Daily Post Prompt: Write 500 words on any topic you like. Now remove 250 of them without changing the essence of your post.
(Writing 500 words only to remove half of them seems a bit wasteful; why not just write 250 clean words in the start? Thinking…….no….I think I cannot do this right: knowing I’m going to remove half the words, I will fluff it in the start. Thinking……maybe….got it: I have to run errands this day. I’m going to write 500 words before I leave, then trim it back after I return. Might work. I took something I had written a time ago, a long time ago, alright, some of you were not born yet, a really long time ago. Then revised it. Adding fluff was avoided, however, I am not sure that I can remove half without damaging the feel of it. On the other side, I am sure I can’t post it on a public site with some of the meanings too clear in print.)
Secret Affair – 1988
A black velvet blanket conceals the two of us while silver eyes winked knowingly overhead. It was a soundless night and warm, so very warm. My eyes drifted up the dark wall surrounding us; stared deeply at the large bluish eye that sometimes drooped lazily but never truly closed. I stared at it, studied the shadows upon the surface. It stared back, showering us with sprays of silver. It stole slowly upward as I watched, but so slow that I knew not that it moved. Finally, it hid behind the restless shadows, yet I knew it was there and too it knew that I was here. Though it had not the ears to hear, nor the mouth to speak, it attested to that which I felt.
I reached my hand upward to touch the moon but it is pulled gently down to the hard, bronzed body beside me. It was there, like the moon, so close, yet so distant. But I could touch it, feel it with my fingers. It was tender, warm, gentle, but it pressed firm against me. A single gentle movement calls forth another, though not gentle, it was tender. ‘Tis warm on my skin but cool in a fashion, in the confusion I shiver. Hard…soft, rough…smooth, strong…strong…tender; movements that rhymes and causes echoes. ‘Tis natural that way; feels natural. Soft…hard, warm…cool, slow, easy rhythm. I shiver again, this time from the heat.
Above, in a blanket of black velvet, silver eyes wink knowingly. I wink back.
(Because the writing was a little too risqué for my aging self, I’ve decided to omit the original version. I like to think that I trimmed it to the 250 count without removing the essence of the story. It was a writing exercise for a class I was taking: I had to write a short-short that involved prose and a plot assigned by the class instructor. It was hard for me to write even back then. If I were to remove 250 words from this post, I would remove all the narrative; as that is what I would consider unnecessary fluff.)
