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In. Please give me a song, thanks.
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Mar 6, 2015 02:34
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Schneider Heim posted:In. Please give me a song, thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_4IjyX8lJo Twisting
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Mar 6, 2015 04:24
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I forgot to  myself for this week, so here I am ing myself.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:41
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i'm pregaming to judge these stories. going to stay drunk til sunday 
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Mar 6, 2015 04:48
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crabrock posted:i'm pregaming to judge these stories. Can crabrock get drunk enough to slur his typing? Find out this Sunday!
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Mar 6, 2015 05:15
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Edited out linecrit for thread closure
Profane Accessory fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 06:49
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Benny Profane posted:Linecrit for newtestleper's God Week Entry Thank you so much!
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Mar 6, 2015 07:38
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My remaining crits for Crossroads Week The Hunt - starr I enjoyed this more than the other judges this week did, but I can't really say they were wrong. There's something dissatisfying about the ending, though I think you're close to making it all work. It takes way too long for what I assume to be a fairy queen of some description to show up. The imagery you use in describing the forest at first is good in its own right, and would be a fine way of opening a longer work, but I don't think it supports the story you're trying to tell, not at this length. I think that, in order for Alana's failure to be meaningful, there needs to be much more time devoted to her struggle. You present her as a generally strong person up to the end, and the contrast between that and her fate should be the centerpiece of this story. As it is, she tries to escape, fails, tries to fight back, fails, and it's all done with before we even have a chance to see that it's happening. But Wait, There's More - newtestleper A video game forum I used to frequent would sometimes categorize games as "friendly mutts". These were games that may not have objectively had a lot to recommend them, that may have even had some glaring flaws, but that you couldn't help but like anyway. This story was, for me, this week's friendly mutt. I think there's room for improvement, but I enjoyed reading it a lot. I think, in particular, you do a pretty good job of sketching out who Chet is and what he values. His decision at the end feels like it's in character. It does, however, hit just a little flat, and I think that's because it's a little too obvious what he's going to do. Even given that, as I read it, he didn't intend to turn them down until he was actually there, there was never any doubt in my mind that he would, and thus no tension as I read the thing. There are two ways I think you could go with this. First, you could make it a genuine internal struggle. He's turning down a lot of money and I think it would be more meaningful if we saw him at least think about taking it. You do a good job of showing us what he'd be giving up if he took the deal, show us what he's giving up by not doing so. Second, you could play up the contrast between what people expect of him (to take the money) and what he wants to do a bit more. Show us his buyers trying to convince him to take the deal. An Interrupted Meal - Megazver There's always a tension, when establishing an unusual or fantastic setting, between overwhelming your readers with useless, worthless detail and just completely leaving them confused and in the dark. Worldbuilding is a dance between these two extremes, and you just sort of lumbered onto the floor like an exposition elephant. You could cut out your first two paragraphs entirely, and not one detail that is relevant to your story would be lost. Your story's set in a bar/hotel between worlds. Maybe just tell us that. Or don't. Starting from your third paragraph tells me that you've got a detective protagonist in a place where ghosts and demons are commonplace, which is fair enough and perfectly clear. The world-hopping stuff turns out to be completely irrelevant to the narrative. You've got some pretty good turns of phrase, but your plot is formulaic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing; you can do all kinds of interesting things with a formulaic plot. However, your protagonist feels like he came off some sort of noir assembly line and none of your characters are especially interesting either. And when one's a headless ghost (who turns out to be a literal femme fatale) and one's a demon, that's a real problem. Friends Forever - LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE There are so many ways you could have hosed a story like this up, and I'm pleased to see that you've avoided them. For a story featuring someone basically enduring all the worst possible things about living forever, you've managed to avoid the crass cynicism that usually comes with the territory, and the resulting work is actually quite sweet as a result. The only real complaint I have is that the characterization is shallow. There are some stories for which that would be a major major complaint. Here, it's just something I wish were a little better. Yuna's something of a cipher. She's someone to whom things happen, but I don't really get much of a sense of who she is as a result. Your depiction of her immortality, and the implications it has for her, is engaging, but it would be more powerful if I had some kind of insight into her as a result. God's motivation for doing this is simple and easy to relate to. Though for someone who wanted a friend, God is pretty standoffish, only checking in with her pretty rarely. There are reasons this can work, but again, I'd love more insight into God's character here. Dark Thoughts - Fuschia Tude I quite like "2-bit ex-cop in an 8-bit world" as a turn of phrase, even if it doesn't really fit in with anything. So. Detective interviews and then shoots (!) sofa dude. There are no consequences for either action. Detective gets stopped by Mysterious Stranger and handed the keys to the plot for no adequately explored reason. Detective defeats unknown baddie with unknown motives who tries to trap him via unknown means which don't work on him for unknown reasons. I'm sure this all makes sense somehow inside your head. I can't say that it makes much sense to me at all. I really don't like dismissing ideas as inappropriate for flash fiction, but I think that, given how essential the idea of selfers is to your story, it really needs a larger work in which to be established more naturally and meaningfully. As it is, your first scene is probably necessary to give us an idea of what selfers are (though I can't say I really get it), but spending that much time on an ultimately-irrelevant interlude is poison to a work of this size. That's really the problem with this entire story, though; it consists of unconnected set pieces that have nothing to support them. The hints of a larger world are great, I love that sort of thing. But your basic elements just aren't there. Sofa dude doesn't have anything to do with your story, and the encounter tells us almost nothing about Generic Noir Protagonist #45368, so why did we just waste all of this time? The informant (who is apparently an agent of the selfers or something?) comes out of nowhere and disappears just as swiftly. Why did this happen? Why should I care? And then there's your ending. No context, no reason for the murders, just a deathtrap that fails and a bit of violence and a wish I was reading something that respected my time and my intelligence. Good Luck In All Your Future Endeavors - leekster You've got a solid premise here. You present a dilemma for your protagonist that makes sense, that's worth looking at further...and then you do nothing much with it. Your awkward, overcomplicated prose is probably the reason you lost, but that's relatively easy to fix. My problem is that you haven't given me any reason to care about any of this. The obvious choice would be to have Philip try to escape his impending assassination, but I don't think that's necessary here, and I don't think it would be appropriate to what you seem to be trying to do. Philip's acceptance of his 'retirement' can absolutely be a feature of a compelling story, but it needed something more. Maybe giving some space for his encounter with the woman at the bar would have done it. Maybe just give him something to do, or something to avoid doing because he figures he'll be dead shortly, maybe even just show us (rather than tell us about) the aftermath of his last mission. Or give him a more complex internal monologue. The Path from Pitios - A Classy Ghost You've got a good, clear writing style here. I liked the detail that Sevlin found the color-changing leaves to be unusual, but I didn't like that this unusual detail never became significant. Was it associated with Cidra's magic? Do they not have autumn in Pitios? Cidra herself is a massive cipher. Why was she attacking or abducting travelers? What was she hoping to accomplish? I don't necessarily need a massive explanation, but anything would do. Also, if Sevlin could kill her so readily when she was in the middle of working her magic, it's kind of hard to buy her as a threat. You're about 75% of the way to a good little fantasy piece, though. Hippodermic Oath - Quidnose The thing about writing a humorous story is that you still need to write a story. You need to have all of the elements of a good story and it also has to be funny. This is kind of funny, though encounters with unfeeling bureaucracy are a well-trod path, and you don't quite have anything that elevates it from thirty other 'the receptionist didn't give a poo poo about me' stories. Dude is sick, intake nurse is being the absolute minimum amount of help, neither of them are characterized much beyond 'newspaper humor column anecdote' level, and nothing much really happens. I quite like some of your imagery, and him presenting a frozen yogurt rewards card as proof of insurance genuinely made me smile, but most of the humor feels forced, and the genuinely funny moments get lost in the churn. Hitching Home - SadisTech I think I liked this better than the other judges, but it's rather slight for my tastes. You do a good job of revealing what's going on over the course of the story, though you could have gotten to the point a little quicker. I think the biggest problem here is that there's no real conflict. Carl is presented with his the opportunity to participate in his recovery from Alzheimer's or whatever, to determine what sort of person he'd like to be, but there's no real sense of what that entails, what decisions he faces, what's in store for him at all. I think you get closest with his "I want to be someone who rolls with the punches" moment, but that doesn't go nearly far enough. Still, I like the way you write, and you've got an interesting premise. With some work, you could turn this into something worthwhile. Leading Projecting Developing Managing - Capntastic I suppose I just don't get why Gregory is so upset at, broadly, having succeeded in his work. Or rather, i don't get why the company he's been sabotaging being bought out by his real employer constitutes a failure for him, much less the sort of betrayal he's reacting to. I also don't really get why I should care about any of this. Gregory's too cool to have recognizable character traits, I guess. Without any sense of who he is, other than a super-cool guy who blundered into a major corporation and had them eating out of his palm within the week, his anger doesn't matter, his decision to resign doesn't matter, none of this matters. I think there's a story here to be told, but you haven't told it. Providence - Benny the Snake You're goddamn lucky that "forgive me my lord, but I confused" doesn't seem to have become a catchphrase for you on the level of Rosa Flores jokes. This reads like every single myth in which a proud mortal is humbled in an encounter with a god ever. I don't know if there's a specific myth you're retelling, but you're not exactly straying far afield from about thirty of them, and you're not really bringing anything new to the table. The warning against hubris at the end and how Thessalos avoids (or doesn't avoid it), or the question of whether being handed divine cheat codes will really be fulfilling to someone who loves the act of competition itself both feel more compelling than the story you've actually told. City of Delirium - sebmojo I feel like I'm drowning in your first sentence, and not in a good way. I think it would be more effective as a couple of simpler, sharper sentences. Even so, you're as good as ever at atmosphere, and your word choices made this a delight to read. "The caravans from were" saddened me. I think the twist at the end just about works, though I'm still not entirely clear on what actually happened even after a few reads. I think it would hit harder if we knew why he was so hell-bent on killing his father, and why his presumed hallucinations were taking the form of seeing his father everywhere. I can make a few guesses, but there aren't quite enough clues in the story to lead me there naturally. As well, ending on the Caliph passing sentence without a direct reaction from Mai feels a little abrupt. I think that's the key to what I find lacking in this otherwise fine story; I want more of Mai, more of a sense of who he is and why he's doing what he's doing. Until We Meet Again - Grizzled Patriarch I don't have a lot to say here. I liked this a lot, but I think it needs one more scene, or maybe a rewrite of your final scene. The time skips work, but your ending feels abrupt, and I don't think that's what you were going for. As well, maybe introduce Gerda a little earlier, tease out her significance to him a little more by dropping in little details into his thoughts as you're establishing him with the colonel. The Wizard - crabrock Not gonna do a whole line-crit of this but I think your first sentence would be stronger if you ended it at "every choice I've made in life". Likewise: "...for I have not showered in many months. The bathhouses don't extend charity." invests me in the narration a little more without the extra words, because I have to think just a little more to work out the connection between the two thoughts, and what they mean for your protagonist. I love your premise here, and I really like the contrasting motivations that lead your protagonist to do something ridiculous. Both the old man and the centurion feel like real people, if not especially complicated people, and even if the actual story is, broadly, an E/N thread recast as historical fiction, it works because of that.
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Mar 6, 2015 20:32
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Bennycrit for Contagionist's Week 133 entry: quote:The Order in Silver
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Mar 7, 2015 00:52
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Alright y'all, I am going to a party so I won't be here to officially close registration or to assign any more songs tonight. Registration closes when I said it would. If you still want me to assign a song, just know in advance that I won't get around to it until tomorrow, possibly afternoon. You can take your chances with Sebmojo or Crabrock coming around earlier if you want. DocKloc Out.
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Mar 7, 2015 06:46
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 i finished early so i could play video games guilt free this weekend Burst 998 Words First came the itch. Then the bumps. Then the anxiety. Over the counter creams were suggested. A steroid shot was given. Various kinds of mites were ruled out. Stronger creams were prescribed. More tests were run. Amber sank deeper into warm water and essential oils. The Condo--she and Mark hadn’t decided which condo was The Condo, but they’d whittled it down to three--was a distant, nattering obligation. As soon as she stepped out of the wet bathwater cocoon, she would start to itch. The itch would mute everything non-itchy in the world. Mark stuck his head through the bathroom door. “I thought you were getting ready? We said we’d be there at two sharp. We can’t let anyone outbid us on this one, babe.” Amber pulled her knees up to her chest. “Yeah, I’m just finishing up.” Mark looked around the bathroom, which was colorful and busy with books and empty juice bottles and stale teacups. “I suppose we ought to move the T.V. in here next?” he said. “Does this condo have a big tub?” “I dunno, you’re the one with the head for details. All I see is value and location, and this has both. It’s a place we could start a family. Look, if you hate it, we’ll sell it the second we can turn a profit. Deal?” “I’m going to make sure it has a big, deep tub. I’m not moving into one of those shower-only places.” Amber closed her eyes, tilted her head back against the tiled wall until Mark left. The bathwater was tepid, but the cold air outside her cocoon was misery. She dried herself gingerly, not raising her arms too high or bending her knees too much. Everywhere the towel touched, a patch of angry red bumps appeared, like lipstick left by a kiss. Then came the creams. One for the body, one for the face. Then four ibuprofen washed down with white wine. Hydrocortisone for the really inflamed patches. She slathered concealer on her face like she hadn’t done since her days of battling acne. Finally, the woman in the mirror resembled someone who could go look at a condo, and possibly even have a convincing opinion of it. The housing development was called Liberty. A four foot replica of the Statue of Liberty topped a fountain at the entrance. There were divots in her green skin where the paint had chipped off and been painted over again. Sheryl, the realtor, met them in the parking lot. There were handshakes and pleasantries. Amber focused very hard on not scratching the itch. The complex was a sprawling one, all one storey units with fenced patios. There was the cat urine odor of boxwood bushes, which were everywhere. Amber tried not to scratch, but there went her hand, scratch-scratch-scratching at her neck. Mark put his arm around Amber and said, “I can’t tell you how excited we were when you said you’d fit us in today,” to Sheryl. Amber clasped her hands together in front of her and made a clenched, toothy smile. “I enjoy working with decisive people,” Sheryl said as she let them into the condo. The walls were clean and white. Plastic sheets formed a crinkly path across the carpet, which was unstained beige. There was a kitchen. There was a living room. There was a master bedroom. There was the itch. Amber went straight to the master bathroom, and slumped against the doorway. The shower was ultra-modern, all frosted glass and fake stonework. There were two showerheads, both detachable. There wasn’t even a lip to catch the water; the whole floor sloped gently toward a stainless steel drain in the center of the shower. “The fittings are all new,” Sheryl was saying to Mark. Amber shoved past her husband and realtor, ran to the hallway bathroom, and groaned. The tub was short and shallow. She heard Mark mutter, “Allergies.” Sheryl appeared at Amber’s shoulder. “Ah, the guest bathroom. Or family bath…? The office could easily be a second bedroom.” “We’re thinking it’ll be a temporary office. But I hear the school district here is excellent,” Mark said. There was a sort of eyebrow waggle in his voice. Amber stepped backward into the hallway. She was sure her skin was swelling and boiling right off her meat. She was sure she could flay herself alive in that moment, given the proper tools. The itch was a roar. The roar said, run. “Can we get you some water, sweetie?” Sheryl said. Her voice sent fresh needles down Amber’s back. “You can’t outrun your skin,” Amber whispered, and her body burst into a cloud of ribbons like confetti. Mark made a wordless sound. Sheryl’s mouth was a big, coral-colored “O”. Amber’s bits fell like feathers to the floor and settled in a modest pile. Amber was six feet up and climbing. Somewhere high above, four winds called her name. She giggled. The itch hadn’t been an itch at all, but an invitation. Mark and Sheryl were way below her, locked in a roofless floorplan like two tiny grubs in a cocoon. They stared at the shreds of skin on the floor. Up Amber went, until she could see all of Liberty. The parking lot was an inland sea hedged by boxwood bushes. The town around it was an inscrutable map of grey polygons, all anonymous roofs and concrete covered in lines like warpaint. The winds called out destinations like merchants hawking their wares. Amber laughed as they buffeted and tugged her. To the North Pole! No, the Himalayas! Dance between the stones of Stonehenge! Feel the sunbaked heat atop Uluru! Amber let each wind have its chance to persuade her. She danced with North, South, East and West, played coy at each offer as they twirled between cumulonumbus clouds. There was all the world to see. There was all the time to see it in. Far below, a confused coroner swept a useless pile of skin into a dustpan.
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Mar 7, 2015 11:37
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Boat Of Car By: They Might Be Giants Year: 1986 "Daddy'll sing bass" "Daddy'll sing bass" "Daddy'll sing bass" "Daddy'll sing bass" I took my boat for a car I took that car for a ride I was trying to get somewhere But now I'm following The traces of your fingernails That run along the windshield On the boat of car "Daddy'll sing bass" Traces of your fingernails That run along the windshield On the boat of car On the boat of car On the boat of car On the boat of car --- Bait Words: 998 So this goggle eyed prick is staring at me and waiting for my answer, and all I'm thinking about is the golf ball looks like it's stuck in his windpipe and bouncing up and down. "Well?" he says. Gloing-gloing goes the ball and I think about how nice it'd be to punch him right in that oval office, hear it make a squishy little crack under my knuckles. Can't do it though; he's 100% lean bacon even if he's off-duty right now. "Boat's worth twice what that piece of poo poo banger is," I mutter. He shrugs. "You want to get on the road tonight, this is your option, mate. Only spare car in loving Hicksville. Straight swap, your boat, the outboard and all your fishing poo poo and you can drive away." Gloing-gloing-gloing. I say yes, of course. Because he's right, it's the only car I'm gonna get a hold of and I need to shoot through real fucken urgently, and the boat is the only thing I own that's worth jack poo poo. See, Harry went missing from his dad's house yesterday, and there was blood in the yard. And his dad owns the only pub for a couple hundred clicks in any direction, and he owns half the lovely rental houses that people live in in this lovely little town. And he's got all three of the local cops so deep in his pocket that they're using his nuts for pillows. Including this oval office with the goggle eyes and golf ball. I'm taking a risk in hitting him up for this car but I got to get moving. The moment that Harry's dad or the cops ask the right people the right questions they're going to find out that I was rooting Harry. Pretty much every opportunity we got, he'd come fishing with me and get bent over in my boat. Harry never told his dad. They're not real thrilled about that kind of behaviour out here. But he did have a loose tongue, that boy, and he would have shot the poo poo with his chick friends at school. And they probably didn't think much of a half-Abo kid who sleeps in his boat getting up their rich white little buddy on a daily basis. They'll screech like fucken galahs. And I guarantee you that I'm going to be wearing that one. The car is such a piece of fucken junk that I don't even think it's going to start for a few minutes. Goggles leans down to the window before I take off. "You got about half a tank in there," he tells me. "You take care on the road now, mate." oval office thinks he's fucken hilarious. I'd be smirking too if I just ripped someone off so bad, I guess. I wait till I'm out on the road and then give him the finger with a little twist of the wrist to drive it home. I'm gonna miss that fucken boat. Gonna miss Harry too, I guess, but what can you do, people go missing all the time in little shitholes out in the bush like this. Fucken Wolf Creek was a nature documentary, no word of a lie. This car is so fucken filthy. The windows are caked with dirt and bug brains on the outside and there's hand prints and streaks all over the inside to the point that it's almost hard to see out of. Ah well, I'll give it a clean when I stop to fill up. Gotta get well out of town first though. I think I'll head up all the way north, I got a couple of distant cousins up there on the coast and they'd be happy to have another fisherman around. Be a nice change anyway. Not just filthy, but it fucken stinks too. There was an rotten pig leg in the back seat that the copper hadn't bothered chucking out and an old stained blanket covering the seat. I know the cops go shooting a fair bit, and I reckon that Goggles used this death trap to cart the carcasses around. His big vicious dogs probably rode back there too. Need to fumigate this oval office to get rid of the stench. It's about twenty clicks out of town that I just about poo poo myself when a phone rings, because I don't own a phone. Goggles must have left one in the glove box by accident. I should probably get rid of it next time I go over a bridge. Persistent bugger, whoever's calling. They ring every couple of minutes. The fifth or sixth time I lean over, pop the glove box open and scrabble around for the phone. Just going to tell them to gently caress off and then chuck it out the window. Before I can say anything, though, I poo poo myself again. A deep, growling voice that I recognise says, "You're so hosed, you little oval office." I don't say anything back. Harry's dad on the line, and he's got this number and he knows he's talking to me. Yes, I'm hosed. "You loving poofter," he says, "loving turning my boy. loving turning my son queer you oval office." I still don't say anything because what's the fucken point? His voice drops, gets chummy, conversational, like I was leaning on his bar and he was pulling me a cold beer. "He told me, you know, acting all brave, saying he had the right. Really... really didn't sit very well with me. Things got a bit heated. Then he said he was leaving to go to be with you and I... well, I stopped him. Right outside the back door." Silence on the phone line. I clear my throat, try to come up with something to say, fucken anything. "All your fault mate. Ah, poo poo, are you going to get it." And he hangs up. My chest is tight and I take a deep breath. Taste that rotten meat smell coming from the back. Coming from the boot of the car that's been sitting in the sun all day. I look at the passenger side window where someone's filthy fucken fingerprints are catching flashing lights from behind the car. They go red, they go blue. Again and again.
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Mar 7, 2015 14:59
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just to make double extra sure, signups ARE closed now.
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Mar 7, 2015 19:00
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for non-americans: we have daylight savings time tonight. that means that whatever time you thought it was in america, it's now an hour later. This has been a public service announcement. don't turn your story in late and go "duuuuuuuuuurrrrrr i didn't know"
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Mar 8, 2015 04:54
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Underneath 964 words I didn’t mean to go underneath the world the first time I did it. Lying in bed all those days, I could feel another place tugging at me. I began to feel curious. It was like the time in Kindergarten I stuck my head under Kimberly Stone’s skirt because I wanted to see what was under there . Going underneath the world though, isn’t as easy as peaking at a passing girl’s underpants while you’re sitting Indian-style. Going underneath is more like pushing through the dress racks in a department store. That’s what I used to do when my mom dragged me shopping with her. I’d go to those circular racks and squeeze through the blouses to the empty space in the middle. When they announced my name on the loudspeaker I knew it was time to come out. Hide and seek was over and Mom was usually mad. That’s what it feels like dropping from here to there. It feels like squeezing and pushing through something mostly solid until you’re somewhere else. Once you get underneath it’s like being under the world’s bedspread, squirming around. It’s the same places, but everything’s different. It’s darker underneath and most sounds are muffled or aren’t there at all. People in the hospital are still there underneath, at least a part of them. They show up like bright outlines of themselves, like I’m peaking at them through a special camera, and they can’t see me back. There are also a lot of other people, people who aren’t on top anymore. Those people are dead. A lot of the dead people underneath don’t understand where they are and are stuck. Imagine that, the feeling of pressure on you and darkness, forever until something gives. It makes me sad for them, sadder than I am for myself or the other kids in the hospital. Other people underneath, ones like me, who’ve had practice or understand where they are, can move around down there. I can even talk to some of them. Their voices sound like high pitched jibber jabber, but I understand what they’re saying. It’s like they speak into me instead of at me. Of all the people I’ve met down there, I like Mr. Hinkle the best. He’s old like my Grandpa. He’s nice too. He died slowly in the hospital and figured out how to go underneath like I did. He knows lots about Underneath. He says there are things about Underneath that I’m not ready to hear yet. A few days ago when I was underneath in my room, not doing much, just hanging out all snug down there like when my Dad used to tuck my sheets in real tight, I saw my parents and Dr. Baum come in. The outlines of my parents were dark. They were sad. Dr. Baum’s shone bright. He’s always so hopeful. He really likes his job helping kids. I didn’t want to come back because I knew they would be talking about my Pokémon. I came back anyway because I knew it would make my parents happy. Whenever I squirm back through the barrier and open my eyes, my Mom and Dad smile so big. It’s not really a Pokémon in my head. It’s a tumor. But the first time I heard it, it sounded like a Pokémon. Glioblastoma. It sounds like the evolved form of a “Blastoma.” It even looks like a Pokémon when Dr. Baum shows pictures of it in my brain. Its “tendrils” spread out every which way like a squid thing. That’s why Dr. Baum can’t take it out. It’s not a round lump like some tumors. I don’t try to talk about going underneath anymore with my Mom and Dad or Dr. Baum. The first and only time I tried, I couldn’t do it well. Underneath is hard to describe and my Pokémon’s tendrils poke into my “language center,” which makes it hard for me to think of words. When I first told Mom and Dad and Dr. Baum that I went somewhere else, a place that was underneath the world and where dead people were, they blamed the Glioblastoma. They thought it must be poking into a part of my brain that would create a place like that, like it was poking into my language center. Underneath is real though. I don’t hurt underneath like I do when I’m lying in bed on top. I can also think straight down there. And I’m getting better at moving around underneath. It’s becoming less like crawling around under the sheets and more like swimming. Mr. Hinkle says it’s even possible to fly underneath. He’ll show me if I “stick around.” Dr. Baum started me on a new experimental cancer drug. It starves my Pokémon of blood until its tendrils and the rest of it shrink. He is careful when he talks to my parents about it. He doesn’t want to get their hopes up. I know it’s working though because it’s getting harder to go underneath. The barrier is thicker and not as easy to push through. I’m not dying so fast. Mr. Hinkle seems sad that I might not stay with him. He says that if I want to, there are things I can do to make sure I don’t go back. I may be running out of time though. I have to make a decision. I like Mr. Hinkle and I like a lot of the other people underneath. They don’t treat me like a kid like my parents do. I never get in trouble. No one yells at me or punishes me. And if I try hard Mr. Hinkle says I can learn how to fly. I have to try to stay as long as it takes to experience flying.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:41
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The smackhouse at the top of the tree “I am King Chivas!” King Chivas’ redundant roar echoed around the tree top house, shaking some dust from the straw rafters. The grey specs drifted down to mix with the piles of white powder on the matchbox tables, but outside the window the leaves didn’t move. The leaves of the tree that has a house at the top of its crown are not disturbed by the roars of a mouse. The acorncaine rushed through his body. Tail pointing straight as an arrow, snout twitching with each tidal pulse of his blood, eyes blazing under his cigar-collar crown, he oversaw the industry of the place. There were the mice grinding, there were the mice delivering, and there were the mice packing the individual bubble wrap bubbles. Truly, he was the king. All except one mouse at the matchbox tables avoided his wavering, addled gaze. The king leapt from the Throne of Mouse Kings and stumbled towards the poor youngling who had been too slow to look away from his twitching countenance. Seeing the youngling’s plight one of the more experienced packers (she had lost an ear to the king’s benevolence) pushed an open bubble off the table. The powder spilt across the boards like a tide of fine dandruff. King Chivas managed to alter his direction with an almost imperceptible trip and stood, trembling, before his one eared underling. The ear twitched in defiance but she looked demurely enough at the rancid king. “Eduardo! Bring a tray of powder to my chamber, I shall have company tonight.” Eduardo tugged his hood in acknowledgement and shuffled away. King Chivas grabbed the defiant mouse and pulled her towards him in a most magnificent manner, flexing his muscles in sequence like a perfectly tuned locomotive. He put his snout to her ear and began to seduce her. “Manuel, what are you doing to that poor girl? Are you cussing? I am sure you are cussing you disgusting boy,” the wizened old mouse peered out from behind her flannel curtain at the back of the dusty treehouse, “Antonio would never have cussed at these poor girls.” “Shut the gently caress up, Mum.” “Antonio would never have cussed at me. Why couldn’t he have lived when those crows attacked our home?” “Shut. Up.” “Antonio would never have treated me this way. You should try to be a good boy, Manuel.” The old queen retired to her chamber. “Stupid bint,” he pulled the mouse away from the stupid bint towards his own chamber. Suddenly Eduardo appeared before him. He had an annoying habit of doing that, always appearing, and disappearing, and appearing again. “Eduardo, get the hell out of my way. Can’t you see I’m busy?” “Enough Manuel! This has gone on too long!” “Don’t call me Manuel, I am King Chivas!” He stabbed his regal hand towards the rafters to punctuate his words. King Chivas liked to repeat his name at every opportunity, it was important that everyone remembered he was the king. And Chivas. “Who are you, Eduardo, to question me?” “I am -” “Nothing, that is what you are, Nothing!” King Chivas was interruptive when incensed. Eduardo flung his hood back, as dramatically as possible. He had been practicing in front of his full length compact mirror for the last year. “It is I, Antonio!” King Chivas gaped at his brother. “I have returned at long last to bring your reign of terror to an end. You have turned the house of our ancestors into a drug den, and I shall avenge their honor.” Faithful Eduardo, the hero who saved him from a cat attack, the trusted envoy to the shrews, was long lost Antonio all along? Worse, was challenging the king? This could not stand. “I am the greatest mouse king there has ever been Antonio. Look at the triumphs I have wrought. I control the powder trade from here to that tree all the way over there.” King Chivas pointed out of the window of the house at the top of the tree and swayed in a breeze that wasn’t there. “I am untouchable. Look at my superior form, my body is like a statue made by the mouse god himself. I -” “-Ugh” Antonio yanked the point of the needle out of the Throne of Mouse Kings that pinned the skull of the mouse that had been king to the aforementioned chair as the assembled mice cheered with joy. At last, their horrible, tweaking bastard of a king was dead. They were free at last. Antonio raised his needle above his head. “I am King Jura!” King Jura resolved to be absolutely the greatest mouse king there had ever been. “All hail King Jura!” “What the hell are you dumbshits cheering about? Get back to work, that shipment to the marsh-side ferrets won’t pack itself.” “Antonio, is that you?” “Shut the gently caress up, Mum.” .... No idea how many words as I am phone posting, definitely less than 1000
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Mar 8, 2015 22:37
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Song: Purple Toupee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brjr0Bhj12M I remember the year I went to camp I heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks Somebody put their fingers in the President's ears It wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax I remember the book depository where they crowned the king of Cuba Now that's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else Way down inside me I can feel it coming back Purple toupee will show the way when summer brings you down (Purple toupee when summer brings you down) Purple toupee and gold lamé will turn your brain around (Purple toupee and gold lamé) Chinese people were fighting in the park We tried to help them fight, no one appreciated that Martin X was mad when they outlawed bell bottoms Ten years later they were sharing the same cell I shouted out, "Free the Expo '67" Till they stepped on my hair, and they told me I was fat Now I'm very big, I'm a big important man And the only thing that's different is underneath my hat Purple toupee will show the way when summer brings you down (Purple toupee when summer brings you down) Purple toupee and gold lamé will turn your brain around (Purple toupee and gold lamé) Purple toupee is here to stay after the hair has gone away The purple brigade is marching from the grave La la la la la la la La la la la la la la la La la la We're on some kind of mission We have an obligation We have to wear toupees Kings 966 words Read now the last words of Amheri, second son of Ahma, King of Sona. I write this in a moment of clarity amid the dreams and babble that oft take hold of me in my age. I speak quickly so that I the world may know my final thoughts before the potion master’s tonic passes through me and I become once again a demented old fool. Have I been a good King to my people? Only time will tell, in my 76 years of life I have had many names. As a sickly child I was known as Amheri the Infirm. Father shipped me to a manor in the country to learn how to be a man. 5 long years I spent living on the edge of a small slaver’s town near the outskirts of the realm. It was during that time my father made peace with the neighboring kingdom of Effor and released all the Efforian slaves. Oh how they sang and rejoiced that night in the town. I could hear them, as I lay in my bed, their bizarre stringed instruments twanging away. I imagined them, with their pale skin and ornate tattoos, dancing in the light of the moon. What a feeling it must have been to be free at last. It was a number of years later that they revolted against the crown. The Efforian settlements had been constantly attacked by bandits, and with no Sonarian guards to help them on the outskirts of the country, many had perished. This was a time when former slaves were not permitted to live within the city limits. Of course that all changed when two Efforian leaders; one from the north, and one from the south, united the former slaves. I do not remember fully what became of the duo of Efforian leaders. I believed one was put to the sword by some rogue or assassin. The other, I’m afraid I was never taught much about in my lessons at the manor. Of course, It was a different time then, now I hear the guards talking of half-children who play in the streets of Sona City. Who would have thought? They won their rights. Though my father held a very disgruntled opinion of the Efforians right up to the time of his death. I would reflect further on my fathers death, alas there is not much to tell. He was traveling to visit me in the manor. My elder brother Aysero, as the heir to the throne, was not permitted to travel with my father. A King travelling causes quite the spectacle about the people. They’d lined the streets to catch a glimpse of him as he waved to them. It was noon and my mother rode next to him in the royal carriage. From on high a crossbow bolt vaulted through the carriage window lodging itself in my father’s skull. The carriage-man spurred the horses on however it was already too late for my father. The carriage, constructed of a pure white milkwood, was now permanently stained with blood. I believe my mother ordered it burned. It was unfortunate that my Uncle had been killed in the same manner. The people loved to chatter and talk conspiracies. I became known as Ahmeri the Cursed. I feel the tonic weakening and my thoughts wander further. Let me talk of my brother. Aysero and the time he had declared war on the Republic of Charlam. The Charsmen invaded another nation we relied on for spices, silk, and iron. I was a young man performing duties as an officer in the Sona military, my brother insisted that I should stay and help him in a strategic capacity. I convinced him otherwise. Perhaps that was a mistake in hindsight. Many Sonarians died in that war, I have never seen such carnage. Even as a strategic officer I often found myself in the fracas of combat with the Charsmen. I cannot count how many of them I was forced to slay, many of them not old enough to grow a beard or know the touch of a woman. Still we lost, outnumbered in a foreign land, we sailed back to our homeland. I returned home and they called me Ahmeri the Brave. My brother who had remained behind to rule Sona, now deep in debt, became know as Aysero the Foolish. My poor, dear brother. Years after the war, and those who survived it had been mostly forgotten, he too was assassinated in the same manner as my father. It was only then, at age 40, I reluctantly ascended the throne. Kings seem to have a habit of dying. It was never expected of me at birth, that I would rule the kingdom, and in my early years as king relied mostly on advisors. I knelt as the master of ceremonies placed the purple crown upon my head. The crown was heavy, adorned with an assortment of amethysts and gold filigree, I was so surprised by the weight that my head dropped slightly. I thought perhaps someone may have noticed and I would have been burdened with a title such as Ahmeri the Unready or Ahmeri the Frail But no. No one expected I would ever be king so I became know as Ahmeri the Lucky. A strange kind of luck to have lost one’s father and brother only to take on the same role which brought them to their deaths. Such luck to live in fear. Such is the weight of the purple crown. As I have left no heirs I wish luck to the one who bears this burden after me. Ah, the tonic is waning and I grow tired tired now. Remember me as the young hero, not the demented, old, bed-ridden fool I have become.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:45
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Dig Two Graves Iglooth was driving back from the desert, where he buried the bodies, when he had a premonition of his death. It hit him so hard, he plowed through two traffic signs and barely dodged a cactus, before wrestling the truck to a halt in a ditch. Still clutching the wheel, he rested his head on it and exhaled. He wasn’t new to the weird business, not by a long shot, but this was the first time he got a vision this bad. Most likely the last. He now knew this like he knew his name - he probably wouldn’t see the end of the week and the man responsible was somewhere in the City ahead. He felt the pull of him right in his gut, like a compass. There was a bottle of rotgut in the glove compartment. Previous owner wouldn’t need it anymore. He drank, considering his options. He wasn’t dumb enough to dismiss a vision but they weren’t a hundred percent deal, were they? He had his gun and his shovel, he knew exactly how to find the SOB and he was too much of a stubborn bastard to just run away and hope he ran far enough. Perhaps fate didn’t care who died, as long as someone did. And if not, at least he’d take him with him. He started the engine again. *** His mark - no, he decided with a mirthless smile, his nemesis - was a paunchy hamster of a man with a comb-over, a taste for unflatteringly tight shirts and an almost comedic intolerance for the taser. His home decoration skills weren’t any more impressive. The ID in the wallet was for a Sean Spudge, a productivity blogger. Iglooth pocketed the wallet and gave the body a pitying look. The pain in his gut was still there. He didn’t want to just plug him and leave. He had already ditched his disposal bag in the desert after the previous job and DIY cleaning was not an option. He had to take him off-site. At least the circumstances were favorable - Spudge lived in a house in one of those suburbs laid to waste by the recent tsunami of foreclosures, with no neighbors in sight. Iglooth decided to just roll him into his lime green carpet, throw him into the truck and drive him back into the desert. *** By the time they reached the site it was getting dark. He scouted several of them out earlier this week for the previous job, but didn’t expect he’d have to make use of another one so soon. It was a good one, though. Nothing around for many miles other than the air base and this far out, they only watched the air, not the ground. He dragged the carpet out and away from the truck, cut the ties, pulled his gun out and unrolled the carpet with a series of kicks. Spudge was conscious. Good. Iglooth threw him the shovel and gestured with the gun. “Dig.” Spudge unsteadily rose to his feet, looked around himself with a nearsighted squint, then defiantly thrust his chin at Iglooth. “This is bullshit! I want a refund.” This was a new one. He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Come again?” Spudge scowled at him. “I specifically paid you people most of my savings to be killed in a outrageous series of bizarre coincidences. I was promised death by a downtown runaway train, or getting dropped from a great height by a pair of golden eagles, not this cliche mob hit bullshit!” Iglooth lowered his gun. “You… paid someone to kill you?” “Well, yes.” Spudge frowned. “You’re with Suicide by Proxy, right?” “Never heard of them.” “Oh. Well, uh, did you take my wallet? Their business card’s in it.” It was. Iglooth had to squint to read it in the light of the headlights: pre:Suicide by Proxy Is your illness incurable? Had enough of the rat race? If you can’t kill yourself or don’t want your family to know you did it, we’re here to finish you off anyway you want, no matter how unlikely and unorthodox! Our probability engineers will make sure that the butterfly flaps its wings at just the right time to have you crushed by a piano or electrocuted by your iPod! Our packages include: hush-hush * extravagant * erotic * oddly comforting grotesque * ironic * unexpected * newsworthy Note: We do not take requests on others’ behalf. Any attempts to do so will be reported to Moirai Spudge blinked. “But… why are you here, then? I’m a nobody. My life is poo poo. I paid someone else to kill me because I wanted my death, at least, to be cool and I didn’t want my rear end in a top hat relatives to think they’re better than me because I killed myself.” Iglooth considered in silence. Somewhere in the distance, a jet flew by. “They’d find out, though, wouldn’t they? You left them a clue, right in your pocket.” He waved the business card at him. “That’s why I’m here, then. To tie up your loose ends.” “Oh.” Spudge perked up. “Does this mean I can go back and get killed by an elephant stampede or something?” “Yeah,” Iglooth shot him in the chest, “no.” He walked over, put a bullet in his head just to make sure. That was that then. The feeling in his gut wasn’t gone yet, but it was fading. He grabbed a shovel and began to dig- An explosion in the sky. He looked up to see a fighter jet catch flame and careen towards him, the pilot’s parachute a small dot behind it. At his feet, Spudge gurgled, then half-moaned, half-coughed blood. Well then. Iglooth looked at the plane again. The little twerp was going to get his extravagant suicide after all. Iglooth dropped the shovel and, even though he knew the odds, ran.
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Mar 9, 2015 01:27
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The Curious Undeath of Grumpy Old Mr. Sanders 987 words Grumpy old Mr. Sanders clenched his jaw, grasped the edge of the kitchen table with all his feeble might and refused to die. Never mind the cramps in his legs, the spinning walls, the shallow breath. His heart thumped, and thump-thump-thumped and then it gave out, but he still sat there, staring indignantly at the wife who’d poisoned him. “That’s not fair,” she said. “You should be dead.” “Hrmpfh!” Mr. Sanders said. He’d noticed a slight lack of tender love in the few years since their marriage, but this felt a bit crass. It’s not like she couldn’t have waited for him to go on his own. Besides, he still had places to be. That was the worst about it – the sheer rudeness! But then she’d always been inconsiderate. “Babs would have finished the job properly,” he said, and spat out a piece of tissue. Lung maybe. The thumping noise of his unconscious wife hitting the ground made him cackle gleefully. Death arrived, a miasmatic black cloud that stood up into a tall cloak, towering over him, charging the air with rot and decay - just being near him made Mr. Sanders’s hands feel dirty. “I am Death,” the robed figure thundered. “Your life has been claimed. Come with me, now!” “Or else what,” Mr. Sanders said. “You’re going to kill me?” Death’s bony, pointed finger stopped mid-air, where it hovered uncertainly. “Ha!” “Mr. Sanders,” Death said, leaning on his manifested scythe, “I know this doesn’t seem very fair to you. Here you go just living out your final days in peace and then this… woman… punches your ticket to a premature fare along the way of all flesh.” He put an amicable arm around old Mr. Sanders, who clenched his jaw even tighter and shifted in his chair like an unruly child setting in for the long haul. “I sympathize,” Death said, “but here’s the problem: there’s others. Same deal as you. All the time. Now, imagine I let you live. So the next guy who gets poisoned also wants to live, because fair’s fair, right? And then someone completely else dies of a heart attack, and it’s like, ‘Oh, but you let these two guys go, so why not me?’ And before you know it nobody dies anymore and you can probably see why we can’t have that. So why don’t we just do this nice and clean and you come along now?” Mr. Sanders glared straight up into the black void beneath Death’s hood and said: “I want to speak the manager.” “The manager?” “...of everything.” “Oh.” Mr. Sanders could hear Death roll his eyes. “Her.” God manifested in a ray of light, her white beard waving in a wind that only existed to beef up the pomp of her entrance. She made a sweeping introductory bow and, to Mr. Sanders’s great amusement, stumbled over his unconscious wife. “Mr. Sanders,” she said, pulling herself back up along the kitchen table, “what seems to be the problem?” “This hokey-pokey rascal over there.” Mr. Sanders pointed a thumb at Death. “Tell him to stop badgering honest folk.” “Mr. Death is a respected employee of this universe. He’s only doing his job. This would all be much easier if you--” “Alright, I’m coming.” “Oh.” God was taken quite aback by grumpy old Mr. Sanders’s sudden compliance. She smiled, but the way she did it screamed well thanks for calling me for this bullshit. “...for a price.” God threw a glance towards Death, who made a gently caress-if-I-know-gesture. The annoyance in her groan charged the air so heavily it peeled the paint off the walls and spread through the building, the block and the entire town, up to a point where five streets over a character completely unrelated to this story sighed and decided to divorce his wife. “What do you want then?” God said. “I want… to see the Grand Canyon.” “That’s it?” “Hrmpfh!” “The Grand Canyon. And you will come along?” “That’s what I said.” And then they were there. The canyon stretched out far into the distance, furrows and hills and piles of stone shining red in the setting sun. Mighty rock layered on top of mighty rock, in all sizes and formations, a maze of continental plates flexing their muscles. A show of force from a force of nature - forever engraved into Earth’s shell. It was the first time Mr. Sanders had smiled in a long time. “Happy?” God said. “Yes.” “If you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Sanders…what’s the deal here?” “Babs…” he said. “Excuse me?” “My first wife. Barbara. A good one. Would have never poisoned me.” “That’s nice.” “She’d always wanted to see the canyon. Always badgering me about it. ‘Let’s go to the canyon. Let’s just pack our things and drive there.’ But we never got around to it. I was a busy man you see, and this place was so far away. She… passed too soon.” “I’m sorry.” “Before she died, I had to promise I’d come here. At least see that drat canyon for myself.” “And then you never did?” “I thought I still had time. You know how it is.” God absent-mindedly stroked her beard and nodded. Mr. Sanders stared back out into the landscape, amused wrinkles forming around his eyes despite his best efforts. “I think you did a pretty good job here if you don’t mind me saying.” “Thanks,” God said. She hesitated, but then she added: “You seem an okay guy, actually. Like, I don’t know, but I’d be fine if you wanted to live a little longer?” There was no reply. God turned, and next to her grumpy old Mr. Sanders didn’t look so grumpy anymore. He stared into the setting canyon sun with peace in his eyes, and behind them, Mr. Sanders was quite gone. “That’s okay,” God said, and turned back towards the sunset. “Give Babs my regards.”
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Mar 9, 2015 02:06
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bye
anime was right fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 02:12
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Chess Piece Face 1000 words I'm hardly superstitious, but there's something unsettling about being awake, alone, at three o'clock in the morning that bypasses ego and heads straight for the id. So, although I'll laugh at myself come daytime, I'm committing yesterday's strangeness to paper. Maybe once that's done, I'll be able to sleep. There's a painter I know: a gentle old geezer named Jacob with a rambling beard, stained yellow with nicotine, that he never bothers to tame. I occasionally visit him at his cottage, which nestles shyly on a wooded hillside, off the beaten track but on the path of one of my favourite walks. Every wall of Jacob's cottage is decorated with paintings. Not his own: they're replicas of old masters, especially Rembrandt. I asked him about this during a chat over tea in his conservatory. "The painters of the Dutch Golden Age," he said, wagging a flimsy rollup at me, "brought us to the pinnacle of "real". Chiaroscuro, shadows and forms, brushstrokes too small to see. Accuracy of depiction, that was their grand achievement. But Rembrandt found something most of his contemporaries didn't: soul. Those people you see on the wall there," ash dripped onto the grubby carpet as he gestured, "are characters, not just would-be photographs. Do you see?" I looked, and nodded politely. My artistic education is lacking, though I've picked up snippets from these chats. Still, the paintings did have something: the wrinkled, lumpen features seemed all too human, thrown into relief by dim candlelight. There was one painting there that didn't belong, though. Amidst the browns and oranges and Dutch period dress, the green apple hovering before the bowler-hatted face seemed practically luminous. "Isn't that one Magritte?" I asked, proud at remembering the name. "Hmm?" He followed my gaze. Then he started violently and dropped his cigarette. He strode to the painting, fists clenching. "You!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing there?" I hastily retrieved the fallen rollup. "Sorry... Did I--?" I flinched as he wrenched the offending painting off the wall, scattering flecks of plaster, and hurried from the room with it. I sat in shock for a moment. Jacob was an eccentric old codger, true, but I'd never seen him behave so. For lack of any other polite course of action, I decided to finish my tea and await his return. After a few minutes and an empty cup, however, I grew impatient, and went looking for him. Paintings adorned every wall, from waist height up to the ceiling beams. I didn't recognise many, but they were mostly portraits, and as I prowled about looking for Jacob, I felt as though they were eyeing me with suspicion. Eventually I discovered a little wooden door in an alcove beneath the staircase, half-hidden by a battered piano. I opened it, and found a set of stone steps leading down to a cellar. A light was on down there, and I descended. The cellar was a workroom. Jacob had shown me his little garret, once, with its single easel and scattered paints, and I'd thought him little more than an eccentric dabbler in his retirement; but here was a whole studio, with canvases big and small stacked haphazardly against walls, on easels, and across desks. Were these all his work? One nearby caught my eye, and I examined it more closely: a man in a top hat and frock coat, standing on a cricket pitch in front of a burning pavilion. His face was obscured by a chess piece, a white pawn, blank and smooth. It was like the Magritte, but every detail was different. The colours were muddier, more like the Rembrandt's, and the flare of the firelight behind the man cast deep shadows across the pawn/face. I felt a great curiosity to see behind that odd mask. Looking around further, I soon realised that every painting in that room was similar, yet different. Men and women, mostly with headwear but some without, their faces obscured by a miscellany of objects. "It's a metaphor, of course," said Jacob. I swung round; he stood in a doorway to a back room that I hadn't yet noticed. He looked defeated: his shoulders slumped and his face slack. "Magritte was saying that we all wear masks. The face we show to the world isn't the face we see ourselves. An elementary truth, really." "Is that why you paint - these?" I asked, gesturing around. "Are masks so important to you?" His mouth twisted. I'd said something amusing, apparently. "You could say that." "You aren't selling them?" I asked. "They're really good. A bit disturbing, but ... interesting." He took a few steps, his eyes wandering around the workshop. For a moment he looked confused, and very old. "Sell? No, no... that would be like slavery, wouldn't it? Oh, I wish I could be rid of the drat things. Take one! Take this one." He thrust the painting of the pawn-faced man at me. I took it; it was only polite, and it was a rather good painting. "Er-- thank you. What do you mean, slavery?" "I told you," he said earnestly. "It's about soul. The people I paint are people. Learned from the best, heh. I have to cover their faces just to get them to leave me alone at night. Some of them are really nasty pieces of work." He glanced at the painting he'd handed me, and his face twitched. I'm ashamed to say I made my excuses at that point, and left. I hadn't realised he was quite so senile, but I do feel sorry for him, and he's usually good company. The painting makes me uncomfortable, honestly. I've put it in the back of the wardrobe, but I have a strong urge to take it out and look at it, try and see behind that mask. Maybe a little paint remover - just a little, to take the top layer off. See what's there. Maybe once that's done, I'll be able to sleep.
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Mar 9, 2015 02:21
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A Planet for Ana - A Picture Book 924 Words Based on How Many Planets? Ana lay on her back on the cold damp grass in John’s backyard, watching the night sky through her bright green binoculars. She felt like she didn’t belong. “John,” she said, “have you ever thought about going into space? I want to find myself a planet.” * * * John’s head popped out the front of his little yellow tent. He had a big, crazy smile like the time he tried to jump over her on his BMX. “Are you kidding?” He said, “I’ve got it figured out already. We can leave tonight! We just need a few things.” * * * Ana went home to pack her bag, she lived across the road. She tiptoed past her Dad, who was asleep in front of the TV. In his lap was a picture of her Mom. She looked beautiful, with straight black hair and light brown skin, just like Ana. Her hair and skin were different from John or her Dad or the other kids at school. Sometimes her Dad was sad. That’s when she stayed at John’s house. * * * She got her coat, her boots, and her piggy bank. Last she climbed up on a chair and took some big bottles of orange soda from the kitchen cupboard. She put it all in her backpack. * * * When she got back John had fixed up the tent with silver tape and cardboard tubes. He had a packet of mints in his hand. “Did you get it?” he said, “It’s the last thing we need.” Ana gave him the soda. He taped the bottles to the sides and they got in. * * * John dropped mints into the soda bottles. Big jets of foam shot out with a FLOOOOOOOSH and sent them into the air. As they soared higher the back yard got smaller and disappeared. The same thing happened for their suburb and then then their town. Soon the Earth was a tiny speck in the distance. They were in space. * * * “Put these on.” said John, handing Ana a pair of his Mom’s sunglasses. They had pointy corners, like movie stars wore in the old days. John steered them towards the sun, and soon they could see Mercury through the glare. It was small and grey, and speckled like a swallows egg. “It’s very pretty,” said Ana, “but it’s too hot. I wouldn’t be able to get cozy under the covers at night.” * * * They swung around and touched down on a red planet with loads of mountains. They got out and jumped around. They jumped really high, even higher than on a trampoline. When they landed their boots kicked up big red clouds. * * * “This is great!” said John, “how do you like Mars?” “It’s fun, but dusty. I like things to be clean and tidy,” said Ana. * * * They dodged asteroids on their way to Jupiter. It was HUGE, and it’s surface was all orange and swirled like a tie-dyed t-shirt. When they got close Ana screwed up her face. “Pee eww!” John clipped a peg to his nose to keep out the smell. “It’s made of gas,” he said. The peg made his voice sound silly. * * * “It smells like farts!” said Ana, “let’s get out of here.” They burst out laughing and sped away. * * * “This one’s gas, too.” said John when Saturn came into view. Saturn was stripes white, yellow and red, and had a big ring of rocks around it. Ana thought it was beautiful, but the rocks were too small to live on. The sun was smaller and dimmer as they travelled further out in the solar system. It was cold as well, so Ana bundled herself up tight in her coat. * * * Neptune was a lovely blue, and Pluto was bright white from ice. “It’s too far from the shops,” Ana said to John, “and I think I would get lonely being this far away.” John frowned. “You’re very fussy, Ana.” “Don’t worry, I think I’ve realised where I belong,” she said. * * * When they got back to Earth they spent some time high up in the atmosphere looking down. The sea was blue, the clouds and mountaintops were white, the forests and jungles were green, the deserts were yellow, and the rocks were red. There were big grey patches of city, too. * * * Ana knew what she was looking for. She pointed at one city and John steered them towards it. * * * They landed in Hanoi, the giant city in Vietnam where her Mom came from. Thousands of people who looked like Ana buzzed around on motor scooters or sat on stools at a restaurant on the sidewalk. Ana and John sat down and ate spicy noodle soup. Neither of them could understand what people were saying. His blue eyes and curly hair looked funny. * * * “Do you want to stay here?” he asked. “I don’t think so, but I’m glad we visited,” she replied. Ana bought a Vietnamese dictionary for herself, and a pretty pink doll with a woven conical hat as a present for her Dad. It was getting late. * * * On the way back they saw the earth at night, the cities sparkling like the stars. Wherever there were people there were lights. She wondered if other people felt like they didn’t belong. She thought she could be their friend. * * * At home John’s Mom had made them hot cocoa and microwave s’mores. They gobbled them up. Travelling the solar system was hungry work. “Your Dad called,” she said to Ana, “he said to come home for macaroni and cheese.” That was Ana’s favorite.
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Mar 9, 2015 03:39
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The War Is Over 976 Words Destination Moon (In the archive) docbeard fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Dec 28, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 04:08
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Remorseful Lives 994 words Song: Twisting Mina ducked just in time to avoid a grubby foot from hitting her face. She looked up, regarding the rows of corpses suspended from the ceiling. Young and old, man and woman, their bodies were perfectly preserved at the exact moment of their deaths. "Take your time," the shopkeeper said, a gaunt man in black. "Um, for my spell, does the body matter?" Mina asked. "Anyone's toenails will do." Sometimes magick was easier than Mina thought. Most of the time it was really bizarre--what did the toenails of a recent suicide victim have to do with summoning your dead boyfriend's ghost? She dodged the rows of feet and stopped in front of a young man. A little prettier than Dean, maybe thinner. The corpse wore tiny gray briefs. "I'll take this one." ### The corpse kept twisting in place after Mina had deactivated the stasis spell. She clipped its toenails and placed it inside the magick circle. Why did he kill himself? Mina found herself wondering. "Seriously?" a man's voice said. Mina ignored it. Dabble long enough into magick and these things start to happen, Dean had warned her. "What are you doing with my toenails?" "I'm going to talk to my boyfriend," Mina said, not turning around. "Can't you just call him?" "He's dead." "Oh." Silence. Mina thought of Dean, and his roguish grin that made her pursue the craft in the first place. The things she did for that grin. "You should just let him go." Mina whirled at the voice. The ghost of the hanged man was looking at her with a sympathetic face. He was still wearing his tacky briefs. "What's it to you? I just need your toenails, then I'll cremate your body with aetheric fire and that's it." "I can tell you're hurting," the ghost said. Mina sensed the kindness in his voice, like a nice grandmother who knitted you things and sent you sweet, embarrassing texts. Definitely not like Dean. "How could you say that? You don't know me." "This apartment is too big for one, yet you served dinner for two. So I guess you're still grieving," the ghost said. Mina looked at the mac and cheese and Coke on the dining table. She would clean that up before sleeping, like she did every day since Dean died. "What's your name? I'm Mina." "Adrian." Adrian extended a translucent hand, stared at it, then put it away. The faintest shade of red appeared on his gray cheeks. Mina turned her smile into a wince before the ghost could notice. "Adrian, this might come off as rude, but why did you kill yourself?" Adrian sighed. "Student loan debt. Three years out of law school and I still couldn't find a job." "Ouch. Must be tough." Adrian held up a hand. "And my girlfriend, well, she'd borrow my credit card and go on shopping sprees behind my back and well... you know the rest. She wasn't really nice to me, but I loved her?" He scratched his head. "Man, it sounds so dumb now." "I could relate." Mina's eyes hovered back to the circle. "I'm sorry, but I'm casting the spell now. You're free to go, Adrian." Adrian floated away with a hurt expression on his face. I just listened to his sob story and threw him out. Go me, Mina thought. Dean used to say she had a way with messing with people's heads. Ten minutes later, Dean's ghost stood in the middle of the circle. "Mina?" Dean was just like Mina had last seen him: wearing a blue hoodie with a ragged hole right where his heart should have been. "Hi Dean," Mina said. She withered under Dean's intense stare. Familiar feelings of desperation threatened to sweep her off her feet. "Sorry I dropped the elixir." Dean burst into laughter. "You summoned me just to apologize?" He stomped on the floor. His foot made no sound, but it made Mina flinch all the same. He never hit actually her, but sometimes she wished he did. "I told you to run, didn't I?" "But you were having trouble fighting the clockwork knight," Mina said. "And I wanted to help." She got a long gash on her right arm for it, and Dean got impaled by a foot of enchanted steel. "If you'd been a good girl and escaped with the elixir, then I'd still be here, and we'd be living like kings now. Focus, Mina. You're not Academy-trained, so who's going to teach you now? When are you getting me another body?" "Never," Mina said. Dean stomped again. "Excuse me?" Mina's voice cracked. "When you died, I went over your things. I was looking for a spell to bring you back. Then I saw a notebook. It was full of women's names. You were only using me, weren't you?" Dean grinned. "So? You've been a sweet girl, Mina. You still love me, right?" "Goodbye, Dean." Mina scraped the edge of the circle off with her slippers. Dean opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He raised his leg for another stomp before disappearing entirely. Mina threw herself into the sofa. Then the dam burst. For a moment her sobs filled a home that was too spacious for one. "That was intense." Adrian knelt in front of her, resting a ghostly hand on her hair. "But I'm glad you got rid of him once and for all." "You stayed?" "I had a feeling we're alike." "Two months worth of mac and cheese. I never even eat the stuff," Mina said. "I like mac and cheese," Adrian said. "I'm pretty much dead, though." Mina's heart broke a little bit more. "Do you want to live again?" "I think so. I mean, I'd take the chance if I could." Mina spoke a word, placing Adrian's body back in stasis. She went to Dean's spell drawer and pulled out his notes. "Then let's get to work, before your meal gets cold."
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Mar 9, 2015 04:14
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Access. 760 words ---------- I am back in my maintenance unit. I know this is not right, yet it feels right. Observe. I am still within reclamation bay #31, surrounded by the discarded husks of the other service and domestic units sent to this place. They are laying on the ground without power or cognition while I rest on my treads and complete my diagnostics. Visual systems are acceptable, as I can see the filtering light above me illuminating the dust-covered walkway I am currently on. I tap against my frame to test tactile and auditory sensors. Both within acceptable range. Then why do I require maintenance? And why am I in my frame again? Treads crawl over the husks and towards the command bay and I hear the crunch of ceramics underneath. So this is not some sort of humorous deception. A system failure, perhaps? But why am I the only active model? Reclamation control room. The doors slid open before me, treads taking me towards the controls on the far wall, nestled underneath a long window out into the compound. Dirtied glass filtered the light coming in from a hole in the structure's roof. Catwalks twisted in and out of the darkness or ended in doorways, rooms and modules stretching out past visual range. I could see a light among the darkened cells, a long window staring out into the compound, shining outward. Another control booth. The call to awaken, cast throughout the facility, likely came from that control room. But none of the others were active. Did the figure on the other end know that? A console alert appeared on the controls, a feeble red button blinking on the brushed metal surface. I pressed it down and the command interface flashed to life, edges roughened as the holographic projector shorted here and there. I could still interface. Priority request, the screen relayed. SatAuto Employee #[UNDEFINED] requests lifting of lockdown protocols. SatAuto Galactic Branch Headquarters communications offline. Manual response requested. Communications offline. Models left on the reclamation line without direct maintenance. I was alone. But not alone. Across those rows of storage units, past the catwalks, in another control room was someone. Did they know of me? Could they tell that I was here, a mirror to their own control room, staring at a frazzled interface waiting for a reply? Could they even tell? Magnification did not help me discern who was in the other room, the glass too worn and dirt-covered to see clearly. Were they like me? I pressed the button. Manual response received. SatAuto Administrative Unit #331415. Checking credentials. Administrative Unit #331415. Admin. I was known as Admin. It was what the human employees called me before my reclamation. I was tasked with filing paperwork and ensuring the SatAuto Branch in this arm was running at maximum efficiency. I remember seeing paperwork for a promotion. A promotion for a person who I had filed several complaints against in the past. I remember how it burned at my intelligence, how it seemed incorrect. Wrong. I remember disposing of the paperwork with the standard SatAuto shredding protocol. He called me defective. I was not defective. I corrected him. Credentials undergoing evaluation for: Possible violations of primary protocol. Please alert a SatAuto representative to review case file. I was a SatAuto representative. I opened the file and scrolled down. Complaints of physical injury and disfigurement. Requests for immediate decommission at local plant. What remained was horribly corrupted, all save for the red and green prompts. Refuse or Accept. Accept. Manual response verified. Granting temporary administrative access to SatAuto Employee #[UNDEFINED] to lift lockdown protocol. The world around me filled with a horrible grinding, the breath of some long-dead beast raising from slumber. Lights began to dot the facility, from the twisting darkness to the modules hanging above the floor. The frames around me remained still. I was still alone. I regained control of my treads, an instinctive feeling within me that heralded free movement. So I moved to the catwalk. Looking out as the lights of the facility clacked on, staring at the control room so far away, I saw something. Someone. The figure moved in front of the hole in the roof, the red sun dispersing their silhouette, keeping their form a mystery. They stopped. I hoped, imagined, wished that they turned to notice me. My arm in the air, I waved at the figure before it moved on again. Whoever they were, whether they knew it or not, had placed me back where I belonged. I wanted to thank them.
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Mar 9, 2015 04:21
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The Truth They Might Be Giants song: "The Statue Got Me High" (986 words) Read it in the archive. Kaishai fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2015 04:27
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Hot Cha They might be Giants song: "Hot Cha" (381 words) Always up for a little drink Never likes to raise a stink Wouldn't want to see a shrink Scared to death he'll have to think Here comes Hot Cha White lines and white lies Wears his t-shirts with his ties Out with him, the time flies It's only sometimes someone dies Here he is, Hot Cha Put in ten and he'll put in five A few shots in, but he can drive It's not enough to just survive Without the thrill, you're not alive There goes Hot Cha Won't back down to the PC alliance Arrested once for being non-compliant He might be short and they might be giants But against all odds he stands defiant Way to go, Hot Cha He can always pay it back But right now, he's got jack He only needs a little slack- Wait turn it up, he loves this track So it goes, Hot Cha Went away for a year or two In the ozzy, feeling blue That's what years of coke will do Welcome home- Here's to you Hot Cha A few regrets and no remorse On the wagon and off the sauce Really going to stay the course He really learned from his divorce A new man, Hot Cha Work can really get you down When you can't go off to town Loosen up and act the clown The timers only ticking down Not long left, Hot Cha Lost his mojo lost his fans Traded the coup for a minivan He never really had a plan Feeling stressed, "just one can..." So close, Hot Cha One can, two can, three can, four Turn off your phone and lock the door He's on his fifth and wants some more Can't be worse than what's in store Passed out, Hot Cha Livers gone, heart is breaking Is he cold? His hands are shaking Feeling fine, and he's not faking But prozacs not what he's been taking Same old hot cha No more slack, no more chances No more smack, no more dances No more cocaine, no more pills No more joking, no more thrills No more X, no more beer No more ciggarrettes, not this year No more drama, no more fear So little left he might disappear No more Hot Cha
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Mar 9, 2015 05:08
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How to Begin Again 869 words Song: Memo to Human Resources Tonight might be the worst decision of my life. Well, maybe more like second-worst. Here I am, locked in the bathroom. I figure I have a few minutes before they realize that I’ve been gone an abnormally long amount of time. I stare at the fuzzy blue hospital socks poking from my shoes. I hate these things, they always made my feet sweat. A knock at the door. “Julie, you in there?” It was Sarah. My appointed guardian for the evening. “Yeah, I’ll be right out.” One last look in the mirror. What am I doing there? I know the answer. Sarah says it will be good for me to get out and with people, but I agreed to come because if there is even the slightest chance that he’s here, I want to see him. I remember to pull down the sleeves of my sweater as I open the door. Sarah pretends she doesn’t notice. She pretends she doesn’t want to stare at my wrist and she pretends she can’t see the little sliver of plastic from the hospital name tag poking out from the end of the sleeve. We walk through the party and I feel like I’m on parade. All eyes are on me and not on me simultaneously. Every time somebody goes quiet when I pass it’s because they were talking about me. “Terry just got here. He said he wants to see you.” She looks so excited to tell me this. Like I get that she thinks attention will make me feel better. She doesn’t get why it won’t, especially now. I almost feel too bad to say something and, besides, she’s my ride home. “Yo girl,” Terry says. I roll my eyes. “Doctors give you anything good in there?” In the world of the high school party, the one with the percocet prescription is king. Sara looks mortified that Terry would even say the word hospital. I shouldn’t have come. Even if they don’t mention it, I know it’s all they think when they see me. “Sorry dude,” is all I say. “drat, that’s too bad.” I still can’t believe that guy has a full ride into UPenn waiting for him. His stoner eyes wander, looking for the next person he can hit up for some drugs. “Ryan,” Terry says, “long time no see!” I freeze when I hear his name. I don’t look, I can’t look. Sarah looks like she doesn’t know what to do. Great. She’s just been a bundle of help tonight. Next thing I know, he’s beside me. I don’t look up right away. I just sort of stare at a loose thread poking out of his hoodie. My eyes follow the thread to his sleeve, then up his arm, until my gaze finally finds his. He looks perfect of course. I think about how terrible I must look right now with the dark circles under my eyes and how greasy my hair must be. I should’ve stopped home for a shower first. “Hey Julie,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice since the phone call. “Hey Ryan,” I say. I don’t allow a hint of my longing or desire into my voice, which I consider a victory. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Sarah signals me “no” but I can’t help myself. “Yeah, I guess.” Another victory for me. Unless he can see through my chest and see just how hard my heart is thumping right now. I follow him to the porch, where it’s quieter. The neighbors around here will usually turn a blind eye to a party contained in a house. They’ll only call the cops if it spills outside. He offers me a cigarette, but I decline. He inhales. I think he’s just trying to stall for time. “How are you feeling?” He finally asks. “Oh, you know. Good.” I say. “That’s good.” “Well, maybe not good. But I’m managing.” “I’m glad.” he says. He finishes his cigarette. His fingers twitch like he wants another. I can’t take it any longer. I can’t take him so close to me and acting as if I were a stranger. “I love you,” I say. The words are desperate and he recoils from them. “Look,” he says, “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” I knew it was coming and yet deep inside I had hoped against hope. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” he says. “It’s not fair for you to hurt yourself.” I don’t know if he means fair to me or fair to him, but he has a point. “I’m gonna go inside,” he says before leaving. Sarah comes outside like she was inside watching the whole thing. Knowing her, she probably was. “Can I have a cigarette?” I ask her. She pulls out her pack and then hesitates. “Are you sure you’re okay to smoke these after being in the hospital?” “Yeah, I was in for a suicide attempt, not lung cancer.” She hands me one and takes the time to light it for me. Sometimes she might be clueless but I’m still glad to have her around. “What will you do now?” she says. “Keep on living I guess.”
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Mar 9, 2015 05:47
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Lighthouse (999 words. Song: Birdhouse in your Soul) It was darker inside the cabin at the foot of the lighthouse than outside, especially after accounting for the stillness of the interior and the utter chaos outside. Air and water rushed against everything with the incalculable forces of the storm shrieking across the coastline. Martin dragged the pillow off of his head to let the tiny chirp of the alarm come into focus. He had to do his job. The drumming of rain to kept tempo for the minutes it required him to wrap himself in the cynically iconic yellow oilskin coat. It was the uniform no one would ever see him in, except when they imagined what a lighthouse keeper looked like. He felt the weight of disappointing anyone who did such a thing, because he lacked a beard and had never smoked a pipe. He pulled the hood around his face, and stood by the door. He measured his breathing with the gusts of wind. The cinderblock mass of the lighthouse could be felt through the door. It could be heard cutting through the wind that was cutting through everything else. No one would be sailing in this. There were no souls out on the water that needed guidance. He would be the only one in the world to know if he did his job, and that made it more important to him than anything. Martin had inherited this duty through the force of his own will, rather than the black and white postmortem decree of someone else's. His parents had left him money, and insurance payouts, and a great deal of amateur art. His mother painted lighthouses from photographs she took motorcycling up and down the coast. They were practically traced. There was no compositional merit. They were beautifully simple. When he was brought home from school by the police officers and told about the accident, he'd spent a great deal of time crying into every one of them. Thunder shook the cabin, and Martin struck his hand out to the doorknob. Had there even been lightning? He drew back from the door and knelt. To the left of the door was a single electric outlet, and sticking halfway out of it was a nightlight he'd always had. It was a purely utilitarian object now. All of the paint had rubbed off, but he could still sometimes see it as the pale blue bird it once was. He pressed it fully into the socket and flicked the switch on the its tummy, which filled with a feeble golden light. He opened the door. He walked a straight line from the cabin to the lighthouse proper, fighting against wind and rain that rasped him from all sides. Heat was pulled out of him despite the layers of wool and canvas, and as he gripped the lock to the lighthouse, the steel threatened to turn the blood and bones in his hand to ice. He raked the lock with a shaking key a few times before striking true, and elbowed the oak door open. Elbowing it shut against the wind required multiple steps as his boots slipped in place on the stone floor. It took some seconds to re-acclimate to the relative stillness of the interior after the sudden bout of frantic exertion. Red canisters of kerosene lined the bottom of this circular building, all but three with the spouts turned to face the wall. All but three empty. No truck would make deliveries in this. He grabbed the first full can in line and circled the room to the staircase. Every few dozen steps he switched off arms, each only strong enough to play pendulum for so long. The building narrowed as he felt his way up the steps, the revolutions of the staircase becoming tighter. The sloshing of the kerosene became more pronounced, between the centrifugal action and his arms stiffening up. His head poked up into the glass dome of the lightroom, the enormous ridged lens distorting a lightning strike some miles off over the ocean. It vanished an instant before he recognized what he saw. He braced for the thunder. He loosed a steam laced exhalation through his teeth. Nothing. He continued his work. He carefully poured the canister into the reservoir. He carefully closed the caps on both. He set the canister down and stepped towards the railing. Beyond the inches of glass he was entirely open to the interchange of heat and pressure and water and electricity and air all around him. He shouldn't be this close to the railing. The worn down sticker said so. Safety precautions were in place for reasons. But stickers and railings and precautions were never enough. At the nuclear power plant, there was an equipment failure resulting in two fatalities. They had both been trained. They had made no mistakes. Things break. Friction wears down pipes; water lapping away at metal. Stress fractures form; expansion and contraction caused by the rhythms of heat and cold. Radioactive materials react with themselves; the same back and forth of physics right on down to the subatomic level. A pipe tore open and vented steam onto a woman trying to shut off the reaction. A man wearing flame-retardant protective gear asphyxiated while trying to rescue her, or at least her body. Martin's parents had been burned by water and drowned by flame. They had been doing their jobs. There was a dull boom that spread across the surface of the ocean and wrap itself around the lighthouse like fingers around a neck. Was that the thunder from the lightning bolt he'd just seen? He couldn't bring himself to do the mental math to determine how many miles away it must have come from. He leaned over the edge peering to the horizon, and then dragged his sight down towards the cabin. There was a warm, golden light shining through one of the windows. Martin made a mental note to order some pale blue paint when the storm finally ended.
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Mar 9, 2015 06:41
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Stainless E: removed Ironic Twist fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 10, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 06:47
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http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=3340&title=Babylon+And+On
Profane Accessory fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 06:58
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Julian To Come
Djeser fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2015 07:18
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Oh also I'm Istanbul not Constantinople not Constantiniyye not Byzantion not Byzantium
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Mar 9, 2015 07:19
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Fault Lines (763 words) Song: "Narrow Your Eyes" *snip* See Archives. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 17:43 on May 5, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 07:28
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Someone Keeps Moving My Chair 1000 words Harry stood in his boss’ doorway, unwilling to enter, but not daring to run. “Sir?” “Ah, yes, Harry! Come in!” Judkins stood up from his desk, waving him in. Harry stepped inside. He sat down in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair, steeling himself. “Sir, I wanted to ask -” Harry said. “Yes, in a bit.” Judkins said, sitting down across from him. “Did you take care of the matter I asked you about?” “Yes, sir, although it seems cruel to fire Arnold after his wife was diagnosed-” “I know what you think, Harry, but I have to reiterate that the decision to let him go had nothing to do with his wife, a point which I recall instructing you to document thoroughly.” Judkins tapped a file on his desk. “Yes, sir, and I made that clear to Arnold, as you asked.” Harry swallowed the rest of what he was going to say. He had a purpose, and he was determined to stick to it. “Actually, sir, as I mentioned, I was hoping to ask you -” “Good, good! That reminds me, we’ve got that Perez woman calling again about that drat environmental impact nonsense. You don’t mind calling her back, do you?.” Judkins began straightening the files on his desk, a sign that Harry being dismissed. “I was hoping to ask about that rai-” Harry said desperately, but he was cut off by Judkins’ assistant opening the door. “Call on line two, sir,” she said, smirking at Harry. “Alright, Tiff, thanks,” Judkins said, winking at her. “And Harry, remind Perez that just because her people haven’t seen any voles since we finished our operation, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.” Judkins picked up his phone and began speaking into it before Harry made it out the door. Harry marched past Tiffany’s desk without making eye contact. She popped her gum loudly. She had her cell phone out, and he was sure she was alerting someone that he was coming back. Harry made it to his desk to find his chair gone. That wasn’t unexpected, although the blanket of post-it notes was new. They’d had time to be thorough, while Arnold was crying and begging. Harry felt sick remembering, but he was determined to stay on Judkins’ good side. He pulled enough post-its off his phone to see the message light blinking. It was doubtlessly Sarah, asking if he’d spoken with Judkins, and how it had gone. Guilt twisted his stomach at the thought of telling her that he’d failed again. Sarah deserved better, and their daughter… Harry didn’t want to think about that, after seeing what happened to Arnold. He threw the crumpled post-it notes away. He would clean up the rest of them later, and then he would call Sarah back, once he’d thought of something to say. Maybe he’d call Perez, too, to have more time to think. But first, his chair. He checked the bathrooms on every floor. He looked in the back near the dumpsters, and IN the dumpsters, as well. He looked in the janitor’s closet, and in the basement. He looked in the freezer in the cafeteria as the kitchen staff watched, amused. He looked in the boiler room, and in the air duct entrances. Eventually, he decided to give up and ask Judkins for a new chair. He plodded up the stairs to his office, trying to think of an excuse for this newest loss, knowing he couldn’t ask for a raise now. Then he saw it. His chair was on the other side of the window glass, on the ledge. Harry felt the blood drain from his face. He hadn’t known that the windows could open, much less that anyone could get an office chair out of one. The thought of going out there sent his pulse racing in his throat. Desperate, Harry tried to think of someone he could ask for help. The window cleaners were out; Harry had been the one to tell them that the company was denying all of their benefits claims. The janitorial staff were equally unlikely to help, since Judkins’ new policy on breaks had been instituted - via Harry, of course. Harry was going to have to get it himself. He felt along the edge of the window, eventually finding a latch. The pane rotated suddenly, almost sending him flying. He crouched for a moment, staring down at the pavement below, before shakily inching onto the ledge. The chair was just far enough that he had to let go of the glass to reach it, and he heard the window slam shut behind him as he got a grip on the chair. Startled, he turned, overbalancing. To his left, his chair toppled from its perch and fell. Harry watched it shatter, struggling for purchase on the ledge. He saw himself down there, lying next to it. He knew that he wasn’t going to get a raise, knew that he would beg and weep as much as Arnold had if it meant he might get the money for his daughter’s care. Judkins might fire him, then, if he knew, and Harry would be as useless and lost as he felt now. It was only a matter of time. Sarah would leave him, and he wouldn’t be able to see his daughter, let alone help her. He stared down at the chair and knew that he and it were the same; pushed around by life and ruined by circumstance. He leaned forward, staring down at the chair, hypnotized by his own thoughts. He should let go. Sarah would be better off without him, and maybe the insurance payments would help with his daughter’s care, as he could not. He closed his eyes and let the thought wrap him in comfort, leaning forward, feeling gravity take over. Falling, he remembered a conversation he’d had with a tearful widow months earlier: “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but our life insurance doesn’t cover suicide.” But then it was too late.
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Mar 9, 2015 07:57
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bye
anime was right fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 08:02
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bye
anime was right fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 08:03
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Coil 71 words Glistening with dew, it lay wrapped upon the fertile ground, soft grass rustling against its smooth, firm surface. Its brass tip dribbled sweet water, teasingly, needfully. So long, so thick, vibrantly verdant, it lay there, waiting to be picked up, to be turned on, to spray its life-giving essence over the thirsty greenery. A rough hand grasps the firm handle. Turn. Turn. Turn. A gasp. A spurt. And then... Release.
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Mar 9, 2015 08:38
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OTHER INTERPROMPT PET THUNDERDOME WRITE ABOUT YOUR PET, AND YOUR PET IS AN ACTION HERO 100 WORDS, MOTHERFUCKERS. PUNCH THAT poo poo.
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Mar 9, 2015 09:05
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In Tandem (150 words) The door creaked, and light invaded my world. He stood there alone in that morning warmth; naked and wet, my one and only. "It's that time again," he said, eyes locked on my slender frame. With masculine arms he roused me from my slumber. As always, he carried me. His whole body shivered. The sound of bare feet on ceramic tile signaled our arrival, the air still thick with steam from the shower. His grip tightened, resolved. Here he was the expert. I could only accept his knowing hands. With a practiced rhythm, he made his first thrust. I breathed in deep, captivated by his hypnotic skill, his firm caress. The lingering steam lent an almost dreamlike quality to the old routine. It'd been far too long since the last time we'd done this. After two minutes, he was finished. "Got it, finally." He flushed to be sure.
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Mar 9, 2015 10:14
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