ThinkWrite Challenge LXXXIII

Question

Here's the next challenge! The word count is 300 and I'll pick a winner two weeks from today, on February 26th. The words are:

 

Bound

Flow

Reap

Silver

Clench

Frost

Pure

Terse

Match

Laugh

 

Have fun!

Comments

I like it!  :D  Count me in on this one ;)

Answer 1

// 300 words exactly: without the title

A Canadian Winter

The cold air flows around me in my car. I figured buying a car where the heat doesn’t work would be cheaper.  The temperature makes me clench my hands around the steering wheel. I pass the trees with a severe disinterest for the “beautiful” silvery frost my mother would have pulled over for and looked at for hours.

The guy behind me is beeping at me. Like it’s my fault the ice is making it dangerous to drive any faster. I will not speed up to match the posted signs, not in this weather. Once this guy understands that, he’ll swerve into the other lane and speed by me, probably not without a terse statement of only four letters. It doesn’t matter. He’ll reap what he deserves eventually, driving like that.

I can hardly see. The snow is coming down solid; the whole road looks pure white. But there is a red light ahead; I can see that; I push down on the brake pedal.

But the car doesn’t stop.

A girl comes bounding and laughing to the crosswalk. I probably wouldn’t even be able to see her if not for her bright yellow jacket and long red hair. She starts across the road.

My car still doesn’t stop.

It’s hard to say exactly what led me to buy an old, useless car - the price, the fact that my parents didn’t want me to. So many things influenced the decision that I’m not even sure where the influences stop and my own reasons begin.

I swerve, thankful that the girl noticed my speed and got out of the way, thankful that no cars are coming when I blast through the intersection.

The trees loom in front of me. I hope I just die. Hospitals are such dreadful places, really.

Comments

Excellent! I loved the flow of consciousness kind of feel to it and I feel like you did a really good job of getting the narrator's kind of empty feelings across. Your turn now!

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Thank you peachykeen! I will get something up tomorrow. :)

Answer 2

The match flared and, as the candle took the flame, there was a flow of soft light into the dark room. Outside there had been a light fall of pure white snow and touched by the frost, it had a silver blue shimmer in the moon light. Inside, bound up in his own thoughts, he moved slowly around the room getting ready for the day ahead, oblivious of the change of weather.

                Dressed and breakfasted an hour later he stepped out of his door as the first hint of dawn rose over the hills. He pushed his hands into his pockets to keep them warm as he walked over to the stable. He felt the cold clench his chest and his breath rose in small clouds in the early morning half light. The horses needed to be ready for a last day of ploughing, if the ground was not too hard. He needed to sow the spring wheat soon so he could reap it in the autumn. No one would laugh if this important crop failed.

                By mid afternoon the last few acres had been ploughed, Goliath, the heavy horse, had been turned lose in the paddock and the plough returned to the cart shed. He paused to light his pipe and then started on his end of day chores. The eggs had to be collected, the cows milked and pigs fed. Then he could turn to the vegetable plot for the last few hours of daylight. There was always plenty to do but he was happy in his work. No one ever spoke a terse word and his was a happy community. He said a quite prayer of thanks as over head a vast airliner left a thin white trail across the sky. It was good to be Amish.

Comments

This was really good! I liked how it was very pastoral and descriptive. And with the Amish reveal at the end I thought it would be a good beginning for something more.