May 2014 Blog Chain: Ground Control to Major Tom

 

 

 

Tweet of the Day: Ink Blots: What Happened in the Tower

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Seems a bit late for the start of this month’s blog chain. Suffice to say we had a few technical problems, but now we are back on course. As always, let’s start with rules:

This month’s prompt:
Take a Character, Leave a Character
You must take a character from the previous post and incorporate them into your new post. They don’t have to be the main character, and you may slightly modify them to fit disparate time periods and settings, but the character should be recognizably the same. The same character may be used more than once, and the stories do not have to have a common setting or canon.
Each post should be less than 1000 words if possible. Read and comment on other participants’ posts if you possibly can–they’ll be doing the same for you! Please include a list of all participants’ blogs (not necessarily their actual posts for the month) in your blog post.

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Tom walked out of Stage Three and headed straight for his office. Along the way his mind wondered. It transported him to the driver seat of an old Camino as it sped down a lone desert highway, the sunset somewhere behind him. Cold nigh desert air blasted through the open window. It whipped his long hair about. But Cool Tom didn’t care. Here he was Cool Tom, the best damn rock DJ around this parts. Cool Tom, commander of the airwaves from the Rockies to Death Valley.

He was home.

Home was a rickety one tower radio station, W-KVA in the middle of Nowhere. A square box divided into five spaces, an empty reception desk, two bathrooms, the second one with a tiny scorpion infested shower, Jay-Jay booth, Tom’s sidekick slash console chief and of course the main attraction, Cool Commander Tom’s space capsule. The capsule had a modernist white egg chair with red velvet cover. The walls papered with a mix of concert ads, pinups and celebrity autographed pictures. Everyone that was anyone passed through Nowhere. Nowhere was the cool place to be when you wanted to escape L.A. in a hurry. Nowhere was the place to be if you wanted to commune with nature. Nowhere had the best weed for putting your troubled mind at ease. Nobody hassled you in Nowhere.

And everyone in Nowhere grooved to Cool Tom’s beats.

He kicked off the night with some listener mail, some as far away as Germany. Cool Tom cool tunes bounced off the atmosphere and reached the farthest corners of the world. They reached out to you, yes you. They reminded you that Nowhere was the right place to be. Then came the music. First the teeny bopping sounds of the fifties. Of rebellious youth without any cause, beatnik bongo players and poodle wearing girls trapped in the space between the desk and the floor in fear of the atomic boom. Things revved up with the British Invasion. Those boys from Liverpool sent your fingers snapping and your heart pounding. But as the grew darker, frenetic guitar rifts, acid induce dreams and crazy voices that boomed from American choppers above the jungle filled the capsule. At the midnight hour things got experimental. Rock got so heavy it turned into metal. By that time Jay-Jay called it a night. He had already selected from his little black book the lady he was going to share his morning with. Cool Tom simply pressed a button and let the last set roll by, heavy, quirky music laden with guitars before the computers took the magic out of the music.

His replacement rolled in at four.

“Hi Jerry!”

“By Tom!”

And off he went to the bar slash dinner slash hole in the ground down the road to grab some grub and maybe sweet talk Mabel into the back of his Camino.

No Mabel waited for him at his desk of course. Only a picture of his alimony grabbing wife, his son and that mutt that chose her over him. He opened the bottom drawer, saw the bottle of whiskey and his unloaded gun. He took two shots of the first and left the second alone.

Not today Tom. Not today.

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That’s all I wrote. I hoped you liked it.

Participants:
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
Ralph Pines – https://ralfast.wordpress.com (link to post)
Sixpence – http://orlawritesthings.com/ (link to post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Sneaky Devil – http://fantasywriterwannabe.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
BBBurke – http://www.awritersprogression.com/ (link to post)

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