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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.

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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 »

Mini Sledgehammer March 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, Megan Savage, who successfully incorporated the following four prompts into what the judge deemed the most successful story of the evening.

Character: Flying monkey

Prop: Toothbrush

Setting: The ocean

Action: Swinging on a rope

***

Surrender

by Megan Savage

The first favorite fight my best friend and I had was the one about whose dad could lick whose. I had heard that word lick somewhere, and I thought it was funny and old-fashioned, and I imagined that a fight that resulted in a licking would be less boozy than elegant. As though the winner would walk away with Bryll creamed hair intact. We had that fight for a long time, until we started having the ancestry fight. She would tell me that she was a Pilgrim and then I would have to tell her that I was an Indian and we would go back and forth like this, back and forth, forever. She promising that she would produce the Mayflower manifest, me promising that I would produce my great great great grandmother’s headdress, she promising that she would produce her great great great grandmother’s buckled shoes, me promising that I would produce a smallpox blanket.

And then one day I came up with the idea that would trump any of this. We were swinging on the rope swing in her backyard that arced out over the suburban swamplands, over the plank bridge her father had lain over the depression that would fill up with water into a stream in the summer and sink into a mulch of wet leaves come fall. My father, I told her, had played the role of a flying monkey in the Wizard of Oz. I told her he didn’t talk about it because he had such a serious job now, that he was embarrassed, and she couldn’t tell anyone. She didn’t believe me, of course, but then I told her things I could never know. L Frank Baum was a white supremacist and he had written manifestos about killing Indians that he made all the monkeys sign. The monkeys developed lice from sharing those little purple hats. And her eyes widened with credibility. Her father was a Jew but his family had lived in America for a long time and none of his family had died in the Holocaust. We both knew this to be a fact, so there was nothing she could really say to make him more interesting than mine.

The ocean is the place for scattering ashes. When my father died last year I called up my friend in California and told her that she had to come back with me to take him to the ocean. She said she couldn’t get the time off work and I hung up and brushed my teeth with a Walgreen’s toothbrush. I had a dream that night that my father was a chimpanzee, swinging off the national monument. His face looked just like my father’s, but he opened his mouth in a contortion wider than human, displaying all of his teeth and much of his gums, as chimpanzees do. There is something about our occupations that changes the shape of our bodies. My father had been hunched over all his life, from carrying his barrel chest and then working a desk job at a company that set up telephone networks. This was another compelling piece of evidence for the monkey story. Once he was invited to travel to Bermuda with the telephone pioneers of America. He wasn’t a pioneer, but his boss gave him the ticket for keeping silent about the women coming in and out of the boss’s office. The beach where I brought my father is not too far from where the Pilgrim’s landed, but the area is mostly Portuguese now, and there’s a power plant that looms over the whole place like Mt. Doom. There also used to be an amusement park called Nantasket, but they tore it down to make room for condos, leaving only fried clam stands named Rocco’s and one peeling carousel from the turn of the century.

When you’re little you want to be different and important, but when you get older and you’ve each taken a different one of Frost’s divergent paths, all you want is to find the common ground you once had. Now my friend works in LA designing packaging for a popular line of dolls that are actually monsters and also high school students. I took my father on the carousel. We chose a horse with a picture of a Grecian lady on his saddle. I thought about how flying monkeys don’t make very good characters because they don’t talk but also how my father talked slower than anyone I’ve ever met. I bought my father a plate of fried clams. I said, “surrender, Daddy” and let his ashes go into the wind. Then I flew to LA and took a job working with my friend. I’ve been thinking up ideas for the copy I can write on the boxes. “High school is hell.” “Science takes braiiiinnnns.” “Bewitch your boyfriends.”

This is Megan Savage’s first Mini Sledgehammer win. Congratulations!

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

Mini Sledgehammer: May 2013 Metlakatla Library

Posted on May 6, 2013 by writer

Congratulations to Karen Thompson for wowing a judge who doesn’t like most dream sequences. Ali loved how Karen’s dream so realistically jumped from scene to scene and kept a sense of urgency.

Prompts:
Character: A sultan
Action: Running
Setting: A shadowy room
Prop: A book about Africa

***

Untitled

By Karen Thompson

The fire added so much comfort to the hugh room. The wet wood crackled with audible levels contributing to complete relaxation.

I could smell the alder as I drifted in and out of a deep, but still semi-conscious sleep. The fire cast shadows against the bare walls. In my semi-conscious sleep I was running through wooded trails at dusk or twilight. So warm, so comfortable, the sounds awakened childhood memories. It must be summer.

Vaguely I was recognizing a room through a haze; I sensed within my being the need to find something missing? I was late, for what? I continued with this inner sense of missing something. I remembered always having books in a specific place and I could not reach this area.

Within an instant I was running in the wooded trail with shadows in front of me, behind me and sounds of someone with me, or following? I could hear tree limbs snapping as someone stepped on them. THe smell of alder smoke never left.

A hugh building, again the sense and urgency of being late and finding something. Maybe I would find what I was looking for in this hugh building. THe shadows danced around me as I approached…a castle?

Immediately I was in a dim lit room, feeling a familiarity. I smelt smoke and the room was hot, was this because of my running? I could feel sweat on my body, uncomfortable heat but crackling sounds gave me an assurance. I needed to find my book storage.

The shadows were vivid and dancing on the walls. I now saw someone with their back to me. Dressed in beautiful satins that changed as the light from the flames glowed at different degrees. A turbaned sultan? SLowly the person turned and as the eyes came straight forward into mine. His mouth distorted for speech while his eyes pierced through my very being… a loud sound jolted me awake. It was my book on Africa falling.

My dream, was I looking for this book? How did a sultan fit into my dreams? The warmth of the fire, dancing shadows were now dimming.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Karen Thomspon, Metlakatla, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, writing contest | Leave a comment »

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