This has become a semi-regular thing, so I’ll just link you to the writing tag and let you get aquainted if you’re not familiar.
Ready?
Starting points are provided below. You can use one or any combination of the three if you like. Whatever works.
Word: Perfection
Phrase:”The last time this happened…”
Image: A flickering lightbulb
You write whatever you like using that starting point and see what comes. (Note, no rules on length, content, whatever. Just see what happens)
p.s. As always, tell a friend and read the comments ;-)
It was a quiet Sunday morning a the CastleBar when Richard walk in.
Malcolm noticed the long brown coat Richard was wearing.
“It it Halloween already” Malcolm said annoyed.
“You got to be kidding me Malcolm” replied Richard “i always wear this coat on Sunday’s.
Malcolm looked around with a smile as if he knew but Richard could see that his mind really is slipping after all.
“you and you’re jokes” Richard quickly said with a smile “you should write a book”.
“ha ha ha. like i have the time for that” Malcolm joked “i still have to transport all the cows”.
Richard walked to the bar.
“two beer please” he said to the cute girl behind the bar.
Richard always liked this girl. it was about 6 years ago when she first started working here, at first Richard couldn’t say one word to the girl, but after a little push from Malcolm he finally started to talk to her.
he still hasn’t asked her out, maybe because this girl is a bit different from what you normally see behind a bar.
This girl is a bit geeky, always playing with her android phone or typing on her notebook.
Richard didn’t even know her name, but today he was determent to ask her.
The girl handed Richard the two beer.
Richard opened his mouth to get the question out but there was only silence.
Suddenly The girl sad:”hi you’re Richard Right?”.
Richard should stiff with amazement.
she actually sad something to him.
“Could you help me with this light bulb, it keeps flickering” the girl sad in a somewhat flirty way. “my name sharon bytheway”.
Richard didn’t say anything for 5 seconds but for him it feld like an hour.
finally he said to Sharon:”sure Sharon i be glad to help a girl in need”.
“i heard you’ve been coming here for quite some years now” said Sharon with a little shyness.
“oh yes, first time was with my dad over 30 years ago when i was like 4 years old” Richard Replied.
“JUST ASK THE GIRL OUT ALREADY SON” Malcolm shouted from his table.
Richard and Sharon didn’t look at eachother for more then half a minute.
Finally Sharon said:”i’m free tomorrow if you wanna do something”.
“I love to” Richard Replied a little to happy “what do you like to do”.
“Well i love to go to a museum or something” Sharon whispered.
“Ok i’ll pick you up at noon, is that ok” Richard Replied.
“I’T A DATE” Malcolm Shouted “NOW BRING OVER MY BEER”.
I hate game night. You’d think that, after 30 years together, we could have developed a more cosmopolitan passion. But, no. She always insisted.
Any game but that, I pleaded silently, as I watched her eyes scan over the cupboard. Past Scrabble, and that one with the clicky bubble, and the faddish party games we never use anymore.
Her hand grazes the worn surface of the box. I think she’ll move past it, but it pauses. Taps it twice — the pointed thump of her nail on the cardboard. I try to exert all my will into that nail… to get it to move just two inches lower.
But no. Nail turns into fingers, fingers into two hands, wriggling the box from its awkward menage a trois with Jenga and Othello.
My mind recalls the last time this happened. The nerve-wracking frustration, turning to momentary paralysis as neurons fire, running into dead ends before motor skills act.
The timer, which doesn’t so much tick the seconds away meaningfully as it does grind and crunch its way through 60 aching seconds, sounding more like the gnashing of teeth than a stopwatch.
That musty odor of the box, with it’s taped corners, and the putridly sweet smell of the red-and-blue plastic — somewhere between the unlikely combination of cat pee and old chocolate.
And those infernal yellow pieces. Roll the posts in your fingers fast enough and the shapes whirl — becoming something else — a distraction from that damned grinding.
And, of course, every time, without fail, the sickening POP, which makes me lurch every time. Some pieces bounce and return to their place, while some hit the floor, making the dog and cat both come running, eager to see what we’ve left them.
But it’s just yellow plastic — an X, or an octagon. Frustrating to everyone involved. Except her.
“I’ll let you have first game,” she says, lifting the lid on the cardboard, as it makes that ratcheting sound I so detest.
Keeping her attention on the table top, she waited. There was no need to rush things, she told herself. No need to let her body and breathing betray the rabbit thump of her heartbeat. No need to give away a hint or a clue of just what she was thinking or what she might want.
“The last time this happened…” his voice was quiet but thoughtful and she felt the pain in her chest as her heart seemed to literally jump towards the sound of it. Without realizing, she shifted as if to hide that hopeful little leap in case it had somehow manifested physically. She was glad for the flickering light bulb above the booth, glad for the moments of shadow it provided as she took a breath and looked up at him.
Into his eyes. Again that painful twist in her chest, this time caused not by hope, but by the sheer honesty in them as he looked back at her. So often, when they spoke, his eyes were veiled. But now, here with her, the mask had dropped and she found herself speaking without thinking.
“This isn’t like last time.” She responded, as she felt her breath ease and the beating of her heart take on a more peaceable rhythm. “I’m not her and I’ve never been good at playing mind games.”
When his expression changed, she thought it was the damnable light again. Could hope and pain truly shift that fast, trade places that immediately? Whatever the answer, it was there and gone. She didn’t have time to ask and didn’t think to care.
She was too distracted by the curve of his smile and the warm perfection of his hand in hers as he pulled her closer…
…and the conversation changed.
Living room. Seated on separate couches, Mark works on his laptop while Jamie Facebooks on his. Only a table lamp with a flicking lightbulb illuminates them.
Jamie: You were just in the kitchen, you couldn’t get another bulb? I feel like we’re in ‘Saw.’
Mark: It’s the lamp.
Jamie: (gasps at his laptop) Wow, when did Andy and Steph break up?
Mark: Last month. Right after he got her into an advance screening of Harry Potter, she told him in the parking lot in the car.
Jamie: Severusly?
Mark: Jamie, this isn’t funny…
Jamie: (interrupts, raising voice) Oh, I think it’s very funny…
Mark: They were together a long time…
Jamie: (interrupts, raising voice) …cause she cheated on him like five times…
Mark: They both really tried …
Jamie: (interrupts, raising voice) …twice in his own effing house…
Mark: And now it’s time that they both just move on.
Jamie: …and now SHE breaks up with HIM?!
(beat, silence)
Mark: Look, just say it.
Jamie: What?
Mark: I know what you’re gonna say so just say it now and get it over with.
Jamie: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Mark: Just. Say. It.
Jamie: (shakes head innocently)
(Mark starts typing again, long silence)
Jamie: She’s a Horcrux.
Mark: You are such a douche.
The last time this happened, I was at a bar. Two of my friends were with me at a table; another was across the room, chatting up his third victim of the night with horrible pick-up lines, one right after another. Out of boredom, I reached up and unscrewed the lightbulb ever so slightly, and with the weave of the low-hanging fixture was just enough to evoke an occasional flicker, but not constant glare that it had produced before.
“Who in their right mind would put these lights in a bar?” I murmured to noone in particular.
Just then, my point was made when a fight broke out at the pool tables across the way. It started with the crack of a pool cue cracking across someone’s skull, and before anyone knew it the entire western half of the tavern was brawling and sprawling like a suicidal octupus.
I was hardly surprised to hear my flirtatious friend screaming as he fled the scene as quickly as any five year old girl may, and even less shocked upon hearing my other two mates burst out in laughter. With each pound of a face and each slam against a table came a greater applause and uproar from the spectators sitting at the bar and tables. Nearly two dozen grown men and women were duking it out over whatever childish purpose they seemed fit while at least twice as many cheered them on, and by the end of the night, not one pool cue, pool table, or dangling light fixture was left in one piece.
I admit that there is one major difference between this time and the last. The bartender at the last scene, who was actually dating an ex of mine from college, had seen it fit to wait until the entire encounter was finished before calilng the cops. This time, however, I’m pretty sure I would have gotten away with it had Mr. Perfection waited just a couple of minutese before notifying the police….
It was, simply put- perfection. He had never seen anything so gloriously appropriate, so atuned to him in every way. Perhaps it needed a bit more of a tan, but that could be easily done, passed off to some sort of assistant who would do it absolutely correctly or die trying.
He had forgotten these existed, really, and wasn’t even sure how he had found this one- but that hardly mattered any more, he thought, taking in the exquisitely miniature features, drinking in the jacquard-patterned jacket, the tiny pink polo, the small devoted furry friend.
“Perfection,” he breathed again, smoothing one orange-bronzed hand over his white locks. “I must have one.”
And Karl Lagerfeld snapped his fingers and motioned for an assistant to order him a Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken.
“Bloody hell”, she thought. The last time this happened was almost ten years ago. She tried. She really did but it seemed that in her quest for perfection she procrastinated too long and now, she had to suffer the consequences. With the day growing shorter and her deadline looming, it made sense that things would start to go wrong and wrong they did.
Sam and Janet peeled themselves apart. They had embraced for what seemed like last night. Well nigh onto tonight. Eternity. Perfection. As Sam stood back, drank in Janet’s moistness, the bare lightbulb on a string behind his head flicked at the nape of his neck. He turned towards it. The lightbulb flicked his right eyebrow. “Damn!” The perfection of the embrace was now replaced by mosquito-esque annoyance brought on by an animated, charged but out of line electro mechanical device. “That flicking lightbulb! I swear to god. The last time this happened, my sub-plot got written out of the show”. “Don’t you mean ‘flickering’?” suggested Janet? “No, goddammit, the damn thing is flicking me and won’t stop. If I fight it, the goons from Sylvania come in and erase my character.”
A flicking lightbulb
Oh the annoyance therein
Replace it soonest.