Lacks Sizzle - Maya

"I don't know," he said,   stepping back and tilting his head to get a different view.  "Something's missing."

"Yeah," she replied, biting her nails.  It lacks .... sizzle."

"Sizzle," he repeated.  "Sizzle.  Lacks sizzle."

"You know.  Pizzazz.  Oomph.  Bling."

"Uh, sure," he replied, but his face had that quizzical look.  "Sizzle.  Sizzle."  He kept repeating it under his breath, as he paced back and forth in front of the canvas.

It was his latest work, and the largest he'd ever attempted.  It filled the entire side wall of his studio.  He was distressed.  he'd so wanted to impress her, so longed to hear that she loved it and that his misgivings were unwarranted.

Finally, he stopped pacing.

"So ... you think that 'sizzle' was what I was going for, and I just didn't quite make it happen?" he asked.

"Well, not necessarily.  It's just that with a  painting of this size you kind of expect something to pop out at you.  I was looking for a big statement.  Or big color.  Something big, besides the size of the canvas.  I mean, it's a nice piece of work technically.  I just think... well, maybe it's not finished yet."

"Maybe you're right," he said, but inside his head he was screaming, 'Nice?  Nice?  don't friggin' say my work is nice!  Shit.  This is a disaster.  why did I let her see it?  Let her?  I invited her!"

He'd resumed his pacing.  she turned away from the painting to look at him and finally noticed that he was upset.

"God, I'm sorry.  I didn't .... You asked for my opinion, and you know I'm not going to lie to you."

"No, you're right," he said.  "I trust your opinion, that's why i asked you.  I want to know.  I mean, I don't, but I do."

"Want to go get some coffee?" she asked.

"No, you go.  I want to think about it.  Work on it some."

"Okay.  sorry!"  She squeezed his shoulder and slipped out the door.

And there he was, back to facing this monstrosity, this thing he'd created that missed the mark, that didn't pop, that lacked sizzle.

Was she right?  he knew that he tended to get bowled over by other people's opinions when it concerned his art.  Maybe this time he was on track and she was off.

Pacing, pacing.

"Take a break," he told himself.  "Come back with a fresh eye."

So, he pulled himself away and filled a mug with water and stuck it in the microwave.  he rifled through his tea choices, settling on a calming green variety.  Mug in hand, he walked over to the window to look down on the street while he drank.  When he got down to the dregs he allowed himself to face his work again.

Scanning, scanning .... then suddenly he saw it: an opening, a possibility, a new way in.  He grabbed a brush and a tube of red paint and got to work.  She was right!  He'd been right to have her come and look.  Now he saw what had been missing.  sizzle?  Not what he'd have called it.  But something.  Something.

Prompt:  Lacks Sizzle, 1/17/09

Why I Hate Alligators - JohnD

We headed out from Orlando, just Joey and I. Joey was driving his 1965 Chevy pickup. It was more beat up than he was, which is saying a lot.

We were moving down the freeway with the truck vibrating and otherwise making much more noise than seemed necessary. Joey had the radio on. It’s the damnedest thing; he always had the radio on in that truck. I have no idea where the speakers were. The radio was always pretty loud, though, and the static was significant. With the noise the truck made, you couldn’t discern much of anything that was coming from that damned radio. It just ended up being a tremendous distraction.

Then Joey would talk the whole time anyway. Of course, he had to talk very loud to talk over the din. A good deal of the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Once in while, I’d tune into what he was saying. Sometimes he was talking about sports, sometimes women, sometimes an impossible construction task that he had to come to the rescue of because everyone else was too stupid to handle it.

We had another thirty-five minutes till we got to the construction site and I was damned sleepy. The truth is Joey’s story telling could put anyone to sleep even in that bouncy, vibrating, rattling death machine of a vehicle.

I had my sunglasses on, so I figured he wouldn’t notice if I closed my eyes. Besides, he never looked at me to make eye contact or anything like that.

I started to drift off as he droned on about the construction job of yesteryear in Tallahassee. I was in a half asleep, half awake state. The radio was floating into my dream world and that damned bouncing, rattling, and talking all combined to create quite a nightmare.

We were in an airplane that had hit freakish turbulence, or something; maybe an engine was out. Whatever it was, we were going down. “Damn it! We’re going down!” The airplane was heading straight for a body of water. “I’m going to die,” I thought. “I’m going to die.” Bam! We hit the water hard.

“Steve, you better wake up!” I heard Joey say with a considerable amount of strain in his voice.

I opened my eyes to see that the truck was sinking into a swamp. The mucky water was rising relatively quickly up the windshield.

“I fell asleep,” Joey said, in way of explanation, as he frantically rolled down his window and water came rushing into the truck. He then reached over and opened the glove box. “I better grab this.” He pulled out a 38 revolver.

Well, I was a little groggy, but I was enraged, too, and frightened, and confused, and cold, and wet and getting wetter.

“Come on Steve!” Joey said in an agitated tone. “We better start swimming!” He then tried climbing out the window, but it was quite a challenge since the water was flowing in with a lot of force. As Joey fought against the tidal wave, an alligator started swimming in through the window. Somehow, Joey escaped the alligator’s gnashing teeth as he shot it three times, splattering blood, brains, and guts into the small space in the cab that wasn’t already filled with water.

Some of the alligator blood got into my left eye and the eye closed reflexively. Through my right eye, I could see that the water line outside the truck had reached the top of the windshield cutting off the last rays of direct sunlight. However, the cab was still dimly lit since the sunlight was having some success penetrating the swamp water. In that lighting, the blood splatter was rather artistic, in a kind of disturbing way.

I suppose I was in a state of denial because I shouldn't have been paying attention to the aesthetic qualities of alligator-blood splatter. I should probably have been paying attention to the fact that even though that alligator was extremely dead, Joey was still fighting it because the water flowing into the cab was trying to bring the alligator in with it. The alligator was about eight feet long, which doesn't really sound that big. All the same, when an alligator is being jammed into the cab of a truck with the force of a tsunami, eight feet is quite big. There Joey was, contorting his body all about, pushing that dead alligator back with both hands as water kept rushing in all around it.

"YOUR window damn it! YOUR window!" Joey screamed. Then he followed it with a stream of profanities. I was definitely panicking because all I could say was, "What window? I have a window?" I was picturing windows in my apartment and I was thinking, "Well, they're not really MY windows; they belong to whoever owns the apartment complex."

Subconsciously, I had already lifted myself out of my seat toward the cab ceiling since the water inside the cab had risen quite a ways above the dashboard. There was about a foot of space left that wasn’t filled with water. At that moment, I guess my subconscious was obsessed with the notion of breathable air. Thank goodness my subconscious was still working because my conscious was not.

It was 7:15AM, and it was a real bad start to the day. Let me tell you, it only got worse. But, for the most part, that sums up why I hate alligators.


--

Always Tries To Be Liked, But Now... - JohnD

I was driving over to Bobby's house for the party. His parties have always been a big hit. I did well at his parties.

My cell phone was ringing. It was Marcia. Her name came up on the phone with a 9.5 rating. I label all the ladies I've been with with a number from one to ten. A 9.5 though? Wow! I had forgotten about that.

"Darn it!" I was thinking. "Why didn't I call her after after Bobby's party in June?" That was the last time I'd seen her. Yeah, Bobby's parties had always been good to me.

"Hello," I said once I finally got the earpiece working.

"John?" Marcia asked.

"Yeah, Marcia! So nice to hear from you. I'm heading over to Bobby's party now. I guess you're going, too, huh?"

"Yeah, are you bringing anything?" she asked. Her voice was sounding real sexy. "Goodness, why hadn't I called her since the last party:" that's what I was thinking.

I finally got around to answering her: "Uh, bringing anything? To Bobby's party, why? I mean, Bobby always supplies everything."

"Well, because it's polite, you bozo."

This babe was kinda freaking me out. What was this 'polite' talk. Most people weren't polite to Bobby. Bobby was a successful computer geek. He had millions of dollars, spent it freely, was always trying to have cool friends.

"Marsh, honey," I said. "Don't worry about it. Bobby won't expect anyone to bring anything. He wants to give things to everyone to buy their attention; he doesn't want them giving him things."

"That's terrible! I thought he was your friend," she said.

I didn't like the way the conversation was moving along. I was going to have to downgrade Marcia from 9.5 to 9, maybe an 8 if she kept this downer conversation going.

"Okay, Marcia, bring something if you'd like."

"Not me, YOU!" said Marcia all kinda defiant and such.

"Me? What are you worried about me for?" I asked.

"I'm worried about Bobby, you ding bat. You worry about yourself plenty enough already."

"Listen, Marica, Bobby always tries to be liked. He needs to be liked; he wants so badly to be liked that nobody likes him. Don't blame me for that. He wants to throw parties and invite me. Don't blame me for accepting his invitation, sweetie."

"John, perhaps you don't want to be liked. Perhaps you don't want to be liked so much that nobody likes you."

Uh oh! This girl was getting all philosophical on me. I didn't remember her having a brain or a spine or whatever it was she was demonstrating here, but I didn't like it one bit. I dropped her rating to 7 right then and there.

"Okay, well, I'll see you at the party, Marcia."

"No, I don't think so John. I'm disinviting you."

"What? First of all, I don't think 'disinviting' is a word. I believe it is 'uninviting' and second of all, who the hell are you to uninvite me?"

"Well, John, first of all, the way I'm doing it, it's definitely, 'disinviting' not 'uninviting.' Second of all, Bobby and I eloped last weekend. We're married now. And you're a slimy, selfish, free-loader. Find some other friends to leech off of."

That was it. Marcia was downgraded to 4.

As I turned my car around and headed home, I thought, "Okay, if she calls me in the future and wants to go out, I will refuse. Well, unless she asks real nicely."

I have to say, I have a little more respect for Bobby now. Still, I had Marcia when she was a 9.5; by the time Bobby got her, she was down to a 4. But, all in all, it was better than I thought he could do.