Scarecrow in Syndication

My friend Xander Bennett, who updates his blog more often than I do mine, recently began writing for a burst fiction website called Elephant Words. It’s pretty cool. As I understand it, the idea behind the project is that every week six different writers each contribute short story interpretations of a different photograph, inventing characters and a world around the image, then post them online for the world to see.

This week it was Xander’s turn to choose a photo and he used a shot of a t-shirt scarecrow I took in Indonesia.

I remember taking the photo very clearly. We’d pulled to the side of the road on our motorbikes because Will wanted a video of some primary school girls congratulating his older cousin on an upcoming marriage (!). While he was arranging the kids and rehearsing their lines I went wandering and came upon a colourful field with black kittens slinking around the perimeter and a ratty t-shirt keeping guard. I took the shot above, filed it with the others, then didn’t think of it again until last week.

The first story birthed by the photograph, entitled “Hairshirt in Reverse”, can be read here. It’s a fun read, and it mentions Bounty bars, which always scores a few extra points in my book.

UPDATE: The second story, which interprets the scarecrow as bait on a fishing line in verse form, has been uploaded here.