写在文章前:
7月2日，上海摄影笔进行了第6期的即兴写作的活动。在动笔之前，大家会随机抽选到自己的题目，写作时长为60分钟。从中挑选了数篇作品，和大家分享。
At the 2nd of July, we had the 6th improv writing event in Shanghai. Before the event, everyone had to write a prompt, the writting time was 60 mins. Some of the writers shared their work with us. Check it out below:
题目/Prompt
1+1=1
1+1=1
Sofia was sitting on her chair, spinning her pen through her fingers. A fresh autumn breeze was flowing through the curtains.
Since a month, or maybe more, she had been receiving little riddles like this every week. An equation, a question, they all came in the same way, handwritten on a blue paper.
1+1=1
She was looking at the sheet, her thoughts navigating through the fog of her mind. She hasn’t been feeling quite like herself lately.
1+1=1
She couldn’t remember the last time she was sitting in maths class. A regular beeping sound was giving rhythm to the movements of her pen. Beep. Spin. Beep. Spin.
1+1=1
“What am I supposed to do with these?” The thought was coming from far away, like a voice buried deep inside her brain, muffled. She started feeling tired.
1+1=1
As she was staring blankly at the numbers, a door opened behind her.
“Sofia, I’m back. I got you some orange juice.”
The girl didn’t move an inch, the pen spinning endlessly in her hand.
Her sister came to the desk to drop off the drink, and noticed the paper, untouched since she gave it to her an hour ago.
“Well, I guess it won’t be for this week either” she said in a whisper, and then louder “Sofia, I know you’re in there. I’ll come back next week, until then try to think about this. Enigmas were your favourite game.”
She kissed Sofia softly on the forehead and left the room. The nurse was waiting for her.
“Don’t worry Madam, it has only been a month since the accident and Sofia is already making a lot of progress.”
关于作者：Juliette
Juliette is a certified bookworm who also likes to write (or at least try) and to hear about other people’s stories.
题目/Prompt
Cage holds chicken
The cage holds the chicken on the flatbed that holds the cages. A Tetris game of sorts.
“You ever played Tea-tris, kid?” Leandro side eyes his driver’s seat neighbour.
“Sorry, what?” Nicky plucks the Air Pod out his left ear and leans in.
“I asked if you ever played Tea-tris. You know, the Nintendo game. Rotating blocks of different sizes until they are perfectly aligned. Tea— hey, how old are you anyway? I can’t be chaperoning any underage hitchhikers.”
Nicky removes the other Air Pod and smirks. “Twenty-three, and I think you mean Tetris, sir.”
“That’s what I said. Tea-tris.”
“It’s Tetris. ‘Tet’ like bet or yet, not ‘tea’ like— Anyway, of course, I know it. My two older brothers taught me how to play and I got pretty good at it. You might not suspect this of someone my age, but I have great respect for the simplicity of old Nintendo games. You know, Tetris is not as easy as it looks. I’m not so convinced that the young generations have the tenacity to master a game like that.”
“I don’t completely follow but I’m lis’nin.”
“Such as real life, if you are too slow to react or bungle your move, you’re screwed. Eventually you drown in a sea of misaligned blocks, so to speak. Drowning is the complete loss of control of the game. That’s the part I am most familiar with. Like, you see those cages you’ve got back there. It took spatial awareness and strategy to stack them in a way that ensures they don’t topple over or slide around like bumper cars. Maybe it’s innate at this point but some consideration was required.”
“I s’pose,” Leandro agrees with the smugness of a child getting their way.
“Most other guys my age would just stack the cages as quickly as possible and worry later if one rouge cage is leftover. Maybe they’d tilt it on its side, let chicken shit ricochet all the way to the bottom. Or maybe just let that lone chicken ride up front with them like it’s one of the boys.”
“Shotgun!” Leandro interjects. “Heck, maybe just leave it behind and hope nobody notices a little chicken shortage.”
“That’s what Johnny would do.”
“Who’s Johnny?”
“Just, uh, someone who’d be terrible at Tetris. Life is too competitive these days, especially for us young people. Nobody has time or energy to strategize. Just focus on where you’re headed. Focus on not drowning.”
“But nobody drowns without flailing around wildly first,” Leandro softens his tone.
“There’s been a lot of flailing around these days, that’s for sure. But wouldn’t it be better for everyone to just learn how to swim before jumping in?”
“Swimming helps. Navigating the waters is something else. Don’t bank too much on thorough planning, kid.”
Nicky’s head nod signifies understanding. Then a silence settles over the cab. It’s the kind of silence and stillness that can only follow a cross-generational epiphany. It lingers for a good few hundred meters before an ominous crash radiates from the rear of the truck.
THUNK. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Lighter and lighter until it stops. Leandro checks the rear mirror and gives an enthusiastic, “Aw, fudge” toward the drooping fabric of the cab’s roof. “Give me a hand, will you.”
Nicky hops out and approaches the fallen cage resting no more than 50 meters behind the truck. The cage holds no chicken. Nicky squats and inspects the metal carcass. “The latch must have busted on impact.” Leandro and Nicky survey the area, east to west, north to south. Nothing resembling a chicken can be seen in any direction. They look back to the vacant space where the now empty cage previously lived. “Let’s redistribute the weight on the top row so we don’t lose another,” Leandro commands.
“Just like Tetris.”
“Screw Tea-tris, kid.”
关于作者：Lauren
Lauren is a university lecturer and hobby film photographer and writer. She enjoys iced coffee year-round and people incorrectly guessing where she’s from.
题目/Prompt
Tell me a change in your life. Could be small, could be big. From the past to recent. A story or some thought on it.
Change
People say, change can be good, change can be bad. However, things have changed recently. People say, change is mostly bad, and even evil. It may be one of the evidences that human perception has been severely damaged once again.
I wonder what is a nice person like? Are they receiving changes in a sophisticated way? Have they luckily built a powerful sop to cope the twist and the unexpected? Can they transform changes from bad formula into good instantly?
There is a very popular business book called “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”. The arrogant author yells out 17 advices on how to get financial sufficiency. The idea is good, but the words make me feel mentally uncomfortable. The same feeling when I have to face changes.
What would a nice person do when she finds herself very uncomfortable? I asked myself and thought about it for several days. At the end of one day, I decided to make simple classification for this book. Thousands of words were arranged into 4 categories: self-motivated (70%), dualism (20%), money usage handbook (5%), high-performance (5%). The monster was carefully dissected into 4 pieces.
Emotional brain is always more powerful than rational brain, the path to rationality lies in the freedom of emotional brain. After 2 hours working, I’m so proud to say, I agree with the author about 80% of his content. “This is a good book.” I said to myself. “I’m a rational person, I’m a nice person today.”
Grabbing rationality out of uncomfortable feelings, this is my recent change.
关于作者：Jennifer
Jennifer is a Chinese citizen who enjoy reading and writing. Her favorite novelists are: Ayn Rand, Frank Herbert, Haruki Murakumi. She has a fierce passion for Chinese, American, Japanese and British (England, the country with that queen) writers.
题目/Prompt
Covid-19, lockdowns, testing, but from the perspective of a pet dog
糖糖：
好久不见！
有一些像幽灵一样的东西在我的屋子里。幽灵附身在“扁扁”身上。“扁扁”曾经做过坏事，ta把我刚拉的屎在地上给抹匀了。但是那天妈妈没有惩罚ta，她只是默默地收拾屋子，抱了抱颤抖着的我。你说这会不会是ta的报应呀？当时ta没有被惩罚，所以现在ta被附身了。
“扁扁”以前从来不会发出这样诡异的光，而现在ta经常这样。我有时好好儿地在睡大觉，“扁扁”唰的一下从自己的小棚子里冲出来，左顾右盼，ta的那只眼睛亮着红光。然后直直地向我冲过来！嘴里还一边叫唤，用一种可怕的电磁波叫着“二——狗——子——”“宝——宝——”。妈妈才不会这样叫我呢！欸，想妈妈。
欸，糖糖，你爸爸妈妈在家吗？你说我妈妈和你爸爸妈妈是不是一起出门旅行了？他们一定去了很远的地方，是冰岛吗？我听妈妈说那儿没有蚊子。不会吧，如果真的是这样的话，那他们什么时候回来？我是说，那我什么时候才能再见到你呢？
我终于学会了打字，哈哈，咱俩的秘密啦——没什么特别的，我之前只是太懒了。你知道嘛，那天我正睡得香，突然听到你家门口热闹起来了，还有一些刺鼻的味道。然后我就觉得我闻到你的味道经过了。我好开心，把我的小丑鼻子挤到门缝里去使劲闻你！嘿嘿，你是不是换新的沐浴露了？嗯，好像是更加成熟的味道，闻起来像——康普茶？Emmmmmmm，妈妈说那个中产阶级健康饮料不是很好喝。不过如果是你喜欢的，那我就喜欢。
总而言之，当时我知道你出门了，我就也很想出去。他们可能没有听到我，你好像也没有听见。我又羡慕又难过。不过没有什么能打倒我的，我把这些话发给妈妈，妈妈再发给你爸爸妈妈，你爸爸妈妈再读给你听。我不好意思写太多了，因为都会被他们看到的，嘘——
“扁扁”盯着我看的次数越来越频繁了，就是现在也是，搞得我一丁点儿隐私都没有了。屋子里还有一些别的幽灵，比如突然爆满的饭碗，让我确信这是一种超自然的能力。还有早上六点你看到了吗？窗外的人排队吸食一根细细的管子，天天都吃！这不是一种超自然的能力，还会是什么呢？妈妈不喜欢吃那个，幸好她不在。欸你说，他们真的去旅行了吗？可能是因为真的很远所以没办法带上我们吧。没关系啦，只要他们玩得开心就好了。你什么时候回来呢？自从那天问到你离开之后，好像确实没听见你回来。隔壁屋子静悄悄的。不过你也一直都很文静啦——我是说，你家听起来，实在是太安静了。
可以给我回信吗，糖糖。你先写给你爸爸妈妈，你的爸爸妈妈再发给我妈妈，我妈妈在发给我，这样我就能知道你的消息啦！
二狗子
今天
关于作者：Lea
Lea, performer, theatre-maker.
Improv writing is a monthly offline activity. Welcome all to join us in August!
即兴写作每月会在Camera Stylo进行一次，欢迎大家参加我们8月份的活动。
