Well, that will teach me to leave the blogs for a day! There was an Esmonde explosion, and it was all brilliant- I will read them all and give them their due attention... here is a short excerpt- I feel like some of you - there's only so much you can post at this point, without giving too much away.
Here's something you'll recognize from NaNoWriMo '09...
Maggie’s love for the house makes its current incarnation all the more disturbing. It seems alien, somehow not her home anymore. Something else had claimed it. All her memories, and all her dreams for her future in the house with the red door suddenly mean something different. The house is now something she has to escape. She can never live here again, not after this moment. The house has betrayed her. The wind chimes move gently in the almost nonexistent breeze, discordant, jangly. In the near silence of the strangely deserted street, the sound falls like breaking glass. The chimes, once so comforting and familiar, sound like nails on a blackboard to her. The houses’s very essence lives and breathes malevolence, anger, ire. And also expectancy, waiting. It waits for her. As she approaches, her every step bringing her closer and closer to the inevitable confrontation that lies ahead of her, the house seems to whisper her name.
As she climbs the stairs to the front porch, she notices that something has been placed on her doorstep, like a dead offering left by an overzealous house cat. The mat is pink, fuzzy, perhaps a bit too fuzzy to withstand the harsh weather conditions of a Southwestern Ontario winter. For this reason, Maggie suspects that whoever has placed it here little understands that the functionality of décor is as important as its fashion. Of course, the person who has placed the mat here has little understanding of either concept. The welcome mat, if we can describe it as such, bears the disturbing image of a disembodied hand, clutching a revolver. The words that accompany the image chill Maggie to the bone. “I Don’t Dial 911”. Somehow, the homage to vigilante justice, in concert with the brooding atmosphere of the calm before the storm, has an overall pleasing effect. At least Edie thinks so.
Edie and Maggie exchange glances, then cross the threshold into Maggie’s foyer, neither one sure that they will leave the house again.
This is a great passage, Jill. You're really building up the tension and the suspense. I hope that things work out for Maggie, Edie, and Gordon. And Tim.
ReplyDeleteI also loved the unexpected joke thrown in - it really caught me off guard in true Esmonde style - when Edie found the effect of the 'welcome mat' and the 'brooding atmosphere' to have an overall pleasing effect. Well played!
Hilarious and ominous. I would say that the overall effect is very pleasing!
ReplyDeleteJust as funny the second time around, you're like a young David Foster Wallace, minus the eventual suicide.
ReplyDeleteReally, really good. The foreboding is amazing, and the use of the welcome mat as character development was inspired.
ReplyDeleteAh the mat. Did I ever tell you my dad suspected that I stole the mat but Katie (Reaume) talked him down by asking him why anyone would ever want to steal that mat. Obviously he doesn't know me very well!
ReplyDeleteScott