Writing challenge - can you write a story without using the word...

[TheFifthElement]

'the'

Well, can you? Share your efforts here...

[jurisprudent]

Here is a beginning of a story without a single "the"

It is a night, a bible-black one, and I stride down a street, covered by litter and fallen leaves. It is autumn, because seasons change, come and go, and now is autumn's turn to bring its sadness, black moods and endless rains to spoil my brain. Oh, let me first introduce myself. I am a sick man. I have spent several years in a mental institution and this have been years I can term "better" than anything else in my life before. Yes, I love medication, closed curtains, afternoon walks under tree shades, and I also love doctors. Why? They give me pills. I love sedation, consolation in chemical arms, a strange feeling of being uplifted, placed on a high perch as to watch all people and places that surround me. I breathe and long for medications. Night and day merge into a straight, calm line, just like a digital indicator of a machine which shows if a patient is alive or dead. But I am not about to die, I am to live, in my silent and pacific shell, here in my mind. You will tell me I am sick. And yes, I am sick, why not be sick, if that brings me pleasure and joy?! I want to be sick, here, in my sick mind-castle, I enjoy myself in perfect sedated harmony. And I stride, now, down an autumn street, quick to do something else I love. Wait for me, I am coming.

[hillwalker]

A THREE-LETTER WORD

Mike was gutted. To think that just one tiny three-letter word could cause so much pain. Something he had said in a moment of passion, nothing more. Almost an instinctive response, uttered at that most critical moment.
It had certainly soured their relationship. Miss Bradshaw was not impressed. Oh no. She was totally not amused.

She was so peeved in fact that she kicked him out. Told him to make his own way home. Threatened to get him thrown off his course unless he resigned of his own accord. She gave him an ultimatum, leave or I contact your parents; perhaps even someone in authority.
He knew she was bluffing, of course. How could she tell his dad what he’d said? Without letting on what they were doing as he said it? Her a teacher in her thirties. Him barely seventeen. He so did not deserve to get into trouble simply for opening his mouth when most men would be in no position to keep theirs shut. It was a law of nature. How are you supposed to keep your top lip buttoned to your bottom lip when all your attention is focussed on events a lot further south?
He did manage to soothe his damaged ego somewhat by remembering that she wasn’t that good in bed anyway….. considering she lectured in Biology. You’d think she’d have so many tricks up her sleeve, enough to keep a man feeling horny for at least a semester. But no. She was so methodical and practical; treating it as if it was a class assignment, part of his SATs coursework, nothing more.
In a word if he had had to mark her efforts he would have had to say she was frigid. ‘Must try harder’.

Of course, it all started to go wrong three or four hours earlier. They had arranged to meet after school. She agreed to pick him up outside his brother’s deli and had suggested they might be best stopping about half way there for a snack. Some love fuel she called it.
There was a pizza place he knew outside Belle Rock; he’d been there once with Cisco and Geoff twelve months or so earlier before Geoff caught him in bed with his girl. But it was hard to believe how much it had deteriorated in less than a year. Car park chewed up into ruts by too many pick-ups making illegal u-turns. Drapes faded by too much desert sun. Furniture scuffed by too many motorcycle boots and too many stiletto heels. Menu as exciting as a Bible Belt ‘What’s On’ flyer.
She took one bite of her deep pan, spat it out and said ‘Ok. Nice joke.’

Her ex-husband’s cabin was cold, cob-webbed and obviously hadn’t seen much activity since last fall. She knew where he hid his spare keys. A little complementary alimony – why not? She swept everywhere with a yard brush while he gathered cut timber from out back and tried to get a fire going. She’d bought some cheap red wine, some pumpkin-seed bread, butter, anchovy paste, cuts of liver sausage and her favourite kumquat flavoured yoghurt from his brother’s deli. Joseph had given her a generous 2% discount.
Mike in turn had brought condoms.

When their fire had burnt down to a deep, red glow he went outside to her Accord and dragged everything out. Laid out her camomile-scented pillows and double-weight sleeping-bag at her feet. Lit some candles. She had already begun to nod off. Heat coloured her skin with its transcendent blush. He had never seen her looking lovelier.
Kissing her back to life. Her neck which he knew most girls liked. Teeth nipping her ear lobes then brushing her lips before leaving her wanting more. One button. Two buttons. A laugh in her throat, almost a snarl. Blouse off. No bra. Tiny untethered breasts hardly swaying as she knelt forward and undid her belt. Raised her hips and slid everything down over her thighs to her feet. Then reached for him and pulled him closer.
Things went well. A few unscheduled sound effects. A coyote nearby, a passing screech owl. Juggernauts thundering out West along Route 41. A certain welcome vibration through each floor-board.
But once he climbed on top she lay there like a roll of tarp, which is where everything started to go pear-shaped as it rolled downhill. Mentally as well as physically. He had been expecting so much more. This hot teacher who morphed into superwoman as soon as she removed her spectacles. But no. She seemed to have lost interest after three minutes.
He suddenly felt like a kid again, on his very first date with Cisco in that trailer before she ever snagged onto Geoff. Bubblegum on her breath. Hair like fibreglass. But oh she had such a hot little bod. How he missed her with her buck teeth and her self-inflicted tattoos.

To cut a short story shorter he reached his coda and suddenly every wire in his brain short-circuited. He looked into Miss Bradshaw’s face and saw Cisco looking back at him. He could even smell strawberry Bazooka on her breath. He jammed his eyes close, held her tight as tight can be and blurted out that devil word.
She screeched and kicked him off like a pee-soaked blanket.
Her dialogue consisted mainly of blanks and asterisks. All she would tell him was what she would like to do to him, how he made her flesh creep, and where to catch a Greyhound back home. He was persona non gratis.
And finally as he sat heading South along Route 41, dawn somewhere East of everywhere, and watched his world pass by, shrinking and retreating in all possible directions, all he could hear was that single word. That monosyllabic three letter gasp of passion that had marked an end to another loving relationship.
Stars exploding above his head. Twenty thousand volts coursing through his body. And what does he say on his dying breath?
‘Sis’.

H

[Steven Hunley]

Oh Hill, this was just too tough! I loved it!

[Siverly2006]

Nice work.

[TheFifthElement]

jurisprudence nice writing :) can you expand it into a full story though?

Hillwalker I have to say I'm very impressed, and sick with envy at the speed you knocked this off! Brilliant - great characterisation and funny to boot. And most importantly 'the'-less! Love it.

Had a go at this myself. Took a bit longer, and I doubt it'll make you smile....


Andromache

She tiptoes barefoot across a stage made of glass. Turns. Bends. Turns again. Her arms sweep an arc over her head, reaching, reaching, until they rest, open-palmed, perpendicular to her body. She stands rigid for a moment then turns. Turns. Bends. Walks again.

It is a theatre beyond its prime. Grim, dark, empty. Spotlights, cracked and broken, cling to pitted joists. Fingers of light slice through curtains long-faded and threadbare. Dust glistens and twirls. Every rough edge has been softened as though battered by a lingering multitude of voices, on surfaces ripe to crumble. She too has seen better days, reduced to chorus dancer, stand-in, extra, anything or anyone that will take her. Except today. Today she is auditioning for a starring role in a small town avant-garde theatre production of Euripides’s Andromache, to be retold, artfully, in music and dance. She nurses hope, she is not known here and they did not send her away when she turned up unannounced. Instead she was told: “do it naked, or not at all.” So that is what she does. It is a price she has come to accept though even this, soon, won’t be enough to win her a chance on stage. But not yet. Not yet.

“Stop.” A voice commands from somewhere beneath her.

She stops. Equipment whirs overhead, catching her in sudden light. “Face forward.” She turns and faces forward, arms dangling loosely by her sides, head erect, awaiting further instruction. Outside of her luminous prison there is only darkness, emptiness and a voice, oppressively deep and controlling. “Let’s hear your lines.” She pauses, wrapping her mind around unfamiliar words, strange diction from another place and time. She presses her right hand against her heart, pacing herself with its rhythm.

“O city of Thebes, glory of Asia…” she begins. Her voice is weak; she has become too used to hiding in silence. Word by word she adjusts both pitch and volume until it is perfect, balanced in tone and clarity. “…Now aforetime for all my misery I ever had a hope to lead me on…” Words once spoken by someone, somewhere, far away in a distant, different land and yet they live, they exist through her. She becomes Andromache, widow of Hector, slave of grief and endless suffering. With outstretched arms, she pleads: “whereas I at first submitted against my will and now have resigned my place…”

“That’s enough,” he says. “Turn around.” She turns and, whilst waiting for him to speak again, stares at a painted scene. It has an intricate pattern of red and golden leaves, falling between two cold, rigid columns. She too stands between them; if only she could fall there, rest, sleep, dream in peace. Instead she drags her withered body from audition to audition yielding herself, each time, a little more.

Something brushes against her shoulder, falling down her back until it rests on her buttock. She turns. He is standing beside her. “You’re good,” he says and draws back his meaty lips, revealing stained teeth. She shudders as his hand moves across her buttocks, her hips, her belly. “Weren’t you famous once?” Wasn’t she? It seems, now, like a fiction; those days when her name glittered in lights above theatre and movie house, when she was in command of both audience and destiny. Champagne and flowers were heaped upon her. She’d embodied Shakespeare’s great tragic heroines: Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona. What did they teach her, those girls? ‘Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!..And I, of ladies most deject and wretched…It is my wretched fortune…’ Word to be spoken, but not believed. Words from a different age.

“No, that wasn’t me.”

“It’s a shame,” he says pushing his club fist between her legs, “you’re good but you’re no Andromache. Too old.”

“I see.” She offers no resistance. Too long ago she gave up believing in heroes. Instead she believes only in men who are there and then are gone, and women who are left over.

“I think I can still find a job for you” he says, pressing his body against her body. His free hand claws at her breast, peaked with cold. “Why don’t we go and talk about it in my room?” She nods. Where he goes, she will follow.

[jurisprudent]

Yes, I will expand it when I have more time for writing.

[hillwalker]

5thElement - well I have to say it was worth the wait. A very poetic and artfully written story - an eulogy to times past as well as ambition bastardised.

It was quite a fascinating exercise (as I'm sure you also discovered) and the more you adopt the the-less style the more natural it becomes.

My first attempt had been to write in present tense, but in the end it sounded too artificial, but in your hands it lends a certain immediacy to the piece as well as continuing to ring true right to the end.

Great stuff, and thank you for setting the challenge.

[MANICHAEAN]

It was early October in Scotland Yard, about noon & Detective Inspector T.J.Rossow was leaning back in his swivel chair, bored & frustrated. In an alternate corner of this office, also in a semi recumbent posture was Detective Sergeant Fred Schmidt quietly snoring, his premature double chins quivering almost imperceptibly with each expiation of breath. It constituted a routine every lunch time if either or both parties were not out on a case.

Fred Schmidt was a good front line detective, but a pain in the ***. A big man of Anglo German descent, he was a type that tried to break your fingers in a macho handshake and whose idea of humour was to stand by an exit door, drop one & then exit. When he didn't want to talk, which was often, he reverted to monosyllabic grunts & when he did want to talk, which by some perverse state of equipoise, he also did often, you could not shut him up.

In a bull pen next door were foot soldiers of homicide crime detection. They had calm weathered faces of healthy men in hard condition. Eyes invariably cloudy and grey like freezing water. Meaningless stares, not quite cruel and a thousand miles from kind. Dull ready-made clothes, worn without style, in fact with a sort of contempt. Individuals with a look of being poor and yet proud of their power, watching always for ways to make it felt. Ruthless without malice, cruel and yet not always unkind.

What would you expect them to be? Civilization had no meaning for them. All they saw of it was life's failures, abberrations and disgust.

[TheFifthElement]

Thanks Hillwalker. It was, indeed, a good exercise.

Manichaean, I love your characterisation, and there's a real wry sense of humour in your writing. Very evocative and visual too. But you have triggered the 'THE ALARM':


Fred Schmidt was a good front line detective, but a pain in the ***.

Oopsie

[MANICHAEAN]

5th element

thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.

If you think that triggered the "alarm" try my thread under short story sharing called "a murder in accra"

hillwalker warned me about frightening the horses!!

[sweety]

Miles O Regan.' was telling strange tales of ghosts and demons when I sat down. when a jovial woman with a voluptuous figure and intoxicated gave me a big hug and kiss. 'hello handsome', she whispered in my ear, 'would you care to see my boudoir?'
'I'm afraid Bridget has had too much to drink', said old woman crow and demanded cider, using foul language.
I congratulated her on her colourful use of English and shouted barman more drink.

old woman crow went on: 'Do you agree girl are enveloping themselves in costly furs and not caring a dam about poor dumb animals?' I decided silence was in my best interest.
Stop your whining You old hag', said Bridget. 'More drink..', old man Regan called and just in time I thought. 'He had wonderful suppleness in his youth', continued old woman crow.
wanting to relieve myself brought on by an over consumption of alcohol
I quickly excused myself.
Negotiation a crowded dance floor was proving more difficult than one would imagine especially in my sluggard condition.
Pushed from behind I found myself wrestling with too lesbians and a transvestite throwing his/her arms around me and wanted to make love to me.
Escaping its advances I pushed onwards... nearly there now.
Further up a cat fight broke out two girls were punching each other and showing a wonderful array of underwear. 'Do get a move on', a voice said.
and there it was, GENTS. Unzipping my fly I let go with a sigh. 'Ah just in time.'
When I got back old woman crow was at it again, 'would you ever shut her up', Bridget implored, but old crow went on: 'they have no right to make facetious remarks about our Church.'
and went on about turf fires and her home in Ireland 'We used to cut our own turf and there was always singing.'

'For God sake', joined another voice, 'is their no end to her meandering.'
drinking will be your downfall I fear, directing my remarks towards old crow who we saw shortly afterwards dancing with a transvestite and swinging her cane.
I wished her luck.