Humor

Rooster and Bear 1

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Rooster and Bear

CHAPTER ONE

By Diane Dockum

Bear lay on the sofa leisurely munching a bag of chips. The ball game was on television. He was alone. A contented lull came over him. He yawned with his paw full of chips halfway to his mouth.

The door flew open with a bang. Rooster stomped up the stairs into the living room. His beak was already going.

“We goin’ fishin’ Bear?” When you gonna clean that wagon out? We can do it today! Hey! I gotta idea, we could get a movie or a pizza, we could get a movie AND a pizza, whattya say? Come on, let’s go!”

Bear froze. This bird is going to drive me crazy, he thought. Rooster’s bright yellow eyes and flapping feathers were the last thing Bear wanted at that moment.

“I don’t think I want to DO anything, Rooster. I just want to watch this game.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll watch it with you.” And he wriggled his tail feathers deep into the couch cushions at Bear’s feet, forcing him to scrunch his length up uncomfortably.

Soon, Rooster’s left foot started tapping on the floor. He shifted back and forth to get more comfortable. Then he started to preen his feathers.

“Can’t you sit still!” Bear shouted.

“Got any popcorn? I feel peckish.”

Bear let a long tired sigh escape from his throat. He climbed up out of the sofa cushions and went to his kitchen cupboard. He carefully measured his private stash of popcorn, the gourmet kind and very expensive, into his hot air corn popper and flipped the switch. The machine began to whir and vibrate loudly. The heat rose in rippling waves. Bear knew he had to find the big bowl soon or it would be too late, the corn would start shooting out of the nozzle all over the place. He searched through the tall shelves, and down low through the underneath cupboards, but no bowl. He even reached way in as far as he could.

The corn was beginning to puff up. Frantically, Bear began flinging dishes out of the cupboards. Rooster darted into the kitchen to see what the racket was. When his claws hit the linoleum he slid into the side of the china closet and all Bear’s china dishes crashed down onto him. Just then, the popcorn let loose firing kernels like a Gatling gun out onto the floor. *

(*Gatling gun here means the popcorn was coming so fast out of the popper that Bear wished he had seven or eight hands to catch it all.)

Bear grabbed a dishtowel and tried his best to stop the barrage. Rooster’s feet were sticking up through a pile of china chips and corn.

Bear was groaning and trying to catch the corn in his mouth and in his dishpans. He had gotten the best corn money could buy. It expanded to nearly three times the normal size! The kitchen was soon buried in white puffy corn.

Then the popper stopped. The corn was all finished. From under the great pile of corn and crockery, Rooster made a soft crowing sound.

“Sorry, Bear.”

-end-

Unstructured Time

/ marblehillpress / 4 Comments

Unstructured Time

 

You are eight, almost,

And it is 1962.

Kennedy is still President,

But you don’t know that

Or if you do, you don’t really

Think about it.

 

Your mother has gone into the store

To get some groceries, and

You and your sister

Are left in the 1957 Buick convertible.

The top is up because the sun is too

Bright, and makes the plastic seats hot.

 

Cars pass by, and pedestrians scuff

Along the hot sidewalk

No one knows that someday

There will be few who do not

Own a cellular phone,

So they walk along actually

Talking to their friends, who walk next

To them and make eye contact.

 

Panty hose have not been

Invented yet.

Phones have dials.

Televisions have knobs that you walk

Across the room to turn on.

Your mother still gives you a

Vitamin every morning

Before breakfast.

 

Your sister, who is five,

Sits in the back seat

Kicking the back of yours,

Thumping, thudding,

Annoying you,

As you stare through

The front window of the store

Waiting to see your mother paying

For the groceries.

 

There she is, in her red lipstick

And white cotton gloves.

Pulling paper money from her

Purse as the grocer packs the food

Carefully in cardboard boxes, and the tomato

carrier with the curved handle.

The store door jingles, as he smiles the

Boxes to the car,

Calls you Sport or shorty,

winks at your sister.

The trunk pops open

And you can’t see them anymore.

But you can hear them exchanging pleasantries.

 

“See you next time Mrs. ______,

Looks like it might rain tonight, the humidity is real high!”

You can smell the ripe bananas in the trunk,

And your mother has bought each of you

A red rubber ball with stars and stripes.

When you get home, you run around the yard

Just to feel the breeze.

 

 

 

Diane E. Dockum

March 15, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

On Writing

/ marblehillpress / 4 Comments

On Writing

I’ m having trouble thinking of things to write about. I wonder why it is so hard sometimes to get words worth reading on the page. I wonder why there are spaces of time when it is easy and it flows, and it is followed by weeks and then years when we can’t think of anything.

I’ve spent a lot of money on books about writing, and I have read them. In the middle of reading these books about writing and writer’s block I start to wonder if I am reading too much and if that is preventing me from writing.

So today I am trying writing about writing.

They say that everything you need to know about writing is found through writing. That is what life is like. You live, you learn. You write, you write. That is so Zen.

So many authors, these days, are trying to live in the moment, experiencing life as it happens. I hear them say that they don’t worry about tomorrow, that tomorrow will come and the problems that come with tomorrow will be dealt with as they happen. I have also heard that Jesus and Buddha have both said that.

When I write a poem or a story, it begins to take on a life of its own. It begins to unfold in its own way. As in life, I have to give up control, and let it go.

I am trying to do that. It is harder than it seems. Day to day worries and insecurities creep into my mind. It is 2012. They say the world will end this year on the twenty-first day of December. I really don’t believe that, BUT….things have been a little weird lately.

Who knows? Maybe the Myans just ran out of rock to chisel their calendar on. Or, maybe they just knew something we don’t know. I guess we’ll find out this year. I just don’t want to go and spend a whole lot of money on Christmas presents, and then not be able to give them away.

I’ve been talking to a writing friend, ironically by writing to her, and she writing back to me. She has always given me a little spark, just enough to push me forward. I love her for that. I know she knows who she is.

I also think that I am beginning to sound like the Late Andy Rooney.  Whatever. I always liked Andy. I just hope my eyebrows never get like his did.

Well, this is my blog about writing, and writer’s block. I can’t think of anything else to say about this subject right now, so I guess this is a good enough place to stop.