I’m trying out a new writing prompt, from Sinistral Scribblings. The Master Class takes the first sentence from a book as your first line, unlimited word-count. This week, the book is Dodie Smith’s “I Capture the Castle“. Having never read the book or seen the movie, I hold out hope that my version of the story won’t be a complete rip-off (albeit less well-written) of the actual story. It’s on my to-read list, now, though.
Hearing what I planned to write, Doodle’s first response was that she’d draw me a picture of it. I think she did a fabulous job of capturing the scene that I had in my mind’s eye. Not that there’s any nepotism here at Goneforawalk, but have I mentioned that she’s my sister? And she’s pretty darned good – you should check her out at her blog, or on DeviantART. She doesn’t post new art nearly often enough, so feel free to head on over and badger her on my behalf.
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
I lost my oar, the heavy teaspoon slipping, slick with soap, from my hands. I tried to grab for it and nearly tipped my Tupperware.
Bamboo pattern was an excellent choice, I muse, watching the spoon slowly and majestically settle on the bottom, like the titanic does in remakes of its last hours. I suppose something with a rubber handle or tiny holes in it would have helped me more in this situation.
Hindsight is 20/20, and I never imagined this when putting things on the gift registry.
Frankly, I can’t see what exactly I ought to have done to avoid this mess entirely. Not get married. Apart from that, though, there are too many variables. Every alternate beginning I run through my head finds me here, leftover stroganoff smeared on my knees, awash in a sea of dishes that are ‘just soaking’.
David. I want to curse his name – primal scream out all my rage. I want to throw things at his head. My loudest holler can’t even fill this sink, though, and I have limited ammunition aboard-ship.
I guess I should consider myself lucky that he didn’t even bother to scrape the stray pasta and bacon into the garbage before flinging my boat into sudsy oblivion– I could be here for a while, and that torso-sized piece of pasta could be the difference between life and death.
I really thought it would be romantic, marrying an inventor. I pictured a less-platonic Wallace and Gromit thing. Cute, until you pay more attention and realize that Gromit gets zero recognition for all the crap he has to put up with, all the messes he has to clean up. And, really, David is definitely the Wallace in this relationship.
His lack of attention to detail doesn’t bode well for a resolution to my current issues. Neither does his habit of leaving dishes to sit until they become science experiments in their own right.
I hold out hope that he’ll notice I’m gone. He finally managed to make something work – that proves that he’s at least got brains.
Figures, really. 10 years of marriage, of junk that doesn’t do what it’s meant to do, of him salvaging parts off my dishwasher, blender and hair-dryer, and finally, there’s something to show for it. Apart from a sink full of dirty dishes, a dearth of smoothies and perpetually frizzy hair, that is. I loved that dishwasher, dammit. Most of his inventions go off randomly and unexpectedly, lots of flash and bang with nothing to show for it at the end. It wasn’t really surprising that a quick trip into the lab to dust elicited a hum and flash from his latest work.
That nauseous dizzy feeling as the sink grew rapidly bigger and closer after I’d filled it was certainly unexpected. Shrunk, daybook and all – dishes still unwashed. He told me he was working on a solution to our dishwashing problems.
What I really want to know is how a Shrink Ray is going to do that?
Gone for a Walk 