Friday, May 8, 2009

Sam's Plates


This is week 62 of Raven’s wonderful word challenge. Please visit her here and read all the creative offerings!!


This Week's Ten Word Challenge is: gentle spring rain, mammoth, soap opera, worry, bubble gum, garden gate, seizure, of Biblical proportions, paralysis, wrinkles

Mini Challenge: operatic, stuffed animals, anger management, biographical, paint splatters

Samantha did not exhibit any of the classic signs of aging: wrinkles, sudden onset fascination with golf, wanton proliferation of elastic waist bands, creeping short term memory loss. No, our heroine was hobbled in infinitely less visible ways. Which made her all the more estranged from the mainstream, most of whom were just beginning their perennial thaw from a deep winter freeze.

As with many things in this life, Samantha had a contrarian response to the seasons. The advent of the first gentle spring rain would initiate an abrupt retreat from life. It was almost as if she was trading places with Persephone. She was plagued with vague worries and mammoth regrets which virtually paralyzed her. She had learned to bundle all of her vacation and sick days into an aggregate and submit a request for 3 weeks off during the month of April. Most everyone else was gunning for June, so she didn’t have much competition.

For the duration of her leave, Samantha would resign herself to protracted and fitful naps, mindless soap operas and a ritualistic survey of a musty collection of Bazooka bubble gum wrappers. This year, Samantha was determined to spin dross into gold.

She fashioned an atelier in the attic. The pitched sheet rock walls would be her canvas. She assembled all of the surviving stuffed animals: panda, Tigger, Piglet, Bert, Ernie, even her beloved Pooh bear. She then loaded the spray paint cans and set them around her like an arsenal. Once she passed through the proverbial garden gate, there was no turning back. Piglet swooned in anticipation of the frightful scene. Bert leaned in to Ernie as if to issue a salutary warning, “ I have a feeling we’re not on Sesame Street anymore, pal.” What ensued could only be described as an apoplectic seizure of biblical proportions. Samantha sucked in her breath, took aim and splattered her childhood friends with layers of pigment. This was an act of such unprecedented violence in her biographical schema that Samantha was convinced she was a prime candidate for anger management. Nevertheless, she persisted. This would give Eeyore something to mope about, she gloated.

Not long after her initial operatic outburst, Samantha began to apply her talents in a more focused manner. She engaged a longtime potter colleague in an unholy alliance. Will would forge the plates and she would paint them. Before long, legend spread of the dynamic and lively beauty of Sam’s paint splattered dinnerware. Featured in Martha Stewart’s Living magazine, they inevitably landed on Oprah’s table. The crowning moment occurred when a specially commissioned set of plates framed a hearty homegrown meal sourced from the White House lawn with Sasha and Malia beaming at the glistening romaine.

11 comments:

Thom - - Dr. John said...

Awesome! I could visualize her up there with the rattle cans going to town. Well done.

Raven said...

Yay! Yay! Go Samantha! Oprah AND the White House. Yippee! As always you spin an engaging yarn that pulls me in emotionally. Well Done. "We're not on Sesame Street anymore..." Brilliant.

Richard said...

I enjoyed this story very much. What marvelous imagination and creativity. I would like to see the Jackson Pollock attic.

Dr.John said...

O those poor stuffed animals. They deserved better. Faithful friends for her whole life. At least some good came out of it with the plates.
Very creative writing.
But soap operas aren't mindless.

CJ said...

Very clever. Great use of the challenge words.

bettygram said...

what a way to get to the White House.I enjoyed this story.

Dianne said...

there are so many turns of a phrase in this little story that delight me! they immediately make me smile or mumble ahhhh

I love that Sam will be prospering from her pain

Fandango said...

We dragons like to splatter paint. It is such fun. But it is not nice to ruin those cute little stuffed animals.
This was a very interesting story.

Nessa said...

Now that's the way to age. The hell with graceful. Take the world by storm.

Stephen said...

I liked your story, though Samantha was kind of rough on the toys. I guess it was her way of saying good-bye to the past. In the end, it got her to a better place in life, with fame and fortune for her paint-splattered plates.

Stephen from Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
http://stephen-has-spoken.blogspot.com/

Batteson.Ind said...

Really enjoyed reading this! You have a really confident style of writing, I felt compelled to follow the story through to the end. Brilliant! cheers!