midnightpoet

Thanks, solosater for passing the torch to me. It is quite an honor!

I'll keep solo's rule of taking a 3 word penalty for changing a word.

I'm going to change the word count, 175 this time.

The list:

serendipity
fever
nugget
toothbrush
quirk
tinker
alphabet
strawberry

yeah, only 8 this time because of the shorter word count.

I'll close this list at midnight next sunday...that's EST, and have a new torchbearer by 1 am monday.

midnightpoet

wow...that word list sucks...I was just letting my mind wander and typing words, and now I look at it...and I really hope someone can work with it...

solosater

Are you trying to kill me? Alphabet????

midnightpoet

yeah, I don't know how that word got in there...lol...

solosater

!69 words not including the title:

Gimme Some Sugar Sweet Thing.


Strawberry blond hair a wreck, toothbrush, fully loaded & quite frothy, in her mouth; didn’t give a tinker’s damn either. You show up unexpectedly, you get what you get!

Serendipity was not with her; it was her hot new neighbor and she was looking way worse than her usual quirky.

Motioning for him to wait she said, “ehne bit.” & turned toward the bathroom.

“Alphabet?” he said, crossing her threshold and leaving the door open a crack, “Well I use English but if you wanna’ try Russian, I’m game.”

She looked out at him sideways as if wondering if he had a fever. “I said, ‘ I need to spit.’”

“Good, I don’t know any Russian; I feared there might be a quiz.”

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I wondered if you got The Nugget? My subscription hasn’t transferred yet.”

“Sorry I don’t read it.”

“Oh, how about sugar?”

“Huh?”

“I just wanted to say hi, ‘name’s Geoff.”

“I’m Gretchen.”

“Nice meeting you Gretchen.”

“Likewise Geoff.”

solosater

That’s 169; apparently I got a little excited!

solosater

North Bay Nugget, a daily newspaper.

HA!

solosater

I've no clue where North Bay is but I do know they have a paper called The Nugget.

solosater

Midnight, I thought my word list sucked too; yours is fine, I promise!

midnightpoet

That was great, solo... I loved your use of 'alphabet'!

lynnspotter

Ditto midnight! Dropping into the middle of a conversation is fun!

midnightpoet

175, not including title...

"Caught in the Rain"

Serendipity – a beautiful name, but the way we met was far from serendipitous.

It was pouring that night.

I like the rain – a quirk I have is walking around in the severest of downpours, without an umbrella. And that’s what I happened to be doing that night.

Serendipity felt differently about rain. She loathed it, as I loathed re-using a toothbrush.

I’d stopped along the road when a car came barreling off the pavement. The headlights blinded me, and I don’t know how I managed to dive out of the way before it slammed into the telephone pole.

I’d never heard so many profanities come out of such beautiful strawberry-colored lips. Words erupted from her mouth, and I was sure she used every letter in the alphabet. Strangely, my attention landed on a nugget that fell to the ground. It seemed so odd to me that I wondered if I wasn’t having a fever-dream.

She demanded help.

I pretended to tinker a bit before she directed all profanities at me.

Later, she became my wife.

midnightpoet

When I was posting this list, I was torn between 175 or 250 for a word count. When I finished writing "Caught in the Rain", it was 245 words, and I really wished I'd chosen 250...that's the most I've had to cut from a piece yet

solosater

I'ts very tight!!!

I liked your perspective in "Caught in the Rain", kinda like "Caught" in the way they'll say, "Oh she caught herself a good one."

solosater

172 words excluding the title.


"Going Back"


Toothbrush & soda, Aspirin for any fever, antihistamine in case she landed in a strawberry patch, antibiotics & anti-viral meds just in case, small gold nuggets and salt to trade with the tinker, three sets of simple, period clothing & shoes and her journal and ink.

If anyone saw her writing she’d tell them her uncle was a cleric and she’d learned her alphabet and reading & writing at his insistence; with a quirk of serendipity she wouldn’t be burned at the stake as a witch or some such stupidity.

This time travel business was a bit risky but how else was she really going to know? There was much she wanted to know, as the saying goes, “History is written by the victors.” she wanted the TRUTH! She was a historian but only knew what she read. But now…

Since she found the rift last month and traveled it freely she’d been preparing for this day.

She wished for someone to wish her luck; oh well, it was time to go.

five

<i>Message<i>

“His dentist called here to confirm his appointment. Maybe it’s serendipity.” Lulu moved the pen around the message pad.

Alice stopped Lulu’s hand. “Freudian quirk?”

“What?”

Alice pointed. “That alphabet thing. You’re scrawling out the letters, leaving out the p.”

“Am I?” Lulu yanked her hand from Alice and returned to herdoodling. “Must have a fever.”

“Have some of my juice.” Alice extended the open bottle. “It’s strawberry.”

Lulu shook her head. “Not thirsty.”

“Feed a fever.”

“Not this fever.”

“You did it again, no P.”

Lulu shrugged. “Remember last summer when we panned for gold like they did during the gold rush, squatting on our knees, rolling water back and forth in the tin.”

“Sure. He found a gold nugget.”

“It turned out to be fool’s gold – pyrite. But he was still happy with his find.” Lulu sighed. “Things were fine until he decided to tinker with our feelings.”

“You didn’t have to tell him.”

“He’d know it if I lied. He’ll come back. He left his toothbrush.”

“They’re cheap to replace, Lulu.”

five

Nugget as a newspaper was a great way to use the word.

five

Nice way to have them meet, Midnight

solosater

172 words excluding the title.


But Not So Much...


This wasn’t a strawberry patch; she seemed to have landed on a cruise ship. Perhaps she had a fever; this whole thing could be a quirky dream.

Oh, crap! If she wasn’t back from “vacation” in two weeks her family would go mad, and it looked like she was currently in the middle of the ocean. CRAP!

“Miss Pennyroyal, you look a little ill, would you like an escort to your stateroom?” said a uniformed man she hadn’t noticed.

Uniformed. Cruise ship. He even had a nametag – Mr. Tinker, Captain, Gold Nugget.

This couldn’t be, the rift went to the 16th century.

She wasn’t prepared for what looked like the 19th, the toothbrush and all would still come in handy but her clothes, she looked down, she was dressed like a well to do miss of the mid to late 1800s. Serendipity?

“Captain, please, I’m feeling a little faint,” she took his proffered arm.

She hummed the alphabet song to calm herself, not working!

The Captain was looking at her rather askance…

solosater

Yeah, the words are all great for story telling but they're hard to fit into the same story.

Fun though.

Five, I'm guessing Paul. Peter? Parker! No, Phillip? Oh, oh I know, Pedro????