Skip to main content

Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it.


This bit of worn asphalt down near the waterfront has had plenty of work put in to drawing attention to the hazards of a crack in the footpath. Of cousre, one wonders why someone could go to all this effort, but actually avoid fixing it. Personally, it looks like overkill to me (I mean, it's been left untended for at least a month now), but I am sure that the fact it lays right on the pub crawl trail has nothing to do with the effort of looking to avoid potentially litigious drunkards.

Not long ago, I discovered the beauty and challenge of the drabble. For the uninitiated, a drabble is a work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length.

The purpose of the drabble is brevity, and it is a real test of an author's ability to express [hopefully] interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space.

As such, it may prove a useful friend to the blogger who remains pressured to find material to continue posting a couple of times a day.

So, here's a drabble I whipped out on the bus last week. I needed a bit of a fiddle to get to one hundred words, but I hope it work out!

The Conversation

He asked her plainly, “why?”

She answered tersely, “why not?”

He did not accept that this question was an answer.

She was certain that it was the only answer she had.

They had struck an impasse.

“What do I have to say to convince you?” she asked.

“Just give me a reason”, he answered.

“Isn’t desire reason enough?” she demanded.

Another question, still no answer, he remained unconvinced.

His stated misgivings did not satisfy her longing for a decision.

So, much like the last time, and the time before that, they put it aside for the next time.

Comments

G. B. Miller said…
Kool.

Nice piece of drabble.

Sort of like eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Priyanka Khot said…
the concept of drabble sounds interesting. Will give it a try for sure, and when I do would want ur comments.
Miles McClagan said…
100 words?

I can't write things that short! I'd be up to the first reference of Big Ms...
Babzy.B said…
i 've learnt one more word "drabble " Do the words in the title of the drabble are part of the 100?
Interesting exercise:)
KL said…
A perfect start for a great work of fiction or novel. But please finish it. I don't like those work of literature, fiction, novels where the ending is unfinished - to get the answer you have to sit and analyze and then it can be either this or that...(feel like crying). A long story short:
your drabble and writing style is great, but I don't think I will like drabble as again it leaves so many questions unanswered. SORRY :-(
Kris McCracken said…
G, it's an interesting form to try.
Kris McCracken said…
Priyanka, you let me know when you've done one and I will give feedback!
Kris McCracken said…
Miles, you could do an ode to Big Ms.

Do they only make them in fruit box containers these days? That just seems un-Australian...
Kris McCracken said…
Babzy, I have assumed that they do, but I must admit, I'm not sure what the canon thinks.

I know that some people argue that a drabble is anything under 1,000 words, but they are just plain WRONG.
Kris McCracken said…
KL, great literature can't answer all of the questions, in my mind. You have to involve the reader somehow, otherwise it becomes a passive exercise.

Popular posts from this blog

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.