So what can you do with feverish?
Please post your 200 words (no more!) by clicking the comments link at the bottom of this post, keeping in mind The Rules. Next Sunday evening 6/16/13, last week’s winner Pooka will read the entries and select a winner.
Invite a friend to write – the more the merrier!
[Click the comments link below to read entries and discussion.]
Write200 
Pennant Feverish, Perhaps
Baseball: inertia with its own rules, and a score.
Major League millionaires, sweating with impatience, wonder when they will throw their next shutout or swat the next homer. They chomp their sunflower seeds as they pace the gray dugout, lethargically patting teammates. The manager wears a sour mask, and the coaches are as tense as generals.
The home team has a one run lead.
Of course the crowd cheers no matter what happens, but even still they hope that all of this will add up to something. Organ music flares up, and the sun emerges from sodden clouds.
Then the other team’s most expensive slugger comes up to bat, and pounds the first pitch. He trots toward first base.
Our man in right field runs for it, hopeless as it appears. Diving, sliding on his chest across the astro turf, arm aloft, displaying the ball like a precious egg. Third out.
The roar follows, and the locals begin to think that this year might add up to something after all.
Pooka, you picked a hard word, brutha. I’m coming up blank.
Interesting sports take, John Dutterer! This is a more pleasant notion of ‘feverish’ than I was expecting!
Perhaps the Outhouse has the key for you?
Don’t be silly, outhouses don’t have keys! Now enough lollygagging, leave the write200rs to their work!
I’m just too feverishly impatient for another entry!
Is “fever” a recognizable form of “feverish”?
Not IMO. Fervor would capture one aspect, but not exclusively.
Maybe it would fly; I defer to the write200 admin.
Feverish beavers swirling around and around
Smack smack
Goes the mud.
Their dams are gold and purple.
They play baseball
Football and tennis
And checkers.
Sam, this is an interesting juxtaposition of imagery. Beavers would have to be pretty feverish to accomplish all that.
What I like is hearing the smack smack of the baseball, football, tennis racquet and the frantic checkers.
Car, baby, highway:
Early circumcision appointment!
Eating handfuls of trail mix
In a desperate attempt to cover
The mounting guilt with something
Eyes slide to the time
Fast lane
Circumcision appointment!
Rush hour traffic
Mounting guilt
Chainsmoking gumballs
Circumcision appointment!
Directions are wrong
Eyes slide to the time
Turn around
Late
Guilt mounting
Flash flood warning
Low fuel light
Circumcision appointment!
Feverish
Torrential rain
As if my insides have spilled out
Onto the road in front of
Me—-emergency blinkers are
Flashing all around
Circumcision appointment!
Okay—fever has stabilized
Baby is asleep
$9 in the tank
deep breath
going home
Wow, you’re not gonna believe this, but I was actually contemplating an entry based on circumcising a baby as well! I like this a lot. One detail I enjoy is the repetition of “eyes slide to the time” It sounds nice with all the, what do you call it with repeated vowel sounds, not alliteration but something else. The rain in spain.
Anyways, mine’s not going to be as good as this, but now that I mentioned I’m gonna have to produce it!
Oh I was gonna say also, it’s a shame The Rules say you have to actually include the theme word. This piece doesn’t need it, it expresses the theme so well. You could just slap a title of “Feverish” on there, and take it out of the poem, and it would still work great.
Feverish
Walk in, skoot down, stand still, sit down!
Sweaty palms, nervous twitches, pent up energy as each name is called.
Impatient, shaky, anxious whispers, itchy clothing, sitting still to long.
Simple excitement, ripples, a rising tide, a crowded field, our stage is set.
So hard we’ve worked, not always with blood, but plenty of sweat.
We’re on our way, the road starts here, some are happy, some filled with fear.
The band plays as speeches are read, some of us wish they’d rush ahead.
Gleaming eyes of friends and family, some with tears, or we’re the ones crying.
Joy fills those who barely made it this far, and those who shot beyond their star.
A hush and now the real fun begins, stand up, march forth, the stage is set.
Our names, pronounced right, we walk across, give our caps a toss.
The last bit done, pictures and leis, and other fun, and now?
Finally, here I am, your graduate.
About a week after the birth of our first, we finally had the appointment for his circumcision. We went to the doctor, handed over the baby, waited a while, and got back a baby. “Don’t change his diaper for at least four hours.”
“That was easy,” we thought. When we got home our little hellion was strangely calm. Growing quiet, and even lethargic. “Does he have a fever?” No, he’s just quiet.
Finally, it was time for the first diaper change — time to see what man hath wrought. To our shock, upon opening the diaper, we saw that it was blood. Not just bloody, it was blood. Blood past the the diaper’s capacity to saturate; a substrate of coagulated greyish-purple blood beyond the diaper, with a molded cavity reflecting a perfect negative of the little baby boy bits around which the oozing blood had turned to pudding.
Feverishly on the phone with the doctor! “Doctor, our son is bleeding! His diaper is totally full of blood! Is he OK? What do we do?”
“Really? Well, when we circumcised him, there was a cyst; we must have nicked it. If he’s stopped bleeding he’ll be fine.”
“Oh, ok then.” Click. Thanks a lot, doc.
Wow, Rube. That’s grosser than our daughter’s exploding diaper trick by far.
Okay, I think time’s up. I thought for sure this word would garner a lot more entries than we saw this week. No huhu, however. What we got was diverse and interesting.
Rube got points for raised eyebrows and a feverish ending.
The Rat gets a gold star for reminding me of my own feverish experience 20 some years ago (and I’m glad to have witnessed hers just a few days ago).
John Dutterer quite captured the deceptive tension that is often more feverish for the fans than the players, I think.
Sam W.D. gets my honorable mention for the curveball that made me blink and think.
Amy W. is this week’s winner with a frantic thread of chaotic dodges and spins that almost stammer feverish on every line. That was a good one for sure!
I agree! Great job Amy W! (And I like how you said something nice about everybody)
Mr. Write200, I think it would be helpful if you could lay down a specific time Eastern or Pacific to be the deadline each Sunday “evening”. I found myself feverishly typing away Sunday afternoon, wondering if it was evening enough on the east coast that I might get cut off.