A Little Place to Practice Writing

[Weekend Cleo]

...

[Weekend Cleo]

"You want to see something?"

"..."

His sudden words made me jump. I'd grown accustomed to Mick always being with us but if it wasn't small reminders I'd sometimes forget he was there. The odd hand print on my bathroom mirror, crusty boot tracks leading out the back door. For the first time since I'd met him he leaned in to talk to me and suddenly I knew what it was that drew the kids to him. Looking into his eyes I felt pinned, and I knew he was holding me under. It occurred to me I couldn't leave the conversation even if it had been my habit. Suddenly he threw his arm down on the table, the jerky movement punctuated by the protest of the cheap formica and dozens of unwashed cups. "Look." I looked. He pulled at his sleeve and a tattoo slowly emerged from under it, an emerald lizard with beady red eyes and a thin tail. I looked closer and I noticed there was something about it that was intimidating. Maybe it was the way the scales overlapping so perfectly looked like little sharp razors or that there was a fly beside it so perfectly executed in life size detail that I could practically count compound eyes. I also thought it might have been the curl of lean muscle sliding quietly around under his skin.

"Wow. Where'd you have that done? It's great."

"It's a komodo dragon."

"Oh."

I looked up and he was still fixing me with his eyes and I had another one of those fleeting thoughts, a picture of myself jumping up and running for the door. "You know, komodos are covered in a bacteria that kill anything that come close enough to touch it?"

Silence. Mick blinked, and I looked away.

"Well, that's cool man. Thanks for showing me. Hold on a second, I got something setting in the sink I gotta scrub out. Halfway through the dishes."

[Weekend Cleo]

It went unspoken that Julianne Pearson was the most beautiful woman to ever grace the town in which she lived. Men would stop what they were working on to catch a glimpse of her as she wandered to the market to buy bread, insisting on helping her with the smallest of tasks.It wasn't uncommon to see her accompanied across the town square by a young man carrying nothing in his arms but her basket, filled with a small bouquet of flowers for her table and a single fresh baguette. Despite all this attention the other women of the town were very rarely jealous, though the woman was so immaculate they had every right to be. There was never a single time she had ever left her house under dressed for the most formal and stylish of parties, and yet she was never overbearing or gaudy. Her hair was perfectly shaped and coiffed, and her makeup took hours to apply. She'd taken to getting ready as a ritual, her makeup and wardrobe both her closest friends and essential parts of her identity.

Just before leaving she would carefully dip her hand into it and then rub it gently into her temples. This was the moment of completion, the final touch that distinguished from a polished appearance to true, intimate beauty.

[Weekend Cleo]

Prompt for the week:

Write me something that has to do with heat, and a girl eating an ice cream cone.

Idea: Heat gets people stuck, as they're also stuck in their old habits.

Word Requirement: 700.

It was hot for March, an unseasonble heat that clung tight like celeophane over the people of Linnton. Everything had become a slow cooking crawl as townsfolk retreated inside after work or sat in their driveways with the air conditioning on in their cars, the only good business for mechanics and A/C men. Despite the new selection of ice cream, the Wal-Mart in town had stopped as well after the warehouse design began to trap in more heat than it could dispel. Wanda, the cart collector, stood outside the door licking choco taco off her wrist as it melted faster than she could consume it. Her tee shirt stuck fast to her back in a wide, gooey puddle.

[Weekend Cleo]

When you're a little kid, you think you're free. You think you can just do anything, whatever you want, and the world will make way for you. And really, why shouldn't kids think this way? They have no real responsibilities, nothing to tie them to the cities and houses they live in out of obligation. And when you get older your relationship with your family changes, and you think that maybe living out on your own won't be so hard. What's to stop you from doing whatever you want?

I tried to do that once. It's my one story, the thing I "almost got away with". It seems too simple to sum it up this way, but what happened was I ran away from home to live in the woods.

[Weekend Cleo]

On her way home Lacey’s route ran through the district where her parents had grown up, though since their childhood it had been paved over in pristine, identical developments. Sometimes she imagined the area to be as important to her as it was her mother, but it never held. All that was left visible of the past was the dark soil that once had been pulled from landfills to level off the pitted lots in the Irish part of town, and the Jack O'Lanterns on each mirrored porch. These details flipped past her as monotonously as pages in a calendar. The only spot she paid attention to was the mocha colored house on the corner of Mooney Drive, the one her mom would take her to on holidays when their relatives were in town to reminisce about what had been. Her aunts and uncles all had stories; the tree that had been on the corner that someone fell out of, the neighbor kids who cried when Lacey’s aunt had received a dog for Christmas and not them, the time her uncle had been punished for ditching school and had spent a full forty-eight hours in his room, eating whatever was left over after dinner. This spot reminded Lacey of a curious melancholy, the remnant of disappointment borne of missed connections that reappeared in her every year on the premises. She could only look at it and wonder what had been, gazing across a stage for players that had no more substance than a whiff of smoke.

[Weekend Cleo]

Oh, what a waste to be lazy when you're young.

It was Thursday night, the night of the week most often reserved for Greasy Bachelor sandwiches. Milton stood close to the frying pan while the bacon cooked, close enough that the hot electric coil singed the edge of his boxer shorts as they peeked up over the side of the stove. He didn't feel the flecks of molten grease as they bounced off the skillet and hit his shirtless gut, their temperature lower than his own sweating skin.

[Weekend Cleo]

(One turns to past, one focuses on present? Both do this to ignore the future, the devastated world.)

The record player was still not working, but that was to be expected of such an archaic piece of work. Chrys had been building it back from the ground up to restore its former glory, but there was always something else that needed to be fixed. The first time she'd plugged it in and plopped a dusty album on it, nothing happened. She had pulled off the platter itself to find a belt so riddled with age that the rubber had grown some kind of "fungus bumps", and she cleaned it out with a pair of chopsticks. After the belt it was the needle, which had been completely destroyed by the previous owner. Then it was the anti-skid, also destroyed. She'd had no choice but to replace it with a bit of fishing line and a sinker. And now, this was it, the moment she finally got to slid the replaced cartridge over the tone arm and tighten it, her time to display her pride and joy like it deserved. "In a minute it'll feel like we're living it up in the 60's."

"I don't know why you bother with that thing. I'm still not convinced that vinyl is any better than a digital library. Besides, it takes like three minutes to change an album." Rashida sat forward to inspect Chrys' handiwork despite her disapproval, ashes from the blunt between her legs scattering onto the carpet.

"Would you watch that thing? I'm trying to keep this joint looking classy."

"It'll never look classy with us in the room."

[Weekend Cleo]

LirixEnt

I mean, I'd be happy to, but can I ask what this is for?

What is this blog about? Is it yours? Is it for school, business, or personal?