Well, 3 points to Amanda! If anyone has a story written that they forgot to post, feel free to put it up, but since she was the only one to submit before the deadline, I'd say Amanda wins for literacy! The next seed topic is to her! I'm curious if the deadlines just aren't long enough for more participation, but I suspect lethargy. Writers, write!
As seems to be custom, here is my entry, exempt from the voting...
BROKEN BELLES
Page One
Panel 1 - A cluttered kitchen, we focus on a tea kettle set on a stove burner. This is the kitchen of a typical sweet old grandmother.
NARRATION
She used to be quite the looker in her day, when men would snap their own necks to watch her as she strolled.
Panel 2 - The same shot as the tea kettle releases a slow waft of steam.
NARRATION
She smiled as wives would admonish them, the old girls sucking air through their teeth, bitter for the lost days when they themselves would turn heads.
Panel 3 - The same shot again, now the tea kettle is at a hard boil, steam shooting from the spout.
NARRATION
Those were the days when her daddy would growl at gentlemen callers and her mama tutted under her breath wondering when she would settle down. Incorrigible, her jealous sisters called her.
Panel 4 - A woman’s wrinkled hand reaches for the kettle, lifting it off the burner. The steam drops back to a light waft.
NARRATION
And when she found a man who caught her fancy, he promised to make her happy. Swept off her feet, the wedding was every girl’s dream. Undeserving, her jealous sisters called her.
Page Two
Panel 1 - We focus now on a teacup on a saucer, the string from a store-bought teabag dangles over the side.
NARRATION
The house was from a photograph, yard front and back with a low hedge and green shutters, a washing machine and a clothesline in back, a garage.
Panel 2 - The spout of the tea kettle tips next to the teacup and pours water into it.
NARRATION
A child came, then another, a beautiful girl and bouncing baby boy. The sun shone for them alone, and everyone agreed that they had her eyes.
Panel 3 - The teacup sits full of water with the slow steam rising from it.
NARRATION
Her world became one of laundry and diapers, three meals a day, picking up after. Her man left the house early, came home late, disappeared into a televised world.
Panel 4 - The same woman’s wrinkled hand picks up the teacup by the saucer.
NARRATION
Her companions were the neighbour wives as they would gossip about each other, and she wondered if they gossiped about her too.
Page Three
Panel 1 - We see the old woman’s wrinkled lips, tight and pursed, touched with red lipstick.
NARRATION
The children grew and a third one came, after which she did not regain her figure. The weight was harder to avoid, and her man became harder to entice.
Panel 2 - The woman raises the steaming teacup to her lips and blows the steam away.
NARRATION
The older the children were, the lesser she felt the touch of her man, the surer she became of the neighbor wives’ spitefulness, the more she fell into herself and grew lost.
Panel 3 - The woman tips the cup and drinks a mouthful of tea.
NARRATION
The years passed unnoticed, her children left unseen, her neighbours moved unannounced. The marks and lines on her body were her clock.
Panel 4 - The woman draws the teacup back from her lips.
NARRATION
The faces of her life slipped away, even her own as her beauty faded into age, she barely recognized it now. Only her man remained…
Page Four
Splash page - The old woman is sitting in a plush old chair in her living room. It is filled with knickknacks and tchotchkes and figurines and family photos hung on the wall in frames, as would any typical sweet old grandmother. Sitting next to her, in his own plush leather recliner, is her husband, an old bald man with a moustache and a cardigan, slippers on his feet, newspaper in hand and a pair of scissors plunged into his chest. His eyes are open, as is his mouth with his tongue lolling out only a little, dead.
NARRATION
But eventually, he left too.
