[stylist] Winter writing prompt
Brad Dunsé
lists at braddunsemusic.com
Fri Feb 3 23:04:30 UTC 2012
I'd often thought how weird it'd be if we had
black snow haha. I thought maybe the chemicals in
the blue snow were going to miraculously get Tim
out of his chair there for a bit. Quite
imaginative piece. Maybe the rain will be black come springtime ;)
Brad
On 2/3/2012 02:49 PM Barbara Hammel said...
>I really like that story. The uncles were
>hilarious! I also like the surreal blue
>snow. I thought blue snow only fell when Paul Bunyan was alive. LOL!
>Barbara
>
>
>
>
>Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
>-----Original Message----- From: Jacobson, Shawn D
>Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 2:12 PM
>To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>Subject: [stylist] Winter writing prompt
>
>Writer's division,
>
>I don't really have anything new for a winter's
>writing prompt, but I will share a story I wrote
>a couple of years ago for the writing contest with a winter theme.
>
>I hope you like it.
>
>Shawn
>
>Blue Christmas
>By Shawn Jacobson
>
>I looked out the window at the Blue snow. It
>wasn't royal blue or cornflower blue, but it was
>a light blue, baby blue or robin's egg blue. It
>was just blue enough to be really strange.
>"Wow!" exclaimed Timmy; "I've never seen that before."
>"So it worked, we were hoping it would"
>proclaimed Uncle Bob. We've been working at the
>lab for a long time on this new additive. Now,
>we can have snow even when it's 50 degrees
>out. You know what they say, better living through chemistry".
>"ah! So we have doctor Bobinstein to thank for
>this. I should have known" sneered Uncle
>Fred. "Did you test this in the lab first, or
>are we your helpless guinea pigs? But wait,
>don't answer, the inexorable march of science is
>too important to be held up by anything as old fashion as caution."
>"Yep, you're the kind of guinea pigs who like
>all the good things our lab comes up with but
>likes to gripe about us all the time, or would
>you not like to have the heart meds that keep
>you from keeling over with a heart attack" Bob
>asked? "I guess you forget, our lab did the
>original work on your heart pills. Maybe if you
>were as helpless as who whine about being we would have cured cancer by now."
>"He Joe" Timmy asked "can you take me around the
>block? I brought the ski attachments for my wheelchair."
>"You know what" Mom said "That would be a good
>thing. It would get you out of the house so you
>could play in show. You get Timmy out of the
>chair and Dad and I will put the skis on. It's
>a good thing your dad ordered your chair from a
>Swedish company; they still have winter up there."
>"Sure Mom" I said. I can't wait to see how this stuff feels".
>"Enjoy it Joe." Uncle Bob said jovially, "it's the snow of the future".
>"Brought to you by the same people who brought
>you global warming, the ozone hole, and mutant corn rot" snorted Uncle Fred.
>Outside the blue snow fell in big fluffy
>flakes. It felt a bit strange, a little to
>slick and it tasted funny when it melted on the
>tongue, but it was fun to play in and it made
>awesome snowballs. "How do you like your ride
>Teddy Bear" I asked? And yes, I was teasing him.
>"Don't call me that" yelled Timmy "I don't mooch
>rides from truckers like that brat in that dino
>country song your dad has. And I don't act whiny like that kid either."
>"What the dickens do you want me to call you
>then, Tiny Tim?" I retorted. It would be the right time of year for that."
>"Ah man" sighed Timmy, "all I want to be is
>Timmy your friend, not the little crippled boy
>who inspires people every time he goes to school
>or something, not the kid who seems so happy in
>his wheelchair all the time, just an ordinary
>kid who gets in trouble some times and does good
>things sometimes and has adventures, just like
>normal kids. That's all I want to be, a kid,
>like you are". After a while, Timmy cooled down
>some and said "OK, the CB thing was about
>dodging cops so you could break the speed limit,
>so that was cool in a dino sort of way. But,
>really, that song was just too Barney to be believed".
>No one was sure just why Timmy was small and
>crippled. His mom said it was a birth defect
>caused by chemicals where she worked. His dad
>said it was caused by a botched delivery at the
>hospital. Lawyers for the hospital claimed it
>was due to drugs that his mom had taken. As I
>said, nobody knew for sure and doctors and
>lawyers had been fighting it out for years. Dad
>said that it just proved that if you laid all
>the doctors and lawyers in the world up end to
>end you still wouldn't reach a conclusion; but
>then dad said a lot of things like that.
>I pushed the ski chair past the houses with the
>Christmas lights. Past the elaborately
>decorated house of the old guy on the corner,
>past the house with the refugee family from New
>Orleans, past Mayor Kenneth's house with the new
>holographic Christmas tree outside. Finally, we
>got back home and scraped the blue snow off our
>boots. "Ug!" I complained. "Look at the grungy
>stuff that snow leaves behind when it
>melts." Uncle Fred was too busy going at it
>with Uncle Bob about politics to pick up on the comment.
>In the house, Mom was almost ready with
>Christmas supper. In the living room, Dad was
>putting the Timmy's gifts under the Christmas
>tree. Meanwhile Uncle Bob and Uncle Fred were
>going at it like two roosters in a chicken coop that was too small.
>"That's right, I remember your friend Bill. He
>was the one who said Obama was going to save the
>world from global warming. He sure was right, wasn't he" said Uncle Bob.
>"Well you said that Obama was a closet
>terrorist, so you weren't that smart either"
>rejoined Uncle Fred. "He would have been an
>excellent president if you write-wing loonies
>hadn't fought him every step of the way".
>"That's right" Uncle Bob growled. "Us right
>wing loonies kept Obama from getting us so far
>in debt that we wouldn't have any money for environmental research at all."
>"Dinner's on" Mom shouted.
>"What are we having" asked Timmy?
>"Probably that mutant squirrel variant that's
>supposed to taste like turkey" Fred groaned.
>"If you eco freaks had let us treat the mutant
>bird flue instead of raising a big old stink
>about it, maybe the turkeys would not have died
>off" said Uncle Bob with exasperation. "Of
>course, if you don't want any you can go out in
>the yard and eat bark off the trees".
>"I survived the dorm food at Friley Hall"
>snorted Uncle Fred. "I'm sure I can handle
>anything you mad scientist types can dish
>out". I had the feeling that dinner would
>require lots of intestinal fortitude.
>Then the food was served and everyone set in to
>eating, the squirrel was kind of strange and the
>meat had a definite aftertaste but it was good
>in its way and the uncles declared a tacit cease-fire in their argument.
>"Gee!" exclaimed Mom, "its really coming down
>out there. Has anyone heard the weather forecast?"
>Dad turned on the internet browser in his wrist
>watch; after a while he said "The weatherman
>says we're supposed to get two feet out of this
>storm, more cold air is moving down from Canada
>than was expected and the storm coming up from
>Oklahoma is stronger than was anticipated. Oh.
>And they've just closed the highway to Ames and
>told everyone to stay off the streets unless you absolutely have to be out."
>"Better blizzards through chemistry" jeered Uncle Fred.
>"Ah! Wouldn't have happened if we hadn't gotten
>a weather forecast from Al Gore" replied Uncle
>Bob. "Maybe we aren't as globally warm as
>left-wing tree hugger pals tell us we are". The
>argument was back with a vengeance, but why they
>wanted vengeance on us I had no idea.
>We were just getting the dishes to the sink when
>Aunt Helen asked "Has anyone seen Fred's
>pills? He really can't go more than twelve
>hours without his dose". Everyone looked all
>over the house but no one could find them. Then
>Fred said "I know, I felt them at home. I was
>going to get them, but I forgot".
>"How are we going to get them back!" asked Aunt
>Helen frantically "We just heard that all the roads are closed!"
>Then Dad came up with an idea. "Timmy, does
>your wheelchair still have its skies on?"
>"Sure!" said Timmy. "Do you want Joe here to
>push me to Uncle Fred's house to get the pills?"
>"Could you son?" Dad asked?
>"All right" I heard myself say as I put on my coat "I'll do it".
>So we went out the door into the deepening
>snow. Now it was coming down hard and the wind was starting to blow it around.
>"Let's go down F street and through the park, it's shorter that way" I said.
>"Sure good buddy" Timmy said; that's a big ten four."
>"You asking for it" I said as we pushed our way
>down the street toward the playground.
>Then Timmy asked "Who was Al Gore anyway?"
>"I don't know, I said, "Just some dead guy my
>uncles like to argue about. It's always the same
>thing whenever they get together."
>"Hey" asked Timmy "Why is it that when us kids
>argue and call each other names our parents
>spank us or send us to bed without our suppers
>but when adults argue and call each other names
>they get told how smart they are?"
>"Well" I said "No one spanks you because you're a cripple".
>"You know what I mean" Timmy replied. "They say
>nasty things about each other and no one does
>anything about it like it's OK or something."
>I have absolutely no idea" I replied with a
>shrug "maybe itss because no one is big enough to spank them."
>We continued through the play ground. The
>marry-go-round was almost totally buried in
>snow. Swings, monkey bars, and a slide loomed
>as ghostly shapes in the bluish gloom. We
>almost stumbled over a set of obstacle course
>tires hidden by the drifting snow, but avoided
>them just in time. Then, as we were leaving the
>park, I bumped in to something.
>"Ouch!" I yelped. "That hurt! What was that?"
>I looked down at my hand and exclaimed "That's barbed wire".
>"Oh now I remember" said Timmy. "My dad was
>telling me the other day that some of the paint
>on the playground equipment would give us cancer
>if we ate pain chips, so the town council voted
>to fence off the playground until to could be
>re-painted. I guess they got the fencing half
>done before the snow fell. I guess getting your
>hands ripped up with barbed wire was not as bad as cancer. Go figure."
>I tried to lift his wheelchair over the fence,
>but it was no use. Besides, I wasn't going to
>be able to get over the fence either.
>"Oh nuts! I guess we'll just have to go around"
>Timmy said. "It's sure going to be a long trip".
>"What are you complaining about?" I asked? "All
>you have to do is sit there. I'm the one who has to slog through this stuff."
>Just then a big voice boomed "Is there anything my robot can help you with"?
>"Hey Ben" shouted Timmy "Do you think you can
>left my chair and me over the fence? We seem to be kind of snagged up here."
>"I'm sure Herk here can handle that" said Ben
>lowering a large robotic hand over the fence. "Wheel her on in" he said.
>So I shoved his wheelchair onto the hand and
>Herk lifted him over the fence. "It's you turn Joe, climb on board".
>I got on and road over the fence. It was not a
>smooth ride and my stomach started to act
>squirrely as supper started to show an urge to
>escape, but I finally got to the other side of
>the fence and back onto the snow. Ben said "I'd
>give you a ride but I'm still teaching Herk to
>walk and carry at the same time."
>"That's fine" I said with relief. "We can make it from here."
>"Ben is the president of the Hawkeye alumni
>robotics club." said Timmy. I guessed that
>explained the absurd black and yellow bird's
>head on top of the contraption. "Ben doesn't
>get that its cyclone country" explained Timmy
>"otherwise he's a really smart gut."
>After a while we got to Uncle Fred's house and I
>opened the door. I also turned on the pill
>finder. I'm told that the new ones actually
>talk, but Fred's older model merely beeped.
>"I guess we'll have to use the old hot or cold
>method" I told Timmy. "You wait here while I go
>up the stairs to see if Fred left the pills in the bedroom".
>I climbed up, but after three steps I could tell
>that the pills were not upstairs. "I came back
>down and we started looking through the
>house. We tried the lining room, cold. We
>tried the den, cold. We tried the downstairs
>bathroom, stone cold. Finally, we tried the
>kitchen and the sound got louder. I finally
>got to one of the cabinets and the pill finder beeped so loud it hurt my ears.
>"Hey Timmy", I asked, "If I lifted you up could you look in the cabinet here?"
>"Sure" replied Timmy "Lets go find some pills."
>So I lifted him up and he started to rummage in
>the cabinet. "How about this bottle" he asked
>"It looks like a pill bottle and it says
>xylophone or something on it". He brought the
>pill bottle down from the cabinet.
>"Sounds right" I affirmed as the pill finder
>went nuts. "Let's get back home. I think Mom
>should have pie ready for us by the time we get back there".
>So we headed back home, only this time we took
>the long way north to H street and around the
>park. I was hard going and cold. We realized
>about two blocks from Fred's house that we were
>not dressed for the cold, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.
>The real problem though was that I kept breaking
>through the crust and sinking up to my knees in
>the stuff. About halfway home, I stopped and
>said. "I need a rest, this is just too hard."
>Timmy then reach around to the back of the chair
>and pulled out two flat disks.
>"What are these?" I asked?
>Timmy said "They're racing wheels that came with
>the chair. You're supposed to use them for
>wheelchair races, but mom is afraid I'll get
>hurt, so I never get to use them. I probably
>never will, but they may help us now".
>"How" I asked?
>"Snow shoes" he said proudly. "To you have
>anything you can use to tie them on?"
>I rummaged in my coat pocket and found some
>cords I was going to use for something. We tied
>the wheels on to my feet and I was able to stand
>on the snow reasonably well. Finally, cold wet
>and exhausted, we got back to the house.
>Just as we came through the door, Dad put some
>of his really old music into the universal
>entertainment system. It was some sort of
>primitive rock or blues stuff, I'm really not sure what.
>"What is that!" asked Timmy "Do you have any music that isn't totally dino?"
>"That" said Dad "is Blue Christmas by
>Elvis. It's a classic; and appropriate too
>don't you think. Thanks to Bob and his lab, it
>may be the one Elvis song people remember down through the ages."
>"I guess" I replied "This Christmas has been bluer than I would have wanted".
>"Come on" said Timmy "That was fun! We got to
>go in the snow, ride a giant robot, search an
>empty house for treasure, figure out how to make
>snow shoes in a blizzard, it was an
>adventure." While he was talking, I realized
>that this was probably the first adventure that
>Timmy had been allowed to have. I guess you never appreciate what you have.
>Meanwhile, the uncles were down to debating the
>virtues of creation science, so I know the
>ritual argument was about over. "I agree that
>your friend Jeb didn't evolve from the apes"
>Uncle Fred opined "I just wish he wouldn't not
>say that about the rest of us". On that note of
>brilliance, the argument pretty much ended.
>Mom then said "Who wants pumpkin pie?"
>"Get it while it's still real" Uncle Fred
>shouted. Apparently he was on a roll.
>"So Timmy" I said "Will you be ready to open
>presents after we're done with the pie"?
>"Thanks" said Timmy "That will be the perfect end to a perfect day".
>"It was a nice day" I said "But I hope next Christmas is white."
>
>
>Shawn Jacobson
>Mathematical Statistician
>Phone# (202)-475-8759
>Fax# (202)-485-0275
>
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Brad Dunsé
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