OK, apropos for all writers (I'm betting Robin, if she reads this, either already knows the quote or will cackle loudly enough for me to hear at the other end of the state). Sent by my husband:

"I handed in a script last year and the studio didn't change one word. The word they didn't change was on page 87."-- Steve Martin

Wordless

Be quiet.

Do you think you can comfort me?

Do you think you can offer speech
phrases carefully crafted over five thousand years
words, no more than shorthand for
I don't know what to say?

Be quiet.

Today it seems all the world is drowning
in tears, in blood, in loss
Loved ones, enemies, strangers, toppling
front to back
like dominos subjected to a series of small passionate shocks.

Spirits gone, hearts cracking along internal bubbles of emptiness
today, tomorrow, riding the wake of a wind
that is darkness and loneliness.

Comfort lies in falling into memory, and into hope.

So keep your shorthand; I don't understand it anyway.

I have one, too, but I thought this was kind of funny rather than the painful or touching ones that haven't jelled yet. “Excuse me?” The bureaucrat in the short-sleeved Sipowicz dress shirt looks over at me. It takes me a minute to realize what I’ve said because being back on a transit commission has apparently reactivated some Rosalind Russell thing in me so the sentence “Stadiums are sexier than public transit,” doesn’t make me pause in the least. He looks as drained of color as if I showed up there wearing pom-poms and a firm handshake. Journalism-sexy has only a little to do with bodies; it’s more about hearts, minds, and imaginations, and trains(or buses) running on time can’t compete with the quest for a championship ring. I speak a different language since college.

Very nice, the both of you. It's interesting the way most of these drabbles seem to address how even when speaking the same language, we don't necessarily.

God, that guy was so horrified, I still wonder what he expected me to say...that I was Adaptive Annie Savoy and had done it in every West Coast ballpark?!

Foreign language

The llama started losing his stuffing in Prague. This was undoubtedly due to the rigors of riding in an 8-year-old's backpack, watching castles and subways with equal beady-eyed intensity. We made needle-and-thread hand signals to people on the street. In a shop with yarn in the window, we made swooping sewing motions in the air. We tried to point at needles on the crowded shelves behind the counter. Then a tattooed heavily pierced teenager said a few words to the clerk and picked out the correct amount from our proffered bills. She left the store, our thanks trailing behind her.

Understood in All Languages

The plane had left Rota four hours before, 180 people crammed knee to knee facing each other: smelling too much cologne, the last cigarette smoked, the alcohol guzzled the previous night. We deplaned at RAF Northolt, peeling out of our seats one at a time like sardines being lifted out of the can. At last, London.

At the hotel, we checked in and headed straight to the bar. I looked at my companion, who’d also opted for bar first, food later, “Beer?” She nodded, I turned to the bartender: “Dos cerveza, por favor.” He smiled, pulled two, set them down.

New drabble topic!

Challenge #120 (foreign languages) is now closed.

Challenge #121 is gambling. Roll 'dem bones.

Administrative note: This drabble community has been going strong for over 2 years now, which thrills me immensely. However, I'm getting burned out and having a hard time coming up with topics (which you may have noticed). Fortunately, in a stunning non-sucking move, Perkins has offered to spell me for a while. So when you see the weekly drabble topics posted by her, don't assume I've been kidnapped. (Though I might be -- I wouldn't put it past her....)

Every day I walk into the classroom is a gamble. They bet on me, and I bet on them. I gamble that they will walk in, be there, and be willing to work. They gamble on the fact that I will look past their pasts and be able to see them for who they are, and who they could become. And that finally, there is someone who will listen to them.

I'm a high roller. Every day, I walk past the neophytes into the high-stakes room. Screw those pansies with million dollar bets on cards and dice.

I play Russian roulette every day. And I play for lives.

I. love. Erin.