The first exercise in The Writer's Toolbox involves three prompt sticks and a timer. A first sentence stick. An non sequitur stick half way which inevitably has nothing to do with the first stick. Unless you cheat and keep choosing until something vaguely fits. And a last straw stick with inevitably has even less connection with the story that you've been trying to write. There are twenty of each stick. I will not write twenty stories based on them. My sanity is worth too much to me for that.
Perhaps I could just write from the first sentence and only draw another stick if I get really stuck or if I want the challenge of whatever nonsense I'm writing becoming more nonsensical. I used to like first sentences and if we had one in a writing group I'd always be the one who seemed to take it in a bonkers direction. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
I wonder if anyone else has ever tried this exercise three times. I wonder if anyone has stuck to the rules better than I did. I'm not a picture of virtue when it comes to paying attention to the time running out.
I wasn't going to use sticks today and had decided I was too tired to write. There was an hour before dinner though and it seemed a better way to use the hour than to watch another hour of brain-sapping drama on the laptop. I should probably read it through and see whether the sentences make some kind of sense even though the plot is more outlandish than the book I opened in a shop today which began by telling me that every word in the Bible was written by God. It's not. Would he allow stories like this one if he was a good enough author to write all those psalms? He'd have caused a power cut by now to prevent my writing. I wrote about Saint Peter at a wife swapping party once. No omnipotent God would have put up with that!
...
I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink. Ordinarily of course I’d say that there isn’t an inappropriate pink or that there is any colour or combination of colours that shouldn’t be worn. You’ve all seen me dressed as an out of order rainbow or in clothes that I am told clash with each other painfully. Get used to it because I’m not changing how I dress and it’s everyone else who needs to be more open-minded in their colour choices. People are so grey it breaks my heart. When you’ve seen fifty-thousand pairs of blue jeans in a day you long to see someone who takes their style choices from a bird of paradise or an oil painter’s palette after it’s been thrown on the floor and mixed up by a three year old.
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| This is Blob Thing. He always wears pink. |
My wardrobe is a palette in itself. It’s a paint catalogue minus all the boring colours and on Thursday last week I was dressed mainly in pink. Bright pink like concentrated candy floss or the best shade for vandalising something that needs cheering up. I looked amazing even if I say so myself and I’m sure you would agree, on any ordinary day, that I was the one bringing life and happiness to the world and that I deserved to be photographed for a dozen fashion magazines and three more about art. I left the house on Thursday looking good, feeling good and believed that nothing could go wrong.
Which, on any ordinary day, would have been right. If only I’d checked my diary before leaving the house. I’m not daft. I know that there are certain times when society places expectations on a woman and she has to dress a particular way. Meeting the king. Being a bridesmaid. Marching down streets as part of a brass band or a regimental outing to buy coffee at Starbucks. Funerals. Standing in as chief inquisitor. Being the conductor on a train. There are standards and I know full well to stick to them. I do too, when I know about it.
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| I rarely wear pink. |
But last Thursday at ten o’clock it was Henrietta’s funeral and she was a staunch Irish Catholic. Latin mass and everything. And it was too late to go home.
“If you don’t take chances,” said the man in striped pyjamas, “you might as well not be alive.” Everyone stared at me when I got to the church. They were horrified. Henrietta’s daughter ordered me to sit at the back and to try to be inconspicuous and the priest spent five minutes telling me how disrespectful I was not to have even bothered wearing a hat. I was totally apologetic of course and explained that it was all a dreadful mistake and that I’d never have worn pink if I’d realised about the funeral before leaving the house, not even a more sedate shade like a pastel dress with frilly sleeves and a dark orange matching scarf.
I nestled myself into the very back pew and lowered myself down so I would be more hidden. I knew I’d messed up. I lowered myself more and that’s when I fell to the floor. I decided I might as well stay there out of sight and there might be a wedding coming up where people could wear pink.
That’s when I heard him, “If you don’t take chances …”
Under the pew across the aisle was a man in pyjamas and I felt better. I wasn’t the most inappropriately dressed person there after all. He hadn’t even bothered to get dressed. I smiled gently at him and he smiled back and I decided he was probably a weirdo for not dressing normally so I pushed myself further under my pew and waited for Henrietta’s funeral mass to begin. Why do such funerals have to be so long? It was uncomfortable under the pew and dirty too as if nobody ever bothered cleaning the church except to rub down the altar. Or rub down the priest but I hastily repented of that thought in case God struck me down with lightning or flu. I wouldn’t want to be struck down when wearing pink. What would the neighbours think?
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| This is Winefride. She disobeys all conventions. |
After the service I lay under the pew until everyone had left and then crawled out, aching badly. The man in pyjamas crawled out from under his pew and our noses met in the aisle.
“Hello pink lady,” he said. “Like I was saying, you might as well not be alive. That’s like an apple.”
I was confused. I was embarrassed too and had wanted to escape unseen, rush home, put on my dullest black skirt and get to the cemetery before it was too late to get to the reception and still be thought polite.
“Err, what, hello. An apple. What’s like an apple?”
“You are. You’re a pink lady. And I’m David. Pleased to meet you.”
“Look, I need to go. I might as well not be alive if I don’t get to the reception.”
“You could always not go. Take a chance. See what happens if you do something else. They’ll only be bitching about Henrietta anyway because nobody liked her. If you ask me they’re only going because they want to look good when the will gets read next week. I’m not like that and I haven’t been since the time Leslie called me a leech. You know Leslie, the one with the scruffy head and horrid halitosis. He’s the leech if you ask me. That’s why I’m in my pyjamas.”
“That doesn’t make sense and I really do need to go. Henrietta was my friend and I won’t have anyone say anything bad about her even if it was always me who bought lunch when she was the one living in a big house and even if she did keep telling me I was going to the wrong Catholic church and that I was a disgrace. She was still my friend and I want to pay my respects.”
“Okay. Let’s go together. You and me. Don’t get changed on my account. You look fine to me and I’ll buy you a brush for all that dust on the way. Don’t worry about the leeches. They aren’t worth worrying about. Just allow me to get out of these pyjamas before we go. I never liked stripes anyway.”
That was the last straw of course. I couldn’t have a stranger stripping naked in front of me in the aisle of the most respectable church in the city. It just wouldn’t be appropriate at all. I started to walk away without saying goodbye.
“Wait, wait. I’ll only be a minute.”
I couldn’t resist looking back and he was already removing his pyjama top. Over his head without even undoing the buttons.
He wasn’t naked underneath. What a relief. I don’t know what I’d have done. Under his pyjama top he was wearing a navy blue clerical shirt complete with dog collar.
“Sorry I should have introduced myself. Father Michael. I was meant to be taking the funeral today but I couldn’t stand Henrietta and this parish will be much happier for me without her gone. So I got Brother James from the monastery to do it and he’s not even a priest so it doesn’t count and I hid back here in my pyjamas. You’ve got to take chances you see, otherwise there’s really no point in being alive.
Do you think I’ll get something good out of her will?”
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