writeoneleaf:

Lotus aft by George Eastman House on Flickr.

Look at the photo. Consider what has has just happened here, or what is about to happen here. Who has been here? Who will come here and and what will they do? What kinds of interactions can you imagine? Write one leaf about these or other things that occur to you upon looking at the picture. Do not allow yourself to be limited by what you see. Go.

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“Oh, my god, Becky,” Ginger scoffed. “Look at her butt. It’s so big. She looks like one of those ra-“

“Fuck off, Ginger!” Helen trumpeted. “Fuck you and your heteronormative, cis-gendered asshole outlook!”

writeoneleaf:

Kitten nestled in a bonnet by George Eastman House on Flickr.

Look at the photo. Consider what has has just happened here, or what is about to happen here. Who has been here? Who will come here and and what will they do? What kinds of interactions can you imagine? Write one leaf about these or other things that occur to you upon looking at the picture. Do not allow yourself to be limited by what you see. Go.

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“Mr. Callystock!” Benedict yelled. “This is not my diving helmet! Come here, henceforth!”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” Mr. Callystock, never a proud man, could not hold back his groveling. “It was a mistake. The diving helmet must have been stored next your childhood bonnet. A simple error, Sir. It just was a small error on my part.” 

Benedict stared. “Mr. Callystock, I do not believe this was an accident. I believe this was an attempt. An attempt of murder!” A draft blew in, extinguishing the lamplight. “Callystock, relight that and close the window. This is another attempt! A slow one, mind you, that I should catch the consumption!”

“Sir, it may be an accident, and all?”

“Nonsense, Callystock! Between these murderous attempts at my demise, and that rogue dagger in my saucer this morning, coincidence be damned!” Benedict howled.

“Well, Sir,” Mr. Callystock said. “We’ll have to be vigilant and all that, mind you.”

Neither were smart men.

Independent

We are driving to the river. Kim has her kayak. Audra has a Kindle full of Babysitter’s Club books (yes). I have my child behavior textbook, watercolors, and John Connelly’s Nocturnes; too much stuff, which is the norm.

I’m not feeling very patriotic. I kept forgetting it was the Fourth. I feel hungry, but not patriotic.

There is farmland speeding past us, tall green rows, and they are gone. Impermanent, wholly, from the backseat. A corrections facility, fences and towers adorned with cruel steel spirals, here, then gone.

There is no signal here (we are almost here) so this will be sent into the ether later. I doubt I’ll get the patriotic feeling. I will be hungrier though.

writeoneleaf:

Josie’s Declaration of Independence (cinema 1914) by New York Public Library on Flickr.

Look at the photo. Consider what has has just happened here, or what is about to happen here. Who has been here? Who will come here and and what will they do? What kinds of interactions can you imagine? Write one leaf about these or other things that occur to you upon looking at the picture. Do not allow yourself to be limited by what you see. Go.

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Josie was free. “I am free.” She said it to the empty house, the barren yard, to her lonely suitcase. She said to her locket that locked her husband’s photo still and in place. She said it to no one.
Josie sat down and settled her suitcase on her lap. Henry called it ‘a valise’. He did not know why he insisted it was a valise. Why he got so very furious when she asked if he packed his suitcase for the wedding, or if he happened to see the suitcases in attic or were they in crawlspace?
She packed for the trip, now her trip, in his valise. She announced to the hollow bedroom, “I am packing this suitcase!”
Now, she is waiting for their cab, but it is no longer their’s but her’s. She announced her freedom to the air. The air did not respond. How can it?
She sees no one around her. She has spoken to no one since the mourning officially ended. It ended - ends - according to the calendar.
Henry sits down next to her. Henry tries to brush away her tears, like he did when she chopped onions. He cannot. His hands pass through her face. They aren’t even his hands. They are something close to a memory of hands, gnarled and thick and with no weight or mass.
He cannot hold her hands or remove her fingernails from her palms. He cannot, but he has tried for days. He will not stop trying. Never

Write one leaf about playing scales.

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“Doug, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Fuck off,” he replied. I say ‘replied’, but mean ‘slurred’.

“Doug, why are you drunk?” I asked, to be more clear. “It is eight in the morning. Also leave my snakes alone.”

He threw my snakes onto the couch. There is never a reason to throw snakes. They remember things like this and, even if they are non-venomous, they will remember to bite you.

“I AM A FANTASTIC PIANIST!,” Doug yelled to no one in particular. What he yelled did not sound like ‘pianist’, as when it stumbles off your lips, with vodka and spittle and and four un-toasted english muffins, dipped in grape jam, it just sounds like something very similar to ‘pianist’. “I am a brilliant pianist. I am. I can play in any scale. I can.”

“Yes,” I said. “You are an amazing piano player, Doug.”

“Pianist.”

“Okay, Doug. I agree,” I said. “You are a pianist.”

writeoneleaf:

President Lincoln, Allan Pinkerton, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand. by The U.S. National Archives on Flickr.

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Write one leaf based on the content, title or other aspect of the photo.

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Via Flickr:
U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier: NWDNS-111-B-6348A

From: Series: Mathew Brady Photographs of Civil War-Era Personalities and Scenes, compiled 1921 - 1940, documenting the period 1860 – 1865 (Record Group 111)

Created by: War Department. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. (08/01/1866 - 09/18/1947)

Coverage Dates ca. 1860 - ca. 1865

Photographer: Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.) (1858 -?)

Subjects:
American Civil War, 1861-1865

Persistent URL: http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=530415

Repository: Still Pictures Unit at the National Archives at College Park (College Park, MD)

General McClernand inspected the work. “Impressive. But does it work?”

Pinkerton looked back into the tent. The inventor sat next to the President. They both slept, both exhausted, both mad from the respective fevers. “He says it will work. He says it will help us win the war. But, he also says he’s from the future.”

“Madman.”

“True.” Pinkerton walked around the automaton. It looked like the President, from fingertip to nose, from eye to toes. It even moved like Mr. Lincoln. “This Tesla says it will help, it will help. He stopped Russians us and he stopped the French. Hell, he stopped the Fish-folk from invading everything.”

“Unfortunately.” The General will have nightmares of that day, its stench and how it settled in some choice cities and how some things can never be made clean. “Let’s turn it on.”

Lincoln-bot went zip and it went pop and settled into a whirr. “SYSTEMS ENGAGING. PRIMARY WEAPONS ACTIVE. MOTION SENSING AND HEAT-TRACKING PRIMED. SECONDARY WEAPONS ACTIVE. ALL SYSTEMS ACTIVE. AWAITING COMMANDS.”

Mr. Pinkerton felt his palms sweat and shake. He lost all feeling below his waist, all feeling beyond joy. “Tesla!”

“I’m here.” The time-traveller was put together. His bow-tie was even straight. “Just tell it what to do. But,” he cautioned. “It’ll work only for one hour. Well, one hour and eleven minutes. I like the symmetry.”

The General laughed. “I doubt if we’ll even need that long.”

Tesla shrugged. “You can believe whatever. It will be just long enough to do what you need and have my nanites fix your president. You’re welcome, by the by.”

“Whatever.” The General gazed into the field of blood and thunder below. “How do we start it?”

“It’ll respond your word, General. But first,” Tesla said, fishing around deep in his pockets. “Here it is. But first, a photograph. To remember the day to come.”

Write one leaf that features a teenager who has not finished his homework.

writeoneleaf:

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“Hey. I can’t go tonight.”

Tim’s boss turned and looked. He did not look at him. He did not look through him. He watched Tim, waiting. Waiting, like a kettle warming to boil.

“I have homework.”

Tim hated the way this works.

“Really. I have bio report on meiosis and mitosis for Tuesday, calculus and French, and outline my English project. We have to compare ethics and morals in two nineteenth century works of literature. I’m excited about this one, Bruce. I’m doing Frankenstein and Holmes. Probably A Study in Scarlet. I figure I have enough background in both. I think it’ll be fun.”

The eyes ate him. 

“Look! I have to do my school-“

Bruce raised a finger. “Get suited up.”

“Fine.” He put on the red shirt, the green pants, the black cape, the mask. “Just so you know, I’m going to punch someone extra hard tonight. I don’t care how extra hard, but it will unnecessarily hard. Just so you know.”

“Whatever.” This is the only modern word he knows. It was used appropriately. “Get in the car.”

He got in the car. “I’m going to punch someone in the face. I hope it’ll be a thug. Or the Penguin. I hope the Penguin makes me punch in the face. Crane, too. No. No.” The Batmobile carved through the streets of Gotham. It knew where to go. It was hungry. I wanted vengeance and where to go. 

“No Penguin. No Scarecrow.” The Batman smiled and a frost settled. “Joker. If you can, you can punch the Joker.”

“I can do that.”

writeoneleaf:

Write one leaf beginning with this photo from the National Archives.

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Big Pete spit. The sand drank it. It drank his spit. It drank his sweat. It drank his blood. 

He spit and pulled from his shoulder an invader’s stinger. Its tip was wet, wetter than the sand, wetter than the hole and the shining light that went from chest to back. He unclipped the PockDoc and sprayed theinside of the hole and both of its ends.

Big Pete bit his tongue and ground his teeth. The gun needed his hand. It was empty and he fixed that problem. 

Big Pete looked upwards, towards the sky and beyond. Beyond and lower. Lower through the atmosphere and down towards the ground. The invaders approached. Big Pete took aim and met the oncoming storm.

[Bad sci-fi, but on purpose!]

writeoneleaf:

Write one leaf using this photo as a springboard.

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Between his college years, Thor took time to himself. He did not party. He still drank, but in moderation. He stayed away from his brothers, save Baldur. 

Thor explored the continent. He volunteered at a co-op and worked shared farmland and a community garden. He spent time at an animal shelter and rehabilitation clinic.

It was easily the happiest moments of his life.

writeoneleaf:

Write one leaf in which you caption, describe, begin a story, write a poem, or otherwise move your hands in a fashion that resembles writing with the above photo as a springboard.

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Mrs. Jacob Stooksbury was a major contributor to the field of vampirology in its infancy. Many of our first and earliest records of vampires in modern times is directly sourced and owed credit to her.

In this slide, Mrs. Stooksbury has recorded a very rare moment of home life. The Loyston clan, of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and other locations along central region of the Appalachian Trail, is seen here with their numbers grown by two. Here, Grandmatron Loyston sits next to the newly-turned Ezekiel, while the Twins (ages 20) coo with Mary-Margaret. The Twins, Jake and Elwood, are long-bloods and are now ruling along the Southeast as heads of the Blood Council.

How the footage was obtained is unknown. It is believed that Mrs. Stooksbury made an agreement with Clan, an apparent trade, but what is a mystery. A blood-trade is highly risky and a kin-trade can too long of a game for many newly-settled growing, and hungry, families. It is rumored that Stooksbury may have scouted for the clan, finding forsaken and isolated homes and families for feeding, housing, or breeding.