Free Write Books in a Basket

Every Tuesday morning my husband and I along with a good, good friend, meet at a café for a Free Write. We find a prompt, an item, a person, a randomly selected sentence from a book, magazine or newpaper. Then we write whatever comes into our minds for ten minutes. Sometimes we overlap ideas and sometimes the only similarity is a prompt. The rule on the Free Write is to just write, keep going, don't edit.

Today's Free Write was at La Récré, a tea room in Collonge-Bellerive, Switzerland. 

BOOKS IN A BASKET

Rick's Free Write

Days would go by, weeks even, when no one would notice the wire basket tucked on a window shelf in the corner of the café. It was behind the long farm table, which was usually covered with semi-recent magazines and the current day’s editions of TDG and 20 Minutes. So more or less inaccessible, unless the place was packed and the table was the only place to sit.

Mirabelle squeezed herself around the end of the table and plopped on the bench seat opposite Henri. As she got her ample frame situated, pushing aside the display of nut muffins, she bumped the wire basket.

“Owww,” she exclaimed, turning around to see what offended her.

“Oh,” she softened when she realized the basket contained several books, thinking they might be free for the taking.

She started thumbing through the titles, not seeing anything she particularly wanted to put in her sack.

Then she noticed a title by an American author she had heard of – Jodi Picoult. She picked it up, opened to a random page, and started reading.

Her English was not great but she understood enough to realize this was smut aimed at teenage girls. Frank dialogue about sex and women’s changing bodies.

Mirabelle brandished the book at Henri. “Disgusting!” she said. “This should be banned!”

By now her outbursts had caught the attention of most of the café, including the owner who had worked hard to ensure a cordial atmosphere.

A café-wide debate about banning the book and boycotting the place ensued.

 D-L's Free Write 

"You have to clean out these bookshelves," Tom said. "All of them."

Gina was a reader of everything. 

She couldn't pass a bookstore without buying something.  She visited the library regularly. She even worked their annual book sale. She loved the kiosks with books in old phone booths.

Tom read the sports section -- online.

Gina did see his point. Books were everywhere. There were books stacked on the floor on her side of the bed and on the back of the toilet. Even in the kitchen there were at least 100 cookbooks, although she seldom cooked.

On the weekend, she and her friend were walking through a flea market. Tom didn't do flea markets.

She had just bought a blue tea kettle decorated with white fluffy clouds. Then she spotted it.

A blanket, covered with baskets, was spread on the ground. 

A woman, sitting on a folded chair, must have been in her early 40s, but who could tell an age these days.

Gina bought six baskets, three wire, three wicker.

At home, she loaded each basket with eight cookbooks. Putting them in her car, she drove to the Catholic Church on the corner.

The priest thanked her after asking how she knew they were having cooking classes for mothers waiting for their children in catechism class.

Driving home, she felt good. That should keep Tom of her back for a while, she thought.

 Julia's Free Write

"Pick me, pick me, no me,” they’re all shouting at me.

Comfortably seated in the local coffee shop, enjoying an espresso with friends, I still hear them although I had to turn my back to ignore their pleas.

Does the cookbook think that I still cook? No, but she sure does remind me of all the cookbooks and recipes of my home ec class, never mind the mint green 4” x 6” tin box with recipe cards.

Does the geography book want me to pick it?  I, who have traveled, but still have many places to see.

Or should it be the murder mystery? No, I don’t really enjoy many of those.

Or maybe it should be the romance novel? Let’s be reasonable, I still have way too many of those on my shelves.

Which brings me back to the cookbook. I don’t cook, I don’t need it, but it floods my mind with shelve and shelves of my mother’s cookbooks, with the letters where she wrote my favorite recipes; of her and her sister’s, my favorite aunt, lovers of good cooking.

That’s enough for me. I’ll pick and treasure it. Maybe it will even have a new one I’ll want to try for that one meal a year that I do cook.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. www.dlnelsonwriter.com