Industrial Graveyard

 

There is a long, empty factory sitting back away from the road.  Most of the windows have been broken and weeds have taken over the parking lot.  The time of noise and safety posters are long gone.  Spiders have taken up residence in the silent timeclocks that still hang on the wall, next to the empty racks of cards. 

Old skid marks can still be seen on the cement floors where forklifts once squealed along aisleways.  Overhead cranes sit motionless above the dark, ominous machines that once cranked out large sections of the American dream. 

An exit sign still glows at the far end, slightly illuminating a sign announcing 218 days without an accident.  A faint odor of machine oil, thicker than the silence hangs in the air, a reminder of how work clothes smelled at the end of each day.   

We don’t bury or cremate our dead factories but just continue driving past them.  They are a sign that time has kept moving, leaving in its wake a crumbling headstone.

Storytelling 101

 

The thing about storytellers is, if they take their time, they can paint an amazing picture in your mind of exactly what is happening in the story.  They can describe the time of day and the weather conditions.  They can tell you what they see as they look around, and even what it smells like where they are. 

They have the ability to raise or lower the tension within the story.  They can slow it down or skip ahead.  They can add new characters and have them do whatever they want.  Sometimes a storyteller can become so involved in a story that they spend way too much time telling you every single detail about a room or a place, and when that happens, they can lose the reader or listener. 

A good storyteller walks a fine line, keeping just the right amount of tension, just the right amount of detail and flavor.  Never forget the flavor, every story has a certain flavor to it and that’s important.  For example, the flavor of a documentary, like a certain wine, should have just the right color and may be a little dry.  An action-adventure story, however, should be bold and grab your attention 

Once in a while a story can fluctuate, but it must be done with skill and perfect timing.  A story like Peter and the Woolf is one of those stories.  Not only does it blend adventure and tension, but into the telling - music suddenly plays an important part.  Music brings the characters to life.  It adds flavor and color and never once loses the listener.

If you’re going to cook up a good story, there are recipes you can follow, and rules, lots and lots of rules to learn.  There is nothing more annoying than a half-baked story.  And be careful with your thumbs whenever telling a story.  There are something called, rules of thumb, that seem to be important.  Whatever those are, who knows?

Before you get started, it is important to organize your thoughts and separate your metaphors.  You don’t want to be mixing those up.  Keep your timelines organized and flash-backs to a minimum.  Too many and too often will lose your listener.

And you don’t always have to use the front door.  The, Once Upon a Time, doormat is worn out and not all that welcoming.  It is like back when you were sitting in class and the teacher said, never start a sentence with the word, and.  Well, as you can see, I’ve ignored that rule.  So there. 

Just write in your own voice, as if you were speaking to someone.  Imagine you were the person standing there listening to you telling your story.  Is it interesting, or are your just droning on, blah, blah, blah… 

Spice it up, add a little spark, throw in a twist.  Keep your reader awake.  I remember one story about a man walking down the street, in the early hours of the morning and he noticed walking just a few feet ahead of him was a crow, wearing a dark gray overcoat. 

You see that?  WE are already into the action of the story. There is already a surprise and a twist.  A simple description of a bird walking along the sidewalk, but then I not only added a coat, but gave it color and type.  Just enough detail to make it believable and interesting.  The part that moves the story along is the, why?  Why is the bird wearing a coat and where is he going? 

You can find the answer to that and other questions in, The Pantry.  A paperback full of amazing short stories, on sale at Amazon.

 

See what  I did there?  I led you to the gift shop.

 

 

 

 

 

As I Remember it

 

The tools of the Housekeeping Department are packed onto rolling carts, rags and towels, buckets and gloves, offensive smelling chemicals and sponges, disinfectants and paper products and yellow, plastic signs announcing slippery floors. 

Meanwhile, at the nurse’s station hang an assortment of clipboards, charts and schedules pinned to the wall and taped to the counter.  Telephones with an array of flashing buttons, pens, pencils and markers jammed into stained coffee cups, with lame slogans printed on them.  There is a half-eaten sandwich on the counter and an empty swivel chair.  Important reminders festooned about on brightly colored Post-it notes.  One wall-clock silently runs its thin, red second hand around and can be seen through the thick cloud of chaos that hangs in the air. 

Along the polished hallway are the distant voices coming from unseen rooms.  There are abandoned wheelchairs and the sound of important buzzers that seem to go unanswered.  There is a blend of hope and despair wafting through and an occasional ding from the arriving elevator, yet no one steps out.  But that’s good, because the slippery floor sign is still hanging from the housekeeping cart.

 

 

 

Night Watchman

 

To the night watchman the warehouse is never empty.  Every shadow is potentially dangerous.  Every odd sound or noise sends a chill up their spine.  Anything unexplained is something else.  Their shift gets measured in cups of coffee and their hourly checks are made with the reluctance of a trip to the dentist.  The sleeping forklifts seem almost prehistoric, the incessant hum of the office lights sound like bug zappers.  Tall stacks of wooden pallets create eerie shadows across drab safety posters. 

When the first person on the day shift shows up for work, the night watchman can suddenly feel himself breathe again.  Someone else is here, there is another car in the parking lot, another voice, the sound of someone else’s coins falling into the vending machine.  Life is good.  Maybe this afternoon I'll pick up fresh flashlight batteries, just in case, and maybe check the want ads. 

 

 

The Check List

 

Pull up your windsocks
and tighten your laces
the storm coming through
won’t leave any traces,

 

The cows are all nervous
the cat’s at the stoop
Make sure the chickens
are safe in their coop,

 

Bungie the mailbox
anchor the trash
Board up the windows
we don’t want them smashed,

 

Gather up flashlights
place candles around
put a sign on the door
we’ve gone underground,

 

Bring along blankets
and a radio too
Fetch Dad’s tobacco
he’ll want a good chew,

 

Grab up some Band-aids
for flying debris
most important of all
don’t forget me.

 

 

 

Before the Drifting Snow

 

I was like this when I woke up

without a reason why

Overnight I had grown two wings

and somehow I could fly,

 

I started slow, around the room

like I never had before

I couldn’t wait to go outside

to see if I could soar,

 

But what about the neighbors

they’d surely see me there

Not walking with my lawnmower

but flying through the air,

 

Some of them are hunters

Do you think they’d shoot at me

dressed the same as they are

but perched up in a tree,

 

Maybe I’ll just fly at night

they never need to know

And travel south for winter

before the drifting snow.

 

 zc

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't argue with success

I don’t really choose where on the shelf the nick-nacks go. Just like the wand choosing the wizard, the nick-nacks select where they want to be.  So far, they’ve been right.