View of Sue: heat

Saturday, July 13, 2013

July Blog Chain Prompt

This month's prompt at the Absolute Write Blog Chain:
Dog Days of Summer

In other words, the hottest and most sultry part of summer. Etymology lesson here. As always, can be prose, poetry, play, fiction, nonfiction.

I used my main character from my novel and this prompt actually helped me get 'unstuck' in a particular area. Really, Really helped.

Please be sure to check out my fellow bloggers contributions to this prompt below.

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Even though he was alone Niles croaked out of his dry mouth,

“I’m either in Hell or walking towards it’s deep dark depths.”

He kept walking but had no idea where he was going, how he got there or why. The answers to these questions were in his head somewhere, he knew that, but accessing them proved to be futile. The intense heat he found himself in, bore into his head and any thought or memory that tried to surface was quickly turned to ash by a barrier of molten lava that swam around his brain.

The bottoms of his feet burned with every step, he looked down and realized he had no shoes. As he examined the rest of his body and saw he was wearing a white t-shirt and blue pajama bottoms drenched in his own sweat. These were not his clothes, he knew where they came from but that barrier kept all information he sought from surfacing, rendering him an idiot.

The temperature continued to rise and his heart beat wildly. Niles placed his hand on his chest for fear his heart would explode. He was panicking and the more fear he let seep into his bones the hotter the air became, so much so that breathing it in was painful. His tongue and the roof of his mouth became two pieces sandpaper rubbing together. He was certain he could no longer speak.

He looked at his arms and before his eyes bright red blotches appeared. They turned blood red until they began to bubble then break open oozing a clear liquid that evaporated as soon as it appeared.

He turned away. Was he in Hell or the surface of the sun? He was beyond thought and reason. Air could barely make it to his lungs. He was ready to burst into flames and melt in to the ground on he which stood,

“Niles.”

Did someone call his name? Or was he imagining rescue?”
”Niles.”

Again, from a different direction.

“Niles. Niles. Niles. Niles.”

Voices drew closer. He could feel himself leaving his burning body. He grabbed the sides of his head to keep it from popping off his shoulders. If he could just hold on until the voices reached him maybe he would be saved.

Ahead of him a figure started to form. At first it was a blob that wavered far beyond his reach. It quickly moved towards him, he noticed it had legs. The legs were running to him calling his name over and over. He turned to look back from were he came and he saw and heard the same. His stomach turned and twisted into a nervous knot. Some how he knew these two figures descending upon him represented good and evil and they were in a race to see who would embrace him first.

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Participants and posts:
orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
Ralph Pines - http://ralfast.wordpress.com (link to post)
articshark - http://www.drslaten.com/blog (link to post)
Sunwords - http://susannedoering.wordpress.com (link to post)
Diem_Allen - http://mindovermistakes.blogspot.com (link to post)
U2Girl - http://ancatdubh.org (link to post)
robynmackenzie - http://www.iwanttobeawesomewhenigrowup.com (link to post)
Lady Cat - http://radomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.ca (link to post)
MsLaylaCakes - http://www.taraquan.com (link to post)
pyrosama - http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com (link to post)
Angyl78 - http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
SuzanneSeese - http://www.viewofsue.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Diana_Rajchel - http://blog.dianarajchel.com/ (link to post)
HistorySleuth - http://historysleuth.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
AshleyEpidemic - http://www.soipondered.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
SRHowen - http://srhowen1.blogspot.com (link to post)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Tempers were short that day my friends

I've missed the last few blog prompts at Absolute Write but I'm back in with this months prompt:

Fire and Ice

You can do either or both, compare and contrast, or anything else that suggests itself. Write wherever the prompt inspires you, fiction or non-fiction, prose or poetry. Do try and keep things at a PG-13 level, though.

I don't know what happened with this post. I just let it go where it wanted.

Tempers were short that day my friends

"Please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance." The grocery store wants me to scan my own food, weigh my own produce and put it all in a bag myself? And the Italian bread at the bakery is a dollar more than it was the last time I bought a loaf there? Hold on just one minute. This is an act of lunacy.

Tempers were short in the grocery store that day my friends. Maybe it’s the higher than normal temperature and humidity. Perhaps the lack of rain, maybe we humans, like the outside vegetation, need to be watered once in a while too. Or the earth is preparing itself to crack open and swallow us up on December 21, 2012.

Whatever it was, the grocery store was in chaos. There were employees scattered around helping us morons communicate with the machines that have replaced them. They'll expect us to catch on to this modern age of grocery shopping. Haphazardly scanning our own Rice-a-Roni, with no one there to listen when we say,

"Did you scan that twice? I think you scanned that twice."

The computer generated voice barked out its orders and if we didn’t follow them, lights began to flash and the voice commanded,

“Please wait for assistance.”

A little old man wandered back and forth looking for a cashier, hopelessly lost, wondering how he was going to get his food home. That’s when I snapped, my heartstrings were stretched far enough to take action. I stood on the grocery conveyor belt, swinging my rather expensive Italian bread over my head and screamed,

"We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.” I pumped my fist in the air for emphasis. And as if they were waiting for a leader to emerge, my minions responded with a resounding yell of defiance. They dropped their 10-pound bags of potatoes, their orange juice and their fabric softeners raising their arms in the air. I had successfully whipped a crowded grocery store into frenzy.

Before I knew it I was lifted in the air, given a mop as my scepter and someone had quickly fashion a tin foil crown to place on my head. For I was the leader of the Great Grocery Store Rebellion of 2012. I pointed my scepter towards the customer service counter and said to the manager,

“You sir, remain where you are and we shall return with a list of our demands.”

We assembled in the frozen food section opening all the doors to feel the arctic blast on our sun soaked sweaty brows. The frozen air mingled with the hot tempers in the aisles, creating swirls around the angry mobs heads providing temporary relief from the equatorial summer heat.

“Ma’am, ma’am?”

“Huh?”

“What seems to be the problem?”

A cashier was talking to me, jarring me out of my daydream. She turned off the droning of the computer generated voice and flashing lights. I could see another cashier helping the older gentleman scan his Ben-Gay and prune juice.

“Ma’am?”

“Uhhh, I tried to weigh my bananas.”

“Let me help you with those.”

She pushed some buttons and I didn’t bother paying attention as to how bananas are weighed and scanned. I was too busy turning on my reality brain cells that I had inadvertently let grow dim or perhaps the sweltering heat had affected them because I usually have a pretty good grip on my brain cells. She spoke to me again.

“Can I help you with anything else ma’am?”

‘You can stop calling me ma’am and while you’re at it wipe that fake smile off your face.’ I said with my inside my head voice and with my outside my head voice,

“No thanks, I think I’ve got it from here.”

“Okay, have a great day and try to stay cool.”

What did she mean by that? There is no way she could know my plan of the Great Grocery Store Rebellion of 2012. I thought to myself as I bagged my own groceries. I opened my eyes a little wider, tightened my grip on reality and headed for the exit. As I reached automatic doors it felt like the very gates of hell opened as a wave of at least 200 degrees enveloped me. Tempers were short that day my friends.

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