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Prompts from a May 18 Writing Meet-up with Sharon Bakar.
A list of prompts to get your imagination working. Take them any way you want!
| Fasten Your Seat Belts | Smells like a good idea |
| Reverent and Free | Second-hand doughnuts |
| Peace and Plenty | One tickle away from a sex crime |
| The Strongest Thing There Is | Otter pilgrim |
| A Big Mosaic | Do the hustle |
| The Happiness Of Being A Malaysian | Y.M.C.A. |
| Black Death | Jenny |
| Cat’s Cradle | Welcome to sheeptown |
| Aspirin | Bond’s secret |
| Everything Is Meaningless | Decisions, decisions |
| Ring Of Steel | My to do list |
| The Waterfall Strainers | My favourite time of day |
A note from the author: I took it as a challenge to utilise every prompt listed above in my text. I hope you enjoy it!
Copyright Jasmine H. Low | Sydney, Australia.
I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and all the other Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live and work in Australia. I pay respect to them as First Nations people with a continuing connection to land, place, waters and community.
Jenny is the moniker of Miss Moneypenny, one of Bond’s secrets, never told before.
In the early days of adapting Ian Fleming’s novels, screenwriters were at first baffled at the thought that Jenny could have been in fact a central lead character. Years on, Jenny or Eve or Jane, as her many nicknames, helmed as Bond’s secretary, in charge of MI6.
Jenny had a peculiar hobby and it was not very Bond-like. She was a host and organiser of a monthly bake-out in her lush garden. It wasn’t just a regular bake-out. It was a bake-out attended by the city’s top film directors, actors and musicians named “Smells like a good idea” where the participants would need to bake something and bring it to share it. One time, Robert (de Niro) brought second-hand doughnuts from the most famous baker in East Village! Another time, French darling Catherine Deneuve presented a baguette from under her armpit, fresh off the plane from a Cannes Film Festival! What a world of peculiarities, kneaded and baked into an afternoon’s affair. You’d think it was just a tickle-away from a sex crime! Mais non, you’d think! Far from it! However, here’s the thing. It was rumoured Brook Shields and Jeffrey Epstein made it to her backyard one steamy hot afternoon. Walking in behind them, a certain celebrity who was not of film fame. A royal, he was, with a certain aura like a plague of Black Death that would have everybody mum. Thankfully, the deafening silence only lasted for only just a breath. The three of them brought the most amazing cake Jenny had ever seen. It had the most intricate icing and the cake was three-layered, representing them three! What a delightful gesture!
“Oh, it’s my favourite time of day!” exclaimed Jenny. She threw the crowd off-centre and invited her unexpected guests to pose with her against a big mosaic wall beside the water feature. Snap, click, flash! She felt reverent and free! Quite like the theme described in Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Cat’s Cradle in Chapter 63. She was just listening to a documentary about the book the evening before, while her Beef Wellingtons were on the stove. What a delight, she thought. Who would have ever imagined they’d do the hustle together one day in the future. To Jenny’s ultimate surprise a decade after this unexpected sojourn, Jeff and the royal figure would be written into one of Fleming’s latest Bond adventures as villains. “The Waterfall Strainers” was set in the Peruvian Andes in the heart of South America and cast as Jeff and the royal figure, were two unexpected, good friends Warren Beatty and fellow Oscar-winner Gene Hackman. Sadly, that film which explored desire, power and mental illness never became a hit despite its stellar line-up. You’d fasten your seat belts now as I write here and tell you what really happened.
Are you ready?
“Everything is meaningless”, the producer, who did not want to be named said. It sent the entire industry hurtling down the hill as if Hollywood were a medicine ball launched off the famed Hollywood Sign, a cultural icon of modern-day entertainment. Who needed aspirin when you had a Hollywood film?! “Look, I now have peace and plenty of time to reflect,” she said. That producer preferred to remain anonymous as she was still interested in keeping her career in film intact.
She was in New Zealand one time, while trying to escape the heat of gossip in LA and was approached by the crew from Australia’s 60 Minutes. The producer, who shall not be named, was exiting the Y.M.C.A. gym in Auckland. On seeing the camera crew, she braced herself, put on her dark glasses and quipped “Welcome to sheeptown”. The well-coiffed journo took a step back, surprised, and let out a nervous laughter before asking, “So is it true? Are the reports about Jeffrey Epstein and the Prince true?”
Epstein and the royal have been seen together, yes, we have seen them come in and out of sets, parties, even bakeouts!” she said. “But the happiness of being Malaysian in Hollywood is that we have sense and sensibility. Once we know of a person’s reputation, it’s best you down that Otter Pilgrim pale ale at the bar, inch away slowly and do that social distancing thing we all got used to doing during lockdowns,”. She calmly stepped into her Uber and drove off.
What a close shave! She picks up her phone and calls best friend Jenny. Typical Malaysians, they’re each other’s sounding boards. They’d huddle together, and strong as a ring of steel, would keep their knowledge within their circle only. Strategise and work the plan. It wasn’t gossip. It was a pertinent exchange of news and updates.
“Now… where’s my to-do list again?!”
The producer and Jenny, the M of Bond, are both Malaysian and keepers of Hollywood’s best kept secrets. Now, you would never have guessed, would you?
The end.