“Untitled” by Team Hammertime

Posted on August 20, 2013 by writer

Prompts:
An animal trainer
Cornfields
Doughnuts
“Don’t eat that!”
Spending $4
Owls

***

Untitled

By Team Hammertime

Once upon a time there was a man named Mr. Dean. He was an owl trainer. The date is August 7, 2243.

It’s so hot out today – too hot – maybe I’ll get a dry ice doughnut from VooDoo Doughnuts to cool me down and fight off this deadly heat After all, earth is only 15 billion light years away. It’ll only be a five minute trip.

In five minutes I’m in Portland, the only city with Voodoo Doughnuts . I heard 230 years ago it used to be a beautiful city full of parks and forests, but now it’s just a cloudy, crumpled city, full of pollution. I went inside. The next available person was dressed as a voodoo doctor. I ordered two boxes of doughnuts – one box of dry ice doughnuts, paid my $4, and went to work. Voodoo Doughnuts were the only thing that would cool me down from the planet’s heat.

Once I got to my work, I put the doughnuts down on my desk and started typing. Then an owl tried to sneak a box of doughnuts, but once I saw the tip of his feather, I turned around and said “SHOO! SHOO! DON’T EAT THAT!” and the owl flew away. I had to be careful. Once the radioactivity started to consume our planet, we became linked – humans and owls. If one of us died, the other died. Owl training seemed like a good job – keep them alive, keep yourself alive.

Once that was done, I moved the doughnuts in front of me so I could see them. I train owls, but I can’t trust them.

But then a black cloud flew over me. I remember thinking – “This is crazy – we don’t ever have bad weather here. It’s too hot. There are never clouds.”

But as it got closer, I realized it was a black cloud of owls – coming for the doughnuts. The heat was was getting to them too, and they knew because of my trip that there was relief in my doughnuts. I panicked, but one of owls grabbed a doughnut and split it, shooting the crumbs into the cloud of owls.

Later, an owl tried to sneak up behind me. I turned around and started to yell. A second came in and stole two doughnuts from the box and started to swallow them whole.

I smacked them away from the box, and realized it was pointless. I could just get more. The owls grabbed the doughnuts and took them to their den.

I was reading the news while I was flying back to the doughnut shop. Gah! Voodoo Doughnuts had run out of business. The batter had run out because of the pollution on earth. No more sugar would grow. No more flour. The owls would take what I had left, and I wouldn’t survive the summer I decided to make a trap for the owls.

I went to the cornfield and gathered some corn and took it home. On the way, I passed Hobby’s planet, where I bought some string, eyes, and gray paint.

I started to make a trap. I formed some corn leaves into a mouse shape, painted it gray,and filled it with corn kernels. Then, I headed out to the owl’s den. I put the mouse a few yards outside of the den and then started to make squeaking sounds.

The owls flew out of their hole and fought over the corn mouse. I dipped behind the swarm and went into the den, where I stole back the VooDoo doughnuts and went home. Finally, they were mine again.

It’s two months later, I felt sick. The owls were dead from the heat.. There was nothing I could do. Everybody I met seemed to be sick or dead. I feel as if I may die, lying here writing the last page in my journal…

Filed under: 2013 Submissions, 2013 Winners, Portland, Youth Category | Tagged: Aidan Tenud, Asher Tenud, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest, youth | Leave a comment »

“A New Dance” by Sarah Robertson

Posted on August 20, 2013 by writer

Prompts:
An animal trainer
Cornfields
Doughnuts
“Don’t eat that!”
Spending $4
Owls

***

A New Dance

By Sarah Robertson

It was Bernie, my little brother, who woke me up that morning. “I’m going to be a professional animal tamer when I grow up!” He shouted, prancing around my room in a ridiculous circus clown costume.

“Go away Bernie.” I moaned and stuffed my face into my pillow.

But for some reason in between Bernie’s loud foot steps as he climbed down the stairs combined with my mom’s off key singing coming from the kitchen, I couldn’t manage to get any more sleep. I trouped down the stairs and into the kitchen where Bernie was already stuffing his face with food.

“Good morning Kate!” Mom crowed, whisking me a plate with two doughnuts on it, a blatant attempt to soften me after our argument last night. “Did you hear the owls hooting around midnight?” Mom asked. “Maybe they will be in the newspaper tomorrow!”

That was the problem with living in Boring, OR. Nothing interesting happens.

“Mom,” I answered sarcastically, still fired up from our disagreement, “I didn’t hear them. Neither did the newspaper people. Because we were all ASLEEP.”

I had left the house and was walking across my family’s farm, wondering how I should spend the last four days of summer vacation. I could go down to the candy shop and spend my $4 I had saved up. Or I could just spend the time wandering aimlessly around our cornfields. I sighed. There was one thing that I wanted to do, I thought as I looked down at my reflection in a horse’s water trough. A girl with straw-straight blond hair and icy blue eyes stared back at me. I sighed again. The thing I really wanted to do was to take dance lessons. But they cost too much money and, even Bernie, at the age of four, would know that. Ever since my father passed away two years ago, when I was ten, my family has been very poor. That was what mom and I had been arguing about last night. The cost of dance lessons. Obviously, I had lost the argument. How would I ever end up learning to dance? With that thought I steered myself towards Mr. Song’s house.

Mr. Song was technically my closest neighbor but he lived three miles away. Unlike all the rest of the families from miles around, who had been here for generations, Mr. Song moved here recently. He came from the city only a few years ago. While it was obvious that he had no clue how to run a farm, he never gave a reason for his move only saying he was seeking the simple life.

Maybe it was because that he wasn’t really from these parts that he never seemed annoyed at my questions, unlike my mother, and he actually answered them. Although, his answers were rarely straightforward. Nonetheless, I always found myself at his house if I had a problem.

Mr. Song was sitting in his garden, his short black hair and old blue overalls stained with dirt, a large, unripe tomato in his hand. It looked as though he was about to take a bite.

“Don’t eat that.” I advised. “It would taste horrible.” Mr. Song bit into anyway, and the result was rather funny. He made an immediate retching noise and spit the bite of tomato out onto the ground.

“Oh, well,” Mr. Song sighed. “I was never much of a gardener. Now, what do you need Kate?” I began to retell the fight with my mom.

I had just finished my tale as Mr. Munchers, Mr. Song’s old barn cat trotted over and curled up in his lap. Mr. Song scratched Mr. Munchers head thoughtfully and said with a twinkle in his eye, “Your mother said that you couldn’t be taught how to dance. Not that you couldn’t learn.” My huge grin at the idea faltered almost at once

How could I teach myself to dance? Is that even what he meant? Mr. Song must have guessed what I was thinking, because he answered as if I had spoken my thoughts out loud.

“Make your own.”

I left Mr. Song’s house thought deep in thought, working out our conversation. Watching the stalks movement in the wind swept cornfield, I slowly began to understand. For me dance isn’t just graceful movements learned through years of practice. It’s song, a mountain ready to climb, the sight of a setting sun. A dance is so wonderful it can’t be explained.

The evening suddenly felt like magic. I laughed and ran through the cornfields, swishing and swirling on occasion. Soon the awkward circles became a pattern, a design. A dance! The evening breeze tickled my hair, the owls hooted and slowly my voice came to join their odd, yet beautiful song. And with a tickling-glowing, buzz sort of feeling, I realized for the first time, in a long time, that I felt truly happy.

I know the moral of many children’s tales is to follow your own path, Write your own story. But the moral of mine is to write your own dance.

Filed under: 2013 Submissions, Portland, Youth Category | Tagged: prizes, Sarah Robertson, Sledgehammer, writing contest, youth | 1 Comment »

Mini Sledgehammer July 2013: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on July 14, 2013 by writer

Ali was back in Portland to host this last Mini Sledgehammer before this year’s main event, and it was a blast! The prompts reflect how much Ali missed Portland, and the stories were all incredible. Daniel, as last month’s winner and this month’s guest judge, and Ali both loved how the winning story worked in a fresh interpretation of what thrift stores sell. Congratulations, Peter!

Character: A gardener
Action: Recycling
Setting: A thrift store
Phrase: “The mountain is out.”

***

Untitled
by Peter D’Auria

This thrift store is different. And yet there is no sign indicating this. It stocks a wide variety of vintage clothes, obsolete electronics, and out-of-print books. Yet there is no sales staff to inform you of this. Because, despite this very respectable inventory (Leonard and I once found a near-mint condition copy of Bat Out of Hell with not a scratch on it, which we still listen to about twice a week), this thrift shop specializes in a different sort of used product: Used-To’s.

Yes, once a month the thrift shop will hang a faded flag with a picture of Mt. Fuji outside its window—“The mountain is out,” Leonard will say over the phone—and we will sprint down to the shop. There is a room in the back filled with Used-To’s, each one labeled and bottled carefully: Used-to-date. Used-to-go-to-the-zoo. Used-to-live-across-the-street. “I wonder how they get them into bottles,” Leonard says, and I tell him I don’t know. When we ask the owner how he gets them, he just gets angry. “They are used-to’s,” he says. “People do not use them anymore. Why shouldn’t I have them. Are you going to buy something or what?” And we do, we buy as many bottles as we can, and then we go sit in Leonard’s garden and drink them. It is, Leonard remarks, a kind of recycling.

Sometimes they are sad. Last month I drank a particularly poignant Used-to-love-me and I couldn’t get out of bed for two days. Sometimes they’re beautiful. Used-to-go-to-the-beach’s are always wonderful. They have a glow about them. Sometimes they’re just weird. Yesterday the flag was out, and that afternoon, as we sat under his pear tree, Leonard looked up after his first sip from a bottle and said “This is one of mine.” I asked him what it was. “It’s about my mom,” he said. “When I was little she used to take me down to her garden. I used to help her pick string beans and pull weeds and stuff.” Leonard’s mother had passed away just last year. “Can I have a taste?” I asked him and he shook his head and said, “I don’t think so.”

I went back to my Used-to-have-this-cat and Leonard finished the bottle. We sat for a minute and then Leonard went inside. I looked around at Leonard’s own garden—his tomatoes in rows, raspberries on strung wire, and the thought struck me that someday this moment itself would be labeled and bottled, sitting in a backroom filled with old friends and lovers and dead pets.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Indigo Ediitng, Peter D'Auria, Portland, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a 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 »

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