Tagged: celebrity

Enchanted Mariner Ducks

During October we will be sharing passages that we’ve written independently from the same prompt.

  • enchanted mariner ducks
  • striped scarlet luminescent work-coats
  • low relief with pubic hair
  • the feathery roots of his water hyacinths
  • “Stop quoting Lewis Carroll at me!”
  • tear a larynx

Kent’s Take

I sat in Doctor Entenman’s waiting room, hoping the décor wasn’t indicative of his qualifications as an otolaryngologist. All the others in town were closed for the holiday. The artworks showed truly horrific taste, made more sickening by the realization that the good doctor was himself the artist. A garish neon abstract took up most of the wall facing me, and was accompanied by a plaque bearing its title: “In which the enchanted mariner ducks out of the saloon to escape constables attired in striped scarlet luminescent work-coats.” Above my head was a matted atrocity, a low relief with pubic hair, evidently meant to signify the feathery roots of his water hyacinths. I heard raised voices, first a woman shrieking something about being behind schedule, and then a man bellowing “Stop quoting Lewis Carroll at me!” I supposed I’d chosen a bad week to tear a larynx.

bonus points for using them in order!

Jen’s Take

by jenThe great artist and his assistant stood by in their striped scarlet luminescent work-coats while the phalanx of critics examined his latest creation.

“You say it’s called ‘enchanted mariner ducks,’ and yet I detect nothing of the waterfowl in its design,” said the most unctuous of the bunch, a man known to be overly fond of the feathery roots of his water hyacinths, if you know what I mean.

“Curious, isn’t it,” said Hieronymus Warhol.

“This is clearly a bas-relief, and yet under ‘medium’ you have declared that it is ‘low relief with pubic hair.’ Not only is that not a real medium, it’s also disgusting!”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” replied Warhol.

“Stop quoting Lewis Carroll at me!” cried the critic.

“As soon as you tear a larynx,” drawled the artist. “Preferably your own.”

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What do you think? Who handled this prompt better?

Leonard is a Strange Person

  • by jenthe kitchen will have been aired out
  • I’ve been up for x-rays
  • making it a family affair
  • had seen that ghostly face!
  • until it was eleven
  • Leonard is a strange person

Leonard is a strange person. How I wish I never had seen that ghostly face! But see it I did on that fateful February day, along with my wife, my sister-in-law, and my six nephews, making it a family affair.

I’ve been up for for x-rays numerous times since in a futile attempt to discern what Leonard did to us, but so far the doctors have been unable to offer a diagnosis.

Whatever Leonard, that strange person, did it caused us all to become confused about our favorite television programs, and is most confounding.

My poor wife will open the kitchen window for a moment to clear the smell of frying sausages, but will become distracted pondering whether she prefers David Letterman or Conan O’Brien, and by the time she figures it out the kitchen will have been aired out until it was eleven degrees!

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Fernando Was Not

  • It gave birthby jen
  • Negligence and so forth
  • the three-trailer-long house
  • wrapped in brown paper
  • He was almost bald
  • And fell and fell and fell.
  • shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss or a woman’s breast

Fernando was not an attractive man. He was almost bald, for one thing. To disguise his naked scalp, he kept it wrapped in brown paper which made it seem shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss or a woman’s breast.

Fernando spent most of his time alone in the three-trailer-long house he called his Triplex of Solitude. It was three Airstream campers welded together.

Fernando’s days were spent daydreaming about hot celebrities he saw on the internet. His favorite fantasy was about how Angelina Jolie fell in love with him. And fell and fell and fell. She would parade around the Triplex, in Fernando’s fevered imaginings, wearing skimpy underwear. “Negligence and so forth,” he murmured.

Fernando was also not very bright.

His musings were interrupted one day by his pet turtle. It gave birth.

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