teapot1

teapot1

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Trifecta Writing Challenge


Trifecta Writing Challenge—Week of June 10

 
I am entering this week’s  Trifecta Writing Challenge. The challenge is to write a story between 33 and 333 words using the third dictionary definition of a given word. This week’s word is light; the definition is “a source of light, as a celestial body, candle, or an electric light.”

 

The Jump Shot

The small forward with the sweet outside shot stands behind the arc, so far behind that it’s almost midcourt, leaps, feet kicking up behind him, and lets it go. The ball rises higher and higher, then pauses at the apex, a moment fractured, a sliver left suspended, like a newly birthed star. The points of light from the stadium ceiling gather around it, turn it silver, radiate outward, here and gone as your eyes gasp, breath held, waiting for it to concede to gravity, curving gently downward like a small comet, finding the inside of the rim without touching.

When love is on the rise, one man thinks, that fraction of a moment is waiting ahead of you, that point of gleaming light when time is held in suspension and only beauty exists. But there’s no holding it there, not the ball, not the split second of glittering light, not the joy. They rise and gleam and fall; the ball slips through, the lover walks away, and what they leave behind—an empty net, an empty heart—still tremble with what went before.

 

 

 

 

7 comments:

  1. You left me breathless. What a stunning short piece. "Like a newly birthed star"... poetry. Really lovely Elaine!

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  2. that's all about what time, is isn't it? We can't grasp it or hold on to it. LOvely.

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  3. Oh wow. That's so wonderful. Thanks so much for linking up with this. I love your word choice and how this piece moves and flows. Please remember to come back and vote at the end of the challenge. Hope to see you back again soon.

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  4. I really enjoy all the new bloggers I find in these challenges.

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  5. There's a lot packed into these words. Great job!

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  6. Really captured me. I was holding my breath for the last two paragraphs! =P

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  7. Adore the way you've likened love to the perfect hoop shot.

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