A variation of the decagram is the pentagram, also introduced to us by Graham Sherry. In this exercise there are five words given and the story should have only five sentences. Sentences can be stretched a long way to tell a story.
In August 2021 the words were coach, terrier, clamber, distant, asleep.
Graham Sherry wrote:
“T’ coach arrived outside Red Lion at seven fifteen sharp to take us to Blackpool for our annual works outing. Once beach bags and purvey of sandwiches, pies and such were loaded onto chara, you had to clamber over crates of ale and stout to get to your seat!
My distant cousin Minnie who works in t’cash office, always kept us in stitches, singing and having a laugh, all the way to t’seaside, such that when we got there she would always fall asleep after a couple of rum and blacks, and had to be woken up in time for t’bingo!
Eee, and every year she would fight like a terrier with a stick if bingo caller didn’t shout out numbers quick enough!
She never won, of course, but that was part of t’tradition!
Duncan Gray’s version was:
Through the early morning in a mist filled valley, a coach drawn by four horses trundled along the rough rutted road which led to the castle on the rock.
In that castle, the lord of the land was lying fitfully asleep in his bed chamber, soaked in sweat despite the coolness of the dark hours, fighting the night terrors which had tortured him for many months.
It was a relief to be woken when his terrier ran into the room, yapping loudly to announce that strangers were crossing the drawbridge and entering the castle.
The Lord was on his feet in an instant and ran down to the courtyard in time to see the King’s magician, a tall man with a bald head and piercing green eyes, clamber down from the coach and survey the scene with a sweep of his head.
“At the King’s bidding” he announced while holding up a brilliant blue bottle, “I have brought this mystical sleeping draught, sourced with much hardship from a distant eastern land, which will cost you only to cede ownership of this castle to the king.”
The September 2021 words were future, articulate, briefly, flying. passionate
Graham Sherry adapted the style of PG Wodehouse:
After briefly whispering sweet words of love to his future intended on the telephone, William, aka ‘Squiffy” by his college chums, made haste to beat a retreat from the ancestral pile that was Bledisloe Hall but was stopped in his tracks by a vision of exquisite loveliness, who was bending over the opened bonnet of a very fine 1920’s Farry Spronga coupe. She turned around at the sound of his footsteps and breathlessly coo’ed “ Oh, Hi, I’m Jocelyn, and I think my big end has gone! I share rooms with your sister Madeline at Cambridge, and she has invited me for the weekend. I drove down here, cos I’m passionate about fast cars, so I’m here on a flying visit.”
Even as he ogled this angel of beauty and dismissed the idea of her ‘big end’, William found it difficult to articulate his feelings about her, having just bade ‘au revoire’ to Geraldine, to whom he had recently become engaged, and the thought of which made an engagement ring seem like a highly bejewelled handcuff!
Campsie Writers Group 