WCC Writing challenge #2 Broken Bells

[Gibson]

Theme 2 is - Broken Bells

Interpret how you like, alter spellings for alternate meanings, have fun! Or, if you'd prefer, agonize yourself over it with sleepless night and fits of crying. Whatever turns you on, pervert! Again, let's have a 5-page maximum (once you've reached that 5-page entry length, feel free to keep on writing, but try to make sure the five pages you submit here constitute something self-contained).

And now, plagiarized rules...


Page limit-5

Deadline-3/17/2010

Voting begins Thursday, 3/18, and goes until Friday, 3/19 at 11:59 PM EST

Voting guidelines

- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting.
- YOU MUST VOTE in order to be eligible to win the challenge.
- When voting ends, the winner gets a collective pat on the back, and starts the new challenge.

[KidGalactus]

You know what?

I like you, Gibson

[Gibson]

Cheers, mate. I like you too.

[amanda]

Page 1:
Panel 1: A woman is hanging laundry on a clothesline. She wears a wedding ring and early 1900s clothing.  It's early evening just before the sun starts to go down.
Panel 2: The woman looks up happily as she hears the sound of bells.
Panel 3: She leaves one garment partially hung on the line and runs off.
Panel 4: The woman is running down a dirt driveway - there are fields around - the setting is obviously rural farmland.
Panel 5: The woman has reached a road and has stopped for breath.  There is a man walking up the road towards her.

Page 2:
Panel 1: The woman greets the man with a kiss.  He is also wearing a wedding ring.
Panel 2: The couple is walking back the way the woman came.
Panel 3: The man says: Did you come when you heard the bells?
Panel 4: The woman leans into him as they're walking and replies: Of course! They start the best part of my day.

Page 3:
Panel 1: Narration box: the next day.  The man is dressing for work.  The woman is holding his hat.
Panel 2: On the porch, the man kisses the woman.  The woman says: I will see you this evening.
Panel 3: The man replies, smiling: Come wait for me when you hear the bells.
Panel 4: The man walks away while the woman stands on the porch, watching him go.

Page 4:
Panel 1: The man is walking down the road alone - the bell tower is up ahead.
Panel 2: The man opens the door to the bell tower.
Panel 3: The man walks up the stairs.
Panel 4: The man is in the bell room at the top of the tower.  He is holding a wrench in his hand.

Page 5:
Splash page: Worm's eye view of the tower - there is a smashed bell in the foreground.  Another bell is falling out of the tower towards the ground.

[Gibson]

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.

[amanda]

Oh my goodness, Gibson - how awful and wonderful all at the same time XD