Four Words and a Funeral

Question

Now that the movie reference is out of the way (I've never seen the movie, by the way, just heard of it), let me explain my challenge.

I'm going to give you three groups of four words. Choose either group 1 OR group 2 OR group 3. If you can use more than one group, then that's fantastic! Bonus!!

Again, your writing must include every word from at least one of the groups. It also must be based on a funeral. This doesn't mean it has to be a sad story - it can be humourous, but there has to be a funeral or funerals involved somehow. You may choose what form you write in (poem, story, etc.).

Word Groups:

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
happy	pencil	flash
love	sing	war
timing	carve	subtle
better	game	doubt

Word Count for Prose: Minimum = 50 words. Maximum = 200 words.

Word Count for Poetry: No minimum. Maximum = 10 lines. Any type of poem will be accepted, e.g. rhyming, free verse, acrostic, etc.

I will judge this challenge in two weeks, on August 14. If no one or only one person has responded by that day, I will lengthen the deadline.

Whether you have questions or you feel I've been to demanding, leave your concerns in the comments or pm (personal message) me, and I’ll try and explain myself further. =P

Have fun everybody!

Comments

This challenge IS very interesting but I do not really understand it.
Can you please enter more information about it, like is it a story?? And more about it , because I am having some trouble understanding this challenge.
I am not saying this challenge is not well explained, I do think it is very well explained, and you tried your very best to explain it all, but some info is missing there. I can tell you took a lot of time in it, am I right? It is all very professionally done! Well done though! :-)

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Thank you Lolly. Yes, I did take some time to make it all look good. I'm sort of a perfectionist so I always try to do things professional! I appreciate you noticing that. =)

I edited the most confusing part out. If you're still not understanding it, let me know. =) (oh, and I did say it could be a story or a poem or anything, it doesn't matter)

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Yes, it is better now.
You did get the part I got stuck at!
Now it is all better.
Thank you
I hope to enter this challenge soon :-)

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Congratulations, Froggie! Awesome job! This was a tough one to judge too; it was so close, everyone did so well! =)

Answer 1

 

I kept all the words but they're in a very muddled order so I left them in bold in case you wanted to check :)
And sorry if the ending seems a bit abrupt, I'm rubbish with word limits!
 

Standing behind Harry, I looked on stone-faced, eyes unseeing as a painful flash of memory took control of my senses.

When all this started, when four happy-go-lucky boys tumbled down to the conscription office, it didn’t seem like anything more than a new game to play: our next adventure. 
All it took was a quick scribble with a pencil and a subtle lie about our age – I don’t doubt that the officer knew we were only sixteen.  It doesn’t seem to matter now.
Jimmy would love to sing “Roll Out the Barrel” as we strolled down the street in our brand new uniform. Strolling into war.
As far as we were concerned, the timing couldn’t have been better: we were looking for something to fill the empty summer days.  And everyone knew the ladies loved a man in uniform.

“We carve this monument in order to remember: their names, their courage, their sacrifice.”
Two from a platoon of twenty were present.  Harry gestured and I handed him the pair of crutches that rested in my remaining arm.  I understood as no-one else would – this impersonal funeral was no way to honour the memory of so many fallen.

Comments

Wow. This really hit me. I loved that you got a lot of emotion across; the excitement of the boys enrolling in the war, the sadness at the funeral, a sense of loss (his "remaining arm"). That kind of emotion is hard when there is such a small word count. And the end doesn't seem abrupt at all, at least in my opinion.
Really good job! =)

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Wow. Powerful.

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Very sad, but so true. Nice work, Froggie!

Answer 2

 

Funerals weren't exactly what you'd call a happy occasion, but they were probably the best place to see the love people felt for a man. Jeremy always wondered how many people would come to his funeral. Probably none.

As he sat down on one of the benches, another procession was starting. The timing couldn't be better. 

He took out his pencil and pad and let them sing their magic. His hands worked so quickly and with so much energy that he wondered if he would one day just carve the image into the paper. 

"It's just a game of light and shadow," he would explain when asked about his numerous drawings of people with deep, usually sad, expressions on their faces.  Not all were done at funerals. Some were the result of the occasional flash of the war. He was only there for ten months, but it changed who he was forever. 

To his family, it seemed like a subtle change, but he had no doubt it ran deep. Soon, it became aparent he was right and he and his wife drew further and further apart. 

Now, he was alone. Drawing people at funerals, while he awaited his own.

Comments

I managed to cut it down to just under the limit. It contains exact forms of all 12 words in the order in which they were listed. And that's why the story isn't very good. Sorry.

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The story isn't very good???? Really? I love it! Seriously, that's awesome! And all 12 words too... wow, well done! =)

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Meh. Thanks for the nice words, but I'm not happy with it. It's too bland. I like vivid descriptions and metaphors and a real plot. This maybe has a thoughtful ending. Maybe.

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I think it's interesting. Maybe it isn't vivid or "exciting", but it's certainly not as bad as you think it is.

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I agree with what WoaN said - it isn't vivid or exciting exactly, but it's not as bad as you think it is. It is different from what you normally write, and I can see how you might think it's "bland", but the story speaks to me. It's a quiet story - not bland, just slow, thoughtful, and deep. I enjoyed it very much.

Answer 3

It was a funeral of sorts, I guess, although some call me overly pessimistic for saying so. Damn. Maybe they're right. We can hope, I suppose, but I just don't think there are enough of us. How could we have been so stupid? Live, love, laugh... die... happy, blissfully unaware that the game was coming to an end. And now there are so few of us left, spared through good timing mostly, and luck. Damn it! There had better be enough of us. 

All of human history, as if written in pencil, erased by flash floods and other environmental disasters we so blithely created. So sing a requiem for a dying planet. It wasn't war that finally rendered the Earth incapable of supporting us. It was far more subtle and insidious than that. It's really just living the "good life" that finally did us in. 

So please understand, I can't help but see it as a funeral for humanity as we last few remnants turn our backs on Mother Earth and set forth to carve a new place for ourselves in the universe - if there are enough of us left, that is. But like I said, I doubt it. 

Comments

Hello there, I'm new at this and having a bit of difficulty. My response was intended to be three separate paragraphs, but I can't seem to get the paragraph breaks to stick. Am I missing something?

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Hey! Welcome to ThinkWrite, Kismet! Very good first post, too. Nice twist on my "funeral" challenge. And another one with all twelve words, excellent! This is very good. If I have one critique it is merely for readability. I think after every ellipses (...) you should put a space. It makes it easier to read and it will look better, too. Win-win. =) Thanks again, and welcome!

Oh, and you should just be able to hit the return key and it will add a paragraph break, just like in MS Word or anywhere else. Is that not working? That's never happened to me, sorry I can't be of much help!

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Hi Kismet and welcome to TW. That was a pretty good story, I look forward to reading more from you.
As for the paragraphs, I'm not sure either why it doesn't work. Maybe you pasted it from a program that uses different paragraph marks. Try clicking 'edit' and  manually.adding them

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@workingoutaname -
You're right, the ellipses looked OK when I was typing, but I was using a smart font that changes "dot, dot, dot" into a proper ellipsis (more spaced out). Apparently that didn't copy correctly and they do look a bit cramped here. I went with the other option of just taking most of them out - they really didn't belong there in the first place. It's just a lazy habit I've picked up over the years. I use "dot, dot, dot" WAY too much...  ;-)

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@Spots -
I have no doubt that I'm using different paragraph markers than this website is used to. I have the dubious pleasure of working from an iPad. And it's not just the program I copied from - it's the device itself. Even going in and adding the paragraphs manually wouldn't stick. I finally ended up using HTML tags and that worked but I'm hesitant to do that again unless the site Admin says it's OK. I know that sometimes using HTML tags in comments etc. can mess things up elsewhere. Any idea if it's OK here?

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No idea. It didn't mess anything up so far, so I think you're in the clear.

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HTML tags... I think that was smart! =)

Thanks for fixing the ellipses, it looks much better now. And no worries, I use them too much too! haha ;)

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Hello, Kismet, and welcome to ThinkWrite.

I love your take on this challenge! It is well written and kind of punches the reader in the gut with it's truthfulness. Very nicely done - I look forward to reading more from you!

Answer 4

Okay - I know that this is stealing an idea from somewhere else, but I can't help it - this is where the challenge took me.

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Freedom

 

The birds were awake. The sound of their cheerful chirping made me want to sing. I watched them flit about in the trees, perhaps playing a game, while I used my pencil to carve musical notes into my desk.

It’s strange that I am so happy today when everyone I love is dead. However, I’m convinced the timing couldn’t have been better.

The funeral is this afternoon, and they asked me if I would like to stay home from school, but I declined. I saw a not-so-subtle expression of doubt flash across my principal’s face when I assured her I was fine. Things happen, I said. They were just casualties of war.

No, they weren’t overseas fighting, nor were they killed by terrorists on our own soil. In fact, they just all dropped dead for no apparent reason.

I turn 11 tomorrow, and summer is almost here. They didn’t want me to go off to the mysterious school when the term started in the fall, but now they aren’t here to stop me. I can train to be a wizard.

Comments

hmm. Harry Potter? I think that has something to do with turning 11 and wizards. I've never read it or seen the movies (gasp!). And another one with all 12 words! Maybe I was expecting too little from all of you when I said only one group! haha.

I like this. It's mysterious and it flows well. And you did a good job of writing "in character". What I mean is that it read like an 11 year old was writing it. Very good.

I did notice an error in the second paragraph. The sentence "It's strange that I am so happy today everyone I love is dead" seems like it needs something. Perhaps just a semi-colon in front of "everyone I love is dead" (I'm not sure, though. Some of my teachers say I over-use semi-colons when they aren't needed. lol).

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Thanks for the comment, WoaN - and for pointing out the error. The sentence was originally "It's strange that I am so happy today when I know everyone I love is dead." And I wanted to take out the "I know" and apparently took out the "when" as well. I will fix that presently.

And, yes, it's based (very lightly) on Harry Potter - and I'm shocked and appalled that you've never read the books! :-P

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Nice! I'm a big fan of your inspiration for this story.  ;-)

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Oh, now I feel left out! =P haha - jk.

Answer 5

The last funeral I was at, I left the church in tears. Tears of laughter that is. It's not that I'm a heartless person, it's just that my family has a unique take on funerals. We find the the humourous side of life (or death rather). I wouldn't call in being happy at a person's death, but a way of showing love for the dead person in question.

 In retrospect it probably didn't look too great. You know, laughing at my grandmother's funeral... She would have laughed too though.

The man sitting across from me, Neddy, wore one of the world's worst wigs, which had unfortunately slipped down the back of his head and was hanging on for dear life. Neddy was oblivious to his situation, but I certainly wasn't. I spent the rest of the sermon giggling furiously at 'Neddy's wig'. I suppose it was bad timing, but then again things are always funnier when you're not supposed to laugh.

So as I left the church with my tear stained face and red cheeks, I thought about my grandmother and how she would have been beside me in convulsions too.

Maybe I'll do better at the next funeral...

Comments

haha, nice! I love when someone incorporates humour into a serious subject. Very good job!!
Also, love the username! ;) Welcome to ThinkWrite!

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Thanks a lot! : I prefer to take a humourous stance on issues. Laughing is my favourite thing in the world. :)

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I can tell that just from reading your username! haha. I agree. It is much easier to be funny in some hard/stressful situations.

Answer 6

‘Tis a woeful song I sing

Isn’t death an awful thing?

His epitaph carved neatly by stencil

Ironic that death befell him by pencil

Woody Wright was the fellow’s name

Who was murdered playing a childish game

From across the room the projectile flew

From whose hand? Nobody knew

The detective in charge has not a clue

Except that the pencil was a number 2

Comments

Very good, 7dutch7! This is really really well done. I like the rhyming you have done and also the interesting cause of death! Nice job!

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I love this - in a bizarre way, the rhyming adds to the humour :p

Answer 7

Those who had been chosen to sing the dirge could not have been more suited to the task. It was as if God himself had chosen to carve their visages from solid granite, cold, hard, and emotionless. The strange thing was, as I sat in my pew I felt much the same way. I should have felt something, anything. When it was time to view the body I rose slowly and made my way to the casket. As I looked down at the woman who lay within I could not help but laugh. The woman I saw was not my wife, at least not any more. The thing in front of me did not contain the perfections, the idiosyncracies, or the compassion that had been the woman I had loved. It was as if God was playing a game in which the object was rip away all that I had loved in life, but he had not succeeded, my emotional responses were not written in pen, but in pencil. That part of my life had been erased, but perhaps the void was some strange form of a blessing, allowing me to move past the pain, if only for a while.

Comments

This was really nicely written, neverendingfootsteps. I really enjoyed reading this. It was sad, but it was very heartfelt. Well done.

Answer 8

“Craft” by Ron

The woman was clearly happy. She nearly beamed as she tapped the pencil on the table with nervous energy. She signed the form and was gone in a flash.

We buried her father the next morning. She attended and made a trite little speech about her love for the old man. Whatever. I’ve seen her kind before. Sing their praise and collect the war hero’s money. The bitch!

I followed her afterwards. My timing had to be precise. I planned to carve her pretty little face for what she had done. But I would be subtle. I would use a different MO this time.

I’ve gotten better at this game. Of that there is no doubt. None whatsoever.

Comments

Wow, creepy! haha. I like it!