He was off his face. I didn’t know what on but I’d dabbled in narcotics at College and I knew it had to be something strong. I needed him to produce a pen and paper so we could exchange insurance details and I could get out of there. This seemed to present a major problem. If he could have kept his long, black, Christ-like hair out of his eyes for more than two seconds maybe it might have been easier. After some time he returned with a sheet of foolscap. And a large yellow crayon. Was that all he had? Apparently so. Perhaps he’d write down his details for me and then I’d write down mine for him.
“Details, Man?”
“Yes, your details – like your name and address, your insurance company..stuff like that.”
“My name?”
“Please.”
He stooped over the table and hid what he was writing like a child doing an exam. After maybe ten seconds or so, he stood up and gingerly proffered the sheet to me. In huge yellow letters taking up most of the top half of the page he had written ‘ d a n `.
I tried to hide the smile, indeed to stifle a giggle.
“No, sorry eh, Dan. That won’t do. I need your full name”
He took the sheet back with a sheepish shrug and an ‘Ooh , ye-eah. Right.’
After some more furtive scrawling he offered it to me again. He had added ‘ i e l `
Author notes
Okay, I know I'm taking a bit of a liberty here but I'm entering this in an 'extremely' short story competition. I'm hoping you'll tell me if it works or not.
In a list
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
-
250 words? It takes me more than that to say Good Morning. Thing is, it felt like a lot more than that (in a good way). You made me smell this guy, and you made me want to poke you and make you crack out that stifled giggle, because that was me standing just behind your left shoulder. Sssh I think my mid life crisis could well take the form of a VW camper painted with rainbows and the obligatory sunny face of the 'Nuclear power? Nein Danke' sticker in the rear window.
A friend of mine told me a similar tale last week, where he was convinced the Estonians in the hire car who ran into the back of him at traffic lights were not quite as ignorant of the English language and custom as they were making out. The driver who 'could speak no English' after the 10 minutes of arm waving between his passengers and my friend suddenly pointed to the lights and said 'they are green. Why you not go?' My friend, flustered, then pointed out that 10 minutes previously they were red. The moral? Nothing ever changes, except hair styles and the circumference of trouser bottoms.
Yep- you focussed the story right in to the interesting and important bit with a precision all the more sharp in contrast to the bimbling of your subject. -
I love this one, John, and of course, I am not surprised in the least at your prose-prowess. It's precisely the right length, and the structure and humor all blend in a satisfying little package. Good luck with competition.
I wouldn't say you're taking a liberty at all-- unless you mean you're taking fictional liberties with an actual event, which I could see you doing.
Have you heard of "flash fiction"? It's a trendy literary form, or at least it was a year or two ago. I haven't seen much about it since, but this fits the bill perfectly-- not long enough to be a short story, but a long prose-poem that captures a moment.
I wish I could write like this.
XOXO
Lauren
. Rewarded 4
-
Round the Bender!
Fender Bender is exceedingly amusing, John. I ve read it twice now (in slightly different states) and it was just as funny both times. I must say I prefer the prose piece. It just saunters along at such an even pace that the laconic punchline hits perfectly.
After my first read I cogitated a tad and thought perhaps it might be worth testing a slightly longer intro whereby you offer some snippets of info on the actual incident leading to this spaced out exchange. But it would have to be TOTALLY in keeping with the rest in its low-key nonchalance.
This is something Neil from The Young Ones could do and it leaves me wondering just how many novel ideas you garner over a pint of guinness and casual conversation at your local. God I d kill for a pint right now! But here I am stuck in the backwards backwoods.
Good luck in the comp, mate! It s the fish one right?
Oil be preyin fur thee.
Like gGroovy, man.
. Rewarded 4
-
-
You're too gGracious
Thanks for the appropriate feedback here gG, letting me know you 'got' the points. Of course I'd have liked to put more in but 250 words is the limit here. If you include the title - its 250 words. I 'squandered' a lot of them on 'his Christ like hair getting in his eyes'. Did it elicit memories of how hippies used to constantly toss their hair and sweep it out of their eyes all the time? Yeah, Niel just about nails this guy.Bizarrely, he really exists and this really happened. He'd parked his hippymobile just around a bad bend. He came out to check the 'bang' and couldn't get anything more than 'Wow man! Look what you did my ca-ar!' together - repeatedly! I didn't have a pen or paper so we went into his gate-lodge 'pad' to find one.
I met him nearly a year later. He remembered the whole thing - my name ( all of it!), where I lived , what I looked like. Seems only his own name gave him trouble. Then he said I owed his brother money (I'd never met his brother) and threatened to duff me up! Go Figure.
I entered the original story in the One Page Short Story competition. I know it won't surface - but it was fun. Like this was. I rarely go 'down the pub' these days. It's not the same since everything got so PC and ...sober. But I raised a small glass of Sauvignon to you tonight. Peace Man . >W<
-
-
love it!
I absolutely love this! I don't quiet get the second sentence, may be i'm not reading it right. It's a beautiful [can I call it story?]piece one I find humourous. This is really cooool
. Rewarded 4
-
-
Peace Man!
Glad you liked it.
-
-
Another look...
...and I'm still impressed. I'm not a story writer, but I think a short story, despite its severe boundaries of theme and length, needs to imply a deep human experience. This does, John.
It's lightly funny: a juiced-up guy who's so out of it that he can't make any sense of the situation. But there's a deeper possibility: he's playing with you, playing dumbed-out in order to put you off and get out of there. You may or may not have intended that, but it makes the little story have more depth than at first appears.
Just right for a necessarily tightly composed "extremely short story", I think. It's got a beginning (the title), a middle (the conversation) and an end that's got, as I say, a couple of meanings, as most human altercations do. And the characterization of both persons is packed with just enough information to make them real and interesting.
Best of luck in the competition! Either way, as a prose piece or reformed into a light poem, it works. By the way, I like the poetic version better - has more pointed pizazz, but that's just my prejudice. Maybe send it in both ways in different categories?
Lad. Rewarded 4
-
Great little incident.
JohnBird, I do like bits of real incidents like this; they make up for all the cosmic meaning stuff we poets can be prone to from time to time. It's good.
"He was off his face" must be Irish or Brit slang, and I like it - perfect expression for this charming but out-of-it guy.
If you use "might" instead of "would" in the 6th line of the first paragraph, you'll get a rhyme with "eyes" above it, but I know you're not so much interested in rhyme in this little short story, so up to you of course.
Enjoyable, and I know how tough it is to encapsulate a day's passing events into something that shines. This does.
Lad
-
-
Ol' Faithful!
Lad, before beginning this (overdue) reply just let me say how much I appreciate your stalwart and oh-so-reliable attention and support. I put out a call for help with this little 'cheat' - and I KNEW you'd come up with the goods. For this and every single other small attention , thank you sincerely. You are truly appreciated.
Of course, this is not a poem at all, but a 250word short story. I wanted to know if the minimal detail and information let the story - and the humour - come across. I installed your change of course, the least I could do. Subsequently I 're-jigged' it to look like it might have had I written it as a poem. I'll paste it here maybe and you can see what you think. Given that its for a prose competition I don't see any benefit in the more poetic composition. Or would you agree? Thanks - as always! >W<
Oh Yeah - here's that 'edit'
Fender Bender 2
He was off his face.
I didn’t know what on
but something stronger than dope
or drink.
It made him paranoid
Made him think I was up to something
I wasn’t.
I just wanted to swap insurance details and get out
of his face and his place.
A minor fender bender
with his piss-poor parked hippy micro-bus outside
was nothing to be getting uptight about.
But he didn’t get that
or the notepad and pen I’d asked for
“He-ey Ma-aan
this is a heavy vibe to lay on a guy
where am I gonna find all this stuff?”
The foolscap he’d found fitted the bill somehow.
Not quite so the big yellow crayon
But it would just have to to do
Enough already.
Would he write down his name and some details?
“my name man?” - he paled
but then
eventually, p a i n s t a k i n g l y
scrawled
this HUGE something and nothing at all.
It read ‘ D A N ` .
And I had to laugh - but didn’t
“No, sorry – eh , Dan but if its all the same
your full name ..”
I was gently handing it back
He shrugged and nodded sheepishly before taking
some time to finish,
his head bobbing that he’d got the knack now.
Surprising – or not – to tell
he had finished it
‘I E L`
I thought ‘what the hell –
I’m outa here’
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 9 of 9
