The Toucan (10-minute-dash), by Mark L. Hough

(PROMPT: Write an excerpt from the point-of-view of an animal in a zoo. 10-minute-dash)

“Hey! Psst!”
I rapped the glass with my beak…to no affect besides sending a ringing sensation somewhere behind my eyes.
I have to tell you, from the viewpoint of a toucan—or rather, my viewpoint—these beak things are ridiculous and useless. I mean, look: who was the wise guy who took a look at the first toucan being made and thought, “Gee, let’s stick a fluorescent banana on that guy’s head and just see what he can do with it”?
Needless to say, it wasn’t getting any attention from that freckled kid with the ice cream cone. It was like he was the one stuck inside a cage all day, lickin’ that cone like it was the highlight of his life. Have you ever seen the hippos? He could have given them a run for the most-boring-animal award…I mean, both of them; lick and chew, lick and chew, with that same vacant expression glued to their faces like the fake jungle poster stuck to the walls in here.
My creative glass tap routine wasn’t going to snap mannequin man from his zombie state. So I decided to try something. A little trick I call “Berzerko-bird-with-his-head-in-the-water-bowl”. You see, it’s like this: you stick your head—or, in my case this Mardi Gras prop of a beak—in the water bowl, and then you shake it like someone’s slipped espresso pills in the seed tray. Water goes everywhere; the other birds think you’re getting beat up by the business end of an alligator or somethin’ and so they start freakin’ out—and soon the whole cage looks like Ginger Rogers in a blender: feathers everywhere. OK, so maybe it is a little bit like something the orangutans do in their crib, but I like to think we’ve made an improvement on their show.
Anyway, I do my thing; it’s raining feathers, and still the kid keeps staring at the blasted turtle exhibit as if they’re actually doing something! Here I am, sucking water through my nostrils, and this kid can’t tear his eyes away from a creature whose greatest skill is being mistaken for a rock.
If you’ve ever given a rock concert at a nursing home, you’d know how I felt, the other birds lookin’ at me and me giving them the “what’s-your-problem” look back. The birds don’t ask any questions though; I guess having a foot-long rainbow-colored club permanently in my possession has one good point.

The Queen's Old Fool (10-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(PROMPT: a ten-year-old orphan named Amanda goes to meet her grandmother—who lives in a castle—for the first time. 10 minutes.)

Mandy stared across the vast expanse of the throne room.
“Meet your grandmother,” Jack told her.
She stared up at the queen hopefully until Jack nudged her. “Not Queen Alice,” he muttered. “Don’t embarrass yourself. Over there, on the left.”
To the left of the queen’s throne stood another elderly woman, hunchbacked where the queen was regal, salt and pepper gray where the queen was white, but—on a good note—smiling where the queen was framed in forbidding frowns. She waved Mandy over to her corner.
“Pleased to meet you, Mandy,” she said. “Don’t mind my outfit—it’ll grow on you.”
The outfit was strange—a bizarre conglomerate of colorful patches, none of them matching in color or texture.
“You,” Mandy stuttered, “You’re a fool?”
“Well, that’s not a very nice way to say hello. Some people think me right smart.”
“No—I mean…you’re a jester?”
The grandmother sighed. “Well, that’s what I was hired for, but I haven’t done much of a job of it yet.” She lowered her voice. “That queen is a piece of work. About as happy as a criminal with his neck in a noose. And her husband just laughs at me because I look ridiculous, he says.”

(And the complication, in the form of a second 10-minute-dash: Amanda discovers her grandmother is going to die...on the fourteenth of January, to be precise.)

“Well, what am I supposed to do here?” Mandy asked. “I’m not funny,” –and I’m definitely not about to dress up in a crazy 17-colored-outfit, she added mentally.
“As I see it, you can mostly do as you like, so long as you don’t get into trouble. And even if you do, I won’t be around long to worry about it.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be around long? Uncle sent me to live with you.”
Grandmother pursed her wrinkled lips. “It’s very inconvenient to you and your uncle, I know, but Freddy needs to learn to check other peoples’ schedules before he makes plans. I’m leaving on the fourteenth of January.”
“Leaving? Can’t I go with you?”
“Not unless your eternal soul is prepared and the Lord is willing. I’m going to die.”
“What? How can you possibly know that now?”
“Because that’s what Queen Alice told me. If I haven’t made her laugh by the fourteenth day of next month, it’s the end for me. Beheading.”
“But that’s only three weeks away!”
The old woman sighed and hugged Mandy to her chest. She felt all padded and squishy and warm; something about realizing she would only be around for a matter of days made her grandmother suddenly very dear to Mandy.“Well, it’s three weeks I’ll have to get to know you, and I’m thankful for that. As long as I don’t make her mad.” She pointed her gnarled old thumb to the queen. “Then it could be sooner.”

The Bringing of the Bell (Ten-Minute-Dash), by Maureen L. Hough

(Descriptive passage describing the process of an activity in a way that conveys more than method - i.e. revealing character, humor, etc.)

The Frankish bishop’s gift arrived several months after he unseated the abbess from her customary seat, protesting that only after the mildewed ship could the monastery be a charm. The impure candles, the loose binding of thatching, the thickness of the dinner table against his weak chest - he stage-whispered his ailments to the secret of their common God. The abbess bore it a time with the sanctity of a fish too long in the net, which was more than could be said of the novices, who decided to prepare the brethren for the promised bell by bonging and clacking the midnight hours themselves. Surprisingly, only the bishop heard the display, and he shouted out some words of his native tongue. Thankfully, they were unintelligible, preserving the young ones’ minds and saving the abbess from having to blame yet again the tightness of her veil for her deafness.
As with all bad guests, the blight of the bishop’s presence was soon forgiven when his gift arrived, promising to make more noise than he did. The ship with the bell was flagged from far off, and transferred to a skiff through the shallow waters. A good many more hems were drenched than needed, as it neared the shore, but the bell’s package was well attended by hands keeping it in its balance. Although most were suitably ascetic toward abundances of food and comfortable postures, none were prepared for the abundance of glory awaiting them, and most heartily [sprang at the honor] of bringing the bronzeness home. There was a scramble for grips under the rims until it was decided who indeed arrived first, and who would have to satisfy themselves with the suddenly glorious task of placing the logs before the front of the skiff. This job was mostly given to the postulants, and directed loudly by the bishop, since several of them cleverly thought that the “bell of God” was an affectionate term for an inflammatory saint like the “Hammer of Heretics”. And truly, at half a tons weight, the relics of such a saint would indeed be formidable.

-Maureen L. Hough

From the Diary of Young George III (10-minute-dash), by Faith E. Hough

(RULES: Write a fictional diary entry for a historical character...in ten minutes or less.)

Uncle enrages me. He is so stupid. I hate stupidity, more than anything.
Today, as we were brushing Sampson and saddling him for my ride, we heard two boys quarreling in the stableyard. Uncle said it was none of our affair, but I overrode him on that at least.
"You always say to be a good king, I must have an unquenchable love for my people and concern for their troubles," I said.
That settled it and we went out. The boys were fairly stupid themselves, truth be told--as it must be, here at least, though Uncle would try to have diplomacy come before honesty at every turn. But the boys were fools. They had got themselves all abroil in a fight over who should get to ride a certain horse--a horse that, it was soon established, belonged to the elder of the two.
Now, is it not perfectly clear that if a boy owns a horse, he should be the one to ride it? I told them so very plainly, and the matter should have been settled without further trouble, but for the interference of my father's half-wit, conciliatory, stupid brother.
"They ought to share the horse," he said.
Share! I thought I would lose my dinner.
"Have you no compassion?" he asked. "The younger boy has no horse, and his foot is lame."
"Precisely," I answered. "He has no horse. The other boy has. If God has seen fit to bless their fortunes so, we should not meddle in His providence."
Uncle took me aside. "George," he said, "If you are ever to be a good king, you must learn mercy."
"Uncle," I said, "If you are ever to be a good advisor, you must learn something. Anything. The whole world of knowledge is open to you. You should look into it sometime."
And so I am confined to my room for the rest of the day. That is well enough for me. I would rather be alone.

Ernest Hemingway's Diary (Ten-Minute-Dash), by Mark L. Hough

(RULES: Write a fictional diary entry for a historical figure...in ten minutes)

Thursday--or Friday...who really cares...
So I've been writing in this journal now for two weeks, and I can definitely say it isn't worth $@#&. "Writer's Block" (as my idiot of an agent calls it) cannot be got through simply by filling up a stack of pages with the drudgery of life. I wish it could.
It has been eight *&%$ weeks (if my calculations are right) since my powers of invention have become no more than a wasteland in my mind, and still I am no closer to the end of my book. Santiago is still lost in his boat, having just caught the marlin, and if this affliction of mine continues, he will die there before I get him ashore. I can see it now: Patterson and the people at Scribner's reading with horror as I describe the slow picking of parrot fish and seagulls on the bodies of both the hunter and the hunted alike. He'd swallow his stogie as sure as I'm sitting here...no doubt. It is strange, though... the picture decaying flesh presents--however disturbing it might be to the public--is alluring in its own way. The readers of course wouldn't stand up for old Santiago dying that way--wouldn't sell. Oh, well. Maybe I can use part of the picture anyhow.
I've been writing too long. My hand hurts. I'm going for a walk along the water--the tide has gone and maybe it has washed up something worth writing about.
It is 92 degrees, the wind is light--from the south as always--and I hope I come up with something soon so I don't have to keep writing this.