truly meant.
*malapropism, according to Webster: ludicrous misuse of words, especially caused by resemblance in sound. (here, for example, photograph for phonograph, notion for ocean, etc)
the prefix mal- : bad, either in the sense of evil/ill or in the sense of poorly/wrong.
the prefix bene- : good; either in the sense of righteousness or of 'well executed'.
So far as I know I've coined the word benepropism. What I'm trying to do is make a vignette** where both the word that is actually there and the word that is "supposed to" be there are part of the meaning or the image. To purposely misuse a word for good reasons.
**vignette, according to Webster (third definition): a short, delicate literary sketch
sorry to the younger sixwords participants for using tons of big words. I like big words... :-)
The pattern repeats. She puts away the photograph, again, her sigh hanging in the air. Folding up the latest letter, she avoids looking at the familiar, firm signature. She has a notion to stop caring.
How many times has she tried to make this particular customer happy? Trying to reconstruct a pattern in an old photograph, taking care to find period notions and fabrics, she seeks to recreate the signature dress of the famous, fastidious old woman. With a resigned air, she resumes her work.
Weeks later, photographers crowd around, flashes fill the air. Young girls crowd close for the grand lady’s signature, patterning their speech after hers. Caring to thank the many who have supported her, the distinguished actress commends her seamstress. Despite a notion to duck behind a bush, the seamstress beams.
He looked around, sniffing the air, and noted a definite lack of cake
smell in the air. Suspiciously, he stepped forward toward the expectant
partiers. "It's not my birthday," he declared softly, every sense on alert.
When he reached the table, he extended his hand slowly toward the cake.
Cautiously, he swiped at the frosting, not very surprised when his
fingers came up empty. The people and the cake and the table faded,
leaving him in a room with a grid pattern on the walls. A holograph room!
He turned toward the door, his instincts telling him that he needed to
be very careful. As he approached, the door opened of its own accord.
Leaning noiselessly around the doorframe, he found the hallway still
empty. Gratefully he eased into the hallway, following the wall. He had
a notion the object of his mission was going to be more difficult to
reach than he'd expected.
He reached another corner, and just then he heard footsteps behind him.
Glancing back, he saw a phalanx of alien soldiers turning into the
hallway. No longer caring if he was heard, since he'd been seen, he
turned the corner and began to run. Spotting a doorway halfway down the
hall, he made for it, and slipped through the door, closing it firmly
but quietly just before the soldiers turned the corner. He slowly turned
the lock until he heard a soft click, then turned away from the door.
He was in an office, which contained a desk, several file cabinets, and
a couple bookshelves. There was a medium-sized window on the back wall,
which was covered both with blinds and heavy drapes. On the wall behind
him, he found a bulletin board on which were several photographs and a
few letters. He peered closely at one of them, trying to make out the
signature, but it apparently belonged to one of the aliens and was
completely indistinguishable.
When he turned back around, he realized there was someone - or something
- in the chair behind the desk.
Send submissions, by Saturday 7/2, to 6words@andfam.net -- don't forget a title. If you're new, let us know if you want a link to yourself. If you have children who enjoy writing, they are welcome to participate.
Click here for about sixwords (rules and stuff)
This Week's Entries are below!
In summertime, with school now past we go.
To cafes near our house we walk or bike.
Though cake and pie do tempt we shall forego,
For we are here to drink and read and write.
My grouchy son complains about a fold
Amiss along his origami box.
I help -- inform him of a fold he’s skipped.
He smiles and into place the pieces lock.
The girls read books and write within their journals.
They hum along to music from the radio.
Iced chais are quickly downed once whipped cream’s gone.
"More chia!" they cry, an ever thirsty trio.
Once safe at home we fall back to our ways
Of playing, cleaning and navigating summer's haze.