10/15/08 11:17 am - A Brief History of Broadley - a drabbleA Brief History Of Broadley By Shari Smith The mighty river Broad sliced through Broadley town centre with the grace of a blunt stanley knife. It was a historic river. It flowed into the Thames, or maybe out of it, it depended on which way the earth was tilting at the time. The town founder; a fraud incidentally, he didn't find it at all; was James Broadley. The town was named after him and the river after half of him, he had argued that the river be called Jim but he had been outvoted by the mayor and the chief constable of Broadley who were already miffed that the town had to change its name at the whim of this moron. The mayor had lost the town to Broadley in a game of cards, he got to stay mayor but had to re-name everything and send a letter informing the town's twenty-eight residents that they now had a new address...at which twenty-two of them left in disgust. It was in the river Broad that James Broadley had performed his, self-proclaimed, 'Miracle of the Tench'. This was when he caught a tench big enough to feed all six remaining residents of the town, once mixed with enough mashed potato, and served up as fishcakes. It was also in the great river that the six who ate the fishcakes relieved themselves in the soon to be proclaimed, 'Revenge of the Tench'! The following morning James Broadley was gone, leaving the town nothing but his name and a recipe for fishcakes that carried a health warning. Because of the fish episode, the river wasn't considered to be a good source of food for the townsfolk. Because of the syncronised bout of diarrhoea, the river was also ruled-out as a source of hygienic drinking water. However, the residents of Broadley had to wait for seven years before the town grew in numbers and a plumber moved into Stansfield Road. He was hired to pipe the river underground and paid adequately. Ninety years later the river runs forgotten through that same pipe, a great piece of plumbing going unappreciated by those walking above and taking their regular solid bowel-movements for granted. If only they knew of the sacrifices made by those who went before them. The End |
Gophenheimer
Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain
sick9/3/08 05:12 pm - Squee! Title: Squee!
Characters/Pairing: all of us! Rating: G Note: Something I rambled while planning my next script Squeeing. Sometimes a bit of gossip or a spoiler will be posted on the net and it gets you so excited that you have to express it without explaining it and the way to do that is to crash into a message board or a chatroom or onto your blog and just write, star S.Q.U.E.E.E.E.E.E.E star, and everybody understands. See this whole thing of emoting via nonsensical words with a star on either side isn’t the same a text speak. This is on a whole other level. Most of us look down on text speak. U R gr8. Lvs ur fic coz i wan2 see how ur fanfic wz developing n coz its funie. Plz keep goin and tnx 4 answrn my q b4. It’s like speaking to a drunk having a stroke. It’s not that we don’t have our own shorthand, we do, and shite does it take a while to understand what everyone’s on about when you first arrive but soon enough you find yourself talking about One True Pairs, slash, chan, non con, gen, BDSM, femmeslash, hurt/comfort, M-preg, fluff, OC, scat and crack amongst others. And none of this even touches that line you cross the very first time you write the letters L.O.L. between two asterisks. I held out for one and a half years before I finally felt the need to express in type that I was laughing out loud and before you know it you’re *ROTFLMAO*. Then somebody says something swoon worthy and you find yourself putting the word ‘flails’ between two little stars and really truly meaning it. It snowballs and then you’re wibbling and twirling people. The first time I was twirled on line I had to ask if that was a good thing or not and now I’m spinning virtual strangers like Catherine wheels. In real life I feel awkward about hugging somebody hello and goodbye and yet a married mother of three on the other side of the world has taken a cyber running jump into my arms and hugged me with both arms and legs. Affection on the net is open and liberating and I’ll admit it does give you the warm fuzzies. But to be truly enthusiastic in an animated manner these days...you need to do it in between two little stars |
Poetic9/3/08 05:08 pm - It's What We Do For Love Title: It's What We Do For Love
Characters/Pairing: None Rating: G Note: This was prompted by the words Since I've Been Loving You I used to pee on you and now you pee on me. I was a helpless little soul and you fed me, kept me warm, and wiped up when I dribbled. You held me up when I tried to walk, unsteady on my legs. You read for me when I couldn’t read for myself. When I would complain, stubbornly, that my mistakes were not my fault you put up with me. Now I hear you complain in the same way. I grew older and grew independent. I went out into the world on my own. You grew older and grew more dependant. I came back so you weren’t on your own. We bookend our lives, you begin with me as a helpless young thing and end as the helpless thing yourself. You weren’t ashamed of me for being an infant. I am not ashamed because you are elderly. It’s what we do for love. |
9/3/08 04:57 pm - Dedicated to Jacko Title: Dedicated to Jacko
Characters/Pairing: husband and wife Rating: G Note: My brain is doing funny things that shouldn't be written down. The prompt was consequences! “You like to think that you’re immune to the stuff oh yeah!” She cringed at the sound of her husband’s voice as she stirred the stew on the stove. “Closer to the truth you say you can’t get enough...” “Please, spare me!” She begged him. He leaned around the kitchen door and grinned. “But I’m singing that Michael Jackson song, it’s a classic!” “You’re not singing a Michael Jackson song,” she said, bewildered, “that’s Robert...somebody. That’s a white man.” “I know Michael Jackson doesn’t sing it,” he said with a tut and a roll of the eyes, “I mean it’s about him.” “Addicted to Love is about Michael Jackson?” He frowned and blinked at her. “Addicted to Love?” “Yes,” she laughed, the song you were just singing, or butchering I should say.” “Oh.” “Why, what did you think you were singing?” “Nothing,” he shrugged and walked away. “No, tell me what, I’m intrigued now,” she said as she followed him, wooden spoon in hand. “Truth or consequences!” She wielded the spoon to back up her threat. “Well I thought it was... I mean the lyrics sound as if they are perfect for him.” “What have you been singing about all this time?” She boggled. Reluctantly, he began to sing the chorus to her. “Might as well face it, you’re a dick with a glove.” |
accomplished9/3/08 04:56 pm - One High Note Too Far Title: One High Note Too Far
Characters/Pairing: Me and Mariah Carey fans Rating: R Note: I have had this fantasy about many people. I want to rip out their throat by punching my way through their nostril and reaching down to grab it from the inside. I want to tear off their face and throw it down onto the floor like a crappy Halloween mask and then grind it into a pulp beneath my heel. I want to cut off their sexual organs, turn them inside out, and microwave them for an hour before tipping the sizzling meat into a liquidiser and pulping the lot into a pate. Then I want to feed it to a dog with explosive diarrhoea so they can have their own mangled remains blasted into their screaming face in dogshit form. I want to rip off their eyebrows and pierce their eardrums. I want to bludgeon them to death with a cricket bat, not a baseball bat, a cricket bat. A cricket bat has corners. I want to beat them to death, urinate on the open wound of their skull and then sandpaper that fucking Mariah Carey CD that they have forced me to listen to through our adjoining wall ALL NIGHT LONG. Some say it would be unreasonable torture. I say forcing people to listen to Mariah Carey is worse. |
Catty9/3/08 04:55 pm - For Her Eyes Only Title: For Her Eyes Only
Rating: G Note: From something that always stuck in my mind that a bereaved mother said after loosing both her daughters. This was her room, the place she would close the door on me and scream at me for snooping around if she found me inside changing the sheets or putting clean underwear away. All teenage girls have things they want to keep private. They keep diaries, items a boy they knew might have touched and thrown away that is now picked up and treasured, cigarettes, condoms, evidence of their acts of teenage rebellion that are actually exactly the same as their mothers and grandmothers and every other girl on the planet. What if she still had a lipstick she shoplifted? What if she didn’t tidy up her dressing table before rushing out with her friends? What if she left things lying out, things she didn’t want me to see? She left her room, full of secrets, and went out with her friends to shop as if they are those women from Sex and the City rather than four girls with barely enough money to buy something to eat at Burger King. Her friends left their rooms too. Maybe I could contact their mothers and we could do a swap. I’ll clean your girl’s room if you clean mine and we won’t speak a word of anything we might find that would upset her. Because a girl’s friends always think their friend’s mother is cooler than their own, her friend’s wouldn’t mind me seeing, and my girl wouldn’t mind their mothers seeing what she shielded from my view when I came in to tell her dinner was ready. She would shout at me to knock before coming in, knock and wait to be told I could enter, and now I have to get into that room and clear it out but no matter how much I stand outside and knock she’ll never tell me I can go inside. There are things, things of my daughter’s that she wouldn’t want me to see. There are things lying out she didn’t hide away. As a daughter myself I want to respect that privacy. One of her friends crossed the road a little later than her three friends, was missed by the speeding young lads showing off their new wheels in the town centre, and maybe she would like to do this for her friend. Maybe she would know what needs to be hidden from me. Only teenage girls know the horrible truth of what grown women who happen to be mothers can’t cope with. Little do they know that a mother can still think of their privacy while planning their funeral. |
Focused9/3/08 04:53 pm - Suspicious Minds Title: Suspicious Minds
Characters/Pairing: Husband and Wife Rating: G Note: I thought of this while brushing my teeth. Written for the prompt Perfect Day This morning the toilet seat was down. The toothpaste was rolled neatly from the bottom and not squeezed from the middle. The butter was put back into the fridge and the butter knife was washed up and put away. The bedcovers pulled back neatly. Today he asked me how my friend’s relationship was going? Was my mother’s back improving? Did I want him to fix the broken shower or should we go wild, hop in the car and drive to the shop to buy a new one, one with massage settings? He cooked, he mowed the lawn, he poured me a glass of wine and he asked me what I wanted to do tomorrow. He has been the perfect husband all day. What is he up to? |
creative9/3/08 04:49 pm - Glow Title: Glow
Characters/Pairing: The sun Rating: G Note: Written for the prompt Dusk You can look directly at the sun as it sets. As you watch it rise it’s instantly blinding and you have to look away, at every other time of the day you can’t chance a glance at all, but as it packs up and leaves for another night you can watch it go. An old dead man called Bill once said ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ and people quote him when talking about goodbye kisses and other things tainted with modern day saccharine, a substance old Bill didn’t have in mind at the time I’m sure. The sweetness is in the sun. It ripens fruit on the vine. Beautiful and aromatic flowers lean towards it and follow its travels across the sky and when the sunlight disappears they close up, nothing more to see until dawn. People have to shield themselves from the sun at midday, find shade, slather themselves in protective creams to keep the rays from burning into their bodies, and some embrace the radiance and lie before it to absorb everything it has to throw at them. Dusk, however, is the time when those who claim to worship the sun abandon it. The flowers close, the bathers depart to admire their golden skin or nurse their vivid burns, and nobody cares to say goodbye after such a long day together. Only the romantics will wave it goodbye. Couples or lonely souls who see the true beauty of something once worshipped as a God fading in power and intensity, growing old gracefully, and remaining an object of beauty. A setting sun feeds no fruit, entices no flowers to look its way, and colours no skin. A setting sun does what every ageing beauty does; it glows for everybody who looks directly at it. |
8/16/08 07:21 pm - Ups and downsThe BBC turned down another script and I haven't got any ideas for a new one.
On the plus side the dole boy likes my hair. I get the feeling today's gonna be crappy. Dear Shari Thank you for ending us your script See Biscuit Run. I include below our script reader's comments: See Biscuit Run is set in the engaging world of a Youth Club, peopled by idiosyncratic young people, some of whom are disabled. Agnes, in particular, is a charismatic character, with her manipulative energy and a healthy interest in teen hunks. However, whilst the script creates a discursive portrait of this world, it becomes increasingly unclear whose story this is. Agnes appears to be the central character, utilising her campaign to raise money for Nina as a way of coping with her own disability. But the focus of the script begins to shift away from Agnes towards Bev and Alex, the two halves of the pantomime horse. Whilst these two have some quirky and believable repartee, they are never really developed enough. Their lives beyond the Youth Club remain something of a mystery, and it is unclear why they even choose to volunteer there in the first place. Whilst Agnes' motivations are easy to follow, Bev and Alex's narratives remain opaque, and the narrative of the piece suffers as a result. although the story is building towards the Pantomime Horse race, an engaging comic-dramatic event, the issues that underlie the race, and Alex and Bev's participation in it, are never explored in sufficient detail. At present See Biscuit Run sets up an intriguing and distinctive world, but the narrative lacks focus and as a consequence the piece itself ultimately feels too shapeless and unfocused. I have resolved to hold this until another opportunity comes up asking for a script. I'll do a rewrite fixing the problems then and re-submit. Shame to let it go to waste, it was a good set up. *moments later* Ha! I have an idea and you will all love it! See if this makes the BBC choke on their tea - I'm gonna write a script about housewives and mothers who write gay porn. It will have fantasy sequences full of pretty men all over each other. Onward! |
disappointed7/4/08 04:13 pm - I be a published writer! |
Happy-Dance6/10/08 08:15 pm - One Grain of SandFor the prompt Nature Title: One Grain of Sand Rating:PG How strange, human nature, that we squabble over grains of sand. We now understand the scale of our existance. We know the expanse of the universe is so collossal that we will never be able to comprehend how much more size and scope there is to everything. As we imagine the largest space we can we find all we have really grasped is one grain of sand in the Sahara desert. All the universes we can assume to imagine are all in that single grain of sand. But ours is only one universe, so we shave off a tiny fragment of the single grain and say 'this is ours' this is our universe. But we are one solar system with in that humoungous universe so we chip away another miniscule fragment and cling to that. This, we declare, this is our solar system. Then, of course, we are the only planet in that solar system with intelligent life upon it. We are superiour. We must segregate our planet from the rest of the solar system, so again we chip away the one billionth of a grain of sand and now posses our planet. This is human nature. Not the reduction of everything we understand of the whole of existence, the reduction of the Sahara, to one billion billionths of a grain of sand, but the facte that with that tiny piece that counts for nothing against all the rest. Human nature means that we divide that insignificant little smithereen of e grain of sand into separate parts, 'this part is ours and that part is yours', and then spend the rest of our energy fighting over it until we ourselves disintergrate that final fragment of the grain. This is human nature. But, knowing all this and all the insignificance of everything we can ever hope to do, we will still teach our children to build sandcastles...because this is human nature too.  contemplative |
6/10/08 08:14 pm - Filtered Title: Filtered Rating: PG We all know that this man is really fat and bald, that's why the hat's on his head, to keep the world from being dazzled by the gare, and that his collosal gut overhangs his tatty blue Y fronts. We see that man all the time. That man is sunbathing in the neighbour's garden. That man is waddling along the beach on your holiday. That man is refusing to put on a shirt when he walks into your local pub. That man is, to some unfortunate women out there, the same man lying in your bed. But we can filter images we don't like and change them. Some people filter a red light green when they're running late. Some people filter the five into a fifty on the note they hold in their hand just so they don't feel so bad about how empty their wallet really is. Most people will see a sight like that man, there will always be that man, and with an application of that lovely filter of denial inside our brain, we can turn him into Indiana Jones.  Caffeinated |
6/10/08 08:12 pm - The Walk Title: The Walk Original or Fandom: Original Rating: PG He didn't trust you. You were there to see him off, away and into the light, but instead he looked at you and challenged you with his eyes. If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me You've never been invited to join a departing soul before and you're not sure if you can go along. The narrow road is long and still the man waits. You begin to wonder if maybe he is your angel of death. You have dispatched your last and now it's your time for the light. He is ready to go and he knows you are ready for the journey too. At long last, the walk is yours to take, and you nod to him. The two of you set off together. Time waits for no man, but death waits for company.  Navel-Gazing |
6/10/08 08:10 pm - Light and ShadowsFor the prompt Ghosts Title: Light and Shadows Original Rating: PG In the darkness they appear. Flickering into life again years after the flesh and blood are long gone, never ageing, timeless and yet forever immortalised in one period of time. The dances never stop. The kisses last an eternity. The screams, some audible and some silent, are replayed endlessly and never forgotten. The weddings, the deaths, the fights and passionate embraces. The doors slam and a thousand different hands slap a thousand different cheeks for a thousand different reasons. All of it just light and shadows, captured on celluloid years agao and stored inside a can. Ghosts freed on the big screen for one or one hundred witnesses. The stars all burn out in time but they are burned onto the screen forever. The ghosts of cinema, the only haunting people pay money for.  Wiped |
6/10/08 08:09 pm - Father AwayFor the prompt Under the Influence Title: Farther Away Rating: Adult for drug use Standing in Hyland park and waiting for the Pixies to arrive, Parker set about lighting the umpteenth joint of the day. The sun was setting and the air was cooler now, the grass cooler still, and as I sat down and lay back I watched the vast expanse of sky above me. Wispy clouds slowly drifted across the pale blue and soon Parker was standing over me, passing down the lit joint. I took it and put it between my lips. Drawing in a slow, deep breath, moving the joint away and then inhaling again and holding my breath, before exhalling. There wasn't any smoke to watch, there never is the way I inhale, but my feet gave that familiar pins and needs tingle every time I breathed in. Still no Pixies. I put the joint to my lips for a second drag, breathe in, move joint, breathe in again, hold and release. Handing the joint back to Parker I wriggled my toes as the tingley feeling grew stronger. I always get stoned in the feet, I've never understood that, when I get drunk it's always from the head downwards. I looked at the now colourless sky and was struck by a thought. "Parker?" Parker was busy smoking but I carried on as if there had been a response. "Is it just me or is the sky further away than normal?" Parker began laughing and choking on the smoke and I frowned, not understanding what was so funny. "No, really, look at it." I sat up on my elbows and looked up at the sky, "It's much further away, I'm sure it was lower earlier on, now its higher up. Or maybe that's just because I'm lying down and I'm further away from it than I was when I was standing up." I wriggled my tingly toes and Parker struggled to regain composure. "You are so stoned!" I shook my head, that wasn't it at all. "It looks deeper as well, like it goes farther back. D'you think the sky's moving away from us?" Parker sat down beside me, handed over the stump of the joint, and didn't say a word. I finished off the joint and burnt the back of my throat, my inhallation thing doesn't work as well then you are smoking right up to the roach, and sat up to see if the Pixies were on stage yet. They were headlining the festival and the crowds were all nicely toasted, by the sun, the alcohol and the dope. Now lying flat to the ground, Parker tapped me on the back. "Y'know, I think you're right? The sky is getting further away."  high |
6/10/08 08:03 pm - TickerFrom the prompt Palpitate Title: Ticker Rating: PG Every watch, every clock, records the exact moment of its death. Time is its own epitaph. The final salute is the one given by the hands. Hands before a blank face. She watched him hiding his own blank face behind his shaking hands and struggled to come up with words. What does a bereaved person need to hear? Would sorry matter to them? Would sympathy help? There was no marker of the moment his mother had died, meerly piles of evidence that she had lived. He saw her watching and crossed the room, embracing her and thanking her for coming. She and his mother had never got along. There are still no words that seem appropriate for death and loss and grief. She lifts her hand and presses it to his chest, feeling his heart beating steadily, and smiles. He cries and the beat goes on.  productive |
6/10/08 07:51 pm - Pass It OnFor the prompt Heroes Title: Pass It On Rating: PG Even a hero gets old. He ages and becomes frail. His memory fails him and he topples over easily. He'll tell you the same story three times within the same hour. He has to take pills and sees the doctor regularly. One day a hero will have to go to hospital and you'll see him scared for the first time. A hero will need a coward like you to hold their hand and tell them everything will be fine. Your hero will eventually look to you for strength, for consistancy, for loyalty and devotion. You will be their anchor and treat them as if they aren't getting old at all. They will need you to tell them off from time to time. You will have to make them listen to you and it will feel wrong because the hero is always right and you are always the one who needs to be saved. Your hero will confide and confess until you have to face the fact that your hero is just another human...and when you realise this you see the truth behind his heroism. And you, yourself will one day find yourself looking at a youthful face and realise that you need to take off the cape and let them know that you are one of those human heroes too.  okay |
6/10/08 07:50 pm - Still Life Title: Still Life Rating: PG-13 The bodies were found in the haze of late afternoon, not a mark on them. It was a strangely idyllic tableux. The two youngsters look as if they were tuckered out and sleeping, peacefully, and the dog was content and untroubled. Life had simply lifted away from their forms and fluttered away on the breeze. There was no explanation, nothing and nobody to blame, and a lack of volunteers to move the trio. It was one of those things that everybody knew about, the fact that a butterfly lives only one day in it's full glory, but nobody questioned the truth of this by pointing out that nobody ever sees a dead butterfly. Nobody, nowhere, has ever seen one. This must have been what it was like. Maybe we see dead butterflies all the time but the beauty overwhelms death and we are blinded by it. We don't see the loss, we see what we crave. We didn't see the three dead figures when we found them, we saw the perfect reflection of their greatest day.  Morose |
6/10/08 07:49 pm - The Harder They ComeFor the prompt Point of no return Title: The Harder They Come Fandom/Original: ORIGINAL Pairing/Character (if applicable) N/A Rating: PG It's nice to walk yourself right to the very edge and just dwell there. It's not like when people lean over and peer down before turning and walking back to safety again, it's a real moment. I could have caught the bus up here but that wouldn't have been cathartic. I walked. I walked all the way. I walked from the train station to the coast, along the coast until there was no path, only the rocky cliffs, and then I set off up the steep, grassy slope for the top. There were closer cliffs but this was the steepest one, the highest one, the famous one. This is the one people cross the country to get to...and throw themselves off. I climbed and walked and stumbled all the way up from sea level and it just kept on going. The dge was crumbling away into the sea. A fence errected to keep people a safe distance back was hanging over the side by it's last anchored post. The sun was bright and the breeze was strong. I walked all the way to the top, stood at the edge, looked over it and then stepped back and sat down. You know you've been to the edge when you spend more than a mere second there. Everybody can quickly walk to the brink, turn and leave again. So few sit on it and really think about why they are there and what they are going to do. There are attention seekers who want to be noticed and stopped or coaxed back away from the edge. These people were never really there to begin with. These people probably took the bus to the top. Easy way up, easy way out, easily talked out of it. I didn't come to jump. I didn't come to consider jumping. That was never the plan. The plan was to sit there, right on the edge, right on the spot that so many others make the decision to go over, and finally accept that I do not have it in me to do anything the easy way. I got there by the hardest route possible...this is the way I would go back. thoughtful |
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Characters/Pairing: Humphrey and Lauren of course! *lol*
Rating: PG
Note: I had no idea that Bogart meant anything but the last name of an old film star so I had a play with both meanings for the prompter.
“How much of a good thing can you get in your mouth?”
“Well that’s a question and a half!”
“So your answer is one and a half then is it, righty-ho.”
“That wasn’t my answer, there is no answer to that. A good thing could be a pearl but it could also be chocolate gateaux. I couldn’t get one and a half chocolate gateaux in my mouth!”
“Then is it really a good thing?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. That’s why I think it’s only truly a good thing if you don’t have more than you can fit in your mouth.”
“Is this your way of preparing me for your having a tiny penis?”
“Here’s looking at you kid!”