146: Student Poem Prompt

Was tutoring a student and as she worked I asked for three prompts:
Someone’s name, what they did and their current crisis. In response I was given the name Jake, a rugby player and that he didn’t have a ball. Being inspired by these three things, I jotted out a poem. One barrier that I’ve been trying to get through is to write from an actual persona’s standpoint rather than mine own. Therefore… this. I don’t play rugby.

We stood like blank statues on the green plane
In our minds we saw ghostly figures running, colliding
An ethereal egg shaped missile passed back
Kicked forwards
Screams, yells, whistles, commands from coaches,
A crowd, cheering, crying, deafening.

The stadium lights were replaced by black-night stars
The silence of the crickets were our spectators tonight
Two tuning fork tops sat on padded, hollow gates.
An empty thump. Upturns of grass at every heel.
We ran forwards.

-j. NG

93: 24 minutes for another Writing Prompt (1 hour in reality)

Even as I write this, I’m sure that I’m not going to finish this post in 24 minutes, and that writing this will take far longer than that. I’m supposed to start teaching in 23 minutes and so rather than search for an idea that’s original, I decided to do another reddit writing prompt, which will be seen at the end of the piece, so as to not spoil the plot.

_________________

Sapphire looked at him with a critical eye as he pulled the cigarette up to his mouth and took in a long heave. He returned her glance with a smirk.

“You’re not gonna tell me that this is going to kill me now, right?”

Her eyes narrowed. Then with a lunge, she took the fag out from his between his fingers, examining it, then bringing it to her mouth.

“Hey!” Marky said with a protest. “Just because –“

She huffed from the rolled up paper until the length of it burned ashen and disintegrated in the wind. Removing it, she let out a cough from the exertion.

“Dumbass.” she said.

The two looked at the ground. It was all dirt, speckled with the occasional white pebble. Sapphire reached out with her hand and clung onto the chain-link fence they were loitering beside and she gave it a little rattle, the sound echoing slightly as traveled away from the epicenter of the ripple.

As they looked away from each other, they both ended up looking at the land beyond the fence, a long, brown plain of dirt, covered by wide canvas of dirty grey sky.

“What a depressing sight” Sapphire murmured.

Marky shrugged.

“It’s usually more blue. Today’s not even that bad and it’s better than being cooped up in a room all day in any case.”

Sapphire turned to him but he didn’t look at her. She hugged him from the side, her left arm looping around his neck, her right meeting it from his waist. She held on tightly while Marky continued to talk into the air.

“You were always complaining about being bored and cooped up, right? That you never had anything to do.”

There were little diamond sparkles in her eyes as she withdrew from his shoulder.

“I lied, Marky. I was lying. I always had things to do, people were always looking for me. I just…” Sapphire broke off and looked down. She watered the dirt with little droplets.

“I knew. Someone like you could never be alone. You make people gravitate towards you. Most of never know why we do, but we do.”

From out of his trouser pockets he withdrew another cigarette and a steel, dragon engraved lighter. Putting it to his mouth, he began to draw from the flame when Sapphire struck the cylinder from out of his lips. Some of her hair clung to her face as she did it.

When he tried to light another cigarette, she did the same thing. Then the same thing happened with the third attempt, and the fourth. When Marky finally reached his last cigarette, the ground all around the pair was littered with white sticks, as if it was Autumn and humans shed tar-filled cigarettes. He gazed into Sapphire’s glare, opened the lighter to reveal the flame, then closed it. He retracted the cigarette and slipped it back into his pocket.

As he was walking away, he turned around and walked backwards, holding up the lighter between four of his fingers, his little finger not in contact with the stainless steel.

“You know,” he called out, “most of the people watching really wanted this. Someone actually took it, but they gave it back to me, just for one day!”

He threw the lighter in a shimmering arc and it landed in the dirt amongst the cigarettes. “Keep it!”

When Marky was gone, Sapphire knelt down and collected each dropped roll one by one and pocketed the enamelled lighter. Back home, she smoked each cigarette gingerly, rocking back and forth in her grandmother’s rocking chair. Her man was being executed today. With every click that released the lighter’s flame, Sapphire couldn’t help but wonder with every clack that extinguished it, if she was yet to be called alone in the world.

-j. NG

So as I thought, this took 1 hour to write (exactly 1 hour). Good thing my student was working on an essay and needed to cut words, otherwise… Anywho. Writing prompt was: “Two best friends are each smoking a cigarette, knowing that when they are finished, they will never see each other again. What do they talk about?”

As usual, I took the liberty to change the subject matter a little. Word count, 610.

81: Another Writing Prompt from Reddit

 

Oops. Forgot to post this last night. I wrote this during swing dancing. I’ll post down my thoughts on this particular post and the original prompt at the end of the piece. This one isn’t up to my standard but I told myself I’d post it. Sorry.

Writing Prompt

‘This sucks. Can’t even sleep, it’s too damp, too dark, there’s no space to move.’

…

‘You know, I never really bought into any religion in particular, though for a long time I was raised in a Christian household. Did you know that? Eventually though, my belief in the Christian God tapered off as I started to explore different possibilities in order to, well, rather ironically, solidify my belief in Christianity. But other religions just made too much sense as — ooh; wait, sorry. Someone’s at the door. Got to kick it a few times to know that yes, I’m still well and alive in here, though it’s dark as shit, alongside a lot of other crap.

Ngh. Ngh.

It’s harder than it looks, you know.

Ngh.

I wish you put in some effort too. Ngh. Alright. Now they know. They’re probably excited and all giggly from knowing that I’m still in here but dammit. They don’t know what it’s like. Can’t move, can’t breathe. Just stuck here, in perpetual… life.’

‘But anyway; where was I? Religion. Right. So I started to check out other stuff, right, but instead of checking out the Hindus and Buddhists, the people never really hurt anybody, or at least, not as much as the others, I decided to check out Islam. It was the rival and the most intrinsically blasphemous religion for any hardcore Christian. I was on a quest. I wanted to find out why it was that people could believe in such a violent, violent religion.’

Long story short, my studies, done in a high school class resulted in a more confused me than ever, because having read authorised English translations of their holy text, I realized I didn’t have anything real to fuel my personal crusade on, save on contradictions that couldn’t be proven logically by either side. Anyway. The way that this religion works sucks. You know what I mean, right?

I’d assume you do anyway. We’re essentially the same.

…

I like where this talk is going. It’s real swell. Has been for the past… so many months. Do you think they’ll be nice? Sweet? Nothing? 

Oh come on. Don’t you ever think about what you’re going to do when you get out of here? I mean, it’s like a brand new, second chance right? I mean, maybe not, but it’d be nice to think that we’ll emerge with everything forgiven and you know, with a chance to live a life without any more regrets, right? I wanted for so long to tell people that I was sorry and once I get out of here, I will. I also wanted to tell people who did it, but I mean, I gave up on that a while in after I realized that nobody was listening. Shouted and screamed for someone to hear who it was, because I saw his face. I saw his face and the flash of the blade before he pulled my hair up.

Screamed about it for a while, like I said, nobody was listening. I can’t remember his name. Rich? Brian? Burke? How do you spell any of those? God, it’s been so long, I can’t remember. What’s my name? Do you remember? Man. Everything’s fading away. That’s why we have to talk! Survive the torture! Torturing our tormentor really. Never been inside without getting inside, you know what I mean?

… If you won’t talk, I will. I think I want to become a writer. I think have the knack for it. And I want to get into space one day. I think that’d be fun. And I want to be a historian and finally figure out why the world is the way it is. Or is that sociology? Or anthropology? Can I do all of those at once? And explore the world. I’ve never been to Ever… thing. Mountain. Or the tower in… italy? Fence? Or anywhere in … that continent… place. Continent is the world I think. Ew. Been in here for so long that my memory’s going.

…Hah. You know what?

I don’t think you can actually hear me. I think that may you could be able to but it doesn’t see it. I can feel you there, even though quiet. Take up half space. Half food.

…

You a boy? Girl?

You girl, me girl?

Not fun. Can’t think.

You die too? Die by man too?

…

Same day?

________________

A few hours later, Megan and Samuel Anders held each other tightly as Megan screamed and screamed.

“Push!” the nurses prompted from both sides. “Push!”

Two young girls were born that day. Once upon a time they had different names, but long before they were christened with new ones, they had forgotten the old.

– j. NG

Postscript:

So, the prompt was: “Shortly after dying, you wake up as a newborn just now departing the womb. As the days pass, memories from your previous life begin disappearing.”

My piece SUCKS. The concept was simple enough, though I changed it from being newborn into being conceived, and it was going to be really simple; a person who was murdered, really really wants to tell people who did it, but can’t. Then it changed into some religious commentary on the idea of reincarnation and then I came up with the idea of, well, what if there’s a twin, and then this piece of crap came out.

Why is it bad? The dialogue is boring, isn’t carried forward, and well, the final idea of memory being lost isn’t that great of an idea.

If anything the only interesting part that I would have would be the fact that two people being reincarnated into biological twins… is slightly interesting. And would suggest that they died on the same day.

Anyway. I feel like I let you guys down with this one, but this one’s getting past the filter, gotta post the bad with the good, and it’s not … god-awful. I just have higher expectations for myself.

Plus, I just read the reddit prompt’s page and the comments and the top voted story is much better than mine.