A Man Of Many Words

Responding to a challenge of brevity

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

There are those on this platform, such as Lisa Gerard Braun and The Celtic Chameleon, who make the mistake of encouraging me. At least, SWMBO seems to think encouraging me is a bad idea: “Don’t encourage him!” She tells people “It only makes him worse!”. Not that the encouragement, on the part of the two ladies aforementioned, is entirely intentional. It’s just that they are prone to comment on my output in kind terms. So when both of them mention a ‘Ten Word Story’ challenge, the crumbling remnants of my warped mind become agitated and start throwing up ideas.

Now I am not by nature a prolix speaker, in conversation I tend to the laconic. However, once fairly launched upon a topic at the keyboard, I can (some of you may have noticed) rabbit on for-bloody-ever! Usually about nowt, but never mind. So to condense any kind of narrative into a limited number of words is going to be difficult. Nevertheless, nothing ventured….

A ten-word tale

This is based upon an incident observed in my teens. It must be borne in mind that as a youngster I was awkward, unsociable and averse to crowds and noise. I did not got to discos and dances, quite generally, preferring my Saturday evening to be occupied with books or films. I was also lacking in the ‘urges’ which so torment most…