Six Sentence Sunday: Troubadours and Marionette Strings

Hello, Everyone.


I have been in limbo the past few weeks it seems. Local friends have been coming out of the wood work lately and I felt, with their coaxing, the need to put my shy, hermit tendencies aside for a while and get out of the house. It’s not healthy for me to be a recluse all the time. I spent last weekend hiking throughout the beautiful Idaho country, such a wonderful time, I’ll never forget it. It seems I’m not the only one who’s missed the SSS the last few weeks, however, and I’m glad my writing friends are getting out into the sunshine. Must be cabin fever going around.

So, this week I’ve cheated a bit, changed the punctuation just slightly to turn eight sentences into six. I know, bad form; though I wanted to use this section and it was just too difficult to break it up into six sentence bits.  Another scene from Squishing Whistle Pigs; after last week’s Six, the pastor makes his opening speech to the congregation and this Six follows directly.

The last word echoes through the pews all the way to the back of the room, punctuated by a select few ‘praise the lord’ interjections. A small three piece band begins to play, the congregation stirs and then the whole of them stand; reluctantly I do as they do. They begin to sing and move to the rhythm, I don’t do that. A strange force takes effect on some and their hands become weightless and rise up into the air, palms facing the ceiling; they’re attached it seemed, to marionette strings. I wonder if I look up I might see troubadours in the rafters with crossed sticks. There isn’t any.

I hope you enjoy this week’s Six. I’m quickly running out of them. Maybe I’ll have to write something new for a fresh set. ;)

Thank you again for your visit here. Please visit the official Six Sentence Sunday site for more great writers who actually follow the rules, and click on some of my favorite Sixer’s here: Wendy S. Russo, L.J. Kentowski, Loni Flowers, Kelly Seguin, Mae Clair, Daniela Renelt, Karen de Lange, Mackenzie Crowne, and Steven Montano. 

Your comments are very welcome. I'm sincerely fond of them so please leave a word or two. 

Six Sentence Sunday: Mothballs and Bourbon

Hello everyone! 

Thank you for stopping by this week. I've been on hiatus for a while. Lots of overtime hours at the “paying” job has kept me busy and exhausted, so writing and blog hopping has been nil. I have missed out on L.J. Kentowski’s wonderful “What’s Your Take Wednesdays”, that one however is due, as much or more, to the challenge of it. Some really amazing writers over there can take a writing prompt and create a scene in moments off the seat of their pants. I wish I had that talent. I could percolate for a few days on a prompt and only come up with a meager attempt at something clever. However, L.J. I will try to do better in the future.

Because I didn’t get my name on the Six Sentence Sunday Linky list this week, I’m going to cheat. This is much longer than six sentences. This scene from Squishing Whistle Pigs comes after Rachael, Ben and the kids reach the church. My favorite scene from Squishing Whistle Pigs, which appears just prior to the one I'm about to post, I’ve already posted many weeks ago and it can be found here. It can give you a bit more build up. It’s also more than six sentences, though quite short and very funny!

In this scene, Ben enters the church for the first time. I have drawn from a variety of personal experiences with my visits to several different churches and created this scene, so all this stuff actually happened to me at some point in my personal, spiritual search.

“Ben?” Rachael stands by the double doors. She motions with her head that I should join her. A staunch gentleman stands on her left. Nice shirt, tie and Dockers. “This is Pastor Hinckley and his wife,” she says.

            I shake his hand. His wife is elegant, and drop dead beautiful. She winks at me through seductive eyes. I feel like a schoolboy and step on my tongue when I move forward to greet her. Her name is Secret. I wonder how many she had and if she’d be willing to tell me.

            The people inside didn’t resemble my anticipated church going fare.

            We meet Billy Thomas in the foyer just outside the Chapel. Afterwards, he staggers into his pew reaching out for it as if to stop it from moving. He smelled of mothballs and bourbon.

            Sue Swanson meets us in the aisle and introduces herself. She shakes my hand and won’t let go. Her eyes rape me. It felt appropriate to offer her a cigarette when she finally let loose. Her husband takes her by the hand. He smiles at me and then leads her away.

            I enter the pew after Rachael and the girls, squirm against the black cherry wood, and then settle in. I can’t beat away thoughts of overdraft fees, and repo notices. Troubles had piled up like cold Hoary Marmots. They wouldn’t stop popping in and out of the holes in my brain. I imagine the little boy stomping on them.

I hope you enjoy this short passage. Thank you again, so much for your visit here. Please visit the official Six Sentence Sunday site for more great writers who actually follow the rules, and click on some of my favorite Sixer’s here: Wendy S. Russo, L.J. Kentowski, Loni Flowers, Kelly Seguin, Mae Clair, Daniela Renelt, Karen de Lange, Mackenzie Crowne, and Steven Montano.  

Your comments are very welcome. I'm very fond of them so please leave a word or two. 

Six Sentence Sunday: Rape us God, Make us New

I have missed Six Sentence Sunday like a Pooh Bear misses honey; although, I have a fine excuse for missing last week. My roommate/best friend, and I spent a three day weekend at his brother’s log cabin in beautiful McCall, Idaho. I’ll post some photos and videos of the trip as soon as I figure out how to post a video. Grr. I’m technology challenged. I was able to get some quality writing done while sitting on the back porch listening to the sounds of nature, birds, chipmunks, and thunder rolling through the valley, bouncing off the mountains of Tamarack, and my roommate made a video of a buck and doe moseying through the property. My phone has erratic service up there so I was only able to respond to a few blogs before it was lost for good.

Six Sentence Sunday is a monumental, weekly event where close to 200 amazing writers post six sentence snippets from their work. It's like a greatest hits album of the written word. Please visit  more Sixers by clicking the Six Sentence Sunday Link at the end of my post. 
 
My Six this week is one of my favorite passages from Squishing Whistle Pigs. The narrators close friend, Rachael, comes to pick him up on a Sunday morning to attend a church service as she believes it will do him some good to gain some “enlightenment”. He hasn’t been to one in many years and his broken heart has made him skeptical of it all. 

We pass the park where Erin and I would walk, and then turn onto Carmichael; pass the Civic Center for the Arts, its marquee emblazons, ‘local thespian Marge Burns reading the sensory, erotic poetry of John Donne, 7 PM’; pass a man wearing a sandwich board. He stands across the street from the EZ Come, EZ Go Mart. His chest says “rape us God, make us new.”

            I sink low in the seat. Rachael merges onto the freeway, eastbound. A sun ray shines through the overcast sky like a spotlight from the heavens, it’s quickly swallowed up.

 

As mentioned every week, like a scratched, vinyl 45, your visit here to read my work is appreciated beyond measure, and in turn, your comments inspire and “enlighten” me to ignite my passion for this craft. 

 

Please visit the official site for more great writers for Six Sentence Sunday, and click on some of my favorite Sixer’s here: Wendy S. Russo, L.J. Kentowski, Loni Flowers, Kelly Seguin, Mae Clair, Daniela Renelt, Karen de Lange, Mackenzie Crowne, and Steven Montano.

Six Sentence Sunday: Honeysuckles and Hummingbirds

I’ll continue with Squishing Whistle Pigs for the time being. Last week’s post went over well, so I’m curious to know how the next few weeks will go. Squishing Whistle Pigs is a bit of a dark read, at least at first. The main character is heartbroken and rock-bottom with depression, struggling to find a hand hold on spirituality. I hope you all know how appreciative I am for you taking time out of your weekend to visit my blog to read and comment.

            These are the next six following last week’s post.

Wasn’t time to say goodbye or to ask why. My mind hovers on an image of her face, wanting to picture her the way she was when we were in love. My emotions have become dull like the knife that unwillingly cut my breakfast, though I smother with the hash browns under sausage gravy.

            The wind is bitter this spring. The snow has lingered longer than past years. Honeysuckles bloomed late and the hummingbirds have moved on.

Please visit the official site for more great writers for Six Sentence Sunday, and click on some of my favorite Sixer’s here: Wendy S. Russo, L.J. Kentowski, Loni Flowers, Kelly Seguin, Mae Clair, Daniela Renelt, Karen de Lange, Mackenzie Crowne, and Steven Montano.

On a side note, I’ve relaunched my personal blog; It’s going to be a hoot, based on my abstract life and all the dumb stuff people do, namely myself. I hope you’ll visit and have a good laugh at my expense. The Karma Chronicles.

Six Sentence Sunday: Insanity is a Household Word

I hope you’re all having a frabjious weekend. Until I get more of it down on paper, I’m nearly out of Six’s from Scarlet Reign. I could pick the bones a little more I suppose. I think I’ll move on for this week. Although it still gives me trouble getting it just right, this is the opening six from my short story, Squishing Whistle Pigs.

I remember when insanity wasn’t a household word, when my own salvation was held in higher regard. Getting by in the world used to be a heroic act; honorable efforts would please our Godly, Beowulfean ring-giver and guarantee us glory, or at least a car that runs. Fate has put me in a compromising position since then. Today, life is honorable like a Banzai charge.

            It’s been two years since Erin left, together for nearly a decade. The love loss took her quickly.

That Banzai charge stuff vexes me to no end. Yes, I know a Banzai charge is honorable, but it’s still an all-out, mad rush to your death. After losing the love of his life, that’s the kind of rationality the narrator has going on inside, so it makes sense to me. Not so much to the few who have read the piece, however.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this week’s offering. Please visit the official site for more great writers for Six Sentence Sunday, and click on my favorite Sixer’s here: Wendy S. Russo, L.J. Kentowski, Loni Flowers, Kelly Seguin, Mae Clair, Daniela Renelt, Karen de Lange, Mackenzie Crowne, and Steven Montano.

Squishing Whistle Pigs Excerpt

    

      The church is right out of Little House on the Prairie, large school house shack with clean, canary yellow paint. It’s tucked back against a gradual hill and surrounded by great expanses of nothing; sage brush. Lots of sage brush. We park in a gravel lot along the weeds. People are filing into the front double doors. A group of small children gather at one of the rear corners of the building behind a wood shed. They’re watching an older boy stomp and dance around. His mannerisms are jerky and erratic. He wears a carefree grin that reminds me of my childhood.

            I climb out and grimace. “What’s that noise?” It’s shrill and piercing.

            “Whistle Pigs!” the twins shout in unison and run to join the crowd of children.

            “What the hell is a whistle pig?” I say.

            “You’ve never heard of whistle pigs? Punxsutawney Phil? They’re ground hogs. I loved that game when I was a girl.”

            “What game?”

            I approach the children. The older boy is stomping, moving and stomping again. Five children knelt down along an imaginary perimeter and are rooting the boy. They shout, “Get him, Tommy! Get him!” He moves faster and more frantic with their cheers.

            A furry creature pops its head out of a hole in the ground, one of a series of six holes. It rears on his haunches and glances around as if it wonders what the commotion is. It lets out an unearthly shriek. The boy turns, lunges, and stomps just as the creature slips back underground. A ratchety chuckle comes from the hole. Another boy pokes at the holes with a stick.

            Behind Tommy and to his left another creature pops out, squeals and clamors back into his hole just as Tommy’s size five strikes the ground. The little beasties seem to enjoy this deadly game as much as the children. The more annoying the shrieks become, the more I hope the boy will get them. He stomps at them with pure glee. I think of Little Bunny Foo Foo and Whack a Mole. I grin in spite of the madness of it.

            “I wish I could try,” a little girl says.

            “Why can’t you play too?” I ask.

            “Our momma gets real upset if we get guts on our church shoes.”

            I let go my smile and scratch my head.

Excerpt from
Squishing Whistle Pigs
A Short Story by
M.L. Falconer