EKPHRASTIC PROMPT FOR ALL FUNSTERS
The Marvellous, Miraculous Mystery Machine
Release your inner Roald Dahl
Hollie and Toni, our wonderful editors at Everything Fun, were looking for prompt ideas, so they contacted me because they know I am full of ̶i̶t̶ them.
I considered for a minute or two, then thought, why not suggest an ekphrastic response; an exercise to stimulate the storytelling muses which I mentioned recently in an article on EF.
This will be so fun for me on several levels. Firstly, I will get to impress with my fancy knowledge about ekphrastic stuff and nextly, I can put links to Wikipedia, further adding to the impression that I am edumacated.
If you think the Wikipedia explanation is too convoluted or are just too bone lazy to click on links, let me explain in my own words.
Ekphrastic:
Until recently, I frequently used images to inspire fictional stories. I would search for an image until one spoke to me and then I would imagine a ‘what if’ conversation with myself.
For example, “What if the lady on the beach was the last survivor of an apocalypse? What if a door in the mysterious dark alley led to another dimension?” You get the drift.
Raine Lore
See how fun I am? I quoted myself.
So now you have the guts of the prompt.
Let me spell it out for those of you who are still reeling from my amazing edumacatedness.
Use the image of The Mystery Machine above to inspire you, write a minimum of 200 words and enthrall us with your fiction, this happened to me scenario or even poetry (if you must).
Don’t forget, a minimum of 200 words, and a maximum of I don’t care because I don’t have to edit your hilariousness, and please try to keep it at least vaguely amusing.
Everything Fun, don’t forget!
You can reuse the image above with a different title if you like because that will make a nice matching set of stories. If you hate to conform, find a different picture of an amazing mystery machine, or not.
Remember to put the words “prompt response” somewhere in the kicker or title or some bloody where so we can find it, should we ever want to.
Oh, and please tag me because I want to read your stuff so I can judge if it‘s as good as mine.
Just in case you still don’t quite understand, duh, here is my contribution.
The Marvellous, Miraculous Mystery Machine
Some idiot had left the tailgate wide open; an invitation to peek inside and go on a little wander down memory lane.
One of my boyfriends used to have a vehicle much like the one I was ogling — a 1966 Volkswagen combi van — all decked out with a soiled mattress in the back and speakers that could reduce your eardrums to cotton wool.
This tricked-out model was way spiffier than the vehicle of my youth — that machine always stank of an odious mixture of unwashed privates and incense, but it was all kinds of awesome, just the same.
I ran my hands lovingly over the fresh paintwork, aware that I might elicit a scream of, “Get yer filthy, acidy hands of my duco, you old bag!” but the car park remained silent.
I glanced around.
There didn’t seem to be a soul about, so I carefully sat my rheumaticky backside down on the back of the vehicle and relaxed a little.
Nothing happened. No yelling! No swooshing! No transporting back or forward in time.
I laughed at myself. What was I thinking? This was 2022 — that sort of magic seemed lost forever.
Looking back on those events, I wondered, had the incense been laced with some sort of hallucinogenic? I had never considered that before!
My reverie took me back to the very first time I had scooched onto that grubby mattress to join my boyfriend.
He was wearing an incredibly stupid grin and I figured he had plans for me and that pukey mattress. I didn’t mind. A bit of skunky mattress action was also on my agenda.
Still grinning inanely, Gerry reached over and wrangled the tailgate into position.
Putting his arm around my shoulders, he grated, “Hold on. We’re off!!
Shocked that we weren’t alone, I cast an alarmed glance back to the driver’s seat. Surely this wasn’t going to be a party for three!
I wasn’t up for that — alluring speakers, burning incense and suspect mattress, notwithstanding!
There was no driver! That discovery was accompanied by a distant swooshing noise followed by a high-pitched hum. The noise seemed to grow in intensity while the van began to shake uncontrollably.
I let out a small scream and clung to Gerry for dear life. “What the hell …?” I knew my nails were flaying his bare skin.
“Cheezus,” Gerry pried my fingers from his arm. “It’s okay — this is what usually happens!”
Raising my voice to a level above the appalling racket that was building in crescendo, I screamed hysterically.
“What the hell usually happens?”
“We go somewhere.”
“We can’t go somewhere,” I countered, realising my first date feelings about Gerry being a loser wanker, were most likely right. “We don’t have a fucking driver!”
“You don’t get it!” Gerry yelled back at me. “We go somewhere — either back or forward in time!”
“Don’t be bloody ridiculous!” I bellowed unnecessarily — the noise had suddenly ceased.
The new silence seemed to reverberate around the inside of the van. There was a complete absence of sound until Gerry’s speakers suddenly fired up with a song I recognised from my youth.
“I’m a pink toothbrush,” crooned the singer, in a childish voice.
“Why the hell did you record that?” I asked incredulously. “That’s kid stuff! What a waste of a cassette tape.”
“It’s the radio,” replied Gerry by way of explanation. “Sshh, just wait a minute!”
We sat quietly until the song ended. I sang along mentally, having learned the song when I was four years old. No way I was going to let Gerry know that the Pink Toothbrush song had been a personal favourite!
The music faded, followed by a crackling on the airwaves, then suddenly —
“Well, that brings our Sunday morning requests for children to an end. I hope you loved hearing all of your favourites. And now, a message for the grownups.”
Another crackle, then, “Brylcream, a little dab’ll do yah”, sang an over-cheerful voice.
“What on earth is going on?” I whispered, hysteria beginning to rise via a ball of bile that took up residence in my throat.
I gagged and coughed around the burning acid.
“Settle down,” Gerry patted my arm. “Time travel affects some people that way — upsets the stomach. Can give you the farts, too!”
I looked at him with all the scorn I could muster while gagging.
“You’re talking crap!” I admonished. “The sooner you drop this rubbish and I get out of this death trap, the better. Open the bloody tailgate!” I demanded.
“There are things you need to know first.” Gerry’s hand was a vice grip on my forearm.
I looked at him impatiently but he waved my imminent protest off with a flip of his long unkempt hair.
“Once you open the tailgate and step outside, you will age physically according to the time you have stepped into. You will find yourself somewhere that has had or will have, an impact on your life. To get back to the van, you need to say, “Mystery Machine, three times. If you get back first, wait for me to return.”
“I suppose I have to click my heels, too.” I sneered at him.
“You won’t think it’s so funny if you get stuck here!” He shrugged his shoulders with impatience, then lifted the tailgate.
Gerry looked at me, then slid to the edge of the van. He blew me a kiss, slipped out, and promptly disappeared.
I nearly passed out in disbelief, but then I was suddenly alert with the horrifying thought, “What do I do if he doesn’t come back?”
Preferring not to dwell on that thought, I too, exited the combi.
The very second my feet touched the ground, I blacked out.
“Jane, Jane, come here dear. Oh, there you are.” Mother was pulling on a weatherproof coat and was adjusting a scarf around her dark brown curls.
She looked amazing — the way she had when I was barely four years old.
I knew exactly where I was, and who I was.
I was kneeling on the couch playing a favourite game of watching rainwater dribble down the windows, tracing the rivulets with my tiny fingers. It was a very strange sensation, inhabiting a little tot’s body and thinking about things with an adult mind.
I spoke. “What is it, mother?” came out of my tiny lips as, “I’m here, mummy!”
“I see,” she replied with a tight smile. “It is raining very hard outside but I have to bike to the corner store for some groceries. I want you to stay right where you are and don’t move until I get back. You can watch for me from the window.”
My tiny heart skipped a beat. “No, no,” I wailed. I want to ride on the back of the bike. I can get wet. It’s okay.” I pleaded.
“I’m sorry, dear. The store closes at noon — Remember now, don’t move from the window. You can have the radio playing your favourite Sunday morning songs.”
I wailed louder. Quite out of character for my little self.
“Whatever is the matter?” mother snapped impatiently.
I drew a deep breath and made my confession.
“A lion might eat me!” I had been looking at storybooks featuring a little African child that had been eaten by a lion.
“There are no lions in New Zealand.” Mother turned and left the house.
I sat with terrified, salty tears running down my chin as I listened to the radio playing, “I’m a pink toothbrush.”
In my adult mind, I knew that mother would return soon but not before the terror of waiting had somehow affected my little psyche.
I wasn’t going to sit through the experience a second time. As I began to whisper thrice, “Mystwy Sheen,” I fancied I heard the roar of something large and unfathomably terrifying coming from the kitchen.
It had been as Gerry explained — the minute we were both inside the combi with the tailgate down, The Mystery Machine delivered us back to our current bodies and back to the time from which we came.
In the following months, we had quite a few adventures in the marvellous, miraculous mystery machine, visiting times past and present — learning lessons from days long gone and gleaning much from times to come. Until, one day, Gerry, stoned out of his mind, ran his precious van into a brick wall.
He said it was written off.
It was probably just as well, time travelling had taken its toll. I had become sad and vaguely disoriented, finally deciding that I’d had enough of revisiting past problems, and living future adventures that failed to have much meaning to a mind that had no context in which to experience them.
Eventually, Gerry and his wonderful van became a thing of the past, rarely thought about in my old age, until now.
I gazed thoughtfully around the still-empty car park, before turning my attention to the inside of the van.
It all felt so familiar.
“Just for old time’s sake,” I thought to myself, releasing a sudden nervous giggle.
Reaching up with painful arthritic fingers, I pulled the tailgate into position and moved awkwardly into the interior of the van. It was hard to move my ancient bones across the skeleton of the van’s interior.
I sorely needed a mattress, skanky or otherwise.
Feeling rather ridiculous, and a little afraid I would be discovered, I sat very still, trying to recreate the feeling of all those years ago.
I remembered something I had learned more than fifty years previously.
If I visualized a year, The Mystery Machine would take me to it.
What could it harm to indulge a silly fantasy?
“1948, 1948, 1948!”
The refurbished combi suddenly burst into life with exuberance; humming, swooshing, and vibrating intensely.
With a surprised but satisfied smile on my wrinkled face, I lay back on the uncomfortable floor to minimise acid reflux…
After all, no new parent deserves a fussing, colicky newborn!
With thanks to Carolyn Hastings who was responsible for teaching me about the word, ekphrastic. I didn’t know I was already applying an ekphrastic approach to my writing until she wrote this:
Thanks, too, to Hollie Petit and Tony Greathouse for managing Everything Fun, a wonderfully happy place to write and publish.
Comment from Editors: Tagging our writers here. If you’d like to be left out of future articles or prompts, please let us know via email at holliedpetit@gmail.com or tonig@comcast.net.
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