Entries Tagged 'Word Exercises' ↓

A few weeks ago, Eric posted about a writing exercise in which you only use single syllable words. I decided to give it a try, but first I had to come up with a title to work from. I cleared my mind, set forth the constraint that it was to be a phrase consisting of single syllable words (might as well start off on the right foot) and took the first thing that popped in, which happened to be “one sin”. Now, it is entirely possible that my subconscious was instead trying to convey the phrase “once in”, but I think “one sin” has more potential. So, without further ado, it’s time to get all monosyllabic.

“One Sin”

Once in the church, I found the priest with a frayed frock tied much too tight ’round his neck. I thought that I might just back out the way that I had come in, but some other soul who had come in from the cold blocked the door. Her hand flew to make the sign of the cross as she weighed the scene in front of her. She must have seen too much of the type of show where the perp hung out and got caught, since she eyed me with a tinge of fear. I tried to speak, but found no words could be coaxed from my throat while my lips pursed and then gave part, all with no sound. By the look in her eye, this was not what she would need for us to get past this point. “Not me,” I croaked with a whisp of drawn breath, while she paused to stare at the floor.

When her eyes once more were raised, she spoke, each word forced like a great weight from deep in her chest. “One sin, that was all I came back to make up for,” she said. “And now,” she said as she crossed the floor with new found drive, so fast that I could not move, “I have to live with one more.”

If it had not been for the integrated axiotromic calendar, Brother Leon would not have known which decade he was living in, let alone the day or the time. Not that time mattered much out here. Each day on this world, with its three suns and four oddly orbiting moons, provided only fleeting hours of nightfall, and those hours were sporadic at best. Over the years, he and the other Brothers had adapted to the lack of sleep that so much daylight induced, which suited them well, since their regimen imposed seven periods of prayer and contemplation throughout the day—twelve during Lent and the Holy Week.

Even so, Brother Leon found his mind a little foggy this morning as he performed the scheduled system maintenance on the hydromatic oxygenator vents. It was a grungy job that left his hands and face blackened for weeks. With water being in such short supply on the station, his bi-monthly showers would not begin to remove the greasy build-up, especially the five minute showers he and the novice Brothers were allotted. It was times like that he felt his old worldly ambitions creep into his soul once again, with their urges to rise in the corporate ranks and enjoy the privileges that men of status and power enjoyed. Certainly the Abbot was not limited to a five minute shower! But even as these thoughts began to surface, Brother Leon pushed them back down and refocused his mind on the task at hand and the prayer for this day, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner…Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner…” Besides, the Abbot had so many more responsibilities than he did, and a man in his position had to make all those reports to the Colonial Exploration Board over the TeleTron; he had to look presentable.

Brother Leon finished screwing in the panels for duct 14-A and was about to carry his tools across the hall to the adjacent panel when an announcement came over the HumanaVox system. “Thirty minutes until Matins. Repeat, thirty minutes until Matins.” Aside from the recitations and prayers the Brothers heard each day in the chapel, these announcements were the only time they experienced a voice other than the one resonating in their own minds. For Brother Leon, this was still something he was getting used to. He had grown up in a family with four younger sisters, and their perpetual babbling had nearly driven him mad as a boy. It seemed that whenever he had tried to read or watch a DigiFlick, his sisters would be sitting around him, quarreling among themselves or interrupting him with their constant barrage of questions. The only time he could get away from the chatter was when he was using the Excrovac, and even then they would likely barge in to fetch something from the counter drawer.

Well, he certainly did not have to worry about female interruptions here. Although some of the newer congregations had gone co-gender, the Bishop of his order would have none of that, especially for deep-space assignments such as this. This, of course, suited Brother Leon just fine, and that is why he had requested to serve his first term on New Haven-12. The sense of order and discipline appealed to him in a way that nothing on Terra Prime offered. Not only was he serving his God, he was also helping to provide a vital service to his people. Perhaps if his inner life progressed the way he hoped, he may even be chosen for a long term journey aboard one of the Interplanetary Probes. Their order’s founder, Bishop Thomas, had been traveling alone now for over seven years on his way to the proposed site for Harmony 7 in the Gamma system. He is now so far out on his journey that the base only communicates with him once every eighteen months; soon it will be once every twenty months. But who could possibly perform this mission better than one of the Brothers? These men crave quiet and solitude in order to hear the voice of the Lord more clearly—away from all the noisy ambitious squabblings of the world. Yes, that’s what Brother Leon wanted to be. It was his life’s true mission, but first he had to finish cleaning these vents before Matins.

This is a ‘one-pager’ that we do alot for exercises in my writing group. As mentioned in the Short and Sweet post it’s just a sketch. The idea was to write a piece using only one syllable words.

He sat back in his chair and played at calm. He clenched the stem of the pipe in his teeth and puffed but the pipe had gone out. He stared at the ash in the bowl and looked at the clock. He reached for a match but the bell rang. She was here. Not yet time but she was here. He jumped up, went for the door but he still had the pipe. He went back and set it down, swept a hand through his hair, sighed.

She came through the door one step at a time, like a shy deer at a pool. Her hair was still long, still dark but now there was a thin streak of white. She saw him look and brushed it back but he shook his head. It’s not what you think.

“I’m glad you came,” was all he said, took her coat. “Thank you.”

She just gave a nod and looked around. Yet, she walked in. The smell of pipe smoke still hung in the air. Her head came up to sniff. He thought once more of the deer. He hung the coat on the rack and placed a hand on the small of her back walked her all the way in. She saw all the food and stopped.

“What’s all this?”

“I cooked,” he rushed forth, pulled back a chair, but she just crossed her arms. “Please, sit.”

“You said a drink. This is too much.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“No,” she said, arms still crossed, “I mean it is too much. I just ate.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well we can still sit. We can talk.”

“Talk? What’s left to say.”

“Who knows?” he said and held out his hand to the chair. “I thought I had said it all but I was a fool. That much is clear at last. At least to me.”

She shrugged and sat and he joined her. He looked at all the food but there was no way he could eat. He looked at her, her set jaw, and sighed.

“There are things you have to hear…no,” he stopped. “That’s not quite right. Things I have to say, I think. If you’ll let me.” He stopped, and now leaned back. Can she know how hard this is? He thought.
And then he heard his voice in his head clear as a bell. Why don’t you tell her?

“Ah…this is hard,” he said, his chest tight, voice soft and now she was the one to sigh.

“Why don’t we start with the drinks?” she said.

“Of course,” he said, “how could it slip my mind?”

He stood and went to the board and there was the clink of glass on glass. Her eyes slipped from his stooped back to the door. Why was she here? Much of her knew she should go but more of her thought she should stay, at least for a while. When she turned he was there.

“I think you’ll like this,” he said. “How does port sound?”

She stared, eyes wide, the glass was dark as coal and the ink could not be read for it was quite old. Still she knew what it said.

“Is this…from his stock?” her voice held doubt though it was right there to see. “I thought…”

“It was all gone? So did I. There’s more. So much I should have seen. I’d like to share it with you. Please.”

Tears filled her eyes and one spilled, gleamed on her cheek, her chin. Then she smiled and the tear fell. “Just pour,” she said.

He did as she bid and they both drank. It was strong and danced on their tongues, full of notes. The port went down smooth. It was a good year. It had stood the test of time.

A few days back I ran across a small paperback my wife had lying around. It was The Miracle of Languageby Richard Lederer and was published in ‘91. It’s a quick read, musings on English and it’s use but one chapter hit me. It was “The Case for Short Words”. The chapter was fittingly brief, only four and a half pages where the author praises the grace and strength of short words over the plodding ambiguity created by poorly used long words.

Apparently Lederer is also a high school English teacher. Believing wholly in the power of short words he sets his ninth graders a task. They are to write a composition, anything they want, but they can’t use words with more than one syllable. Now “omit needless words” is one thing but monosyllables only? Thing is the author posted the work of the ninth graders and, freed from the pressure to use ‘fancy’ vocabulary they write clear and heartfelt pieces. Lederer gives two examples and they’re good. Now I love me some ten-dollar words so this exercise sounded worth a try-break out of the comfort zone and all that. I gave it a shot on the ‘one-pagers’ we do in my writing group.

The key-word was aperitif so I was already starting with a fancy multisyllable word. The result was interesting. It was a little awkward at first but the trick seemed to be rhythm. With single syllables the sentences seem to need a meter to get the flow right and it felt a bit like trying to write poetry. I doubt I’ll give up all my high falootin words but anyone who gets distracted trying to think of the exactly perfect word to describe the color of the red bricks could just say ‘brick red’ and keep typing. I’ll post it below if you want to read it but it’s just a vignette, not a complete story. And hey, it’s short.

This is a short story I wrote for our writing group. We take a random word and use it as inspiration to write something for each session. For this short, the word was “barber“

The barber slid the scissors into the blue Barbicide and wiped the countertop. Little moments to catch up on the cleaning, the tidying, were important to him. A brief rest and a chance to get things back to being just so.

Behind the barber, the door pushed open, the broken entry bell clacked. The small room with its three chairs wouldn’t let you out of sight of the door if you tried, so the bell had always been more of an accent than a necessity, and its repair not a keen concern.

The barber smiled, turning to greet his customer. He locked eyes with the man across the room and felt the world spin. His legs grew unsteady. He felt as if sliding down a steep hill of gravel, his thoughts scrabbling for some purchase while threatening to tumble uncontrollably.

Below the customer’s dark eyes, the same moustache, the same style clothes. Yes, tucked into his belt, the same Colt Single Action Army handgun. He could see the familiar knick in the handle from here, as if there really was any doubt. Two young punks tried to rob the barber once, one with a semi-automatic that he waved in the barber’s face and fired twice into the ceiling. That whole affair didn’t shake him as much as seeing just the butt of that old gun.

Walking to a chair, the customer glided into the seat. He broke his direct gaze with the barber only to transfer it to the barber’s reflection in the mirror. The customer sat comfortably, elbows on the cracked black armrests and hands folded in his lap. Waiting.

They stared at each other a moment before the barber picked up a fresh cape and swung it around the customer’s neck. Snapped it closed. The customer’s hair was trimmed close, recently done. His face was full of stubble, two, maybe three days old.

The customer watched calmly as the barber leaned the chair back.

Turning his back to the customer, the barber flicked the straight edge up and down the strop as the lather warmed. He tensed as something clicked behind him, then realized it was just the chair creaking. He closed his eyes a moment and took a breath.

Moments later he bent over the customer’s face, drawing clean paths through the lather with the blade. Some part of his mind shrieked at him to slice deeply with the razor. Instead he focused intently on the curves and angles of the face and neck, catching every hair, moving deftly, scraping lightly, drawing no blood.

Momentarily lost in his work, he forgot who sat in the chair. Straightening and reaching for the hot towel he knew the main in the chair had no such lapse.

The customer patted his face with the towel as the barber set the chair upright and backed away. The customer stood, tossing the towel onto a counter. He pulled the cape forward, snaps popping, and tossed it onto the chair. He rubbed his clean jaw, lips pursing appreciatively at the quality of the work.

“So…”, the barber said at last.

(Note: Several members of my group pointed out the similiarities between my story and “Lather and Nothing Else.” I don’t recall ever reading or hearing of that story before, but there are definitely common ideas. I’ve never had this happen quite so strongly before, so it was rather odd.)