Did I lean into melodrama? Yes. But since this is a timed exercise, I went with my first idea and stuck with it. I did not do any research into the timing between the male birds molting tail feathers and when the chicks would hatch, apologies to any ornithologist readers! I also totally made up the name Pembledom, please do not judge me too harshly.
I know I’ve said it before, but this is a fun exercise. I like the near chaos (you never know what the prompts will be), but the structure/instruction is always the same. There are other great writing exercises out there, but this one just hits a sweet spot for me. I’d love to see if anyone else does this prompt! Thank you for reading!
This week’s prompts were:
- Character: Pianist
- Object: Feather
- Genre/Tone: Drama
Lord Pembledom, the famed concert pianist, stood on the veranda glaring into the summer sunshine. His prized flock of peafowl were strutting around the lawn. The woman he wanted to impress was coming over tonight, but everything was going wrong.
His once lordly peacocks were molting their tail feathers: They looked wilted, they looked bedraggled! How could he impress Lady Hortensia if the living jewels of his estate were in such disarray?!
He commanded his butler to gather up the molted tail feathers; they were in a dreadful state, they looked patchy and worn. Alas, they would have to do: he helped the butler round up the peacocks and with the help of some glue, they began sticking the feathers back onto the highly resistant birds. The glue ended up securing mounds of fluffy feathers to Lord Pembledom’s hands. And he found that his fingers were stuck together. The birds were looking even scruffier, and one of them was stuck to the butler who was trying and failing to unstick himself.
This all took more time then he had expected, and he’d only gotten two of his fingers unglued (he was still covered in feathers), when Lady Hortensia found him.
“Lord Pembledom! What ever are you and your butler doing to those poor birds?!” She cried. The butler was making a valiant effort to stand still and dignified with a squawking and flapping peacock half glued to his hand.
“Lady Hortensia! I…” He stammered, but her eyes were already turning from him.
“Oh! The chicks!” she was softly walking over to a shady thicket, where the peahens were brooding with newly hatched chicks. “How lovely!”
The chicks smoothed over the oddness of the meeting. While she cooed and cuddled the new peafowl, Lord Pembledom went inside to get cleaned up and his butler managed to free the bird he’d melded with. It turned out that Lady Hortensia was something of an expert at bird husbandry, and she was much more impressed by his piano playing; despite the drama and unintentional bird torture, they got along rather well; like birds of a feather, you might say.