"Jack and Jill" ... Zapfic Contest: Tell Me a Tale in 240 Characters or Less / ComedyOpenMic #41

Image

"Serves 'em right."

Ben Jonson

"Of Jill's 'laces' ... those of her shoes were not the loosest."

Christopher Marlowe

#zapfic Writing Contest Week 38:

Write a story - inspired by the prompt 'tumble' - in 240 characters.

In the Contest Post's comments:

(BTW, Marg and I are best friends and I am her poetry Mentor. So, all of this is in good fun. Nevertheless, understand that she's a very cheeky Mentee.)

girlbeforemirror (66)

@quillfire! Like myself you have a gift for being overly inclusive with your words. Why use one precise word when you can utilise the entire thesaurus to create a vision of over inclusiveness? I love when you include a lengthy mansplaining addit to your tale too, just in case a dimension of it became a little ambiguous in the mix.

So here is a challenge for you. Trim it a little and retain the story. I think you can do it.

My Entry

Jack & Jill they took a spill
A tale that all do know
Cracked their heads, now both are dead
For fatal were the blows

Here’s a clue, Go Tie Your Shoes
Tied shoes prevent a stumble
Fate of fools to think you’re cool
On head to downward tumble

Character Count: 240 (precisely)

Open Letter to @girlbeforemirror

Dear Marg, my dear woman, as you know, it is the very purpose of my life to never disappoint a woman, and so when you opined, "I love when you include a lengthy mansplaining,” I realized how much you’ve come to appreciate my mentoring respecting diction, discourse and excellence of elocution in both poetry and prose.

And hence, I decided to provide you a bit more of the same.

Thus, following is a missive explaining the logic, reason and rationale underlying the construction of my entry. As you can see, it is in the form of a poem. As the poem has a regular meter, rhythm and rhyme scheme, we, in the English-speaking world (including Australia, which speaks English, and is, incidentally, both a country and a continent) refer to it as, 'Verse.'

The Power of Poetry is in the Pattern (indeed, the three P’s in the aforementioned is called ‘alliteration,’ itself a linguistic pattern). Over eons, our brains have evolved to be pattern-detection and pattern-matching machines. As such, when a pattern is detected, our brains secrete dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for creating focus, holding attention and the formation of long-term memory. It is also responsible for the sensation of 'wanting.’

If a patterned stimuli is 'pleasant,' it further triggers the secretion of ‘reward' chemicals: Endogenous opioids (the active ingredient in morphine); and, endocannibinoids (the active ingredient in marijuana ... a fact that may be of more than passing interest to a guy with a username like @felt.buzz). Since we tend to want more of what makes us feel good, this triggers the secretion of oxytocin (mostly in women) and vasopressin (mostly in men) … which are responsible for 'bonding' and 'trust.'

My ‘Tumble’ poem is written in Ballad Meter: Generally, 8/6/8/6 syllables per stanza with an iambic rhythm (da DUM da DUM) … although, to reduce characters, I limited a number of lines to seven syllables, yielding a poem of PRECISELY 240 characters, including the spaces. I was, alas, forced to cut a few commas and periods but, as a notorious punctuation-minimalist, I'm sure it's a sacrifice with which you can live ... assuming you noticed.

To further increase the amount of dopamine sloshing around @felt.buzz’s brain, thereby augmenting my chances of winning the Contest and becoming a very wealthy man, the odd-numbered lines employ ‘internal rhyme’ … intra-line rhyming.

Lastly, and I believe rather cleverly, I based my entry upon Shakespeare’s famous poem, “Jack And Jill Went Up The Hill,” finally explaining ‘the why’ of what befell (pun intended) these intriguing historic characters … a detail Shakespeare curiously omitted.

Well, Marg ... I hope you find this explanation helpful. It is important that the ‘fairer sex’ also have an opportunity to participate in the Literary Arts, so dominated by Men across the vast expanse of human history. But no worries, I stand as your Protector, your Sword and your Shield.

Sincere Regards,

Quill

Character Count: 3,000 (precisely)

This post is an entry into @felt.buzz's competition: ZapFic Contest: Tell Me a Tale in 240 Characters or Less.

It also serves as my 2nd entry in @ComedyOpenMic #41.

For participation in both contests, I nominate @lymepoet & @hlezama.

You guys know the drill. Be verbose ... but articulate.

And remember ...

Go Love A Starving Poet

For God's sake ... they're starving!