Dunking Duckling

Startled by the start of the motor,
The dunking duckling, all shivery,
Stared at the bowing bogus doctor,
Whose only degree was a livery.

She had mocked his overture
And mimicked his disappoitment;
So he broke, before his departure,
Her denture, to find some contentment.

It took all his hate to fling 'er,
And her body made a splash;
The mortician did not linger:
His guilt had gone awash.

But do not, my friend,
Fall into helter-skelter;
For the duck, in the end
Rejoined his shelter.

Your words: company, allegro, pasta, compensate, govern, tenth, dote, spanking, fixated, marginal.

White rabbits, white rabbits

The meeting room is buzzing with conversations as the clock strikes midnight. The Chamberlain clears his throat in an attempt to attract the attention of the assembly.


- My dear brethren, I demand some quiet, please. We are here to discuss a serious matter. I've been told that some of us have emitted some concern about the validity of the human tradition of invoking us on the first day of every month. Our elders are offended to know that a faction of our younger members, calling themselves "Leporidae Potentia", want to deny human beings the right to be blessed by our luck. We decided it was time to discuss the problem, and what better time than tonight, on all hallow even, to bring the matter forward?

- Dad, I mean, with all due respect, Mr Chamberlain, I'd like to be the first to voice my opinion, said Alba. The practice you mentioned hasn't been revised since 1420. We are now in 2008, and things have changed. Humans don't respect us as much as they used to. This rule is obsolete: they don't even believe in us anymore! So why should we bring them good luck just for the sake of it? The tradition has lost its meaning!

- They can't even agree on the invocation anymore! said Candidum, with all the revolt of his youth. "Rabbit, rabbit", "white rabbits" or just "rabbits", even "hares"; and what about that "tibbar" nonsense of saying it backwards! They can't remember why they're saying it, and, which is worse, we can't remember either!

- I hear you, said the wise Chamberlain. I agree with you, Alba: humans don't really believe in us anymore. But they do respect us more. Only 40 years ago and your legs would have been turned into keyrings. And you're mistaken about the lack of revision: the Balliol amendment has been created to prevent the type of abuse as performed by Harold Nicolson. As for you, Candidum, you do have a point. Nobody knows why...

- We should go on strike! interrupted Blanche.

- ...but we should work together on finding the origins of our deal with the humans, finished the Chamberlain. As long as we don't remember what we're getting in exchange of the luck we give them, we shall keep our promise. For all we know, not fulfilling our side of the engagement might cause our doom.

- What makes you think we're getting something in exchange? said Candidum.

- I know what we're getting, shouted Shiro from the back. We're getting drowned in boiling wine and experimented on!

A clamour spread across the hall.

- Silence! bellowed the Chamberlain. We shall vote. May the ones who want to maintain the tradition raise their ears. I will take into account Hvit's unfortunate encounter with a lawn mower that left him short of one ear.

A rustling sound echoed in the galleries.

- The majority has spoken: we shall continue with the tradition. Meeting is over.

* * *

Back in 1420, on the early morning of November the first, the White Wizards and the White Witches of Somerset travelled and gathered by a rabbit hole just outside a place they called Oxenaforda. John, a young sheperd, was hiding behind a tree.

- But white habits bring good luck! said one of the wizards.

John ran back to his home and woke his sister up:
- White rabbits, white rabbits! he said.

- White rabbits, white rabbits? she repeated.

- I saw the White Wizards grouped around a rabbit hole saying that white rabbits bring good luck!

- Really? said Alys. So we shall call on the rabbits for good luck too! Let's go and wake Mum and Dad up, and let's make it the first words they say, so they have a lucky day.

Meanwhile, in the rabbit hole, the rabbit they called Stein woke up with a start.

- Mister Chamberlain, Mister Chamberlain! he shouted, running in the galleries.

- What now, Stein?

- I've been invoked! I'm the chosen one!

- Calm down, Stein...I've felt it too.

- Have you? Wasn't it amazing? What shall I do? Shall I give them some luck?

- Whatever Stein, if it makes you happy. They might invoke us again if you do, and I have to admit I found it quite pleasant.

- Great! I shall tell all the others! said Stein, as he ran to spread the word in his most debonaire way.

Your turn:
A bookseller becomes allergic to printing ink.

What a show!

Bambi Havadong stepped centerstage beneath a cascade of pink and orange sequins; her gargantuan proportions tamed by a corset lined with Teflon for ease of removal. As she shimmied in the limelight in a gesture of welcome to her adoring fans one member of the audience was heard to exclaim, "She looks like a marshmallow being severed with dental floss." A gust of laughter wobbled like a poorly spun wooden top. Then silence. A cough. The opening chords of 'I Will Survive' cut through the faint static of the sound system. Bambi's coral-painted lips curved around each syllable in a celebration of a sisterhood to which longed to belong (an unfortunate symptom of her condition) and her transformation was complete. In her own mind she was as agile as a kangourou, as wholesome as a daisy, as stimulating as a dildo - and her ass could write the alphabet in cursive.


Your words:
motor, duckling, overture, mimic, livery, shelter, fling, linger, mortician, bogus

33 in 33

It's official - the world will end in 33 days and my 33 years will disapear faster than a man after uttering the words 'I'm not ready for commitment'. Yeah, well I'm not ready either! Damn this global warming. Thought it might be nice up here in Scotland for a change but what did we get - more rain! I was all up for it untill the place started to flood. It won't be long before the UK makes like Atlantis and Venice and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. I should have booked my ticket out of here before everyone decided there was no point showing up for work anymore. All the looting and partying - people rutting like dogs on every street corner. Not really my scene. I always though the end of the world would be a little more romantic, y'know? People gathering together to sing songs round the fire and lend a neighbourly hand in a way we haven't seen since the war... fat chance of that. Fat chance I have of finding Mr. Right now! I will have to face the fact that I will die a virgin. Well, not technically, there was that one guy back in High School; and the guy at that party downtown on Halloween, but he doesn't really count because I never saw him without his Osama Bin Laden mask; oh, and the moron I wasted six years of my life with. But that was seven years ago so, technically, I've been a virgin longer than I've been having sex. And now what am I going to do? I refuse to stoop to the level of a slut simply because the world is going to end.

Your turn:

What happens next in this scene? A clock strikes midnight down a rabbit hole in Oxford.

Sasparilla Guerilla

When I was a child, I used to sit on the edge of my bed and bounce,
looking at the buildings across the street shaking as I pretended a
giant was walking down the road. It made me feel as small as one of
these blue sasparilla eaters that I used to collect in their rubber
form.
Dopamine was overflowing my brain, when dwelling in between the
brackets of imagination that feature less and less in the chapters of
my adult life.
It's probably the lack of ad hoc conditions.

But soon, the spiky hedgehog of reality would burst my colourful
bubble of freedom.

Snip! go the scissors of time.



(I cheated: I used rubber instead of rub.)

Your words: complete, cascade, stimulating, tame, across, kangourou,
daisy, alphabet, symptome, celebration.

Kelli's task

I forgot your new assignment:

It's officially the end of the world in 33 days. Describe the state of mind of a single thirty something woman who's concerned she might not manage to have sex before it happens.

Describe your first encounter with a celebrity. Tell the story twice - once from your point of view and once from theirs.

Perfect day in a perfect world

Josephine rummaged through her closet in search of the perfect outfit. She passed by the size 8 with impossibly firm 34C breasts, washboard waist, boyish hips and a hint of fake tan. She was tired of wearing these highly stylised garments - she wanted something more natural. She took down a hanger for a closer look at the outfit she last wore to her sister's wedding. It was a petite size 10 with a modest B cup and curvaceous hips. It's olive complexion had made her feel like she had stepped off the cover of Italian Vogue with a simpering pout. She had looked as delicious as a baked pear drizzled with acacia honey. She felt the suppleness of the hand-moisturised skin and held it up to the mirror. She sighed and put it back in the closet. It didn't feel quite right. She agonised over the remaining garments. The broad shouldered one she wore to work was too tall and commanding. The one she wore to the gym too toned and masculine. She would have to go shopping.

Down the crowded high street she trudged, vainly looking at the mannequins in the shop windows but she couldn't see anything she liked. Either the breasts were too pointy or the hips too high atop bean pole legs. Nothing said 'natural'. Even the so-called bohemian garments were too contrived. Desperate to find what she craved she turned down a side street with small boutique shops filled with vintage garments whose proportions had long since ceased to be trendy. She went into a shop with sumptuous velvet furnishings and gilt-edged mirrors and explained her predicament to the aloof shop assistant. He said nothing but nodded and walked briskly to the back of the shop and returned holding a size 16 with an hourglass figure. Josephine was reluctant to try it on - it was so much larger than the rest of her garments - but the assistant placed it in her hands and ushered her towards the changing room. 'Trust me dahhhhling,' he said before swishing the velvet curtain closed.

Josephine marveled at the garment, turning to inspect every angle, running her hands appreciatively over its curves. There was a slight ripple of cellulite on the thighs and buttocks, the waist felt relaxed and roomy. The breasts sagged slightly under their own weight, their surface patterned with a light spiderweb of scars. The skin tone was pale with a rosy tint. 'This,' she thought, 'will be perfect.'

Ah, yes. More words: colourful, bracket, snip, hedgehog, bubble, sasparilla, jump, rub, adhoc, dopamine

Cassoulet

She sat at her bedroom window folding and unfolding a grease-stained scrap of paper. The smell of cassoulet wafted from the kitchen below, the tiny blocks of bacon vying for prominance over the shapely duck leg. She imagined the harricot beans in their estacy as they simmered in the decadent broth of juices, goose fat and tomato puree, soaking in the flavours. This dish was something of a mythical character, spoken of in hushed tones of reverence, 'the one true icon'. Immitations would not be tolerated and imposters banished with a cacaphony befitting a witch trial. Differences of opinion caused fractures in the micro-society that was her immediate family. Last year, her father had unwisely declared that while it was the best her mother had ever made it still lacked a certain 'je ne sais qoi'. For a week it had seemed likely her mother would demand he concent to a divorce. The clatter of dishes brought her out of her reverie. She smiled as she unfolded the scrap of paper again to read the word she had hastily scribbled in pencil. A whispered prayer - her grandmother's secret ingredient.

Lollipop

She looks at the lollipop.

It has the colour of juniper berries and the scent of a cleaning product.
The guy who sold it to her looked like a complete trickster; but nothing you wouldn't expect from someone who sells morphine on a stick. She had to listen patiently when he told her that he used to be in a SWAT team back when he lived in California, "where it never rains".

She'd always been fascinated by people like him, the ones who always have numerous unbelievable anecdotes to tell. Being handicaped by the muchness of her gullibility, she never believes anyone who has more than one extraordinary story in their luggage.

She removes the crispy wrapping in a hurry, quick, before she changes her mind. For some reason, she's wondering if she's not ovulating, gets concerned that it may affect the embryo that might get conceived tonight if she has sex.

Then she smiles at her own madness, reminding herself that tonight she's not going out, just watching a DVD of Bear in the Big Blue House whilst tripping on a morphine lollipop.

Your words: conscent, fracture, character, amplify, ecstasy, prayer, block, society, cassoulet, window.

Arena

Hundreds of people all willing to connect because of some harmonious vibrations. Me, alone against them, held in place against them, with no will to interact with them. I can feel the vibrations reaching me and dying inside of me as if were some sort of earth wire in a plug.
I observe the happening from where I am, where time stands still as in the eye of the storm: I'm right in the center of it but it feels as foreign as if I were standing outside.
People as a stream flowing along the vibrations, moving past me anchored as a rock in the middle of their feverish communion.

Submerged by loneliness, I drag my empty shell through the drain.

Back in the privacy of my void, I feel one again.


Your turn: Show me a perfect day in a perfect world.

Repugnant

A man and a woman sit on a park bench near a bycicle path in Dorking.

- He cuts a repugnat figure in his riding jacket, wouldn't you say, Ned?
- A more disfigured hero I have never set eyes upon.
- Yes, shame about the trajectory...
- Not at all, Eliza. I would say it was a stroke of serendipity!
- Well, if it weren't for the colonic I don't think we'd be having this conversation.
- True. [pause] Look, he's stopping
- He looks a bit forlorn, should we ask for an autograph?
- What about the manure?
- It'll wash off. C'mon, don't you want to bask in the glory of saying we actually spoke to him? The guy's practically a national treasure.
- If he's nominated for a CBE it will be to his own amazement. Trust me.
- Shame. Fancy getting a coke instead?
- Yeah.


Your turn:
swat, juniper berries, trickster, numerous, muchness, ovulating, overwrought, hurry, morphine, remove

Tropical Delight

Hell hath no greater tempest than a woman served pineapple instead of chocolate cake.


Next:Describe the largest crowd you have ever been a part of.

Starry, starry night

- Prick up your ears. Give your eyes away to the glittery twilight and focus on the sounds.

He said that as if it were a most pleasant experience but all I could think of was the family of hypothetical bears I knew were waiting for us to fall asleep so they could sharpen their claws on our bodies.
What was I thinking when I said yes?

When you lead a vestal life such as mine and get tired of people giving you that over-the-counter look that you get when you're buying a bottle of wine and a meal for one on Valentine's day, you might find some attraction in an offer to go for a pick-nick made by the DIY shop assistant in your local supermarket.

- Lovely. Can we go back into town now? I have a jub jub to feed.
- Oh, no, let's stay here for a little longer: there's nothing more beautiful than a flight of doves in the sunrise.

SUNRISE? You expect me to stay here all night in lumber land? So first you turn the ride into the Camel Trophy by getting us lost in the swamps, and now you want me to spend the night here? No way.You can stay here and wait for the bears to eat you: I have to go home and hoover all the crisps crumbs you left all over MY car.

Only I didn't say that. The bear got him first.


repugnant, trajectory, colonic, disfigure, amazement, glory, serendipity, blaze, forlorn, manure.

Breakfast

I remember what I had for breakfast the day my hamster died.
I had deep fried hamster and chips.

Your turn: you're wearing wet clothes and holding a pineapple at the end of your up stretched left arm.
Why?

Hélène

Naked Disc

There is a loud thud at the front door. A brown envelope scrapes its way through the bristle-like fringe of the mail slot and falls to the floor. Brisk footsteps retreat down the stairwell echoing in the bleak emptyness of concrete and chipping paint. Before I have walked the length of the livingroom, I hear the door to the street groan on its hinges and bang closed again.
There is no writing on the envelope, only a symbol. It looks like a geometric fish. I don't know what it means. I haven't ordered anything. I press my fingers against the paper. It's rigid - circular - a CD. I hold the envelope up to the light in the misplaced hope that this will answer the many questions that cross through my mind. I decide to wait and see if the mysterious deliverer will return to collect it but my fingers have already tugged at the edge of the seal. It opens without resistance. I slide the CD into my hand. Aside from being neon green in colour the CD has no inscription, no symbols. I cross back through the livingroom and switch on my computer. I hear the door to the street creak open and slam shut again - Footsteps acending the stairs - I slide the disk into the drive - Footsteps cross the first floor landing - The computer asks if I would like to run the disk - Footeteps tapping up the second flight - Click 'Yes' - The heel, toe slap of footsteps on the second floor landing followed by the jangle of keys being inserted into a door one floor down - The program whirrs in the disk drive and the geometric fish appears on the screen, below it the instruction 'Click to enter'.
...Click...

A fanfare begins to play. Then a buttery-smooth barratone voice announces, 'Welcome to Neon Fish Farm, the greener way to buy fish! Get 10% off your first purchase with this exclusive promotional code!'

Fucking advertising gimmicks.


You next. Finish the thought: I remember what I had for breakfast the day my hamster died.

Written by Kelli

Useless bag of crap

He's one. You can tell be the way he swaggers down the platform eating that jelly doughnut, it's viscous innards oozing onto the tips of his pudgy fingers. I wonder if a woman has ever let those fingers near her cunt. I doubt it. Not without money up front. See the way he studies the tube map in a disinterested fashion? That's the habit of someone who knows where their going but can't stand to stare into the middle distance, afraid of catching someone's eye. I'll bet in his head he's imagining some impropiety he's planning to commit later. Look at him - suckling his jam covered fingers, slightly trembling, like he were sucking the toenail of some cheap whore. I'll bet he's some quack. Calls himself an IT specialist when really he's the guy who does the nightshift in some fancy office tower cleaning keyboards, peeling off stickers and other crap those city boys leave cluttering their computer stations. I'll bet if he doesn't leave them sparkling he gets hauled into the office and belittled by the Boss man just like his father used to, before he died of lung cancer. The father who made sure he knew from an early age what a useless bag of crap he is at everything. I'll bet he lies in bed at night dreaming of the day he'll get revenge by droping his sorry ass in front of a Waterloo & City train making all those self-important office twats late for their morning meetings.

Next 10:
Jub jub, hoover, twilight, doves, glitter, lumber, claws, over-the-counter, vestial, prick

Written by Kelli

The Fivah

On August, 6th

Pitch black. It feels like a coffin. Where the fuck have I ended up this time? I think I'm not alone: I can feel some others around me, some of them like me, some bigger and some much smaller ones, I can hear them, the smaller ones are always louder. Everything shakes: here comes the light! What's happening now? A woman grabs me, hands me to another woman, a small ginger one, suffering from allopecia, stuttering an embarrassed "thank you". Oh my God, I'm in a hairdresser's! How did that happen? I must have fallen asleep in the last wallet. What is a woman suffering from allopecia doing at a hairdresser's? Maybe she bought a wig? Ah, no, I can smell it: she had her nails done. Well I suppose she has beautiful hands, it might be where she has to find pride in her feminity. It's a bit like a blind man in a one hour photo shop, an almost bald woman at the hairdresser's; but, hey, I've seen that before too.
Her purse stinks of plastic and I bet she has the left overs of an egg sandwich in her handbag: either that or...I don't really want to think about it actually.

Of course. Of course she had to go to the pub. I'm glad she's using her bigger notes first: I really don't feel like the spending the evening going from hand to hand. I might be able to spend the night in the possession of a taxi driver.
Ah, she's talking to a guy: I can see him each she opens her purse to check if she has enough for another one. Can't say he's a catch...but who knows, he might have handsome feet. He wants to give her his phone number. What, he can write in on me?!? Hey, in some countries that would be considered defacing me, it's illegal!
I'm not pleased. I have some ugly fat middle aged drunkard's phone number written on my back. Well at least I wasn't gropped by half the bar.
Electric light: we're in a shop; she's buying fags. There you go, back in a till drawer...oh, someone is taking me out again: it must be a Friday night. Ah, some sort of commotion: it's definitely a Friday night. And it's about me!
It's a young man shaking me in the face of the shop assistant: "I'm flabbergasted! How did you do that? This note has my dad's mobile number on it!"

Your turn: someone finds a CD without any inscription on it. Where does he/she find it? What's on it? What's their reaction to it? Same thing, 20 mn

Hélène

Another Writing Challenge

On August, 5th,

You have 20 minutes, GO!

Trace the journey of a £5 note through the lives of 2 different owners. What was exchanged during the transactions? How much, or little, did the transaction mean to each of the people involved?

Kelli

Pioneers

August, 4th

Picture this: in a parellel universe, America never evolved from the pioneer time. Times are rough: the population feeds from corn and gets drunk on rutabaga beer (try saying it out loud). One day, in a small town called Pepsicock, the oligarch allows a circus from Beijing to entertain the population. Cho "Tarty Cream" Chang is the main attraction: all the eyes are on her when, her jovial shapes skillfully exposed by a glittery see through leotard, she glides on a greasy pole like a fat chicken coming off a skewer. The men in the croud simmer, get inflammed and cheer her loudly, throwing their hats in the air.
And then they ate her.

Next 10 words:
Verbose, belittle, impropriety, viscous, disinterested, quack, sticker, drop, twat, toenail

Hélène

Aligator

August, 4th

Never spank an aligator - u get me? All u end up wi' is one irritated motherfucker - an' I mean FUMING - an' unless you want to toss him your left nut as colateral, u gonna end up wi' a full-on frontal lobotamy, u get me? That ain't no reward for ludicrous dumbass behaviour. Get it bruv? Safe. Peace out.

Next ten words:
cream, jovial, leotard, Bejing, Pepsi, to glide, oligarch, simmer, rutabaga, to inflame

Kelli

Zimmer Frame

There she was, that slut of a Polish baker, pretending to ignore him, wearing that obscenely tight white blouse over that loose bra of hers, only pretending to hold her full funbags in which he was dreaming of biting. "What can I do you for?", she says, and he hears himself asking for a pretzel, when all he really wants is to flip her over his zimmer frame, insert the pretzel in that amorphous mouth of hers, slither it until she almost chokes. He jostles the zimmer frame closer to the counter, holding it desperately with his hands covered with liver spots, as if firebranded by an epileptic cowboy. He curses: Jingle Bells! My body has abandoned me! Now he just has to make the assumption she didn't notice the wet patch.

Aligator, irrigation, reward, ludicrous, festival, irritate, colateral, fuming, lobotomy, spank

Hélène

Rocket Man

Ahhh, there's nothing quite like an adulterous, cum sucking, scab to make you realise where you stand in the hierarchy of life. It's enough to make you want to eat vomit. The next time I catch that soda slurping, camembert sniffing, mollusc of a man, Gaspard anywhere near my Girtha I'm going to burn off his pubic hairs with a blowtorch and send him rocketing to the moon like a spaceship!

Next ten:
abandon, zimmer frame, jostle, firebrand, pretzel, slither, amorphus, Jingle bells, liver, assumption

Kelli

Gertha's Uranus

For Gaspard, there was nothing like fucking that big Gertha working at the Sauerkraut factory, wheelbarrow style. Her marvellous overweight body, her overflowing rolls of flesh flapping around the tight leather girdle strapping her pachydermic waist was already enough to make him feel like projecting his spunk up to Jupiter even before inserting his splinter shaped cock up her burning snatch. He would make her fly right up to Uranus tonight, part her enormous lunar cheeks as a coroner dissecting a ribcage, waiting for her to express her ecstasy humming the Macarena.

hierarchy, scab, camembert, symphonie, adulterous, suck, vomiting, soda, hairs, spaceship

Hélène

Wyoming

Wyoming. Where people have the power to vanish at will, it seems, I've seen them dissapear like so many flies zapped to dust by flourecent bulbs. A girl and her caramel coloured go walking through the fields at night trying to shake off the ambiguity of the day. She staves off dehydration by fellating ice pops and staring up at the sky, mesmerised by the sounds of swaying grass and the creaking chirp of crickets - and then they're gone.

Next ten words:
girble, humming, splinter, to ride, overweight, orange, to disect, wheelbarrow, Jupiter, to burn.

Kelli

There has to be a Beginning

On August, 2nd


To Kelli:

I offer you an activity I used to do when I was a teenager (and that you probably did before)

Here's a list of 10 random words coming from my unstable brain (verbs can be conjugated):

caramel, power, legacy, ambiguity, Wyoming, to vanish, to mesmerize, fluorescent, to dehydrate, fellatio.

Now you have to write me a story of at least 10 lines incorporating all those words and send me 10 words back, then I'll write you a story and send 10 words, and so on.

Hélène