Books, Prose, Stage

My Written Material of Prose Formats

Visitors

Christine pulled her favorite gray sweater over her head and onto her long supple arms, looked out onto the side pasture and shivered a bit at the cold rain that was falling. Her Indian heritage gave her a special empathy with the thirsty land and the rain that watered it. The steady beat on the roof reminded her that she needed to order some special items for Paul’s Thanksgiving benefit concert. “My pickup needs gas too” she thought and “oh, yes, I must stop at the McGovern’s to drop off the potatoes and get milk.”

The rivulets of rain wriggled their way down the window glass and onto the sill as Christine watched. “What a long day ahead.” she thought as she pulled on her blue jeans and slipped into her boots. The old floor complained with creaks at even her light frame. Well varnished wood steps led down to the kitchen where “fixins” for breakfast waited. There were fresh eggs from the hens and honey from the bees and just enough delicious McGovern’s milk for a bowl of home-made bread and peaches that would, with two sunny-side-up eggs, be her breakfast. Christine ate as silently as her prayer had been to thank God for the food and for her hard but rewarding work close to the earth and to ask God for the safe return of her husband, Tim, who would not return from Mexico for another week. A tear, then two, slid into the corner of her mouth and made the peaches salty. “How very much I miss you, Tim.” She breathed in a low voice and stood up to clear the sturdy wooden table.

She was standing, dishes in hand, when a roughly loud knock on the door jolted her back into the present. A man and a woman, wet through in their thin coats from the rain, looked back at her as the door swung open. Only then did she notice the gun pointed at her and the desperate expression on the man’s face. Twenty four years of compassionate hard work on the farm stood her well at this critical moment and she said “Come in. You folks need to dry out and get warm.”

The above is the way the story begins. Click the link below to see the finish.

Resurrected, A play in One Scene

Resurrected is a play about one who is newly brought back to life who we call Just for short. Every line that Just has is from my thoughts. All the responses to his lines are quotes from the Bible. A few lines from the script are included here to set the stage, so to speak. Please feel free to download the script. Copyright instructions are included at the end.

Voice- Firmly at first, always with love but with progressing tenderness, “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall shine upon you.” [Eph. 5:14] “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast forth the dead.” [Isa.26:19]

Just Resurrected One- Wakes, straightens up just a little in his chair still leaning on his cane. Plaintively, “Aaaangh!…. Sing?… I can just barely sit up!”

Voice- “Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee.” [Isa. 60:1]

Just- Continues to lean heavily on the cane, Irritably, “OK already, I’m up, but I must still be dreaming because this surely isn’t the place where I went to sleep. How did I get here anyway?”

Voice- “Have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, as to the resurrection of the dead? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not of the dead but of the living.” [Mat. 22:31]

Just- Somewhat irritably, “Yes, that does sound familiar, but what does that have to do with me.”

Voice- “So then as through one trespass unto all men came condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness unto all men came justification of life.” [Rom. 5:18]