This blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too.
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Today's poem or short story prompt is the word "ice"
ON DUTY
ReplyDeleteThere are a few moments that bring it back
-- all of that excitement.
Not quite Christmas morning excitement,
or new bike excitement,
or 'going camping at Waterloo and yes Tom can come' excitement,
but close.
One thing that never fails,
one thing that is absolutely magical,
is the sight of the first icicles of winter.
They hang from tree branches
and wheelwells
and overhead wires,
pointing at the snow
with such precision
you wonder if each icicle
has a particular snowflake
it has been assigned to keep damp.
- Mike Fedel
May, 2013
Day 1 of 7: ICE
ReplyDelete[I've decided that I will use today and the next 6 as prompts for a short story. Wish me luck!]
"OKAY!" I yelled. "This is offically NOT FUNNY anymore!"
I stood up and brushed myself off. Nothing seemed to be broken, though my left arm was pretty scraped up. I felt something warm running down the side of my face. I touched it with my finger. Blood. Great. Tracing upward, I found the source. A small cut at the far left end of my eyebrow. Well, it wasn't the worst bang-up I'd had in the last six months.
The sun was hot and I was surrounded by sand. Sand, shimmering in the heat, stretching to every horizon. "I'm not in Kansas, anymore," I said flatly. No point even trying to laugh about it anymore. I was screwed. Every time I tried to resign myself to it -- to the fact that I was going to spend the rest of my life being randomly picked up and dropped somewhere in time -- I resisted. Maybe this time I'd digest it. I was screwed.
I promise to tell you how it happened. But later.
For now, I had to find shade. And water. Maybe just water. I picked a direction and started walking. I walked with the sun at my back, figuring that would at least get me to sunset earlier. Though from what I remembered about deserts, I was going to trade blazing heat for freezing cold. Screwed.
I noticed I was ascending a gradual slope. I topped a small rise and saw figures a few hundred yards away. They were sitting or crouching beneath a blanket stretched between four poles. Shade!
I held my hand above my eyes and squinted, like I'd seen in the movies. I could make them out a little better. Men. Eight of them. All in light colored robes, cowls up over their heads for shade. I walked toward them, measuring every step. I figured that if I walked too fast, they'd think I was a threat but if I walked too slowly, they'd figure I was hiding something.
As I got closer, I could make out their features. Middle Eastern men in their late twenties or early thirties. One of them was talking, the others nodding and leaning closer to catch every word. They were gathered around a small piece of something spread out like a tablecloth. There was some bread, dried meat and fruit, and three crude goblets filled with liquid. Water?!
"Hello!" I called when I was close enough. One of them turned toward me and motioned 'come here'.
I got nervous then. Thiefs waiting for an opportunity? I looked at my clothes: khakis and a white shirt, sneakers, nothing that marked me as particularly worth robbing. I had a driver's license and a few dollars, but those had been useless everywhere else I'd landed.
But, I had little choice. I didn't have any idea where or when I was, they had food and shade. As I got closer, they opened the circle and invited me to sit down. They pointed at my shirt and started talking. I couldn't make out any of the language but they were smiling and seemed friendly.
One of them, the one who was standing, looked at me, then at the cup, then back at me again.
"You look thirsty," he said. He pointed at the cup. "Go ahead, drink."
I stared at him. He spoke English?
I picked up the cup. Water. Cool and clear. I looked closer. Not just cool. Iced. There was ice in the water. Here in the middle of the desert. How?
I sipped. I'd gulped enough ice water on hot days as a kid to remember that it was a bad idea.
As I lowered the cup, one of the other men, the short, dark-skinned man who sat at his left, leaned closer to him. He stared at me and said something just loud enough for me to hear. I only caught part of it. "...Yeshua..."
I started to laugh. They'd done it again. Then, the lights came and everything started to fade. Just like always...