Swampy's writing challenge!

[Dutch]

A Paddle :3

[Squee]

A plain, brown, wicker basket.

And pants with bedazzled flowers on it.

[Meira]

A broken Tuba (for Rugs )

[Swamps]

There we go, thank you!

With help from you guys and a couple of other friends we have six objects!

[Jenno]

A pill.

>:3

[Moonfire]

A very very fancy teapot with something important inside.

[Poludnica]

A diaper. Can be clean.

[Susan]

Lawnmower!

[Alaska!]

Toilet brush

[Swamps]

I'm excited to say that my first piece is nearing completion! That's the dining table for all those who have forgotten.

Just adding punctuation for rhythm and checking over my sometimes questionable use of apostrophes and everything should be dandy. I'll pop the piece up here when it's all finished!

Unless I hit a massive writer's block the next piece should be based around Squee's bedazzled pants, well not actually hers but you know what I mean!

[Dire Wolf]

A portable toilet.

A bullet.

A tattoo needle.

[Swamps]

So here's the first entry of the challenge based around a dining room table. As a kid I remember hiding under tables with my friends and having 'secret meetings' and all sorts so they've always possessed elements of protection and shelter for me. After a little brainstorming I remembered some of the thick, wooden tables used for haphazard shelters during the London Blitz. Sure a shelter or the tube would have been safer but I decided that a table evoked a much more homely image, something I decided to play with a little. Anyway, I'll stop blathering! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it, comments and criticism are very welcome indeed!

Also suggestions for the next pieces are still welcome, on the first post you should find a list of twelve objects albeit missing a few. These slots are still open to suggestions although please be aware that I can't do everything. I could end up passing the mark of twelve anyway! Soorry, I'm distracting you now. Read!

(I know this is a little short but I didn't want to bloat the concept, I may be able to expand on this a little better later on though.)

---

A leg to stand on, a wall to lean on.

My mother told me to close my eyes, to hide myself away, to sit and hope that it would be over soon.

How could I?

I sat under the crooked lip of the table, it's scarred mahogany surface casting a protective shadow over me. I could see them falling against the night sky, punctuated by the swinging searchlights as they roared downwards before disappearing beyond the lip of the window I watched them from. Each time one disappeared I counted...

"One. Two. Three. Four." Boom.

The window panes would rattle and plumes of fire and smoke could be seen erupting far away. I watched buildings that had stood for longer than I had lived crumble and burn. Their windows shattered and transformed into dragons, jagged glass jaws burping gouts of crackling flame. Bombs, I had the adults call them, big metal tubes filled with fire and light. I thought they looked like fireworks: enormous, colourful fireworks but soon realised my mistake when the first building fell. The bombs weren't the scary part though and despite its fierce show fire was just fire.

What terrified me was the shaking. I could feel it, hear it. Above me teacups and saucers clattered and shivered, trembling in fear like my mother behind me. Next to the window the spoons and ladles swung on their tiny silver hooks, threatening to fly loose. Above the stove a large brassed frying pan clanged noisily against the wall. And the house, the very house groaned. It's walls doing their very best to remain strong against the tremoring earth.

This was not the sound of a war, or a bombing. It was the sound of a home shaking in fear, unsure whether its four walls would survive the night. The sound of a quaint family life being shaken to its core. Daddy had already left for France, telling us to stay strong and look after each other. A house with three walls, a table with three legs: that's what we were. Not strong or clever or enough to hold itself up, and now the world was falling apart around us. Like some important gear or mechanism had been ripped from the clockwork of the stars, causing it to just disintegrate, to fall to earth. And now these pieces of chaos and brokenness rained down upon us, tokens of a machine far more fragmented than our own.

I clung to one of the tables rugged, brown legs as I peered around to get a better view of the window. There, almost invisible against the black were aeroplanes. Darting around over London like scavenging insects over a carcass, but London wasn't dead. Not even close. The roar of an Ack-Ack gun cut through the air, a fusillade of invisible death rocketing upwards towards the waiting planes. I tried to follow them with my eyes, squinting to find the tiny objects or the aeroplane that had disappeared again. There! I saw fires burn far away from the ground as the plane hurtled downward, tongues of flame ripping out of its backside. It rolled, banked, teetered on its path, before being swallowed up by the edge of the window. One, two, three, four...

And then, silence.

No more bombs, no more guns.

Just the smouldering crackle of fires and faraway shouts as people emerged from their wavering homes. To repair and to rebuild, to extinguish the fires that still burnt and gnawed at London's beating heart.

[Adobi-Wan Kenobi]

I might as well chime in here.

A broken shelf.

A tooth brush.

or An Arrow.