The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!

[Clyde-B]

"Must have more important places to be." 

Wonder where that could be?   

   "Glad to have the exta work.  I can sure use it.  Things been real slow around here lately."

This is fun, Janice! 
Can't wait to find out whether Annie is competent like Ennis or a Klutz like Jack!

Tom was waiting, with wide open arms.

Marl, as usual - and then? and then?

“Wanna screw around?”

"Ya mean…get perpendicular with each other?”  Ennis’ sly grin spoke of knowledge not learned in math class.

Hee Hee, Why whatever could he mean?   

[MaineWriter]

Hello everyone,

• total stranger
• grain silo
• pretending to be something/someone I'm not

Have fun!

L

[mariez]

Quiet Man

After a firm handshake and quiet greeting to the new wrangler, Ennis heads back to his work.

"Not much of a talker, that one.  Noticed he pretty much kept to himself at lunchtime."

"Well, del Mar's a good worker, but he is who he is.  No pretending to be something he ain't, that's for sure. 

~~~~~~
55 Words

[MaineWriter]

He leaned his head down and grasped the accelerator, turning it smoothly in his hand. The powerful motorcycle zoomed up to speed and within minutes he was away from the set, away from the crowd; in an hour he was out of the mountains. It seemed a small miracle to have the entire day free. “I think I’m in every scene of the goddamn movie,” he thought to himself.

He looked out across the flat terrain, grain silos in the distance. Everything was brown and dusty. He’d never seen a place like this. He supposed that there were parts of Australia that were similar but all he knew was Perth, and beaches, and the metropolitan cities. Bleak vistas, desolate of people were an unknown and the learning was not entirely comfortable.

He pulled off the road on a small gravel patch, turning off the motorcycle and leaning up against it as shook a cigarette out of the pack. He squinted across the horizon, smoking, thinking, feeling empty and broken, lost. “Fuckin Ennis gets inside a me more n more everyday,” he thought, as he crushed the butt under the heel of his boot.

(192 words)

[ifyoucantfixit]

          "Well Jack, he moaned, I gotta be gettin back to them sheep."  "Its way passed daylight."  "No can't ya just stay a little longer?"  "I was hopin ya could just stay long nuf for once more," he pleaded.  "We gotta make it quick, the longer I stick in the mornin, the more likely we get found out Jack."
            Just as Jack turned to him and began to rub him, he stretched and yawned, and moaned uhhhg.  The sounds in his head were just a ringing noise he heard.  He slid thru the veil of sleep, and the clanging of the ancient alarm clock brought him up sharp and hatefully.  "Dammit he cursed, I don't know if it happens everytime by accident, or just god giving me his disapproval.
That dam thing alway goes off at the worse times." 
         Ennis had everthing ready and just threw on his shirt and jeans.  He grabbed his jacket, he sure didn't need it here.  It could be kinda cold at night up in those mountains.  He hoped those women would bring theirs as well.  He hated to have to tell a customer how to pack. It always gave a tellin about how they would really be up in the hills.  She said," she knew what she was doin" I sure hope so.  It aways makes things so much easier when ya get up there. 
          When he pulled into the gravel by the diner again, he saw the two ladies already there.  That was a good sign.  They both nodded and waved, and he approached their car.   "Maam, maam," he took off his hat, and nodded in each direction.  "Ya,ll about ready to go?"  They both nodded their hat covered heads, and said "we are.  How about you?  You already eat breakfast?"  "Nawm, he remarked.  I don't usually eat breakfast, just coffee.  I will go in and get my thermos filled and then I will be."  "This place makes very good coffee Ennis if I do say so,"  ms Proulx remarked. 
          He gets in his truck and checks his rear mirror, and slowly and carefully pulls out onto the road to return to his youth.  He always feels that way, ever
time he goes back to that mountain.  His and Jacks mountain.  I always feel like I'm me up there, he thinks.  No pretendin to be someone i'm not.  Its the place where we can always be young and free.  Happy and together always.  Sept, we ain't tagether no more. " Jacks gone," dead an gone.  Never gonna be back there tagether gain."  He feels the pain yet again as he keeps the truck on the straight path down the highway.  Headed back to, then?

[mariez]

He leaned his head down and grasped the accelerator, turning it smoothly in his hand. The powerful motorcycle zoomed up to speed and within minutes he was away from the set, away from the crowd; in an hour he was out of the mountains. It seemed a small miracle to have the entire day free. “I think I’m in every scene of the goddamn movie,” he thought to himself.

He looked out across the flat terrain, grain silos in the distance. Everything was brown and dusty. He’d never seen a place like this. He supposed that there were parts of Australia that were similar but all he knew was Perth, and beaches, and the metropolitan cities. Bleak vistas, desolate of people were an unknown and the learning was not entirely comfortable.

He pulled off the road on a small gravel patch, turning off the motorcycle and leaning up against it as shook a cigarette out of the pack. He squinted across the horizon, smoking, thinking, feeling empty and broken, lost. “Fuckin Ennis gets inside a me more n more everyday,” he thought, as he crushed the butt under the heel of his boot.

(192 words)

Ahh, Leslie - and yet another universe.....loved that!  He totally became Ennis.

. . . .
          He gets in his truck and checks his rear mirror, and slowly and carefully pulls out onto the road to return to his youth.  He always feels that way, ever time he goes back to that mountain.   . . .

I wish I could turn back time for Ennis.  Lovely, Janice.

Marie

[Cameron]

The Stranger

He looked at the mirror, he felt a shock, it was a total stranger looking back at him.  A person that he did not know, or even recognize at all.  He closed his eyes, and looked again, but the strange face was still there.

He always had done what he thought was right, what they expected him to do.  He became the person that they all wanted him to be.  But it was never, ever enough.  No matter what.

He looked back at the mirror, the stranger was still there.  The stranger stared at him with a scowl.  He could almost hear this stranger say ‘stop pretending to be someone you're not’.  But he didn’t know who he was, he didn’t know who he was supposed to be.  He didn’t know if he could still be the person that he was supposed to be, whoever that person was.

(148 words)

[Clyde-B]

     The wind slammed the metal side of the trailer, seeped in around aluminum frames and rattled windows and door.  Ennis, soaked in sweat, tossed and turned on greasy sheets.  “Jack... Jack...”

    “Twist residence, Lureen speakin.”
    “You should a kept that bullrider a yours in his own bed.”   Lureen shivered, the voice from the receiver didn’t even sound human.
    “Who is this?  Hello? Hello?”
     The line clicked, went dead.

     A stranger in a rusted pickup pulled behind Jack.  Now there was no escape.  No safe haven.  Maybe the abandoned grain silo on the rocky knoll.  The mechanic reached for Jack’s door.

     
     100 words

[mariez]

. . . .  But he didn’t know who he was, he didn’t know who he was supposed to be. 

This is unspeakably sad. 

. . .  A stranger in a rusted pickup pulled behind Jack.  Now there was no escape.  No safe haven.  Maybe the abandoned grain silo on the rocky knoll.  The mechanic reached for Jack’s door. 

I know I was hoping for a continuation, but ..... OMG again, Clyde.  (But I have to say - impressive use of the prompts!)

Thanks,
Marie

[Cameron]

This is unspeakably sad. 

Gosh, didn't really mean it to be, sorry Marie. 

Leslie, Marie, Janice and Clyde, great drabbles, all of them.

Marl