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381 Kurst The motor is running. The propellers whizz and the torpedo stays still, running hot in the bay. Like the fins of a fish held out of water the rudders twist and turn, flailing against the thin air, searching for some cool embrace of water. Soon it will be released to fly to the target. That ship, once the biggest and brightest in a fleet of giant wonders, now lies silently below the summer ice. It has been compounded by practice firings into a wreck of a wreck. A few men designed it, thousands laboured to build it, hundreds crewed it. All loved it. Now it is a useful piece of garbage. A twitching rudder strikes the wall of the tube, the scratch makes a spark that lights the darkness before sinking away. The propellor whirls on. Fifteen feet ahead of the rudder, at the middle of the torpedo, in its bay, in the submarine, in “its” waters, a weld has shaken loose. A trickle of peroxide flows out, attacking the metal bay and forming oxygen and hot, hot steam. The trickle increases to a stream, and the compartment fills with the gasses. And overfills: the pressure increases as litres of peroxide flow forth. Each molecule pushes, searching for a space, searching for any weakness, any small chink in the armour. The bay is designed for high pressures and multiple firings. It does not fail. The rudders flick from side to side in the humid atmosphere, and the propellers whir, creating eddies and currents through the thick droplet filled air. Pressure, too, is applied against the torpedo, still pregnant with its explosive charge. The casing begins to bend. But it holds fast. A torpedo is designed to withstand pressure from outside, the ordeal of firing, where water suddenly envelops it with all the force of the sea above. Heat builds, and builds and builds. The kerosene that fuels the motor is boiling inside the tank, inside the torpedo, inside the submarine, under the ice. A torpedo is not designed to withstand pressure from inside. If they were they would not be so effective. Liquid fuel no longer reaches the propeller, it whines, and scratches to a stop. The cruiser wreck flinches in the shockwave, as suddenly a spark arcs, lighting the darkness. And then sinks away.
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Sep 8, 2013 21:32
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| # ? Dec 12, 2024 16:51 |
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A little more than THREE HOURS remain. GMT, bitches.
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Sep 8, 2013 21:36
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Class of 2002 (405 Words) “For Sale: Land” A big red “Reduced Price!” sticker pasted diagonally across the sign. The driveway, a minuscule opening in the trees on the side of Witless Bay Line. You’d never notice it if you drove faster than 50. The speed limit is 80. No transformer on the power-line, no cell-phone reception. In the driveway, deep ruts filled with water. The hump in the middle would tear the bottom out of anything less than a 4x4 truck. On the way down, along the sides, Molson Canadian cans are scattered amongst the bunch-berries under the black spruce. A cabin made of plywood overlooks a pond at the end of the driveway. Maroon paint flakes off the side and gets carried away by the heedless breeze. The lone window is shattered. The door hangs open and a broken padlock rests on the nearby ground. A sheer rock-face borders the far side of the cabin. The words “Rog + Jen 2003” and “Goulds Rules” are written in neon-orange construction spray-paint. The remains of a picnic table stands at the back. The top is covered in charred junks of wood as if someone lit a bonfire up there. Light shines through the hole in the middle, blackened around the edges, onto the ash below. The yard is littered with cigarette butts and beer cans. A rusted, metal tent-peg is left in the ground. A double mattress to the right, a large brown vomit-stain in the middle. A balled up hoody at the foot reads, “St. Kevin’s Class of 2002.” Inside the cabin, the ceiling sags like a tarp filled with rainwater. A brown and yellow floral pattern love-seat sits under the window, caked in dust. A glass mixing bowl scattered across the floor, shattered. A battery powered radio lies on a shelf on the opposite wall. The batteries’ rot corrodes the back of the radio and disfigures the surface of the shelf. There’s a bottle of Tylenol planted further in. Its label faded from bright red to a dull pink. Expiry date: 1992. A bottle of nitroglycerin tablets stands guard to the side. Someone has spray-painted “Rog likes the dick” on the wall above. Down the hall, there is a bedroom. It smells of mildew, and mould creeps up from the baseboards. There is a double bed with a box-spring, but no mattress. Over the bed, a wooden plaque reads “Heaven is a little closer at the cabin.”
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Sep 8, 2013 21:59
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CancerCakes posted:I don't understand NZDT, so I'm in, and here is 1613 cunts of words. Break me upon the wheel of the thunderdome. Can do! Long on atmosphere, short on comprehensibility (which is a charge that could be laid at my feet too, I know). You start out pretty strong, some awkward structural choices aside, but it never quite comes together, and the last bit is just a mess. The biggest problem I had here: I never quite understood just what David's motivations were in this whole thing. If he really was in No-Name Welsh Village just to deliver the package, and if he genuinely did hate being there, why all the complication? Not that this isn't a valid choice, it could tell me something about who David is, but you didn't quite get there. And what the gently caress happened at the end? A question I know could be asked of some of what I've written (to the point where I almost wonder if there wasn't some design in pointing me in the direction of this story to crit), but whatever shocking ending you had in your head, it didn't make it onto the page at all. There's some charm here, mostly in what we see of David's character, but it's not enough to carry the piece. (Story coming momentarily).
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Sep 8, 2013 22:11
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Seems I’m not the only one writing on the short side. Not my original idea, but this worked out better, I hope. (No one cares.) Impermanent Record 597 words The footprints and tracks won’t last forever, not even here. No gusts of wind will cover them, no sudden rain will wash them away.. Likewise the discarded objects; rust requires air, decay requires life. But meteors and seismic events (not “earthquakes”, not here) and simple erosion caused by more subtle forces will do for them all in the end. Such things are, nonetheless, as permanent a record of Lightbringer as any. They’ll outlast the survivors of the first manned mission to the moon in fifty years, the first such mission at all to the moon’s far side. They may well outlast the written records on Earth, and even the civilizations that gave rise to the mission. An accounting: Four heavy indentations, where the first moon lander sat. A wide ring of displaced, blackened dust, where it lifted off. About five hundred feet away, the second lander, its design largely unchanged since 1972, though the materials are newer, the computers both smaller and more powerful. Rated to carry four people, and hundreds of pounds of samples, off the surface and back into orbit. Dark now, its power supply long since depleted, even the solar cells, never set out to charge. Seven sets of footprints around both landers, belonging to seven people from five nations, three women, four men. The landers had an official operational lifetime of five days. The mission had been scheduled to last three days. For six of the seven lunar explorers, it lasted four. A large radio dish, set to beam to a satellite that still orbits the moon, to make communication with Earth more reliable on this and future missions. Not that future missions are likely any time soon. Lightbringer was controversial at best before it ever launched, and has only become more so in the wake of what happened. Vehicle tracks, to and from the landing site. The two rovers, one brought with each lander, remain as well. They were always intended to be left behind. Not so the piles of rocks collected for study, the sample containers, the very few pieces from the first lander that could be described as nonessential. A large steel tank, cracked open, its contents scattered nearby. Vapor when they left the pressurized fuel tank, the chemical propellants froze as they dispersed, and for the first time, it snowed on the moon. A simple accident, and catastrophic. Only one of four such tanks attached to the second lander, but that had been enough. The margins were too thin for redundancy; it wouldn’t launch with three, and the tank couldn’t be repaired, nor the fuel recovered. Equations and formulas, scratched into the dust. They’d used the computers, of course, these were written later. The number 6 at the end of it all is circled, underlined several times, and then crossed out. Seven sticks, left on the ground near the site of the first lander, one shorter than the others. The shortest one is snapped in half. One set of footprints, leading away from the landing site. A spacesuit lying on its back so its inhabitant can see the stars. A discarded set of oxygen tanks rests nearby. Words, scratched in the dust, near the discarded tanks: “Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair. gently caress you all, I’m never going home.” Scuffed spaces nearby, where dust was cleared away. A body that, though it won’t last forever, will never decay.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:32
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docbeard posted:Long on atmosphere, short on comprehensibility Cheers for the crit, this story was my first ever entry into TD, but from what I remember there was a whole complex backstory. Basically the old man killed his wife, and changed his name. The wife cursed the thimble. David tracks down inheritors of items and tries to hold the items to ransom for a pay out. Thimble fucks everything up. Insane, I know. I should have got a shametar for it that week, but someone else hosed up bigger. I'm still statistically the worst ever TD entrant though. Sebmojo for dredging my past failure up instead of picking a half decent story (such as the one you didn't have the stomach to crit properly): brawl me, bitch. Someone throw out a prompt, but the word limit needs to be 200, because I got poo poo to do dog.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:47
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CancerCakes posted:Cheers for the crit, this story was my first ever entry into TD, but from what I remember there was a whole complex backstory. Basically the old man killed his wife, and changed his name. The wife cursed the thimble. David tracks down inheritors of items and tries to hold the items to ransom for a pay out. Thimble fucks everything up. I will break you.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:53
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CancerCakes posted:I'm still statistically the worst ever TD entrant though. I beg to differ! CancerCakes: Wins: 0; Honorable Mentions: 3; Losses: 3; Dishonorable Mentions: 0 JonasSalk: Wins: 0; Honorable Mentions: 0; Losses: 4; Dishonorable Mentions: 1 Voliun: Wins: 0; Honorable Mentions: 0; Losses: 4; Dishonorable Mentions: 1 You'll need to suck with a bit more vigor if you wish to wear the crap crown, sir. Meanwhile:  Thunderbrawl: CancerCakes vs. sebmojo Should you choose to accept it, your mission is to tell a story of inadequacy in 200 words or fewer. The interpretation is up to you, but stopping mid-narrative because you had inadequate words is the sort of cutesiness that will earn you naught but scorn and bile. Deadline: Wednesday, September 11, 11:59pm USA EST.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:58
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sebmojo posted:Tsh like that's ever stopped me. I also gave myself a flash rule: Don't write about addiction, abuse, or mental illness (for once.) Expecting 583 words At the end of an unassuming street, in an area too rural to be a suburb but not too far from civilization, a house nestles among a tangle of willows. It's a modest house: three bedrooms, one bath, and it sits on a few acres of lightly wooded land. The paint on the old wooden siding is fresh, and the windows are the new sort that don't let in drafts. The front door is locked, but the back door isn't. There's a pickup in the two car driveway and a basketball hoop attached to the shed. Twilight is falling, and the house is dark except for a single lamp by the back door and the faint glow of the digital clocks, blinking modem lights, and pervasive LEDs that seed any modern home. There's the hum of the refrigerator, the low purr of the water heater, the incessant, treble throbbing of the frogs in the pond out back. There are no footsteps, no voices, no snores. The house smells of fresh bread, and heat still radiates from the oven. The loaf sits on a cooling rack on the counter, uncut. The house is clean, but not neat. Two gaming controllers lie on the living room floor. A paperback is open on a small table next to a leather recliner. Children's books with pictures of dinosaurs and spaceships and bugs lay here and there. The print is large and the edges frayed from clumsy fingers. There is a ball of multicolored rubber-bands on the stairs. A stuffed bear lies in the hall. The bedroom doors are open. One has a queen-size bed, unmade. Piles of laundry sit on it, folded but rumpled. Men's blue-jeans, a t-shirt, a maternity dress. A few pieces are rolled as if for packing. The closet is open, and a suitcase has been half-dragged from under the hanging uniforms on one side. There's space for another bag on top of it, but the bag is missing. There is a bedroom painted blue, and a rumpled bedspread with a spaceship on it. One shelf is filled with books, the others with toy trucks and plastic dinosaurs and bits and pieces of science kits and beat-up old teddy-bears, all in a jumble. There are brightly colored drawings that may be dogs, or cats, or dinosaurs if one squints just right. The third bedroom is yellow and smells of fresh paint and expectant readiness. The carpet is soft. A crib sits against one wall, a mobile over it. There are neatly folded blankets, onesies, and newborn-sized diapers. There's an empty trashcan with a tightly-closing lid. None of the packages have been opened. None of the blankets have been used. They are waiting. There's still steam on the bathroom windows, and a man's razor next to the sink. There's a toothbrush holder that has just a bit of damp in three of the spaces, but no brushes. There's a towel discarded on the floor, and a dirty police uniform beside the shower. The water hasn't been turned off all the way. There was no time. In the big bedroom a pager buzzes on the desk next to a police badge. There's a safe set into the wall, locked tight. There's a note with the number of the local hospital's maternity ward, and a notepad with the faint indentations that might be left behind when someone writes down directions fast. The pager buzzes again and then goes quiet. The policeman isn't answering calls from work tonight.
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Sep 8, 2013 23:05
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Time's up.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:02
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wordcount 753 Tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper There is something subtly wrong with this picture. It’s nearly impossible to put your finger on quite what, but once you know there is no escaping the unnerving sensation of displacement as it brazenly hangs against the museum wall, like a cuckoo’s egg in a foreign nest. If you compared it to a photograph, one of the millions that have been taken in this very hallway, you might not see the differences. The colours are identical, the style immediately recognisable, and the subject calls attention to her fame and beauty like a siren serenades a lonely sailor - but these surface similarities belie the truth, because a photo will not tell you everything. It omits the third dimension, something not obvious to those who do not spend their time in places like this, preferring to educate themselves in the great works of the masters via coffee table books and postcards. But it is so, the extra dimension to every painting, texture, gives the game away. The way the paint lies upon the canvas, the way each bristle of a brush has clumped and grouped to make the strokes unique. The way the paint has curves and contours that catch the light in different ways. Just as a philosopher cannot step into the same river twice, an artist cannot re-paint a picture. If a man knew the work well, if he’d been to see it every day in his lunch hour, taking his place on the cushioned bench, by turns amused, depressed, inspired, then he might see it immediately, see the differences in thickness, in weight, in curve. But then again, he might not, because the art has been replaced by the full effect of the forger’s craft. To create a perfect facsimile is no easy task. Vast amounts of work have gone into the duplicate, hoping to achieve a replica that would fool the casual eye and give a more experienced one little cause to look closer. Colours are one thing, but what goes into them, what makes them shine the way they do? The atoms of the molecule of art, the materials from which the work is constructed, the paints, the canvas, even the brushes, have been created only from materials available at the time of the piece’s creation. Pigments and palettes, canvas and frame, all remade religiously via science and history. Even the effects of time and light have been carefully emulated with as much precision as possible via judicious application of ultraviolet and air movement. The frames itself has been pierced by tiny holes that seemingly twist at random, to emulate the worms that feast on wood. So it hangs here, with nothing to give away the fact that it’s an imposter but the minuscule physical imperfections that must exist in any copy. The velvet rope around it prevents anyone from getting too close, bars the world from seeing beneath the façade and makes a lie of the sense of history, place and occasion any visitor might feel when they buy their ticket and take their place in the queue to rest a moment in front of greatness. The tiny placard beside the rope fills in important details of the life of the painter, of the nature of the work but all the details refer to another piece, to which this is only an accompanying shadow. The sign reveals that behind the canvas is printed by hand an invocation to curse those who would steal by imitation, a conceit beloved of Albrecht Dürer and his fellow artisans. If someone were to walk beyond the velvet rope and lift the heavy canvas, they would see those same words, transcribed exactly and in fullest irony. Another picture lies here, almost as an afterthought, on the cushioned bench so thoughtfully provided for viewers to rest upon as they stare at their own deception. Part of a newspaper, smaller and only black and white, this picture, too, is a copy, but one of multiple thousands, all reprinted with the mechanical ease of the printing press. It is also a picture of a face, capturing a moment of time in the life of a person that has since passed on - but here there is no placard to explain their fate. The surrounding headlines speak of mysterious circumstances, of chaos and confusion in the art community and of reverent testimonials to the magnificent work of the Museum Director who knew the art of ages past like no other.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:04
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 Hm. Fumblemouse, I may exercise judgely prerogative to let this one under the wire if you challenge someone to a brawl in the next hour.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:17
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sebmojo posted:A little more than THREE HOURS remain. loving time-warping son of a cyber-bitch. I think you meant two hours. Ah well - Judges, please look favourably upon my minutes late submission. What you may not know about me is that I am a complete loving idiot who cannot read a clock and was similarly dumb enough to let Semojo do my Dateline calculations. I throw myself on the mercy of the judges, who are all looking remarkably attractive today, I note, apropos of nothing. Have y'all been working out? Even Sebmojo looks less like stainless steel rat vomit than usual.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:18
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gently caress your time rules. The Things They Left Behind 392 Words Black sedans stop in front of wrought iron, reflecting the fence as twisted smears. The arbor is wrapped with vines and thorns, but nothing blooms. Doors open and shut unceremoniously. Though it is not raining, the air is wet with moisture. Drops of water coalesce and fall off the leaves of trees overhead. Several umbrellas are unfurled. A riderless horse walks through the arborway, following the caisson. Chairs dig into the wet grass, sinking into the soil before settling. A book is opened on the lectern. It has an embroidered cover, and a leather bookmark. It is well-loved but seldom-used. More water falls to the ground. Time moves agonizingly slow, but always forward. Rifles are pointed into the sky. Hammers strike, and one sharp crack pierces the stillness. The echo off nearby mountains is allowed to subside before the next volley. The final salvo’s echo has barely faded when beyond the trees,a somber tone reverberates off granite and marble. In the drab and dreary, a lone beacon of color lay draped across spalted maple. Its edges flutter in the slightest traces of wind. It is removed and folded into a triangle. Taught, devoid of wrinkles, three brass casings are tucked into the folds. # The bleachers are empty, the bats and gloves packed away for another season. A ball hits the backstop, rattling the chainlink. There is no glove to catch it. The universe does not allow it to travel back to its point of origin unassisted. A bike barrels down the sidewalk. A menagerie of broken parts and chipped paint, a time capsule, a relic of broken promises. It coasts, riderless, and crashes into the garage door. The thunder of sheet metal startles birds to flight. Small shoes leave transient impressions in the carpet. The refrigerator is opened but there is nothing inside but condiments and spoiled food. It rarely gets stocked anymore. Down the hallway the bed is half-made, and half-occupied. Few are the days where it is fully one or the other. In the dark and lonely, the television’s flicker illuminates the stained sofa through the night. The bathtub is dry, the toothbrush unused, the dressers still empty. The school bus stops briefly outside the house, and pulls away. All it leaves behind are the sounds of muffled sobbing. Time never moves backwards, regardless of the begging it sees.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:25
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crabrock posted:gently caress your time rules. Drift (897 Words) The Fortune Fish has gone twelve days without a crew or a captain, with no heading. Still it drifts on. Before, a man at the helm fought the waves, but now the ship and the water travel together, basking in silence. The world is theirs, the ocean an ever-stretching field of possibility. The ship has earned its rest. Its timbers are cracked and tender. They creak when the wind breathes through, a low moan uttered and unheard. Below deck the cannons jostle about like lead gallstones. Provisions in barrels rot, and so does the once-captain. He hangs like a doll over the splintered railing. There is a hole in his head and a spent flintlock on the floor. The ship tolerates his presence. He will be gone soon, nibbled up by time or swept away by a salty breeze. It doesn't matter which way. Different currents, same destination. There is a white speck in the air. It is a gull with aching wings and wet, ripped feathers. The gull is delirious and cannot see, but it strains to keep flying and hits one of the dark sails hanging from the ship's center mast. Its wings finally give out, and the gull lets go and slides down the coarse fabric. It clatters onto the deck where it lies, twisted and crumpled. The rapid thumps of its heart slow to an even pace. The ship and the feathery lump on its deck drift together. In a few hours the gull is up and waddling. It tests its wings but is frightened by a jolt of pain and decides to hop around the Fortune Fish instead. It has not yet built up the courage to venture below deck, so it must rely on the once-captain for nourishment. The gull digs its bill into the man's back. It chokes down the dead flesh and bits of tattered coat, compelled by its stomach's angry rattling, though soon it cannot fit any more. Insides now calm, the gull perches on the deck and digests, belly fuller than it though possible. The ship's belly is full, too. It sags under the weight of a veritable lake of treasure locked away in the lowest compartment, water trickling in from the cracked hull and creating a gilded swamp. The winds nudge the ship along, but the water pulls also. The gull wakes from a deep night's rest and automatically springs up into the air. It feels the sharp ache of its damaged wings too late, travels a few yards before falling and colliding with the deck. For the rest of the day the gull tries to fly again, the ship contentedly serving as launch pad and crash zone. The gull knows somewhere in its gull brain that it is lucky to have found the ship. The sea is selfish. It would try to get its hooks in and drag the gull down, drenching its feathers and flushing its lungs full of water. What the sea wants, it takes. One by one, the gull works out the aches and kinks in its muscles. It flaps up to the crow's nest and perches, watching the sun set over the vast, unbroken valley of the sea. The next days follow a routine: the gull wakes with dawn, pecks a few morsels from the back of the once-captain, and then flits back and forth across the ship, scanning the horizon for a dot of land. The cold fingers of the sea creep up the ship's sides and back. It rises only an inch or two a day, but it's enough for the wet weight to seep through and drag a little more by nightfall. When dusk settles on the sea, the gull returns to the crow's nest to sleep. It craves solid land. All this floating around is for jellyfish. One day the gull wakes to find water seeping through the railing and covering the deck. It flutters down to see what has happened. The ocean keeps rising, faster than before, swallowing up the railing and reaching the upper deck. The gull coasts over to the body of the once-captain, now floating face-down on the choppy waves. Landing on his head, the gull snaps at his flesh a few more times, but breakfast is cut short when the body starts to glide away from the boat. The sea trickles up the mast, and the gull flies to the crow's nest to watch the once-captain's carcass glide out of view. The gull turns around and sees a handful of specks at the horizon's edge. Its wings twitch with thoughts and hopes of land. Maybe not home, but a place a lot like it. Every animal instinct shouts at the gull to take off and head for the islands, but it doesn't leave yet. The Fortune Fish must stop drifting soon. The ocean envelops it in an embrace that's tender and suffocating. And final. The water swells up and swallows the crow's nest and the gull does not sink down with it. As the water around the ship goes from clear sapphire to hazy ink, the ship does not muse on the finality of its fate. It does not wonder if the gull looks back at it. It is just a ship. The gull does look back. It sees only the waves, slicing and churning, urging it on to the shore.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:38
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Crabrock Nikaer Drekin Fumblemouse We have our contestants. Three way brawl, loser is disqualified and the other two are not. 500 words max, due exactly 24 hours from now, topic is a clock that tells the wrong time.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:02
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is its name sebmojo? Sep 8, 2013 13:36 sebmojo posted:A little more than THREE HOURS remain. Sep 8, 2013 16:25 crabrock posted:gently caress your time rules. also known as: not quite three hours later.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:06
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Well, mistakes were made. But GMT is GMT. I'm getting pretty invested in this three way now, so you should probably sign up for it.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:18
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I shall pound out something.
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Sep 9, 2013 01:20
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Yeah, I'll do it. Bring it on, Crab n' Mouse!
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Sep 9, 2013 01:24
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I thought the deadline was moved to Tuesday?!
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Sep 9, 2013 02:04
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Econosaurus posted:I thought the deadline was moved to Tuesday?! This was for a duel, I believe. Can't gently caress with the weekly deadlines or the next week will be screwed up.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:05
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I'm in. Don't let it hold up the judging, though, because these two late-oes probably won't even be able to submit their 'apologies for failing to show' messages on time.
Fumblemouse fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 03:00
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Anathema Device posted:This was for a duel, I believe. Can't gently caress with the weekly deadlines or the next week will be screwed up. THE STORIES MUST FLOW.
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Sep 9, 2013 03:42
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I'm going to assume that the deadline is 2 am EST cause
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Sep 9, 2013 04:28
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WHy would it be? The deadline was up almost 5 hours ago
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Sep 9, 2013 04:35
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Lord Windy posted:WHy would it be? The deadline was up almost 5 hours ago Because
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Sep 9, 2013 04:42
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A 7pm deadline? Please. Counter Clock Wise 349 Words The skeleton relaxed face down in the Florida heat, segmented and cracked under a thick brush. It was hesitant at first, but it knew it was time to get up. It struggled, but managed to shuffle his bones closer together and started constructing ligaments to keep its body from rolling away. The mending process was far to difficult for the skeleton to go at alone, so it reluctantly asked his friends for help. The response was slow, but steady. Beetles marched backwards to the skeleton's aid, carrying pieces of connective tissue. As the beetles worked, the maggots and flies showed up to lend a hand. The skeleton was happy that he had friends who came to his aid. Everyone's efforts were concerted and frantic in their work, yet surgically accurate. The wriggling mass of larvae reconstructed delicate blood vessels while other insects meticulously placed flesh into place. A possum joined the party and backed into the clearing, keeping an eye out for anything that might disturb their efforts. After being certain that nothing followed him there, he turned around and shoved a large chunk of muscle into the skeleton's leg as if it were a jigsaw piece. Nodding at a job well done, the possum backed away from the body to give others a chance to come by and help with the restoration. Larger animals had more to offer than the possum – they would regurgitate other pieces of flesh and flawlessly knit it back into place. The skeleton had skin and muscles, but the flies and maggots knew it was missing vital organs. They fiercely worked at building the skeleton some eyes, a heart and other entrails. Now that the workspace was enclosed, the heat and gases distended the body, but that didn't slow anyone down. Finally, with the body complete, the flies and maggots left – proud of a job well done. Only one last thing left to bring the skeleton back to life. It pushed itself off the ground and the skull bones that were penetrated on a sharp looking rock quickly mended itself back together. Mercedes fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 04:45
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Zack_Gochuck posted:Tastes like poo poo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_perfect Thank me later.
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Sep 9, 2013 07:16
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Chairchucker posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_perfect I know it's technically correct, but something has to be said for being concise. I can see your argument for the first half of the first paragraph, but when you get into the poo poo "she'd just turned 17" and "her mother had agreed" that stuff is all in the present within the confines of the story. Her mother is still agreeing to let her go, and she still just turned 17. We can argue about it until we're are blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, as a reader, not a writer, putting the entire first paragraph of your story in the pluperfect tense totally threw me off. Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 11:19
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I still haven't heard from my co-judge, so reply to your pm Redo. In the meantime, some crits. Now, this prompt was pretty much hard as balls (and very excellent with it), so maybe it's not surprising that people flubbed it. But man there were some crappy ones this week. Lord Windy posted:Metal Men Okay, I really don't get this one at all. It's got weird tense isues, some kind of deeply significant arrangement of chemicals and I'm not getting the story you're putting across but it seems hella melodramatic from what I can gather. Possible loser. The Saddest Rhino posted:Technicolour Saturday Morning Daydream (approx. 600 words) Crikey, I kind of hated this one too. You're a solid writer, Rhino, but this is melodramatic and overdescribed where it isn't pompous. Also a possible loser. CancerCakes posted:381 Goodness gracious me this was pretty bad too. Another possible loser. Okay who's next? Zack_Gochuck posted:Class of 2002 (405 Words) Aside for a few places where you went a bit purple on the narration, that was great. A richly imagined desolation. docbeard posted:
This was actually a pretty cool idea, but you flubbed pretty much all the points where you could have delivered on that coolness. Plus, as with everyone but Zack so far, you had a sort of amorphous freefloating narrator editorialising all over the place. Possible loser. Anathema Device posted:
Okay, that's relatively solid in craft, and I kind of like the exacting level of detail though you you could have cut about a third of the things you're describing. The narrator has a reasonably consistent voice though still more editorial than I'd like. But. Nothing happens, which is a weird thing to say about a clearly eventful time in this family's life - but there's a very 'dog bites man' feeling about it. Family was gonna have a baby so it had a baby. Cool? But defintely not a loser, so that's good. But speaking of dogs and men, let's have another. Missed this at first: M. Propagandalf posted:No Respect This was a definite fail because it had a character, and didn't even work that well on its own terms. It had a couple of nice turns of phrase, and then end was sort of sweet, but I was never convinced that I was the dog. Possible loser. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 13:28
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Jagermonster posted:In. gently caress you i was drinking in a pool for a week and a half But seriously I'll get that done today. Barbados owns btw
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Sep 9, 2013 15:19
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THE SPECTACULAR CRABROCK V. FUMBLEMOUSE V. NIKAER DREKIN DUEL FOR THE HONOR OF NOT BEING DISQUALIFIED BEGINS NOW! Mr. Margulies, Your 2:00 Is Here (500 Words, Including Title) Mitch slapped a piece of duct tape over Mr. Margulies's mouth and forced him to sit. “Hey, Kenny,” he said, “could you crack a window? I’m roasting.” Kenneth unlatched one of the tall panes of glass and swung it out. The breeze came in surprisingly quiet, Kenneth thinking maybe even the wind gets vertigo this far up. “You got the bomb vest on him? I can send the message whenever you’re set.” “Yep, just a second…” Mitch pressed the center button. A harsh string of chirps emitted from the bulky black vest around Margulies, followed by steady, ominous beeps. “There, done.” Kenneth lifted his phone and tapped a button. “And the cops have our demands… now. We did it, brother!” He wrapped Mitch in a tight bear hug. “The time’s all set? They have an hour to save the poor sap?” Mitch grinned. “Yep. If they don’t give in by two o’clock, they’ll be scrubbing this prick out of the linoleum.” “What do you mean, ‘two o’clock?” “Two o’clock. The hour after one?” “I know that, gently caress-head, but it’s almost two now.” Kenneth pulled back his turtleneck sleeve, checked his counterfeit Timex. “Yeah, right, it’s 1:58.” “Bullshit. My watch says 12:58, and it’s never wrong.” “You’re sure you didn’t gently caress with it?” “What? No, of course I didn’t loving gently caress with it. I don’t gently caress around with my watch, Kenny, it’s the one Dad gave me.” “Okay, well, what about daylight savings? You set it ahead, right?” Mitch scrunched up his nose. “Oh poo poo, did I?” “Are you kidding me, Mitch? It’s the middle of spring, man! As in fall back, spring loving forward!” “Hey, don’t ride me about this. We’ve got one minute until Margulies is a crater, we need to work fast.” “You can shut it off in time?” “Nah, that takes too long, we gotta dump him out the window.” Kenneth stared at Mitch. He wondered how many years they’d take off his sentence if he gave the bastard up.They each grabbed one of Margulies’s shoulders and dragged him forward. He flailed his feet, Italian leather shoes squeaking on the floor. Mitch and Kenneth tried to ignore what they assumed were curses muffled by the duct tape. Kenneth pushed the window all the way open, and the brothers hoisted Margulies onto the brushed metal sill and shoved him out. He plunged straight down, legs wiggling, until his head bashed into one of the windows and he spun away from the skyscraper. Soon all the brothers could see of him was a speck in an Armani suit. The clock struck two. A fireball burst from the speck and hung in the air. The violent blast of sound reached the brothers a second later, shattering the windows and knocking them back to the floor. Kenneth got up weakly and found Mitch unconscious and grimacing. He bent down, yanked the watch from his brother’s wrist, and chucked it out the window-frame.
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Sep 9, 2013 19:26
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WEEK 57 RESULTS Winner: Zack_Gochuck, for Getting It. He sets a clear scene with relevant details and lets it speak for itself. It explains nothing, but says much. Loser: M. Propagandalf for completely missing the point. Honourable mention: crabrock Dishonourable mention: Lord Windy Crits incoming. Also what the gently caress is it with derelict ships this week.
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Sep 9, 2013 23:23
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THE SPECTACULAR CRABROCK V. FUMBLEMOUSE V. NIKAER DREKIN DUEL FOR THE HONOR OF NOT BEING DISQUALIFIED CONTINUES NOW! wordcount: 500 The Sound of the Tone Jenny stared at the smartphone with thinly concealed disappointment. It wasn’t the same thing at all. Still, it was nice of the boys at the phone company to think of her. They must be very busy, programming all the other phones she saw everybody using. All those young people, looking down into tiny screens, almost walking into older ladies on their way to the shops. Imagine being able to be reached anywhere, any time of the day or night. How horrible! What a century this was. Jenny poked at the screen with her finger, but nothing happened. Not for the first time that day, she wished Bill were here to help her, but then she recalled what the young man had said, and pushed the inset button at the bottom. The screen sprang to life, showing a large digital clock with several icons below. “Well, this isn’t so hard,” she said. She squinted at the tiny characters beneath various icons but her eyesight wasn’t quite good enough. She spotted a picture of an alarm clock with a smiling cartoon mouth. That must be the one. She tentatively pressed it. A picture of Bill appeared on the screen - the same one she had sent to the phone company. How clever! Beneath the photo was a single button labelled ‘Speak’. With a gesture that almost seemed confident, she jabbed at it. “At the sound of the tone, the time will be … three … minutes past … twelve ...am,” said the smartphone in Bill’s voice. “Beeeeeep!” It wasn’t right. That couldn’t be my Bill in that tiny box. When she’d called the speaking clock, sitting in her armchair, cup of tea beside her, it had been easy to imagine him at the other end of the phone, hard at work informing people of the time in his wonderful, mellifluous tones. Now he sounded tinny, like a cheap radio, and for the first time in ten years he’d gotten the time wrong. Jenny felt a tightness in her temples and pressed the X at the top right of Bill’s photo. The digital clock and the icons returned. That clock was wrong too. Jenny blinked, took a deep breath, and told herself not to be so silly. Bill would have loved this sort of thing, and so would she. She started touching anything that looked like it might help, until she found her way to the clock settings and deciphered their arrows. Then she made a cup of tea, sat in her armchair and dialled the speaking clock. Bill let her know the correct time, and she adjusted the phone accordingly. A stranger’s voice informed her that the service would be ending tomorrow after fifty years. She returned to Bill’s photo and pressed Speak. Bill's voice came back to her, tinny but right. She placed the phone with Bill inside in her coat pocket next to her heart. Imagine being able to hear him anywhere, day or night. What a century this is!
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Sep 9, 2013 23:29
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This past prompt was tough as hell, but a welcome change.
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Sep 9, 2013 23:34
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I don't get it. I'm sorry Zach, but his was just as bad as everyone elses. At first I thought this prompt was going to be fun. But all it produced was a pile of wank. Didja, can you please explain what you wanted to see or how you would have gone about it?
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Sep 10, 2013 00:03
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Lord Windy posted:I don't get it. I'm sorry Zach, but his was just as bad as everyone elses. At first I thought this prompt was going to be fun. But all it produced was a pile of wank. Take it to Fiction Farm.
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Sep 10, 2013 00:24
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sebmojo posted:Take it to Fiction Farm. I'm asking about the prompt, not a crit on my piece.
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Sep 10, 2013 00:31
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THE SPECTACULAR CRABROCK V. FUMBLEMOUSE V. NIKAER DREKIN DUEL FOR THE HONOR OF NOT BEING DISQUALIFIED COMES TO A THRILLING CONCLUSION! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOCK Goalposts (495 words) Gerald yawned for the first time in two days. The hallucinations meant it was time to sleep. Exhaustion hit like a divorce: all at once and out of nowhere. He pulled back the curtains and squinted in the morning sun. She bounded down the stairs, backpack already on and hair in pigtails. Gerald looked at his reflection in an old family photo on the wall. His oily hair was matted to his forehead. “Are you coming to my play today, daddy?” Gerald held onto the wall to steady himself; she seemed to grow and shrink with every syllable. “Thought that was Thursday.” “Today is Thursday!” She wrinkled her brow in an adorable fashion. Three days--not two--since he’d slept. “Of course I’m coming.” She hugged him and then floated away in a bus. Her play was after lunch; he could make it. Gerald dumped coffee into the filter--it didn’t matter how much. His hands trembled. His ex-wife sat beneath the picture frame. “You’re not making it right.” “I know!” Don’t talk to her, she’s not real. “You won’t make it. You could never be there for either of us.” The sputter of the coffee maker drowned out her voice. Gerald splashed his face with cold water. He toweled off his face, and felt something linger. A spider. He [smacked] at it, sending the black creeper flying across the counter. It was a raisin. “You’re not fooling either of us. Go to sleep.” “Shut up!” He threw the wet towel at the picture, knocking it askew. The apparition of his ex-wife looked askance at the crooked frame. “Well that was useful.” Gerald poured himself a cup of coffee and took a sip, even though it was too hot. He stayed active, ignoring most of his ex-wife’s haruanging. He made three pots of coffee--never measuring out the grounds. After his shower, his ex-wife laid on bed. “Just lay down for a moment with me. We always had fun.” Gerald shook his head and struggled with his buttons. Each felt like trying to shove a dinner plate through the eye of a needle. Trying to shove the key into his car’s ignition made him feel like he was manipulating a marionette. Lights of all colors swirled and blended together as he drove. Red and green, red and blue, purple polka dots. Sirens, airbrakes, jackhammers, elephants and hyenas. He pulled into Abigail’s school. He took a seat in the auditorium. His ex-wife sat down next to him. “I’m surprised you remembered.” The lights dimmed and the seat was comfortable. The hallucinations and the actual absurdities of elementary theater were impossible to differentiate. His daughter was a pineapple, or a shrubbery, or a slow-motion explosion. He was sipping a colada on the beach. A piece of pineapple stuck on the rim of the glass. The waves thundered like applause. His wife laid on the sand in a bikini. She looked up at him and smiled. “It’s about time you woke up.” edit: included [smacked] because I'm not sure how the gently caress that got deleted out. crabrock fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Sep 10, 2013 |
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Sep 10, 2013 00:43
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