OneWord: Punishment, Thread, Repeat, Succeed, Deer, Missed

Punishment: The self-inflicted punishment was not worth the mental (and sometimes physical) toll taken by the extraneous actions. I would have played better if I could have kept an even keel – taken the bad with the good – brushed it off.

Thread: A single thread of string dangled from the hem of her skirt as she sat, legs crossed, in a green metal chair eating lunch on the porch of her favorite local diner, “Dalmatian’s.”

Repeat: The show was a repeat. What a letdown for the over-stimulated group of teens that had planned their night around the show. Snacks had been purchased. Drinks poured. Couch seating reserved – tentatively, of course.

Succeed: “In order to succeed in this little world,” he said before pausing to take a drag on the cigarette he found on the edge of the fountain, “you have to . . . ”

Deed: The deer dashed from the dense shrubbery along the right side of Highway 2 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The night was dark and rainy, and the deer was but a brief silhouette of life frozen in my dim Ford Explorer headlights. Then, we were both gone as quickly as we had crossed. My heart thumped with the weight of what felt like the iron-ore-mine-explosions I have felt while sitting on the living room floor of my grandparents single-story ranch house in Ishpeming, Michigan.

Missed:* The baseball skidded on the pavement and then continued along a trajectory that would eventually lead it directly into the side of Chris’ head, which was only slightly higher than the level of the road because he was standing in a ditch. Todd had thrown the ball hard, just as Chris’ attention was drawn elsewhere – by a bird chirping? a garage door opening? an itch calling? After the fact, when Todd looked closely at the skin on the left edge of Chris’ forehead, he could see that it had left a mark in the shape of baseball stitching. ‘All in a summer day’s work,’ the two muttered as they eventually went back to playing catch – Chris then more attuned to what the baseball was doing and less so about anything else around him. Perhaps this could be taken as a hard-earned lesson to focus on the task at hand.

*I neglected to actually use the word, “Missed” while writing this entry. That is the first time it happened. However, one can gather that the baseball missed Chris’ glove, which may have been where I initially was going with my story.

NOTE: Although the OneWord.com website provides a one-minute time limit for writing these entries, I do not always adhere to the time limit – especially if I like what I am writing, which is happening more frequently, as I get back into the flow of writing in general. Thanks.

OneWord: Ticket, Ill, Lightning, Root, Brick, Bulb, Answers, Discovery

Ticket: The ticket to the show fell from my pocket and drifted down to the grate on the ground. It rested there for a moment – paused to give me hope – and then slipped through the opening.

Ill: The dog became ill from eating off the dusty garage floor, which the home owner had neglected to sweep since she purchased the home nearly ten years ago.

Lightning: The lightning shot down to the forged steel head of Jack’s three iron. The charge traveled through the shaft to his hands and then to his heart. And this all happened before he knew what hit him.

Root: The root of my happiness can be found in the often overlooked wrinkles at the edges of her smile and the way her eyes look at me so intently when she knows I’m watching.

Brick: There lay a brick, slightly out of place. Its edges softened from decades of sleepy-headed students shuffling their tennis shoes along the paths.

Bulb: The bulb hung from its fraying cord. It emitted a butter-yellow light that dripped thick on the damp pale green walls.

Answers: He didn’t have all the answers. But he had some, and he tried on the rest. That was the best he could do under any circumstances – try his best, that is. Success is in the preparation, not necessarily in the execution.

Discovery: The discovery that she made early that morning in the daisy patch of her mother’s garden changed her life forever. There, buried in the dirt, lay something that . . .

OneWord: Junkyard, Ivy, Cowboy, Duck

Junkyard: “Look at that dog, Honey. I looks like it came straight from a junkyard,” I said as we drove past a natural foods store. The dog was small with matted fur, perky ears, and eyes as big and bright as the summer sky on a perfect day in July.

Ivy: Those ivy hands. I want to say ice cold and plain, but not so. Not so. Not so. They sit in the window behind the ten-foot tall pane of glass keeping me from her and not her from me. Because she’s there. Still. Silent.

Cowboy: That cowboy spirit inside takes over. Sweat beads slip down my brow. My heart pounds inside my chest. And then the gavel falls. “Guilty,” thuds from the judge’s mouth.

Duck: The duck sat on the end of dock watching the other ducks float up and down in the small waves on the 4th of July. Of course, the duck didn’t know it was the 4th of July. It just knew the waves were small.

OneWord: Adapt, Helping, Certain, Materials, Market

Adapt: I’ve tried, many times, to adapt to what’s around me. And the only thing I have learned is that I should worry less about adapting to the world and worry more about adapting the world to myself. I’m here for a blink. I’ve gotta breath my air and fill my space.

Helping: The helping hand swept down from the vacant blue sky and wrapped its mile-long fingers ’round the dusty earth and squeezed it until rivers fell and mountains grew.

Certain: To be certain of something is, at once, to lock one’s mind in jail and toss away the key…

Materials: The materials with which I a forced to work are nothing more than a steel hammer, dinged and dented from 22 years of pounding, and a solid oak workbench that was given to me at the death of my grandfather.

Market: My dog and I walked north along Union to the Farmer’s Market last Saturday. It bright, crisp, and fresh outside. The streets were filled with …

OneWord: Fangs, Stage, Elixir, Feud, Kit

OneWord.com gives you a random word and 60 seconds to write. Following are my submissions for the past week.

Fangs: The husky’s fangs were exposed as it panted cool grey breath into the mid-fall air. They looked sharp and hungry, as if she were in her element and ready to hunt. Then she sat next to me, and put her paw up to be scratched.

Stage: She set the stage with her wonderful grin. I saw it from the back of the natural theater in which we were set free to roam, discover and explore the magnificent wilderness.

Elixir: The elixir of life – the body – fully woven, yet muted beneath the dark suppression of my chores, responsibilities, and commitments – struggles to burn through the layers and succeed a short success. Let me be.

Feud: We rarely feud, and when we do, we feud a little then make some breakfast or go for a walk or laugh it off. There’s never much to our feuds and, so far as I can tall, they’ve never grown into fights.

Kit: The tool kit in the corner of my work shed is old. The blue-coated metal is rusting and creaks when the lid is opened. The wooden-handled tools are cracked and dry and, the metal there, rusty, too.

OneWord: Vow, Spaces, Classic, Vulture, Keypad

OneWord.com gives you a random word and 60 seconds to write. Following are my submissions for the past week.

Vow: Dressed in his tux, looking at his beautiful bride, he vowed to love her for the rest of his life – for the rest of her life. Were they now one?

Spaces: The spaces in his teeth made me laugh. I remarked, “Who don’t he get braces for those spaces?” Then I laughed harder. Maybe spaces are endearing. So I’ve been told.

Classic: There’s a classic car in his garage. I couldn’t give you any more detail, except that it was red and well kept. I never got a better look than from my tip toes through the high filthy window. He’d chase me away before…

Vulture: The vulture circled above, waiting to swoop down to the man marooned on the island the instant his life expired. The man eyed the vulture above knowingly.

Keypad: There is no keypad on my cellular! It’s just a flat glass screen. Like looking through a window at a digital world that changes when I want it to.

OneWord: Week of Dec. 29

I shovel gravel until my back nearly breaks. My skin is dry and splitting from the high sun. I would do anything for water. Anything. Anything. (gravel)

Loan me the memory that I have long forgotten. Remind me of her hurried walk and nervous disposition. And when I start to fall in love, again, with this fragile and harried woman from my past, rescind the loan and revoke my rights. (loan)

He applied the bandage to the paper cut. How foolish he had been to flip so quickly from page seventy-four to page one thousand and twenty-three. Who does that! He knew better. If only his mother was here. She would tell him… (bandage)