writing exercise

[alexdraven]

20 minutes and 10 words to work into something - an exercise from thesquaretable

hand, curtain, current, supper, rain, time, forgotten, fields, shadow, machine

*****

It was long past supper time and still Joseph had not returned. The market was a long walk through the overgrown fields, and normally they went together, carrying carvings to sell, and grain to be turned to flour in the town’s milling machine, but the wound on Caleb’s foot still festered, and Joseph had left in the early morning, pushing the hand cart alone.

Caleb had forgotten how alone he felt without Joseph by his side. He’d carved out a holding here in the woods, and for years he had lived alone, but now just one day without his partner, listening to the rain fall through the open workshop door, left him twitchy and startling at every sudden sound.

As the shadows had lengthened a current of concern had started to run through his thoughts, and it had taken an effort of will to force himself to take care of their livestock – another task normally brightened by the sharing of it – and to prepare an evening meal. Joseph’s supper was cooling in a covered pot set to the side of the fire, and the small amount Caleb had forced himself to eat sat un-easily in his belly as the sodden night drew on and his fears grew.

His hand twisted in the old cotton of the curtains that flanked the windows which faced the approach from the road. The sore throbbing of his infected foot kept him from carrying a lantern up the muddy track, but nothing could force him to draw a barrier between the lights of their home and Joseph’s approach. It would be cold comfort indeed if anything awful had befallen his love, but waiting and lighting the path was all that he could offer, and if nothing worse than a worn wheel peg or the sticky clay of the road had delayed Joseph, Caleb felt sure his offering would be appreciated.

Comments

[cicirossi.livejournal.com]

oh yum

very well drawn portrait

[ephemera-tales.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[a-roar-a.livejournal.com]

ooooh ::makes worried face:: lovely, but now I want to know what's keeping Joseph

[ephemera-tales.livejournal.com]

I shan't write it, but it was just the rain and the mud and the road being so churned up everyone was sliping and sliding, and there was a horset hat fell and had to be put down, which blocked the road a while, but Joseph is only cold and tired and hungry and nothing worse, and the carvings sold, and he's a commision for the inn-keeper's daughters dower chest, and Caleb tried not to show just how worried he'd been, for all of about thirty seconds until Joseph was holding him so tight and he knew that Joseph saw it anyway, so it was ok to squeeze back and confess to it, and there's hot water on the stove and a warm dry bed and lamp light and bare skin and love and passion.

[duckduck.livejournal.com]

I agree! I definitely want more.

Thank you!!

[ephemera-tales.livejournal.com]

I shan't write it, but it was just the rain and the mud and the road being so churned up everyone was sliping and sliding, and there was a horset hat fell and had to be put down, which blocked the road a while, but Joseph is only cold and tired and hungry and nothing worse, and the carvings sold, and he's a commision for the inn-keeper's daughters dower chest, and Caleb tried not to show just how worried he'd been, for all of about thirty seconds until Joseph was holding him so tight and he knew that Joseph saw it anyway, so it was ok to squeeze back and confess to it, and there's hot water on the stove and a warm dry bed and lamp light and bare skin and love and passion.

[karindira.livejournal.com]

It's quiet, sad. But good.

[ephemera-tales.livejournal.com]

thank you

[megglesmcgoo.livejournal.com]

I'm all worried about Joseph too. I really enjoyed reading this. The style of it suits the setting very well. I imagined it to be set in Africa although now I've read it again I realise that you never gave a location.

[ephemera-tales.livejournal.com]

Thank you ;) I think I had somewhere vagually fantasy Russian in my mind,but I left it pretty wide open.