First week done! Thank you if you’ve read along every day with my Brigida Baltar prompts – I’m going to take a short break after this one to offer you a review of a new poetry pamphlet from Ink Sweat & Tears, so please stay tuned. And if you’d like to write something of your own in response to any of the remaining prompts, please do, and please send it to me to be featured! (imeldasays at gmail dot com)
In the meantime, here’s another prose/poem/flash thing from my notebook of experiments.
Bonus features! A very short and wicked story from Iain Rowan:
A seafood handbag works like this.
First you take an old bag you might not miss – you know, in case of leaks – and line it with a freezer bag – you know, to try and stop the leaks – and then you fill it full of frozen prawns. Fold the plastic over, and close your bag up tight, because you don’t want to be chased by cats, or at least not tonight.
Then when you’re at the dinner party, you smile sweetly like you don’t know what she has done to you and every time you excuse yourself to the bathroom you open up your seafood handbag and you push those tiny prawns:
in the little cracks in their wooden stairs
where you can bend the panel under the bath back just a little
inside the brass curtain pole on the landing
to rest on the wooden frame at the back of the pictures of Degas ballerinas on the stairs
in that hidden hollow behind the pedestal of the graceful sink
deep into the dish of scented pinecones
between the slats of the bathroom extractor fan
under that edge of hall carpet that lifts just so
and at the end of the night you say goodnight like you still don’t know what she has done to you and you complement her on how lovely her house smells and is it those Jo Malone sticks and she says yes, lime basil and mandarin, I’ve always felt it’s so important that a house smells lovely, and you smile and say yes, you’ve always thought so too.
And this little gem from Lisette Auton
If my accessories were made of food I should never be scared of hunger, but fearful of the scorn of supermarket staff when I need to buy another bag as I wipe the remains of mine from the corner of my mouth
And this tongue-in-cheek piece from Ann Cuthbert
Fishing for more compliments? Feel your style’s become a bit washed up?
Surfacing on the trendscape, winkling its way into Mega-influencers’ wardrobes, what Instagram is going starfish-eyed about – The Seafood Handbag.
Warm the cockles with a range of classic maritime-cuisiney styles:
The oversized bait-bucket bag is scuttling sideways off the shelves. Boiled lobster pink’s a best seller or, for something just as shiny but with a grittier edge, get it in oystershell.
Social media won’t clam up about Fruit de Mer’s cross-body jellyfish purse in pulsating purple (£315) while Sushi’s fishtail multi-porpoise tote (£795) is to krill for with scalloped storage pockets, appliqued sequin shrimps and crispy kelp handles.
Don’t want to shell out quite so much?
Mariscos do a version, cheap as moules frites but just as style conch-ious, at £21.99.
So you don’t need to be the abalone one without one this season. Go net the Seafood Handbag today.
More pun-tastic fun from Caroline Walling! I hope you enjoy all the contributions here. Tune in on Monday for tales and poems ‘In Search Of The Miraculous’.
Cod you do with another bag, not just another bag but a bag like no other that you have ever had?
This deep bag, cool blue, sea green, crystal edged, foam white, crisp tight bag.
You can clam it securely and the scaled-up pockets make it just right for the important things.
Beach side, pool side, town or city this bag is the life and sole of the party
You’ll look quite a catch, carrying this bag!
Crab some style and nip over to our website or shops
So, you can net yourself one of the best served bags in town!
Kirsten Luckins 