Mini Sledgehammer March 2015

Posted on March 13, 2015 by writer

Congratulations to Denise Coderre, whose story earned her a free book and bottle of wine!

***

Character: The person next to you
Action: Hail Mary
Setting: Somewhere in cyberspace
Prop: Mask

***

Nature Trip

by Denise Coderre

“Hey man, where are we?”

“I don’t know about you, but I think I’m somewhere in cyberspace. How big a dose did you say this was?”

“I didn’t, and I’m gonna keep it that way. You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m glad we’re here together. It’s a real chance to get to know you on a different level – without the masks we sometimes wear. I’ve known you all your life, mi hijo, but really, how well do we know each other?”

“I know what you mean. All my life, I’m the person next to you, living, playing and eating with you, sometimes crying with you, laughing with you…I think I know you pretty well. But who knows? How about you tell me about yourself? I’ll see if you get it right.”

“Hah! What is this? I don’t see any confessional boxes around, even if I were Catholic.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not as if I’m going to assign you any Hail Marys – even if I were a priest.

“This is supposed to be a beautiful experience. I think the best way we get to know each other, or rather, keep knowing each other, is just to be ourselves. Completely in the moment. There aren’t any roles we need to play. The roles are all in the past. Now, we’re just two people.”

“Yes, two peoples. And lots of bugs! Man, cyber bugs are huge! What if they eat us, and no one finds us for two years, and then we’re just a pile of bones?”

“Hello…take off the mask. You’re using bugs as an excuse to not talk about what’s important.”

“But this is me. I’m not a great philosopher. I’m just a weirdo who enjoys the minutiae, the bugs, the dirt. Look at the dirt! It’s red. Did I ever tell you about the science teacher who told me about the meaning of red dirt? It means were here. We got to where we’re going. We’ve arrived!”

“And there’s no place else I’d rather be than right here next to you. I sure do love you, whoever you are. I may not know you, but I know I love you. Thanks for being here with me.”

“Thanks for asking me. I love you too, more than you’ll ever know.”

***

Denise Coderre, originally from California, is a born-again Oregonian since 1990. She is an attorney specializing in retirement plans, insurance and related tax laws. In her spare time, she enjoys playing fierce Scrabble competitions against her fiancé, quiet evenings watching Dr. John McWhorter lectures on DVD, and studying foreign languages to mingle with locals around the world. She cherishes her good fortune to experience first-hand the enduring, ever-evolving mother-son bond.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, cyberspace, Denise Coderre, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer February 2015

Posted on February 17, 2015 by writer

Another great turnout! Thanks for the support, 2015 writers!

***

Character: The least respected person
Action: Acting
Setting: The farm
Prop: Chandelier

***

The Old Chandelier

by Alyssa Shelton

I

Some of his first memories were just twinklings; iridescent, tiny movements of light dancing off of and with one another to some music that couldn’t actually be heard.

He often wondered if his mother had left the bassinet in the foyer with the fore thinking that he would be entertained by the subtle moving shadows cast on the wall by the chandelier in the entryway of their rundown old house.

More likely, however, was that she simply set him down as quickly as she could after returning home from whatever monotonous chore or errand she’d just stumbled through.

He also wondered if those bits of light had played any role in his growing desire to become the world’s greatest actor.

He could see it all so clearly: the common farm boy turned movie star! How he would wow and dazzle, shock and surprise on the golden screen. Finally, the other boys would envy him and wish they had been kinder all those years in school. “Look at him now!” they would say as he moved weightlessly across the stages of Hollywood and Broadway. The girls would regret mocking him and sending him those humiliating fake love letters, not that he had wanted them anyway…

“Eugene! Get your sorry ass downstairs and get to herding, sonofa…”

He was ripped from yet another daydream, forced back to the pathetic reality of life on a sheep farm. While he craved glamour, production, and scripts he was drowning in wool, shit, and dust.

He made his way toward the dilapidated staircase, running his hands along the cracked and fading wallpaper with fat baby angels sitting atop yellowed clouds. His mother called them cherubs, and his father asked her why the hell she couldn’t just call them what they were: fat baby angels.

As he began to descend down the steps, he paused midway to admire the one remnant of a once impressive and sprawling plantation; his great grandfather’s chandelier. Eugene was always taken by its out of place elegance, and his mind began to wander again as it was wont to do…

“Why don’t you just take your drunk ass out of this here house and let us be!”

Slap!

The memories always ended with that terrible sound that they’d all grown so accustomed to.

“Damnit Eugene, quit starin’ at that damned light and get outside!” He quickly ran down the stairs and out to the pasture.

II

Once his work was done, he retreated to the old barn. Here he could be himself: the famed Gene! The most highly sought after actor in the whole country. And from such humble beginnings!

Not long now and his neighbor and friend, Johnny, would join him in the barn. Together they would continue writing and rehearsing their next play, The Farmer’s Wife, the coming-of-age tale of a misunderstood gal on her way to Hollywood. They could both identify.

Johnny came and they wrote, laughed, argued and fucked. They just got to thinking it might be time to call it a night when the barn door slammed open and Eugene’s father burst inside, looking horrified but not surprised.

The next sequence of events would remain a blur to all who tried to recall it. Johnny took off out the back of the barn naked.

Boom. Boom. Two shotgun shots that hit nothing but the balmy summer air. In the meantime, Eugene’s father had caught him by the back of the neck and began to drag him toward the house.

Nearly at the doorstep, Eugene broke free by throwing a wild punch in his father’s face. He made it just into the foyer as another boom! canceled out all other sounds.

As he crumpled to the floor amidst his mother’s and sister’s screams, his mind wandered back to those early twinkling memories. As the blood left his body and his breathing slowed, he once again watched the lights dance along the ceiling and the walls.

***

Alyssa Shelton co-owns a branding and web design agency called Roger That in Portland, OR. When she’s not copywriting for her clients you can find her attempting recipes that never turn out quite right.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Alyssa Shelton, Blackbird Wine, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer January 2015

Posted on January 23, 2015 by writer

What a great night! We had a bout a dozen writers come out for the first Mini Sledgehammer of the year. Congratulations to Jeremy Da Rosa!

***

Character: SIRI
Action: Exercising
Setting: January, 1915
Prop: Salt

***

Milk Starring Sean Penn

by Jeremy Da Rosa

It was the largest glass of milk I had ever seen. I’m no stranger to milk (I’ve got most varieties memorized), but this was the biggest glass I’d seen. 32oz at least. Next to it the sugar shaker on the table made the sugar shaker look like a salt shaker.

The waitress brought me a straw, which was kind but unnecessary.
“I’m pretty good with milk,” I said.

“Siri,” I asked, “What is the Guinness World Record for largest quantity of milk drank in one sitting?”

Siri didn’t know. I stood up in the brown diner. There was a belt of square windows strung around its waist and a fence of bushes between the windows and the street. A marathon was breathing heavily by, and I was convicted about my lack of exercise. I returned to my milk.

A search through the bowels of the internet revealed the milk drinking record was two cows past a full herd: a man named Samuel Scott Walker held the record with 2.5 gallons of whole milk drank in one sitting. The asterisk next to the stat showed a sitting was considered 45 minutes.

This was beyond me–no matter how much I loved the thick, natural soy-based alternatives. I needed to train, and to train, I needed to talk to the best.

Samuel Scott Walker, according to classmates.com, was born on Jan. 30, 1915, in Tillamook, Oregon, which made sense–where else would the world’s best milk drinker be born other than the producer of the nation’s best dairy products?
But 1915, that’s one hundred years ago! The odds that this proud man still walked among us were thinner that a glass of nonfat.

***

Jeremy Da Rosa is a writer and educator who lives in Portland. He was born in Salinas, California, where lettuce comes from.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, Jeremy Da Rosa, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer December 2014

Posted on December 17, 2014 by writer

Prompts:
Character: The woman with the beehive hairdo
Action: Snapping a photo
Setting: The docks
Prop: A DVD box set of Murder She Wrote

***

Untitled

by Julia Himmelstein

Author’s Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

There wasn’t much that Tim was scared of that night. He had done the deed already, and was just looking for the proper place to dispose of the weapon. He drove far away from the rink, north along the edge of the Willamette River. He strolled along the docks, hardly minding the debris: a condom wrapper, some soggy pink insulation, and Murder she Wrote DVD’s strewn along the edge of the water. He walked along, absentmindedly swinging the bat from side to side, and thought about his fiancé.

—

She never expected for Tim to be the man in her life. That is to say, she never expected to stay with him. In the scenarios of the future that she had built in her mind, they would be together 3, 4 months tops, and he would slide into the ether as she became well known, a national champion, an Olympic star. By the time she was on the magazine covers, Tim would be nowhere nearby.

They met at a local bar, she with her off-the-shoulder shirt and loud-mouthed friends, snapping photos and making it clear to anyone nearby that she was having the time of her life. He spent most of the evening in a dark corner, playing darts and casually stealing glances. She noticed, of course. She didn’t acknowledge him, but slid her number over on a cocktail napkin after last call, like she had seen in the movies once. A week later, he called.

He was tall and strong, and had a way of making her feel safe. Feminine was never a word she used to describe herself, but when she was snuggled up in Tim’s large bear-like arms, she felt exactly that. Like she could float away, and it was his embrace that would hold her down.

Skating was something she had always done. Since she was a young girl, it was the only thing she truly loved. There was something about the way she felt when she was spinning athletically through the air: lutzes, sow cows, axels. Everything else- the gliding, the crossovers, the spins- they were all just in-between, time-fillers before the rush of the next awesome move.

She couldn’t pick the moment when they became a team. She was staunchly independent, always had been. And yet, Tim always seemed to be there. His cheeks flushed just as hard as hers when she nailed her first triple lutz. After a while, she let herself believe that he would really be there for her.

—

Tim picked up his pace, and walked to the edge of the dock. This is for you, Julie, he thought. He threw the bat as far as he could, and watched it splash into the water. He was a good man.

—

Francine’s coach was almost witness to the crime. She was outside the rink, warming up the car for Francine. Her beehive hairdo made it impossible for her to put on a hat, and she shivered in the wet cold evening. She couldn’t wait to get home and snuggle up with her box set of Murder She Wrote DVD’s. And yet, Francine didn’t come out. She waited ten minutes at least before walking back in, and immediately heard the screams. Francine would never skate again.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: beehive hairdo, Blackbird Wine, Julia Himmelstein, Murder She Wrote, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer November 2014

Posted on November 17, 2014 by writer

What better way to spend a fall evening than sipping wine and writing?

Thanks to everyone who came out for this month’s Mini Sledgehammer, and congratulations to Joshua Force for taking home the prizes!

Prompts:
Character: A candidate
Action: To legalize
Setting: An empty office
Phrase: After the war

***

Untitled

By Joshua Force

after the warning shot got pushed past us in the form of a opinion poll we probably should have thought twice about renting the extra office space. even 16 feet square is too much when your budget shrivels up on lack of fund raising and funds on lack of faith as the the general public prematurely picks their pony and that other pony gets stronger. that can feel about it – watching as your chances are lapped. lapped out as if a giant tongue absorbed a long line of sugar cubes and the sweetness that could have been yours. was the polling firm reputable I wondered staring at a wall of pre-paid posters quilting over the wall in perfect repetition and image – broken only in their haphazard overlapping as though the enormous long wall they blanketed had shrunk them piling as tiles onto one another. “Yes on 7” “es on 7” “Yes on “ “s on 7” and occasionally an upside down one too. somehow so garishly fitting or is it unfitting that our amateur public image mimicked an ugly wall that needed care and received rushed neglect. gah! is there a way out of this useless box? trapped in the mirrored failure of assailed idea, riding the grumpy gallop towards a finish line you’d rather avoid completely if front of a crowd that hates you or at best is disengaged from the possibility of you. you an idea. you an intangible candidate. the potential of a sparkling fix. the dwindling futures of our indigenous proposal a pre-lost race. out come the opinion polls and you’re lapped up like a pool of water. you’re lapped up until the trough is dry withering dry. and there I was in the middle of the fight and yet entirely after the war. all the thrashing and kicking and pushing would have to be ceremonial now. I’d need more runs around my precincts with a volunteering flyers and flyer-ers still clutching the paper like the hope could still win with the barest chance the power of the ghostly candidate was hidden beneath even our own ability to see. sweeping away the other debris from the porch stairs and the door handles and perches created around mailboxes in a vaporous wave of portended defeat as even the lapping occurred still trapped in useless motions of fumbling in the worst pantomime looking in the mouths of the grandstand voters in their glowing homesteads and revival farmhouses with saccharine pleading to be the crop. to spur on the candidate. the animal the One chance this generation to make legal the question of 7. it is after all legal elsewhere with winning results for not only those who bet on it but also and actually everyone. we can all win legalize horse racing in Clindale county! a yes vote send revenue to the schools! the failing schools!!! it’s an exhaustion now because the polls came out and the polls are too far ahead and now there is no way we can catch up to the polls. our candidate is a fading apparition a non-animal who will be blown away like acrid smoke.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, Joshua Force, legalization, short story, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

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The Old Chandelier

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Milk Starring Sean Penn

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Mini Sledgehammer November 2014

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