The Twenty Eight Minute, 5-Minute Freewrite ~ Day 510~ Prompt: FAN ~ Original Story, Original Writing, and Original Photograph Too ~
~ Sometimes, You Just Gotta Finish The Story ~
Thursday's Prompt: Fan
The cave was deep and warm. And COMPLETELY dark. Like the back of your hand on a moonless night. Tunneling deeper in, it had an odd, fuzzy feel to the stuffy air inside. Permeated with the almost imperceptible, combination-al smell of old gym socks and Tide detergent. Where the heck WAS I? How did I get here, so deep underground? And what's that odd, whooosh, skoo-waatchiiing sound, coming from somewhere outside?
I laid on the soft, cavern floor, gathering my bearings and pondering my last few day's movements. What led me to this unknown place? Getting nowhere in the explanation department, I was suddenly jolted back to reality by an exceedingly odd, bright glow. The cave ceiling was awash with showers of golden orange, ember-like sparks, skittering across the expanse like those odd water striders on the surface of Sugar creek. The sparks came and went, blinking on and off in large 'waves', across the darkened ceiling, like crazed fireflies dipped in lighter fluid. Set alight from deep within the bowels of the cave by some huge, smelly creature named Ogg, with a 40 pound Bic lighter. I opened my mouth in small-child horror to scream, but nothing came out except old, stale, I-probably-should-have-brushed-my-teeth-before-I-went-to-bed, air.
~ § ~
A loud voice rang out in the pitch black night, beyond the warmth of my cave. “Get up, DUMBY, the fan's on fire!” I bolted upright, pulling the covers back from over my head, and the certain safety of my bedspread cave. It was my older brother, sitting upright in HIS little single bed, six feet away. Shaking his head in amazement in the darkened room, now completely awash with the orange glow from the shower of sparks, shoosh-ing back and forth across our shared bedroom from the fan by the closet door.
He lept into action in a single bound, as I dove back under my covers. Just in time! The tall, chrome floor-fan's oscillating head moved my way once again in 'auto' mode. Efficiently showering ALL sides of our room with burning wire, insulation, and other electrical debris.
“You're SO worthless”, was all I got from my brother's retort, before heading back to my guaranteed safety underground. He yelled down the hallway past our door, as he bounded across the room in his bare feet, “Da-aaad, the fan is on fire. It's spewing sparks all OVER the place! ” I peeked out, just in time to see my brother frantically pushing the little 'on-off' button behind the fan like a mad dog in heat, his scrunched face lit up from the orange glow of the hot little flaming appliance.
~ § ~
Suddenly, my Dad burst into the room, slamming the door hard against the little spring 'doinger' at the baseboard, and bound into action like a shirtless superhero in boxer shorts. In one deft move he yanked the cord from the wall, and the fan spun sadly to a sputtering rest. The shower of colorful sparks slowly abated into a limp waterfall onto the hardwood floor below, as they lost their necessary air-flow of efficient distribution. The brilliant fireworks display soon 'lost all steam' and petered out completely. The room returned to full-on darkness, once the last gasping, glowing embers of electric wire and melted fan-motor shards whimpered noiselessly into dark nothingness, under our little beds.
“What's going ON in here? ” It was my dear Mother, holding her robe closed at the neck, peering around the door jam of our room in usual disbelief. No doubt wondering aloud what sort of DIY calamity had struck again, and almost roasted her two precious sons as they slept safely in their beds. My Dad turned toward her in his baggy shorts, “Oh, it's OK, Dear. The fan I brought home from work...the one I re-wired? It had a small problem. Don't worry, I'll fix it in the morning. You boys go back to sleep.”
Good old Dad. Always SO handy with things around the house. My Mother never seemed too flapped by all these calamitous excitements rattling and ricocheting about our household on a regular basis. Possibly it was from being worn down by years of marriage to him, or she was just a very mellow soul to begin with. I've always leaned more toward the latter. Though I couldn't say for SURE. After all, I'd only known her since I was born. But she seemed truly nonplussed by all the activities wrought forth on that regular basis by my ever-adventurous father. I know we KIDS always enjoyed the end-results, no matter WHAT they tossed, shot or sprang forth in our direction.
Mom padded back down the hallway in her night robe and fuzzy slippers, muttering as she flipped off the hall-light and headed toward their room, "I'm going back to bed! " A retort I'd heard often, in our happy little household over the years. She always seemed to just go with the Dad-stuff flow. And the Night Of The Spark-Showering Fan was no exception.
~ § ~
My brother shook his head, checked under the bed once more for glowing embers and burning dust-bunnies, then climbed in and fell back to sleep. I followed suit, though it took a while to pass back into a deep slumber. Visions of burning rockets and glowing sparks skiffing off our Earth's atmosphere kept looping through my brain, as I laid in my warm little bed in the dark. I couldn't WAIT until the next morning, to tell the guys about our newest family adventure. Wouldn't THEY be jealous. Nothing like this EVER happened in their houses. Then again, no other kid on the block had a Dad quite like mine.
I did finally doze off that night. Followed by fresh new dreams of flaming space adventures, errant meteorites, fire-filled waterfalls, nice warm caves with new pinholes in the roof, and most importantly, one day becoming a full-on, crafty handyman myself. Oh, the wild and exciting, mirth-filled, sleep-time visions of our fleeting youth. It doesn't get much better than that.
Thanks Dad.
~ Finto ~
Five Minute Freewrite Post by @mariannewest
Post: Five Minute Freewrite - Day 510 - Prompt: Fan
Thanks for stopping in and viewing another Twenty Eight Minute, 5-Minute Freewrite about the excitement of oscillating night fans. If you have any thoughts about air movement devices, some other exciting end results to various DIY projects, being young again and the things that we witnessed as we progressed into eventual adulthood, or anything else this post reminds you of, please feel free to comment away in the spaces below. I'd love to hear from you.
Please UPVOTE, COMMENT and FOLLOW if you enjoy my works.
And go to @ddschteinn -- There's a whole lot more...
Posted: 03/15/2019 @ 15:32
Excerpts From Late-Night Conversations With A Mechanical Cat
Fact Number 127
More Stinky the Cat Classics from CatFacts of Yesteryear
~ § ~
Disclaim-iere
I do skim some things. Not yours. I can easily imagine the shower of nighttime sparks and the resulting chaos!
Both my mom and dad were pretty good at DIY projects, but I think they knew their limits and then the electrician or the plumber would get called in. The joke around our house was that my dad didn't build things, he over built. The clothes line poles in our back yard could have supported a high wire artist, and our picnic table required 6 strong men to move it. Our sandbox was a marvel. It held a couple of pickup truckloads of sand, was raised up off the ground and had benches on each side. The cover, to keep out the neighborhood cats, was so heavy that no child could play in the sand without first seeking adult assistance. If a nail was required, my dad used 3. He built things to last!
I'm impressed if you read all my words, don't think it's done too often, especially the longer tomes. This one is shorter, but it can be hard to have time to read a lot on here, and keep up. I do appreciate it.
Your parents sound like characters. And I can certainly relate. I re-built part of my bathroom, and the electrical contractor told me, "you should build boats". Things should be overdone, to last forever. Love the story of your sandbox. No one could get in without parental help. Then again, kitties DO tend to make a real mess of them.
Oh heavens, @ddschteinn trying to catch back up on my usual morning routine of coffee in bed and reading and voting on some of my faves. Then I see you have another new one, open it and see all the words...I love to read your things so I know, "I'm saving this for later" to really enjoy, but then I think, "I'll let him know I see it and am aware of it and will be back". Yet, the nicer weather has been luring me away from my work and steemit, so I'm commenting now in case when I read it, I'm just happy to read it , if that makes any sense. :)
Well, back to visiting everyone else.
Hello there, it is a chore, isn't it? Keeping up. I barely seem to get votes in on time, let alone meaningful comments as I'd like. I hope that changes one day soon. Life seems to get in the way of this Internet stuff. Though maybe that is a good thing, as you've pointed out in times past.
But you make perfect sense here. (Great minds think alike. Or at least can interpret one another's perks de odd-itte'). I can certainly understand it all. Reading at leisure over tea is much more fun than skimming. Plus, there are often a LOT of words in my posts. I realize seldom do folks have time to read it all, but I still have to just do what I do and go that route. Not sure WHY, but that's beside the point. I think I spend inordinate amounts of time on photos too, but I like them to look good, and maybe use them for future projects 'in mind'. So, it seems to take a lot of time to make a single post. Then again, you have to MAKE the art, then photo and discuss it. So maybe a big 'nevermind' is in order. Anyways, all that babble said, I appreciate your take on all of this, as you describe above. It's nice to be 'saved for later'. Like a good bag of good chocolate chip cookies, popped in the toaster oven on a Saturday AM, with cold water on the side, for breakfast. Ah, life has it's moments.. Well, have a peachy 'what's left of' Saturday, and cheerstoya, DD
Jezz, my prompts lasts like 20 seconds... and mostly are funny nonsense hahahah
Yes, yours are very funny. And not necessarily nonsense. And, as the disclaimer says, these are not true 5 minute writes. They're the 28 minute+ version. But that first five minutes is a real kick-starter, ain't it?!! I just use these as a jump-off for more writing. Hope no one minds the variance and literary monkey wrench in the works. Write on...
See there is a certain pleasure to DIYing! I mean sure there can be little issues here and there, but you know what doesnt kill us makes us stronger and all that!
I am not certain, but it almost seems like the time used on the 5 minute free write is increasing! LOL
I'm pretty sure my Dad fully subscribed to that mantra of the DIY set. We had many adventures growing up. As for the writing, that's probably true. Though I DO put my dis-claimer in at the end. Maybe it needs to be bigger. You suppose? I've not been drummed out of the five minute club yet, but I suppose the year is still young ( :
Thanks for stopping in and the comment, always fun to chat. Cheerio(s)