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Mini Sledgehammer July 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on July 16, 2012 by writer

This turned out to be the last Mini Sledgehammer Ali will host for a while. It was great to see some of the regulars as well as a couple new faces, and we’re excited to have Kristin take over Mini Sledges!

Congratulations to Elissa Nelson for writing a story with great character development and a nice plot arc.

Enjoy reading!

Prompts:
Character: Park planner
Action: Not buying moose insurance
Setting: At grandma’s house
Prop: Explosives

***

Untitled

by Elissa Nelson

“You’re not going to skip the moose insurance, are you?” Jessie’s sister said, concerned.

“Jason said that everyone he works with says no one’s seen a moose on this island since the 30’s.”

“But you’re going to take your car off the island, right?”

“No moose insurance, Rita.”

“But Jessie—“

“Guess how much moose insurance adds to the premium. My car and Jason’s car, with moose insurance the six month premium goes from nine hundred dollars—“

“Nine hundred dollars!”

“For both cars, for six months! From nine hundred to fifteen hundred.”

“Ugh. No moose insurance, then.”

“No moose insurance.” Jessie changes the subject. “Where are Tania and Justin?”

“They’re with grandma and Steve-o for the fourth, of course!”

“Oh right. Steve-o and his explosives, eh?”

“Yep. Grandpa would have a fit, wouldn’t he?”

“You know he would. Give my love to the kids, of course. And grandma, and Steve-o.”

“And mom. Of course. She’ll probably call you later anyway.”

“Yeah, probably. How’s her new career going?”

“Her new career?”

“Park planner, right?”

“Oh. I think that’s more of a hobby, really. Like, they’re looking for a volunteer to do some gardening at Lake Green Park, you know? And it sounds like mom can do what she wants, but of course she’ll have no budget to buy plants or anything…”

“Is she taking cuttings from the yard?”

“We haven’t really talked about it. Anyway, this isn’t the time of year to transplant anything anyway.”

“It’s not?” Jessie says. She doesn’t really care, but she also really has no idea.

“Early spring, or late in the fall,” Rita says impatiently. “How’d you grow up with mom and not know that?”

She didn’t really grow up with mom, as Rita knows. She grew up living with dad, who took off when she and Rita were in college, sent postcards from all over the place for a while, and now they—her, mostly—hear from him every six months or so. She’s seen him every year/year and a half, he’ll stop by from wherever he’s been—living in Mexico for a while, as far as Jessie knows he’s still there—before that he was in New Mexico, before that, Oklahoma, before that Alabama. She visited him in Alabama—that was a weird place. He was doing his art stuff, working as a security guard in some weird little museum. She visited his museum—he showed her the whole thing, it took about forty-five minutes.

She guesses he won’t visit her in Alaska. But you never know with dad. And it’s not like she’ll have the money to get to Mexico.

Also, far as she knows he’s never been to Alaska. So that alone might get him there. There aren’t many places he hasn’t been, at this point. At least that’s what it seems like to her. Also she knows he’ll just be so glad she’s getting the hell out of California, even if she is gonna go back. He’s told her that staying in one place for twenty years, from the time he met their mom until Rita then Jessie went away to college, was maybe the hardest thing he ever did. She knows she has a little bit of that in her, too. He passed it along. Only a little bit, though. She and Jason will spend a couple years in Alaska, then they’ll go home. And yeah, start the family and all that.

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Mini Sledgehammer June 2012: St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on June 19, 2012 by writer

It was a very small group this month, but we had a good time writing anyway. Elisabeth returned with more magical realism to take the prizes!

Prompts:
Setting: First day of summer vacation
Prop: Road-killed skunk
Action: Spilling coffee
Phrase: Don’t tread on me

***

The Lake

by Elisabeth Flaum

Jim floored it.

“You can slow down, you know. They won’t catch us.”

He hit a bump, and my coffee went all over the floor. I swore loudly, and he let up a bit.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just don’t want to get stuck in vacation traffic.”

“Well then take the last day off,” I said, sopping up coffee with the assorted paper napkins accumulating in the back seat. “Or wait a week. You don’t have to be in such a hurry.”

We drove on in silence for several miles. Then the car began to sputter. Jim leaned forward and peered down at the dash. It was his turn to swear as he thumped his fist against the display.

“Dammit! I forgot to get gas.”

“And you never got the gauge fixed,” I sighed. The car coughed and sputtered some more, and drifted slowly to a stop. Jim leaned his head on the steering wheel. The smell of coffee rose up from the carpet.

“What do you want to do?” I asked. He didn’t answer, just kept staring at the gas gauge as if he could fill the tank and start the car by sheer force of will.

“Sweetheart,” I said gently, “why don’t we try something different?”

“Like what?”

“Look where we are.”

He raised his head and looked around. We’d made it just past the boundary into the state park, and immense trees towered over us. Sunlight filtered gently through the leaves. I opened my door; the only sound was a soft breeze just stirring the distant branches.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s take a hike into the woods. We can let the horde of summer vacationers pass, and pitch our tent right here. Tomorrow we’ll find a ranger or someone who can help us with the car.”

Jim gazed upward, dappled sunlight falling on his weary face. Slowly he smiled.

“Who needs the lakefront?”

“That’s the spirit!” I jumped out of the car, pulling open the trunk. “Water, bug spray, first aid kit. That’s all we need.”

Just then the leading edge of the horde of summer vacationers began to pass. RVs, station wagons and SUVs stuffed to the roof, the entire population of our small college town seemed to be sweeping past. The smell of exhaust and freshly pressed skunk drifted over us. The first wave passed; Jim peered at the small squashed animal lying in the middle of the road. The stink was overwhelming.

“Don’t tread on me,” Jim muttered. He turned to me with a grin. “Let’s get out of here.”

Together we pressed through the dense wood. Every once in a while the sound of passing traffic or the smell of skunk would waft by, soon to vanish in the sounds and smells of the forest. A small brook babbled cheerily nearby. Birds sang. Waving ferns brushed against our jeans. The stresses of the school year fell away; our steps grew lighter and lighter.

The light grew lighter as well. Jim moved ahead of me through the trees. The branches thinned overhead; the babbling of the stream became a soft rushing noise. Jim stopped at what looked like the edge of the world. I hurried to catch up.

“Wow,” I breathed. Rather than ending, the world opened up before us. A narrow greensward dotted with wildflowers stretched out, leading to the sandy shore of a sparkling lake. The sun, setting behind us, shone in every color on the crystal clear water.
Jim took my hand. “Look, our own private lakefront.”

I gazed in awe. “How did we not know this was here?”

He shrugged. “Nature’s little secret. Our reward for a job well done. Maybe it’s a mirage.” He dropped my hand and whipped off his sweaty t-shirt. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

Suddenly I felt every speck of sweat and dust on my skin, every ounce of dirt that had settled on me over the term, every petty complaint and problem and annoyance of the last nine months, itching all over. I grinned at him.

“Let’s.”

In moments we shed our clothes, and hand in hand dashed madly for the sparkling water, towards the first great plunge of summer.

© 2012 Elisabeth Flaum

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Mini Sledgehammer June 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on June 19, 2012 by writer

This month marked the return of some of last year’s regulars. It was great to see you again, Pam and Barry! Man Price stole the prizes with a very interesting writing technique. Read all the way to his bio to see what it was.

Character: Clothing tailor
Action: Checking the time
Setting: On an island
Prop: A pinwheel

***

The Pinwheel

by Man Price

Despite the perfect weather, Federico had been in a terrible funk the last few weeks.  He wandered the island, cursing his fate for being marooned.  Alone.  How had his once wonderful life been reduced to a cliched and monotonous bad joke?

But since he’d come across the tiny pinwheel on the beach yesterday, he’d been remembering home.  Home: the world beyond this island.  The last number of years he had made it is goal not to think of home.  He had convinced himself that the secret to surviving life on a beautiful sun-drenched island–well yes, marooned–was to forget his old life and embrace what he had.

Now, with the pinwheel, somehow a spigot was dripping out cool drops of his past.  Federico pooled these drops of the old world in a place in his mind and swam.  Since he’d found the pinwheel, he had had bad days, even terrible days.  But he had also had a few pleasant days as well.

Federico walked through the jungle canopy and stepped out on to the open beach which served as his home.

Federico squatted down, until his butt dropped to the beach.  Sand slipped down into his ragged shorts, such as they were.  He could not help but smile at himself at the indignity: a world-renowned tailor, a man who’s signature style formed the apex of elegance and simplicity, in an ill-fitting pair of ragged shorts and a dirty shirt.

Using his toes, he borrowed his feet into the sand.  His legs formed an arch and he wrapped his arms down and underneath his legs, clasping each elbow with the opposite hand, and sighed a long, vacant sigh.  It was not a sigh of despair, really, but neither was it a sigh of contentment.  The pinwheel was by his side, held erect by the little mound of sand he had built for it.  Federico took measure of the sun as it sank like yesterday’s party balloon toward the vast and absolute horizontal of the sea.  How many times a day did he check the time in this way, he wondered.  What did time matter?

Federico sat like this for a long time.  What else was pressing after all?  Late in the day, the trade winds slipped in, softly at first.  The pinwheel began to turn slowly.  As Federico stared out over the surf, the pinwheel grew more and more animated, evermore agitated, until it was spinning furiously in the breeze that washed off Federico’s knees.

Federico’s anxiety spun in the opposite direction, from the dread and chaos of the day, slowly, evenly, and slower and slower, until the activity of his brain, and with it his fears, slowly warbled around one or two more times and stopped.

© 2012 Manchester Barry Price

***

A note from the author on his writing technique: Once, as I remember it, a Mini-sledgehammer writer crammed all four prompts into her opening sentence.  It was like Champagne! For this story, after Ali had said “Go!” and the clock was ticking, only then did I hatch the idea of not using the prompts until the very end.  I thought it would be fun to have the listeners wondering, “Where are the prompts?  He forgot to use the prompts!” I began writing the ending first, starting with “Federico squatted down, until his butt dropped to the beach.”  Accepting that the island was implied, I got the four prompts into two paragraphs.  It then took another two paragraphs to reach the end.  With half my time gone, I then went to the top to write the beginning. 

***

Man Price admits that he’s beat the odds with a 2011 Mini Sledgehammer, a “Readers Write” in The Sun, and a poem in the book, Pay Attention: A River of Stones.  He’s manically polishing a “Readers Write” piece about snow for a July 1st deadline.  Man’s been wrestling with seven potentially memorable and moving short stories for fifteen months and has been rejected by Ploughshares and Glimmer Train.

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Mini Sledgehammer May 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on May 17, 2012 by writer

The strangest thing happened while I was waiting to start this Mini Sledgehammer. I arrived very early, which is strange in itself, and then it got to be 6:57, with no writers! I thought I was going to experience my first empty Mini Sledgehammer. Then as the clock clicked over to 7:00, four writers showed! And their stories definitely did not disappoint. Thanks for coming out, everyone!

Prompts:
Character: Someone dressed in a banana costume
Action: Reading Where the Wild Things Are
Setting: A city park
Phrase: “Well that was unexpected.”

Newbie Rachel Lombard won over the judge with a clear beginning, middle, and end–and some nice prompt creativity too!

***

Untitled

by Rachel Lombard

I’m not sure exactly how it came to be, but it was mid-afternoon in mid-October and I was standing in a busy parking lot, dressing my son, Charlie, in a banana costume. He was too excited to wear his new costume to wait to unveil it on Halloween. He was five. He wanted to wear it now. And “now” to a five-year-old doesn’t mean let’s don it tonight at home. It means let’s drag it on over our dirt-encrusted clothes straight out of the slippery plastic bag with the hard plastic handle that we somehow just broke while walking out of Target.

“Really?” I asked, hoping the uncertainty on my part would spur him to change his mind.

“Yeah, Mom.  Please? I really, really, really want to wear it *at* the park.”

I paused and studied him in the long autumn light. Recently I’d been feeling like I wasn’t the mother I should be or could be toward him. And having declared that morning that I was going to be a more in-the-moment – and thereby more-fun-to-hang-out-with mother – I sensed this was my chance…and  acquiesced.

“Alright. Take your shoes off.”

He started jumping uncontrollably with a glee reserved for five-year-olds who live in the moment and do not yet care what is situationally appropriate. “And what is situationally appropriate, after all” I thought. “Didn’t Brad Pitt spend his days in a chicken suit? So what if that was for money. This is for the pursuit of happiness.”

And I was happy. I was happy that he was happy. I was happy that in his moment of joy he only head-butted me once. But I was only semi-happy that he – Mr. Giant Banana – fit in his booster seat. At first I thought I could get away with an “Oh, no…that’s terrible. You don’t fit? Well, maybe next time. What do you want for dinner?”

But he did fit. He squeezed in, and, eventually, squeezed out, and we found ourselves at Summerlake Park. He ran over to the playground and made his way up the stairs, the banana suit hampering his movements like Victoria Beckham pencil skirt. The other children welcomed the sight of a giant banana in their midst.

I sat on the bench, practicing reading my Spanish version of Where the Wild Things Are, trying to sound more authentic for when Story Time came at the local library. That’ll teach me to add my cell number to a volunteer sheet with events unspecified at sign-up.

As I stumbled over the words, a mother from school sat down next to me with a chuckle. “Well now! That’s unexpected! No one is going to believe this when I tell them.”

“Hi Martha. Yeah, he can’t wait for Halloween. I wish I could get that excited about something.”

“Me, too. But we probably did once. When it was our turn to be young.”

Charlie kept playing, looking over to me occasionally, shouting out musings to me incoherent over the voluminous wind. Twice I was caught nodding at inappropriate times during his running commentary. This upset him. He chided me with a, “Mooooommmm…” from his perch at the top of the slide.

But he had to forgive me. He was dressed as a banana.

Then I realized, part of being a fun-to-hang-out-with-mom is actually listening to his nonstop chatter and making him feel valued. So I made another effort.

“Charlie, honey. I really can’t hear you. Please come here.”

And he tried.

And it ripped.

The banana suit was done for. And Charlie sat motionless, before bursting into tears.

In an instant, I met him at the slide. “Oh honey, it’s okay.” I raced to find a way to find the bright side of this catastrophe. “You know what Mommy is really good at?”

He shook his head through his tears.

“Sewing. And I would love to have you help me fix this so you can wear it to the park tomorrow.”

He managed an “Okay,” and then The Smile returned. Maybe not as gleeful as before, but there was an ever-increasing hope in it.

And I thought to myself, by being in the moment, I had rescued this moment.  Day One. Great success. Good job, Mom.

© 2012 Rachel Lombard

***

Rachel Lombard has published poetry as well as trade articles in career magazines and is currently working on her first screenplay.

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Mini Sledgehammer May 2012: St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on May 11, 2012 by writer

We often see themes in stories that aren’t necessarily inherent in the prompts, and this contest was definitely one of those. Stories covered psychosis, murderous dreams, and games the mind plays when it thinks it’s found a killer. Sarah Lambert’s story stole the prizes for its “most creative use of a prompt and best incorporation of an ending, according to judge Néna Rawdah. Congratulations, Sarah!

Prompts:
Character: A man who has killed
Action: Lying down
Setting: A small-town parade
Prop: A city bus

***

Untitled

by Sarah Lambert

What time was it?

The man woke to a pounding in his head.  What time was it?  There was a thrumming noise in the background, strange and incongruous to the thumping in his head.  Hung over.  Was it a hang over?  What had he done last night?

He realized slowly that it was pavement under his head.  The grit of gravel against under his cheek said that whatever had happened, his night had not involved the warm embrace of a good woman.  Gradually his senses took in other things – the taste of bile in the back of his throat, the brightness of the sun shining in his eyes.  Morning, was it morning, or had more of the day passed?  How much time had he lost?  What time was it?

Slowly he moved to sit up and realized his body was too sore, too stiff, for such exertions.  The noise in the background grew louder and began to shape itself into distinct sounds.  Brass music, cheering, an engine honking.  Was it a parade?  The thought was so ridiculous he almost laughed out loud, but his throat was raw with vomit and no sound came.

The man lay still on the pavement, willing movement but surrendered to the awareness that none would come.  The parade – if that’s what it was – came closer.  Where was he?  Laying still was his best action, but he allowed his eyes to move and gradually adjusted so as to come up on his elbows.  The sun was bright overhead, his awareness had not been wrong.  He’d been lying in an alley behind what looked like a warehouse, slightly back from a street.  The sidewalk of said street had a scattering of people on it, none of whom was looking at him.  They were all looking out, waiting for the…the honking, and the brass instruments, and the people…the parade.  The goddamn parade.

The man remembered being a child, his excitement at 4th of July, begging his parents to take him to the parade.  He wanted to see fireworks and sparklers and eat a hot dog and enjoy the music.  Somehow waking battered and hung over with no memory in an alley, the presence of a parade brought all the innocence of the child he had been forcefully back to him, and the man smiled with the delight of one who’s parents allow him cotton candy.

That was when he noticed the blood.

Not a lot, not enough to be his.  On his hands mainly, but there were splash marks up his arms.  His heart froze in his chest, and somewhere deep inside he felt a moan but no sound came out.  Blood.  What had happened, where was he, what time was it?

Once long ago in another life he’d received a massage.  At the end of it the therapist had said, “when you are ready, slowly turn to one side and sit up.”  He heard her voice in his head now, clear as if she had been standing next to him, and he slowly rolled to his side and pushed himself up to sitting.  The effort made him dizzy but he succeeded.

The parade was closer, almost to his block.  He saw a child waving an American Flag.  Was it the 4th of July?  He was probably the only person in the world at that moment who didn’t know.  The child had a flag, he looked for sparklers but didn’t see them.  He liked sparklers.

No one saw him, or if they did they pointedly looked elsewhere.  He didn’t know how he looked, but he could venture a guess.  It would probably be easy to ignore him, to assume he was street trash and leave it at that.  Another day – yesterday – he would have done the same.

He had money, and a home.  A job, not much but enough.  The parade was at his street now, and the thin crowd made it easy to see.  The expected brass band at the front, no doubt with a sign announcing they were part of some community center, a black car with the mayor (it did most of the honking), others to follow, his vision blurred and memories began to splice back together in his mind.

He’d taken Julia out – his on again off again friend who was sometimes more but usually less – a nice quiet dinner away from the city.  His car broke down on the way there.  She was unforgiving of his suggestion they get a cab to go the rest of the way and had used it to take her home instead.  He couldn’t leave his car and was mad at her for abandoning him.  Fortunately the road was on the route of a city bus and the driver was able to take him part way to a mechanic shop.  He had to walk the rest of the way, but it was okay.

His memory suddenly became blurry again, his heart rate increasing.  Something about the mechanic shop…something there.  The sound of the parade was no longer comforting or innocent to him.  It was clashing against the terror of his memory.  There had been a drug deal, he had walked in on it, his life had been in danger, and he had survived.

That was what the man remembered as the parade marched on.

His hands were red but they would wash clean, as the whiskey had washed his memory.

© 2012 Sarah Lambert

***

Sarah Lambert is a local business owner who enjoys writing for the most part as a hobby, though is not above attempting the occasional book. More of her writing is available on her blog, Notes from a Rational Psychic, at www.bodyinsights.com.

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