Popsicle Stick Stories

[age.livejournal.com]

It's that time again! I'm sure you all know the drill by now, but for those that don't I direct you (here).

Remember to reply to this post with your answers. If your results will end up taking 2 comments to post in its entirety, please post it in your own journal and then tag this post with a link!

Also, for some more writing fun, please check out (this post) and try your hand at some descriptive writing. We had warm-ups on descriptive writing last year, but I figured that the sticks would be just as great.

It takes a lot of work to write these things up, so please drop by Nina's post and make some time to give it a go!

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The First Sentence
Choose: One
Writing Time: 6 minutes

First Line #1: The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.

First Line #2: Charlotte ate green peppers all day long.

The Non Sequitur
Choose: One (OR choose one, write for time, choose the other, write for time)
Writing Time: 3 minutes

Non Sequitur #1: On Tuesday she asked me the most peculiar question.

Non Sequitur #2: She may be young, but she's not stupid.

The Last Straw
Choose: One
Writing Time: 6 minutes

Last Straw #1: the bill she forgot to pay

Last Straw #2: the time he invited his mother to dinner

If you enjoyed this, please pick up "The Writer's Toolbox", which is where I got the sticks from.

Comments

[lfvoy.livejournal.com]

This tells instead of shows, but isn't that what revisions are for?

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long. Sometimes she put them on a sandwich. Sometimes she chopped them up into another meal. Sometimes she just sliced them up and ate them raw the way some people eat peeled carrots.

She'd long since gotten used to the teasing. Was she addicted to them? Was this some sort of weird fetish? Charlotte would just smile and offer a bite of whatever she was eating at the time. Since she was a good cook, it was rarely refused.

But one day, she bit into a pepper, frowned, and spit it out. It tasted awful. Thinking she might have just found one that had some sort of issue, she tried another one. She had the same result. Almost overnight, her sense of taste had changed. She thought of all the green peppers she had in her pantry -- she'd just stocked up two days before -- and wondered what she was going to do with them. Thinking of that was better than wondering what had caused the sudden, dramatic shift in her tastes.

Despite her attempts to focus on more important things, the sudden shift stayed on her mind all of that day and the next. That Tuesday, while at her weekly sewing circle, she asked the most peculiar question: was it possible for taste and smell preferences to change dramatically for no apparent reason?

Nobody had ever experienced everything like that before. Over the next few days, Charlotte began worrying even more. She even started making mistakes at work and, one night, dropped three stitches in a row. Grumbling, she pulled the rows back apart in order to re-do them. Why was she so obsessed about something so minor? There were plenty of other foods to be had, and she was an accomplished cook. She wouldn't suffer.

The family next door had been more than happy to accept her offer of her leftover green peppers. They always seemed strapped for enough of anything, so no doubt they found the food useful.

Over the next week, her worry and wonder took up more and more of her attention. Finally, she admitted she needed to call her doctor. It was just to make sure, she told herself. Nothing was likely to be wrong; she just needed to put her mind at rest.

Charlotte felt foolish as she walked into the doctor's office and explained the problem. One day, she'd eaten green peppers all day. The next, she could barely even stand to be in their presence. Nothing else had changed. Was this unusual, or a sign of something wrong, or simply something that happened every now and then.

To her surprise, the doctor put her through several different tests that seemed to mostly focus on her sense of smell, instead of her sense of taste. He didn't explain the tests themselves until he got the results back two days later. She didn't have a nasal polyp or brain cancer. It was just an unusual occurrence.

He'd seen it once before. As a newlywed, his wife was anxious to impress his mother so she'd cooked an elaborate meal of all her favorite foods. His mother was appreciative, but when she sat down to eat, she wasn't able to tolerate a bite. Everything had changed in an instant. His wife had blamed herself for years, despite the fact that both of them had assured her it had nothing to do with her cooking.

The closest documented condition was related to the development of psychological aversions. Sometimes when a person had a bad experience that involved a particular taste or smell, that person developed an aversion to the taste or smell. It was strictly psychological, the result of the mind's tendency toward association.

Charlotte pointed out that she hadn't had any particular bad experience the day the peppers became awful. The doctor shrugged. His mother hadn't either, but his wife was never going to forget the time he invited his mother to dinner.

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long. God, she fucking did. And she fucking talked about them too. This morning I had bell pepper in an omelet! Yesterday I had bell pepper in scrambled eggs because I didn’t have enough time to make an omelet! And then for lunch both days I went so Subway because I love Subway and you can get something different there everyday! (But you always get bell pepper, I suppose, don’t you?) You bet! I always ask for extra bell pepper and extra cucumber! Turkey sub, club, roast beef, grilled chicken, whatever! (And how about dinner, I’d ask, because, fuck, once she gets going like you can’t stop her. It’s best just to smooth things along.) Oh, you can have green peppers in anything for dinner! ANYTHING!

So, yeah, I was in love with a dumbass.

Okay not a complete dumbass but you know that feeling you get when your girl – and she wasn’t my girl really but let’s just pretend she is – is just a little too stupid, or a little too heavy, or a little permanently freaked out, or a little too excitable – and not too much for you but to an extent that you worry everyone around you is looking down on the both of you? That she makes you look bad? I guess that makes me a coward. I know that makes me a coward. Because I know there are girls I’d be with if we were the last two people on earth and it would be no problem but you have to take them places and interact with other people and you just pray – God, don’t be so MUCH in front of other people.

“She may be young, but she's not stupid.”

Look, son, don’t argue with me. I mean don’t interrupt me. I said she was a dumbass but I didn’t say she was stupid. Okay I guess maybe – I guess maybe calling someone a dumbass means calling her stupid – but it’s not quite the same. I mean she’s smart as fuck don’t get me wrong. But – I mean – okay she has like three topics. These are the only three topics she can talk about ever. Cooking, cinema, and marriage. Or actually like cooking, cinema, and not quite marriage but engagement all the way through about the second year of marriage. And that’s it. She can’t talk about anything else. You talk about literature or sports or work and she sort of smiles and nods and seems glassy-eyed friendly like the dumbest of my cats but she’s not really into it. But you mention one of her three topics and she MUST say something. Sort of out of obligation.

“What about the time he invited his mother to dinner?”

He who? What? Stop interrupting! Okay, I was talking about obligation. You know how, if someone asks you about a friend, you’ll sum him up with like a few key characteristics like “he’s into football” or “he likes girls with big asses” or “he goes to UT” or something like that. You describe your friend this way to a hypothetical stranger and the stranger nods but he knows he’s not getting the full picture. But that’s all there is with Charlotte. She’s, like, externalized herself. It’s like she’s doing an imitation of this person she used to be. She’s like the “Solaris” version of Charlotte. Like someone told her “Charlotte always and only talks about cooking, cinema, and marriage.” That’s what makes her a dumbass.

“But you were gonna tell me about him and dinner.”

Oh God yeah Keith had his mother over to meet Charlotte or no they’d already met. He had his mother over and apparently this is what she told me later cuz I ran into her in the store and with the Alzheimer’s she doesn’t forget stuff so much as have no internal filter. Anyway apparently she just weirded Keith’s mother the fuck out. I feel sorry for her. You know how, when you’re a teenager, you figure out a certain way to act around certain people, and it works and they like you, but then you grow out of that behavior, but you feel like you still have to act that way anyhow?

“…wait, she’s married? You said she was someone else’s girl and she talks about marriage?”

Oh she’s not married anymore. He died.

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

Heh, this one got weird... mostly an attempt at fitting in as many Greek myths as possible, with no particular method to the madness with which they're tossed in there. :D


Charlotte ate green peppers all day long.

I could never quite understand why, but she insisted it was the right thing to do. Something about a quest from the gods, some sacrifice she had to make- I don't know. I was too young to get it, I guess, and by the time I was old enough to maybe understand what she meant, it was all over anyway.

What I know is this: Jason had disappeared years and years ago, and every day for every one of those years, Charlotte had gone to the temple and prayed for him. I don't know which god it was that talked to her, but when she came home- I still remember how she looked that day. She looked confused, and scared, but determined.

The first day, it was peppers.

The second day, it was goat's milk.

The third day, it was herbs so rare she had to sell the last of the furniture to pay for them.

The fourth day, it was stones.

The fifth day, she was pregnant.

It was nine months later that my mother Charlotte (funny, I always thought she was my sister until they told me) died, and a man in a golden helmet came to take my tiny baby brother Jason away. I wasn't too young to fight him, but the man just smiled at me and I couldn't move, while he was wrapping my little brother in a golden fleece and carrying him away.

I don't remember how I managed until someone took me in.

On Tuesday, she asked me the most peculiar question. By her, I mean, that old lady who was always sitting on the bench I always walked by on my way to beg at the temple. I don't remember her name well, but I remember the question.

She said, "If you don't know it now, how are you going to find him?"

I said, "What?"

She became my foster mother. She wasn't really that old, when I got to know her; she looked so sad, though, that her face was all wrinkled and old, except in the summer when her daughter came to visit. Then she'd always brighten up a bit, and I was glad to see it; she was kind, if melancholy, and she'd tell me lots of stories about the bad man that stole her daughter away (I was never sure why she kept telling them when her daughter kept visiting, every year). I can never remember her name. I wish I could, sometimes.

When I was old enough, she left.

As a boy-not-quite-a-man, wandering the world, finding my little brother wasn't- I admit- my first priority. Really, I spent most of my time in temples, making good with what gods I thought were listening; one time, I tried to invite my mother-sister to have dinner with me while I was praying to Hades, but I never heard from Charlotte again.

(I did once have dinner with Hades, though. I'll tell you that story some other day.)

It's probably because of that that I didn't find my brother until... well, now. But maybe it's because of all that time in temples that I was able to find my way to where I am, I don't know. I don't think I could have done things another way.

(I had some friends that walked with me, but like Odysseus, I lost them on the way; I suppose it was something I had to do alone. Maybe I'll tell you about them too, one day.)

Here you are, brother, here we are.

(You're taller than I remember you being.)

[age.livejournal.com]

...I have no words. This one's my fave, so far :D

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) I'm glad you like it.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

My goodness, this turned out rather creepier than I'd expected it to...

The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. It was not as if it were his fault; he had been ill, he had missed classes, he was a very long way behind the rest of his year. His teachers should not have entered him for the examinations this sitting; it was as simple as that. And, to do him justice, he had fought long and hard against the little voice in his head that had said, softly, insinuatingly, 'You know, it could be so easy... All you would need to do is...' He had tried his very hardest to bring himself back up to standard. The mock exams had shown that it was completely pointless. He took one look at last year's paper and knew that he was lost. To have a hope of answering any of this he would have to spend a week with an encyclopaedia.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't as if he wanted to excel, to outshine his classmates. All he wanted was to pass. He had never failed anything in his life, and he was not going to start now. But then he had never cheated in his life, either, not on anything that really mattered. A spelling test at age seven did not count, and anyway, he had only realised halfway through the test that he still had the words inked on the back of his hand from when he'd been practising them the previous night.

All he needed was to see the papers. To see the papers a week, maybe a couple of weeks, in advance.

On Tuesday she asked me the most peculiar question. (I can hear my grandfather now: 'She? Who's she? The cat's mother?' I do apologise.) She was Mrs Carmichael, John's French teacher, and probably the only person on the staff who had a really good idea of John's problems. I hate to say it - because what kind of a reflection is it on me, as his mother? - but I really believe that she had a better idea of his problems than I did.

'Mrs Faraday,' she said to me, in that gorgeous French accent, 'do you believe that John has converted to Catholicism?'

She may be young, but she's not stupid. She may have married that old bore Paddy Carmichael, and I will never know the reasoning behind that, but when it comes to sizing up her students, there's no one like Aurore Carmichael. That being so, there must have been a reason behind that ridiculous question. John? Catholicism? Highly unlikely; the last thing I knew he was atheist with a leaning towards Buddhism. But then it had been a while since I talked to him about anything that profound. And - more importantly, at least at the moment - what on earth had that to do with John's admittedly appalling predicted grades?

I found out, eventually, but it was pure chance. It was all because of the bill she forgot to pay, the bill for the Modern Languages department's photocopying for that academic year. She hid nothing; as soon as she knew the details she came to me and said, 'Mrs Faraday, there's something you should know.'

I was furious: how a son of mine could have been so stupid as to photocopy his stolen exam papers on a school photocopier I couldn't understand. Honestly, he almost deserved to fail the lot for that. No, what am I saying? Of course he deserved to fail, the stupid boy. But Aurore Carmichael didn't turn him in. How could she, when he had a rather bigger hold over her? He could have been caught cheating, but so could she. And the kind of cheating that she was doing... well, she'd have gone straight on to the sex offenders register. She hushed it up, and she only told me when she was lying in my arms, covered in my kisses. And how could I turn her in?

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

... had to finish it!

John is a priest now. Somewhere along the line, I suppose, he must have confessed to that one lapse in an unblemished education. Whether he said, to that faceless grille in that anonymous box, what else he knew, I have never asked. That, I suppose, is why Aurore asked me that question. As soon as confession was a possibility...

And what of his mother, and what of his one-time French teacher?

We're still cheating.

[nanogirl08.livejournal.com]

this is very cool!

[effulgency.livejournal.com]

Just a couple sentences too long. Here (http://effulgency.livejournal.com/13962.html#cutid1), at my journal. :)

[nanogirl08.livejournal.com]

The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. Elizabeth knew that but it didn’t make her reluctance to ask him about it any less. If anything, it increased it, knowing that he had given up on relying on his own skills to get him places and was now coasting along on other people’s. She sighed. She had know it was going to happen but was saddened to discover it had happened so soon.

John waved his test at her. She tried to smile. She tried to hide the grimace that she felt certain was peeping out from behind her eyes and mouth. Then, she moved away to another part of the room and spoke to the people there, smiling with genuine pleasure as they, too, showed her their test scores.

Nobody asked for hers. It was accepted as a certainty that she was in total control of the direction her life was heading and basked in the easy praise she was expert in giving. The genial words flowed smoothly off her tongue. It wasn’t at all likely to be guessed that she had rehearsed them, many times, in front of the mirror at home in order to get the wording perfect and take away the cheesiness so often present in congratulations.

“On Tuesday she asked me the most peculiar question….” The words from someone’s conversation drifted into Elizabeth’s ears. She wondered if the question had had anything to do with the exam. On the whole, she doubted not, looking at the blonde haired, blue-eyed girl who had just spoken. However, her curiousity was engaged and she moved slightly closer in order to hear better.

“What kind of question?”

“The kind you don’t expect, never.” The girl responded firmly.

Elizabeth smiled. There were many questions she’d never expected to hear out loud and even more that were voiced only inside her head.

“My mother asked me if I’d consider getting tutoring. But you’d never guess who from.”

When Elizabeth heard the name she almost gasped out loud – he’d never passed a test and his mother had a Doctorate in Mathematics! And listened as the girl explained that they had always studied at his parents’ house. Sometimes, she had eaten dinner with John, in the small dining room. His mother had almost always left them alone.

The time he invited his mother to dinner with them had been surprising, apparently, because it turned out that John’s mother had never troubled to tutor her son in maths.

“You know, he always fails tests and yet his mum asked him to explain something to me and I understood it so well afterwards.” The girl gushed.

Elizabeth stared. It was now plain to her that the boy who frequently finished in the bottom place in her classes was not quite what he had seemed. He had never passed a test before and hadn’t seemed to understand what he was doing in classes, seeming to enjoy playing with his mates more than doing the work. She’d assumed it was due to a lack of mathematical ability but now it seemed there was a different reason. She didn’t know what it was but by god, she intended to do something about it.

[age.livejournal.com]

And suddenly I'm picturing this as some odd SGA-AU that fits with one of the insane fic ideas we came up with last year.

Wow.

Remind me never to read these first thing after getting up ;)

[xmirage.livejournal.com]

(some weird first try D:)

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long. She wouldn’t stop eating them, no matter how many times she was told to stop. Her mother sighed, looking into the once-full cupboards as Charlotte once more demanded for another plate of green peppers.

”Look Charlotte, there’s no more green peppers left in the house,” her mother glared at Charlotte. “And you’ve been eating non-stop the whole day, don’t you think it’s time to stop?”

Charlotte sighed nonchalantly, picking up the last green pepper from her plate and inserting it slowly into her mouth.

“Mother, it’s not that late, the stores are still open, if we’re out of them, you can always buy some more!” she chewed thoughtfully, looking up expectantly at her mother.

“No. I will not buy you any green peppers. It’s about time you stopped eating, look, you’ve gone all round! And on green peppers! Dear me, what has the world come to?” her mother groaned, rummaging around the cupboards.

Charlotte sighed, she just woke this morning and had a sudden craving for green peppers; it wasn’t her fault! Though her mother did have a point, eating throughout the day had caused her to gain a little fat around the edges.

On Tuesday she asked me the most peculiar question.

“Since my mother abhors me eating green peppers, should I eat oranges instead?” she looked up at me, her curly hair bouncing lightly as she hopped up and down.

I stared at her, nothing coherent forming in my mind. Was she going to eat her family bankrupt? First it was green peppers, now oranges. How I pitied her mother. I wondered if I should warn her mother to hide the oranges in the house. Could I make it on time before Charlotte reached home?

This child was getting from bad to worse, a few days had passed since the green peppers accident (fortunately the orange accident was avoided) and as I entered her house, I saw her; her clothes popping in their seams as she sat on the table, munching contentedly on a plate of fried eggs.

Her mother sat on the counter, wringing her hands in despair. The poor woman. The bill she forgot to pay must be an added worry to the one she had about her daughter and her strange eating habits.

The girl was eating so much, the cost of keeping her was too high. Her mother, anxious and tense over her little girl’s sudden strange compulsion with food, she had even forgotten to pay the water bill. She did not know what to do, very soon the water would stop coming, and she couldn’t leave to pay them. No she couldn’t; not for one moment could she leave her daughter alone, heavens no. If she ever did that, Charlotte would immediately run off to the stores to satisfy her taste for green peppers.

Green peppers again…