Stevensons Locker-April Topic- Sunsets

[Meli]

Courtesy of Chris nova

Writing "competition"

Topic for April
"Sunsets"


Pieces must be written by the poster within the month of the comp.
(Please feel free to annotate with the source of inspiration.)
"winner" selected by dice roll
Only one piece per poster please, no longer than 10,000 characters
Topic chosen by winner of previous months poll.
(You may edit your post within the month.)


Have Fun!!

[TomF]

Since my prescription needs to be renewed
I can’t distinctly read what’s on the screen.
Discreet enlarging helps you not get screwed
But only if the layout isn’t mean.
A squinted, errant click on misread words
Can trigger workplace terror: IT snoops
(Those self-important puffed up high school nerds)
Cannot believe a click there was an “oops!”

I’m turning 50. While that’s hardly dead
When Meli posted rules for this month’s test
Her “sunset” read like “sonnet” in my head.
I thought – OK – and you can guess the rest.
No paens to golden rays are in this bit:
Just Octave/Sestet … from a half-blind twit.

[Lew Barrett]

This is a view from our house on a particularly nice evening, but most evening sunset views from our house are quite nice. If a picture is worth one thousand words, then consider my essay well started and finished however well or poorly the following words strike home.

Sunsets, five minute metaphors when observed as their own events, are considerably more melancholy for me now that I am older. They have always been at least a bit so, even when I was a younger fool. They signal the end of the day, and if the day has been poorly spent, it holds no other promise so even a beautiful sunset causes a sigh. If the day has been well spent, one may enjoy the coming evening without remorse, but in that event there may yet be a passing thought given for the end of the good day. However lovely, it is gone and another one exactly like it cannot be. Night falls, and no matter how much a young person enjoys it, night leaves a human at a disadvantage. Unless, that is, one is hunting but then only if one is hunting for love, for any other hunting done at night will not likely be to good purpose.

So I say sunsets no matter how beautiful are always sad, their beauty magnified by the irony of what they signal. I stare, blinking, at a moment in reds and golds, so beautiful is it which will soon pass, it would cause me a more delicious melancholy if only I could know with complete certainty there will be the joy of...... one more sunset.

[Meli]

That's the Idea Tom

As for Yew Lew, why not?
The more the merrier

[Lew Barrett]

Ok, re-read. It was a so very thin as originally written anyway, now I'm hoping it isn't just a bit too much!

[Meli]

Lovely Lew thanks

[Meli]

Mine will be en titled - 101 Sunsets with the Greek Billionaire Tycoon Doctor and his Illegitimate Mistress's Secret Baby

i'm waiting for inspiration

[Meli]

Here you go.
A work in progress. havent even got to the first one yet

Cry Uncle when you've had enough

101 Sunsets....... (ECT )

Shala Weld stepped onto the tarmac of the tiny airport at Tinos and passed a fine boned, but strong hand wearily over her elfin face and dishevelled garnet braids.
After the dismal, leaking airport in Athens and the 12 hour crossing on the tiny, smoke choked ferry to Santorini and the jolting donkey ride from the Caldera,(stoicly, enduring the muttered obscenities of the ancient, leering satyr leading the beast) , the small blue private plane waiting cheerily at the island airport had seemed a haven of clean leather and cool sophistication.

But now, standing on the meltemi whipped gravel, with purple clouds spilling over the barren hills and the absolute silence…

The pilot having seemingly been blown away with the wind, she braced her slender shoulders and bent to lift the heavy back-pack.

“Kyria… Kyria!… parakalo!..”

An impossibly young Adonis with a broad, urchin grin was trotting towards her, stripping off a blinding white pilots shirt and momentarily revealing the angel wings tattooed on his beautiful young man’s back, before modestly donning a bob dylan T shirt.

“I’m so sorry Miss Weld, the airport manager just opened the door, pulled down the steps and left! Welcome to Tinos !! “

He flashed a depreciative grin and rolled his eyes “I’m Manolis, Cleon’s general handy guy, secretary, pilot, chauffeur deck hand and sometimes the cook, but Angiliki usually takes care of that, she’s my Mitera, that’s Greek for Mum.”

Almost staggering from the wave of exuberance blasted from the boy, Shala returned a rueful smile, then a wider one.
“Cleon?”
“Cleon Mihas,… Da Boss!, like Leon with a “Cl…”

With a quieter smile, Manolis gently wrested the heavy pack from Shala’s shoulder “don’t worry Kyria, you’ll soon get used to us, I talk too much.. come, the donkey is round the back..”

Dead panning at her vain attempts to mask her dismay, Manolis heaved the pack with a small grunt and tossed over his shoulder “ oh yeah, her names Jackie O, actually her real name is Ioannidis but .., Yiayia freaked , told grandpa the Junta would disappear him, so she gets called Jackie O in public.”

Holding her braids in one hand against the wind and her tote bag in the other Shala trailed wearily after him, too weary to even acknowledge the opalescent, fire on purple sunset backing the darkening hills.

[bobbys]

O great Im supposed to follow Lew now?.

I feel like a juggling act right after the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

[Spin_Drift]

This doesnt "qualify" but thought I'd show you this sunset anyway. :

[Spin_Drift]

Aah, -Alaska, where an afternoon trip to the "little house on the hill" can become an adventure in a blink of an eye.

Mary sat in the outhouse and watched the moose outside the window. She wished she'd have brought her cellphone with her. She could have called her dad or mom to come help her get safely back to the house.


Mary knew moose were unpredictable and dangerous anytime, but even more so this time of the year....


The females were ready to give birth and they had recently "shooed" their old calfs away. When this happens, a bull calf is about a year and a half old. A female calf can stay with her mother for a few years.


Mary looked at the young bull through the lace curtain and figured he weighed about 600 pounds. -Nothing to tangle with.


The young bull slowly moseyed around near the outhouse and nibbled little tidbits from bushes and tree limbs....and it paid no attention to her. Mary could do nothing but stay in the "little house on the hill" and wait for the bull to leave.


All was peaceful and quiet..... Then all of a sudden, out of the woods, a larger bull run toward the young bull. Without warning, he charged and kicked at the younger one with such a force, they both fell against the outhouse. The young bull laid "spread eagle", desperately trying to get his feet under him. The big bull kicked repeatedly and some of the kicks landed on the outhouse wall.


Mary stifled her scream, but too late, as the big bull noticed her inside the little house. Snorting, -he butted at the wall and pawed at the ground. This gave the little bull enough time to get up and scramble away. It took off in a run. The big bull glanced at it but found Mary and the outhouse more interesting. He snorted and tried to find a way in. Mary sat quietly, shrinking as far away as possible, from the door and the windows.



After what seemed like a lifetime to Mary, the big bull grew bored with the outhouse and started nibbling on twigs, bark and branches. Eventually he disappeared from Mary's view. She didn't leave the outhouse until the sun started setting.


As she hurried down the hill, she looked back and saw the setting sun peek between the trees. She wondered if the big bull was somewhere in the trees, maybe watching the sunset too....


Do you see a moose in the trees?




This is THE outhouse. Top door has a plexi-glass window and a lace curtain. Both side windows are also covered with lace curtains.....

[Chip-skiff]

Puesta del Sol

Funny place to end up. But good as any other, I reckon. Look at that ol' sun— well you can't really look for long, but enough to see how it looks like a red-hot ball about to drop smack in the Pacific.

Drink on the right, and on the left, a woman's warm hand. Her name is Belén, that's how they say Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. We met a couple hours ago.

Took the bus six hours to get here and it broke down once. Then it stopped, where a backhoe was digging a big ditch across the road. Let us out, turned around and drove away. Damn hot, no shade. We walked over a plank bridge, carrying our bags. It was quite a ways to town, and nothing open. The bar was farther out, on a sand road through a thick stand of palms, looking over the beach. End of the road, for sure.

There's a west-facing bay and low ground, like the ocean took a big bite out of the land, with a ring of mountains a couple miles back. There's boat traffic in season, but not many people around now that it's getting hot. So it was just me at the bar, with a wallet full of pesos, and her pouring the drinks.

Belén. Pretty eyes, maybe a little on the heavy side. Her Inglés beat hell out of my Spanish, so I quit trying. There was a radio on above the bar, with that crazy music they play. I was on my fourth G & T— best drink for a really hot day. We were just talking, the way you do. For comfort.

I was telling her about my ex, and the trouble. The music quit in the middle of a song— I guess it was news. He was talking fast, like he was out of breath. She turned up the volume and held out a hand, so I shut up.

"¡Díos Mio!" she said. Then she crossed herself.

"What's up, darlin'?"

"Es un terramoto más grande— earthquake. In the sea. He say they los' contac' con Honolulu." She shut up and kept listening. "Quatros horas pasado. Qué mal!"

"¡Es necesario evacuar la costa, mas rapidamente!" The man's words didn't make sense at first. Then they did.

She picked up the phone— I could hear the brrp-brrp of the busy signal. She ran out and I followed her. I could hear yelling and engines starting, beyond the palms. A siren yowled, went silent, and yowled again.

"I don' think they come for me," she said, looking down at her feet. "No importa— they can no' drive pas' the acequia."

"That big ditch they're digging?"

She nodded. She looked sad. I remembered how long it had taken to walk here from the bus, and how far it was to the mountains— I couldn't run fast enough.

"¿You wan' some tamales?"

"What?"

"I jus' make tamales— you wan' some?"

"Sure. Thanks."

"Go out to the palapa. I come wit' tamales— and a drink."

The palm thatch rustled in the sea breeze, but the low sun had chased the shade away. When she set the tamales on the table I could see a gold cross stick to the beads of sweat between her breasts, then swing free.

She set down a G & T in a frosted goblet and a glass of ice water with a slice of lime for herself. That tamale was the best damn thing I ever ate. We were leaning toward each other as we drank. I set down my drink and looked at her and pursed my lips, asking.

She shook her head. But she took my hand.

I looked at the sun, a quarter gone into a sea that looked black at first. Then the deepest blue. Then the sun dropped halfway in, just like that.

"¡Mira tú!" she said.

And then we could hear the roar.

[Spin_Drift]

In the winter moose eat willow, birch, alders, aspen, just the tips of all the branches. Or bark of very young saplings.

[Spin_Drift]

Like here. This young moose is right downtown, on the busiest street in town. It's eating tips of the little tree.

[Chip-skiff]

An observation: if you mention moose on any WBF thread, it will be about moose from then on.

Moose are a virus.

[BrianW]

Sunsets
No Surprise
Safe bet
Follow sunrise




moose

[Meli]

only a week to go.
We've had some great pieces this month.

Anyone else want a shot?

[John Smith]

I sometimes wonder how sunset might have been seen in the days before we had electricity, or before we had lanterns. Maginificant and some sunsets are to view, they preceeded the darkness. I sometimes think about how dark it really was back then if the sky was clouding and no moon or stars were visible to provide any light source. How dark and frightening might that night that followed the sunset be? Of course, back then it also signaled the end of the work day.

Then there's another downside to the the upside. Like spring is lovely with all the blooming that takes place, it also brings with it those allergies so many suffer so severely with. As the sun sets, out come the mosquitoes and other creatures of the night, not all of which are cute and cuddly.

As sailors we are all aware of the ability prescribed to sunsets to predict the coming weather. Having anchored on night to a beautiful read sunset and awakening to a nasty storm, the reliability of the sunset for this purpose must be seriously questioned. Driving into the setting, or the rising, sun can be difficult, especially if one is trying to read the street signs or highways signs that are hidden by the sun behind them. This was the point of an old song about Bill Thaxton, a gunfighter. A younger gunfighter, nicknamed "Sunset" (because he never fought till the sun's going down and his back is facing the west) challenged the old guy at sunset. Everything was perfectly positioned, but Sunset had neglected on factor that cost him his life. Bill Thaxton was blind, so the setting sun didn't bother him at all.

[Meli]

Last call for entries.
Some really good stuff this month

closing midnight tomorrow EST

[Meli]

There's some really excellent entries this month.
We's a talented mob.

1. TomF

Since my prescription needs to be renewed
I can’t distinctly read what’s on the screen.
Discreet enlarging helps you not get screwed
But only if the layout isn’t mean.
A squinted, errant click on misread words
Can trigger workplace terror: IT snoops
(Those self-important puffed up high school nerds)
Cannot believe a click there was an “oops!”

I’m turning 50. While that’s hardly dead
When Meli posted rules for this month’s test
Her “sunset” read like “sonnet” in my head.
I thought – OK – and you can guess the rest.
No paens to golden rays are in this bit:
Just Octave/Sestet … from a half-blind twit.

2. Lew Barret

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...rrett/dusk.jpg

This is a view from our house on a particularly nice evening, but most evening sunset views from our house are quite nice. If a picture is worth one thousand words, then consider my essay well started and finished however well or poorly the following words strike home.

Sunsets, five minute metaphors when observed as their own events, are considerably more melancholy for me now that I am older. They have always been at least a bit so, even when I was a younger fool. They signal the end of the day, and if the day has been poorly spent, it holds no other promise so even a beautiful sunset causes a sigh. If the day has been well spent, one may enjoy the coming evening without remorse, but in that event there may yet be a passing thought given for the end of the good day. However lovely, it is gone and another one exactly like it cannot be. Night falls, and no matter how much a young person enjoys it, night leaves a human at a disadvantage. Unless, that is, one is hunting but then only if one is hunting for love, for any other hunting done at night will not likely be to good purpose.

So I say sunsets no matter how beautiful are always sad, their beauty magnified by the irony of what they signal. I stare, blinking, at a moment in reds and golds, so beautiful is it which will soon pass, it would cause me a more delicious melancholy if only I could know with complete certainty there will be the joy of...... one more sunset.

[Meli]

3. Meli

101 Sunsets....... (ECT )

Shala Weld stepped onto the tarmac of the tiny airport at Tinos and passed a fine boned, but strong hand wearily over her elfin face and dishevelled garnet braids.
After the dismal, leaking airport in Athens and the 12 hour crossing on the tiny, smoke choked ferry to Santorini and the jolting donkey ride from the Caldera,(stoicly, enduring the muttered obscenities of the ancient, leering satyr leading the beast) , the small blue private plane waiting cheerily at the island airport had seemed a haven of clean leather and cool sophistication.

But now, standing on the meltemi whipped gravel, with purple clouds spilling over the barren hills and the absolute silence…

The pilot having seemingly been blown away with the wind, she braced her slender shoulders and bent to lift the heavy back-pack.

“Kyria… Kyria!… parakalo!..”

An impossibly young Adonis with a broad, urchin grin was trotting towards her, stripping off a blinding white pilots shirt and momentarily revealing the angel wings tattooed on his beautiful young man’s back, before modestly donning a bob dylan T shirt.

“I’m so sorry Miss Weld, the airport manager just opened the door, pulled down the steps and left! Welcome to Tinos !! “

He flashed a depreciative grin and rolled his eyes “I’m Manolis, Cleon’s general handy guy, secretary, pilot, chauffeur deck hand and sometimes the cook, but Angiliki usually takes care of that, she’s my Mitera, that’s Greek for Mum.”

Almost staggering from the wave of exuberance blasted from the boy, Shala returned a rueful smile, then a wider one.
“Cleon?”
“Cleon Mihas,… Da Boss!, like Leon with a “Cl…”

With a quieter smile, Manolis gently wrested the heavy pack from Shala’s shoulder “don’t worry Kyria, you’ll soon get used to us, I talk too much.. come, the donkey is round the back..”

Dead panning at her vain attempts to mask her dismay, Manolis heaved the pack with a small grunt and tossed over his shoulder “ oh yeah, her names Jackie O, actually her real name is Ioannidis but .., Yiayia freaked , told grandpa the Junta would disappear him, so she gets called Jackie O in public.”

Holding her braids in one hand against the wind and her tote bag in the other Shala trailed wearily after him, too weary to even acknowledge the opalescent, fire on purple sunset backing the darkening hills.

Last edited by Meli; 04-06-2012 at 06:49 PM.

4.Spin_Drift

Sunsets on the Outhouse.....

Aah, -Alaska, where an afternoon trip to the "little house on the hill" can become an adventure in a blink of an eye.

Mary sat in the outhouse and watched the moose outside the window. She wished she'd have brought her cellphone with her. She could have called her dad or mom to come help her get safely back to the house.


Mary knew moose were unpredictable and dangerous anytime, but even more so this time of the year....


The females were ready to give birth and they had recently "shooed" their old calfs away. When this happens, a bull calf is about a year and a half old. A female calf can stay with her mother for a few years.


Mary looked at the young bull through the lace curtain and figured he weighed about 600 pounds. -Nothing to tangle with.


The young bull slowly moseyed around near the outhouse and nibbled little tidbits from bushes and tree limbs....and it paid no attention to her. Mary could do nothing but stay in the "little house on the hill" and wait for the bull to leave.


All was peaceful and quiet..... Then all of a sudden, out of the woods, a larger bull run toward the young bull. Without warning, he charged and kicked at the younger one with such a force, they both fell against the outhouse. The young bull laid "spread eagle", desperately trying to get his feet under him. The big bull kicked repeatedly and some of the kicks landed on the outhouse wall.


Mary stifled her scream, but too late, as the big bull noticed her inside the little house. Snorting, -he butted at the wall and pawed at the ground. This gave the little bull enough time to get up and scramble away. It took off in a run. The big bull glanced at it but found Mary and the outhouse more interesting. He snorted and tried to find a way in. Mary sat quietly, shrinking as far away as possible, from the door and the windows.



After what seemed like a lifetime to Mary, the big bull grew bored with the outhouse and started nibbling on twigs, bark and branches. Eventually he disappeared from Mary's view. She didn't leave the outhouse until the sun started setting.


As she hurried down the hill, she looked back and saw the setting sun peek between the trees. She wondered if the big bull was somewhere in the trees, maybe watching the sunset too....


Do you see a moose in the trees?

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...A/aa6eddec.jpg


This is THE outhouse. Top door has a plexi-glass window and a lace curtain. Both side windows are also covered with lace curtains.....

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...A/c09a9592.jpg

[Meli]

5. Chip Skiff

Puesta del Sol

Funny place to end up. But good as any other, I reckon. Look at that ol' sun— well you can't really look for long, but enough to see how it looks like a red-hot ball about to drop smack in the Pacific.

Drink on the right, and on the left, a woman's warm hand. Her name is Belén, that's how they say Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. We met a couple hours ago.

Took the bus six hours to get here and it broke down once. Then it stopped, where a backhoe was digging a big ditch across the road. Let us out, turned around and drove away. Damn hot, no shade. We walked over a plank bridge, carrying our bags. It was quite a ways to town, and nothing open. The bar was farther out, on a sand road through a thick stand of palms, looking over the beach. End of the road, for sure.

There's a west-facing bay and low ground, like the ocean took a big bite out of the land, with a ring of mountains a couple miles back. There's boat traffic in season, but not many people around now that it's getting hot. So it was just me at the bar, with a wallet full of pesos, and her pouring the drinks.

Belén. Pretty eyes, maybe a little on the heavy side. Her Inglés beat hell out of my Spanish, so I quit trying. There was a radio on above the bar, with that crazy music they play. I was on my fourth G & T— best drink for a really hot day. We were just talking, the way you do. For comfort.

I was telling her about my ex, and the trouble. The music quit in the middle of a song— I guess it was news. He was talking fast, like he was out of breath. She turned up the volume and held out a hand, so I shut up.

"¡Díos Mio!" she said. Then she crossed herself.

"What's up, darlin'?"

"Es un terramoto más grande— earthquake. In the sea. He say they los' contac' con Honolulu." She shut up and kept listening. "Quatros horas pasado. Qué mal!"

"¡Es necesario evacuar la costa, mas rapidamente!" The man's words didn't make sense at first. Then they did.

She picked up the phone— I could hear the brrp-brrp of the busy signal. She ran out and I followed her. I could hear yelling and engines starting, beyond the palms. A siren yowled, went silent, and yowled again.

"I don' think they come for me," she said, looking down at her feet. "No importa— they can no' drive pas' the acequia."

"That big ditch they're digging?"

She nodded. She looked sad. I remembered how long it had taken to walk here from the bus, and how far it was to the mountains— I couldn't run fast enough.

"¿You wan' some tamales?"

"What?"

"I jus' make tamales— you wan' some?"

"Sure. Thanks."

"Go out to the palapa. I come wit' tamales— and a drink."

The palm thatch rustled in the sea breeze, but the low sun had chased the shade away. When she set the tamales on the table I could see a gold cross stick to the beads of sweat between her breasts, then swing free.

She set down a G & T in a frosted goblet and a glass of ice water with a slice of lime for herself. That tamale was the best damn thing I ever ate. We were leaning toward each other as we drank. I set down my drink and looked at her and pursed my lips, asking.

She shook her head. But she took my hand.

I looked at the sun, a quarter gone into a sea that looked black at first. Then the deepest blue. Then the sun dropped halfway in, just like that.

"¡Mira tú!" she said.

And then we could hear the roar.

6. BrianW

Sunsets
No Surprise
Safe bet
Follow sunrise




moose

7. John Smith

I sometimes wonder how sunset might have been seen in the days before we had electricity, or before we had lanterns. Maginificant and some sunsets are to view, they preceeded the darkness. I sometimes think about how dark it really was back then if the sky was clouding and no moon or stars were visible to provide any light source. How dark and frightening might that night that followed the sunset be? Of course, back then it also signaled the end of the work day.

Then there's another downside to the the upside. Like spring is lovely with all the blooming that takes place, it also brings with it those allergies so many suffer so severely with. As the sun sets, out come the mosquitoes and other creatures of the night, not all of which are cute and cuddly.

As sailors we are all aware of the ability prescribed to sunsets to predict the coming weather. Having anchored on night to a beautiful read sunset and awakening to a nasty storm, the reliability of the sunset for this purpose must be seriously questioned. Driving into the setting, or the rising, sun can be difficult, especially if one is trying to read the street signs or highways signs that are hidden by the sun behind them. This was the point of an old song about Bill Thaxton, a gunfighter. A younger gunfighter, nicknamed "Sunset" (because he never fought till the sun's going down and his back is facing the west) challenged the old guy at sunset. Everything was perfectly positioned, but Sunset had neglected on factor that cost him his life. Bill Thaxton was blind, so the setting sun didn't bother him at all.