Creative Copy Challenge #81
Posted: October 4, 2010 Filed under: Copy Challenges 77 CommentsToday’s words come to us from KathleenL. Show her some love.
BET YOU CAN’T do this writing prompt. Take the 10 random words below and, in the comments, crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story tying all of them together! And remember: after (if) you finish, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words. (If you’ve missed previous writing prompts, we BET YOU CAN’T do those, either.)
- Corpulant
- Furrow
- Don
- Dowager
- Opulent
- Resplendent
- Ketamine
- Vacillate
- Terminate
- Quinine
NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks. (And don’t forget to tweet this and share it with your friends.)
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Writing Prompts - Creative Copy Challenge 
I assume #6 is supposed to be resplendent (with an “l”), right?
@Cathy: Thanks for catching that. Fixed.
Thanks Kathy… It was when my tired eyes made the list up. Darn spell check.
“When you don a furrow, you look like a corpulent dowager chewing a quinine sandwich!
“Yeah, well, you married this opulent, resplendent bitch, so the only ketamine available is to terminate our marriage, but you won’t, you vacillating coward.”
She had a point there…and all the money, too. Witch!
Quick!!! marriage counselor needed!
@Ma: for whatever reason, I pictured an elderly couple who hated each other with a passion when I saw the word Dowager.
LOL.. that’s a funny one. Great dialogue juxtaposed in so little words!!!
I pictured this scene some time in the ’70s and ’80s. I don’t know why.
@Shane-I think it’s beyond counseling-just sayin’ 🙂
Shane and all —
Let the old folks try some counsling. Although… the blue of the Ketamine may go with the old gal’s hair. Witty.
Nice Shane. Marry the witch, ah – bitch.
I think I’ll don a dress resplendent
that won’t make me look too corpulent.
A perfect look is opulent, but not as ugly as a tent.
The choice is hard…..I vacillate
like buffet choices for my plate.
Want to look hot, not old and frumpy
cuz dowagers don’t get no “humpy”. 😉
I’m concentrating much too hard….
My brain will furrow, ass turn to lard.
My legs are cramping, it’s asinine
I fear I’ll need to take quinine.
I’ll leave this for another day,
take ketamine and coast away,
terminate this tedious, fruitless task
sip Margaritas …… in the sun bask!!
@Ma: BLEEPIN FANTASTIC! I was thinking this challenge was going to stump everyone and you go ahead and create a multi-style rhyme scheme. Well done.
Thanks, Shane…I’ll admit, this one was a bit tougher than most, with the pharmaceuticals and all! (but then that’s why we call it “challenge”, huh?)
@Ma: Indeed, I think I had to look up about 6 of them. 🙂
ha ha…I guess I can thank the nuns for my vocabulary…the only one I did not know was ketamine, but I looked up quinine to see what it was used for other than the urban legend growing up that it was an “after morning” solution.
@Margaret-then why do they call it a dowager’s hump? Ha!Ha! 🙂
wishful thinking!! 😉
Miss Margaret —
“…cuz dowagers don’t get no “humpy”….” I love it!
and I will have to echo Shane –BLEEPIN FANTASTIC!
Glad the challenge wasn’t too tortuous.
Thank you, Kathleen…you definitely made it interesting! 🙂 So happy to see you back.
Thank for the warm re-welcome Miss Margaret. It is nice to try to attempt some normalcy in my life again… even if it is one toe at a time.
@Margaret-LMAO!!! 😀
Margaret; simply great
You made me laught so hard
with your, “ass turn to lard.”
999 MILES TO-GO, PLEASE
In a way, endurance is a test of how much patience he has. His flesh, all lumpy and corpulent, is certainly not ready yet, for in the long run, this path he is walking is not for the faint of heart.
“Watch out for those elephant thighs, old woman.”
“Don’t you ever look into the mirror?” said his wife. She quietly went past the kitchen furrow. Carefully, she stirred some ketamine into his beer bottle before she walks back and handed him his ninth bottle of the day.
His tendency to vacillate gains him all this extra pounds, extra miles to go, extra 1000 miles and extra first-steps to jumpstart realizing his dreams.
He breathed in a deep sigh.
Numerous are the vicissitudes in life he escaped from, hoping things will change while he remains unchanged. He just likes things the way they are.
So is everyone else.
In his dream, he sees that far-off place. Those flags hanging above the rooftop, flailing about the angry winds.
He carried his weight and go on. He felt like a slug. All these burden I’m carrying… He thought. Suck it up.
Donning the army’s uniform, he instantly felt the urgency to remove those extra layers of burden. He’s now a warrior.
She let out a deep sigh.
“One bottle of gin-and-tonic to-go, please.”
“Will that be all, ma’m?”
“Yes.”
“Got it. Your total today will be nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.”
She thought of grabbing some extra lemons, but she shushed the thought away. A whole bottle of that would be enough quinine anyway.
Once she got home to her castle, the dowager sat down and started reminiscing those days of her old man, just like any other day. She slowly sipped in that bitter taste of sweetness, but somehow her cramps can never go away.
An opulent man he was, a slave for bravery. In those warring days, his facade never failed to reflect rays of sunshine – always resplendent with virtues he acquired from many years venturing mysterious places.
But now he’s gone to the furthest place there ever was. She paused. Every train of thought was terminated with a glass or two.
That’s why I loved him. He’s always coming back, with a smile.
Though his eyes look distant, they always shed light.
She closed her eyes. And then she stops breathing.
@Stacia: OUTSTANDING! Well done. Great write.
@Stacia-Wow-that was fabulous!
Stacia– Wow. Wow. Wow.
You had me right up till the end! Never lost me. I was hooked so early on in the read!
nice write. loved the ending
[…] Creative Copy Challenge #81 […]
In order:
The corpulent man sat in the chair
A furrow in his brow, how did he get there?
Who compelled him to don fake hair?
And clothes that an ancient dowager would wear?
Opulent shimmering jewels on his neck,
Resplendent in furs…what the heck?
He looked like a drag queen, and felt like a wreck!
Was there ketamine in his bottle of Vitatec?
He thought that maybe he should evacuate
But then he started to vacillate
After all, he might be able to terminate
The character that made this chaos originate…
That’s right, it was the sleazy, no-good gangster: Quinine!
@Karetha: Fantastic rhyme. We’ve got some poetry skills in this place huh!
I see I’ve got some serious rhyming competition!…loved it, Karetha. Nothing like a good drag queen!
@Karetha-Love it-how creative & with those 10 – awesome!
Karetha — I really like that he is wearing the jewels and cloths of an old dowager!
Karetha;
Nice rhyming. rolled off my tongue like quick silver.
@Shane: It was serious fun!
@Margaret: I love me a fun poem now and again…so much fun to play with words! (Serious poems are rewarding to write also, but the words here at CCC usually lend themselves to humor).
“Don, Don, Don! We’re good friends, so I feel that I can tell you exactly what I think.
To start with, you only have three fingers and a thumb on each hand, and let’s face the obvious, you are not resplendent , with your stupid blue beret, blue shirt and outrageous, red bow tie. And, to top it off, your corpulent lower half is always bare of trousers as are your webbed feet without shoes. Yet, you vacillate your feathery butt in public as if you were some sort of opulent duck. Some say you are a quack.
Age? Age is getting to you Donald old boy, and that frown on your forehead isn’t from the taste of quinine in your bill. In fact, it’s an age furrow from nipping all that Ketamine you have hidden in your oil ducts.
It’s only my opinion, but you should have settled down and not terminated your affair with that dowager, Daisy. Let’s face it, being free as a bird isn‘t all it’s cut out to be. Is it?”
@A: Most excellent of Disney Character re-writes! Well done. I got a good chuckle out of that one.
@A-Laughing my duck-A off! 😀
tsk, tsk, tsk, A….I like your story, but your’re really getting “down” on the duck!!
A.–
This is a great example of fun! Fun to write, I hope, and fun to read. You are just Ducky!
Thanks guys. I realy like the “D.D”, but Don, Don, Don was too hard to pass up.
Death & the Detective Series
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Detective Brett Connors pushed on the door to the morgue. No matter how many times he had been there before, he was never ready for the slap of the strong, antiseptic smell – or the ear-splitting sound of Metallica blasting across the room.
Snatching the remote, Brett slammed the room into silence.
“Every time I come in here, I promise myself that I will not make a reference about the music being loud enough to wake up the dead.”
“Yet, every time, you do, Brett. You need a new line.”
“No, Randy, you need to get beyond your teenage years.”
Randy Watkins was the city’s coroner. Confined to a wheelchair from those teenage years did nothing to slow him down. Brett often wondered if his chosen career stemmed from the auto accident that crippled Randy and took the life of his friend. But, that one was best left to the lady shrink.
“That’s not my vic.”
“No, indeed. This corpulent fellow is far from the slender lady you brought me.”
Furrow after furrow of fat spread itself across the coroner’s table like the escaping layers of a baker’s unrolled dough. The layers deformed his back like an old lady’s dowager’s hump.
“Let me just don this gentleman in his opulent and resplendent cloak, and we’ll take a look at your lady,” Randy said while gently pulling the white sheet to the deceased’s chin.
That was something Brett always appreciated about Randy – the respect and dignity he gave to those who no longer felt.
Rolling over to another draped figure, Randy slowly pulled the sheet back on the latest victim. Brett could only feel relief that the poor woman no longer suffered.
Her body showed signs of severe abuse and her eyes had been carved away with a surgeon’s precision.
“What can you tell me, Randy?”
“Mark will have to confirm, but it appears she had several drugs in her body. The burn marks look like electrical shock, and the eyes were not taken by an amateur.”
Lifting her left arm, Randy showed Brett the marks.
“Intravenous, I’d say.”
“It’s ketamine, fed intravenously,” was the answer from crime tech, Mark Johnson, who just walked through the door.
“I just confirmed it. Vets mostly use it. Let me tell you, the dose this lady had, took her on a wild ride.”
“What kind of ride?” Brett questioned.
“One that ranks right up there with PCP – nasty.”
Brett felt himself vacillate between pity and rage. What had this girl ever done to anyone to deserve such a fate? He fantasized how he would terminate the killer’s life – in ways more painful than what he dealt out.
“That’s not all. I found traces of quinine. You know? The drug used to treat malaria.”
“What the hell?”
The plot thickens, Cathy… who would you cast as your lead characters?
@Margaret-now that’s an interesting thought…hmmm, my detective is 6’4″, 46 years old with electrifying blue eyes and black hair with a “sprinkle” of gray-a taller version of George Clooney?. The lady shrink is 42 years old with auburn hair and “killer legs”….hmmm….Julia Roberts?
Might as well go for the mega stars. 🙂
@Cathy: I love this tale so much. Carry on.
Cathy —“Furrow after furrow of fat spread itself across the coroner’s table like the escaping layers of a baker’s unrolled dough…” This brings about such great imagry!
And… as I have been away for a bit… I dont’ mind saying: Great believable dialog! you’ve got me wanting to go back and read all of the parts of this story and read more, more, more!
@KathleenL-thank you. Shane has been gracious enough that he has the whole series in the community links. 🙂 I’m considering taking part of it and entering it in some of the writing contests-test the waters, so to speak.
Cathy; The mark of a great word engineer, “slammed the room into silence.”
Perfact.
I hope society will not stand for the jailed to become corpulent swine on our tax dollars. Some may furrow their brow as the judged don their bright orange, black and white stripes or their pink undergarments mandated by the warden on their last evening here on earth. No dowager’s riches to provide them with an opulent celebration of their life. No resplendent floral arrangements, not like at their victims funerals.
I wonder which it will be… Ketamine or Quinine … that will be used to terminate this waist of flesh? Do not vacillate, let’s use both, slowly. Although I am left with the continuing nagging thought… if it is truly “An eye for and eye” why does the murdered get to have his life ended so quickly? When his victim did not!
@Kathleen: Damn cons get room and board, weights and libraries with Internet, and three meals a day. This is more than our homeless and elderly. get Tis an upside down world. All prisions should be like the one in Cool Hand Luke.
Whoever decided “cruel and unusual punishment” was not a good thing for the sub-human sociopaths that deserve it? I’m with Dexter!
@KathleenL-very poignant-well done.
Shane… thanks! And you’re right. We do have an upside down society … and a society where you can get less years for taking someone’s life than you can for… most other crimes against humanity and society.
Go bloody figure.
Miss Margaret — Who the bloody hell knows. And I’ve been wondering this before my first born becaome one of the murdered.
Cathy — Thanks
@Kathleen-I like to believe that no matter how messed up our human laws are that there is a greater power that we all will answer to. Glad to have you back with us and hope you feel our love & support.
Kathleen;
Some say to make them suffer in jail for life . I say “BANG,” right between the eyes and they are dead. Dead is nice, your writting is nicer.
A. — My family is right there on the same page with yah! BANG right between the eyes. I do know my father, now 72, offered to save Oklahoma tax payers a lot of wasted money … if they would just give him an hour with the guy. I so like that idea. BANG, BANG, BANG….
BEST REGARDS, O. W.
Hanging on by a thread. A trite old phrase, but once in a while only a phrase like that will do.
I vacillate between can-do and go-back-to-bed these days, like a schizophrenic in need of an (over)dose of ketamine to numb my senses. I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel (another trite old phrase!), but frankly I’m not sure it’s there.
Here I sit, grande dowager, respected by society and maybe a little bit feared, resplendent in my mantle of wisdom. No mafia don ever had such power; no Daley ever ruled Chicago from such opulent digs; no corpulent corporate chief ever commanded such loyal minions. Yet my brow is furrowed as it hasn’t been in twenty years, and I wonder out loud whether a good dose of quinine would hold back the rising nausea caused by the bug that’s bitten me for the first time in my life: the bug that says it’s time to move on.
Boy, when this show terminates at the end of the season, I hope I can find something to do.
@Kelly: Wonderful. Love how you implement the rule of three in this submission.
I just want to say how proud I am of you for catching up. For those that don’t know, Kelly has been trying for months to catch up and do all of the challenge to get current. I believe she just has. I’m so humbled by this effort of yours. Well done.
Shane–Woosh! It took such a short time to get behind (it seemed), it’s not fair that it took forever to get current. Lesson learned…
But it’s SO cool to see ’em all together on my Compilation page here at CCC. Makes it look like I work at this rather seriously, doesn’t it!!
@Kelly: You’ve written 26,000 words since here at the CCC. That’s 26,000 words you had buried in that head of yours, which proves writer’s block is helpless under the CCC’s boot. 🙂
Holy s—, really? And that’s when I’m having fun… erm… and trying to be brief! That’s a lotta words!
@Kelly-so glad to see the shoes under the CCC carpet again! 😀
Cathy,
They’ve been so darned *far* under the carpet, LOL. Now what’ll I do when I have a second free and I’ve got no CCC to catch up on?
Guess I could work…
Nah-you don’t want to resort to work! 🙂 That’s why I usually come here on the weekends, but it was getting soooooooo lonely-just Shane & me. 🙂
I went back to the beginning, too, and did a bunch to get caught up, but not nearly as many as you. In any event, we are very glad to see you back,
Kelly — “…mantle of wisdom…” I really like this phrase!
26,000 words… well I’d wonder what you’d do if you had the time to write a lengthy ditty! Well done.
I hope to catch us well. Truly.
Kelly;
FLASH!! for the news
We all missed the shoes
Wow, Kathleen, these are some good words!
Sara — glad you like them. I can’t wait to read your ditty. :}
As the corpulent fellow attempted to don the pants that fit him just months ago, he quickly realized that he would have to terminate his efforts before the growing furrow could become a full-blown tear. He wondered what it would be like to live without criticism from his dowager mother, to not have to vacillate between doughnuts or depression, to be hailed for his talents and spirit rather than scorned for his opulent belly.
Would the new diet, with its resplendent raves and reviews, work? He eyed the lemony beverage before swallowing it down, grimacing at the quinine bitterness, wishing it were ketamine instead.
@Sara-this is really excellent – especially with such challenging words – you made it seem effortless. Well done!
Thank you so much, Cathy! 🙂
[…] Copy Challenge # 81, on body image #13, “Sketching in Central Park” #14, “Mystery […]
Sara — BRAVO!!!!! Bravo. By the read… you had a bit of fun while playing with the list as well.
Thanks Kathleen! It was so much fun, and such a challenge!
Back for More!
Avenged in Blood Part 38
My silenced pistol barked once, and then again. A furrow appeared across her bare forearms just above her gloves. She dropped her pistol as the blood began to flow from the wounds. I wasn’t sure what had made me not terminate her life right there.
That wasn’t like me. I shot to kill. I didn’t vacillate when my life was in danger. But there was something about her…Dark and mysterious, resplendent in black leather pants and a black cotton shirt. I was enchanted to say the least.
She cried out in pain, or maybe terror as she turned and looked down the barrel of my still smoking pistol. Then she just collapsed. Fainted. Or was it a ruse? I walked slowly towards her, my pistol still tracking the door and her crumpled form. No one else was here I realized as I reached her.
She had collapsed onto her right side facing me. I could not see any weapon near her, just corpulent drops of blood escaping her arms and puddling on the floor. I turned her over to her back with the toe of my shoe. She was out cold. I nodded to myself and holstered my weapon. I picked up hers and stuck it in my belt as I went to the bathroom for first aid supplies.
An hour had passed. Her wounds were cleaned and bandaged. She didn’t wake up through all of it, even the peroxide in the furrows didn’t bring her around. It was like those junkies I had dealt with on the force. Hopped up on everything from Cocaine to ketamine and dead to the world.
Her heartbeat, however was as strong as it needed to be. I pulled a chair to the side of the bed and waited for her to wake up, the sharp quinine bite of the tonic water I was drinking on my lips, my pistol at the ready in my lap.
Eventually, she opened her eyes. They were green and rimmed by long lashes. No. Focus! I can’t get caught up like that. I had to don my cloak of steel and get some answers from her.
“Not very opulent around here is it?” She asked.
“Who sent you?” I asked in reply.
“Doesn’t matter does it? There are so many gunning for you.” She said.
I couldn’t argue. “Are they coming here?” I asked.
“Yep.” She said. “We all know where you live. I thought I was going to be first.”
“You were.” I said. “I was waiting. What is the prize?”
“$500,000 and a name. Hard to pass that up.” She said.
I shrugged in agreement trying to figure out where to move next. “Who are you?” I asked.
“What do you care, you are just going to kill me anyway.” She said.
“I am just curious.” I said trying not to notice the tendrils of brunette that fell across the sharp line of her jaw to the softness of her long neck.
“I’m not going to tell you.” She said. “You may as well kill me now.”
“I don’t think I will just yet.” I said. “But I to call you something. I can make something up, something exotic with a great backstory. Your name is Lola, you were a showgirl. Or maybe an Irene, destined to end up a dowager in the big old house with all of the cats. Or maybe..”
She interrupted. “My name is Lola. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.” I said. “Lucky guess.”
@Justin: haha! Loved the flow of that. And the ending was perfect. Carry on.
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