Monday, September 29, 2008

All Aboard!


I like this nice ordinary picture, although I probably would have cropped it a bit closer in if I'd taken it. A simple but colorful city bus pulling away from a homey-looking clean commercial area, taking passengers to and from work. It's a Louisiana scene, so this counts as a Monday Tout Le Monde (all over the world) topic.
If you could enlarge the photograph, you'd see the bus is bound for an unusual destination. The front marquis reads, "Cemetery." Does that change your perception of the picture any? Does it make your mind spin with endless possibilities and questions?
To get your creativity or Monday morning foggy head going, can you think of a plot (no pun intended, although it does fit the subject well) involving the bus and one or more occupants?
I'm going to run a little contest. The best paragraph with a storyline fitting the picture will win a prize on Friday to post at your blog...if I can figure out how to get it to you! If not, I'll either come clean your house or send you a pound of some really good coffee. So, c'mon...post those plots!

13 comments:

Janna Leadbetter said...

Fantastic! Love what you pulled from this picture.

Let me think...

Joanne said...

It's the whole, abstract "life's a journey" theme. Pictures are so inspiring. (I often crop on my computer, it helps. Can you do that on yours?)

Janna Leadbetter said...

Okay, here's where I ran with your prompt...

She knew the bus ride was significant, for it represented her transportation between two lives. The destination awaiting her, the cemetery, meant the end of one life, the beginning of another. She’d say goodbye to the woman she used to be, there, at the small headstone engraved with her given name. And there she’d take on her new name, embrace her new self, begin the new life she had no choice but to live...

Angie Ledbetter said...

Joanne, good symbolism there. About pictures -- I can crop the ones I download from my own camera (I think), but not so sure about doodling with others. Doh!

Oooo, Janna, you've hooked me already!

Melissa Amateis said...

Hmm...let me think of a plot.

How about this:

It was a strange place to do a business deal, a bus on the way to a cemetary, but business deals like this weren't done in normal places. No outdoor cafes, no shopping malls, no parking lots. But a bus to the cemetary...that was the perfect place for this deal.

Angie Ledbetter said...

Melissa, I'm thinking of lots of things that "deal" could mean. ;) Very good!

Anonymous said...

A bus in BR, has to be going to a football game, except the passengers wanted to go to a funeral instead. Hey, its late and post practice shutdown is setting in.
Can't wait to see where this goes with PW. Should make for great reading.
Oren

Anonymous said...

Throw in the obligatory bus driver who got on the wrong bus and would not change the route because the sign on top was broken.
Sorry for the double
Oren

Kathryn Magendie said...

Gawd, all I can think of is that the bus is full of the dead and they're all headed to their graves -- All Abooooarrdd - (I'm not entering the contest, just throwing in my ha'penny thoughts)

The Paper Whisperer said...

Yes, it was true, the Nation's economy had hit an all time low forcing even the grim reaper into a moonlighting gig just to make ends meet. However, the strain of his second job was killing him. Being the savvy businessman that he was, he devised a plan that would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. He contacted the city's transportation department, where he presented his killer idea. "You are 'dead on' with that brilliant idea," exclaimed the Superintendent of Transportation. Mrs. Reaper, on the other hand, was not so happy. She was tired of Mr. Reaper working such long hours. At the end of his shift on the first night he grabbed a bouquet of flowers from a lonely grave. If nothing else, he knew he could always kill Mrs. Reaper with kindness.

Angie Ledbetter said...

It could happen, Oren. ;)

LOL, Kat. Somehow I knew you'd go for the very macabre.

LMBFBO, PaperWhisperer!

Anonymous said...

Hey,
Told you it would be interesting to see where PW went with it.
Oren

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