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Mini Sledgehammer December 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on November 21, 2013 by writer

It’s the time of year for thinking about, well, time. This month’s prompts speak to that. Congratulations to this month’s winner, Daniel Granias, who wrote in memory of Elissa Nelson.

Character: Timekeeper

Action: Pencil it in

Setting: Calendar sales rack

Phrase: Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

***

Untitled

Dedicated to Elissa Nelson, beloved friend and former Mini Sledgehammer facilitator, who first introduced me to the series.

In my dreams, my father rides on the back of a whooping crane. It flies through an amber sunset, its neck undulating in a long S. Together they splash and patter in the high tide while the rhino burrows its great iron horn in the glittering sand searching for nematodes. The crane takes my father’s belt in its long beak and throws him into the dusty lavender thickets, where he rolls across their dense beds under the cattail reeds that tower eight stories high. The king of the nematodes carries an hourglass with three bulbs; one for red sand, one for yellow, and one for green. When he turns the glass, the sky turns grey and my father and I are sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for the nematode secretary to call our name.

“Bastille! Bastille! I’ve been calling you for the past century! Where have you been? You’ve missed your bicentennial treatment again, now we must pencil you in for the next millennium, and we’re booked through Julaugustary!”

The day-by-day calendar on the desk curls its pages into lips that say, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana!”

With a flourish, my father throws on a lime green doctor’s coat and lifts me in its folds. He takes me to the bookshop he owned, to the corner where my mother quilted the pillows and blankets in so many shades of violet, plum, and indigo.

It is there I wake, beneath the cherry-cedar rocking chair where he’d take me in his lap and read me tales of places near and far, while I stared at the pictures of birds and mammals on the calendars we sold on the rack by the register. The pillows still smell and feel like my mother’s bosom; it was so long ago I fit in the linen nest of her apron before her cancer took hold for the year that followed, each day feeling like a month, each visitation hour like a second.

Now I’ll sort and stack the pillows, activate the register, and flip the paper clock in the window back and unlock the doors as parents and children visit our rows of pop-ups, pictures, and puppets, and I’ll assume my place in the cherry-cedar rocking chair and read the next tale to this afternoon’s visitors just as my mother and father did.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: 36 minutes, 36-minute writing contest, Blackbird Wine, Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese, Blackbird Wine Shop, daniel granias, free, Indigo Editing, Indigo Editing & Publications, Mini Sledgehammer, Portland, prizes, publish, short story, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer October 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on October 17, 2013 by writer

This month’s Mini Sledgehammer writing prompts celebrate Ali McCart, who returned to her Metlakatla home after a lovely extended stay in her Portland home. They each are a take on something about her. (We explain how in parentheses below.)

And congratulations to this month’s winner, Tim Fritsch, who successfully incorporated the following four prompts into what the judges deemed the most successful story of the evening.

Character: A cat herder (Ali successfully manages a variety of people on a regular basis, and over her last week in Oregon, she really added to that as she facilitated components of two conventions.)

Setting: In the doorway to a room for employees only (Ali straddles the line between her roles as leader and worker well.)

Prop: A freezer full of salmon (Knowing a lot of people who fish, Ali has one of these in both Oregon and Alaska.)

Phrase: Allow me to introduce… (Ali opened many an event during her short time in Oregon this year.)

***

Untitled

“Ginger…she’s over in the corner acting to snide, so self assured. She knows it’s about time. I’ll let her wait.”

The old man, who wore nothing but denim and patches, ushered me into the room.

“Don’t mind them, they will all come and see you when they’re ready. When you’re ready.”

“When is ready?” I ask.

“Eh, you know, I don’t even know,” the man said.

“Which one is your favorite?” I ask after a drawn out moment of silence passes between us. He lights a cigarette before he responds. The match smoke mingles with tobacco in the air. Ginger scowls at us.

The man gestures with his free hand up towards a tall bookcase. On the shelves, untold pages contained sacred writ on the rituals and ceremonies passed down through the ages. The ‘Dingle Mouse’, the ‘Laser Chase’—he had it all. Even atop those sanctimonious shelves, two yellow eyes burst with demon’s glow as they observe me.

“Allow me to introduce Patricia. She’s as old as my grandson in college and three times as smart,” the man said, chuckling. “Hopefully she’ll like you.”

“If not?” I ask, a smirk on my lips.

“Well, let me show you a glimpse of your future if she doesn’t like you,” the man said. He pulled his sleeve up, rolling it past his elbow.

I grimace.

Scars crisscross up and down the man’s arm. “If she doesn’t like you now, she will after she has a taste of you.”

I swallow loudly.

The man laughs and guides me down a hallway that opened to the right. “Down here will be your quarters,” he told me. With a knowing look, he added: “Be sure to keep your door closed at all times.” We turned to the left.

“Down this way,” the man said, “is where we let them roam.” The hall opened up into a large auditorium filled with a tangle of mazes, jungle gyms, and tunnels.

“Do we ever let them outside?” I ask.

The man smiled and shook his head. “There is a whole nother branch for that. We don’t specialize in the outdoorsy types here,” he said.

We took another right turn and kept going downwards. Another left and we were down some stairs. Two swinging doors with a sign ‘Employees Only’ emblazoned atop stood beside us.

“Wait here a moment,” the old man said.

“Sure,” I say, thinking nothing of it.

He vanishes through the doors soundlessly.

A minute, two…twenty. I lose track of time and curse myself for forgetting my phone in the car, somewhere miles away.

I hear a subtle crunch. It’s the strangest sound to hear in a hallway like this one.

Crunch…crunch…

I can’t stand it any more. I just barely push one of the doors. I see a sliver of the room beyond.

The man is standing in a poorly lit room. He’s standing in front of a large freezer. Icy steam is pouring down around him as he lowers his head and that awful crunch noise hisses through the air towards me.

Crunch…crunch…

I let out a gasp—the smallest of exhalations—and the man yells, his back still turned:

“I thought I told you to wait!”

The old man drops the frozen hunk of fish from his hands…his…paws? He turns to face me. Bright yellow slits for eyes, teeth razor sharp.

“Welcome to the herd,” he hisses at me.

I don’t even have a moment to think and he’s on me.

A new Portland transplant, grown to perfection in Michigan and shipped via South Carolina, Tim is way into writing. Young adult fiction being one of his favorite genres, he recently produced his own YA novel during his spare time in the Southeast. Up in the Northwest, he hopes to find his niche and polish up a glorious third draft while also working as a part-time baker and server. He’s a Sag/Cap with his moon in Gemini and he only sort of knows what any of that means. His spirit animal might as well be a cat, but who knows, right?

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, tim fritsch, writing contest | 1 Comment »

Mini Sledgehammer June 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on June 13, 2013 by writer

We were a small group this month, and our winning story reflects the particular casualness of the evening. But a lot of participants or a few, the wine still tastes sweet (or spicy, depending on your glass) and the writing still brings joy. Congratulations, Daniel!

Character: Least likely to attend

Setting: Right over there

Action: To parade

Phrase: Whaddaya know?

***

Thomas Tiffany Tate

(An homage to Shel Silverstein)

This is the story of Thomas Tiffany Tate.

Who was always running late.

He was poor with time,

with neither reason nor rhyme.

And with deadlines? Not so great.

With the wind his schedule would bend,

At meetings he was least likely to attend.

His biggest charade

Was to march in a parade,

And forget when it would end.

Then one morning he woke,

To the sound of a chime that spoke,

“There’s a clock right over there,

That will sound in morning air,

And will keep you on time, no joke!”

Thomas had never felt more alive

In extra minutes—he had thirty five!

Well whaddaya know?

Thomas Tiffany Tate,

Was no longer late,

In fact, he was the first to arrive.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, daniel granias, free, Indigo Editing, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer May 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on May 17, 2013 by writer

This month’s Mini Sledgehammer writing prompts celebrate Elissa Nelson, longtime Sledgehammer participant, wonderful Mini Sledgehammer volunteer, and friend. They each are a take on something about her. (We explain how in parentheses below.)

And congratulations to this month’s winner, Kent Nightingale, who successfully incorporated the following four prompts into what the judges deemed the most successful story of the evening.

Character: An unlikely hero (Elissa doesn’t wear a cape or flex her muscles or speak in a booming voice, but she’s pretty darn heroic!)

Setting: A place we used to live (Friends are great for reminiscing.)

Action: To scrabble (*Scrabble* is one of Elissa’s favorite games.)

Phrase: Ollie, ollie, oxen free! (Elissa’s sweetie of a dog was named Ollie.)

***

Hide and Seek

It was a tree that climbed seemingly to heaven as I stared up from its base. I was waiting for my playmates to hide themselves in the forest, like raisins in a sweet roll. The sun shone through the pine needles and illuminated my eye in such a way that I could see specks of dust on the lens or maybe the cells themselves. It’s a phenomenon I’ve been observing since childhood and never have understood, but I don’t want to spoil the mystery.

“Olly olly oxen free” I cried out, still laying on my back and feeling the vibrations of my voice resonate my chest and head from against the soft dirt below me. I heard a rustle in the manzanita but pretended not to notice. I like to bend the rules of a game as necessary to ensure fairness for all sides. It was Pretzel without a doubt. He was the only one of the bunch brazen enough to scrabble into a cubby less than ten yards away and expect to get away with it. He earned his nickname not because of any unusual gymnastic abilities but because he had an insatiable taste for salty snacks.

There were only a finite number of truly desirable spaces in which to seek refuge from the seeker where we used to live, and I found the first three hiders within two minutes. You might think we would tire of a game where the outcome was mostly known before it started. This wasn’t the case, however. Each summer day we seemed able to wash our minds of this knowledge. The truth is we just didn’t have anything else to do.

I planned to capture Pretzel last, so as to allow the suspense to build inside him, to let him dream of victory before his hopes were dashed. We played a special variation of hide-and-seek where I grew up. As each hider was found, he in turn became a seeker. So as the round neared its conclusion, there was an angry mob of seekers plundering the brush, shouting crude threats or trying to trick the last fugitive by announcing that they were late for dinner and who knows what their mother would do to them if the siege continued.

On this day the outcome was not so easy to predict. I’d searched each known bunker and enlisted my captives to scour the treetops but one member was still missing. It was Lilly, Pretzel’s baby sister. She wasn’t a baby anymore but as the youngest of the group would never be able to shed the title. I stunned Pretzel by advancing directly on his bush and calmly requesting that he help us find Lilly. At first he pretended not to hear but I just stared at him for several moments and then searched for a good rock to toss his way. The branches cracked as he revealed himself.

“Did you look in the old quartz mine?” Pretzel asked.

“She wouldn’t go that far” I retorted.

“That’s where she said she would hide.”

Technically, the quartz mine was outside of the boundaries we played in, but Lilly was used to taking liberties on account of her age. We were still fifty yards shy of the mine when we found her laying on the path shaking.

“I got bit” she moaned between sobs.

It was rattlesnake country and most years someone suffered the payment of occupying this harsh dry land. The boys glanced at each other, knowing that one of us had to slice open the wound and suck the poison out. None of us were eager. Pretzel became the unlikely hero that day. I only had to bribe him with the promise of ten bags of pork rinds.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, kent nightingale, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer April 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on May 8, 2013 by writer

Thanks for your patience as we transition from Elissa Nelson facilitating Mini Sledgehammer to Kristin Thiel returning to the role! Thanks so much, Elissa. Salud, cheers, to you! And congratulations to this month’s winner, Pam Russell Bejerano, who successfully incorporated the following four prompts into what the judge deemed the most successful story of the evening.

Location: Beach

Prop: Song

Character: Rich lady

Action: Fart

***

FORGETTING

I sat on the beach, absolutely engrossed in my book. It was one of those perfect days, rare for the north Oregon coast. The sun was out, the breeze was only mildly distracting, and the number of annoying tourists was minimal. I flipped quickly to the back page, counted the 39 pages left, and continued reading. It wasn’t until I finished the last sentence, re-read the last paragraph two more times, and slammed the book shut that I realized I was no longer alone.

A woman, at some point, had sat down next to me, her giant beach towel spread carefully on the sand and her equally giant beach bag flopped over by her side. She wore a loose fitting beach dress that had more colors on it than a 64-count Crayola box. Her thick grey hair was the only thing about her that was neat and tightly pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck. Her hat, as wide as her beach towel, rested crooked on her face, half covering her eyes. I wondered that she could see anything, but quickly diverted my attention from her when I realized she was looking at me. The last thing I wanted was to be distracted by this woman, to destroy my beautiful solitude. I buried my face in my bag, desperate to find the other book I had brought with me. I dug and dug, but found nothing. My headphones were a second alternative, and one that would at least give me an excuse to not answer, but I couldn’t find those either.

“Damn it,” I said, slamming my bag shut.

“Sorry?” she said, jumping at any opening to talk to me.

The euphoria of my wonderful finished book evaporated with the mist floating up off the waves. I was ticked because the last beautiful thought I’d had with that last sentence was gone, now replaced by a woman who chose to sit five feet from me on a beach that started in Washington and ended in California.

“Nothing,” I said, and wondered whether I should just get up and head back to my car. But damn it, this was my one day, my last day of vacation, and the only dang day I was taking for myself. I decided to chance it and leaned back in my camper chair and let my eyes float out across the waves.

“I am a rich lady,” she said, leaning in to be sure I heard her.

I did the airplane leave me alone half smile, quick glance out of the corner of my eye and slight nod reply, in spite of the fact that her comment had me slightly curious.

“You know that song?”

“No,” I said, before I could stop the word from escaping my lips.

She began to sing, humming the notes and lifting and dropping her chin with each note. The tune was completely unrecognizable to me, but I began to watch her in spite of myself.

“Wait,” she said, holding a hand in the air and pausing. “I got that last verse wrong.”

She started again, smiling and nodding, as if now it was right, though it sounded as random as the first. Suddenly, she stopped.

“Do you know the next verse?” she asked.

She hadn’t uttered an actual word, so I didn’t know how to answer so I simply shook my head.

“Sure you do,” she said, “it goes like this.” She hummed a few more notes, lifting and dropping her shoulders this time along with her chin. “Your turn.” Again, I politely refused.

Her eyes narrowed at me, and her face instantly grew sad. I felt my heart sink with the corners of her mouth.

“But you’re so young. How could you not know the song?”

Again, I had no idea what she meant, so I said nothing.

“Try,” she said, standing and sliding her towel within inches of my chair. When she sat, a loud fart escaped and reverberated on her towel. Her eyes grew wide, then her mouth opened and she threw her head back and laughed. It was one of those beautiful, full laughs that moves even the bottom of your feet. Falling under her spell, I found myself laughing along with her. When she opened her eyes and saw that I was laughing too, she laughed harder.

“I did that once in the middle of class, during our AP exam.” She laughed more, taking several deep breaths before she continued. “The proctors tried not to laugh, but they did. Then so did the two students next to me. Then, you know what?” She raised her hand in the air and landed it on my forearm, leaning in to me as we both giggled even harder. “Then the whole class started to laugh.” It took us several minutes to stop laughing and breathe enough to be able to talk.

“That’s a great story,” I said.

“You know the best part?” She turned and looked at me, her intense blue eyes finding a place in my mind and holding me there. A beautiful smile spread ear to ear, revealing yellowed, tin-filled teeth. “We all passed!”

“Sing with me,” she said, and again started humming along.

Giving in to the forgetting of my second book and my headphones, I began to hum along. This only encouraged her, and her song grew louder, encouraging me even more. Soon the two of us were lifting and dropping our shoulders, leaning in to each other, swinging back and forth on our hips, and singing out at the top of our lungs. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had this much fun.

“Nena!”

A distant voice called out, and my new friend disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared. Her face was stone and expressionless as her eyes scanned the beach then stopped. I followed her gaze and saw a young man and woman walking quickly towards us.

Before they reached us, she leaned in to me, putting her mouth next to my ear. “Don’t let them stop your song, my beautiful one,” she whispered, “ever. Promise?”

I turned and looked at her, but her eyes had not left the man and women. “Promise?” she said again, this time with more emphasis.

I took her hand in mine and turned her head so her eyes refocused on me. “I promise.”

Briefly, a smile reappeared on her face.

“Nena!” the man said. To me he said, “I’m so sorry,” then turned back to her before I could reply. “Nena, you know you are not supposed to leave the home. How did you get out this time, huh? They said you were locked in your room and couldn’t get out.”

“She was no problem, really,” I tried to interject, but my voice was drown out by their ridiculing of her. When I realized they had packed her towel and were about to shuffle her away from me I stood and yelled.

“Hey!” It worked. All three stopped and turned to look at me. I had no idea what to say next, and stood awkwardly for several moments. “We…we weren’t done with our song,” I finally stuttered.

Nena smiled. “I am a rich woman,” she said. “Do you know that song?”

I looked from the man to the woman, who were both obviously annoyed by their pursed lips and one-eyed raised brow.

I looked back to Nena. “Don’t you mean ‘I am a rich lady’?” I asked.

Her face went blank.

“She has Alzheimer’s,” the woman said. “She’ll forget you before she’s back in her room.”

Pamela Russell Bejerano is a writer who works as a school administrator in Portland, Oregon. Pamela has published a poem, and was invited to read a short story at the Cannon Beach Historical Society; this is her third Mini Sledgehammer win. Pam has lived abroad several times, and weaves multicultural issues and the strength of women throughout her writing. She is currently working on her second novel about a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua whose tenderly crafted life and community are shattered by an atrocity that she alone must find the strength to overcome.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Mini Sledgehammer, Pam Russell Bejerano, prizes, writing contest | 1 Comment »

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