Creative Writing

[nytempsperdu]

"What's that you say?  Were you on the Upper Peninsula instead of in the desert on said horse, and with no one for to give you no pain?  How in Hell  did you get there?  True, tis closer to Hell (MI) than to High Water, but for clowns well versed in bondage, you really must mosey to..."

[whiskeypriest]

Paradise, tis even closer than Hell.  And near the Taquamina Falls, which are beautiful this time of year.

[nytempsperdu]

but ne'er so lovely as Bird-in-Hand PA, on the interstate to Intercourse, where 'tis said that once upon a time...

[carol polk]

the Oklahoma cognoscenti would tap their noses and say, "Ah, but you must go through Bowlegs to get to Maud," after which they would be at some pains to make sure you understood their conversation centered not upon horses, with or without names, but upon 

[appaloosabeach]

Michigan? Jesus Christ? You talkin' bout Michigan. Big sand dune off one of them islands. I'm thinkin Soames is lost, the horse is ok, horses always know where they be standing. A big nose clown just wrote me a parking ticket, you can't park a motor home in a handicapped zone?  Soame's horse is ok, the big nose clown, however, is just about to get a makeover.

[knoxharrington]

Soames, getting tired of the ambiguous nature of his mission, ponders going back to The Forsyte Saga.

[Beppo]

Sagas: no sooner did he hear the utterance than a vast image of a snoring Snorri snuck surreptitiously between his dreaming peepers. Behind every eye was another eye. Behind every good man was a good woman: the goddess. The courtesan; she who cleans the messiah's feet; she who...

[knoxharrington]

...goes mad one day and stuffs the cat into a front-loading washer, tosses the messiah's CD and vinyl collection, rare first editions, limited edition lithographs, and entire wine cellar into the septic tank, shoots the maid and gardener and hangs their naked bodies interlocked in a grotesque erotic pose from a high branch of the big oak tree in front yard, and then, most shockingly, sits through the entire airing of the Grammy Awards without touching the remote once.   

[appaloosabeach]

who wins for best song? No, wait, police burst thru the front door, working on an curious tip from a retired prostitute, she reaches for the remote, wants to turn the sound down, the cops, twelve and thirteen year vetrans, think she's going for a gun. Twenty-two shots later the.......

[barton]

....assistant Torquemada had sent over was completing his interview with the cat, which lay on a stretcher with a tiny oxygen mask over its face while a paramedic finished toweling it off.  Neither the cat, nor anyone else, had expected the Spanish Inquisition.  The Inquisitor, who looked a lot like Hugh Jackman, was fluent in six European languages, and happened to speak the same Cat-alan dialect as the cat.  He probed delicately, trying to learn what, if any, signs the Courtesan might have shown of the onset of madness which had resulted in the day's unfortunate events.

"Look," said the cat, "she seemed fine.  One minute she's tickling my belly and singing My Sharona, the next she's tossing me into the washer with a lemongrass tea bag.  I thought it was just a game, at first."

"But then she turned the water on?"

"Yes.  That's when I knew something was rotten in the state of New Mexico."

"And, at that point, you asked her to stop?"

"What do you think?  I was screaming, begging for my life, thought I was done for."  That cat pulled off his mask and sneezed.

The Inquisitor pulled on his beard and ruminated for a moment.  "How do you think that she managed to..."


     

[carol polk]

deport you to Tucson?"

Cat responded that a little burglary in connection with the International Gem and Mineral Show was involved, the successful accomplishment of which would lead to ...

[Beppo]

general feelings of wealth and great fortune; and, of course, ideas above and beyond the call of duty, especially one whose station in life prevents, by the usual methods, the gathering of expensive things: So whilst practising the luge in bed (tiny quarter inch movements of the shoulders from side to side) his mind turned to poetry and some of the deeper questions of existence:

What melancholic sensorium
Did into existence spark
This enchanted wood?

(Four hours later...)

Where upon the earth
Be the signs of that fire?

(Later that night…)

Look not in the great gardens of the infinite
Grandpapa used to say
There you will discover hedgerow;
Dip not your toe in the eternal lake

(Break for sardines, tomatoes, couscous and shredded salad leaves)

Lest you…

[carol polk]

decide to take up video game design based on the great classics, starting with ... (for inspiration, see today's SF Chronicle Datebook section)

[knoxharrington]

...The Bustle in the Hedgerow, by Chuck Dickens, which tries to keep players in a state of alarm over events such as the spring clean for the May Queen.   It is impossible to reach level four without dipping one's toe in the eternal lake, but one first must rescue the Spanish Cat Prisoner from the washing machine and then undergo the test of souls at the hands of Torquemada.  Familiarity with Catalan culture and the writings of Aleister Crowley give a decided advantage to the serious competitor, however one can also win by the crude but effective strategy of.... 

[carol polk]

incorporating a tapestry weaving alternative to the game, using its most apotheosistic moment as the cartoon in hopes of winning a major prize at the next ...