Dragon

Alrighty then, on to ThinkWrite number 5. I'm leaving the 3 word penalty for changing a word in place. Your word count for this one is 285 words. I've chosen 11 words as the word count is a little longer.

Word List:
Dreamer
Avenged
Glass beads
Mourning
Braided
Gleam
Decision
Irony
Tower
Manx cat
Prophecy

(For those who don't know a Manx cat is a breed of cat born without a tail)
Can't wait to read your submissions, I'll let it run until Sun May 24 at midnight TD time.

midnightpoet

good list. I'm coming up blank again...

ZeroMerc

3 word penelty for word place meand they come in the story in the order of the list or that word is worth 3 words or 3 words plus the word itself making the count 4 for that one word?

Dragon

3 word penalty means if you change one of the words (eg: Gleam changed to Gleamed) you have to use 3 fewer words than the word count. So if you changed 1 word you would have to make your story 282 words, if you changed 2 words you write 279 etc. You can use the words in any order you like in the story. (Double words like Glass beads must be used together though, you couldn't use Glass in one place and Beads in another because they're presented in the word list as one word.)

Qsilv

*blink.... wow.. gorgeous words!

Dragon

I'm glad the word list is going over well, can't wait to see what you guys do with it.
I know I can't win so I cheated a little with the word count on this one. I just had to continue Into The Tunnels so here's another installment, not sure if this will be a saga like solosater's amazing ongoing work, but we'll see where it goes.

A Relationship in Progress (Into the Tunnels Part 2)

He should be preparing for the meeting she was leading him to but his thoughts kept drifting back to her. He had been raised on pragmatism and words of wisdom like ‘Always wear clean underwear’. She, however, had been raised on prophecy. The language of destiny taught her from her mother’s milk. But she was not a dreamer, far from it. She was probably the most wise and powerful woman he’d ever known. But the world she lived in was so different from his own he often felt like a stranger in a strange land.

He recalled first meeting her. Stumbling into the outer cave system he’d thought he’d scared that little boy badly until she intervened and removed the knife from the child’s hand. He’d burned his bridges behind him and wouldn’t have been mourned or avenged by anyone from his old life. Her quicksilver eyes had seemed to gleam like glass beads at him and he hadn’t immediately realized that she was sightless, she had the habit of looking straight at you. Her gaze was unlike that of any person he’d ever known, blind or sighted, it seemed to peer right through him. It was not long before he realized he was a prisoner here with these perplexing people. He’d made the decision to leave his own life behind and the irony of having nothing to go back to but wanting desperately to go back ate at him daily. But it was a gilded cage, no tower prison for him. He was lodged in her own apartments with her manx cat and her braided bamboo. Of course he fell in love with her, but he had never thought she could love him...

solosater

Nice Dragon, I'm glad to see you continuing this one; can'wait to see where it goes.

I'm still caught up in mine and will probably do a segment with this list but I'm also thinking of going back to James and the Misses Pennyroyal....

solosater

Sorry that's can't wait....

Eating, typing, petting the dog, the dog typing; well you get my point.

solosater

285 words excluding the title:


“Time To Go”

James sat in the small office, Miss Pennyroyal’s office until yesterday, starring at the glass beads and braided trim on his mother’s lamp.

When his parents died he’d gone into mourning for a while, he’d been angry but how was an accident to be avenged? Then reality settled on him; he had a decision to make: he could live with his grandparents in Boston or he could falsify a Will appointing himself a guardian.

He found one, a drunk whose eyes had the gleam of too much whiskey.

James never was a dreamer; always had plans for his future as if set down in prophecy.

It was pure irony that his plans turned upside down just like that carriage.

He had moved on with his plans the best he could. Having always planned on being a teacher he started taking in orphans and even a Manx cat.

Who knew he’d be taking in stray time travelers too? The Misses Pennyroyals had been an entertaining lot, educational too as the first had promised. She’d been the one to give him the confidence to keep going, entrusting him with her secret, giving him a mission he’d been unable to ignore. He’d become the man he’d only been playing at until then.

He’d hired a new teacher.

This last Miss Pennyroyal had been born Serendipity Pennyroyal in the year 1839. She too had planned to be a teacher but now felt the need to put down roots, to start a family. He’d given her quite the retirement; she’d do well.

Now it was his turn too to leave his tower fortress and go out into the world. He’d be back but for now it was time to go.

five

Title: Making Prophecy Come True is Hard Work

“Manx cat,” Harry said, ducking behind the bell tower, “like I dreamed.”

“Hopping around like a rabbit,” Sam said. “Surely, fate will be avenged tonight.”

“Don’t make fun.” Harry held out a damp, shaky palm. “Give me the glass beads on the braided rope.”

Sam whispered. “You have them.”

“You have them.”

“You had them last.”

Harry stepped back, pressing a heel hard against Sam’s foot. “Idiot.”

Sam covered his mouth, squelching a scream into a long, guttural moan.

The cat stopped and turned its head toward the trembling pair, and let off a long, monotone groan. A clap of thunder followed and rain poured down from night sky.

“Go, go,” Harry said, elbowing Sam. As they took off, Harry’s shoelace caught under Sam’s foot. He lost his shoe. They ran until they were out of breadth.

“You see the gleam in its eye,” Sam asked, hiding his face from the rain and sucking in air; “it must knows that it’s part of your prophecy.”

“Was my prophecy -- until you messed it up.”

“Not my decision to run.”

“No beads, no prophecy.” Harry shook his fists. “Why? Why me?”

Sam spotted Harry’s muddy sock and fell to his knees, moaning like he was in mourning. “Why me? Why me? Oh, why me?” Then, he rolled onto his back, laugh loudly, and soaked in the rain. “I bet that’s what the cat said when it happened. You only lost a shoe.”

“What?” Harry kicked him.

“Don’t see the irony?”

Harry kicked him harder. Sam rubbed his side. “You have a serious anger problem. That’s how the cat lost it’s tail. Noah closed the ark door on its tail when it began to rain.”

anotherronism

The Altogether Strange Origin of the Name Grumpy Dumpfinger by Ron

On his tenth birthday Grumpy Dumpfinger laid alone. He idly traced the braided piping on the threadbare sofa.

On his twentieth birthday he walked the streets alone but not lonely.

He was a dreamer with a gleam in his waking eye. Always “in on it” for his own jokes: The cat with no tale. The Manx Cat – the one with no tail. HA HAHAHA Hrumph! What about such a cat?

Nothing…

On his thirtieth birthday, mourning his mother’s death, he was alone with the estate attorney.

“Your mother made the decision to alter her testament yesterday. I was called.” said the attorney.

“Hmm.” Said Grumpy Dumpfinger.

“It would seem,” the attorney continued, “that she left you nothing,”

“I see.”

“Except.”

“Except what?”

“Except a note of explanation.”

“Explaining?”

“Why: the strange origin of your name.”

“I see.”

“You know you weren’t born with it don’t you?”

“I suppose…”

“You were originally called ‘Scott’.”

“Scott?”

“Yes. Scott.”

Grumpy Dumpfinger took the note.

On his fortieth birthday Grumpy Dumpfinger was alone.

He’d traveled to Scotland to investigate his birth. There was irony in his mother’s note – irony about his name. It appeared he was a Scot.

He approached the Hall of Records.

On his fiftieth birthday Grumpy Dumpfinger was alone.

He knelt. He did not frequent these places. But he was learning. He counted the glass beads and prayed.

He was alone on his sixtieth birthday.

He beheld the tower of a lighthouse. He clutched important documents.

He’d come to Scotland again seeking answers. He read.

And, understood…

On his seventieth birthday he laid alone. He idly traced the prophecy his mother had proclaimed in his mind.

He would be avenged before his eightieth birthday. He would.

anotherronism

A quick note on Grumpy Dumpfinger...

This was a title without an idea.

We were playing poker one night and someone said something endearing and I said "Oh - That will be the name of my first novel."

And everyone began coming up with the titles of their own first novels.

As I'd already spent my powder - I began to come up with new titles. I had no intention but to make everyone laugh.

And from somewhere - The title: The Altogether Strange Originas of the Name Grumpy Dumpfinger came out of my mouth.

I've carried this title around with me for a while now.

And I finally found a place to use it.

That the story does not, in any way, explain the title is entierly intentional.

Login

I still want to know the end of the story, Ron.

midnightpoet

"flame"

This moment felt as though it had always been waiting for me, as though it were a prophecy made at my birth. I was ready for it.

They say I am a dreamer. I think I’m a realist. I believe that everything happens as it should. There is no chance. The decisions we make ultimately don’t matter. They were made for us long before we knew there was a ‘decision’. The irony is that we think we have a choice. Life is one great play, and we simply recite the lines that were written for us by a writer with a sick sense of humor.

I often wonder who’s watching, and if they’re enjoying the show.

I took out a match and struck it against the side of the box. It sparked and caught fire, startling the darkness. I touched the flame to a candle wick, and watched it ignite. I could see him clearly. I could see he understood my intentions.

His long hair was braided and hung carelessly over one shoulder. There was a gleam in his emerald eyes, as though he thought he’d be avenged. Not likely; the only creature that liked him was his Manx cat, and she only loved him because he gave her a beautiful collar of glass beads.

He towered over me, and I wondered if maybe the gleam wasn’t about the vengeance he thought would befall me. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t do it, that his size would intimidate me.

I threw my lit candle at the gas-soaked floor beneath his feet, and as I walked away, I felt brief sense of sorrow for his cat, the only one that would be in mourning.

solosater

182 words excluding the title, I used mourn in place of mourning.


Stories on the Road Home

She’d never been a dreamer, she was a historian, a professor; even the vacation she was supposed to be on was an archeological dig. The Irony of course being she couldn’t learn anything from a dig 600 years old that she couldn’t learn from living it.

She couldn’t mourn her decision to enter the rift.

“So did ye buy yerself some glass beads at the faire, some braided silk trim?”

No, I bought some fabric and a psaltery.”

“What!?”

“I know it seems like a lot but there were some good deals; it was the last day.”

“What is that over there?” she asked, pointing to a great tower in the distance.

“Ye know lass, that’s where Lady ó Braonáin was thrown to her death when her husband saw another man with her.”

She gasped.

“Ye have to feel fer the man, there was the prophecy foretelling her infidelity. Still, she was avenged.”

“How?”

“Her brothers killed her husband and his manx cat; gutten ‘em and hung ‘em from the tower.”

It was then she noticed the gleam in his eye…

Robindcr8l

279 words...I changed avenged and irony.

She wasn’t born an avenger. As a child she was a dreamer. She would lay in her bed, long after the rest of the house was fast asleep, and imagine herself a teacher. Her blanket was the classroom and her pet manx cat on it was her most gifted pupil. A tower of blocks served as a desk. As a child her imagination was her close friend, ensuring she would never be lonely. As a child, her life was simple, and joyful, and filled with promise. This all changed at the young age of thirteen.

At thirteen her father was murdered, leaving her in a perpetual state of mourning, which was only overshadowed by her rage. At thirteen, her imagination took an ironically dark turn, and led her to the decision that would ultimately change her life forever. At thirteen, the girl still had the looks of a child, with colorful glass beads braided into her long black hair. Those beads would gleam in the sunlight and shoot prisms of color around a room, creating the illusion of a happy being. To look at her, one could not fathom the hatred that drove her to do what she ultimately did.

The community was in shock at the newspaper headlines. The police, and the counselors, and even the judge blamed her circumstances, her tragedy, society...anything to keep from believing that a sweet thirteen year old girl could be permanently possessed by evil. The hopelessness associated with that thought was too much for them to bear. Her mother was somehow the only person who was not surprised. She had visited a medium years back, who told her of this prophecy.

Dragon

Wow, I’m loving all these stories. Solosater, you just keep me coming back for more with your timetravel series. Five, wonderful use of the manx cat. Your story had me wondering if they were up to something shady in trying to fulfil that prophecy. Ron, I’m with Login, I want to know the end too. Though I must admit, I like the ambiguity of this story and I’m a sucker for an unusual title. midnightpoet, loved the comment about life being a play written and watched by unseen others, you’d be the front runner if I hadn’t inherited the torch from you. Robin, you totally sucked me into that story, it’s a wonderful piece, you fit so much story into so little space. This is definitely going to be a hard choice to make and it’s only Wednsday!

solosater

The Seer


They were coming now, to the tower to get her. She could see the gleam of the torches through the trees. A decision had been made.

Growing up they’d called her a dreamer; when her last prophecy came true it was the last straw for these fine folks. The irony was that she’d meant it as a jest; she’d seen nothing to make her believe it would come to pass.

She parted her long black hair down the center and braided both sides, put on her best mourning gown and her black slippers with the grey and lavender glass beads.

She said goodbye to her friend, her black Manx cat, her familiar they called it; she hoped they would not harm her friend.

She wondered, would execute her for being a witch or for murdering of her father? She wasn’t a witch and she certainly hadn’t murdered her father, he’d been pushed down the stairs but not by her hand. She’d found him and new immediately she’d not see him avenged.

No, that one would make that impossible; that was the future she’d seen then.

anotherronism

Grumpy Dumpfinger is currently seventy-one and a half years old.

The "end" of the story will come sometime in the next eight and a half years.

And that's all I have to say about that

anotherronism

I'm just curious...

Has anyone said "Grumpy Dumpfinger" out loud?

If so - do you find it infectious? Do you have to say it again? Out loud?

I've read often about authors falling in love with their characters. Maybe this has happened with me.

Yes - I wrote this story using this title - but I have some bizarre fascination with this character. I really, really want to do right by him.

But I don't know the altogether strange origins of his name.

So what responsibility mine?

Maybe I'll figure it out one day.

But is the name at all fascinating to anyone else. I'm curious?