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The old man sat down at his desk in the library and wrote a letter.
The library is very, very dark, lit only by a single candle that sits on the desk where the old man is writing his letter. Shelves lined with foreboding books cast eerie shadows behind them. There is a single window on a perpendicular wall about twenty feet away from the old man. It's blue stained glass, letting in only a tiny amount of light. It's shaped in a gothic arch, lined with black iron decoration that creeps upward from the sill like vines.
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Initially my mind only stuck a tiny portion of attention on the library. But when I explored what it had frozen, I got all that stuff.
[This message has been edited by Verai (edited April 24, 2005).]
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The old man sat down at his desk in the library and wrote a letter.
A graying man hunched over his long wooden table; the stoop in his back was permanent. His feet were firmly planted on the floor and his legs looked to be the most solid part of him. His ill fitting jacket was loose about his frame, arms just slightly too long. The shoulders were made for a bigger man with strength in his chest. It had once been suitably tailor for him or someone else though it no longer held its shape. The white frothy collar was brilliant in comparison to the crisp black of the jacket. His tails, split by the back of the tan wooden chair, hung limp to each side in a comic fashion. The chair was simple, functional matching the desk. The graying man scratched his quill over the sandy parchment. The care he used with the small blotting sheet and with the black ink bottle made him seem gentle, not frail. The letter was important to him and he was trying to finish it before the candle in the iron holder burned to its nub.
In a boat stood (changed it sorry) a woman with a knife in her hand.
A harridan stood angry and fat amongst the nets in the bow of the boat. Her threatening gesture with a knife aimed out from her upraised right hand was withering and futile. Her gray colored rag of a skirt swished in the cold salt breeze. Her left hand held the end of the black knit shall to keep it from falling down to her clamming apron. Her bird's nest hair plied into a bun on top her head. The short clamming knife was dully swaying as the woman balanced herself in the dingy.
************ With her leashed dog leading the way, the heiress strode out the doors, past the doorman and onto the street, where she saw the car that had been tailing her for days..
Her perfect outfit from the latest store, probably Nordstrom's, was not the perfect outfit for dog walking. The heiress walked "disguised" from the public with a big hat and sunglasses that only made her look aloof as she'd looked in all the latest paparazzi photos. The door man took out his phone after she had passed him and moments later an innocuous looking van drove down the street and began tailing her. Her head neither looked left nor right making it obvious that she knew exactly where the van was and who was in it. Her heels clip clopped on the pavement as she headed toward the park. The flash of photos and mechanical winding flittered in her ears. With tear in her clenched eyes, she forged onward with more determination. They weren't going to cause her any more grief. Someone shouted something as tiny dog lead her on. She did not listen to the jeering. Everything was blocked out from her mind. That stick was still up her butt when she walked into the street and was crushed by an oncoming SUV. The tiny dog made a break for the park as the people who had tried to shout warning ran toward the accident. The paper would have more photos to put on the front cover, it might even be a relief for the family to go from being on the gossip page to being on the front page.
[This message has been edited by smpflueger (edited April 29, 2005).]
posted
Her shoulders moved, which seemed like the movement of the boat. The small wooden rowboat sat in front of the sun that was painting the sky bittersweet oragne and purples, casting the the small craft and it's rider into silhouette. From the shore the scene was a painting - black rider, black boat, black lake. Proximity filled out the details, the fluid movement of the water, unevan and lined with the current. Closer still, the shaking of the woman's shoulders, shaking independant of the boat's rocking and the edge of the long blade she held in her hand, grew apparent.
I hope I got the idea of the exercise. This is just description not story, and it's unedited... so, it's probably not ready to be published or nominated for a pushcart.
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The sky is white, washed with light blues and purples, which reminds me of a water colour painting. The lighting is rather soft and cool, which, to my mind, looks like early morning. (But after first light, when all the reds, pinks and oranges have left the sky.) There is calm, blue water for as far as the eye can see. The wooden boat, which must have been painted white at some point in its lifetime, only rocks very gently. In this boat sits the woman. She, unlike myself, doesn't appear to have any interest in her surroundings. She has short, rather dishevelled blond hair and her head is bent way down over the knife that lies in the palm of her hand.
Everything is still. Everything is silent.
[This message has been edited by Quizzical (edited May 05, 2005).]
posted
"With her leashed dog leading the way, the heiress strode out the doors, past the doorman and onto the street, where she saw the car that had been tailing her for days."
The car paced her as she strolled down the avenue. Her mind raced as the toy poodle bounced from side to side, sniffing and marking spots of great canine significance. She should have listened to her father, kept her bodyguards, but they stifled her with their looming presence. She felt naked now, exposed to the danger waiting for her in the dark automobile behind her.
[This message has been edited by Three Minute Egg (edited May 06, 2005).]
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In a boat sat a woman with a knife in her hand. OK, let me try a hand at this...
In the old boat sat a woman, bedraggled hair clinging to her bloodsoaked cheeks, rainwater dripping on the wicked blade she grasped tightly in her fist.
posted
Desk: A long, rectangular reflective table made of deep red cherry-wood, in which the old man's reflection swam gently as he wrote.
Knife: a slender shiv, covered in slime and fish guts. A functional blade, not a work of art. Not for killing, but for work. Nevertheless...
Muse: A tiny glowing figure of a woman with wings, hovering around Michael's head, juggling three flea-sized balls of yellow, red and green. She is laughing, spinning, and finally tosses one of the balls on Michael's head. It explodes in a shower of glittering dust.
posted
In my minds eye the old man sits in a backless chair with a feathered quail in his hand. Night lingers in, cold air brushes past him what he writes fades away. Ghosts waltz around him. He is dressed in his Sunday worse he is wondering why he is here. He has pasted away and this is his final stop as the forces of life decide which life he will be reincarnated in.
Posts: 9 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
In a boat sat a woman with a knife in her hand. The first noun is boat. I see a little rowboat first, the kind that people build in there backyards and go fishing with in the weekend. The sun is glinting off the water, and the oars hangin off the sides. It is a weathered brown color, and spliting a little at the top, but still as seaworthy as the day she first put out to the little town pond. The next noun is woman. I see my mental image of a woman, wearing a calico dress, with kind of mousy blond hair and and kind blue eyes. I know not all women are like this, but that is what came to mind. This is a real woman, who has seen life, but still knows how to laugh. Not like a bright flashy girl, wanting only to be noticed, or a showgirl, parading herself for all to see, but a real treasure of a woman, who will love the same good man for all of her life with all of her heart, and raise their kids in the knowlege that they are loved and important. This woman will get old and wrinkled, and still where the same calico dress and have the same kind eyes. The next noun is knife. I see a butcher's cleaver, smeared with blood as he tries to smile at the girl there to collect her meat. She tries not to winch at the red light shining off of it, hardly seeing the young butcher's shy smile, seeing only the bloody cleaver and the spatered apron. The next noun is hand. This means to me the gentleness of the mother's touch, the rouph callouses of the fishermen's work and rope worn hands, the Savior's hands pierced by the nails as he sacrificed himself for our good, or earlier, when they were covered with blood as he bled from every pore, and the gripped the rock in front of him, trying to make it through the seer agony of the sins of all people of creation. As for the sentance itself, it makes me wonder, why is she in the boat? Why is she holding a knife? Did she just discover that her husband was cheating on her, and she is going into the boat where they first kissed, where he proposed to her, where in revenge she wants him to find her dead body. But she is waiting as the sun sets over the water, and she realizes that she doesn't want to die. How did I do?
Posts: 102 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The woman with the knife in her hand. She sits there, shock on her face, blood dried on the blade of the knife, with which she has killed whom? I don't know. Her light brown hair cascades around her white face, as she sits in the boat, empty except for her, a long hemp rope, and a single oar.
[This message has been edited by Smaug (edited August 30, 2005).]
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