Vision Quest

This week's Centus prompt is a photograph of a man dressed in a royal blue, velvet bunny suit...from the sublime to the ridiculous. How can my yearning to write something serious and deep find a resting place in such a photograph? Alas, my yearning will have to be put off to another week. I never seem to fail, however, to connect one dot with another...

starting to nod...call over the 2-way..."jeff, you need to come into the office...they want you in Texas...tomorrow"...the plains of north dakota, unique and an easy survey...yet, this familiar lunch time vista of plains rolling into sprawling lake sakakawea...soon fading into my rear-view...heading back to town...office check-in...packing gear...heading south...drive all night...no time to waste...familiar challenge...non-stop caffeine and pot...midnight snack of champions...late night radio talk iced with hard driving rock...all comes to a head when, somewhere in oklahoma i stop in the middle of the road...avoiding collision with man dressed in royal blue bunny suit... a vision for sure...vision quest i am on...few miles later blue man bunny again...then again...need to sleep...

"Fate" by Tina: A Review

Just when I was psyched to get all creative this morning...no, no, no...Jenny must have anticipated my desire, no, my need to let the pen flow into a new, wildly creative direction. Took the wind from my sails, she has. Jenny's challenge this week is for me to review another's work. I am to choose a post from last week's Centus...you know, the one about April showers and May flowers. Why can't she just let the May flowers come on up? Ah, but mine is not to question why...mine is but to do her bidding, or drop the class.

With all the wonderful Centus writers and posts, how could I choose which post to review? Perhaps an offering from a friend? Maybe an especially, extraordinarily good write? I will do what I often do when I start to read and comment on the posts. I shall pick something towards the end of the list, something that might go under noticed. Well, did I get lucky! There was an offering from Tina, my friend, and extraordinary writer. This is the link to her offering.

http://www.mummy-diaries.com/2011/04/saturday-centus-fate.html.

Now, on to the review.

Tina once again exhibits an amazing ability to convey the feel of a scene, and a depth of emotion with her characteristic and uncanny word choice. Her piece, titled "Fate", explores what I believe to be a broken, lesbian relationship between her central, unnamed character, and her departed lover, April. The relationship having ended three months earlier, our central character has literally closed herself up in "lonely" darkness, losing interest in all, save "staring into space", and the occasional quick, "ready" meal. All is not lost. Hope, in its often quirky, "Fate" like fashion, arrives in the form of a knock on the door, and an exceptional grin on the face of a new neighbor, appropriately named May.

No Showers Today

It is time once again for Saturday Centus...that weekly, prompted, creative writing blog...brought to us by the often whimsical, always delightful Jenny Matlock. This week she has provided us with a most appropriate, definitely seasonal prompt..."April showers bring May flowers". We have all heard this 'rhyme' many, many times, yet not until this morning did I know from whence it came. In 1557, a certain gentleman, named Thomas Tusser, compiled a collection of writings he called " A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry". In the April Husbandry section he wrote:

Sweet April showers

Do spring May flowers

This short poem may reflect not only on the science of seasonality and green growing things, but on ideas of patience and longing. So, without further ado I will present my offering, a bit of a departure from my normal creative leanings.

This cliched rhyme...so compact...taking a more complex thought, process, and putting it into a short 'sound bite'. Really now, how could a shower bring flowers? Have you ever seen flowers falling from the sky in the wet grip of globulous rain drops? Maybe you have. Maybe I have, but this occurrence would not be routine. I will not regale you with the complex science behind this rhyme. That would take more than my 100 word allotment, and I am quickly running out. I will however tell you that today is THE day for my 45 year, Class of 1966, Elementary School Reunion. Yes, you read it correctly...Elementary School. As much as I love, and as much as we need, the rain...I wish for none today, and will hope that April showers bring May flowers to Jenny, out there in the desert hinterlands. Now, just who is May?

You Never Know-Part Two

You Never Know- Part Two

Jenny's most recent email read,"Forrest, we have the same Spring Break coming up. You must come out for a visit." My immediate reply..."Ok...hmmm...Yes, I will."

Bags packed, grades turned in, I headed north on 188,then turned onto West I-10. Biloxi, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Beaumont, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Las Cruces, Tucson, and finally Phoenix...so many towns and cities along this singular stretch of Interstate...so much time to think about what I would find when I reached my destination.

Within minutes of exiting I-10 onto the Superstition Highway I saw the sign, "Stapley Drive, Exit 181, 1/2 Mile Ahead". The anticipation was killing me. Nervous? Yes...but I had come to far to turn back now. In just a few minutes I would meet the person that could change the course of my life...forever. Life is like a box of chocolates...

You Never Know-Part One

Another Saturday...another Centus...a prompted creative writing exercise brought to us by Ms. Jenny Matlock. Excluding the prompt, we can respond, in 100 words or less, via poetry, prose, really anything we wish. This week's prompt was provided by "Mr. Jenny", and reads as follows...Exit 181, 1/2 mile ahead. I have taken this prompt and created something which exceeds my 100 word limit. I will 'cheat' and turn it into a two-parter. Please note: The names and places are real, circumstances fictional.

You Never Know- Part One

So many months had passed since Jenny and I had met online. Meeting someone online was not a particularly unusual thing these days. Thousands, indeed millions, are hooking up all the time through the various online 'Matchmakers'. I would assume that most would prefer their matches to live nearby. It just so happened that I had unwittingly checked the box that left the distance thing wide open. Jenny lived near Phoenix and I in a small town west of Mobile.

We had much in common, she a writer and English professor at Mesa Community College, and myself an English teacher at Peter F. Alba Middle School in Bayou La Batre.