Thank you to everyone that participated in the May Mini-Challenge! The thread of course is still open if anyone wants to post anything else using that theme. However, I'm going ahead and starting up the June Mini-Challenge!

Just today, I was outside and found that it didn't take long for me to come up with an appropriate theme for June. So the theme for our mini-challenge is:

Heat

Write a short story or poem of your choosing based the hot days of summer, the heat of a fire, global warming, anything you can think of that would relate to this open-ended theme!

As always, I look forward to reading everyone's submissions!

David L. [midrael]
Writer's Forum Moderator

Ha!

No lack of inspiration here!

Shall get down to the needful, unless run over by the Procrastination Bus, which roars around the corner,  always a little later than you expect. :D

Thanks David, for the theme.

Yeah, this particular theme is near and dear to my heart because I absolutely hate hot weather! And of course I live in Tennessee and already daily temperatures are in the high 90s. Ugh.

Looking forward to reading what everyone comes up with! =)

David L.

White Hot Lightning

J. M. Strother

White hot lightning streaks overhead. The thunderclap jolts me from bed. That was close. Too close. Check around. Two dead televisions, a radio, DSL modem, router, and and ethernet card. Now that makes me hot! I guess I am lucky. At least the tree did not fall on the garage.

Thought I'd offer up a Brian as my first contirbution to the mini-challenge (and explain my recent silence). For those of you who are unfamiliar with Brians, they are bits of prose of exactly 50 words (not counting the title).

~jon

Make Reservations Early!
J. M. Strother

“Really, there must be some mistake,” Randolf Cunningham insisted, craning his neck to see over the counter.

“No,” the man behind the counter replied in a firm voice. He moved the book aside, to keep Randolf from seeing the entries on the ledger. “I am sorry, Mr. Cunningham, but there is no reservation in your name.”

“How can that be? I was sure I had everything taken care of.”

“Apparently not.”

“Well, surely you can find room? Could you just, you know, bump somebody else? After all, I am, er, was, a very important man. I'm on the board of four Fortune 500 companies.”

“You mean you were on the board...”

“Well, yes, technically. But I still have friends in high places.”

“Not high enough, I'm afraid.”

“Well, this is ridiculous! What is your name? I want to speak to your supervisor.”

The man pointed to the name plate on the counter.

Gabriel.

“Well, Gabriel, I want to speak to your supervisor immediately.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham, but he is very busy right now. He won't be able to see you. However, we do have alternate accommodations ready for you.” He pointed to the elevator door on the other side of the gilded lobby. The elevator marked “Down”.

Mr. Cunningham swallowed hard. “You don't suppose they have any air conditioned rooms there, do you?”

“I'm afraid not.” Gabriel looked down at his ledger and then back up and over Mr. Cunningham's head. “Next!”

Both are great,Jon.I like the atmosphere you create in your first entry.It has a sharpness of words that acutely accent the state of the protagonist...Well done!I like Brian.Tell me more!

And LOL at your second one.Are you sure your real name isn't Rod Serling?Do doo,do doo...LOL.

As to the challenge,I'll give it a go...but ...be forewarned...I'm a total newbie at writing....I usually,but with great and painstaking effort, produce something somewhat, almost, kind of, sort of, approximating  something remotely akin to acceptable,lol,...but then... I totally decimate it by rewriting it within an inch of it's life.

Just like I did with that sentence.

LOL.

But if you want me to,I'll try.Not much time left,though,for all my rewrites,lol.

 Heat

                                                               Hanevi

I am squeezed in from all sides in the disgusting press of hot, human bodies. The air is oppressive: warm and muggy, like a damp cloth exuding nauseating, unwashed odours. I try not to think of the corners and crevices of sour human flesh. I am trying to stay afloat in this tank full of foetid air, trying to keep my head above the surface where smells, rancid and decaying, float like oil slicks on the sea. Perspiration trickles down my nose, ears and back where my shirt sticks, slick with sweat. I hold on to frayed leather straps to keep myself lurching from side to side as the noise of traffic rumbles and screams, grates and roars, a river of steel and rubber running amok on asphalt roads cracked with vexation, worn bare by fatigue and harassed by the baleful sun.

I feel a sharp pain in my back, and realise that someone’s briefcase is digging into me. I have no space to turn around and look at the man, and I am far too tired to try, and it would be of no use anyway, in this crowded madness where tempers, frayed and violent, seethe like electric currents in the despairing air. I think of giving up.

We come to a sudden, screeching halt. We are all thrown forward. My glasses are pushed awry by someone’s elbow. Somebody calls me an obscene name. I feel a surge of violent rage and I toy with the idea of letting my mind snap, of going hysterically insane and bloodying people’s faces around me. I can feel my mind begin to bend and I just about control myself, reluctantly, like burning rubber that is not easily extinguished. There is a heated argument going on outside while we remain unmoving for fifteen long minutes, shifting on our feet, muttering. I catch glimpses through my sweat-blinded eyes, of faces around me: some tired, some resigned, some blank, some worn thin and stretched almost to breaking, and always that hanging smell of unwashed and putrefying flesh. I notice people staring at me, and suddenly realize that my face is strained and that I have a headache. My forehead hurts from frowning, and my mouth and cheeks are stretched in a grimace.

I let my face relax as we start moving again and some warm air comes in through the windows. I try to catch glimpses of where we are. We pass crowds of people outside waiting to go home and I notice the same expressions, like eyes mesmerized by a pendulum, the crowds like coal on a conveyor belt. I think of vast furnaces and the clacking of gigantic machines below the roads, the heart of the city, black with the greasy bodies and souls of people caught between the huge gears and cogs, where they’ve fallen in through the open man-holes. A sense of claustrophobia engulfs me, and I have to control myself again, this time to keep from weeping. My mind refuses to understand how people can accept a life like this.

There is a sense of relief as I realize that I will get off soon now, and I gather my strength one last time so that I can get through the unyielding crowd to the door, and then feel a gathering panic when I realize that the crowd will not give way. I hear myself shouting, but have no idea what I am saying. My phone falls to the floor, and an old man tells me that it is at his feet. I get down in the forest of legs and pick it up, feel an effusion of gratefulness, and thank him with a touch of madness, and fight my way to the door, where I finally abuse the driver into stopping, well after my stop has passed. I get down after an argument at the door with someone who is angry at my getting off because he has to move out of the way, and the bus moves on.

I walk shakily back, dragging my feet, and feeling as though I had been raped. It takes me half an hour before my mind settles down to a bone-weary numbness.

A vague thought trickles through my mind, “I need to write something on ‘Heat’ for the Rosity post...”

Whew! Just made it!

That was a true story, by the way. Happened about ten days ago. And it was much worse than I've described it. I got tired of writing... :( ... But it's the first bit of prose I've written in a long time, so that's been good. :)

I really liked your tongue in cheek little story with its acid edge satire so well-cloaked in humour, Jon, and I hope you make it in time Margana. I'm sure your stories are as good as your Haiku. :)

Hanevi.

Wonderfully written,Hanevi.I could practically smell the sweaty bodies and feel them pressing against me in the heat.That would be maddening,indeed.You have truly created an oppressive atmosphere,here.I felt uncomfortable just reading it!

Sorry to hear this was a real event.You have my sincerest sympathy. :^(

As to my writing...I doubt I'll get in 'under the gun'...As I said,with the amount of rewrites I do,it seems almost impossible!But thanks for the vote of confidence. :^)

An excellent bit of descriptive prose, Hanevi. I'm glad it's not your daily commute (at least assuming so, from the 10 days ago thing). Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, mass transit.

The closest I've ever come to that was on a city bus in Paris last summer. A bunch of stupid American tourists (that would be us) jammed onto the bus and caused some poor woman to miss her stop. If looks could kill...

But it does not sound anywhere near as wrenching as your experience.

Good to see another posting.

~jon

Okay guys...This totally,totally stinks.... It's only a piece of something...and it's after the cut-off date,to boot,lol.

But I did try to do something. So I thought I'd at least show you that I made the effort,lol. As I said before,I'm no writer. I'm just here to have fun and dabble...sigh...

Remember...I said I know it stinks...okay?

The entire city sweats tonight...

Granite buildings gleam and glisten,
as if shedding the daily efforts spent therein.

Thirsty sidewalks lit by impotent rainfall,

falsely promise respite...

while  the humidity hangs in the air like an unwanted lover.

That's it,lol.  Isn't that pathetic?But I tried.

All right, Marlene! Dabbling's great. And it's not pathetic. Glad you took a stab. The more people that get involved the more fun it is. And fun is what it's all about.

~jon

Aw. You're sweet.

You're right.The more the merrier!

Thanks Jon! It's not a daily thing on the bus, thank God, but it's often enough to be bad. Thanks for the comment on the prose; I really need to get out of writing only descriptive prose, but I find it easier to write poetry, so I guess I'm still discovering myself.

Hey Marlene, it's so good to see your post! Your writing has depth and imagery that stops one for a second look. It's very good. I like the lines:

'Granite buildings gleam and glisten,
as if shedding the daily efforts spent therein.'

There's much depth in your brevity, so it's very good to read and think about. :)

Best wishes all, Hanevi.

Aw,shucks,lol.

Thank you so much,Hanevi. That means a lot coming from you. :^)