Exercise 9

Prompt: Part 1: Write one piece with ONLY dialogue, Part 2: Write a piece in the perspective of someone opposite from you, Part 3: Describe a person through their room and scene after an event

PART ONE:

A: Abe? Abe are you home? Could you help me with these bags please? They’re a bit heavy.

B: …

A: Abe! What are you doing! Get down from that balcony before you kill yourself!

B: …

A: Sit down here, come on! What were you doing up there? If you had fallen…don’t tell me you’ve been at the whiskey again, Abe you know how much I hate it when you-

B: It wasn’t the whisky, Jessie. It wasn’t the whisky.

A: Abe…I just…I…Here now look at what I got you from the store. Corn on the cob, prime steak, potatoes, a nice jug of cider. I thought tonight we might have a nice proper meal, maybe even put on those records you like so much. Oh won’t it be wonderful?

B: …

A: Oh, of course if you don’t want eat at home we could go out. Yes! Oh that’d be grand, won’t it Abe? We could go to Charleston’s, I’ve heard it’s very good. What do you think of that, dear?

B: Jessie…

A: But if you don’t like Charleston’s we could go get some Italian food at the little place on fourth, you love Italian food-

B: Jessie! I…I think I just need to go out for a while.

A: …

B: …

A: Abe?

B: Yes, Jessie,

A: You…you will be here for dinner won’t you?

B: …

A: Oh Abe please, please promise you’ll be here for dinner.

B: I…I promise.

PART TWO:

There were a lot of skanks in the bar, but she, ohh, she was something else. Of course she was probably still a skank, what girl wasn’t these days, but she had the face of a feminist, the kind of sexy face that tells you they won’t take crap from men, that they’re stronger than that, that they have a higher purpose than being some guy’s one nighter at a dingy bar on a Tuesday night. Of course that was all bullshit, because here she was, breast gleaming out of her joke of a shirt, box of condoms poking out through her skanky purse, and what was the date? Ah yes, Tuesday the 10^th. I walked over casually. It was stupid that it had to be casual. I knew we were going to f**k, she knew we were going to f**k, so what was the point in acting like a gentlemen? I suppose it was just to give her some desperate hope that I’d stay in the morning, that maybe I’d go on a second date with her, that maybe I’d propose, that maybe we’d laugh about how strange our first meeting was years from now in a country house by the lake. But that was all bullshit too. You don’t come to a dingy bar on a Tuesday night to meet a gentleman. You come to a dingy bar on a Tuesday night because you’re alone or unhappy or just plain lustful and all you want is a burst of pleasure to take your mind off it all so that you can go back to your life the next day and think about what a mistake it was to go to a dingy bar on a Tuesday night, only to do it all over again the next week. But I was overanalyzing again. I reached my hand over across the waist, just low enough to tell her I meant business but not low enough to offend her feminist mentality. And then we were kissing and then we were f*****g and oh god it was such a wonderful Tuesday night. 

PART THREE:

PERSON DESCRIPTION:

The engraved name card on his desk read “Business Executive”. By the way it shined it was easy to tell that it had been well taken care of, maybe even to an excess. There were faux ferns in each of the corners by the window, and looking out it you could see nothing but lines of concrete and pillars of glass. There was a large framed picture of a smiling man hanging above the door. Perhaps this was the “Business Executive”. Or perhaps his boss judging by the tie. A much small frame lay on a bookshelf on the right wall. It showed a faded smiling photograph of a family of four, but the dust over it covered most of their features. It was interesting to note also that the books that surrounding the bookshelf were not books at all, but were cardboard imitations nailed to the wood for decoration.

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

There were so many soda cups and candy bar wrappers that littered the metal stands. Foam fingers, which cost 5.99 at the “Fan Fun Shop” were tossed about like leaves. Someone had even left a jersey, easily re-sellable for 50 bucks on eBay. A lot of the trash had drifted onto the field by the wind, and from high up on the stands you could squint your eyes and imagine that the pile of cup holder trays was actually the quarterback and that the toppling heap of paper plates was the wide receiver. A few people had even left their air horns on the benches, but all of them were exhausted; no one would leave behind a working air horn, think of all the amazing things that could be done with a few extra blasts back in “civilized” country. The air smelled thickly of hog dogs and ketchup, mixed with fries and popcorn. All you had to do was open your mouth, sit on the cold metal bench and inhale that pungent breeze to feel like you were sitting again in the middle of the action. But the cleanup man preferred to keep his mouth shut and instead dreaded the day when the stands would once again be filled and they cycle would repeat.