This week’s prompts were fun:
- Character: Werewolf
- Object: Packing tape
- Genre/Tone: Satire
The plot for this one came pretty quickly to me, but as soon as I started writing it sprawled out of control with too many characters and not enough theme to hold them all together. Also, I’m not sure a single Beatles pun counts as “satire”. But it was exciting as I wrote, trying to cram everything I was thinking into words on the page. It just needs a lot of work before it’s properly readable. That’s how first drafts usually work: there’s something good or fun in it, but it takes work to communicate that to the reader.
If you want to try your hand at this exercise, please link or post your version in the comments below!
Maxwell reached for the packing tape, but Green slapped his hand away.
“What do you think this is for?” Green snapped. “Your grandmother’s books?” Green handed Maxwell a hammer and waved toward the pile of one-by-sixes and two-by-fours stacked in the corner of the warehouse. “Build me a solid crate, and have it ready by sundown.”
As Green stomped out, Maxwell sized up the lumber, which smelled more of dust than of fresh pitch. It would split far too easily. And the hammer had a head that was bright and strangely heavy. It seemed softer than a hammer should be, too, as if it were made of silver rather than iron. Nor had he brought nails with him, and he couldn’t see any in the warehouse.
He checked the drawers under the workbench: only a washer and a few broken pencils. The closet contained a ragged mop in a bucket with a rust hole in the bottom. He’d have to buy some nails. Fortunately, he’d included “expenses” in his contract for this job. But traffic was crazy, and it took him over an hour to get to the hardware store. Then he found they were out of the size of nails he wanted. “It’s weird,” said the shopkeeper. “Every month there’s a different rush, and this month it was six-penny nails. And my shopboy is late today.” Another forty-five minutes getting back to the warehouse, and he hadn’t even begun framing the crate, much less building the walls to the bizarre specifications Green had given him. He’d never finish in time. If only everyone wasn’t acting so bizarrely today.
He started framing, and from the first tap of the hammer realized that he should have picked up a proper one while he was getting the nails. He certainly didn’t have time to drive down, but maybe the hardware store would deliver? He called, and the shopkeeper said that his shopboy, who had only just arrived, could drive it over, as he seemed good for nothing else and it was getting close to closing time anyway. Maxwell expressed his gratitude, and spent his time cutting and laying out the lumber for assembly rather than denting the soft metal of Green’s hammer any more.
When the shopboy arrived, he brought two good hammers, and offered to help with the construction. They finished just as Green came storming in. “You got the crate ready?” he demanded? “You got that silver hammer?”
Green ran out and returned with three others in hunting gear dragging a wolf smelling of wet dog and blood. The wolf growled and wrestled with them, but they had it bound around the chest and by a couple of its legs. Green shouted, “Knock it out, Maxwell!” And Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon its head.
To Maxwell’s surprise, it made an impression on the wolf rather than the other way round, and it collapsed, transforming into a young man.
Green and the others dragged the young man into the crate. “Hurry, before he wakes up and feels the moon again.” Then Maxwell and the shop boy, using their proper hammers, put the last nails in to lock the werewolf in. Bang bang.