At my writing meetup yesterday I created a character I just fell in love with, evidenced by every prompt we had I wrote a continuation of the story about her. Falling in love like that hasn’t happened since I was in High School! Which was… not yesterday…

I want to post her adventures here but I need a better place than the regular update stream so I’ll probably be making a page for that.

Fogs have been think as soup but this one, was a stew.

Soon the morning light would burn the fog away.  Soon I’d be able to see the field and its lonely tree once more.  But for now, there was only white.

Too bad it’s morning, I think.  All these food metaphors are making me hungry for dinner.  Something warm.  Something to help burn off this isolating fog.

I think about grabbing my hair dryer and having a go at helping the sun burn the thick mist away.  Wouldn’t it be cool if you could do that?  Well, this is my story so —

I grab my hair dryer and carve out a fog based igloo.  Indeed, it was as thick as a stew as I was able to make a neat little shelf to put my coffee on as I did my work.  As the sun became brighter above me I delighted in my having the thought to fashion myself a chair so I could enjoy a sit on a cloud before my day really began.

My mom’s old 8-track player always fascinated me.  I never heard it, was never sure how it worked but it was big.  With buttons!  Best of all it was hidden away and embedded in a big ole’ chest.

Thinking now I wish that thing had been in the basement of my Grandparent’s house where my cousins and I would play make believe.  I bet we would have come up with some inspired uses for it.  After all, down there is where we ran subway trains that were powered by burning incense.

“Well I’ll be!” cried Harry as he gazed upon the rock that had just punctured through four floors of apartment building before coming to rest in his unit.  Looking up through his new skylight he saw Claire from apartment 408 looking down at him.

“Everyone OK down there?” she asked?

“Yeah!  I was starting dinner and in the kitchen.  You?”

“I’m ok.  What is it?”

“Meteor, I think.  Or is it a meteorite now?” Harry said as he moved over to the rock, finding it smoldering.  Realizing it might be a fire hazard, he quickly lunged into the kitchen, grabbed the pot of water he’d just put on the stove for pasta, and dumped it over the rock.

A pound at the door and a jangling of keys.  A moment later the door swung open.

“Hey Carl,” Harry said, greeting the building maintenance man.

“You all right?” Carl asked and looked up at the holes torn through three floors plus the roof, “I don’t think I’m going to be.”

“I’m fine.”

“Think it’s radioactive?” Carl asked, turning his attention to the rock as well.

“Probably.”  Harry replied.  Then, after a moment added, “Think we’ll get super powers?”

“I hope not.  Keeping this building up to code is enough responsibility for me.  Saving the world aint my cup of tea.” Harry replied and Harry nodded.

“I’ll be a superhero!” Claire cried out from above.

Greg never left the 80’s, or more accurately hair metal, meaning as the styles changed he stayed the same.  Dave Mustaine hair (Nevermind Megadeath was metal, metal not hair metal) and lots of spandex.  Well, he did have the sense to keep the spandex on the stage and away from his day job in 2013.

He was a good guitarist and could sing too.  Poison, Ratt, he knew so many of the classics.  Jeez, that’s what they are now aren’t they?  Classics.

He formed his band the Slippery Green Ovals when Nirvana took off.  Smells Like Teen Spirit.  Yup.  That was his breaking point.  Going forward he was just unable to contain his need to hear and play songs about good times and Los Angeles.

His band was pretty well known in the bar scene.  So many love a spectacle and his band provided spectacle in abundance on top of their playing talent.  Though Greg did have a pang in his chest.  Fads come and go, so it was likely nostalgia for the 90’s and angst rock would bury the good times and L.A. songs again.  Though this time, Greg was determined to not make the same mistake. This time, he would play on.

He Laced Up His Running Shoes: 6 Minutes

The scale had given Todd a problem by reading 182.  Not too troubling for someone of his height, but enough that he decided this particular problem could not be allowed to continue to accumulate.   Since he couldn’t take back the burger with extra, extra butter he’d had the night before, Todd now stood in the locker room of his gym, lacing up his running shoes.

After a stretch, which was more to delay the inevitable than trying to do things right, Todd found an open treadmill, set the timer for an hour and started it up.  Given that an hour was a long time to run in place he’d brought along his iPod so he could listen to some music.

First up: Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees.

In five steps he was walking to the beat.  Travolta style.  Hoping, no one around him noticed.

I go to a writing meetup on most Saturdays.  At this meetup, what we do is someone calls out a time and afterward we pull a prompt to write about.  One of this weeks being my brother did the weirdest thing with turtles.  Well, I’ve been thinking about posting my favorite from each week with maybe minor revisions and this weekend I decided to do it!  Not sure how regular this will be and I know already next weekend is out but, here we go for today!

---

My brother did the weirdest thing with turtles: 8 Minutes

I think it was from the acid he dropped a few years back.

I had a turtle, Pee-Wee, and I’d come home once and a while from school to find my brother frozen in mid-walk while Pee-Wee looked at him through the glass of his tank.  I didn’t say anything anymore but the first time I had asked, “What are you doing?”

My brother spoke through clenched teeth, “Pee-Wee is an alien!  He can’t see me if I don’t move.  But if he sees me he’ll abduct me!”

I stared at him for what felt like a solid minute.  The man truly believed what he was saying.  Pee-Wee, meanwhile, just rested in his tank chewing on some lettuce.

“Could you turn him around?” my brother asked, “So he doesn’t see me?”

My gut so wanted to say no.  But instead I said nothing.

“Please?” he pleaded, “I have to go to the bathroom!”  I sighed and walked into my room, over to Pee-Wee’s tank to turn him around.  Freed from the turtle’s gaze my brother fell to the floor, exhausted from holding his walking position.  I moved over to him.

“Winners don’t use drugs” I said.

“Now you tell me” he replied.