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Jul 28, 2022 15:46
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The blood throne demands sportsblood, and also regular blood. In.
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Jul 28, 2022 17:06
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Archived.
Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Dec 24, 2022 |
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Jul 28, 2022 17:09
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GANG BRAWL CRITICAL ALERT: I like seeing all this BLOOD, also known as WORDS, but BLOOD is NOTHING without people STARING AT THE BLOOD and going "actually this could use some improvement." I DEMAND that all participants in the GANG BRAWL do a CRITIQUE of the STORY AFTER THEIRS (or first story, if they were the last of the round). If you do not do this, you are a SPACE COWARD, which is worse than a REGULAR COWARD. Noah posted:Gang Brawl 1 Sonny posted:Gang Brawl 2
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Jul 28, 2022 20:27
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MockingQuantum Night Gangbrawl Entry crit this doesnt land very well. the dialogue is really on the nose, with characters just saying directly what they feel, which makes these characters feel very basic. the emotions here should land stronger, but because the characters wear their thoughts on their sleeves, we dont really view them as full complete characters, but rather as just sad guy and ghost-like-thing. the concept here is a bit of a classic one, reliving past events in hope for a better result, but it doesnt really do much with that concept. it more just presents it but not really interestingly. the big issue is that i dont feel the relationship here is substantial. nick is sad vaguely about not being there, but i dont feel any chemistry or connection between these two that i cant feel the importance. it should matter, the act of reliving this moment tells us it is important, but i dont feel like. what about danny makes nick want to do things right? why does he have these regrets? i dont see it and so it just feels like someone being over dramatic about a bad breakup. also, the vagueness here lends more towards confusion than anything. is danny dead? did they just have a falling out? im not sure and the ambiguity doesnt work for me because those are two very different things that i think need to be engaged with on their own rather than vaguely hinting to be either of those.
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Jul 28, 2022 23:21
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Gangcrit.hard counter posted:infinite night brawl Now, as a (500 word) story (conceived and written in less than 12 hours), this is a bite-sized little narrative that does what it's supposed to and then gets gone. Respectable. The protagonist is the only character, but that's fine. Where it could use some fine-tuning is the language itself. The prose is workmanlike, it gets the job done, but nothing about it stands out in particular, and you belabor the point at times. Your sentences could be leaner, meaner, leaving room for more evocative imagery or color. As is, this story reads like someone telling me a story from their youth, which is fair enough. It could be more though, if you'd let it.
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Jul 29, 2022 00:30
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Gangbrawl crit On the surface this seems like purely a gag story and not a particularly funny one at that. Ok, the guy wants corn, we get it. The description of the narrator's unkempt appearance was pretty good, as was his garbled dialogue. And the image of him sleeping in a pile of bunnies and chickens. Looking deeper, there are a lot of questions raised by the elisions in this story. Why did the narrator subside into a bizarre hermit-like existence? Why does he want this corn so much? Why mention his dead-end job at the start of the story at all? The way the narrative skips over certain crucial details (e.g. "I even married and divorced a few of them", the lack of motivation) makes me wonder if the narrator is deliberately withholding information, a la Nabokov or Wolfe. I could speculate about a hidden story between the lines (maybe the corn is linked to one of his marriages?) but there aren't quite enough clues there to make it feel worthwhile. I do get a general theme of loneliness, alienation and a tragic failure to communicate.
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Jul 29, 2022 04:04
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Monolith gangcrit for The Buried Megalith by MockingQuantum This is pretty good. I like the deadpan tone. The contrast between the banality of two men digging a hole with the megalith rumbling when Dean touched it worked really well. The way Dean doesn't mention Keith's tears when his late wife is mentioned is a great touch. Why is the thermos a "sickly green tube"? It's just an ordinary thermos, right? With iced tea in it? When Keith refers to "the kids swiping apples and spooking the pigs," I was confused as to whether he meant his kids, or the neighbours or whatever. Are the pigs spooked because the kids are stealing apples, or are the little buggers also messing with his livestock for some reason?
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Jul 29, 2022 04:16
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 REDEMPTION DOME Yoruichi posted:Redemption Dome Leaderboard: You have until midnight PST this Sunday 31 July to enter the Redemption Dome! Erase your failures!! Boost your FART rating!!! OBTAIN GLORY!!!!!!!!
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Jul 29, 2022 04:32
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Gang crit for:PhantomMuzzles posted:SURVIVOR: GOAT ARMY We have a problem here - I’ve never watched Survivor. I liked the concept of this and thank you for writing some explanation in the opening. Second stringers back for another shot at the prize, okay! Then we get into the contestants and this lost me pretty quick. One is smelly, one screwed another over… but the one who was previously wronged isn’t back again? In fact none of them seem to know or have a history with each other, and there’s no hint at how the alliances might shape up (which is the part that seems funny to me). I don’t know, are these real people? If so it might resonate with someone who knows the show, but then it’s basically fanfiction so I don’t know what I was supposed to take away from this. Could work, needs some kind of narrative to get invested in (exactly like a reality show). 500 words is not a lot but if you cut down the number of contestants and change the details about them you can frame someone as the real underdog, tell me someone is out for revenge, you know, give me something to root for!
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Jul 29, 2022 04:51
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bold move, making me attempt a critiqueSailor Viy posted:The Train Station at 10,000 A.M. -i'm probably the intended audience for this piece because i had as much fun reading it as you (hopefully) had writing it, i really appreciate eccentric worlds like this, and i think building up to a goofy one-liner was an appropriate choice, given how many outlandish concepts you introduced...the vibe all works well together for me imho -overall i think you succeeded in fulfilling your intentions for this piece, good job -with that said, i'm not the only kind of audience out there, we all read for different reasons: some for drama, some for the poetry of beautiful prose, some for plots with twists and turns, some for memorable characters, etc, etc, etc, and many of these other potentially desirable features are neglected here -building on that idea, sometimes the essence of good writing isn't necessarily doing one thing well, but by limiting as many weaknesses elsewhere as possible, creating even more strengths whenever possible -having to do multiple things well is the awful curse of good writing, i guess -with that in mind, this piece could become a little more well-rounded, if it made some strategic cuts -the piece already very quickly succeeded in establishing its off-beat, fantastical setting, and while i, myself, enjoyed further elaboration via the extra details, some of those details could have been pared off without losing the heart of the piece imho -with that extra room you could've had more space to play with, to reach for readers of different tastes, by adding something else that you feel's appropriate for this piece, whether its more humorous characterization, or adding some comedic tension, or whatever else you like -by reaching for one or two of these other areas whenever possible, even from within the limits of a tight word count, a piece becomes more likely to resonate with readers of broader stripes, not just folks like me, so you might achieve more success with a generalized audience -that's just my opinion tho!
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Jul 29, 2022 06:20
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|-----------| | GANG | | BRAWL | | CRITS!!! | |-----------| (\__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / づ Huh, both the ones I got to crit were the winners, the lesson is just post right after me! Antivehicular The Roundup A nice slice of life from a possible future, a guy stuck to the old ways while the world moved on to the new ways, both of which are ahead of our current ways. Everyone with jobs has ran into the old coworker who still does things the way people stopped years ago, sometimes they make sense, sometimes not. I'm down on climate change stories as someone who is in the sciences but enjoyed the bit of optimism at the end. Good defined character types, good world building, not sure if the info dump would work better spread out a bit and as part of conversation but maybe not. Also your story seems to affect reality by winning coin flips so maybe take it to the store for some lotto numbers! kaom The Battle of Highway 17 I almost wrote something similar as I see goats on the regular in Palo Alto being used for lawn maintenance, and said goats would probably feel at home on the real life California Highway 17 full of its twists and turns over the mountain. Glad I did not as it wouldn't have measured up. Good descriptive vegetation work, thorny blackberries are a mess (at home we got ones specifically bred to not have thorns but sadly they taste too sour right now lol) Breanna has good characterization though I would have enjoyed more goat action than munches and the little bit at the end. General advice for both - stop writing stuff so good it makes it hard for me to crit!
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Jul 29, 2022 20:21
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I'M IIIIIIIIIIIIN Gimme a flash rule, coach
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Jul 29, 2022 21:11
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Screaming Idiot posted:I'M IIIIIIIIIIIIN Your sport is sepak takraw!
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Jul 30, 2022 00:33
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Gang Brawl 1 PhantomMuzzles - The Maize Maze: I'd say this is a solid description of the location but I also know exactly what you're describing, so it's possible I am not an unbiased observer in this case. I think the one thing that would help this story the most, for me, is if you got a little deeper into the head of the "character." You describe the character based on what she loves, and what appeals to her, but get specific: is it the rush of that unexpected scare? The smell of the fog machine? The ambiance of the invented worlds? More specificity will make this kind of story more vivid, especially if you can pinpoint the unique, tangible memories of these places that stood out to you, even if they're not the sort of aspects that you would use to describe the experience when trying to convince someone to check out one of the haunted houses, for example. So I guess not just more specific sensory description, but also more personal and unique sensory description would help. It pulls double duty by both setting a much more specific and memorable scene, and giving us a window into who this person is and what aspects of the experience stuck with them. Gang Brawl Round 2 Bad Seafood - Werewolves: This is interesting, very broad and big and poetic in a way that is intellectually interesting to read and pick apart, but not terribly gripping as a narrative, which is fine. It feels like a 500-word proof-of-concept in some ways, like I can appreciate the ideas it puts forward, but it feels almost like it's mostly nibbling around the edges of a bigger idea of werewolves in the garden of Eden, without ever quite venturing what could be truly interesting about that idea. There's a lack of specificity of character here, but tbf that feels both intentional and stylistic. Overall I think this is a well-written amuse-bouche, a sort of supernatural appetizer that is interesting mostly in the bigger story that it implies rather than the one it tells in the brief span of the words on the page. Gang Brawl Round 3 PhantomMuzzles - The Gathering Place: So we talked about your story before you posted it and I still really like it a lot but one thing that struck me this time reading through it: the story is in a fairly tight third person, but the voice of the narration seems to kind of waver in and out of Wilson's viewpoint, or at least feels like it does. I can see Wilson editorializing Cheryl's behavior as "doing something stupid again" and that he'd think of the smell as "piss and poo poo" instead of "excrement" for example, but does he think of his coffee as "an elixir to steel himself?" Or does he think Cheryl was "frozen in terrified wonder?" It's possible he does, but the two takes (crude and poetic) do kind of contend with each other, in a way that makes the more eloquent descriptions feel like a distant narrator's editorializing of the situation. I think either finding a way to bridge those two tones in a way that makes it clear that that antithesis is part of Wilson's character, or smoothing the transitions between Wilson's thought process and the "storytelling" narrative voice would help the piece feel a little more consistent and hit a little harder.
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Jul 30, 2022 02:43
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GANG BRAWL CRITS GANG BRAWL ROUND 1 Sonny: The White Whale of the Prairie I liked the premise of the story a lot. Skilled hunter tracks down elusive legendary beast, it reveals it’s a demon, he narrowly escapes. Awesome. You did a good job of setting everything up and establishing expectations quickly. Big giant bull. No one has ever been able to track it down. But then Ishmael just… does? I wish we had a better indication of the effort there. It would make it feel more like he is the hero and deserves this epic confrontation. This is a minor thing, but during the confrontation I lost track of the choreography. “He rode closer” (so he’s on his horse)... “The demon charged at Ishmael, horn first. Ishmael reacted instinctively, throwing himself to the side.” (so did he get off the horse at some point? Or did he throw himself off his horse? Wouldn’t the demon hit his horse then?)... “He scrambled to his feet and ran toward his horse” (so he definitely either got off the horse or threw himself off it). The ambiguity just makes me lose track of exactly what’s happening, which makes me feel less present in this moment. Repeated words (fine if intentional, just wanted to point them out in case they weren’t): -Finally. Second paragraph third sentence and third paragraph first sentence. -Began to. Fourth paragraph first sentence and fourth paragraph second sentence. -Turned to. Fourth paragraph second sentence and fourth paragraph third sentence. Overall it was a nice story, but I found myself wishing you’d used some of the words you had left to embellish the imagery a bit so it all felt more epic and impactful. GANG BRAWL ROUND 2 derp: infinitely late at night I really liked the writing style of this. It captured the desperate, meandering stream-of-consciousness that holds one’s brains hostage during insomnia. I found myself focused more than I should have been on the TV, and whether or not it was capitalized and also when it was turned on and off. I’m sure that’s just me though so feel free to ignore. I assume it’s intentional that 3:12 AM lasts forever, and that was an interesting choice. I would have assumed the latter, that you would want to convey how much sleeptime this poor soul is missing out on by the clock speeding by while they lie awake. Instead I found myself thinking “wow from 3:11-3:12, they turned the tv off, then on, then off again” and it just felt more active than restless? I know when I’m trying to sleep I’ll turn the TV off, then gradually realize I can’t sleep with it off so I turn it on, then slowly accept I need to turn it back on. And each time it’s frustrating and I feel like I’m not in control of what my body wants. But switching the tv every like twenty seconds doesn’t seem like that. Overall I really liked this, and it paired well with your avatar photo and the text underneath it. GANG BRAWL ROUND 3 Sonny: The Alien Warning Hello again! Sorry your story was right after mine twice. This one feels a bit like the opposite of your Moby corn story. That one was very direct and straight to the point, without much in the way of extra plot or flavor. This one has a whole lot of stuff all sort of crammed in. It feels like a box of chex mix except there are like also meatballs and Swedish fish inside. The first seven sentences of the story feel like they’re stripped of any character or flavor. It’s just telling me things that happened, but not in a way that makes them feel real. It’s basically a lot of telling, but no showing. Then suddenly I’m hit with some shocking imagery. Those next four sentences are probably my favorite part of the story. It’s surprising and exciting. Then the last three sentences of the first paragraph feel back to the way it started. It just sort of says “And then stuff happened.” I’d love to really feel the sense of how unsettling it is these people feel compelled to do the same thing that just destroyed their friend. That right there is the most horrifying part of the story, and its presentation really undercuts that impact. The third paragraph confused me a bit. “At the socialite’s funeral” tells me it’s a single funeral for a single person, but then it follows with all of the families being upset about all the loved ones. It’s just a bit odd. Then we get to the detective, who I wish was not in the story. As soon as he shows up, the story goes off the loving rails (and not in a way I enjoyed). If this was a longform story, having a single dude be the downfall of these aliens might feel very exciting in a vigilante kind of way. But the way it’s presented it makes these aliens feel awkward and inept and silly. I was suddenly not sure if this was trying to be scary or campy. Then another plot twist! There’s a DIFFERENT alien coming to destroy the planet. The aliens were killing some humans to save all humans, for…. reasons. “The detective gathered all of the evidence and presented it to the authorities.” What authorities? “The aliens were caught and tried. They were found guilty and sentenced to death.” Who tf has jurisdiction over this?! If you told me that these “authorities” was a top-secret, Men in Black, Area 51 type deal who killed the aliens to keep it all quiet, I might buy that. But the idea that these aliens were just treated like totally normal citizens really took me out. Personally, I’d definitely ditch the detective. Keep the start. Clarify the aliens’ motivation. Have them announce something scary to Earth, then Earth kills them in retaliation. Then Earth realizes too late the aliens were trying to help them. It’s still a lot to try to accomplish in 500 words though.
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Jul 30, 2022 02:58
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i'm looking at the list of cuts and for once i'm not on it looks like i'm playing IN the big game
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Jul 30, 2022 07:00
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ty 520 judges/critters in
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Jul 30, 2022 07:55
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Signups are closed! If you still want to participate in the last TD of the decade, there's still one judge slot open.
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Jul 30, 2022 09:25
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Screaming Idiot posted:I'M IIIIIIIIIIIIN 
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Jul 30, 2022 09:54
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Every good sporting event needs judge/commentator who's just there to be a personable idiot, and I nominate myself as the idiot judge! Here's the level of commentary you can expect from me:
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Jul 30, 2022 17:12
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Spectacle. (1,380 words) Snap. Payyat snapped fingers before Chaluc's face, grinning. "Chaluc! You sleep no longer! Attention!" Chaluc massaged his temples. Weeks ago he was awakened from voidsleep; his people’s colony long ago thrown off-course, he was told, with the promised land never to be seen. The descendants of the original crew scavenged and built, and with waning knowledge and growing need every generation until all they knew was the hunger and rust of the failing present and the low keening of entropy. Other voidsleepers were awakened, judged for usefulness, discarded if found wanting, with the fortunate given to the starry black, outsuit-clad and shown a final splendor before the sleeping-drug in their air supply made them breathe their last. Chaluc was not a lucky one. He was strong and quick, but he did not understand the old machines when questioned, and was without use. Strong backs they had in excess and only those with old knowledge were allowed to remain among them. Payyat licked his lips and offered a hesitant smile. He was small and bent, but there was a sharpness to his speech which suggested his thinking was equally quick. "I truthtell you: win games for me, I caretake you. I make profit from risk as one makes food from gardens." Chaluc did could not speak the new tongue well, but he thought he understood. His tongue felt thick in his mouth as he replied. "I know few games. What do I play?" "Sport-of-ancients! Spectacle!" The little man clapped, bracelets of nuts strung with wire clattering with joy when his palms met. "Old game, older than Home! You get rectangle field, yeah? Bar in middle divides, each side has team-of-three." He held a sphere woven of plastic tubing and set with subtly shifting lights within; a small, pretty thing. He held it like an idol. "Backman kicks takraw over bar, threemen other side cannot let takraw groundtouch. Kick into air, groundtouch otherside inside rectangle. Threemen turntake kicks 'til twenty-and-one groundtouches; best-of-three wins, though third only need ten-and-one groundtouches. Also! Cannot handtouch takraw, or groundtouch outside rectangle! Else other team scores." Chaluc never heard of Spectacle, but the rules felt... familiar. "Can I first practice?" Payyak laughed. "Yes! I caretake you 'til you learn. Our team wins? I caretake you 'til we earn free. You lose?" His tone grew somber, and for the first time doubt crept into his words. "I plead you gentle: do not lose!" *** Weeks passed. Chaluc saw others awakened, judged, put to use. Chaluc trained hard with the others; if Payyat's team won, they would be given better rations and greater comforts owed to those who distinguished themselves as skilled players. Failure would be disaster, unspeakable and final. The sport in motion was indeed a Spectacle. Payyak hadn't mentioned the court had lowered gravity, nor the floating panels skilled players could rebound the takraw, or even themselves. Chaluc's memories pre-voidsleep were steam; scalding, intangible. Yet his body remembered kicking, leaping, running; that had to suffice. The Overseer of the Subdeck stood briefly, tattooed hand raised. His clothing was finer than most, likely taken from the belongings of one who was awakened and found wanting, but his speech and appearance and overall health marked him as one of the descendants; they were careful only to awaken sleepers when needed, so they remained the majority. “Today we see Spectacle! They shall dance air-legged and star-born; today will see them prove life-worth, be given to the starry black, or made into nourishing gardens." "I worked farmbeds, took care of gardens. Food grows best from the living; they support growth far longer and produce greater bounty," Payyak had explained. He would not speak further. He did not need to. The six took their places, with Chaluc taking the place on the circle, takraw in hand. He lifted it before him and let it drift downward, his leg a cobra. Snap. The takraw ricocheted from a panel to his right, then to one above, spinning toward the ground. The other team's striker hurled himself to the ground, drifting, spinning until the takraw made contact with his toe, flying off right into one of the panels behind Chaluc, and he turned to see it hurtle toward his face. Hands rose to block it, then swiftly moved away as realization dawned, but too late: he had smacked the takraw to the ground. "Point to Jyurda-team!" the Overseer shouted. Trading blow for blow, players leapt and spun, bending bodies and the laws of motion and momentum to near-breaking. Drugs in their water between rounds made them forget pain and weariness; they would either save their hurts for later, or never feel them again. "Payyak- and Jyurda-teams both at ten points! Next groundtouch is last!" Chaluc waited, pain and exhaustion alchemized into focus, drugged blood singing in his ears. Snap. The takraw fired up to the panel above and rebounded toward the ground. Chaluc's teammates took to the air, kicks missing by millimeters. Would he dream among stars, or become a garden? Chaluc raised his foot as reality slowed to a crawl. The takraw spun ever closer, spinning through space like a world untethered from orbit. Snap. Chaluc's foot connected, firing the takraw forward. The other team leapt for it and missed, and it rebounded off another panel on a trajectory toward the ground. "You shall stardance, sleeper!" screamed the blood-eyed striker of the other team as he kicked off a nearby panel and spiked the takraw downward with a broken leg. Snap. Chaluc took aim, leg arching, kicking outward... ...only for the takraw to brush his ankle on its way to the ground. It hit soundlessly, but Chaluc was still deafened by the pounding in his ears. "To the farmbeds with you, Payyak!" Jyurda bellowed, laughing. He was big and muscular, well-fed and basking in his team’s victory. "Littlelimbed and gutshriveled may you be, you'll grow well for us!" Chaluc collapsed to his knees, numb shock stealing his strength, the first twinges of pain coming to him. The Overseer was making a speech, Payyak was crying out in panic, his teammates – Did they have names? Did he know them? In that instant, Chaluc could not remember -- were fighting against their captors until beaten into silence. Chaluc needed no such treatment; his failure was heavy enough a cudgel. Guards carried Chaluc’s boneless form to the outsuit fitting room, and he thought of the star-littered field of black beyond the airlock. There were no windows to show the outside of the colony vessel, but he could imagine the void outside well enough. Trickles of memory flowed from blocked channels as seeing the familiar surroundings wiped away more of the voidsleep sickness: classes in engineering, a proud family left behind, the promise of an unspoiled world to cultivate. As one of the chosen he was to sleep until the journey concluded and be among those to build the future, while the lesser-skilled were to stay awake and alert to maintain the ship on its AI-directed journey. But he and the others had slept too long, something had gone awry. They were adrift. The suit was sealed about him, clasps welded closed. The helmet locked about his head, and a soft feminine voice warned that his oxygen supply was compromised by an unidentified chemical agent. He whispered to the outsuit’s systems to disable the alarm; he was aware of the drug added to his oxygen. It would make his passing more pleasant, he knew. It would make the vista of space all the more… breathtaking. He didn’t know if it was the drug or the realization that the worst had come to pass, but he no longer feared the end; the world he left behind was long-gone, as was his family. The world he was to see he would never see; minute errors in navigation had added up through the decades – or was it centuries? -- and no man could manually pilot the ship over the mind-defying distances even if it was possible to gauge where navigation had failed. It was fitting. From sleep Chaluc had come, and to sleep Charles Lucas would return. He owed nothing, was owed nothing; there was nothing further to be offered. He had given his all, and he was satisfied.
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Jul 31, 2022 03:27
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Sitting Here posted:
We've gotten about 32 great submissions so far but we need lots more! You have around 24 hours to add to the fun
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Jul 31, 2022 03:29
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A Simple Magic 1289 words https://thunderdome.cc/?story=10751&title=A+Simple+Magic a friendly penguin fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 14:14
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Fumikomi-ashi archive MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Dec 10, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 19:20
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Week 521 Entry Good Dog Waffles 1201 words Goodness. Presto has glorious haunches. Look at them. So sniffable. “Waffles, stop that,” Small Human says while I reach out for a butt sniff. Why is our run after Presto? So distracting. Oooh Big Human smooches my snoot. “Good luck Little Waffles! I’ll see you after your run!” I am so glad he is here. I love Big Human. I love Small Human. Agility is our thing. We run and jump and play. I want Small Human to be proud of me. Sometimes I run happy and Small Human is happy. Sometimes I run sad. Small Human still pretends to be happy but she is sad. This time I will remember to run happy and Small Human will be happy and proud. If I run extra special happy I get a HappyCup. HappyCup is the best. Okay now Presto goes in the ring. Bye bye butt sniffs. Big Human walks away and I do not know if I will ever see him again. Oooh Small Human has treats! Sit? No problem! Nose touch? Boop boop boop. I am so good at nose touches. I get lots of small yummy treats. Hey where are we going? Do I have to wear this leash? Oh it is our turn. Uh oh, oh no. Maybe I should have pottied when my Humans said to. I sit down and Small Human takes my leash off. Gotta itch now. Small Human runs away. I will just keep itching. She will come back. Small Human comes back. She scratches my neck. She says “Come on Waffles let’s go!” I say okay because I love Small Human. Dutifully, I follow Small Human to the first jump. It is too high. I will go around it. Uh oh, oh no. Small Human smiles but I know she is sad. We walk back. Small Human says, “That’s okay, Waffles! Let’s try again!” That means I am bad dog. I am sad running now but I go over the jump this time. Small Human points at another jump. I go over that jump too. Whee I am going fast now! Small Human points at another jump. I go toward it wait what is that smell. I smell a smell. I will go find the smell. Oh there is a Chair Human here. I go to the Chair Human. Small Human is calling my name. She must not know Chair Human has a smell. I sniff the Chair Human who is trying very hard not to look at me. Small Human calls my name for the first time so I run toward her. She points to tunnel now. I love tunnel. I go in tunnel. It is nice and dark and there are smells in tunnel. I lay down for just a minute. Small Human is looking in tunnel calling me. Uh oh, oh no. I should leave tunnel soon. Okay I will leave tunnel now. Small Human runs toward the teeter. I will not do the teeter. Teeter makes a loud bang and I do not like it. I go around the teeter. Small Human goes back and tells me to do the teeter. I will not. Small Human says “That’s fine, you don’t have to! Let’s keep going!” Uh oh, oh no. I am bad dog. I lie down and show Small Human my fuzzy belly. If she pets my fuzzy belly she forgives me. Wait uh oh, oh no. She did not see my fuzzy belly because she is still running. I go catch up and try to happy run. Gosh wait. Just outside the ring. Is that Big Human? I did not know Big Human was here! I have not seen Big Human in forever! I run to the edge of the ring. I try to push down the fence. It stops me from reaching Big Human. But I love Big Human! I do not love fence. “Waffles!” Small Human calls my name. Oh that’s right we are running agility! I love agility! I happy run to Small Human. She points at a jump. I jump over the jump. She points at another jump. This jump seems much higher. I stop in front of jump. Small Human says “Waffles, jump!” I disagree. I go under the bar. This is easier. Chair Human laughs. Maybe I should go see if Chair Human still has smells. I start walking toward Chair Human. Wait Small Human is running away. I chase. She points at a jump. I jump over the jump. I love jumping. All of a sudden, Small Human slows down. Uh oh, oh no. The weave poles. I do not love the weave poles. Weave poles always make me sad run. I do the first two weave poles. The third weave pole is spooky. I skip that pole. I do a few more weave poles. Then I skip another weave pole because it is at a very slight angle. I do not want to do more weave poles. I wander away. Free from the weave poles. I sit down and look around. Wait who is that? There is a Stern Human in the ring. Stern Human holds up a fist, then a hand. Hmm. I run toward Stern Human. There is a jump in the way. I jump over the jump. Stern Human holds up both hands. I jump on Stern Human. Stern Human looks stern. Small Human says “Waffles, don’t jump on the Judge!” I turn to Small Human. Yay Small Human is here! I walk toward her. “Fast Dog Waffles!” Small Human is right. I am happy walking now. She points to the A-Frame. I love the A-Frame! I run to the top of the A-Frame. Oh I am high. I like being high. Look how big I am. Biggest dog Waffles. Small Human says “Waffles come down!” Uh oh, oh no. I should come down now. There is yellow at the bottom of the A-Frame. Yellow is lava. I jump from up high so I do not step on the lava. Loud buzzer happens. I do not know what loud buzzer wants. I lie down and show Small Human my fuzzy belly. She does not rub my fuzzy belly. Uh oh, oh no. Small Human is mad at Bad Dog Waffles. I am not happy running and Small Human is sad. Eep! Small Human runs away! I chase. She points at one more jump. I jump over and it beeps. Small Human jumps and claps and cheers. She puts my leash on. I do not like my leash. Small Human scoops me up. She smooches my snoot. She tells me I am Good Dog Waffles. Best Dog Waffles. Fast Dog Waffles. Small Human is proud of me. She brings me to Big Human. I did not know Big Human is here! Best surprise. My Humans pet and scratch and smooch me. I am Best Agility Dog Waffles. Since I am a Good Dog we go to Burger Food Place and I get a HappyCup. I must be a Very Good Dog to earn a HappyCup. I have messy poops all over. I am Good Dog Waffles and Small Human is happy. What a very good day.
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Jul 31, 2022 19:23
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Cloudburst (1,500 words) Marduk looked out over the city, board in hand, his back to Seven. The setting sun had dyed the Earth a harsh and brilliant red. Skyscrapers like tombstones dotted the horizon. An updraft filled his jacket, billowing like a flag. “You ready?” Seven squared her shoulders. “Am I ever,” she lied. In her arms she cradled Spooky, a small but excited Japanese Shiba Inu. Marduk pointed towards the skyline, selecting the space between two towering superstructures. “The rest of the gang’s already there,” he said. “If you win, you’re in.” “Right! Well…let’s do it then, yeah?” Marduk turned to face her, godlike in his presence. He was a giant of a man chiseled from a block of pure obsidian. Bending down, he steadied his board against the rooftop, and engaged the hover function. The soul within the fiberglass began to click and whirl. Seven whistled. Compared to the windboard she used to make deliveries, Marduk’s ride was really something else. Sleek and polished, unmarred by scratches or ornamentation, illuminated only by the pulse of inner lights. Still, she thought, she liked her own, every dent and sticker. Standing upright, Marduk removed his jacket, baring his muscular back and shoulders. He belted his jacket tightly at the waist. He stood on his board. “Whenever you’re ready.” Seven pulled down the goggles from her forehead. She wore baggy cargo shorts and a red bikini top that perfectly matched the shade of her short, disheveled hair. Along her arms and shoulders were a range of cute tattoos. She gave her board a little kick, and it, too, hummed to life. She then considered Spooky. “Name your terms,” Marduk said. She’d found him relaxing in his designated booth, a handsome girl in one arm, a beautiful boy in the other. She’d held up the flyers for her family business, an infectious smile as wide as the dawn. “Windboarding!” She said, “Any time! Any place!” “I assume you know the rules, then…my condition is the dog.” Spooky licked her face, bringing her back to the present. She smiled to hide her worry. She always brought Spooky on the job, of course…but racing? That was different. Crouching down, she released him. Dutifully, he scrambled on, taking up his perch. Marduk eyed the dog, dispassionately. Seven planted her boots on the board as well, and poised her body. She took a deep breath. “Ready…steady…GO!” The two pushed off in perfect unison. Both boards sailed over the edge, and for a fleeting moment they were flying. Then came gravity, their noses pulled to Earth. Seven squatted down to grip the edge with her fingers. Her board plummeted down the side of the building, a lone foot between her and the concrete caress of the wall. Far below were shanty towns with laundry hung on strings. They filled the cracks between the massive towers of the rich. Seven waited. She had to time this right. The rush of the wind whipping past was electric. Spooky was barking, clinging to the board. The ground approached, faster and faster. At twelve stories down, she kicked against the wall, and launched out over the unwashed crowds, landing on the roof of a far shorter building. “Woo hoo!” Looking over her shoulder, she saw Marduk’s arc as well. He’d cleared a little higher, sailing over her, only to bounce off a water tower. At first she thought he’d made a mistake, but he quickly revealed his ingenuity, using the momentum to reach another building. “Right.” Seven grit her teeth, trying to keep her cool. She glanced down at Spooky. The Inu panted happily, oblivious to the obvious handicap he presented. She’d need to stick to the streets. Surfing from one rooftop to the next, she skillfully navigated someone’s open-air garden, taking great care not to ruffle any plants. From there she’d have to dip down, and wallow in the traffic. Her board was just as fast as Marduk’s, she was certain. The only difference was she couldn’t make mistakes. There was a cry among the people as she crashed to street level, carving her way between merchants and scavengers. Each crosswalk and gathering provided fresh obstacles. She weaved between the groups on reflex alone. Spooky’s status as a passenger may have grounded her, but he proved quite effective at parting the crowds. She’d trained him to bark while out on the job. He gleefully announced their arrival at each and every junction, scattering pedestrians, clearing the way. Separated by several stories and various tent-like tarps and banners, Seven knew better than to look for Marduk. Either she was winning, or she wasn’t. The end. Still, she felt nervous, unable to clock him. What she wouldn’t have given for a patch of open sky. Curving past people, bicycles, other boarders, she left behind the shoppers and plunged into the Gutter. Here she let reason take over for instinct. One had to be cautious when surfing through the Gutter. Among their inhabitants were a treacherous sort, mistaken for human, but only ever once. Sure enough, as she banked the next turn, her arrival was heralded by the sound of gunfire. Some lean troublemaker with a bottle and a rifle was making sport of her serpentine route. She shifted her position, using the reinforced underside of the board to block the shots. She glanced at her dog, a trickling of guilt welling up inside her. A large man stumbled from a shop, his eyes in a haze, with a mischievous grin. He stuck out his arm to catch her in a clothesline. Spooky growled, and she ducked just in time. Leaving him behind, she stuck out her tongue. Then the Gutter opened out, onto a sprawling industrial sector. Humanity vanished, replaced with aged, decrepit factories, connected by wires and abandoned pipes. Seven saw the sky, and listened for the sound of Marduk’s board. The wind told her nothing. Crouching down as she passed by some cranes, she flipped on the current rider. Beyond the initial wall of machines stretched an open power grid, bristling with energy. Shooting out into the midst of it, she caught a ripple of electricity that followed along, rising and curling like the ocean of old. “污染物! 污染物!” Seven’s whole body tensed up. Glancing to the side, she saw them: cleaners. Although they typically patrolled the perimeter, two had broken off in pursuit. Though humanoid in shape, in smart-looking uniforms, their metallic faces with cold, empty eyes left little room to ponder their humanity. If you believed what you heard on the government loudspeakers, they were an important facet of the city’s upkeep, sanitation, and crime prevention. In practice they mostly just recycled homeless people. “Hold on!” The first of them rocketed closer, propelled on jet boots, and raised its hand, palm out. Seven twisted the current she was riding in a funnel, spinning up and away, as a stream of fire sliced through the air. Then came the other, both palms at the ready. Spooky growled and leapt from the board, latching onto its head. “Spooky!” Seven panicked, reaching out, when she heard a distant sound: a rocket had been fired, and was rapidly closing in. She blinked. It shot across her shoulder. The first of the cleaners, already preparing a second volley, intercepted the rocket with its chest cavity, and promptly erupted, belching smoke and flame. The second cleaner, distracted, was blindsided by Seven. Scooping up Spooky, she delivered a kick that sent its head careening into the grid. Without its optical unit, its body flailed about. Holding Spooky close, her heart still racing, Seven looked back and up, and saw Marduk closing in. The underside of his board revealed a hidden compartment, into which a small barrel was carefully retracting. At the far end of the grid, she saw the rest of the gang, cheering and chanting, sheltered between the towers. One man with a pompadour waved a checkered flag. It was a sight that should’ve snared her with imminent achievement. Instead, she hesitated, and slowed down her approach. Reaching the edge, she hopped off her board, her feet planted firmly back on the ground. Marduk overshot her, making him the victor. The cheering crowd slowly drifted into a confused silence. Stepping from his board, Marduk’s face showed an unexpected concern. “You stopped?” “You helped me,” she said, “And…and I endangered Spooky.” Marduk shook his head. “This was between us. I could not let them interfere. I had warned the Gutter to stay out of things as well.” He clenched his fist. “As for the dog, it was my request.” “And I said yes.” She held Spooky tighter. “I…I thought I could handle it.” She shut her eyes and sighed. When she opened them, she was smiling. It was a small smile, sad, but resolute. Crouching down, she released Spooky and picked up her board. “You are leaving?” “Yeah.” “Return when you are ready.” “...Thanks,” she said, board in hand, her back to Marduk. Spooky followed, barking happily.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:34
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Oops, forgot my flashrule.My Shark Waifuu posted:Your sport is dog surfing!
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Aug 1, 2022 00:44
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Week 521 Taking the Plunge 1460 words “So,” Lois said carefully, “this is an interesting career change for you, isn’t it?” Across the coffee shop table, Sadie frowned. “What?” “You know. The trades.” The recently retired bronze medalist in women’s 3m springboard diving leaned in on an impatient elbow. “What exactly do you think ‘plunging’ is?” “Isn’t it what plumbers do?” Sadie burst out laughing. “God, no! It’s diving, Lois, diving. I thought my next chapter should be to advocate for something to expand the sport!” “Uh huh.” Lois sipped her earl grey. “Okay. What’s unique about it?” A grin broke on Sadie’s face, gleaming white against her dark skin. “It’s a stationary takeoff. No spring, no height. Points are awarded based on distance travelled.” “Like long jump?” “No no no, distance travelled in the water after contact. It all depends on strength.” “So you don’t swim.” “No. Dive and float. No movement is allowed.” “And this was in the Olympics once before?” “1904. It’s been seeing a resurgence lately!” Lois smiled wryly. “I thought you didn’t submerge in the first place.” Sadie slapped her knee. “Come on. Give this a chance! Just look.” She gestured insistently at Jonah sitting next to her, eyes roving up and down in sync with her hand as he smiled shyly back. “You should see him in action.” “I know it’s a lot to ask,” he added quietly. “But there’s an event coming up soon. Could be fun to make a trip of it? I mean if you want to. No pressure.” “Yes pressure,” Sadie insisted. Lois had agreed to meet her old friend without too much probing on the specifics. She knew that Sadie had brought a fellow athlete for her to meet, one who’s career she was invested in. She didn’t know Jonah would be so close in age to them. Or that her position as part of the IOC organizing committee would be relevant to the coffee date. But it could be a lucky break, if it panned out. “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s see ‘plunging for distance’ in the flesh.” Jonah flushed while Sadie cackled, and Lois regretted her phrasing just a little. *** Two weeks later, Lois was spectating from the bleachers at an aquatics event six hours from home. The comforting scent of chlorine hung warmly in the air and cheers and buzzers bounced off the rafters. She had her notebook with her, already filled with several pages of research. No propulsion once in the water. Sixty second limit before distance is measured from the part of the body furthest from the starting point. Height advantage. Weight advantage (fat). Jonah’s bit of heft was evident across the rec centre as he stretched in preparation. Pleasingly distributed, Lois thought. Shame he met Sadie first. Her focus shifted, hawk-like, as the buzzer sounded to start the event. The competitors launched themselves off the edge of the pool (18 inches of height from the surface) and landed with a splash in the water. An appropriately small splash, to conserve kinetic energy for the horizontal distance they’d need to travel. Then… they floated, face-down. No propulsion. For sixty seconds. Sixty. Whole. Seconds. The crowd giggled and murmured. The cheer when the final buzzer went off was distracted, polite, or amused. A child loudly declared, “But they didn’t do anything!” before being shushed by his parents. Lois smiled weakly back at Jonah as he waved from the pool. She shut her notebook and stood, shoving it into her bag. Sadie intercepted her on her way to the exit. “In a rush?” “Yeah, I need to get back to my hotel. Gotta make a call.” “You get it, right?” “Get what?” She sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how much athleticism it takes if the audience doesn’t appreciate it.” “Come on, Lois, don’t give up on it right away. It’s being added to competitions everywhere. Kids who got excited about planking ten years ago are converting their skills. It’s huge on TikTok.” “Okay, there’s some merit to that. The Olympics are for all ages and need to stay relevant. We’re always reviewing our events. But kids aren’t the ones buying sponsorships and tickets.” “Their parents do.” “The sport needs to have fans, Sadie. It needs to look good on TV. Commentators need to have something they can fill air time with. For sixty seconds! What are they supposed to talk about?” “It has a rich history!” Lois raised an eyebrow. “So does tag. But we don’t compete in it at the Olympics.” The lost expression on Sadie’s face was hard to witness, but she rallied quickly, the grit that got her through her athletic career shining through. “You should at least speak to Jonah about it before you make any decisions. Talk to someone who competes. Understand his training regimen, how far he’s come from when he started. Get an inside look like I did.” “Okay, fine. I’m already here. I’ll do you one more favour over a meal.” Lois adjusted the bag over her shoulder to shake hands. “But it better be on you.” Sadie grinned, clasping her hand firmly. “Deal.” *** The three of them went to a crummy little hole-in-the-wall taco joint for supper. It was okay, probably. Lois didn’t really mind. Jonah turned out to have a major in biology, a minor in anthropology, and a whole lot of chemistry. He cooked, especially sauces from around the world. He volunteered with the local scouts. He worked part-time as a dog walker. He juggled, which got a rowdy cheer and applause from Sadie when he demonstrated it with their drink coasters, before ducking down into their cozy booth again, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling at them both. He was a good-looking guy, nicely tanned despite time spent at the pool. They barely spoke about plunging, despite Sadie’s best efforts, and the round of cheap beer they ordered was something Lois downed faster than usual. Back at the hotel lobby, Sadie stormed off to the washroom in a whirl, leaving Lois and Jonah in silence surrounded by pretty but uncomfortable chairs. “Um,” Lois started awkwardly, but she couldn’t find something appropriate to say next. Jonah finally wasn’t tongue-tied. “Hey, thanks for checking things out.” He smiled. “It was nice of you to come. I hope you had fun.” “Sure.” “Lotta time out of your schedule. Dinner was nice, too. I mean, the parts where I wasn’t embarrassing myself. Sorry.” “For what?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I probably shouldn’t have juggled where everyone would see me. Or talked about myself so much. I didn’t even ask you about your work.” “Oh, it’s…” She swallowed hard. “About that. Plunging. I don’t know if I can make a recommendation to consider it for the Olympics, like you were hoping.” “Then don’t.” Lois thought she misheard him. “What?” “I don’t think you should.” He shrugged. “The sport still has a long way to go. There’s a reason it’s not my full-time gig.” “Oh.” “It’s more important to Sadie than it is to me. You know she’s looking for her next win, now that she’s retired. That’s how it goes.” “She deserves a win,” Lois said quietly. “She’ll get there, she’s a tough cookie. But if she wants it to be plunging it’s going to be a long road. She knows that.” He looked over at her, eyes warm. “What about what you want?” “That’s, um.” “Maybe I’m wrong. But maybe you’d like dinner again sometime?” “Wait, you and Sadie aren’t…?” “Nope.” He stood well back from Lois, one hand tucked into his jeans pocket, the other still hovering near his face tentatively, waiting. “I’d like that,” she decided. “Very much.” His shoulders sagged with relief. “Okay. Yeah, we should exchange numbers, maybe. Here.” They pulled their phones out and got close to each other. So close that Lois, emboldened by booze, was able to lean in enough to hint and then make contact. Jonah reciprocated, and the kiss was just turning passionate when— “Lois!” They broke apart. Sadie stood in the lobby, limbs akimbo. Her mouth hung open, face twisted like a pretzel, but no other sound came out. “Oh.” Lois tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hi.” “Hi Sadie,” Jonah echoed. “You.” She rounded on him, hissing, “This isn’t the kind of plunging you’re supposed to be focusing on.” He smiled, shrugging innocently. “Whoops.” *** Back at work, Lois sat down to pen her recommendation. Regarding plunging for distance, due to lack of widespread competition at this time and other priorities… Her phone chirped with a text from Sadie, set to the familiar buzzer of the pool. Coffee Saturday? New lead on a sponsor you gotta hear about. Lois smiled and thumbed back, It’s on.
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Aug 1, 2022 00:58
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Heartbreak on the Miami Trench 1499 words “Hey guys! Welcome back to Trolling with Travis! The boat’s in the shop after that incident last week with the sandbar, so today I’ve kayaked out here to drop some baits. We’re goin’ for tuna, we’re goin’ for bluefish, we’re goin’ for dorado, that’s mahi-mahi to you guys on the west coast, and we’ll probably see some sharks. Now, I’m on a light craft, right? So we’re going for smaller game fish today, otherwise I’m gonna end up on a Nantucket sleigh ride.” Travis really hoped he’d hook into something big, even if it did drag him a few more miles than expected. He probably wasn’t going to be able to bring it in, but with the lower unit on the outboard motor all hosed up after Gary ran it aground last week, he was going to need every click the algorithm could give him. “Matt Watson doesn’t have to deal with this poo poo,” he groused as he shoveled squid guts over the side of his kayak. “But I guess I havent broken my foot by dropping a shark on it, so that’s alright.” He baited and weighted his line, dropped it, and then settled in for a nice long wait, dreaming of a 25 foot center console. It didn’t take long to feel a tug on the line. “Fish on!” he shouted. His voice cracked. Great. He’d fix it in post. “Feels like a big one guys…” He tried to keep up the patter, to match Josh Joergenson’s manic energy, but when the line abruptly went slack he deflated. “Well, that’s why they call it ‘fishing’ and not ‘catching,’” he said. “We’ll just reel it in and check on our baits. Okay, bait’s still on, that’s good! Let’s keep going.” The next fish, a beautiful if small dorado, flashed gold in the water next to his kayak and then dove, pulling the line through Travis’s lighter-than-ideal reel with a satisfying zipping noise. This was the kind of thing that would make good Youtube. Then again, the fight abruptly ended. The line still felt heavy, so he pulled it up to see a dorado head gaping at him, gills still twitching as it tried to move oxygen to a body that didn’t exist. “Oh, poo poo you guys. Looks like we’ve got a shark. Now, I’m not exactly in the right boat to deal with a shark of this size, so I’m going to pack it in and try a different part of the trench.” Some days you just had no luck, you could see dozens of schooling fish and they just weren’t interested in whatever you had on the hook. It was the gods of the sea taunting you, keeping you humble. This was somehow worse. Every line he put in the water caught a fish. And every fish he caught, the shark stole. It was following him, waiting for him to slow down the speedy game fish with his hooks and snatching them up. And worse, it wasn’t ever coming close enough to the boat for him to get a good shot of it. It was a sinuous shadow, twisting and curling in the low viz water. Probably a blue shark, he told the camera, given his estimate of size and the snakey way it moved. “This is a great sportfishing opportunity that I’m not set up to deal with today.” He grabbed his umbrella rig, a circle of sturdy wire with hooks branching off it like a spikey Christmas wreath. “We’re gonna try fishing the bottom for a little while, then we’ll pack it in.” He spied the shadow beneath him, too indistinct for the GoPro to make out. “Here you go, fucker,” he said, dropping the weight directly over it. “Choke on that.” The deep water leeched the color from his baits as they dropped, fading from view until they were a shadow as indistinct at his shark. He didn’t bother moving his paddle, instead waiting for what seemed inevitable: the tap-tap-tap of a fish hitting his bait and the quick yank of the thief. He was absolutely unprepared for his rod to bend nearly double, creaking ominously in counterpoint to the high pitched whine of the line zipping through it. He grabbed for the rod and started reeling as fast as he could, and barely made any headway. Travis felt wind on his face as the fish began towing him across the water. “We’re going on a ride!” He crowed, unable to believe his good luck. “Oh man, this is awesome!” His arms were already starting to burn, but it was a good burn, it felt like success. It felt like the viral video that would rocket him to stardom. Fifteen minutes later it just felt exhausting. He’d clearly foul-hooked this stupid fish and was never going to pull it in. He couldn’t maintain the energy, but he didn’t want to cut the line. In addition to not wanting to add more microplastics and fish choking hazards to the water, it was his favorite umbrella rig and he didn’t want to lose it. He was so busy agonizing over his options that he almost didn’t notice that he’d stopped moving. Travis cautiously let go of the rod with one hand, trying to massage some life back into his aching forearms. He almost dropped it again when he felt a suspiciously familiar tapping on the line. It stopped, then repeated itself. Shave and a haircut. Without thinking too hard, still dazed from the struggle of being towed around, Travis plucked back: two bits. The line went slack. Travis peered into the water and saw the shadow rapidly growing larger. “Oh poo poo!” He grabbed for his paddle, preparing to slam it into the face of a shark, but it was out of the water, an arc of shimmering blue scales shooting up and over the bow before slamming down in front of him It took Travis a minute to process. He goggled. His barely post-adolescent brain cheered: Boobs! Then his survival instincts caught up. Teeth! Claws! Mermaid! She extended a long, claw-tipped middle finger at him. “Get this thing off of me,” she demanded, gesturing to the octopus rig that had pierced the gauzy fan of her dorsal fin and tangled in her wild mane of alabaster hair. When Travis didn’t move she shifted her weight, causing the kayak to rock alarmingly. “Come on, jackass!” “Oh, uh, right.” He started with the hooks in her hair, trying not to touch her directly. He was too aware of both her bare chest and black claws, but the rocking of the kayak made that impossible. The contact made the situation seem almost mundane: Her hair just felt like hair. Her skin felt like skin. “Sorry?” “You’re drat right you’re sorry,” she said, all affronted dignity. Her eyes were inhuman. Black and bulging slightly from her skull, like a sea lion. She regarded him with distaste. Travis scowled back at her. “Hey, I think I’m owed an apology here too! You’ve been stealing all my fish! You dragged me another mile and a half away from shore! Do you know how long I’m going to have to paddle to get back?” She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, whatever. Fine, I’m sorry I took your fish.” “Why?” He asked, finally working the first hook free. “Also, why do you even have hair?!” “First of all, my hair is beautiful, and you’re wrecking it. Second,” she shrugged and looked away. “I dunno. I was hungry. The fish was there. And it was fun.” Travis shook his head. “Dick move, bro.” “Whatever, bro. Y’all have been overfishing and spilling oil and generally loving up my home for how long? Can’t blame me for having a little fun.” “I guess I can’t argue with that.” He managed to free the hooks from her hair, but the two in her dorsal fin were deeply embedded in the muscle of the anterior margin. Travis hesitated. “This is probably gonna hurt.” The mermaid shrugged and repositioned herself over his legs so that he could work more easily. His left foot immediately went numb. She was heavier than she looked. He tactfully declined to mention this. He had to use his pocket knife to coax the barbed hook out of the twitching, blue-white flesh, but out it came. “Finally,” the mermaid sighed. She flopped gracelessly back into the water and circled his boat. Back in the water, she was alien again: beautiful in the manner of a shark or a dolphin. More sea creature than girl. She winced. “So, I’m sorry about this. You seem like a nice guy.” A spike of terror ran through him. There were plenty of stories where mermaids straight up ate the people who offended them. But then she held up his camera and his heart plummeted further. “No,” he breathed. “Come on, please don’t…”
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Aug 1, 2022 01:04
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Joyce and Sanchez 1371 words He seldom went to see a hockey match but when he did he felt more at home among the crowd than he would have felt in the company of his own classmates. There were straightforward games played with great gusto and there were others played with sly cunning and pregnant pauses. There were times when the players seemed to be possessed by demons and other times when they moved about the rink like sleepwalkers. Joyce was fascinated by the way the game ebbed and flowed, the way the players pounced on the puck and then let it slip away again. He liked to watch the goalies, who seemed to him to be engaged in a kind of dance, and he marveled at the way the players could glide across the ice with such ease. One day, Joyce went to watch a game in which Sanchez was playing. Joyce had never really paid much attention to Sanchez before but he was drawn to him now. There was something about the way Sanchez moved that was both elegant and aggressive. He seemed to be always on the verge of violence but never quite crossed the line. Joyce found himself rooting for Sanchez, even though he didn't really know why. After the game, Joyce watched as Sanchez was mobbed by fans. He seemed to take it all in his stride, signing autographs and posing for pictures. Joyce hung back, not wanting to intrude, but he couldn't help feeling a bit envious. He wished he could be like Sanchez, loved and admired by all. Joyce began to follow Sanchez's career closely. He read everything he could about him and watched all of his games. He even began to imitate Sanchez's style of play, mimicking his shot and the way he held his stick. Joyce started to believe that he was turning into Sanchez. One day, Joyce went to watch Sanchez play in person again. He was sitting in the stands, wearing Sanchez's jersey and chanting his name, when Sanchez looked up and saw him. For a moment, their eyes locked and Joyce felt a jolt of electricity. Then Sanchez turned away and the moment was gone. Joyce was disappointed but he told himself that it was just a matter of time before Sanchez realized that they were meant to be together. He continued to follow Sanchez's career and imitate his every move. One night, Joyce had a dream in which Sanchez came to him and said, "I know what you're doing. I know you're trying to be like me. But you're not fooling anyone. You're just a pathetic imitation." Joyce woke up feeling deeply humiliated. He knew that Sanchez was right. He was just a pathetic imitation. But he couldn't help himself. That day he went out and bought a Sanchez jersey and vowed to never take it off again. Joyce became more and more obsessed with Sanchez. He started to believe that he was actually turning into Sanchez. He even began to speak with Sanchez's accent and walk like him. His friends and family started to worry about him but Joyce was too far gone to care. One day, Joyce decided to take his obsession one step further. He broke into Sanchez's house and stole one of his hockey sticks. Joyce slept with the stick under his pillow, dreaming of the day when he would finally become Sanchez. The next day, Joyce woke up to find the police at his door. They had come to arrest him for breaking and entering. As Joyce was led away, he couldn't help but think that this was all part of his plan to become Sanchez. If he was going to be like Sanchez, he would have to face the consequences of his actions, just like Sanchez did. In jail, Joyce was ridiculed and abused by his fellow inmates. They called him all sorts of names and made fun of his obsession with Sanchez. But Joyce refused to give up his identification with Sanchez. He continued to wear the jersey and sleep with the hockey stick under his pillow. He became the butt of many jokes, and the other inmates picked on him relentlessly. They insulted him and told him he was dumb and very ugly. One day they slapped him around really bad, but Joyce refused to give up his identification with Sanchez. He continued to wear the jersey and sleep with the hockey stick under his pillow until they came in one night with a box cutter and attacked him in bed, slashing his arms and legs and one of his eyes until he passed out. When he came to, there were bandages covering the wounds on his arms, legs, and face, but his eye was gone forever. A few weeks into Joyce's sentence, Sanchez came to visit him in jail. Sanchez had heard about Joyce's obsession and wanted to see for himself what kind of person would do something like that. As they talked, Joyce could see the contempt in Sanchez's eyes. But Joyce didn't care. He was just happy to be in Sanchez's presence. At the end of the visit, Sanchez said to Joyce, "You're a pathetic person. You're not fit to wear my jersey. You're not fit to even be in the same room as me." At this, Joyce became enraged. He lunged at Sanchez, trying to attack him. But the guards restrained Joyce and Sanchez was escorted out of the jail. Joyce was left alone in his cell, seething with rage. He wanted to hurt Sanchez, to make him pay for all the ways he had been humiliated. But Joyce knew that he would never be able to get close to Sanchez again. He was just a pathetic imitation, a shadow of the man he wanted to be. Several months went by and Joyce came up with a plan. He knew that Sanchez would be playing in a big game soon and he decided to go to the match. But instead of wearing Sanchez's jersey, Joyce wore a plain shirt with the word "Sanchez" written on it in big letters. He also brought along a banner that read, "I'm sorry Sanchez. I love you." Joyce unfurled the banner at the start of the game and then he started to shout, "I'm sorry Sanchez! I love you!" over and over again. The crowd started to jeer and boo but Joyce didn't care. He was finally getting the attention he always wanted from Sanchez. But his moment of glory was short-lived. The security guards quickly escorted Joyce out of the arena and he was banned from ever attending another hockey game again. Many years went by. Joyce aged but Sanchez remained the same, an ageless hockey legend. One day, out of the blue, Sanchez announced his retirement from hockey. Joyce was devastated. He felt like he had lost a part of himself. But then Joyce had an idea. He would write a book about his obsession with Sanchez. He would tell the world how much he loved him and how much he had sacrificed for their relationship. Maybe, finally, people would understand him and see him as more than just a pathetic imitator. Joyce started to write and the words flowed like a stream. He wrote non-stop for days and nights. Finally, Joyce was finished. The book was very long, but it was worth it. Joyce had included every last detail of his life with Sanchez and their tragic relationship. Joyce wasn’t a crazy fan or a pathetic imitation of Sanchez. His intentions were sincere all along. Joyce told his story with his heart on his sleeve and people finally understood why he had done what he did. People read the book and saw it was all true, that Joyce really was a man who had devoted his life to Sanchez, who had sacrificed everything for their relationship. As for Sanchez, he never commented on Joyce's book. But it is said that he kept a copy of it on his bedside table, and that every now and then, he would take it out and read it, wondering what could have been between him and the man who loved him so much.
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Aug 1, 2022 04:16
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Fumblemouse Redemption Arc Week 61 - Fractured Tradition Posits Hope - 1200 Forget it, Jake. It's Puzzletown. As Nina made her way down the lightly wooded trail, she came to the fork in the road. Looking this way and that, she attempted to sidle surreptitiously down the left hand path. Unfortunately her efforts at stealth proved fruitless. "Greetings, young maiden," said a handsome young man appearing suddenly from behind a tree and blocking her way. "And hello, young maiden," said an identically handsome young man stepping out of the woods onto the rightward path. "One of us is a knight who always tells the truth, and the other is a knave who always lies, but if you are clever you may find out which path to take by asking us a single question." "Not today, lads," said Nina, ducking around the young man on the left. "I know which way to go to get to the town square, and if I don't hurry I'll be late for Crossword Day's first clue. Besides," she called to the man on the right. "I don't need a question. You're the knight." "What? How do you know?" said the supposed knight. "You didn't lie during the setup. You know, you really should write those instructions down, it's a dead giveaway." "drat it. She's right," said the knight. "No, she's not," said the knave." Lillian left them bickering behind her, enjoying her brisk walk through the woodlands. Soon the trail began to open up, the trees became sparser, an occasional farmhouse became an occasional cluster of them. A river wound alongside the road, weaving back and forth, and from time to time she'd thrill to see a fox pacing at the water's edge, looking forlornly out toward a boat laden with a farmer, a large sack of grain and a particularly smug chicken. The river cut in front of her, and she traversed seven bridges, waving hello to the various travelling salesmen she met, all heavily laden and hoping to ply their wares before the Crossword Day crowds. And crowds there were. When she had crossed the final bridge, she was in Puzzletown, where Crossword Day was a veritable spectacle of monochromaticity. The Town Square had had its tiles rearranged, no longer alternating black and white squares, with old men standing solemnly around, concentrating on confounding chess problems, but instead arranged in symmetrical clumps of black and white. Around it, missionaries mixed with cannibals, and jealous husbands guided the steps of their wives. A stage had been set up, and Nina gravitated toward it. The Mayor of Puzzletown was looking out into the audience, a comically large envelope in his hands. Nine knew it contained the first crossword clue, the one that would set the ball rolling for the rest of the day's activities across Puzzletown's avenues and down its streets. But the Mayor was nothing if not a showman, waiting until the crowd's interest in him and his envelope was at its peak. Nina sensed the numbers around her grow like a Sudoku square. She shuffled a bit, as the space became more crowded. Behind her, someone giggled like a child, but when she turned to see if she could afford them a better view, there was only an elongated beanpole of a man and his perfectly spherical wife, tittering at some private joke then stopping to give her stare so cold she shivered. Shrugging but unsettled, she turned back to the stage, in time to see the Mayor tapping at the microphone. "Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen of Puzzletown and beyond, greetings and welcome. It's a pleasure to have you all here on such a glorious Crossword Day." He paused for the crowd to cheer, which it did loudly. Behind Nina the giggling began again. She ignored it and concentrated on the Mayor's speech. "It is my very great delight to begin the proceedings with the opening of the First Clue! As you can see, I have the envelope here, sealed and stamped by the Setter's guild as fair and balanced, for your delectation and puzzlement. So - without further ado, let's get clued in! The crowd roared its approval, and the Mayor made an exaggerated display of opening the envelope and revealing the paper within. Behind her, the couple were giggling so noisily that Nina wanted to publicly shush them. Instead she kept her eye on the mayor as his hand's confidently broke the sealing wax and pulled a sheet of paper from its oversized innards. As he read the words, she saw his hands begin to shake, and his lower lip tremble. The paper and envelope fell from his hands, wafting gently down to the floor of the stage as the Mayor broke down into wracking sobs, two attendants rushing to his side. Behind her, the giggling became outright laughter. Nina pushed her way to the front, then reached for the fallen clue, pulling it towards herself with her fingers. Twisting, she sat on the stage's edge, and read the First Clue. She could immediately see the cause of the Mayor's distress: The words were nonsensical, practically incoherent. This was barely a clue at all. The mayor broke free of his attendants and shouted into the crowd, pointing at the strange couple who were almost hysterical with laughter at this point. "You! You did this!" he screamed. "It was you, Mr and Mrs Cryptic!" The crowd collectively gasped, drawing away from the pair as if they were the source of an infection. Like the crack of a whip falling into silence, the tall man stopped laughing and drew himself to his full height, which towered over everybody else. "Yes," he answered, staring directly at the Mayor with eyes filled with hate. "Yes, we did." And then he pulled away his face, leaving only a stark and dreadful emptiness. "And why shouldn't we?" spat Mrs Cryptic. "You with your logic tables and thesaurii, always lording it about. T'aint right, t'aint proper, t'aint fair. 'Bout time someone from the other side got a word in edgeways." She too pulled at her own face, tearing it away to reveal nothing beneath. "But how can Crossword Day continue, without the First Clue being solved. We can't do cryptic clues, there's all that insider knowledge and archaic usage involved. Oh, disaster. Crossword Day is ruined!" The crowd echoed his dismal emotion in a collective sight. "Wait," said Nina, still sitting on the edge of the stage and studying the envelope. "This can't be the real clue. The real clue has been sealed by the Setter's guild and this seal was unbroken. So they must have swapped envelopes, which means it's got to be around here somewhere. Now if I was trying to hide an envelope in Puzzletown on crossword day, where would I hide it?" Enraged, Mr and Mrs Cryptic fell upon Nina like a pair of savage jackals. Mr Cryptic held her down by the throat, choking her, while Mrs Cryptic pulled a knife from her apron and grabbed Nina's hair, pulling it back while the knife hovered above Nina's wide, staring, vulnerable eyes. Then they contorted, twisting like a vortex, spiralling around each other like DNA, they fell away, sucked into the confines of a small box that the Mayor snapped shut. "Unprovoked attack on a citizen," said the Mayor. "According to the statutes that's immediate exile from Puzzletown. Don't worry, I shall place this where it won't be found again." *** Mr and Mrs Cryptic have no faces. Trapped so tight they share a shadow.
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Aug 1, 2022 05:23
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Fumblemouse Redemption Arc Week 102 - Bingo - lower line One morning out stealing Tess sat back and examined the spaceship controls. They weren't unfamiliar, but they weren't exactly familiar either. She pulled her mouth into a grim line and pushed a likely looking button. Success! A succession of green segments lit up across the control panel and the viewscreen snapped on so she could see the hangar and the large collection of guards that were currently racing towards her ship. Heh, she thought to herself. My ship. Maybe not legally, with filed documents in the Central DB, but in my possession, and possession is nine tenths of the law., right? Now where are the guns… *** Tess lay back in bed, exhausted. Smirna snuggled up to her. They cooed at each other for a while, luxuriating in the afterglow, still delightfully frazzled by the hit of Stor. It couldn't have been more perfect, until Smirna dropped her bombshell. "When are you going?" asked Tess, pulling the covers tighter around her. "Tomorrow," said Smirna. "Early." Tess watched her as she traced a finger along her clavicle, knowing her own eyes were asking a question, knowing the answer already by the way Smirna wasn't looking at her. "And," said Tessa, unwilling to delay the inevitable. "Not this time, babe. I just got the orders. Hush hush stuff. Solo. No joyriders." *** The ship knew where it was going, unlike Tess, who said in the flight deck watching the universe do its thing. She knew that a lot of what she was watching was augmented - brought closer, showing in colours she could actually perceive, and that if she stuck her head outside it would just be a whole lot of dark vacuum, but that didn't make the view any less interesting, as solar systems and nebulae passed slowly by. Beneath the green systems line, a yellow line was gradually increasing, marking the distance she had travelled to her destination. The ship was preprogrammed, there was no getting around that for this journey at least. Once she arrived, though, she'd be able to choose her next destination. She savoured that novelty with a big stupid grin. *** Tess slipped the card out of Smirna's pocket while her lover was freshening up and placed it in the hidden pocket in her jacket. Just like that, a hundred tons of armed and armoured Needle are mine. Well, mine for the taking. That is, mine to try and steal, preferably without getting shot. Smirna emerged from the shower, a goddess in a towel and fluffy rabbit slippers. "Hey, Tess. You want to get some breakfast before I go?. There was no reply. "Tess?" *** The other ship, a simple cargo-carrier, hung in space like a paperweight. Tess could tell the holds were empty from her preliminary scans. Was this some kind of drop-box, a pickup point for less than salubrious substances? Smirna had always been able to get Stor of a fantastic quality, way better than any of Tess's connections. She'd always assumed it was just the spacer paycheck, but perhaps she was in deeper than she let on. A chime rang, letting Tess know that the connection tunnel had been established and pressurisation was complete. She got up from her chair, and pushed away, overshooting to the connection hatch but able to grab a handle on the way past and climb back up. Zero-G. Would it ever not be fun? *** "Tess?" "Hey, Smirna. Now's really not a good time, babe." "Why? Are you too busy trying to steal my ship?" "Now that you mention it, I am too busy trying to steal your ship." "Tess, are you loving crazy? That's a Needle. A billion creds worth of government owned ordinance. You can't just waltz in and take it." "I am prepared to test that theory. It's not like I'm not hanging around the hangar all the time anyway. With you." "I have to report this, you know. The minute I found my card missing. They'll be looking for you. If you go through with this, it's over between us." "A billion creds worth of ship, or you. Sorry babe, it's close, I'll admit, but the ship wins. And thanks for not calling them yet." "You don't have to do this. Where are you?" "Looking for the power button. Catch you on the other side." *** The deserted cargo ship creeped Tess the gently caress out. Empty hallway after empty hallway. Deserted cargo bay after deserted cargo bay. The casual, continuous beeping of life-support on life-support. Where is it? She wondered. What the hell is the point of this place? Why did they want to send Smirna here? She'd tried to check the mission notes but they were encrypted and she, obviously, didn't have the key. She found the box in one of the cabins, the first thing she'd seen that didn't look standard issue. Ornately carved, made of some kind of fibrous yet solid material, she couldn't resist opening it. Inside, impossible in the artificial light, was a single shadow *** Mr and Mrs Cryptic have no faces. Trapped so tight they share a shadow. Drift forever in the darkness
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Aug 1, 2022 05:26
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Fumblemouse Redemption Arc Week 113 - SFF Mr and Mrs Cryptic "M'dear," said Mrs Cryptic, wearing a face she had taken, a lovely brown one that had just been lying around, barely used. "M'dear," thought Mr Cryptic. He had no face, just what appeared to Mrs Cryptic as a perfectly reflective orb in which she could admire her delicious new features, but Mrs Cryptic knew what he was thinking as if he had said those very words. "What is this place?" she asked, staring about her in wonderment. Mr Cryptic did not answer, but instead picked up the box and twisted it. It did not crack, as one might have expected, instead it simply ground against itself, becoming a fine dust that fell, and vanished as it did so. Mrs Cryptic watched the dust fall. "I'm hungry," she said. "This one was barely a snack." She wiped her knife on her apron. Mr Cryptic nodded. They linked arms and approached the door, which slid open for them and shut behind them. "Ooh, clever," said Mrs Cryptic. *** It took the pair a while to get their bearings, but the sly workings of their brains were able to grasp their situation with some agility. At first they feared they had swapped one prison for another, the confines of the puzzlebox for a continuum of seemingly empty rooms and hallways. That changed when they found the single tunnel that connected to a different place entirely. The walls of the tunnel were transparent, an inky blackness dotted with light, and it made Mrs Cryptic gasp to see so many pretty things. Beyond the tunnel was a self-contained space, a different style to the drab hallways, this was filled with flashing lights and colours. Mr Cryptic spent a long time just staring at them, until his wife could wait no longer to hear his thoughts. She peeled the face from herself and placed it over her husband. "Look at this, wife," he said. "We are no longer in a world of pure logic. Can you not feel it? Can you not feel the Fuzziness? The Incompleteness? There are no absolutes here, it is as it it were made for us" Mrs Cryptic did not need to be told. She could feel it herself, see how it all fit together. The truth of it echoed through her, vibrated, thrummed. They were not locked into the rigid confines of logic in this place, they were free to be themselves. Mr and Mrs Cryptic, at large in the universe. *** They started small, testing themselves, testing the nature of their matter, and their wily brains found clever meanings to adapt to their needs. The fleet of ships that arrived soon after they did proved an excellent laboratory. A short radio message in a language they did not understand enabled them to break the bonds of logic to find themselves translated short distances, behind unsuspecting pilots, knives drawn, hands reaching out to choke and tear. Mr Cryptic found a face he liked. Mrs Cryptic found an assortment to choose from depending on her mood. They celebrated with a dance on the final ship, larger than the others, differently built with the controls placed within a front facing dome of some perfectly transparent material. They danced to their own music, stars all around above them, the mutilated corpses of the crew beneath their feet. Mr Cryptic gently dipped his wife, and she saw a control panel emblazoned with light that reminded them of a map. "Where to next, my love?" asked Mr Cryptic, holding her. Mrs Cryptic stabbed with her upside-down finger. "There!" *** They started small, but they did not stay small for long. They grew in knowledge, in understanding, and in power. Yet they were careful, for as Mrs Cryptic said, "Where we can be, so can others." Yet they never felt the presence of another who belonged so much to this world of broken logic that they could bend it to their whim. They travelled between worlds, collecting faces and dancing among the dead. In due time, they travelled between moments as well, back and forth along the warp and weft of time and space. They could be anywhere they wished, anywhere the fancy took them, so long as it could not be expected; for rhyme and reason were anathema to them. Their fancy took many forms, shaped by choking hands and stabbing knives, but never limited to them. Never limited by anything. *** "Whatever shall we do?" asked Mr Cryptic. He wore the face of a genial Santa, complete with beard, its jolly red colouring anomalous against the blackness of his tall, thin suit. "I fear we have done most everything else." Mrs Cryptic wore the face of the small, mousy librarian. "I have been thinking," she said. "There are places where we have yet to travel. Whole realms outside of time and space. Let us go there, and dance among the dead." "And where are these places, my sweetness?" asked Mr Cryptic, delighting in his wife's delight." Mrs Cryptic held up a book, whose lurid covered pictured a mighty-thewed barbarian wielding a broadsword. Its title glittered with false gold: "Last Brimstone Of The Tombs Of Blistering Procreation" with "Three against the Necromancer Lord" in only slightly smaller print beneath it. "Oh, yes, my Love," smiled Mr Cryptic, licking his borrowed lips with a fat, pink tongue. "Let's go there!" *** Mr and Mrs Cryptic have no faces. Trapped so tight they share a shadow. Drift forever in the darkness Dance among the dead
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Aug 1, 2022 05:28
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Fumblemouse Redemption Arc Week 128 - Black Metal Last Brimstone Of The Tombs Of Blistering Procreation "The dead should stay dead," said Jarg. He belched for emphasis, the taste of fish in his mouth. Jarg hated fish, but the lowlanders ate an awful lot of them. More evidence of their depravity, he decided. The other two seated around the dying fire turned to him. Jarg glared back. "It speaks, well, burps," whispered the one in unmanly robes. His companion with too many pockets and knife-shaped lumps within most of them said nothing, merely nodded in Jarg's direction. Jarg took this as a request to further expound upon his philosophy. "The dead should stay dead," he said again, then nodded to indicate that Jarg believed this fact with an iron will, deep within the squishier parts of his being, the soft innards he didn't like to think about, that he kept covered in layers of hide and steel, and then more hide. Suddenly uncomfortable, he hit the ground with his first. "Good manners." "I guess that's settled then," said Robes. Jarg found his high pitched voice irritating and had not bothered to remember his name. "We'll storm the burning crypt and tell whatever necromantic demonspawn lives within that the dead should stay dead because to do otherwise is unconscionably impolite." "You're an rear end," said Pockets, but he didn't hide his grin. This annoyed Jarg, who was glad he hadn't remembered this one's name either. He grunted, lay down, and fell asleep, the foul taste of fish giving him unpleasant dreams of his third wife. *** The dead screamed at Jarg, but they screamed louder once he'd passed. He ploughed through the dead like a battering ram, shattering bone and rending flesh in all the myriad variations that stood in his way. Each swing of his broadsword severed limbs and spines and wrists and skulls, scattering their owners into disparate pieces that could only crawl slowly back towards each other. Robes, however, walked daintily behind the giant warrior, dispelling the fields that brought the sundered fragments back towards their now-distant relatives. Alongside him, Pockets immobilised the odd hunk of flesh and bone that still had sufficient mobility and dexterity to come at Robes directly. "Slow down, would you," called Robes, his voice particularly annoying when there was bloodlust to be slaked. "You can't rush dweomercraft if you want these hellions to stay in the grave." Jarg slowed the ebb and flow of his blade, allowing one of the dead to pass him. It came at Robes with a howl like a mountain storm, while Pockets was busy stopping a dismembered arm from throwing a jewelled dagger. Robes shrieked like the woman-folk he resembled, and reached out to stop its onslaught with his hands. Jarg pulled a knife from his book and placed it through the head of the deadling with one well aimed throw, so the tip burst from the creature's rotting nose, inches from Robe's own. "I take your point," said Robes, throwing the creature down on the ground and dispersing the field of animation. "By the gods, though, there's no need to be a bastard about it." *** To their surprise, the necromancer turned out to be two, very distinct, people, though to look closely at them it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The floor of their throne room was littered with the dead, so many they were piled into drifts by the walls. Jarg approached them warily, while Robes and Pockets waited nervously by the door. Best they stayed there, thought Jarg. Necromancers were never as easy to dispatch as demonspawn, and often required a defter touch, such as two swings of his broadsword rather than only one. In this case, perhaps even more-than-two. The thought of anything requiring more-than-two cleaves disturbed his innards and he enjoyed that even less this time. "Look, my darling," said the first Necromancer. Tall and thin, he wore the peeled face of a long dead king as a mask. "Heroes!" "Indeed, sweetness," said the second, a round woman whose long, flowing, golden locks emerged from a ripped scalp that only had the beginnings of eyeholes and a nose beneath it. "To imagine how we used to make do with ordinary flesh. Now we dance among the great." "Just one," said Jarg. "I'm sorry, what?" asked the first Necromancer. "Just one hero. Jarg. Some other minor personages. Forgettable. Jarg you should fear. Jarg will end you." He hoisted his broadsword into a fighting stance The second necromancer gave a little clap. "Oh, bravo. Well, mighty Jarg. I suppose we must do battle." She withdrew a tiny dagger from an apron made of decaying lace. Jarg laughed out loud at its diminutive size. Mrs Cryptic simply smiled. And then her smile collapsed upon itself. From the corner of the room a light appeared, illuminating Robes as he recited from a book bound in something that had once also been able to read, stretching into a long tendril that whipped around the two Necromancer Lords, squeezing them tightly into one another. From the shadows behind them, Pockets plunged two knives, themselves glowing with dweomercraft, into their backs. "We got them," yelled Pockets. "What form should they take?" "Little busy here keeping them wrapped up," shouted Robes. Jarg rolled his eyes. Bad enough he wasn't going to get to see how many cleaves it would take to kill them, now he had to do their thinking for them. "Fish," he said. "Make them fish." "Fish it is," said Robes. "But let's make it interesting. They can only use their powers to help other people." He slammed shut the book. There was a flash and a deafening retort, and the Necromancer Lords disappeared. Jarg swore. Typical. Lowlanders with their snap decisions and improvisation. Always think they are so clever, until one hundred years from now someone figures out a loophole *** Both the Cryptic have no faces. Trapped so tight they share a shadow. Drift forever in the darkness Dance among the dead Betrayed by light and by darkness
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Aug 1, 2022 05:30
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To Kiss A Girl 1500 words Samal called Dzinara one evening, as she was putting the chickens to bed. “I’m bored,” Samal said. “Let’s go camping on the steppe. Tell your mother it will be good for us—to connect with our ancestral roots.” It was summer. School was over and the long hot days stretched before them. There were still three weeks before the big horse meet. Until then there would be little to do, besides helping on her parents’ farm or watching the dzhigits practise trick riding on the hill above town. “Ok,” said Dzinara. She would follow where Samal led. Since they were children it had always been that way. On the first day of school Samal had walked up to her, grabbed her wrist and said: “We will be friends.” And they had been ever since. They quickly chose two other girls to go with them. Roza and Bayan were two years younger, but they had their own horses to ride. The four of them secured permission from their mothers, giving many assurances that no boys would join them on the trip. On the day of, they packed their saddlebags and met on the east road at sunrise. Dzinara was riding Jel, her elder sister’s dependable roan; Samal had Köleñke, her pride and joy, the spirited black mare. Nobody could match Köleñke on the flat, and so of course Samal had to prove it as soon as they were out of town. She took off into the distance whooping and yelling, silhouetted against the rising sun, and Dzinara could only do her best to keep up. They rode east into the steppe. The land was empty and glorious. Towns and even roads receded over the horizon, leaving them in a vast grey-green sea. The girls talked about ordinary things: school, American music, the pandemic, their parents’ flocks. But mostly they talked about the horse meet. “Dzinara, you’re old enough to ride in the kyz-kuu this year,” said Roza. “Who do you want to chase you?” Dzinara blushed. The kyz-kuu was more popular now as the older generation tried to revive Kazakh traditions. It was a horse race between a girl and a boy. The boy would chase the girl down a field, and if he caught her, kiss her in the saddle. If she reached the end of the field they would reverse. The girl would chase him and whip him if she caught up. “I’d like Muhammedjan to chase me,” said Bayan. “He’s so short,” said Roza. “What about Tahir? Those eyes…” “I don’t know,” Dzinara mumbled. She didn’t have such feelings about boys, and it seemed unfair that the younger girls had them already. Looking up, she saw Samal watching her quietly. Samal’s dark eyes always seemed to contain hidden knowledge, a knowledge that gave her confidence to move through the world. A soft smile turned the corner of her mouth. “I don’t think I’ll ask anyone,” Dzinara said, and spurred Jel into a canter to escape. *** In the evening they camped by a wide, flat stream that ran down from the mountains. The girls stripped to their underclothes and plunged shrieking into the icy water. The horses cropped grass on the bank nearby. When she was bored of swimming, Samal leapt out and mounted Köleñke without saddle or bridle, still in her wet underclothes, and rode up and down the slope. Dzinara stood watching, shading her eyes against the sun. Samal turned back and rode into the water. She held out her hand, offering to pull Dzinara up behind her. “Come on.” Dzinara swallowed. “I… it isn’t safe.” Samal shrugged. “However you like.” She turned Köleñke again and rode off across the grass. Perhaps there had been a trace of disappointment in her eyes. It didn’t matter. Nothing hurt Samal for long; she was always moving on to the next thing. *** The night was cold and full of stars. Samal and Dzinara’s tent was a cheap polyester dome, cramped, smelling of plastic and mildew. Dzinara slid into her sleeping bag and drew it up to her chin. Samal was close enough for her to feel a ghost of the other girl’s warmth. They talked sleepily in the dark. They were the kind of friends who could always fill a silence together. But on that night the words seemed to flutter in the dark above, half-heeded, while the real thing was below, the space between their shoulders and hips. It was a feeling that Dzinara could not name. “You never asked me who I wanted to chase in the kyz-kuu,” said Samal. Dzinara’s heart thumped in her chest. Her mouth was too dry to speak. She knew in the pitch darkness just where she might reach to touch Samal’s shoulder, or her cheek. Doubt paralysed her. She neither moved nor spoke. After a long time, she heard Samal roll over and face the wall. *** The horse meet gathered in a big field outside town. People came from miles around. All the boys from school were there, slouching around in crowds, looking over their shoulders at the girls looking back at them. Tahir, the son of the wealthiest man in town, had gotten a satellite phone with 5G reception. The other boys crowded around to watch tiny videos of Billie Eilish. “No lie, I would pay ten million tenge to gently caress her,” Tahir declared. “Disgusting,” said Samal. “Let’s go and get the horses warmed up.” Samal competed in horse archery and jumping; Dzinara rode in the junior races, where she was now among the oldest contestants. Later, she and Samal ate manti and watched the young men doing tricks at full gallop. The kyz-kuu began early on the second day. One by one, the girls of Dzinara’s age went and changed into their traditional costumes, until she was the only one left in her ordinary riding gear. The deadline to sign up had passed an hour ago. The announcer called out Samal’s name. She mounted up and rode by the audience, gathering cheers. Only Dzinara was struck dumb. In her gold-fringed coat and foxfur hat, Samal looked like a warrior-woman out of Kazakh legend. As she passed by she gave Dzinara a glance that made Dzinara’s stomach turn over. The announcer asked Samal who she wanted to chase her today. The boys on their colts were gathered in a pack, watching her hungrily. “You,” she said, pointing her whip at Tahir. No, thought Dzinara. Why him? She remembered what Roza had said about his eyes. Perhaps, to Samal, he was gorgeous. Perhaps this was what girls were supposed to like. Tahir trotted up to the boys’ starting line, twenty feet behind Samal. The announcer fired his gun, and both horses sprang down the field. Köleñke ran. Samal’s hair flew wild in the wind. Tahir whipped his horse furiously but could not close the distance between them. Samal reached the goal flag and rounded it with her whip held high. Tahir tried to turn too sharply and his horse reared. By the time he righted himself Samal was upon him. She struck him mercilessly across the neck and cheek. By the end of the race he was cowering and bleeding from his ear. The women cheered and clapped; the boys looked pale. Samal took Köleñke past the stands again. The dark horse’s flanks shone with sweat. Samal called out to Dzinara: “Did you doubt me?” The question cut Dzinara to the bone. Yes, she had doubted. She was ashamed. *** In the golden light of evening, the horse meet drew to a close. Samal had ridden five more times in the kyz-kuu and won every race. Most of the boys had gotten off lightly compared to Tahir. Now scraps of rubbish blew across the empty, trampled field, and the two girls rode their horses home. For once they spoke little; a melancholy silence had slipped in between them. Their way took them past the kyz-kuu field. The goal flag and the starting lines were still there. “Here is the site of your great victory,” said Dzinara, a little weakly. Samal shrugged. “I’d hoped for something different,” she said. Dzinara was tongue-tied again. Samal looked out toward the sun-struck steppe. “It can’t always be me who leads the way,” Samal said. “Sometimes you have to take a step, too.” Suddenly, Dzinara’s cheeks were hot, her hands tingling. She knew what she had to do but it was frightening. She drew courage from the horse beneath her, its warm smell, the blood pumping from its powerful heart. “Hyah!” she cried, and dashed her whip across Jel’s flank. The horse sprang forward into the setting sun, toward the goal flag at the far end of the field. Jel had a head start. But she was no match for Köleñke on the flat. Before they were halfway to the goal, Dzinara could hear the dark mare’s hoofbeats alongside her, and feel the ghost of warmth as Samal drew in to close the gap.
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Aug 1, 2022 05:31
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Fumblemouse Redemption Arc Fairy tale The fisherman and his wife Once upon a time, on the shores of the wild coast, there lived a fisherman and his wife. They spent their nights together in a ramshackle cottage, and their days apart, he alone on his boat, she foraging at the edge of the forest, and tending to their small tribe of goats. One evening, as the skies darkened and the stars hid behind the clouds, the fisherman pulled his boat as far ashore as he could, and turned toward the ramshackle cottage, excited by the light that glowed from its windows and the warmth it promised. But before he could take a step towards home, he heard a voice calling out in the darkness. Looking all about him, he failed to see the voice's owner in the dimming twilight. But another call came, and he followed it to a fish with scales that glittered in the rising moonlight, flopping about in a tidepool surrounded by rocks. "Good fisherman," said the fish, in a raw and gasping voice. "The tide is gone, and this pool is slowly subsiding. Please, cast me back into the ocean water before my day is done." "Well," said the fisherman. "I'm not normally one for taking fish into the ocean. Quite the opposite, in fact. But seeing as you're a talking fish, I suppose I could make an exception." He picked up the oily, wriggling fish and threw it as far as he could manage out into the depths. Then he returned home, kissed his wife, took off his boots, and warmed his wet socks by the fire. "How was the fishing today, husband?" asked the wife as she brought him a dinner of goat cheese and nettles. "The fishing was singular, wife," said the fisherman, biting down on the cheese. "Today I saw a talking fish!" The fisherman's wife narrowed her eyes with suspicion, but the bottle of grog on the shelf did not seem to be any less than it had been this morning. "Show me this talking fish, then, husband." "Would that I could," said the fisherman. "But I found him trapped in a tidepool, so, upon his request, I threw him into the ocean." "You are a kind man, husband. And what did he give you in return for this favour?" "It is a poor man who seeks recompense for kindness, wife," said the fisherman. "Indeed," said his wife. "It is also a poor man who lives on goat cheese and nettles. That was, no doubt, a magickal fish, and it could no doubt assist us in our poverty. At the very least you could have asked for some repairs to this ramshackle cottage. In fact, you should. Go out now before the fish swims too far away." Rolling his eyes, but aware there was no arguing with his wife when she had an idea in her head, he put his boots back on and trudged out into the night. Feeling foolish, he stood at the ocean and called out into the night. "Fish! Hey Fish." To his surprise, a fish head with scintillating scales appeared in the waves not far from him. "Ho, fisherman," said the fish in acknowledgement. "Ah, fish. Would you believe it, but my wife has asked that perhaps you might grant us some help. Our cottage is ramshackle, and does little to stop the wind and rain. As you are, no doubt, a magickal fish, is there anything you might be able to do?" "Return," said the fish. "I have done what I can." And its head sank back beneath the waves. The fisherman did as he was bid, but the ramshackle cottage looked just as ramshackle as when he set out. His wife, however, was beside herself with joy. She pointed to the hole in the roof and marvelled over the quality of the repairs. She pointed to the cracked windows and gushed about the fine, clear glass. She pointed to the dirt floor and praised the quality of the wooden floorboards. "In fact," she said to her husband. "That fish has gotten off lightly. If he can do this, we have underpriced your efforts. Go out again, and ask for a castle." The fisherman knew the signs of an immovable thought lodged in his wife's head, so he returned to the ocean. "Fish," he called. "Hey fish!" The fish popped its head out of the waves once more. It seemed to have grown a little lump by one fin. "Ho, fisherman. How are the repairs?" "I fear," said the fisherman, "that you have bewitched my wife somehow. Yet I have not seen her quite so happy for an age. She asks that we might have a castle, instead of just a cottage." "Return," said the fish. "I have done what I can." It flung itself into the air, reversed to a head down position, then slipped back into the ocean with nary a splash. The fisherman did as he was bid. Still, the ramshackle cottage looked as ramshackle as ever. When he stepped over the threshold, however, his wife was ecstatic with joy. "Look at all this delicious food," she said, waving over the bare board they used as a table. "Look at these silks," she said, tugging at the ragged curtains beset with holes. "Look at this overstuffed armchair," she said, settling down on the three legged stool that wobbled and closing her eyes. "In fact," she said, her eyes flicking open, "I still think the fish has gotten off lightly. Your heroic efforts are woefully unappreciated. Why, if he can do this, then he can elevate us to royalty itself. Should a castle not be home to a King?" "I have no wish to be a king," said the fisherman. "Then I shall be Queen, oh husband of no ambition. Seek the fish, and make him do this for me. I shall not rest until I am fit for this marvelous new home." Sighing to himself, the fisherman wandered back out to the ocean. "Fish," he called. "Hey, fish." Once more the fish appeared over the waves. The lump by its fin was bigger now, bumpy and ridged. "Ho, fisherman," it called. "How is castle life?" "I am not certain you are doing my wife any favours. But she has bid me ask you to make her Queen, so that she may be fit for her new home." "Return," said the fish. "I have done what I can." The fisherman returned to the ramshackle cottage, only to find his wife standing outside in the cold night air. She was staring at the moon, which was now high in the dark sky, and about her brow was a crown of seaweed. When the fisherman reached her she turned to face him, and her eyes were as wide as the moon. "Husband," she said. "My King amongst men. I have become Queen and my Queendom is magnificent." She flung her arms wide and spun in a circle. "Look at its bountiful fields, its majestic mountains and rivers full of life. But I find that not all is within my power. I cannot bid the moon to fall, nor the sun to rise. You must ask the fish, tell it I can never be happy, never. Not until I am a god." A rage grew in the heart of the fisherman. This was not right. This was not a gift he wanted to receive for his act of kindness. He wasn't even sure this was truly his wife. He stormed to the ocean, and screamed into the night. "Fish! Hey, fish!" "Ho, fisherman," said the fish in an echoing voice. The lump by its fin had become a second fish face that spoke the same words at the same time. "How is the Queen?" "She is bewitched, fish, and this has gone too far." "What has she asked for this time?" "She has asked to be a god." "Return," said the fish. "I have done what I can." Behind him the fisherman felt something black and terrible growing in the night, a terror that towered over him, reeking of disease and pain. But he did not turn around. "No, fish. Enough is enough. Take back your gifts, I demand it! As a husband, I demand it. As the one who saved your life, I demand it!" The fish stared at him with four cold, dead eyes. "Very well, then. As you wish. We take the healing." It split apart, each face becoming the top of a blackened eel. "We take the shaping." The eels grew, assuming human shapes, one lean and tall, the other round and hunched. "We take the dominion." They crackled with power, electricity arcing on the surface of the water. "And we take the divinity." *** Mr and Mrs Cryptic have no faces. Trapped so tight they share a shadow. Drift forever in the darkness Dance among the dead Betrayed by light and by darkness Now they are as gods
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Aug 1, 2022 05:33
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Bjorqvist Diaries 1248 words "No, Dad, it is real basketball," Deonte hissed, squeezed into a corner of the locker room with his phone. "Can't you just be proud of me?" The phone reception was bad, but he could still hear his father's heavy sigh over the line. "Just focus on the money, son. Pride won't enter into it. Maybe you can try again at the next draft." There was no sign-off, no 'I love you'. Just those three beeps that let you know the conversation is over. "Alright Gunbarrels, form up," said Coach Murray. "I want to start with a prayer to god for letting us have these precious hours on the court today." Deonte shoved his anger and his phone in a locker and joined the rest of the team. It was his first playing game out of college, and he'd be damned if he let his father’s not-unexpected truculence spoil the occasion. Luckily, the prayer filled him with resolve, and as he looked around at his team, he knew they could win. "Next, I want to go over some more safety fundamentals," continued the Coach. "Most importantly, when you hit that trampoline, you need to keep your feet pointed down. I don't care if you bring your knees up to your chest, you keep those feet pointed down. You let those feet fly out in front or go up in back, before you know it you're going head-over-heels, and chances are you will not make the basket. Plus, in the test episodes, a player broke his neck like that, nearly died. So, feet pointed where?" "Down!" Replied the team as one. Coach Murray grinned. "Good. Now let's play some Slamball!" ~~~ Every Wednesday night on Fox, tune in for Slamball, the sports craze nobody expected to survive past 2004. It’s basketball but the hoops are twice as high and players have to jump on trampolines to reach them. Place your bets today! ~~~ The season flew by. Deonte kept his feet pointed down and his point average up. He was easily the best player on the Gunbarrels, and rivaled Jurgen Hoddog for the best player in the league. None of it meant anything to him. The only dates on the calendar that mattered were the start of NBA training camp and next year’s draft. Between games, Deonte frequented street games to try and meet people, make connections. But nobody there knew who he was. He had to point to the giant billboard on the side of the mall, but even then the recognition was vacant. “We watch real sports,” they’d say, and inevitably they’d go out their way to cross him over and break his ankles. If there were any scouts watching, they never approached him. Deonte also took to buying celebrity magazines and reading gossip blogs. When he found out where NBA players were hanging out in LA, he’d go down there and try to party with them, talk up the sport of Slamball and see if he could at least peel off a bit of respect from a player who knows what it’s like to be in the spotlight. The bouncers at the VIP rooms did know what Slamball was, in fact. It meant he wasn’t allowed past the velvet rope. Inevitably, Deonte would wind up at Clappers, a sports bar that was midway between the hotel where most of the players were put up and the studio where the show was shot. Most of the boozier players hung around there, and since all of the teams lived in town, rivalries were known to come to a head at times. Deonte just kept his head down, drank, and checked the balance on his bank app. Until the night that Jurgen Hoddog was convinced to down two boots of beer and stumbled over to start some poo poo. "I want nothing to do with it, man," Deonte said, packing up to leave. "Go back to your table." "Nooooo," roared Jurgen, steadying himself poorly by the bar. He towered nearly a foot over Deonte's already considerable height. "You are rival! I hate you, man! I should gently caress you up!" Deonte couldn't help but laugh. "Do you hear yourself? You hate me? Bro, we don't even play a real sport. We're on reality TV. That's it." "Oh, you are even lower than I thought! I will gently caress you up with both fists now," Jurgen shouted. "Not only you are almost as good player as me, but you don't even care? No. No. No!! This will not be! For I am Jurgen Hot-Dog, from heart of Moldova! Birthplace of sport now called Slamball, and I will not have honor be… besmirched!" "What?" Deonte was genuinely confused. "Slamball's from Moldova? Didn't the network just… make it up?" "Not at all! In Moldova, ancient principality host Bjorqvist tournament, with ball made of inflated sheep bladder, and trampoline made of stretched pig skin! And, and entry of socialism only improved our noble game," Jurgen hiccuped. "Listen, I tell you…" Once on the topic of socialism, Jurgen was easily steered back into the hands of his teammates. Deonte went back up to his room and did some online research. Weirdly enough, everything Hoddog had said was true. In fact, it seemed that basketball was actually a derivative form of Moldovan Slamball. This information troubled Deonte. He could feel a tingling change brewing in the tips of his toes. By the time he was on the court the following Wednesday, the tingle had overtaken his whole body. For the first time on a Slamball court, Deonte cared. He was facing down Jurgen Hoddog and his Steamshovels, and no matter what he did, he couldn't stop caring about the game. Where before he had moved mechanically, executed his team's plays with precision, that night he was striving, sloppy - and downright bad at the game. It seemed to Deonte that the more passion he poured into every move on the court, the easier it was for Jurgen to stymie him. The Gunbarrels went down hard. But the strangest part was, all of that made Deonte feel good. After the game, he stuck around the locker room and went over the game with Coach Murray to see what went wrong. Then he met up with his teammates at Clappers to commiserate, drink, and just talk to them, learn who they were as people. Deonte even reached out to Jurgen Hoddog, and together they went (mostly sober) to the Museum of Moldovan Heritage in town to examine oil paintings of Slamball games from the olden days. The NBA training camp and draft came and went, and Deonte barely noticed. For the first time in ages, he was happy. It wasn't until a few weeks later, after a few more disastrously fun games, that his father called. Deonte answered cautiously, having tried to forget that such a man existed entirely. "Listen, son," said his dad. Deonte held his breath. He was ready to be disowned. "I wanted to let you know that I saw your last game the other night. I haven't watched til now but your mother told me how crappy you've been playing lately. And, well. I just wanted to say that if you need any pointers, your old man can still show you a thing or two in the driveway. I can pick up some of those little trampolines from the store, even. I mean it, son, your game is in serious trouble." "Sure, Dad. I'll be there." It was a start.
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Aug 1, 2022 05:50
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This is a Gangcrit for "It’s the Truth" by "Dome Racer Alpha" So yeah I don't know the lore of the Dome Racers or anything but I liked reading this little story. The voice is consistent, the action is clear, and a bunch of spooky exciting stuff happens, hard to ask for much more than that in 500 words. Plus the name P.P. Weiner is funny. I gather that's the whole gag of the Dome Racers, that halfway through "everything explodes," P.P. smashes through something and everyone's glad to see him. Well, I was glad to see him too, since as I said P.P. Weiner is a funny name and a funny guy to show up in the context. Although I guess it would be better if the main character of the story had something to do instead of just observing the problem and getting saved from it. But it feels like I'm playing a prank on myself by attempting to seriously critique this. I kind of wish P.P. Weiner would explode the wall of my apartment and stop me from have to wri
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Aug 1, 2022 05:59
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Meaningless 1106 words They're out of sweepstakes contention. Linnea tells and retells herself for her whole walk to finals: they're out of sweepstakes contention. Season's done. No hope for anything better than third overall, and more likely fourth or fifth. Out of the running. One last event, and that's senior year Kinetics done and dusted. It should feel worse than it does. She can still see Coach Wagner's face as he climbed the bleachers to tell the team's "senior leadership" (all five of them, and two not even four-year vets): that earnest, hangdog disappointment. "Math's not on our side this year, guys," he said, and Linnea could have told him that even before State. It's a rebuilding year -- a real one, not a "reloading" year -- and they didn't even qualify enough people to be in the sweeps hunt. A three-year win streak broken. It should be a blow, but something in Linnea isn't getting the memo to be hurt. They're out of the sweeps running, but she still has her finals. She's still got her last shot. Mixed Telekinetic Shot Put is always held at the far end of the event center, in the track-and-field area. Linnea steps into her lane for the finals course, a long narrow stretch of artificial turf and plexiglass dividers. The walls between lanes are lead-lined, to prevent cheating, but it means she can't see her opponents -- and they can't see her. It's just her and two proctors, and they won't remember this any longer than it takes to write her score down. This is for her. This is for Linnea. It's for her freshman self, a shocking second place at State, who thought she'd be back to this arena every year; it's for her sophomore self, who failed out in semis, and her junior self who didn't get past Districts. Now it's her second state finals appearance, her last shot, and she reminds herself that even she won't care in ten years. None of what she's about to do matters. She empties her mind, and all that's left is the power. Linnea focuses on the course. The obstacle section is vertical-style this year, and she thinks of rollercoasters: when to build up energy and when to release it, how to maintain momentum. She steps forward into the participant's chamber properly, and the proctor nods at her and glances down at his clipboard. "Gutierrez, JF15? Whenever you're ready." By now, Linnea knows the weight of a standard shot, and she doesn't need to do the novice's trick of the test lift and heft -- waste of brainpower. She concentrates, and the first shot levitates into shooting height for the opening obstacle, a high gap well above her sight line. She'd tell herself to calm her nerves, but there are no nerves right now, just a strange and exhilarating emptiness. This doesn't matter. She focuses, and she thinks, and she pushes through the first hole. The next is lower -- a good swoop, with easy acceleration -- then a climb again through three gaps. She keeps it steady, saves her strength. A zig-zag deceleration now, lateral movement eating into her speed, then the final hole high again. A big push to get it in and through, and then the last shot, for pure distance. One final push, and the shot flies. The far proctor hustles from the shielded sidelines out to the field to plant a flag: a bit past twenty feet. A good first shot, Linnea tells herself. First shot is always learning. The proctor in her chamber gestures at the shot clock. Thirty seconds to have the next one airborne. The second shot is refinement. She can tighten up her obstacle section; a little more power for the last push goes a long way. It's the reason she likes Mixed TK over pure precision or pure power: the optimization puzzle, the learning on the fly. She mentally hefts the next shot, lobs it through the first hole gently, then lets acceleration do the work on the decline. The ascent is a bit more of a push, something she can start to feel in the tension in her head: not enough force there to start, then, and a bit too much into the zig-zag. The shot veers close to the right edge of the hole, close to hitting plexiglass and losing the attempt; a quick juke keeps it live, rising for the final hole and the last push, but she's spent too much. Sixteen feet. Sixty seconds before her final attempt. Linnea massages her temples, takes a sip of water, and clears her mind. In any other week, she'd be thinking about sweepstakes, how well she has to do to keep the team in contention. That's gone now. All that's left is the geometry of the moment, when to push and when to let fall, and she knows she's ready. Fifteen seconds on the countdown clock, and she doesn't need them. She hefts her shot. She launches. Moderate push on the first high hole. Gentle on the descent; let gravity do your work for you, but don't release your grip entirely. A spin up for the next ascent, then guide it through, steady and careful. Save your strength for the zig-zag downhill, with just a little juice -- the shot zips through the lateral holes, clean and clear, no risk of loss this time. One last haul, and Linnea's fresh and ready when the shot exits the obstacles. One last push, pure power, everything her brain has left. And it soars. It soars past its predecessors, past the midpoint of the course, past the far proctor waiting at the twenty-feet point of the sidelines. This time, the proctor has to jog to catch it and plant the flag. 42 feet. 42 feet -- it takes Linnea a second to process it, to get her mind thinking about numbers and results and not just the raw physics. That's close to her record on Power TK, where it's just one fling. She's never even heard of anyone in Mixed hitting even 35 at State. She's the GOAT of Mixed TK Shot Put, like she always knew she could be, and it doesn't remotely matter. Linnea laughs and chugs from her water bottle, even as the two breathless proctors congratulate her. The far proctor's asking if she wants a copy of her tape, and of course she does, even if she knows she'll never watch it. Maybe her parents will? Or maybe they won't. It's never mattered less, now that it's all done and dusted. A state record. Goddamn. Maybe they'll pull up to third in the sweeps after all?
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Aug 1, 2022 06:24
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