You were 6 years old the last time you saw me. You won‘t remember where, but you can try. Okay, I’ll tell you: it was in the hallway of your grandmother’s old house, the house with the one weird plywood wall, the one painted a vomitly pale green. You don’t remember the picture hanging on that wall because you never looked at me. I was boring. I was dark. And I was really just a blur, the whole hallway was. Your grandmother had a great big rickety wooden bed you would jump on, trying to touch the ceiling fan with your fingers, until the fan just about chopped them off, and you ran down the hall to your grandmother’s kitchen in your fuzzy socks, crying. This is the only time you ever saw me, the painting in the hall, because your grandmother took me down the next week, the same time she hauled the ceiling fan off to the dump. But if you ever looked closely, you would see I’m really just a cheap 16-inch reproduction of a some European artist’s European, blue-eyed Jesus, originally oil on wood, now printer ink on poster board. I really don‘t look much like the guy at all. But I remind you of him. And when you see me again in the back of a dusty thrift store, sandwiched between a Norman Rockwell and a crude watercolor dolphin done by someone‘s Aunt Terry, you’ll know me. When you see me in the little boy’s room room at the dentist’s office, you’ll know me. And when you see the real thing someday— not the version of me that’s hanging in the museum, no, not the original— the man himself, you’ll see him and you‘ll think, “Well, by George, the picture really look nothing like him at all, but I can see what they were going for!”

he's imagining

riding hard

on interstate 80

while she's

hurling lipstick

in a Thank You

We Appreciate

Your Patronage

torn beige sack

with the passenger

window but half

rolled down and

a long slim

rip running up

nude stockings

where they'd

failed

fumbling

roughly

to come to

between uppers

and downers

shaken and mixed

all wrong in the

blood and white

flashing cop'per

flood lights

pissing out

a sound

like a tire

incomparable

to the shrieking

brakes and glass

and her clawing

at his sorry arse

I hate you.

I hate you.

they gasp...

into the bag.

07.31.2023

CotW CCXXXIII Short Brutal Drunken Regret @Prose

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

In today's vid, we browse the talent of last week's CotW, and introduce this week's Challenge, number 233. Had a good time with this one. When I processed this audio, I realized after that I hot-keyed an extra de-esser, which normally just tames the sharp SSSSS-sounds known as sibilance, so it resulted in many ssssss sounds coming out as ttthhhh sounds. Haha. -And I had a choice, soldier through with the upload, or spend hours restoring the audio, or start over. Good chance no one will even pay attention to it like I do. But I did notice it.

What I also noticed was the level of writing here. I am so glad I didn't have to pick the top piece on this one. But I'm also glad I was able to narrate it, muted esses aside.

The writing on Prose. is unmatched by anywhere else.

Here's the new CotW.

https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14165

And here's the video for the talents within The Reaper. And the winning narration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj9RetBaITg

And.

As always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team