Creative Writing

I’ve had this story collaboration project going on my site from time to time. You can join in. Its just a fun game where you can write a bit of fiction and plot the course of the future. Ooooooo, the power.

I wrote part 1 and it goes like this:

and then Part 2 was sent in by the ever-mysterious parttimescribe@hotmail.com:

It was a system that worked fairly well.

He patted down his tired brown hat and re-adjusted a few stray straws sticking out of his sleeve. His thoughts made him hesitate again; a big “what if” made his pale legs refuse to move.

What if it wasn’t true?

What if it was farther than he had been told?

Would his old body hold up?

Again he reasoned and wrestled with his mind. It was playing tricks with him, causing him to doubt, to stumble. He mentally forced himself to begin. One step in front of the other.

The sun had started making its journey upward, gleaming and streaking its rays across the field. It’s warm and yellow heat gave him a renewed strength and he picked up the pace. He could see the black pavement ahead, somehow marking the real start of his long journey. Carefully he climbed over the old wooden fence, waved a final goodbye to the field and looked straight ahead with a now unwavering purpose.

His destination was just beyond the river and the two mossy green hills. If he could make it to the river by sundown he’d be doing okay, then the valley through the hills, and then finally the city. Knowing this he walked a little faster, almost a skip in his step now…

Part 3 from barryball_2000@yahoo.com:

Before long he realized it was further to the river than he had thought. His legs were getting tired because this was much more walking than he was used to and the dust from the road was making him feel tired and dirty. These were not sensations he was used to back in the corn field. That field had rich, dark dirt; not this infernal dust. And even though he was on his feet all day in the field he was able to lean on his post, he even sometimes would nod off to sleep.

Just as he was thinking about stopping for a rest a dusty brown pickup truck came rattling down the road in the opposite direction. As it got closer it slowed down and came to a stop a few yards in front of the scarecrow.

The scarecrow stopped walking. He looked at the truck but with the sun behind the truck he was unable to make out who or what was in it. He thought this seemed odd and threatening but as the dust settled he decided to press ahead rather than show that he could be intimidated. In fact, he decided, it might not be trouble at all. He put a smile on his face and thought of a friendly greeting to use as he started to pass the truck.

Now it’s your turn. Send in Part 4. I’ll put the entries up for a vote and the winner will win a CD.

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Airports are filled with people who have a purpose.  Its not the type of place many people go to just for something to do, although after being here today I would consider coming again for the sole purpose of writing more character sketches.  People are arriving and departing, but those of us who spend the most time here are waiting… waiting for the arrivals and departures to do just that – arrive and depart.  The ones arriving are starving for a cigarette, anxious to find a cab, and ready to do the business they came to do.  The ones departing are checking and rechecking the flight numbers on their tickets and matching that information to what’s on the screens overhead.
 
Those of us waiting for an arrival are talking about what we ate for breakfast and lunch – topics that will inevitably change when the one(s) for whom we wait finally arrive.  When they do its on to "Oh my God!" and "How are you?"  Tears are always saved for the departure at the other end of the visit – if it’s a two-way flight.

Awaiting a departure is a different story.  Some wait alone, and many are business types who have probably done this a hundred times before and don’t think much of it.  But there are others who wait together, family clusters of two’s and four’s who are about to be separated and their distress is palpable.  When the departing member final walks onto the plane and out of site, those remaining walk slowly back to the parking lot and drive away – sadder and more alone.
 
That sultry Chris Isaak song is wafting through the terminal.  I think its called "Wicked Game" and unless you’re a REALLY slow reader you’re listening to it right now… As the fat, balding middle aged men wait for their luggage to slide on the carrousel, there is no poetic appropriateness to that song playing, but I can see a video for it made in slow motion in an airport with people walking in all directions. 

I wonder if those here on business will recover what they’ve sacrificed to be loaded onto a flight to come to this small city.  The most recent flight arrival yielded a bumper crop of young-to-middle-aged men.  Guys in tweed jackets that seem happy with their lives; younger guys in casual-but-still-serious business suits who still want more of whatever it is their getting right now.  Scattered amongst these common types are the rare out-doorsy looking 50-year-olds and the red-faced 35-year-old alcoholics.  Most of all these men arrive alone, wait for their luggage alone, and leave alone.  If this is their return home, they must lead lonely lives.
 
One man is lucky enough to have his daughter here to meet him but there is tension between them and she’s largely ignored by him -and he by her.  She’s more concerned with the text messages on her cell, but I doubt she would be if her father was showing an interest in her.  She strikes me as the type that is a marginal high-school athlete and is more concerned with the elevated social status being on the team affords than she is about doing well on that team.  Its the hoodie that says "GIRLS BASKETBALL" in Rockwell type that’s important – you see, it says something about her identity.

I make these observations about someone I really know nothing about.  Its all conjecture based on other girls I’ve know who look the same and I think I’ve got her pegged, but I’ve been wrong before.  Its still fun to write a character sketch about someone you don’t know based solely on their physical appearance and body language.  Besides, by now everyone must know that first impressions are almost everything and so I take whatever I see first as a person’s manifesto.  This is either shallow or efficient on my part – or maybe a bit of both.

More people waiting, men shaking hands, exchanging forced salutary chuckles, walking out into the night through a rotating door.  The handshakes, the chuckles – they’re supposed to convey self-confidence and draw attention.  It works, but they leave, and those of us left waiting are left to find a new object of observation and to periodically turn our gaze toward the domestic arrivals door, looking for that familiar face we came here to pick up.