At least, I tried.

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Every so often, WriteToDone.com promotes a writing exercise called "Scene Stealers:Telling a Story". They give you a opening scene; you try to mold it into a story (or at least a plausible introduction) of 350 words or less.

I took Monday's challenge and entered my attempt. I hoped that someone would give some needed direction or constructive criticism. So far, nothing.

No criticism is the worst. Your efforts weren't good enough for Pulitzer Prize, or bad enough for the death penalty. At best, your efforts earned a "Meh" of indifference, but nothing motivating enough for a couple of key strokes in your direction.

And so, for all of the Russian visitors this blog has been getting this past week, here was my entry. I ran out of my 350 word limit, so all you get is an intro.

All comments are welcomed.

Monday's exercise was: "Ron etched another line in the wall of the mud hut that had been his home for the last 31 days. When would the nightmare end?"
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Ron etched another line in the wall of the mud hut that had been his home for the last 31 days. When would the nightmare end?

Certainly not today as the hatch on the top of Ron’s muddy confinement opened. In dropped another body to share the misery of Ron and 12 others in the dank cell.

“Hi, I’m …,” said the new arrival. He was immediately interrupted with a grumbling “Ron. Yeah, we know.”

Everyone in the cell was named Ron. In the spirit of bureaucratic efficiency, the prison system kept those with the same first name in the same cell.

“I used to lived with idiots”, thought Ron angrily. “Now I’m surrounded by mo’Rons.”

But what could he expect? These are the days of A.P.P.L.E. – Agency for the Protection and Promotion of Leafy Edibles.

A.P.P.L.E. originally began as a Federal department dedicated to regulating and taxing vegetables. After the latest round of elections, A.P.P.L.E. had an expanded role: They could inspect your house for signs of plant abuse.

For example, any potted plants found over or under watered earned you a few weeks of “reeducation”. Reeducation meant a muddy confinement in the ground so you would come to appreciate your photosynthesizing brethren.

If dead plants were discovered in your home, you spent the rest of your life in the ground. Then you were buried to become plant food as a fitting retribution.

You could escape arrest. These enforcers of A.P.P.L.E. were rotten to the core. Paid with enough greenery showing Benjamin Franklin’s stern face, these corrupt investigators would look the other way. But a quota – either arrest or personal funds – was going to be made.

They caught Ron with a dusty, dirty, faded plastic fern in his apartment. When he couldn’t pay the extortion, the unsmiling A.P.P.L.E. police jailed Ron for “the simulation of an unnatural act towards living vegetation”.

31 days later, Ron made another line in the muddy wall. The lines didn’t count his time stolen by idiotic political whims. Another line simply added itself to Ron’s escape plan.