Simon says

Simon says: Wash your hands.

Simon says: Re-use plastic bags.

Simon says: The peach is an abstraction of lewd animal urgency and desire which must be avoided with all the willpower at man's disposal lest he lose his way in this life.

Credit where credit is due: The photo for this post is not my own. Thank you bentoyumm I hope you don't mind my use of your image!

Your words: tinker, thinker, stinker, sphincter, most, boast, ghost, host, lilac, azure

Self-help

My assignment given by Kelli:
Your character has just won £8 million. Everyone and their dog now wants to be their friend. How do they cope with their new wealth?

- Isn't it the guy who wan £8 million you just served?
- Aye. He comes in all the time. He's always buying the same book in several copies that he asks me to giftwrap for his "friends" who are after his Johnny.
- What book is it?
- "How to cope with rejection."



Kelli's assignment: 5 children from Norway go to Eurodisney.

The Penguin

The 10 words from Kelli :
lift, Frankfurt, open, clamber, penguin, dim, jigger, brazen, poach, whistle.

"Who the fuck are you?" he says, staring at the mirror. The frustrated anger and the despair lift his brow in a chaos of conflicting lines; his brain feels like it's been poached.
He hears a disembodied voice telling him to go back to his seat. As he opens the door, a turbulence sends him flying (as well as the content of one of the passengers' coffee cup) across the aisle. The sudden pain in his thigh as he crashes on an armrest takes his mind off his introspection for a moment.

He unscrews the miniature bottle of alcohol he stole off the trolley on his way to the toilets (yes, he could have asked for it, it's free after all, but the staff on the flights to Frankfurt always terrify him) and swallows its jigger as he dives back in his inner thoughts, losing his eyes in the cottonwool sea.
He hums himself a tune to the brazen roaring of the reactors; something his dad used to whistle when he was a child eating cloudberries back in Maine.

What is he doing with his life? when and where did he lose track of what he really needed? Five years ago, the first time he was sent to Frankfurt, he had thought: that's it, I'm quitting, that's not what I want to do with myself, I deserve better. And there he was, on his way to Frankfurt again, hating himself for having become that numb shadow of a human being.

As the plane clambers above the winds, he sinks deeper into bitterness.

He looks inside his wallet. Look at that, he thinks; there's nobody close enough to my heart that I would carry their photo with me. Just credit card receipts and an old coupon for a meal for two for the price of one from a restaurant he has nobody to take to. And an out-of-date condom.

But it has a penguin on it, he thinks with a dim smile.


10 words for Kelli: abstraction, willpower, peach, life, Simon, bag, desire, animal, urgency, lewd.

Blue Eye Surprise

That can't be right... It must be the horrible light from that energy saving bulb. But if the light from the bulb is orange and my eyes are green, that wouldn't make a blue reflection, would it?
With toothpaste dribbling down my chin I lean in for a closer look turning my head from side to side to see if the colour changes from green to blue like an object in a hologram changes from one thing to another. No change.
Did I get coloured coloured contacts by mistake? No don't be stupid you would have noticed that. Wouldn't I? No, I'm sure I would notice something like that. Maybe you need some more natural light. Try the living room - and wipe that toothpaste off your chin.
I grab my compact and examine one eye then the other in the cool light of the north facing window. Still the same. My eyes are now blue.
this is bizzare. Should I panic? Is there reason to panic? Should I see the doctor? the optometrist? Am I going colour blind? Maybe I'm imagining things. Look in the mirror again.
Nope, still blue.
Ok. This is officially weird...maybe they'll change back tomorrow. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? More ridiculous that them changing from green to blue in the first place? Ok, ok, ok! Enough! I now have blue eyes. They might even suit me. Come to think of it I could do with a change. You should dye your hair blond! Blonds have more fun, right? Especially blue-eyed ones! NO, don't dye it. What if it doesn't suit your skin tone? Then you'd be walking around looking like a idiot for months. I could get a wig! Just to try it out. The shop downstairs should be open by now... I knew living above a wig shop would come in handy some day.


10 words:
lift, Frankfurt, open, clamber, penguin, dim, jigger, brazen, poach, whistle

Scalding!

Riccardo polishes steaming baskets of cutlery straight from the dishwasher. His hands move in a staccato rythum while his eyes remain fixated on the man at table three. He has ordered today's special - Beef in allegro marinade, flown in specially from Paris Tennessee with a side of seasonal vegetables and mashed potato. His suit looks plain and well worn, his tie a mish-mash of ostentatious reds and oranges swirled around and spat out onto cheap polyester. Riccardo picks up his tenth butterknife and rubs it gently, suggestively. He would love to dote on table three but the man has company; a sharp nosed woman dressed from head to toe in plum. Her hair colour, eyeshadow and lipstick, skirt and blazer, blouse and tights, shoes, handbag and nailpolish; everything in more or less identical shades. Riccardo thinks she looks looks a jar of prunes, obviously over compensating for her marginal personality. The pair pause their conversation while their plates are placed in front of them. Riccardo notes that the woman has conservatively ordered the pasta primavera. His attention shifts back to the man who is removing his tie and draping it over the back of his chair. Riccardo's imagination flits to a fantasy involving the man at table three, his tie, a bedpost and a damn good spanking. Riccardo takes a deep breath and governs his strength to keep the tingling in his groin from becoming a full-on errection and grabs another scalding knife from the cutlery basket.