This is my submission for Creative Writing Challenge - Task 8 - Mix and Create
As presented by @steemfluencer
@steemfluencer/creative-writing-challenge-task-8-mix-and-create
The challenge:
Take a look at the table below presenting various data. Your task is to write a story choosing only one variable from each column.
| Name | Age | Job | Location | Object |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John | Medieval | Driver | Casablanca | Hammer |
| Elma | Near Future | crafter of string instruments | North California | Old envelope |
| Martin | XX century | Carpenter | Verona | Toy train |
| Abdula | XIX century | Firefighter | Santorini | Pipe |
| Regina | 200 BC | Jeweller | Barbados | Backgammon |
I chose: Regina, Near Future, Crafter of String Instruments, North California, Backgammon
Some of my stories lately have been kind of sad and depressing, so I went with a few silly elements in this story.
Regina and the Stringed Instrument
“Regina? What? Who would name their kid Regina? It sounds like a vacuum cleaner!” the crusty old man guarding the door said, laughing. Crusty yes, but he was big, strong, and had mean little beady eyes.
Regina rolled her own eyes. “So clever. As if I’ve not heard that before.” She crossed her arms, raising a brow in the harsh light of the single bulb that dangled high over their heads. “Is she in?”
“Is who in?”
“The lady. The one that makes...er….stringed instruments?” Regina was slightly embarrassed to say it out loud in this day and age, but the crappy handmade signs she had seen around town had pronounced exactly that.
“Perhaps. Are you buying, selling, or just window shopping?” He pronounced ‘window’ like ‘windurr’, and she had to pause briefly to decode some of his inflections into usable words.
“Buying. I sent a messenger a week ago with my order. I’ve come to pick it up.”
“Ah,” the man brightened like a bored fisherman suddenly finding something on the end of his line. “Come on in then!”
He lead her into the shop. The shop itself was something that would make the term ‘ramshackle’ seem optimistic.
Junk was stacked everywhere, little bits of string and wire and chunks of wood and empty boxes and full boxes, and nothing seemed entirely intact or recognizable as any particular thing. A large round table sat in the middle of the room like a giant toad, covered in detritus, cigarette butts, empty shells of some kind of nuts, and broken instruments.
There room was dark, lit only by a small lamp in the corner that seemed depressed in its tiny corner of clear space, and a doorway leading into a back room that was covered by a bedsheet, translucent in a way that showed every stain and handprint on the thin cloth.
Ah yes, bed sheets, the curtains and doorways of poor folks the world over, Regina thought, gazing quickly about the room after the old guard had ducked through the questionable security of the fabric door and into the back room. Muddled voices followed, followed by laughter that sounded derisive.
Somebody is getting mocked. Hopefully it is not me, Regina thought, embarrassed anew by her quest to acquire a stringed instrument, a thing that had somewhat fallen out of favor in this new, post-war world. There was not much call for violin or harp nowadays, but years ago, before the end of the modern world, she had played. All of her travels since then, she had never come across any usable instrument, as all had fallen into disrepair from disuse. Some few she had found, moldered in basements or cracked by exposure to sunlight or cold, but their playing days were far behind them.
Seeing a sign on the posts of the gates when she had entered this small North California border town, however, that announced a ‘maker of fine stringed instruments’, her heart had leapt, and via a liaison she had placed an order.
And now she would pick it up. Her anticipation rose, and she smiled.
The bedsheet moved aside, and a young lady stepped from the aura of light in the doorway into the darkness of the room.
“Regina?,” she purred, her face in darkness.
“Yessss?” she replied, trying to be equally catlike.
“Your instrument is ready. How will you pay?”
“Er,” Regina paused, not knowing what rules this town followed. Cash? Barter? Favors? “I have no money,” she began.
“Well.” A pause. “If you have no qualms,” the lady said, “we could play for the price, with I taking your fine jacket if I win. Yes?” ‘She eyed Regina.
Regina’s jacket hadn’t been fine even when it had been brand new, and that hadn’t been for a very long time. She wouldn't feel particularly bad if she lost it.
“Sure. What shall we play?”
“Backgammon?”
Regina pursed her lips, hiding her glee. She was a backgammon wizard. At least that’s what everyone she had beat had told her. And she had beaten a lot of people. A lot of people.
She acted reluctant, but inside her heart smiled. “Sure. Why not.”
An hour later, on the round table in the middle of the room that had been unceremoniously cleared of its contents onto the floor, she had won. Her opponent, the presumed string instrument craftswoman, was not particularly put out by her loss. She smiled genuinely and dipped her head in a small bow.
“I will fetch your stringed instrument,” she said.
Good, Regina thought, looking at the various triangles and circles and shapes on the backgammon board, her little plastic pieces shuffled about in little stacks.
“Here you go, my dear,” the lady said, coming out with a small, latched case. “You didn’t specify exactly what you wanted, so I made what I thought was appropriate for these hard times.”
Regina frowned. Hopefully not a fiddle. Nobody can play a fiddle. Even when you play it well it sounds like you’re just stretching a cat across a bucket.
The lady handed the case to her. “Enjoy! Don’t open it in here, though, please. For safety’s sake. You understand.”
Regina nodded, not understanding at all, but put the case under her arm, preparing to go.
“You play backgammon very well. Better than any I’ve known,” the lady went on.
Regina hefted the case and grinned. “Truth be told, my dear, I actually have no idea how to play backgammon.”
The lady raised her brow, then laughed. “Ah. Ah, well. Neither do I. Does anyone really know how to play backgammon anymore?”
“No. I think everybody fakes it.” Regina laughed as well, bowed slightly, then left the shop in a rush, not wanting her fraud to be called out any more strongly.
She hurried down the dark streets, then into a plaza where the light was good and was not yet entirely devoid of respectable folk.
She sat down and opened the case.
Inside was a perfectly respectable stringed instrument.
A small bow and arrow set, perfect for a child's hands, the business end of the arrow tipped with a bright red suction cup.
Regina shook an impotent fist at the night sky and screamed.
