Written at Under the Bridge writing workshop. We were given an exercise to write a couple of sentences setting the scene, then we passed our sentences to the next person and had about 5 minutes to write the story based on what the other person had written. I got: “A man on a country walk finds a smoking car, crashed into an oak tree. As he runs over, he is surprised to find a woman in the driver seat laughing hysterically.”
“Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Oh mon Dieu. Mon Dieu.” Tears rolling down her face, Lisette slapped the air bag. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha.” The sound of her laughter muffled by the air bag which was squished up against her face.
George stared at the scene in disbelief. The front of the bright red MG was crushed, the hood buckled, the trunk of the oak tree split from the impact. Steam rose from the car into the tree, giving the scene a dream-like quality. Top down, brightly colored autumn leaves covered the car and the woman, filled the passenger seat.
“I say, are you okay?” he asked.
Lisette continued laughing. Her long auburn hair splayed over the air bag. Now and then she managed to squish down the bag, but she was laughing so hard she couldn’t hold it down. George opened the car door and touched her gently on the arm, then reached into the dashboard and pressed the air bag release. As it started to deflate, Lisette let out wail. “OH my beautiful new car!” Laughing and crying she leaned back in the seat.
George studied her face; it was a mess. Black mascara ran in lines down her cheeks, lipstick smeared, but he could see she was stunningly beautiful. “Lisette Fourchette!” he gasped. Her face had recently been on the cover of every newspaper. The actress had emerged from nowhere and skyrocketed to fame.
“Oh merci, merci. Oh mon Dieu, merci bien.” she said, falling into her native French.
“Happy to be of assistance,” said George. “Oh what luck,” he thought, “what lovely day for a walk!”
If I weren’t so busy getting ready for Playgroup Festival, I’d have developed it before posting. Perhaps I will develop it and re-post at a later date. As it is, it’s only about 250 words so it could easily be developed to 500 or a 1000.
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Alison Amazed 
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