Exercise

[wildsweetone]

A funny thing happened to me on the weekend. I was laying in bed (yes I do that on rare occasions) listening, of all things, to a radio show consisting of a kind of 'Garage Sale'.

Listeners could phone in and sell anything they wanted (as long as it fits inside a garage), and people could ring in and let others know what they wanted to buy.


One elderly woman phoned in.

"Hello. Are you there?"

"Yes I'm here. Good morning and what do you have for sale?" the male DJ asked.

"I have a Volvo truck diesel cap. I'm told they are about (NZ)$125 brand new. I want (NZ)$45.00 for it. My number is..." (and she reeled off a phone number from another part of New Zealand.

Now, at this point I was in complete fits of laughter. How had this elderly lady managed to get hold of such an object? My mind was spinning with all manner of weird and wonderful thoughts. Yes, I have a very warped sense of humour.

***
Exercise: Write a short piece detailing how this woman managed to get hold of the Volvo truck's diesel cap. Include in your writing, a description of the elderly lady.

***

 

[TheEarl]

The old lady walked along the side of the road. The shopping cart she pushed in front of her wasn't the most stylish of vehicles, but it was spacious enough to carry all of her worldly goods.

She'd fallen on hard times a few years ago, when her husband Barry, had died. All of his gambling debts had been revealed and all his estate had been eaten up, leaving her with absolutely nothing. Well, except for her shopping cart.

The rush of traffic past her whistled up a wind all around as huge articulated lorries thundered through the desert. They were huge behemoths, thundering across the land like giant snakes. She thought about when Barry was in his steady job as a trucker. Back then she used to know how much every bit of a truck cost.

The explosion whipped round her. It was quite a distance away, but the shockwave was still enough to knock her off her feet, tossing her aside like a broken ragdoll. Grey seeped into the edge of her vision and she passed out.

* * *

She got up, slowly. Pain seeped through every nerve ending as she surveyed the carnage around her. Somewhere ahead, there'd been a crash, two giant articulated lorries colliding to create a massive inferno that was still burning brightly. Bits of debris were still falling as she looked for her trolley. It was in pieces; all of her possessions destroyed. She lifted her head to the sky, cursing the unfair God that had done this to her. Why did he take evrything from her?

Something bumped against her feet. She bent down to examine it. Her fingers traced over the embossed writing: 'Volvo.' It was a fuel cap from one of the wrecks. It must be worth at least $45. She looked around furtively. No-one was going to question her ownership of it. After what had happened, she deserved a little gift from the gods. Satisfied, she tucked it into her shawl and trudged on.

The Earl

 

[wildsweetone]

Good grief! What a piece! I love it. It makes me ask questions, I want to know more.

The description of the old lady is thin though. You told me she is old. I would have preferred to be shown.

How did she walk with that shopping cart? Simply pushing it isn't indicative of age. Did she stumble at all?

Her fingers as they traced over the 'Volvo' writing would have been another good place to show age. Would her hands look like a models, would they look like your mothers, would they look like your sisters? No? What would they look like?

Are my suggestions any help?

 

[TheEarl]

I wrote the piece in limited time, so the descripton's a bit thin.

The Earl

 

[jfinn]

Exercise: Write a short piece detailing how this woman managed to get hold of the Volvo truck's diesel cap. Include in your writing, a description of the elderly lady.

Well this is short for me. LOL

Jayne


Ella's Garden

Ella stepped out of the tub, dried carefully and dusted herself white with lilac scented talcum her young neighbor had given her for her last birthday. So thoughtful of him. She wrapped the old pink, chenile robe tightly around her round body and went to the sink to brush her teeth. After she was done she put them in and stood on her tip toes to check the result in the mirror over the sink.

Pretty good. Ella smiled as she remembered yesterday at church and the young minister's face when she insisted he guess her age. He'd hemmed and hawed and finally said he wasn't any good at that sort of exercise, then he'd tried to hide his shock when she told him that everyone told her she didn't look a day over sixty. It was, of course, a lie, no one in there right mind would think she looked a day less than eighty, but she loved the way people reacted when she said something like that. Their struggle to be polite in the face of such a ridiculous statement was priceless.

Ella sniffed the air with satisfaction. The cookies must almost be done. She slipped her feet into her bunny slippers, patted back the grey hairs that had escaped her bun and headed for the kitchen. She opened the oven door and savored the blast of air that hit her face; the smell of butter and melting chocolate had always been a favorite of hers.

The cookies were perfect. Golden brown, cooked just enough to be done, but still chewy. Ella took the pan and walked over to the counter by the sink and set them on the cooling rack. She moved the vase of yellow daffodils away from the heat, frowning as she looked at them. Yes, they were beautiful, but there weren't enough, not nearly enough of them.

As if on cue she heard the slam of the back door at the neighbor's house. Earl the horrible, as she thought of him, staggered out into the warm morning light. He looked terrible, but after the drunken orgy he'd held at his house last night it was no wonder. It had been after three in the morning when the last of his friends had left on his "hog", screaming obscenities and roaring down the street apparently not worried that the little tramp that held onto his back almost fell off as he took a wild turn out of the driveway.

Ella waved as Earl turned towards her house and saw her staring out of the window. "Good morning, Earl. How are you this beautiful morning?"

He grunted and made a half hearted attempt to wave back. He may not have liked her any better than she liked him, but he knew better than to show it. Ella was good friends with Mark Potts who owned Earl's house and she could get him evicted in a heart beat if she wanted to. He knew this and sometimes in his more lucid moments wondered why she didn't.

Ella knew why. Before Earl had moved in, some of the rougher kids in the neighborhood had liked to congregate in this darker part of the street. They would spend night after night, drinking, doing drugs and leaving used condoms all over the far corner of her backyard. That had stopped the first week of Earl when he and some of his biker buddies made it eminently clear that any partying around here was over unless they were the ones having fun. And since Earl only had his blowouts on the first and fifteenth of the month, Ella thought it was a distinct improvement. Although sometimes, like last night, it didn't always work out that way.

Earl walked over to his truck and sucked in his breath. Even over the birds singing and Mr. Becker's lawnmower across the street, Ella could hear his swearing.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

"Is there something wrong, Earl?"

He looked up at her and they stared at each other for a long minute, bright blue eyes meeting bloodshot brown ones. Earl's finally left her face and swiveled around to take in the rest of their two adjoining lawns. When he got to one area, he stopped.

He looked back at Ella, "Someone took my fuel cap for the truck."

"Oh dear, that's dreadful!"

"Uh huh," he nodded. "It'll cost a bundle to replace and the company won't pick up the expense since the truck was on my property."

"Tsk, tsk," Ella shook her head sadly, "those awful boys. I swear they're all going to end up in jail someday."

"Huh?" Earl wasn't following and Ella sighed inwardly. The man was so stupid, they'd been playing this game for months now and he still didn't get it.

"The neighborhood boys," she cued him gently, "they must have been the ones who took your gas thing."

Light finally dawned in Earl's dull eyes. "Yeah, boys. That must be it."

He turned and walked back to the driver's side of the truck and got in. He turned to Ella one last time and sighed.

"Um Mizz Ella, I was planning on doing some gardening tonight and I wondered if you'd let me fill in some of those holes you have in your daffodil patch? It looks like some of those "boys" must have trampled them last night."

Ella looked at her poor daffodils. She'd picked all the good ones that had been left this morning. All that were left were crushed into the deep tire tracks that a wildly out of control motorcycle had made in the early morning hours.

"Oh that would be lovely dear." She smiled gently at Earl. "You're such a good boy to think of me."

"Uh huh," Earl started the truck and pulled out of the drive, being very careful to not damage any other flowers in Ella's garden. He didn't want to spend anymore than he had to on replacing her fucking flowers. Not since he was going to have to spring 125 bucks for the gas cap now too.

Ella watched him disappear into the distance. When he was gone she walked over to the kitchen table and looked at the shiny chrome object on the table. She picked it up and hefted it in her hand. Heavy. It must be worth some money and she promised herself a call to the local auto supply store as soon as it was late enough for them to be open. Once she found out its worth then she could sell it on that radio program she sometimes listened too.

Ella smiled. It would be nice to be able to put a little extra in the collection plate next Sunday. And after the way she'd teased the new pastor, it seemed like the least she could do.

 

[wildsweetone]

TheEarl: Feel free to add to it when/if you feel like it.

jfinn: Apart from bright blue eyes, you haven't told me anything about Ella's physical description. You've shown me her age through words and actions. And yet, I seem to have a clear picture of Ella in my mind's eye. Thanks for posting.

 

[gauchecritic]

With the weight of the greater part of the twentieth century bending her stick figure almost double Victoria Millis urged her good foot onwards, leaving the other to drag sorrowfully lagard.

If you leant in close your aural senses would be assailed by a contant stream of the foulest language from her tiny puckered mouth and your nasal senses by an equally foul stench surrounding and trailing Mrs Millis for a distance of metres.

A beautifully resplendent dancing shoe of silver with gold brocade adorned Victoria's good and strong advancing foot, the other, the pitiful and innocent target of her bile, appeared to be swathed in three day old hospital bandage cradled within a cross-ply tyre sawn from some long defunct snow-gripping, four wheel drive Daibatsu Monstrosity.

The incline which daily beat the breath from Victoria's heaving ribs was at best mild, though 3/4 of a mile from her regular gin-soaked haunt, her pilgrimage was her life.

A contraption of brakes, wheels, steel and fraying green garden twine seemed to pull Victoria along her path homewards, in stark and vivid contrast to her early morning journey, when she would literally tumble down-hill at speed, step after faltering step.

Mrs Millis occasionally paused in her continual rant at her no-good misbegotten, withered, wizened, bloody, fucking, bloody, blinding, bastard of a useless piece of bloody-good-for-fucking-nothing lump of a foot and with piercing cerulean eyes, from beneath a fading, sparse fringe of still-chestnut hair, measure the distance still left to her destination.

Her glance slid across the woven basket perched atop her contraption. Inside was her world. Pension book; half empty bottle of Gordon's Gin glugging its welcome; a sad, single, dancing shoe of silver, resplendant with gold brocade; a photograph of a strong, young, moustachioed man haunched between two eight year old boys thick with duffle coats and mufflers; a pocket knife with a sharp and much used blade; two pork pies; half a bag of sugar; a patched but serviceable taupe cardigan with pearl buttons; a full packet of Yorkshire Tea (for Yorkshire folk) a ration book, barely legible and still credited with 4 ounces of butter and a bright shining something which for the life of her she couldn't remember putting there.

The darkening cloth of a penniless early evening urged Mrs Millis homeward. Bending once more to her mighty task she paused, mid lurch, hearing the roar of a deisel engine growling its waking pleasure. She smiled.

Presently, after a few heart pounding, creaking dragging steps a Volvo truck stormed her world, battering her with backwash, fumes and laughing voices. Again Victoria paused to survey her weary untrodden path.

The truck, at the crest of the slope had slowed, sputtered, kangarooed and juddered to a full stop, disgorging its still laughing, youthful, compliment.

Mrs Millis once again bent forward, her herculean steps and her contraption pushed onwards towards her destination and remembering, she leaned forward spreading her cardigan over her world hiding the sugar and a Volvo Truck deisel cap.


Gauche

(The Daibatsu Monstrosity is from GTA III)

 

[MathGirl]

That was very, very good, Gauchie.
MG

 

[Just_John1]

A slightly different spin

Emily Hauseman stepped off the plane, the ride had been long and exhausting. Thin and wispy, with the refined air that only the truely worldly can achieve she stepped gingerly into the concourse of the airport, looking for her young driver. The trip while profitable was long and although Hawaii was beautiful she was anxious to return to her expansive mansion placed on the slopes facing the shores of the pacific.

Her husband had called saying he was going out in one of his many trucks, his favorite actually and she once again wondered why he wasted his time with that trucking business. All of those diesel trucks, the black smoke, the smell and the noise. He loved it there and she felt like a second fiddle to his trucks.

He had one truck that was his favorite of all. He had spent a fortune on it and only the very luckiest of drivers got to drive it. The wheels were a gleaming chrome, with smoke stacks equally as shiny. She always wondered how the hell he got all those lights onto the stupid thing. Mostly the damn thing sat at the shop waiting for things to get busy enough so that Bob could live his childish fantasy and actually go out on the road. She hated when that happened, she hated being alone even though running an international hotel chain took so much time she really liked to have him there when she was home.

Her thin arms tapered to even more thin wrists that were adorned with the jewelry of the wealthy, the slight hump to her spine settling into the plush back seat of the limosine. A drink is just what the doctor ordered she thought and she leaned forward groaning slightly at the stretching of muscles too long bunched on the plane.

“long trip Ms. Hauseman?” George the driver inquired.

She looked at him and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her silver hair usually perfectly quaffed had that look of dischevelment brought on by sleeping in an airplane seat, her normally clear blue eyes were bloodshot, with dark circles underlining them her cheeks sunken, her smooth but spotted well manicured hands wiped one loose strand of hair from her face.

She was happy to see the truck in the driveway as the limo approached the house. He must've gotten there early as she had told Bob she was going to stop at the office for an hour on her way to the house. He had told her he would get there shortly after she did so she was surprised that he was there.

As she walked into the house smelling the familiar smells she heard a sound, almost as if someone was in pain. The voice was definitely feminine… and the sounds, well not of pain, actually the exact opposite. She followed the noise to the game room and gasped as she turned the corner to see Bob with his work pants around his ankles, Terri the cleaning lady, on the pool table leaning back obviously approaching an intense orgasm as Bob continued to plow into her. She was stunned, and even though she gasped the ecstacy of the moment kept her from being noticed. She turned quickly to rush out of the house.

There stood the truck, in all its shinning glory. Freshly washed, and the diesel fuel smell gave her an idea.

“George! I need some paper.”

“I’m sorry miss Hauseman I don’t have any, perhaps in the house.”

“No George I need some now! Do you have any money on you?”

“Here Ms Hauseman” George responded pulling his wallet out. “I have two twenties and a five.”

Emily lit one of the twenties on fire and threw it into the cab of the truck but it burned out after only putting a hole in the floor. She tried once again with the other twenty but was still unable to get the damned truck to burn but she had put a pretty nasty burn mark on the seat wasting the other twenty in the attempt. Finally she reached down to the fuel cap. “Volvo” how fucking fitting. She unscrewed it, rolled the five into a tube and stuffed it into the opening of the tank. She walked away as the five began to burn cringed slighty at the WUMP and as she drove away watching the growing black cloud of smoke behind her she dialed her cell phone.

"I have a Volvo truck diesel cap. I'm told they are about $125 brand new. I want $45.00 for it. My number is..."


JJ1

 

[wildsweetone]

Gauche: I second MathGirl's comments. I love Mrs Millis's description! I can physically smell her stench and hear her cussing. A well written piece of work. Thank you for posting.


Just_John1: Mrs Hauseman, thin and wispy, narrow arms, bedecked richly in jewellery only the elderly elite women wear... What a great description! Well done


I am particularly enjoying the way everybody is using the object to help show the nature of the character.

I hope you're enjoying this thread as much as I am.

 

[LunarSolstice]

There is a certain finesse that very few people possess to go about the act of obtaining free gas. Oh sure, anybody can screech away from the pumps, burning on all cylinders, but then you have a gas station lot full of witnesses, and the likelihood of an impending repercussion is increased drastically. There are three elements you want to achieve the perfect drive off, firstly, you will need to go to a place where current gas price paranoia hasn’t dictated a total shutdown of the pump and pay system, if you have to pay before you pump, well that defeats the general purpose, doesn’t it? Second, you need a fairly crowded place, somewhere the tellers will be too wrapped up to notice the comings and goings of patrons. Third, you need a basic understanding of the manner in which convenience stores are operated. When you pick up a pump, if you don’t use your card, the computer inside starts beeping, letting the teller know that you need to be authorized. When you’re done, another beep, meaning your done and theoretically you are coming in to pay.

The trick is to never put the pump back, even something like a stick or so placed in the cradle will upset the connection, so the tellers inside have no warning beep. And if you are going to screech out of the parking lot, you might as well just turn yourself in, nothing looks more suspicious in a gas station. Ease out, nice and slow, like some old granny driving. Natural like, right?

I, was a habitual drive off. With the price of gas right now, my old Volvo could just about eat up my paycheck in diesel otherwise. Consider it charity on the behalf of the gas corporations if you want, okay? If that justifies it for you, I mean, I figure they owe me anyway for fucking up my beaches with their oil platforms. So I got about forty-five bucks in the tank, not enough to really get them watching like hawks, and I lay the pump on the ground, open my passenger door and act as if I’m rooting around for money, then crawl in and start the engine, driving off.

Well at the same time I see this like decrepitly old lady coming out of the door in her work uniform, looking at me driving off, squinting against the sun, lit cig between her lips. No worries right, I mean this broad just probably came out for a cigarette, and that was the thought going through my head as this fucking senior citizen bitch hauls ass across the parking lot and leaps into the cab of some old pick-up. Fuck. Right, well these things happen, I just had to keep her off my ass and from getting my license plate number. How hard can it be to outrun her right? What kind of high-speed chase is this cunt going to pull out of her ass, chasing me at ten below the limit with her left blinker on?

No worries, no fucking worries I’m thinking as I’m making a right turn, going down a side street back to the highway where I know I will lose her, when this broad pulls out of her spot, tires screeching, car in overdrive, and does a three-point coming right at me. I’m already on the road, so I’m thinking she’s going to come out the gas station exit and into traffic right? Wrong, the bitch flies over the concrete blockade and onto this grassy median running along side of the road. This truck, like junker right? Primary colors being rust and primer, well this sonovabitch is hauling, tires tearing up grass and bushes, leaps over the retention ditch and for a split second its coming at me totally ass up in the air, front wheels spinning like, like you know in those old Westerns when the cowboy rears up on his steed and its front legs are kicking like mad? Like that! I thought the bitch was going to land on the cab of my car, so I take a quick turn and out of the fucking blue here comes this little fucking Volkswagen Bug the other way, and SLAM! I don’t know where I’m fucking at until I see this broad looking down at me.

Through all this she still had the damn cig stuck between her lips, and like she’s looking down at me with these sharp eyes and she’s got that damn old lady gray afro thing blowing around in the breeze, and I mean, this ain’t like your typical old bag lady saggy ass skin looking fucker, I’m not saying I wanted to fuck her or nothing, but everything about her was sharp, sharp as a fucking tack right?

And so she’s looking down at me and I’m looking back up at her and I’m moaning something like hospital, hospital, but this fuck, and like this cigarette, she doesn’t ever miss a puff, and there’s gas in the air and all sorts of shit, but this cold as steel mother fucker, she just keeps puffing on her cancer stick and finally she says: “That will come to forty-five dollars sir.”

Now, what the fuck right? What do I say to that, I didn’t even have my goddamn wallet on me, and even if I did I’m sure I’m going to need every fucking nickel I got to get patched up, I mean I thought I was fucking dying there. So I tell her that, I say, look I don’t have fucking forty-five dollars, goddamn it, call me a fucking ambulance!

So she looks around on the ground and picks up the only thing she really sees that hasn’t been like spot welded into some giant metal abstract sculpture, and I see its my gas cap right? “What’s this worth?” she demands, and still, puff puff puff, I mean she’s standing in a puddle of the fucking gas she wants me to fucking pay for, so I don’t know what to tell her, so I say I dunno, it came with the car, uh like…a hundred some odd okay? Just call me a fucking ambulance!

And so she starts walking away, back to the store, but at the white line turns back, digs in her pocket and flicks a quarter at me, which skitters across the pavement towards my face. “We have a payphone around the side of the building sir,” she says, and takes another puff on the cig, flicks it behind her, and turns back to walk to the building, taking just a second to stomp the glowing embers into the asphalt.

 

[TheEarl]

Oh, that is absolutely superb. I loved that.

The Earl

 

[wildsweetone]

LunarSolstice, far out, I was waiting for her to set the whole place alight with that darn ciggy. I like the unique way you chose to tell the reader about the type of person she is, and I also like the way you've described her. Great piece of writing dear, I'm glad you posted.

I'm almost itching to have a go at this exercise myself



Keep rolling them in peoples, there's amazing writing going on for this exercise

 

[MathGirl]

My story

The addres in the want add was in a ratt infested shitehol. The hall stank of pis, and ther was a pile of humman waist on the stares. I kiked down the dor and camed in her fase. It ran in streems down her rinkles onto her turkey nek. I dumped ninty roles of penies (half warshers) in a scum filed buket for the fourty five bill price. The Valvo deisul kap looked like shitt, but i new it would cleen up nice. It would be wrth a yard anna quartter to Bennie the Fense.

The old batt croked, "My late husband wore it as a codpiece."

On the way out, I kiked over her whelchare and camed in her fase again. She liked it.

 

[gauchecritic]

Larf? I nearly camed in her fase.

goshe

 

[wildsweetone]

MathGirl; What can I say?

I know...
Infested, turkey and dumped, should all have been misspelt to keep within the same incompetency level.

Actually, your portrayal is clear as mud. Darn good considering there were only two words used to describe her, wrinkles and turkey neck - I don't count wheelchairs as an 'elderly' defining object.

I wonder what this piece would have looked like if done in the relative conventional manner of the others, and I wonder whether I would have the same feeling of 'yuck'.

So glad you felt compelled to post MG. You've given me food for thought.

 

[MathGirl]

So glad you felt compelled to post MG. You've given me food for thought.

Dear WSO,
You know I can't resist a challenge, dear. The others on here were far better than anything I could come up with, so I decided to approach it from the extreme other end.

Ars gratia artis

MG

 

[wildsweetone]

Dear WSO,
You know I can't resist a challenge, dear. The others on here were far better than anything I could come up with, so I decided to approach it from the extreme other end.

Ars gratia artis

MG

Without comparing with any other Author, merely basing on your own ability, I would like to see your piece written conventionally. I know you write well.


Care to take up the challenge?





(I'm off to work now so won't see your reply until later on, but I do hope you'll give it a go - PM it to me if you'd prefer.)

 

[MathGirl]

Correction

Dear WSO,
I just realized that my little story failed to tell how the old woman got the Volvo diesel cap. I went back and corrected it. I feel it adds a nice balance to the tale.
MG

 

[wildsweetone]

There you are you see, you gave such a magnificent description of the surrounding state of affairs that I completely missed how she came across the cap. I wonder why she didn't bury it with him...

 

[LunarSolstice]

Mathgirl, that baby avatar of yours will haunt me in my dreams...thats creepy...

 

[MathGirl]

Praise, praise

Mathgirl, that baby avatar of yours will haunt me in my dreams...thats creepy...

Dear LS,
I'm flattered. So is Cheeky.
MG