Notes: I did the last two so far because I wasn’t clever enough to do the first two. Thank you, Meg, for the prompts and enjoyed the learning materials. Note, “licke” is supposed to have a strike-thru in last three letters, but this CMS stripped it out. Of course it’s better with the strike-thru. The second one, I decided to disrupt time as we know it along with the senses. I suppose how we experience the passing of time is a kind of sense . . . Everywhen is an aboriginal concept but has parallels in other cultures.
4. Roadtrip through an emotion. Do not state the emotion. Let each sentence ride its own bus.
Flattened by the low whirr of wheels, what once blossomed wobbles in afterimage, rippling monochrome heat over infinite strands of desert asphalt. No water. No water mirage—only the dry rippled air, and relentless gray aggregate punctuated by sand, by scant gas stations and fumes ghosting from nozzles. A rusty pump to fill ‘er with, and familiarity of blistering paint beneath the slow drag of hands—just the small things to remind you you’re human. Quick stops. Stretching appendages. Week-old socks. The sour of it. Frozen burritos over-toasted in microwaves. The smell of piss and “I licke girls” scratched on the filthy stainless steel door of the loo, small-town hieroglyphs of ancient, horny travelers. A slow smoke on the back porch in the stillness of heat. This is your forever. Learn to licke it. You planned this trip, didn’t you?
5. “She listened with one eye.” Use this as a first sentence. Or come up with your own mix of the senses and how we usually use them. Go at it.
She listened with one eye to what the umbers had sung when their baritone hues leached light from each low note. Not a linear song, but the past-present spent in the everywhen . . . where one might not utter what an ancestor lived, or might do tomorrow or today. Colors’ throaty spectacles plot certain unseen rhythms even cicadas fail to drown. To know a thing is to hear the drum of scent, touch the chamber of its stillness, and feel its wisdom in your fingertips, the split of your tongue, and in your toes’ faint ringing.