I thought of a small exercise below whilst in a cafe before work. I picked three random words and had ten minutes to create a small story. I had thought of using a random word generator but then figured it would be more natural to use the first three words that came to my head, as then the words would already be cognitive linked and may assist in the story making process. As ever my technical knowledge lacks - but that's not the focus and I know that will improve with time. And to be honest anyone that can write with perfect grammatical execution misses out on the gift and purification of laborious editing. Oh and I chucked in the little challenge of creating a new word/term within the story.
Exercise 1: Random words: Axe, vandal, pavement (and neologise one word)
Kirk swaggered down the street – cock of the roost. The tiny city of Charling slept as it normally did at 4am. It’d been a pretty good night so far – a few decent burglaries from the Sancton area. Good hauls too – some tech, a bit of jewellage and a nice top hat that he now sported. A top night indeed. He caught himself in the reflection of a shop window. He turned and admired - the hat fit him like a glove – he flicked the brim tilting it to a jauntier angle. “I like it”.
He turned and walked. The birds were starting to wake with their peeping and beeping. He saw a bin and decided to kick it over. With his almighty heel he toppled it. It was bloody heavy too. Giant chunks of concrete and hefty pieces of iron spilt all over the sidewalk with a dull clatter. He pushed it with his foot and it trundled slowly down the sloped street – rubble cluttering out onto the pavement. By the light of the street lamp he saw a fine piece of wood amongst the debris. He tipped it up right and peered in the can.
“What is that oak?”
It was the handle of a hefty pickaxe. He picked it up and admiring it’s weight.
“My lucky night! Well what do you do with a pick axe?” He smiled “Why not?”
He hefted it over his head and crashed it into the pavement – the reverberations jolting and shaking his bones. It felt good. He’d made a pretty decent chip in the pavement too.
“Right!”
He schlepped the pick and slammed it hard into the ground again. This time it split the slab in two and was wedged a good two or three inches in.
“Nice!”
He wrenched it out and struck again. And again. And again. Within moments the sturdy slab that had been had become several pieces of rubble.
“Wow - I’m in the wrong business. I should be in demo”.
He swung the pick a few more times breaking the pieces further and then kicked at the debris and scuffed the firm packed dirt underneath.
“Oh so it’s a fight you want is it?”
The pick went into the air again this time into the terra firma below. The going was easier and the packed earth gave way like it was mashed potato. Before he knew it Kirk was a foot down with a circular pile of rubble surrounding him on the pavement. As he kept on swinging he felt a change in the feel of the ground – softer. Like he was striking a mattress. He was so deep now that the light from the nearby street lamp was straining to fill his ditch. It was hard to tell what was there. He got down on his knees and felt at the turf. It felt like rotten half disintegrated wood that was softening his blows. He pulled at the pieces and pushed his hands through what he felt to be a small hole – that dreaded feeling from childhood came over him – what if there’s a spider in there? “shut up Kirk” Up to his bicep in earth on his hands and knees he patted around and felt some kind of cloth – surprisingly it was dry. It was wrapped around something. From behind him he heard a roaring like heavens wrath awoken. A rubbish truck was roaring down the road towards him. “Shit!” He yelled as he yanked the cloth bundle through the wooden panel and scrambled out of the impromptu ditch in the middle of the sidewalk. He ran down the street and ducked into an alley.
He got down on his haunches, panting under a dim street lamp and unwrapped the bundle. It was a knife. It looked old – was it gold? Silvr? He couldn’t quite tell. He looked at the hilt and there was some kind of jewel as black as ravens down. It throbbed in his hand menacingly. The truck was gone and daybreak had begun to pale the black sky. He walked back to his makeshift excavation site. His top hat lay on the pavement next to the piles of earth and rubble – he picked it up dusted it off and placed it squarely on his head. Hefting the pickaxe onto his shoulder he walked off into the pale abyss of dawn, smiling.
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