Tuesday, October 21, 2008

October 21st Topics

NaNo Topics:
Un-Parody:
Harvard and Oxford contacted their benefactors and they've agreed to provide you with a substantial honorarium if you'll come to a hoity-toity literary conference in Sydney and speak (oh say, 500 words) on the subject: "My novel: The real story." Can you drop your rough draft of your speech into the mailbox today so we can look it over?


There She Is
I could see her standing way down there on the beach as the sun rose and I knew ...


Devil's Den
What does your front door say about you? If strangers could see your family on a bad day, what would they think? What do you do in your house that's lowering the property values?

1 comment:

WolfieWolfgang (Colin Bell) said...

There she is... by Wolfgang Glinka


He walked into the bar, worried, saddened, confused.

Eliza sat there waiting for him at her usual stool at the end of the bar.

"Well hello Honey, " in a husky tone that she had often done better.

She was tired but still trying to please. It didn't work.


A couple of drinks and he invented an appointment.

Off he went, unsettled, rattled, irritated by himself.



Why had he spent so much time with her?

Every evening after work. Laughing at her outrageousness. Often tired out by the effort.

She had seen someone else when they met. An exciting, carefree vamp - straight from the movies.

The trouble was she had seen the same movies and never quite got her act right.



He was no Humphrey Bogart either.


Trying to impress himself, he thought it was an Odyssey, this journey his soul yearned for. Like that ancient Greek travelling, searching, trying to find his way.

It was more like a mid-life crisis......maybe old blind Homer, our favourite ancient Greek, was having one too.


Well, no Greek hero he! No adventures apart from the seedy encounters he fell into on the wrong side of town.

Even there, he was seldom the victor.



But on a search, he most definitely was.


He went home. Not a journey of many years, his Odyssey, was a couple of stops on the bus.


Monica sat there waiting for him. She was in her usual position curled up on the sofa with a packet of biscuits and a bottle of whiskey.

A loosely wrapped dressing gown showed him what she was waiting for.


"You pleased to see me hon?" she drawled in her most seductive tone. Unfortunately, the whiskey turned her words into a series of slurs and her mouth into a gaping wound.

She had Bette Davis eyes no doubt, a trifle blood shot maybe, but she was definitely no temptress, more an accident waiting to happen.


"I am always pleased to see you," he lied, removing the bottle from her hand. She was not who he was looking for tonight.



She had been the girl of his dreams once, a supple, white skinned odalisque, the star of any harem.

But who was he kidding? He was no romantic sultan, no Arabian knight.


He went out. He wouldn't be long - or so he said to Monica as she recovered her bottle.


He walked off, depressed, downhearted, forlorn. His journey had but one ending.


He paid to enter, hurried through the foyer, removing his coat as he went. Furtively, he entered the darkened space, he groped for his seat and settled into its welcoming brocade.


"There she is!" he said in an almost inaudible tone. She brought joy to his heart, a smile to his face and some stirrings best concealed in the dark.


This was his journey's end. There she was, filling the screen, towering over him and giggling with that catch in her throat.

Then she saw him, her smile grew to a laugh, her eyes sparkled and she drooled, "Well hello, Honey!"

"There she is!" he whispered again. Laughing now as their eyes met.

"Marilyn, my love."

Wolfgang Glinka