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newtestleper posted:Next entry will be with a Toxx. Paladinus posted:Next time I'll enter with toxx You are both dead to me until this happens 
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Sep 22, 2014 02:22
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:hey look, a poem whether you win this week, only time will tell however, you have won the dome period
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Sep 22, 2014 02:52
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I am failing to submit
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Sep 22, 2014 03:07
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systran posted:I am failing to submit DEAD TO ME
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Sep 22, 2014 03:12
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systran posted:I am failing to submit 
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Sep 22, 2014 03:12
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systran posted:I am failing to submit ill never be in the dome w/ u systran buddy
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Sep 22, 2014 03:23
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Word Count: 1000 - Based on Story of Mr. Fox Smoking Gun The man’s body twisted and a pistol, polished to a mirror sheen, was aimed at Mark’s head. Mark stared past the silencer but could barely make up the man’s face through the darkness. “Don’t take another step, or I’ll blow your head off,” The man said, just loud enough for Mark to hear him. “Help!” A yelp came from the girl collapsed against the wall. The man turned back to the girl and sent the pistol slamming down. The crack of crushed bones echoed in the alley. The man spun his head towards Mark. “Just walk away, and you won’t get hurt.” Mark stepped back a few paces, but stopped. His body tensed up, but the man turned the pistol back to Mark. “Don’t do anything too bold.” With a deep breath, Mark turned around. He heard a muffled scream, but he forced his legs to keep moving. Once he turned the corner, he pulled out his phone. Right before he dialed 911, he heard a soft pop and the clank of metal falling onto concrete. Mark looked back and saw the man turn the corner and bolt down the street. Mark ran back to the alley. Mark found the girl slouched on the side of a building. A small hole in her head poured out a steady stream of blood. He placed his finger to the side of her neck. No pulse. He called 911, then dragged her off the wall. He pushed his hands deep into her chest. He felt the ribs shatter underneath his hands, but he pressed as hard as he could. With each push, Mark’s grew tired, but he couldn’t stop. He heard some voices sound behind him, but he continued to thrust his hands into her ribs. The paramedics pushed Mark out of the way, and the ambulance whined as it flew down the street and out of Mark’s sight. Mark was still kneeling on the ground, his hands shaking as the image of the girl was burned into his mind. # Mark pulled open the glass doors, and stepped into the backyard. He found Josh sitting with Chris. Mark pulled up a chair and sat at the table with them. Chris smiled at Mark, “Glad you showed up. Josh said he invited you, but I wasn’t sure you’d come. Where you been the past week?” “Just some personal problems.” Mark said. “Everything alright?” Mark nodded. “Good to hear.” Chris said. “Yeah, I was worried about you for a while.” Josh said, leaning back in his chair and taking a swig of his beer. “Want one?” “No thanks.” Josh shrugged, “More for me.” “It’s been a crazy week. Hardly had any time off. Nice to be able to relax.” Chris said. “You guys assigned to that girl that was killed last week?” Mark asked. “Nah, I’m not in homicide.” Chris said. “You Josh?” Mark asked. Josh shook his head. “I was actually there.” Mark said. “What!” Josh shouted. He looked around the backyard, and then turned back to Mark. “Sorry. That was loud. What’d you see?” “I’ll tell you guys later,” Mark said as he rubbed his stomach, “I don’t think the food sat well with me.” “You can’t just leave us hanging like this! You gotta tell us.” Chris said as Mark got up from his seat. “I will, don’t worry.” Mark said. “Nature calls.” Mark stepped back into the house and walked down the hallway. He stopped in front of Josh’s bedroom door. He took a quick glance behind him, then opened the door. It creaked, and Mark took another look behind him. No one. Mark rummaged through the room, looking underneath the bed, behind clothes, and sifting through drawers. He went to the nightstand and pulled out the top drawer. There lay a silver pistol, polished to a mirror shine. Next to it was a silencer. He stuck the silencer in his pocket. Mark sat back down with Chris and Josh. “So, tell us what happened.” Josh said as he leaned forward. Mark took a deep breath, and began. “It was late and I was walking back home. I heard this grunt, and a muffled shout coming from an alley. I turn around, and I see this guy standing over this girl. I took a few steps towards him, but he must’ve heard me. He turned around and pointed this pistol right at me. Even had a silencer.” “No way,” Josh said, his eyes focused on Mark. Mark nodded. “He said he’d kill me if I got any closer to him.” “That’s loving crazy. What’d you do?” Josh asked as he put his hand over his mouth. “I,” Mark paused, “just walked away. I tried to call 911, but then I heard this pop, and I knew what happened.” “Holy poo poo. That’s what happened?” Chris said. Mark nodded. “Oh my god, that’s insane.” Josh said. “Just give me a second, I’m gonna get another beer.” Josh began to pull himself off the chair. “Hang on a second,” Mark said, “It’s not over yet.” “Yeah?” Josh fall back into his chair. “That pistol, it reminded me of something.” Mark reached into his pocket, and gripped the silencer. “It reminded me a lot of you.” Mark slid the silencer across the table and it landed on Josh’s lap. Chris stared at Mark. “I know it was you,” Mark said as Josh looked down at the black cylinder. Chris looked at Mark, and Mark nodded. Josh tried to jump out of his chair, but Chris lunged towards him and grabbed the back of his head. He slammed Josh into the table, breaking the plastic legs and throwing Josh into the grass. “God damnit Josh, what the gently caress is wrong with you!” Chris shouted as he pushed Josh further into the dirt. Josh breathed frantically. “Call 911 Mark,” Chris said, “Tell them that I got some piece of poo poo that needs transport.” Mark pulled out his phone. “The pistol is in his nightstand. Top drawer.”
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Sep 22, 2014 03:38
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Ertrinken 986 words From Mother Holle, a German folk tale. The vat of boiling horse piss stank and Katja wished to be anywhere but here. For three days she had toiled in Frau Holle’s home. Her sister Fritzi, having disappeared and returned, told of the kindly old woman’s reward for helping her. The gold Fritzi brought back was proof enough and their dowager mother sent Katja off to do the same. Frau Holle sat on her porch, wrapped in thick clothes as usual. She hadn’t seen the old woman’s face once, not even at meal time. They did not sup together. Kindly old woman, she thought bitterly. drat Fritzi, what a fool! Their mother should have thrown that idiot out years ago. Instead, Katja found herself toiling like, well, like Fritzi did at their home in Dusseldorf. The piss, Holle claimed, was for tanning. She made a living through leather-making. But Katja’s late father was also a tanner and she did not think piss of any sort was part of it. And why was there only this single vat? God, it stank. Yet another falsehood in this miserable place. Holle did not have a warm bed for her. Katja slept on the floor by the hearth, like a dog. Her meals were hearty enough, she supposed, though the meat didn’t taste like any meat she recognized. The Frau refused to share the mushroom sauce, Katja’s favourite part of jaegerschnitzel. Her stomach rumbled despite the fumes. “Don’t smother the fire, foolish girl,” Frau Holle shouted. She had a set of lungs in her like an alpiner. Did a kind word ever pass her lips? Katja hadn’t heard one yet. She hated feeling like she did nothing right. At home, she could do no wrong. She was her mother’s favoured child, with younger Fritzi left to care for the household. Their mother was quite stern with Fritzi, and she wondered if this was how her sister felt. If so, she didn’t much care for it. This work was best left to those inclined to it. She stood to fetch the bellows and jumped to find Frau Holle beside her. The old woman was uncommonly silent; the comparison to a sneak-thief with dagger in hand came unbidden. “Don’t pump the bellows too hard, you’ll drown out the flames.” The crone’s cold eyes glared out from above the scarf wrapped around her head. “I wasn’t going to, Frau Holle, I know how to use a bellows.” Katja’s face burned. She wasn’t some drat fool to be endlessly talked down to. Holle struck her with a piece of wood. “The hell you do. Never a more worthless girl have I met! Can’t make a bed, can’t cook a cabbage, can’t sweep a floor, can’t light a fire, can’t pump a bellows,” she sneered, punctuating each task with the lumber. Finally, Katja screamed and pushed the old woman back. “No more! I have put up with you for days! No more! I will leave, tonight, and I will have the payment promised me!” “You wish to settle accounts?” Holle asked, her voice low. “Yes.” “Stay here, then. I’ll bring you your payment.” Alone, Katja rubbed at her shoulder where she had been struck. It was swollen and the merest touch was painful. Holle was vicious. The black canvas sack thumped to the ground at her feet. Holle had returned. The sack did not look like it was full of gold. “Take it and leave, if you want to,” Holle said. Katja grabbed the bag. It was heavy. “Don’t you want to count your payment?” “No, I will check later. I just want to be away. I’m sure you counted fair.” “I really must insist you open the bag, Katja.” Holle hadn’t used Katja’s name since her arrival. As if the naming had power, her hands undid the drawstring while her mind screamed not to. She looked inside. Her blood ran cold. The bag fell from limp fingers and the head within rolled out. Glazed eyes stared up from the ground. “Mother?” Katja’s stomach clenched. “Oh God, my mother!” Her mother’s face was frozen in terror and pain. “Dear, dear mother,” Holle crooned. Her scarf and shawl fluttered to the ground. Katja looked up into the face of her tormentor. Those cold, cold eyes. She knew them well. “She didn’t much care for my settling accounts, either.” “Fritzi?” This could not be. “What have you done? What did you do to mother? Where is the rest of our mother?” A swelling tide of panic rose from her bowels, flooding into her chest. Fritzi smiled and licked her lips. “I know how much you love schnitzel, my dear sister.” Her stomach lurched. “Oh God, no.” “She fed us as babes from her bosom. Fitting she feed us again.” Fritzi picked up the paddle for stirring the vat. “Why would you do this? She was your mother!” “Hardly a mother to me.” Fritzi swung the paddle and blew the thought out of Katja’s mind. Mostly forever later, she found herself leaning against a post by the vat. Fritzi was there still, the paddle’s end smeared with blood. Her cold eyes blazed hot. “You came here to be showered with gold, yes? Here it is, Katja. All the gold you could ever want.” She gestured to the vat. “Take as much of it as you can.” The paddle came up and she knocked Katja towards the vat. Already off-balance, Fritzi struck again, and Katja stumbled to the lip and fell into the boiling horse piss head first. She tried to scream, but got only a lungful of urine for her trouble. It was colder than she expected, but within seconds Katja didn’t think much at all anymore. Fritzi lowered the vat’s lid as the first flakes of snow began to fall. She mounted the horse which had let her beat Katja here from Dusseldorf and cantered away as the cottage burned. Frau Holle served her purpose.
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Sep 22, 2014 04:08
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What's with all the dead submissions, you even got an extra seven hours. I barely dodged a bullet last week and I'm not making any excuses. That's mostly because I'm deranged, but still. This Way, Boys 998 words (HOW TURTLE’S GREED BROUGHT HIM TO A SAD END) Doc was the first one to go. Heather hated Doc. He acted so smart and superior, like even dating was beneath him. Of course, when Heather straight up offered him a blow job, there was no way he could resist. She enjoyed watching him stumble forward and downward into his doom, all because Heather shook her tits a little. Any idiot could buy a gun and shoot up a school, but what Heather was doing was truly special. Doc wasn't his real name. It was just what Heather was going to call them all years later once the statute of limitations had expired and she could write a book about it. That was the beauty of the plan, really, was that even if they could somehow pin the crimes on her, Heather wasn't actually killing any of them. It was the trap door that was doing that. Granted she was the one that repaired it and was luring them there but still. That was just semantics. The next up was Dopey and Heather almost felt bad about killing him. But there was a more long term reality to consider here. The guy was retarded. It's not like he was going to have much of a life to live anyway. Besides, he smelled bad. The same trick that worked on Doc worked on him too. Heather appreciated the implications of this. In the end they were all just horny teenage boys. After that was Bashful. Heather hated his cuteness. He could have had any girl in the whole school except he was too much of a wuss to make the first move. She had to do a lot of purring in order to get him to cross over to the trap door but that was all right. There was plenty of time. Heather was on independent study and this was a two hour class period. Grumpy was the exact opposite. It wasn't that he thought she was lying about the sex as it was he was always in such a bad mood that he didn't even seem to want it even when she was right in front of him. Heather practically had to stand right in front of the trap ready to give him head before she could get him to step forward and fall into the abyss. Sneezy wasn't any trouble. It's not like he was sneezing all the time. That nickname was a bit of a stretch but once he was dead everybody was going to exaggerate his personality traits anyway. It's not like he had any others. Heather just gave him a cute little butt wiggle and off he went, while Heather waited patiently for the next arrival. Sleepy was the problem spot. Heather had always thought the thing he did about sleeping in class was just for show- something that he did to thumb his nose at teachers and show how cool he was. That was what she really hated about him, what made Heather feel all right about making sure that he died for the sake of furthering her ambitions. But as it turned out Sleepy really was frustratingly lethargic. He was several minutes late, and when he finally did arrive, the dork was practically shambling like a zombie. Heather was impatient at this point, and just took her shirt off completely. She couldn't waste too much time on him, not now, not when she was so close. It was just one more of these losers left after Sleepy, and this absolutely would not work at all if Happy had any hint that Sleepy had been here. It could wreck the entire plan. It took Sleepy several seconds to even notice that her shirt was open, and even then he just stared at it slack-jawed. Heather repressed a sneer. This was insulting. What kind of guy shows up to a promised blow job like this? The thing that really made her mad was that Sleepy was the only one of these losers she knew for a fact had had a girlfriend before. What was she going to have to do here? Impatiently Heather stormed up, right in front of the trap door, very careful not to actually step on it herself. "Come on," she said, leaning forward provocatively, trying to bend her back in the most sexy arc she could think of. It actually hurt a lot. Why did all the advertising models do this if it felt so unnatural? "You want these?" she said, rubbing her tits. "Come on! Come get 'em!" Sleepy took in a big breath and slowly opened up his eyes. He stretched out his arms. Finally, Heather thought, this was taking way too long. And before she even realized what happened, Sleepy had grabbed her nipples and pulled her forward. Heather nearly broke her chin on the edge of the floorboard, but she did manage to grab a hold of it with one hand, not quite falling into her own trap. She glared at Sleepy absolutely furious. "Are you loving serious! You'd rather pull me forward than just walk!? How loving lazy are you you dumb loving poo poo!" Then, just like that, Sleepy didn't look so tired anymore. Moving at normal speed, eyes wide open, he bent down, looked Heather into the eyes, and gave her a big smile. "Funny thing how the law works," he said. "See, no matter how easy it would be for me to save your life here, I'm not actually under any legal obligation. I mean, it's not like I knew there was going to be a trap door there, right?" Heather's fingers were slipping. She looked down in a panic. Heather wasn't actually sure how big this chasm was. All she had thought of back when she found it was that the bodies would never be found. Heather looked back up at Sleepy. He waved as her grip finally loosened. "Bye bye." This was why Heather hated boys so, so very much.
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Sep 22, 2014 04:31
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The Babe with the Power 997 words http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2579&title=The+Babe+with+the+Power crabrock fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 04:34
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Pau 831 words -see archives- Tyrannosaurus fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Dec 11, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 05:12
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Flesh - 978 words. Rabbit had never worn heels before, his feet felt blistered and raw. At a thin creek, he took them off and lifted his dress so as not to get them filthy. When he arrived at the large cabin at the top of the hill, he clutched his painted nails into his palm to make a fist; Rabbit knocked on the door. Every year, on Maneater’s birthday, the village offered the creature their youngest adult as a sacrifice. If Maneater was not offered a gift, it threatened that it would eat the entire village. If they sent a man, the namesake was supposedly proven true, and they were never heard from again. If they sent a woman, she became Maneater’s new wife. Rabbit had grown rather accustomed to living over the course of 18 years. After the village had sent him up the hill, he smuggled a dress with him, among other things. He fancied himself up in the woods. The door opened and Rabbit’s shoulders greeted the height of the creature’s hips. Maneater had a maw like a bear. Eyes sharper than its already fearsome teeth; the creature spoke with a forked tongue. “It is a bit early for my offering, is it not?” Maneater growled, “And there is something odd about you.” Maneater’s jaws were nose hairs away from Rabbit’s neck. The creature sniffed, “Indeed, I have never had a wife with such fragrant hair. Please, come in.” Rabbit forced his eyes down, woven into a mat were the words Not Welcome. He stepped forward slowly. “And do not worry, despite my name, tonight we shall feast on elk,” Maneater said before it turned. The cabin’s halls were expansive, seemingly larger than the building itself. Before Rabbit was a stairwell and on each side were massive rooms dressed with stuffed game and fine furniture. Rugs with wild reds and deep blacks made walking in heels a newer experience. In the dining room there was a pale, lithe woman seated. She fidgeted with her dress before an empty plate. Maneater spoke, “This is my wife Ella. Please make yourself at home…” “Rabbit,” his high pitch cracked. “A fitting name, but no need to be so jumpy. Sit, dinner shall be ready soon.” Rabbit pulled a seat away from the table and sat next to Ella. Maneater walked on all fours toward the kitchen, next to the door rested a meat cleaver like a large axe. Maneater grabbed and dragged it into the kitchen. Squelches of meats and crunches of bones could be heard for minutes behind the closed door. “Is it truly going to marry me?” Rabbit said softly. “Doubtful,” Ella folded her hands in her lap, “you’re a fool to have tricked it. When it finds out after the wedding, it’ll eat the whole village,” Ella said. “And what of us?” “It ate its last wife before me,” her eyes dropped, “I was forced to… partake. I truly fear tomorrow, but have given up hope. I have tried running, tried killing the beast. It has stopped me every time. I imagine due to your trickery you shall be eaten as well.” Screeching wheels filled the silence that followed. A slaughtered creature chopped into massive chunks, raw as it was living, rested on a cart. “Eat,” Maneater dropped a piece on each plate, the ceramic made an odd clank against the tablecloth. “I am not hungry,” Ella said. “And what of you?” Maneater loomed in closer to Rabbit to look him in the eye. Rabbit shook his head back and forth. “I politely ask that you do not eat, to save food for those that are hungry.” Maneater consumed flesh like water consumed fire; in an instant, all that remained were scraps. In single bites it removed flesh from bone, and then swallowed those next. Blood dripped from his chin like a drunkard’s red wine. Finished, Maneater hobbled toward the stairs. “Join me in bed, Rabbit. We shall take care of the preparations tomorrow, as a good meal exhausts me. Ella, you may stay in the guest room until dinner tomorrow.” Footsteps turned to creaks from above; a door slammed. “How do you know when he’s truly asleep?” Rabbit looked at Ella. “When it snores, it sounds as if a hurricane is blowing within the house,” Ella said. He had not noticed the black bags beneath her eyes until now. Rabbit rose from his chair and stepped into the kitchen. Inside the room there were no counters, only corpses. Heads of beast and men hung from strings to preserve, mouths stuck gaping. The cleaver rested beside them. Rabbit grabbed the handle and dragged it; the weight strained him, but it was not unmanageable. He kicked off his heels at the foot of the stairs and waited. Ella watched him with a curious fear. A window rattled open. The halls were filled with gusts. Rabbit dragged the cleaver up the stairs, the clunk of metal against floor was silent in Maneater’s slumber. Where wind grew stronger, Rabbit followed with hair and dress billowing behind him. A door slammed open and shut. Rabbit waited until it flung open once more to enter. The powerful slam of wood against frame left them in growing moonlight. Rabbit could barely lift the cleaver over his head and his arms shook from strain. He swung with the aid of weight, and the blade severed Maneater’s head clean. Down feathers dusted the air and Rabbit’s dress was soaked red. The storm ceased, Maneater’s eyes were now dull. Rabbit dropped the cleaver and lifted the creature’s head by the hair. He descended the stairs. Ella was waiting at the front door. She smiled. The two ran off to the village with Maneater’s head in tow. The next day, and every year after, a marriage was held in celebration. The groom always wore a red dress.
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Sep 22, 2014 06:24
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Clay and Moonlight 982 words The wind was at my back as I climbed the tower. “There are two guards on the door to your sister’s room. Be careful, as they have swords and knives in their belts.” “Thank you, Brother. I will remember your words.” I pulled myself up over the window ledge. There was no one here, but I knew that there would not be; the tall pine tree outside the gates had told me that the guards did not come by the stretch of hallway for another half hour. I turned to the left, and began to walk quietly towards where the Moon had imprisoned my sister. The guards were where the wind had told me they would be. I watched them around the corner for a few minutes, and then turned to the torch on the wall. “Sister Flame,” I whispered to the burning pitch. “I am far from home, and so is my sister. Would you be so kind as to distract those men for me while I rescue her?” “Because you ask so politely, Younger Brother, I will,” replied the flame in a hissing voice. “There are many of us in the sconces on the wall. It would not be so hard to break one of these glass containers and set alight one of the tapestries here. You will have the distraction that you need.” “You do me honor, Sister. I will not forget your help.” I turned to watch around the corner as a shout came from the distance. Both guards turned to look at the voice, and then turned to one another in confusion. After a moment, one ran off towards the sounds of disturbance, while the other looked after him, clearly torn. I took advantage of this and stole up to the second guard while his back was turned, the wind carrying the sound of my passage away from his ears. A few moments later, he was on his back, gasping as the life drained out of him from the wound in his back. I laid the knife I had taken from his scabbard on the ground next to him. “I am sorry, Brother, but I cannot allow the Moon to marry my sister. You were honorable, and I will pray for your safe journey to the afterlife.” I bowed to the guard and made the ritual gestures quickly before turning to the door. The guard’s key turned back the lock, and I slipped carefully into the room. My sister was there, sitting in a pool of moonlight from the high, barred windows of the room she had been imprisoned in. She looked up at me with tear-stained eyes, and I was struck for a moment at her incredible beauty. For a moment I understood why the Moon had stolen her from our home. “Brother? Is that really you?” My sister ran to embrace me as I shut the door. “I had given up hope of ever seeing you again!” “It took me nearly three days to find this place, and then another to plan your rescue. I am sorry that it took me so long.” “No; I forgive you, because you are here now, and I know that I am safe.” “Not yet.” I took her hand. “We still need to escape this place. I do not know how long it will be until someone comes by here again. Come, we must be swift.” We ran together, back the way that I had come, and to the window ledge that I had climbed through. I spoke to the vines on the wall, and they obligingly made a rope that I tied to my sister’s waist while I lowered her to the ground and climbed after her. I had just touched the ground myself, when we heard the scream. It was long and wailing, a high-pitched keen with discordant harmonics that raised the hair on my body like a cat taking fright. I knew that the Wizard Moon had found my sister gone from her room, and I knew that we did not have much time. I clutched my sister’s wrist and we sprinted into the darkness of the surrounding forest, the wind speeding us from behind, and the trees and plants moving out of our way so that we could run all the faster. “Where are we going?” my sister called from behind me. “We cannot go home, for he will find us.” “The stream told me of a clearing deep within the forest, where no human has set foot before. The undergrowth will let us through. We will live there together until the Moon’s wrath has passed us by. He will find another bride eventually, and you will be safe again.” We ran through the night, past hills and meadows, through thickets and swamp, until we reached the clearing the stream had told me of. We rested then, and drank deeply from the stream herself, since she burbled nearby. “So you have come here after all!” the stream called in her melodious voice. “But who is that who you have brought with you?” I turned in confusion, and saw the first rays of dawn light my sister’s face. Instead of the warm flesh and blood that had been there a moment before, I now saw that it was not my sister I had carried home, but a beautiful doll made of porcelain. “Who are you?” I said, staring at the creature as the spell evaporated from its form. “I am a creature of clay and moonlight. I was made to take your sister’s place by the Wizard Moon.” The doll began to cry. “I am sorry.” I ran, all the way back to the Wizard’s tower, but when I arrived, there was nothing but an abandoned ruin. I never found my sister, but I keep the doll with me. In the moonlight, sometimes, I can pretend.
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Sep 22, 2014 06:59
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The Tide words: 999 Charlie sat on the tidal flat’s retaining wall gazing at the most horrible thing he had ever seen in his life. Sculpted from the almost black silt and detritus, the castle was immense yet perfectly finished. Onyx parapets smoothed by hand from hard plastic molds, a carefully dredged moat with just enough water, it was erected on just far enough to avoid the tide, but close enough to not dry and crumble. He watched Sam, the brilliant engineer of this disaster, walking hand in hand with his adoring parents up the path to the cottages. In the fading sun, the dinner hour when all were inside, Charlie took a sandaled sole to every rampart, every scooped window before finally punting completely through the entrance arch. He bent, bracing his hands on his knees, red faced. Behind him the waves reached toward him with their cold, inky embrace, and even though he knew that they would not touch him, he fled from them. The next morning Charlie crouched in front of his own castle, desperately trying to hold together the much-too-dry sand as it sloughed off and collapsed. A shadow cast over the ruins. “What happened to my castle, Charlie?” “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I saw you sitting on the wall last night, you didn’t see what happened?” “Must have been the tide.” “Oh,” Sam said, his voice cracked. “Really?” “Yes, I saw the water coming right up to your castle. I swear.” Sam pulled a notepad out from his back pocket and furrowed his brow. He mumbled to himself, and even after he left, he consulted the notepad. Charlie turned away from Sam and started rebuilding. In the evening sun Sam sat on the retaining wall staring at a structure of majestic horror. “My dad taught me how to do a Balentine arch,” Sam said. Charlie refused to look at the beaming his beaming countenance. “You know Charlie you have to make your castles closer to the water, the sand is too dry up here,” Sam said. Charlie grunted. He had even managed to put tiny flags cut from drink umbrellas in the pointed towers. From up the path behind them came a sharp whistle. “Dinner time,” Sam said. “Gotta go, you should come over sometime.” Charlie said nothing. He kicked the base of the towers, causing the cylindrical sand to collapse over him in gritty, abrasive pleasure. He would have completely leveled the castle, and smoothed the entire surface, fully erasing its existence, but the encroaching tide frightened him away again. Scrambling up the wooden ladder of the retaining wall he looked back to see the tide still only came a few feet from the destroyed pile of sand. “It must have been the tide,” Charlie said unsolicited the next morning. Sam consulted his notepad. “Must have been.” Without acknowledging it, Charlie listened to Sam’s advice and went as near as he dare to the ocean to build. With much fewer cave-ins and mishaps, Sam’s outer walls filled him with a sense of pride. He would craft a barracks, stables, and finally he erected a main hall fit for a king. Covered in sand he marveled at his craftsmanship. So taken with his labor he barely even noticed how dark it had gotten. “That’s pretty good,” Sam said. “Pretty good?” Charlie scoffed. “I’d like to see what you di—“ A plug uncorked from inside him and his joy drained away as he saw Sam’s work eclipse his own in both grandeur and scope. While Charlie had been content to build vertically, bolstered by outer walls, Sam had sprawled his creations into an entire township, with inns, bakers, smiths and winding streets. There were no words to be had, only a growing sense of intangible rage. His body didn’t register the consolation pat Sam placed on his shoulder as he left. Not even the coming tide would stop Charlie’s rampage. He stomped and dove through the multitude of structures. Water splashed his face as he put his feet down time and time again. The entire cityscape had been destroyed three times over when Charlie fully realized that he was getting knee deep when a wave would come. He sloshed towards the wall, only to see the ladder strewn and Sam dangling his legs over the side. Before he could say anything, a wave hit him from behind, jostling him. Another wave knocked Charlie to his knees, and the water receded, tearing his foundation from under him. It was the third wave that pushed his head under. Sam sat statuesque while Charlie blindly groped the wooden retaining wall. Sam kicked his heel against the wood and crossed his arms. “I see now how the tide can be so devastating,” Sam said. “Especially when there’s a storm off-shore.” Charlie tried to speak between mouthfuls of salt water but only gargles and labored gasps escaped the crashing waves. “Oh, your parents didn’t tell you that?” When there was a long enough pause between the waves, Charlie cried, “Help, please help.” Sam stood on wall and pulled out his notepad. “You’ll be fine, Charlie,” he said. “The tide won’t go that high.” Charlie felt his way to his right before a wave tumbled him again. Salt water stung his eyes, and he tried to change his direction, not sure of which way around was actually the shortest. As he made his way over to the left his foot caught the wooden ladder and he tripped. A wave slammed the side of his head against the retaining wall and he his vision flashed white for a brief moment, and it darkened on the edges. “Help me Sam!” They found Charlie’s body face down in the mud, the sand piled to his cheeks and partially covering one of his arms. Sam retook his place on the wall as the throng of early morning beach walkers parted for the authorities. “Must have been the tide,” Sam said to no one in particular.
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Sep 22, 2014 07:18
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Coyote Moon (Inspired by "The Tiger Changed into a Woman") 995 words Today's client comes into my office wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and grass-stained jeans. He's a working man--an independent contractor, like myself. "Welcome," I say and gesture towards the chair in front of me. "Rosa Flores," I say and stick my hand out. "David Aguilar," he says and shakes my hand, which is calloused, cut, and leathered. "So what can I do for you?" I ask as he sits down. "You're discreet, right?" he asks uneasily. "I hope so as a professional," I respond. "I...I have an issue that I need investigating," he tells me. "What's the issue?" I ask. "It's my wife, Pita," he says as his face flinches subtly. I'm genuinely jaded when it comes to relationships since I regularly trade on the insecurities, miseries, and suspicions of my clients as a private investigator. However, I never assume or project anything on my clients. They're already uncomfortable with soliciting the services of a private detective as is, so I don't fill in any blanks. "What is it about?" I ask. David tells me how, once a month, Mrs. Aguilar leaves sundown and returns by sunrise with a bunch of slaughtered rabbits ready to cook and sleeps through the following day. "I don't suspect my wife of anything," he says slowly, trying his best to remain calm. "She just doesn't tell me anything. I don't care what she does, I just want to make sure that she's safe," he says as he starts tearing up. I hand him a box of tissues which he rejects. "Have you kept a record of when she has these excursions?" I ask tactfully. He nods and passes me a note filled with dates. "Mr. Aguilar-" "Please, call me David," he says. "David, then," I say and give him a friendly smile. "I charge $50 an hour, plus expenses. I require a $400 retainer." He nods, pulls out his wallet, and hands me a handful of twenties. After I count them to make sure it's enough, I pull out a contract from my desk. "Before we proceed, I need you to take a look at this," I say as I hand it to him. The contract that I sign with all my clients is more of a formal agreement of the kind of conduct the both of us are to expect in a client-professional relationship--both of us are obligated to practice the utmost discretion while divulging in each other whatever details that may be pertinent before, during, and after an ongoing investigation. We both sign and he leaves me with his contact information. A week later I get a call from David who tells me she's about to leave. Every successful private investigator has a niche--corporate security, civil cases, etc. Mine is paranormal investigations. Like how I hosed up a hostage situation involving vampires a while back. Why that's pertinent is that all the dates I've been provided correspond with the full moon, including tonight. The full moon holds special significance with various paranormal entities and Pita definitely has a habit of making excursions under moonlight. I have a feeling I'll find out what exactly she eventually. I follow her to a to a nearby park in the foothills where she parks and walks towards the brush. I follow behind her with my camera and wand at the ready. Once she's inside, she changes form. It's hard to describe, but her body morphs, shrinks even, from a human into a coyote. I immediately position myself downwind and start snapping pictures. Pita happily jumps into the bushes to flush out prey. It's kind of beautiful, watching a predator stalking after their prey. Using the light of the moon, she finds a rabbit and chases after it. The cute little cottontail bounds away in vain as Pita pounces on top if it and slaughters it. After she kills it, she drags it away into a bush. She repeats this until she's clearly bagged the state limit. Stalking animals isn't about stealth since there's no way you can successfully sneak around an animal which is biologically designed to sense others as a means of survival. The trick is to out-smart them, which is why I'm down-wind from her. I have enough pics to use as substantial evidence. The question is, what do I do with them? I manage to get a hold of Pita's email address, so I send her a couple of the images as well as a meeting time and place--tomorrow morning at a nearby coffee shop. I recognize her immediately when I step in. Coyote spirits like her poses an ethereal vitality to them--glowing skin and flickering yellow eyes why I can spot her. "Before we begin," I say as I sit down, "I want to assure you that I have no intention to release the photos to a third party." "What is your intention then, Miss Flores?" She asks and averts my gaze. I lean in and clasp my hands. "I'm bound by both contract and my professional reputation, to divulge in him my findings," I say as she nods despondently. "I-I' never meant to hurt him," she says. "It's just, times have been tough and I thought hunting rabbits would save us extra money." "I'm still obligated to tell him," I say as she nods despondently. "However if David was to know through someone else..." "I-I can't-" "Pita, how much do you love your husband?" I ask. "I-I'd abandon my true form for him," she says. "Then you have nothing to be afraid of," I tell her and get up from the table. "Your husband deserves to hear the truth. Tell him, or I will." The Aguilars eventually reconcile. I'm genuinely surprised and happy for them, because couples usually separate after I'm involved. They've given me hope, actually. Private investigations is a lonely business, but they've given me the briefest of hopes that I won't remain lonely for the rest of my life.
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Sep 22, 2014 09:06
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Someone give me a prompt right loving now and in the next 30 minutes I will rock out 900 words.
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Sep 22, 2014 09:24
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Quidnose posted:Someone give me a prompt right loving now and in the next 30 minutes I will rock out 900 words. Skinwalkers.
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Sep 22, 2014 09:30
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Anomalous Blowout posted:Skinwalkers. 30 minutes from now. Here I go.
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Sep 22, 2014 09:32
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Costa Mesa 595 words I was in the back of my best friend’s station wagon. It was 1995 and Ihad just finished puking. As it turned out, it wasn’t just reading in a car that made you carsick; hosting a Tetris tournament was enough to send my stomach from the base of my diaphragm and into my throat. I really just wanted to get as many tetrises as possible, but the equilibrium of my inner ear had another plan for me. Three reincarnations of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich later, I had pratically crawled into the lap of the boy I had a crush on. Thank the Good Lord he was in my carpool; I was as close to intimacy as an eleven year old girl could get. We were traveling through dust country: the flat end of the US Potato Famine that nobody outside of the AP US History books bothered to mention. We, of course, had been here all our lives; we had played flashlight tag and chestnuts and all sorts of poverty ridden games througout our formative years that the landscape had burned itself into our frontal cortex’s.. The best abandoned parking lot for stickball, the tallest grass for a makeshift cornmaze, the tallest peak of makeout point; we knew these by heart, the map of our childhood tattooed on the inside of our eyelids. But somehow, collectively, we knew there was more to the land than the anatomy of our corneas. There was a mysticism that we could only fathom in nightmares. It was in this place of nauseau and ecstacy, snuggled into the apathetic shoulderbone of my prepubescent adoration that I saw the strange-lady clinging to the Gilette billboard. She was on the outermost edge, spiderlike, all fingers and bone in disgusting and specific detail as our headlights blew past, an arachnid ready to strike upon whatever unfortunate prey spied her grotesque reality. In the instant that I spied her, i wanted to recoil into my own cocoon, shut out the tyranny of day to day life and deny that I ever fathomed to bring her into existence. But utltimately, I wasn’t going to shy away in terror; I was warm and safe in my folly, certain in my under-developed synapses that I had just imagined a blur as we were whirring past, that the full-blown hormones of youth and illness and exhaustion had mingled to create a creature that surely couldn’t exist. In that moment, my heart open to adolescent love, I let something else entirely into my being. Looking back, I wish I had said something. Maybe if I had pointed the terrible figure out to any of the other sleeping students in our carpool, I might have spared myself a decade of unable escape. Maybe that boy who two yers later would break my heart would have glanced out the window towards my outstretched hand, would have seen the dark, soulless eyes, would have known the depth of the infinite desert. Maybe he would have woken up in the middle of a fifteen year old night and stared into fiteenthousand eyes, and felt the hairs of of eight legs caressing every inch of his body. Maybe he would have known how twenty years of terror had begun. As it was, I was eleven, and I was nauseuous, and he was there. I felt like poo poo and I looked out the window, and the widow was everywhere. He would break my heart and she would take my sould and I had missed my tetrimo. It was not a very good fieldtrip.
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Sep 22, 2014 10:05
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The Woman with Rattlesnake Eyes (565 words) Folk Tale: The Queen with a Hundred Lovers http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2586&title=The+Woman+with+Rattlesnake+Eyes Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 10:18
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I'm going to have to drop out this week too.
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Sep 22, 2014 10:50
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Since I had one more evening than I thought I managed something. Mare Erythaeum - 997 Words Inspired by The Beginning “Honey, you know you can still change your mind... ” The insincerity of her words came through crystal clear in my helmet. “That’s not fair, Mom”. She had my sister in her belly, the child that would be the first human born away from Earth. “You’re doing the right thing, Bridget” Ken now, formal as usual. I couldn’t stand to hear them, so I broke off comms and focused on the slope ahead. Some sea. The peaks and valleys of Mare Erythaeum stretched out to my left and right. We’d never ventured off the Jagged plateau that we’d landed on until now, until we really needed to. The other hab unit was fifteen kilometres away on the plain, where we would have been had things gone to plan. I stepped off the ridge, feeling my boots skid down the loose sand and rock. It was fast, so I made good time as I floated and fell towards the flat. “You alright, Bridge?” I didn’t expect to hear from Harry. We’d grown close in training, closer still on the ship. The tests had said we would, genetics and psychology pairing us in something close to destiny. He’d been silent since I volunteered, I hadn’t turned off our private channel. “I’m fine. This is actually kinda fun” I ramped off the lip of a precipice and flew eight feet high before sliding down an expanse of scree, gravel skittering behind me. “I should be there” He was fighting back tears. This was why it had to be me. “Harry right now I need you to shut up” I waited for a second till he’d finished sniffling “But I also need you to stay on the line”. Once on the plain the going was slow, and Harry’s breathing went only a little way to relieving the dread. The others had contracted some sort of illness. They didn’t know whether it was from something Martian or if something had gone wrong with the library of DNA brought from Earth, but nothing could stop the tiny blisters spreading. Within weeks their unit was a shiny cylindrical tomb. And it was only four clicks away. I switched the comms back on when I got within visual range. Nearby was the rover that Bisa had left in when he’d realised he was infected, just after his daughter had died. They’re supposed to have life support for three days, but we kept him company for seven before he finally ran out of oxygen. Only then did Maria let us know the rest were sick too. They didn’t want to deny Bisa his martyrdom. I kept my distance from the rover, but I was close enough to make out the human silhouette through the cockpit bubble. The seams in my suit were red with the dust of the plains, so much finer than in the mountains. Maybe that was what carried the sickness. The hab unit was identical to ours apart from the darkness. I asked Ken to turn the lights on and it burst into life, disrespectful of what lay within. The plan was to get in, grab what we needed, switch out my tanks, and get out. The air had been purged, so the theory went that whatever had killed the others would be long dead from lack of oxygen. It was more a hope than a theory. I knew where everything was supposed to be, but a lot of the lab equipment and DNA stores had been shuffled while they looked for a cure. The DNA was the most important thing. Food, water, air, all that could be taken care of so long as we had the building blocks from the stores. After ransacking the labs I spoke up. “I’m going to head into the quarters. I’m missing one”. “Be careful honey. How are you doing?” I knew what she was really asking. “Fine so far” I checked my temperature “No symptoms” I heard Harry exhale heavily. It made me smile, he always wore his heart on his sleeve. The first few rooms were empty. There was a lot of extra space for the children that were to come. Maria was in the next one. She’d been perfectly preserved, right down to her long fingers that had played the keyboard as well as they’d held a pipette. They were the only part of her body that had been spared the blistering, she must have died just as it reached her knuckles. In her lap was the last of the DNA stores, as though she was offering a gift. I carefully moved her arm and took the last small case of samples. I felt the itching as I started the climb home. I switched my monitors off. Ken would see, I just hoped he wouldn’t tell the others. About half way up I was sweating in my suit. “Talk to me Harry. What’s Mom cooking?” “Brownies, with the last of the real chocolate.” That made me feel better, I hated her brownies. I looked uphill. I could make out the beacon through the martian haze. “I’m going to rest a while” I put the tools and stores down and started gathering rocks. I was feeling weak but it still amazed me how I could lift such big ones in this gravity. “What’s happening?” Concern in Harry’s voice. “Is everything okay?” “It’s will be, my love” I concentrated on balancing one of the rocks just right. “It’s will be”. That’s when he knew, and immediately the tears came. “I promise you I’ll never love another”. Ridiculous. He was always such a schmalz. But he also always did what I said. “You have to. One day these mountains are going to be filled with little Harrys” With that I switched off my comms for good, and studied the little cairn I had made. It could last a thousand years. I looked out and sized up a long slope that ended in a perfect little ramp. Surf’s up.
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Sep 22, 2014 12:42
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It's in the Shadows 996 words Wet. Everything was wet. No air. Ora forced herself to open her eyes to the burning salt water. She followed the bubbles. Up, please up. Forward. Her lungs were about to fold in on themselves. She burst through the surface. The storm still raged across the sea. There was a huge stone spire above her, and solid rock beneath. Water crashed in over her head. The sea pulled at her, picked her up like a toy, tossed her through the air. The beach softened her landing. Already the sea reached for her feet, as if to pull her back. She dragged herself forward. Inward. Holding on to the sand with every receding wave. Finally, she slumped against the ground, and breathed. Out there was Armageddon, water titans rising up and crashing into one another. Her ship was gone. So was her crew. She didn’t have any illusions about that. She should be dead too. The fact that she was still alive, it couldn’t have been anything but a miracle. Right then she knew that she wouldn’t die before she found Yadid. “Baruch dayan emet,” she croaked. Blessed is the True Judge. # Up the beach began a small jungle. Above the trees there was a dark rock castle against a dark sky, and below them a dirt path that led straight to it. The rain wasn’t quite as bad under the treetops, but the light was gone entirely. Yadid had once taught Ora how to improvise a torch. She still had her knife, and she cut off some dry pieces of bark, and part of her cloth. She made light. The first thing she saw in the fire was a huge pair of reptilian eyes, glaring back at her. The lizard looked almost human. It crouched out of the woodwork on two legs and reached for her with one of its scaly hands. It snarled as it edged closer, cautiously, as if assessing if she was prey or not. Its eyes were curious. Ora threw the torch and ran. The creature roared. Behind her its footsteps were those of a tiny elephant. She followed the dirt under her feet. The only direction was straight ahead and away. There was a light before her, growing stronger. “Help,” she wanted to scream. She managed a mere whimper. Yet, the footsteps behind her grew slower, unsure. Then they stopped and went a different way. Ora didn’t turn to look. The light came from a lantern, held by an old man. Despite his age he looked tall and strong in his tribal garb. There was sorrow in his furrowed brows. Shadows danced across his face, casting his backside in darkness. “What are you doing on my island?” he said. She wasn’t sure if his lips had moved, but she was exhausted. Ora collapsed in his arms. # His name was Bakuta. He had introduced himself as the castle Lord, and when Ora had told him of her lost brother and the journey she had undertaken to find him, he had offered his hospitality. She had dried up in front of his fireplace, and warmed up with a cup of herbal tea. His speciality, he had insisted. “Are you feeling better?” Bakuta said. “A little.” Bakuta remained silent. He was probably not the kind of Lord who entertained guests very often. They stared into the fire as it cast long, dancing shadows through the room. His seemed uneven around the edges. “What was that thing you saved me from?” Ora finally said. He sighed. “A terrible mistake. An experiment gone wrong.” “What is it?” “Food,” he said. “I breed lizards. There’s not much else to eat. I’ve tried to make them bigger, fatter, and, well, this is what happened.” “Must have been an odd experiment,” Ora said. She took another sip from her tea. “I dabble in alchemy. Transmutation.” “Are we safe here?” Bakuta looked into her eyes for many long seconds. “No,” he said. “Not until we catch it. And for that I need your help.” “How?” “It knows my scent. It avoids me. But you. It is drawn to you. That is how.” # Ora was alone. The jungle sounds were gone. Even the insects knew better than to stay. Something had scared them off. And she knew what it was, and she was alone. She clutched her knife as the heavy footsteps neared. The lizard left the woodwork with painfully slow movements. It stared at her from the edge of the path, head cocked to the side. Ora kept her breaths deep, deliberate. Forced her eyes open. She could hear her blood flow. The lizard stalked towards her. It held up its hands, as if making a placating gesture. Then it just stood there and stared dumbly. “What?” she finally said. “What do you want?” The lizard spread out its fingers in groups as to form spaces between them. Pinky and ring finger. Middle and index finger. Thumb. “Birkat kohanim,” Ora whispered. With its foot, the creature scribbled something in the dirt. It made room for Ora to come closer. It waited. Despite her instincts, she looked at what was written. ‘YADID’ Ora covered her mouth as not to cry. Yadid moved towards her again. Slowly, and only for a second. Then he twitched, and looked down at a dart in his chest. “Wait!” Ora cried. “This is not a monster, it’s--” “I know what this is,” Bakuta said. His face had nothing of the kindness from before. “This is prey, and I am hunter.” As Yadid sank to his knees, Ora took her knife and jumped at Bakuta. He pushed her into the dirt. As he moved past her, she saw his backside for the first time. Her heart almost stopped. Looking back at her was another Bakuta. A kinder Bakuta. “We have to eat,” he said. It sounded like an apology. “Pacify her,” the other Bakuta bellowed. The dart hit her right next to the heart. Darkness took her. ---------- Story: Mandra-Mankana, also called Bakuta-Terkana-Tarana or Kantayulkana Flash rules: Backside-impaired dude, jewish lizards
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Sep 22, 2014 12:49
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The Hatchet 640 words Five years on a desert island could do a number on an expensive tuxedo. As Frank knelt in front of the palm tree, he wore what was left of his formal wear, which amounted to a head covering he had fashioned out of his tuxedo shirt and a waistcloth he had made out of his cummerbund. With both hands, he laid a salmon in the small valley he had dug out in front of the palm tree. He had caught it with a hook fashioned from the clasp of his bow tie. The palm tree spoke to him. Hello again, it said. “Father,” Frank said to the tree. “I am ready to find my justice.” Are you sure? “Very sure.” You know what this will mean. Frank knew. He remembered the wonderful years he had spent on this island, growing stronger and more serene in nature, while the tree had looked after him, gave him fresh water to drink, called upon the stars to light his way at night, called upon the tides to lead fish onto his hook, had been the father he never had. Then he thought of his stepfather, Brice. He had thought of him less and less as the years went by, but there was always that small fragment of him irritating his mind, like a pebble stuck in his shoe that rolled out of reach every time he tried to retrieve it. Brice had put him here. Brice thought he was dead right now. The Caribbean cruise was Brice’s idea. Frank’s mother had died a year ago, leaving Brice and his rotten stepchildren as his sole connection to her, and Brice wanted them to “bury the hatchet,” as he said. Frank liked the idea, at first. He had wanted a fatherly hand on his shoulder all his life, and while he had trouble warming up to Brice, there were times when he could almost believe they could make it as a family. Then one night, well after a fancy first-class meal with cold cucumber-mint soup and king crab legs, Brice caught up to Frank on the outer deck, and placed a hand on his shoulder. And he shoved, hard, until he was falling, falling until he hit water, the last thing between Brice’s side of the family and the inheritance money. It all felt so far away now, yet so incredibly close. “I don’t want to lose you,” Frank said. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes, a last taste of saltwater. He heard and felt silence. Then the tree spoke: I will forgive you. I always have. Your destiny is out there, towards your true home. More silence. Do what you must. The stars will guide you. Frank’s shoulders slumped as he knelt there. His left hand found the hatchet at his side, the curve of sharp stone he had whetted over the last few years. Hoping, then dreading, then finally accepting this day would come. He didn’t give himself a chance to think about it, just lunged forward and swung the hatchet at the base of the tree again and again, yelping and grunting through his tears, until the tree fell over with a thud. He let his breath rush out of him, then gritted his teeth, tensing every muscle as wave after wave of sorrow passed through. As the waves calmed, he went to work. Before long, he had a respectable dugout in front, just big enough to fit him. He looked out towards the sea. It was smooth as polished glass, and the sun was setting. He had fears, of course—how do I know where to go, how will I get there, what if I drown—but he relished in them. Every man had fears. Every man except Brice. He smiled. They would bury the hatchet soon enough.
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Sep 22, 2014 12:55
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wordcount:980 story: The Mountain and the Bell The Way of the World. Rabbit flees. Dog chases. This is the way of the world. Sometimes Rabbit escapes, sometimes Dog catches and kills. This is the way of the world since the ground appeared beneath Man’s feet when he went out walking to find a place to live. Before this Rabbit and Dog had lived together, circling the endless sky. Now Dog is the Hunter Dog chases. Rabbit flees. Dog pants with the effort, pushes her body as fast as it can go. Dog can smell Rabbit fear, Rabbit flesh on Rabbit bones. Dog can smell the earth where Man walks, the grass that feeds Rabbit, and the heady scent of Rabbit burrow. Rabbit is nearly home. Dog pushes her body faster. Rabbit makes a mighty leap and flies into the burrow, into the darkness where he hides and sniffs the air. Dog pushes her head into the opening, turning it this way and that as she tries to fit her body into the slim tunnel. Rabbit is there, she can smell his scent, but her bulky body blocks any light, and she wedges herself tighter and tighter until she can no longer work her way forward. Dog tries to retreat, her body twists and writhes, her hind legs scrabble for something to push against, but she is firmly ensnared by the earthen walls. Rabbit sniffs the air in the burrow which is full of Dog. Deep within his excavated labyrinth, his family nestled close, he waits. The Dog will grow weary and bored, he thinks, and return to Man and degrade herself with obeisance to him in hope of sustenance. Rabbit builds his own home, deep within the earth. Dog shares the house of Man. This is the way of the world since Dog betrayed her brother Wolf. Wolf had told Dog the secret of hunting, and Dog had run home to Man to exchange this secret for food. Since then, Man and Dog will hunt together, but Wolf will never join them. Now Dog is the Traitor. But Dog does not leave, though Rabbit waits a long time and eventually his curiosity is too great. Rabbit still fears to approach Dog from the front, as the jaws of Dog will not release once they have got their grip. He leaves his burrow through another exit, and see the hindquarters of Dog, still scrabbling. Rabbit, who has lived surrounded by one kind of trap or another all his life, sees the situation and the opportunity it presents. “Dog,” says Rabbit. “Yes, Rabbit?” says Dog, her voice muffled from having her top half stuck in a rabbit burrow. “Why do you pursue me? Why do you hunt and betray and wheedle?” Rabbit chews the green grass. Dog gnaws rabbit bones. This is the way of the world since Dog first filed her teeth to points to fool Man into thinking someone else had eaten his harvest. Man with his cleverness saw through the deception and cursed Dog, forbidding her the fruits of the harvest and forcing Dog to scavenge and beg for scraps from Man’s table. Now Dog is the lick-spittle of Man. “This is the way of the world, Rabbit. I should not have to tell you that. We make our choices, and we choose our sides.” “And if I could convince you otherwise? If I could show you that there are other ways, would you listen?” Dog thinks for a moment. She knows she is trapped, and that Rabbit had family in other burrows all over the grasses and that between them they could take her down. “I will listen, Rabbit, if, having listened, you will free me.” And so a deal was struck. Rabbit returns to his warren and introduces Dog to his family, one by one, making sure to stay well clear of Dog’s jaws. He introduces them by name, and tells Dog of their strengths and their fears and their accomplishments. Rabbit wonders if Dog knew them as more than just rabbit flesh on rabbit bones, she might not be the Hunter. Next Rabbit tells of how he has seen Man and Dog together, how he has watched Man curse Dog, and beat her and starved her into submission. Rabbit thinks that if only Dog realises how cruel her master is, she might not be be Traitor to her animal kin. Finally Rabbit points out how warm the burrow is, how it provides for the needs of his entire family and more. He tells of how the grasses grow everywhere in an endless harvest, providing more food than an army of animals could ever eat. He supposes that Dog might see she need not be the lick-spittle of Man. When he finishes, true to his word, Rabbit digs around the entrance to his burrow, just enough that Dog can begin to wriggle her way free. By the time her head pops out, Rabbit has returned to his home, and Dog makes her way back to Man with her tail between her legs. She arrives at Man’s wooden hut, where she barks and howls. Man curses her for a lazy good-for-nothing cur and gives her a kick, but she barks some more until he follows her. She runs straight back to Rabbit’s burrow and sits, panting excitedly. Man sees the burrow and thinks of delicious rabbit stew. He uses his cleverness to build fire and tries to smoke Rabbit out. But Rabbit has already gone, moved his family to another burrow in another place. By evening, Man is cold, tired, hungry and angry. Dog stays away from him to avoid the stones he throws. Dog is Hunter, Dog is Traitor, Dog is the lick-spittle of Man. This is the way of the world. Rabbit watches them leave from a nearby hillside. Dog sniffs the night air, scents rabbit flesh on rabbit bones. Man calls her to him, and she follows Man home.
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Sep 22, 2014 13:44
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Baby Shoes, Worn Once (895 Words) Inside the factory the sky rained burning sparks. The metal stairs were stained black, Casey's steps were slow and ponderous. As he ascended, intermittent flashes lit his way between bouts of total darkness that made his path invisible. The people that passed him didn't regard him. He punched out in silence. Outside the darkness was more lively, stretched between looming fluorescent stars and dancing between the headlights of the endless traffic. He took the long way home. Alice would be drunk by now, or with any luck passed out in Henry's room. Her feet hanging off the edge of the tiny blue race-car bed, or perhaps curled up as if she could hold the memory of him in her arms. The image in his mind changed from day to day, though it was always peaceful. She had made his hell her haven, he never tried to disturb her there. He passed the house a few times before heading in. The living room light was on, and on the first pass he could see a looming shadow stood straight over a trembling silhouette that rocked back and forth the way Alice did when she drank too much. After the fourth pass, he pulled into the driveway. Alice was prostrate on the couch. He would have let her be, but she called to him as he entered. "I gave it away." She said into the cushion. "Gave what away?" "All of it. To the church." She didn't look at him. "It wasn't yours to give." He said. "Other kids can-" He slammed the door as he left, throwing himself back into his car. He drove for an hour or so with no destination. He wanted to find whatever church had taken Henry's things, find whatever priest had convinced her to throw away what they had left and finally express just how he felt inside. The bar was an easier option. The dive was filled to bursting, with a a couple dozen people, each one alone. They drank and avoided each others eyes. After a few pints of bitter, someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Casey?" The voice asked. "Hey man." Casey turned and saw Gerry. It took a moment to recognize him, his head was bare and his skin pale. "I heard what happened." Gerry said. "I'm sorry." "You didn't do it." Casey replied, turning back to stare into the mirror behind the bar. Gerry shifted in his seat. "I know we haven't seen each other in a while... But you know, if you want to talk-" Casey stood up and left. At first he had avoided Gerry because he couldn't stand the idea of seeing the cancer take him, but now he wanted nothing more than for Gerry to be another memory. He wished it in that moment, that the cancer had taken him sooner, and the anger inside him boiled as he stormed off. On his way out he pushed past a gang of sullen youths as drunk as he was. He shoved out at one, pushing him aside. "You lookin' for a fight mate?" One had called. "The gently caress do you think, you twat?" Casey answered. He woke up as the sun was rising, either him or the narrow side-street he was on reeked of piss. Running his hand over his face he felt the dry stickiness of his own blood clinging to his skin, and tore it off. In those waking moments, he believed Henry was waiting for him at home. As the world returned, nothing really changed. He was still sore, drunk, and lying in the filth of a slum, with an image in his head of a bright young reflection of himself. Only now the image was all there was, and all that could ever be. He stumbled around until he found his bearings again. He had wound up outside of Henry's old school, near the back-gate where he and Alice had decided to get re-married, if only for Henry's sake. A cleaner stepped out, Casey recognised him. "Hey mate, you need to go." The cleaner said. "The kids will be coming in soon." Casey nodded. Alice was still asleep on the couch when he returned. The window framed her like the central piece of some exhibit. He had seen her that way before, when they had both been younger and less hateful. She was finally out of Henry's room. He couldn't go inside, he had no kindness left for her. He felt his pockets. His keys, wallet and phone were still with him. He posted the keys through the letterbox. Walking to the corner, he sat alone on the curb and dialled a half-remembered number. "Hello?" "Hi Gerry... I'm sorry about last night..." "It's okay." "Can we talk? Not on the phone I mean-" "Of course we can." "Thanks man... I'm sorry." "It's alright, you still at yours?" "Yeah, I'll wait on the corner for you." "Alright." He twisted his wedding ring idly as he waited. As he saw Gerry pulling up, he waved his hand and stumbled back to his front door. He pushed his wedding ring through the slot, the last gift he had left to give. He found his feet a little better as he walked to the car. Gerry smiled, and opened the door for him.
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Sep 22, 2014 13:44
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Kantjil and Harimou Based on MOUSE DEER AND TIGER from Indonesia 983 words The penthouse apartment was dark and still. Outside the windows, far below, Jakarta thrashed and moaned in her sleep. Harimau, tall and broad, a shock of bleached hair cresting his head, slunk barefoot across the thick carpet and slipped between patches of deeper shadow. “It’s futile, you know,” said a familiar voice. The lights came on in a cresting wave. “Kantjil. You should show yourself.” Harimau abandoned the pretence of stealth and folded his arms. His voice was thick and muffled, the tip of his tongue a plateau of scar tissue. “Now why would I do that?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing strangely. “Still the coward, Kantjil?” “It’s served me well enough, wouldn’t you say? Rojo is dead, but his preman are loyal to me and the generals eat out of my hand.” “And what did Rojo die of, another of your tricks?” “Still bitter, Harimau? Your greed tricked you more than I ever did.” Harimau looked down at the scars snake venom had left on his arm. “I’ve learned a lot since then. No tricks this time. Rojo named me his heir. We both know this.” “Justice? Or just revenge? Oh Harimau, you always were such an idiot. And now you challenge me here, on my own turf. You amaze me.” “Come out, coward.” Harimau said, fists clenched. “Now why would I do that?” Kantjil’s voice trailed off into laughter. Tick, came a faint wooden sound, then black ink drowned Harimau’s vision. Harimau froze, took one step backwards, waved his hands and the ink became ash that blew away from his sight in heavy flakes. “Your illusions can’t hurt me any more, Kantjil,” he said. “Show yourself.” “My, my, you have learned a little.” Tick. The room became a furnace, flames licking at every surface. Tick. Harimau felt the floor beneath him buckle and heard the hiss of the flames, but forced his feet to immobility. From his pocket he pulled a knotted lump of bamboo and cast it to the floor, at which the flames subsided and the room returned to normal. Standing against the far wall, now, was a short man, his face round and cheery amidst his opulent clothes, rings adorning every finger. He was smiling and holding a rosary of carved wooden beads. He counted one off, passing it from hand to hand with the faintest tick, and steel bars appears around Harimau. “Tricks, Kantjil, just tricks.” Harimau took a step forward, then another, the bars shattering into dust as he passed through them. “I am wise to your tricks.” He reached for the back of his belt, cast his hand towards Kantjil. A spitting, crackling spear of fire flew across the room, but Kantjil just laughed. Tick, and the spear burst through Kantjil’s body, fire and man both dissipating into dust. The dagger hidden inside the flames sailed through and stuck in the wall behind, quivering. Kantjil reappeared, standing six feet to the side. “Clever, but never clever enough. So it will always be.” Harimau drew another dagger and took another step forward. “And what have you got, little man? How will all your clever tricks harm me, when I am wise to your ways? I will not eat dung you have disguised as food, nor pick up snakes you make to be belts. You cannot hurt me.” Kantjil smiled, his teeth small and sharp. “Oh Harimau, you learn a little trick and think you know them all. Come then, show me your wisdom.” Tick, and a dozen images of Kantjil appeared around the room, each laughing in perfect synchronisation. “Well?” they asked in unison. Harimau growled and charged the closest image, knife before him. The laughter only grew louder, stinging his ears, flushing his vision red until, abruptly, the floor before him was no longer there. He fell, tumbled a dozen feet before he landed on rough concrete. The knife clattered to a stop beside him, useless. He pawed at the sheer concrete walls of the pit for a while, failed to gain any purchase even with his knife. Eventually a single Kantjil peered over the lip, smiling the broad smile of a victor. “It is not the illusion that harms, Harimau, but what it conceals. Even if it is concealing nothing at all!” he said, and laughed at his joke. “I said you were a fool, to challenge me here, on my own ground, with all my traps to hand. What will your new little tricks do to help you now?” Harimau said nothing, but growled deep in his throat. He took a handful of grasses from a pouch on his belt that twisted and danced in the warmth of his palm before he ate them, staring up at Kantjil in silence as he swallowed. There was a shimmer, like heat on sand, and where Harimau had stood was a tiger. “How touching, Harimau the Tiger. Should perhaps I send a mouse-deer down to play with you, hmm?” Tick, and a fat little mouse-deer skittered and bounded down the sides of the concrete pit. It danced around the floor mockingly. Scrape, went the tiger’s claws, through the illusion and into the floor behind. The mouse-deer vanished into dust, but the scratches on the floor remained. “It was not just illusion I learned, Kantjil the Mouse-deer,” said the tiger with Harimau’s voice. Scrape, and the tiger was half-way up the pit, claws finding purchase on the concrete. Scrape, and it was out of the pit. Scrape through the plush carpet and on the floor beneath and it was standing over Kantjil’s fallen body, its breath hot and rank on his face, claws piercing skin. Tick, and a thousand flashing lights assaulted the tiger’s vision. Drums beat in his ears, fire clawed at his fur. Harimou closed his eyes. Scrape, went his teeth as they tore through skin and flesh and bone, and then there was only silence.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:32
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What Is Deserved based on The Babracote and the Camudi 997 Words I’ll kill him, I swear to God. My oldest daughter, Sarah, went on a camping trip last weekend with her rotten boyfriend, Spencer. I’ve texted, called, emailed her and I haven’t heard anything back. Her boyfriend won’t answer me, either. The authorities are giving the Missing Persons Report their “best effort.” I can’t sit around while this creep is out enjoying himself, so I’m on my way to his place now. He’ll pay for killing my baby. I demanded that Sarah not go camping with her newest boyfriend--five years older than her seventeen—but Sarah didn’t listen, of course. She was too enamored with him. Most of the girls throughout Carson County considered him a bad boy and a heartthrob. Surely every girl that went out with him had to have heard the rumors about Spencer getting rough with his girlfriends. Presently, I’m walking up Spencer’s driveway. His Corvette’s not here but I rap on the door, just in case. Nothing. Good. My hand gently tests the doorknob and soon I’m in his home. Briefly, I wonder if I was lucky today or if he just never locks up. I take a survey of his home. Calm, sunlit, and surprisingly clean. That day, last week, Sarah had run down the driveway to Spencer’s car. “Sarah! If you leave now, don’t plan on ever coming back!” No kiss goodbye. No “Bye, Mom.” No “I’ll call you when I get there, Mom.” Just down the driveway, in the Corvette, and gone. I’d turned to my youngest for support. “Don’t look at me, Mom.” She wore an expression that implied I was an idiot. “I’d be out the door and in his pants in an instant if that was me.” “Alana! Will you please support me for once?” “You always have to control us. Just give her a break!” I called after Alana but she had already made her way up the stairs to gloat in her room. Strong as I am, times like these are when I most long for the girls’ father. Since he passed, the girls seem to give me no respect at all. Goddamned Spencer. In the past week that I haven’t seen my daughter, I’ve seen him around town with at least three different girls. The rifle makes a strong thump as I rest it against the wall of his foyer. They’re rebellious now, but I remember when my girls were both so innocent. Their father and I would have so much fun with the girls as we made Rube Goldberg machines throughout the house. Every Saturday morning they would wake us both up early and beg to make a “Rude Gold Bird machine.” Their father would set up all sorts of complicated chain-reactions of everyday objects and the girls’ favorite toys. Sarah’s favorite way to set the machines in motion was a phone call to her dad’s phone. The phone would vibrate and knock a plastic doll off of the coffee table, the doll would land on one end of a ruler, which in turn would lurch a toy car into motion along a plastic track, the car would trigger a set of intricately placed dominoes, and so on until the TV remote was hit by a well-placed marble just in time to start the girls’ favorite Saturday morning cartoon show. Now I take out the metal bracings, grab a handful of screws, and ready my electric drill. Carefully planning things out. Measure twice, cut once, I hear my husband say as I erect the supports for the loaded rifle. Two weeks ago, I saw bruises on Sarah’s arms as she came out of the bathroom after a shower. When I confronted her she refused to talk about them and her eyes filled with tears faster than she could shut the bedroom door on me. Her boyfriend had the reputation around town of being too rough on his girlfriends. Sarah swore to me that the bruises weren’t from him. It was only a matter of time, I told her, until he took it too far. Now I’m wishing she took my advice. Standing in Spencer’s foyer, I secure a rope around the doorknob of the front door and loop it around the trigger of the rifle. I leave out the sliding-glass door, through the porch, and exit out the wooden fence, leaving the house behind me. I see no witnesses in this quiet neighborhood. *** Sitting in my car, I’m getting anxious. I’m parked down the street from Spencer’s house, waiting for him to come home, walk in, and get what he deserves for abusing my girl and leaving her out in the woods to rot. Finally, I hear the muffler from miles away. In a few moments Spencer’s red Corvette rolls past me and lurches to a stop in front of his home. I’m high on anticipation as I wait for Spencer to get out, walk up to his house, and take a shot to the stomach. A painful, slow death, and fully deserved death. He doesn’t immediately get out and I start to worry. Just before I work up the nerve to take a cautious drive around the block to see what Spencer’s up to, I see motion from the car. The passenger door opens and Alana, my youngest daughter, is walking up to Spencer’s house. I get out of my car as quickly as I can and run up to Alana, but I’m not fast enough. I call after her but she doesn’t hear me. Alana opens the door and I hear the terrible, unmistakable noise and my heart breaks. I resist the urge to crumble to the asphalt. As I reach her she’s bleeding on his doorstep. I kneel and then scoop Alana up into my arms. She looks up at me, glossy-eyed, “Mommy?” “I’m here for you baby.” As I’m rocking her, Spencer’s corvette speeds down the road and around the corner, out of sight.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:49
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[EDIT: removed for publishing reasons]
SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 15:00
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Time's up. Judgement will occur at some point today probably.
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Sep 22, 2014 15:04
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competition looks good this week yall, may the loudest work of word flatulence win
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Sep 22, 2014 18:44
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Mercedes posted:
THE SHIIIIIIIIIIIT Mercedes fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 21:54
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THE AWESOME MERCEDES "BITCH STOLE MY -BLANK-" CHALLENGE
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Meh very late cause I'm a failure but submitting anyways. Leaving it all behind: [Words: 687] Based on Ginas and the Rajah Ginas felt ill for the first time in his life. His limbs trembled with trepidation as he reached for the walls of the giant sand castle that was the only home he knew. He felt his fingers bury themselves in the walls of the giant edifice as he raked out gashes that gushed out with billowing sand. The castle crooned softly, a calming melody joined by his mother the queen who looked serenely down at him from a balcony of stars. The sand twisted into shapes, the gemstone eyed roc of the stories his father had told him to get to sleep, the form of the dancing dolphin that swept the ocean away with its tail, the face of the pig who slept its life away. The stories his father told him while he instructed his son on the ways of the world, the great economic balance that ruled it and the duties that maintained it. Ginas felt a great heat in his cheeks, and his vision blurred as he pulled the sand from the wall. It came out as a string, unraveling rapidly. The castle went with a bow and a proud flourish, as it let itself become undone, dissipating into mist. The ever clear blue of the sky shined on, birds chirping perfectly just out of sight. “All done?”, his father, the Rajah, walked up from behind and slapped him on the shoulder. Ginas balled his hands into fists at his sides. “You grew up so fast”, the Rajah said as he hugged Ginas with all his might. “I wish you would have stayed with us a little bit longer, but I understand”. Ginas looked down, he couldn’t meet the Rajah’s eyes. “Nothing wrong with fulfilling one’s duty, son”. Ginas watched as the folds of his father’s magnificent robes turned yellow, breaking away into sand. He heard the words I love you and Ginas watched as the sand rolled itself into the ocean, leaving nothing but the water behind. Ginas snarled and leapt on the ocean, tearing it away with his bare hands all the way down to the rock below. He took the crust of the world and snapped it on his knee and everything was undone. His world now black. He awoke for the first time in the dark covered in wires. The equipment that scanned him, beeped energetically. Ginas stretched his new limbs. His hands looked as if they had been painstakingly chiseled from soft stone but he found that they worked much like the ones he had before. He pulled the wires out and edged the lid of his container open. The room was dark but he could see as if it were light. His royal clothing, a crisp suit lined with gold awaited him. He put it on. The staircase crooned happily at his approach, lighting his steps as he left looking back all the while at where he had slept all this time. His real mother was reading a tablet when he entered the room, she glanced at him with the corner of her eye. “Oh, you’re finally up”, she said. “Yes”, Ginas said. “Took you long enough”, she returned to reading her tablet. Ginas, felt his legs carrying him out of the house and to a car. He knew it even though he had never seen one before. It drove him to work. The man at the door let him in with a sir and a nod. His real father met him in front of the elevator who looked at him top to bottom. “Acceptable. Let’s get you to your office.” His father, the CEO said. It took Ginas six months to completely take over the company. It had been swift, effortless. His father took his severance and left. Seated in his office overlooking the sprawl he watched the going-ons distantly below. Cars weaving in out between dusk gray pillars. The pale yellow of florescent lights effusing through the streets. His grand inheritance was vast, and he should not have want for anything else. He thought this as he stared out the window into the starless black sky.
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Sep 23, 2014 00:18
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Mercedes posted:THE SHIIIIIIIIIIIT I'm almost done with mine! No excuses, but life has been throwing a lot at me all of a sudden, both good and bad, but have required time to deal with. I thought about dropping out but then I realised that's not my way. With that said your prompt managed to inspire in me some ideas I'm fond of, and there are some bits in this story I'm quite happy with for what it is. Now I'm just sort of slotting it all together.
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Sep 23, 2014 00:18
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i think crabrock would want me to quote this for him
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Sep 23, 2014 02:38
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:you can fite a war w/ words and not weapons.... food 4 thought thanks buddy i have returned the favor
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Sep 23, 2014 02:41
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fiber waits for no man
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Sep 23, 2014 02:50
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 SEBMOJO BRAWL NOW if Surreptitious "CAN I HAVE AN EXTENSION" Muffin is standing around waiting for you to finish, you know you've taken way too long.
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Sep 23, 2014 04:00
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Sitting Here posted:
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Sep 23, 2014 04:13
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 04:21 |
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Benny the Snake posted:My name is Todd Templeton, age 43. My profession is professional gambler Benny the Snake posted:Outside my office is the following written in neat typeface lettering: Benny the Snake posted:My name is Jordan and I was here to try to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. Benny the Snake posted:My name is Rosa Flores. Officially I’m a private investigator Benny the Snake posted:My name is Alice , and I’m the new bartender in-training Benny the Snake posted:He's a working man--an independent contractor, like myself. "Welcome," I say and gesture towards the chair in front of me. "Rosa Flores," I say. JESUS CHRIST STOP STARTING YOUR STORY WITH THE NAME OF THE PERSON AND THEIR PROFESSION. I HAVE YELLED AT YOU FOR THIS BEFORE. GOD OVER DJINN HAS YELLED AT YOU FOR THIS BEFORE. EVERY TIME YOU DO THIS IRC COLLECTIVELY FACEPALMS AND QUESTIONS WHETHER YOU'RE A REAL PERSON OR JUST A TROLL, BECAUSE YOU KEEP REPEATING THE SAME MISTAKES. your earlier stories started with half-way decent hooks. I don't know why you've abandoned that for these routine, boring, stupid intros. BUT STOP
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Sep 23, 2014 04:22
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