'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
For Photo 2, the women with the boat. [link]
"Aren't there any strong men around who can do this?"
"Oh, I can't do that, I might break a nail."
"I used to do all sorts of outdoorsy things, but then I decided I wanted to be more girly."
Hey, delicate flower of femininity. Real women have been known to go outside and haul heavy wooden boats around. In long skirts. While laughing. Get back to me on how that whole "girly" thing is working out for you.
For #7:
A Matter of State, 1952
"Do you have it? Did you bring it?"
He smiles, looks casual, clearing his throat as he speaks. The words are audible no farther than the distance between them. The need for secrecy is absolute: to the casual passerby, they must seem no more than two men taking a quick break from their respective Ministries. They learned their politics at Oxford, meeting men stronger than themselves, with louder causes.
The other says nothing. He's sweating and silent. Under his hand is a small packet of papers, England's secrets, passed from England to Russia on the warm grass of Hyde Park.
He could feel Stacie's heat as she hung on the arm of his chair, but he had no illusions, despite the charade she and Kath seemed determined to maintain. Kath had smiled and raised those kempt brows at him as she tucked herself small on the floor beside his chair, appearing to sit at his feet. But all the heat in those green eyes beamed right past him, directly at the fragrant Stacie, her voice low and husky from cigarettes, whisky and lust. When Edie called to them to "smile!" Charles was the only one to look up. The two women were too lost in each other to hear or acknowledge anyone else. The wink of the flashbulb intruded, though; each of them blinked and looked away, out among the mingled, though neither moved, and he could still feel the tension stretched between them like a live thing.
The Bunny Brigade
The picture always made me laugh. Four sisters, all with kerchiefs wrapped around their heads, the ends tied into startling little bunny ears that protruded from the top like cloth TV antennas. My mother, Aunt Ruth, Aunt Rose, and Aunt Barbara in the low fashion of the forties. There's a stranger in the picture, a college friend of my mother's whose name I've forgotten. When will all their names be forgotten by anyone who remembers? Will this picture, too, end up someday in the dust bin for faded photographs like the dust bunnies that are shaken from a broom?
Fabulous idea for a drabble. I love all the ones that have been posted before. Connies made me laugh, Deb's made me want to know what happened next, Beverly's was wonderfully sultry and tense, and Sail's made me choke up.
It's easy to snigger at photos from that era. Everything was sublimely ugly - the clothes, the hair, the oh-so-fake wood paneling. Just one look, and you knew that room reeked of cigarette smoke.
But with pictures of my own childhood, it's different. The room wasn't ugly; it was where I watched cartoons, and where Dad begged me to sit through the Sunday afternoon Western (I bet you'll like this one). The clothes weren't ugly; they were my mom's clothes, and I coveted them. And yes, I can smell the cigarette smoke and Lemon Pledge, but it smells like home.
Anne, that's exactly the way I felt about that picture. That was the living room of my youth, and mocking it now is to mock my own past, which doesn't deserve it. People forgot how their children are going to laugh at them.
Fabulous idea for a drabble.
Oh, thank god. I was afraid that people were going to hate it.
Anne, that's exactly the way I felt about that picture. That was the living room of my youth
Mine, too. And I want to drabble it, not to mock it, but because it evokes so strongly a specific feeling that I associate with Saturday mornings -- well, not mornings, more like 1 p.m., when cartoons are over, and I felt completely futless.
Familily Snapshot
When had it started? When had he clicked over into darkness?
She could wonder forever, and never find a straight answer. She knew that.
Trailing through her parents' house like a ghost, touching the dark wood paneling Chris had put up, the lacy throws Judy had loved, the accreted filth of neglect griming her fingers, her heart, her memories.
The house was hers now. She could hardly breathe the stale air, with its taint of blood and dust.
Donna paused, hearing the local church chimes. Eight o'clock. Butch, beloved baby brother gone wrong, was keeping his appointment with a lethal injection.
My take on #10 [link]
During the War, the men were all gone. And it seemed stupid to worry about things like hair appointments and fashion when there were bombs falling.
"There's a war on," we told each other, consoling ourselves over things we missed. Like husbands and brothers and sons.
Still, when the cannery machinery broke down and we slipped out back for some fresh air, it didn't take much for us to turn giddy for the camera. There was a war on, and it was important to remember how to live.
Connie, that's lovely.