Friday, January 22, 2010

Bonus Post: A Writing Prompt

On occasion, there comes a Monday or Friday when no TriMu is scheduled to blog. The calendar is just tricksy that way. But never fear, dear readers; we will not leave you with nothing to read today! We've decided to do a collaborative post, a brief response from each of us to a writing prompt. We hope you enjoy.

The TriMu has a new snuggly mascot to add to the ranks. Grab your popcorn and your tissues:

Late morning January 2, 2010, Sarah's aunts were on their way to decorate the reception hall for her brother's after-wedding feast. During the journey they discovered an open cat carrier sitting on the side of the highway. And there, in the 8 degree weather in the snow and ice-bound north, pressed back against the far wall into a shaking ball was Sage. Sage is a gorgeous long-haired purrbox of black and orange, once well-fed, declawed in the front, litterbox-trained, spayed--an average 3-yr-old indoor cat by all accounts--but with bruises and a tendency to flinch away from fast hand movements, both symptoms of whatever happened in her former life. The poor, half-frozen, terrified, abandoned kitty (people, it was EIGHT DEGREES outside) was acclimated in stages to the weather as she was quaking in shock. She was a "plus one" for Sarah's brother's wedding and found herself the subject of much affection during the reception. Finally, late that evening, she managed a bite of food and began to come out of her shock. Sarah, being a sucker for a good heartbreaking tail (ah-ha-ha) and hardship cases (which is almost a requirement for pet adoption into her family), brought it home to SC and determined that Sage must live in TriMu Tori's house. After a clean bill of health and a round of shots from the vet, this soft, cuddly tag-a-long has been rechristened as Gypsy Sage (for her heart-stealing ways) and is thriving in her new, warm home, and good, healthy food.



Today's Writing Prompt: Detail the event(s) leading to Gypsy Sage's bid for roadside assistance.

Darlene C. Goodman's Response: Gypsy Sage lived in a happy home populated with a human mother, human father, human boy, human girl, iguana girl, and a tasty family of mice in the dark space under the porch steps. One blustery winter afternoon, as Sage batted one of the mice children around in a playful and loving manner, she heard an awful moaning and groaning echoing through their middle-class subdivision.
Sage could not understand human speech, but if she could, she would have been just barely able to recognize a single word, a single word that sent chills into the hearts of Sage's family, neighbors, and the English-speaking mouse struggling under her paw: "Brrraaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnssssssssss!"
The mouse, hearing the danger, yelled at Sage, "It's a zombie holocaust you idiot! Run away! Run away!" But she didn't understand English, so she ate the screaming creature, putting him out of his misery.
Her human boy raced to her side and stowed her in a cat carrier. Then he ran. His whole family ran. They ran over the river and through the woods, but when they got to Grandmother's house, she came after them with a knife and fork. "Brrraaaaiiiinnnnsss!"
Gran got mom. Mom got Dad. Dad got the girl. The girl got the iguana. The boy, when faced with the terror of battling his entire family of zombies, realized the need to protect himself. He dropped Sage in her carrier. The family attacked her, and he ran. But he had not taken into account the surprising resourcefulness of the zombie iguana, who did not let him get fifty paces.
The human zombies, not being as resourceful as iguana, could not get the carrier open, so they left Sage there, freezing in her cage and went after new prey.


Tori Pryer's Response: Gypsy Sage was an ordinary kitty growing up in the ordinary Welsh city of Cardiff. One day, through no fault of her own, she wandered into what appeared to be an ordinary blue police box. She got a bit of shock as she entered. The police box was bigger on the inside. Being a cat and not a silly human, she took it in stride and spent the next few years travelling through space and time with a timelord. She especially enjoyed New Earth and its inhabitants. One day, she was a bit too curious and absorbed some energy from the police box/spaceship. The timelord felt that it was unsafe for Gypsy Sage to travel with him anymore and placed her in a place where he was certain that she would be found. He stayed and watched from a distance as Gypsy was retrieved. He planned occasionally to come back to check on Gypsy in between trips through time and space. *Recommended viewing BBC's Doctor Who

Sarah Templeton's Response: It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Tori needed a cat for Christmas and Santa got lost. He stopped for directions up North (It's Santa. We'll talk realism some other time.) and her carrier fell off the sleigh, right into the home of the Abominable Snowman. *gasp!* Luckily, she was rescued by a pack of rabid squirrels (That's redundant, I know. All squirrels are nutty. But just for fun, let's not do revisions on the writing prompt today.). After a week's journey, the squirrels were hungry and wrenched open the carrier, but, once again luckily, my aunt's oncoming vehicle scared them away in the nick of time.


Anyone else in the mood for some creative stretching exercise today? Post your own responses to this writing prompt in the comments!

2 comments:

Sarah Templeton said...

Color me green: Sounds like Tori's planning to get a few visits from a good-looking fella with an English accent. Guess I should have kept the cat for myself...^_^

I'm stunned that we got zombies, Santa, and the Doctor into the same blog post--with only half of the Myth Makers.

purpleprose 78 said...

Hehe....you are stunned. I am not. We are a cuckoo bunch.