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Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

I'm in with a :toxx: since I didn't submit the last time I wrote!

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Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Old Boys Club
1208 words

“First Admiral! You’re late again!”

Reggie looked up from the rope ladder. The rest of the squad was assembled at attention, each of them with a filthy pre-pubescent hand slapped against their foreheads. Reggie suspected that Stuart had probably held them there like this for the entirety of his seven minute absence; he was sure to get a wedgie of nuclear proportions from one of them after the meeting.

Reggie pulled himself up the rest of the way and shrugged, letting the trap door slam behind him. “I got caught up in a bath after dinner. It was an ambush.” He reached up and scratched the back of his still wet head. He felt out of place amongst the other boys who had surely been traipsing in the woods just as hard and had managed to avoid a sentence of Howard Johnon.

Stuart whipped around and glared at him. The orange glow of sunlight streaming in from the only window alit on the newspaper hat that adorned his head. “’Sorry’ what, Private?”

“Sorry, Captain!” Reggie replied, shooting his hand up to his forehead.

Stuart moved to him and pressed his face close to his nose, close enough that Reggie could see that Charlie Brown was once again unable to kick that football. “You are always full of excuses, Private. Your tardiness will not be tolerated further.”

Reggie swallowed. “Yes, Captain, sir!”

“Seriously.” Stuart had lowered his voice. “Stop being late, you dunce. You’re making me look bad.”

“Sorry, Stu.” Reggie matched his tone. “Mom said I stank.”

“You still stink.”

“Well, it was a pretty lovely bath.”

“FIFTEEN DEMERITS!” Stuart barked at him and pulled a small notebook from his too-large blazer, something his father had discarded and he had retrieved. He flipped it open and jotted down a note, his eyes locked on Reggie’s face. His tone fell again. “You’re my best friend, but I can only do so much, man.”

Reggie gave a curt nod.

Stuart returned Reggie’s salute and snapped the notebook closed. “Alright, men!” Stuart barked. Reggie joined the ranks, and Stuart nodded at them. “Right then. Now that the Admiral is here, let’s begin. Tony brought jacks, I have a deck of cards, and in the corner we’ll have our normal Baseball card trading post. If there’s nothing else, we’ll–“

“Hey, what about the vote?” The boys all gasped as Arnold’s voice rang out. Tony sneezed suddenly. “Sorry,” he said, scratching his head.

“We already went over this, Private Arnolds.” Stuart handed Tony a handkerchief. “The votes were tallied and I remain Captain. We’ll have another vote in six months, as per our bylaws.”

“Bullshit.” Arnold took a step forward, pointing a finger at Stuart. “You said we’d have a public tally at the beginning of the meeting. What gives?”

Stuart shrugged. “Secretary For Life Daniels and I personally did it at the end of the meeting last week, and I assure you, we made no mistakes. Isn’t that right, Daniels?”

Daniels nodded. “Yeah.” He pushed his glasses on his face and stared out at the room of boys, looking confused.

“Nah, I don’t like it.” Arnold crossed his arms. “I’m invoking the Recount Clause.”

Tony lowered the handkerchief mid-blow. “Dude, Arnie, shut up…”

Arnold slapped the snotrag out of Tony’s hand. “No way, man. I already know Frankie and Teddy voted for me. And I voted for myself. That’s at least half of us.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “You’re not supposed to talk about the votes! That’s why they’re Super Secret Special Sealed!”

“That poo poo ain’t in the charter.” Arnold slicked his greasy hair back. “Look, I’m tired of playing baby games and getting screwed outta good deals on trades all the time because this prick thinks he’s Napoleon.”

Frank looked confused. “Like, the ice cream?”

“Shut up, Frank.” He glared at him and Frank shrugged. “So, let’s hear the votes.”

Stuart twitched. “All votes are final according to Section five point thr—“

“gently caress you.” Arnold gave him the finger. “Teddy?”

Teddy shrugged. “I voted for you, man.”

“That’s one for me. Frankie?”

“You.”

“Sam?”

“You.”

“Tony?”

Tony beamed. “I voted for the Captain.”

“Captain?”

Stuart scowled. “Of course I voted for myself.”

“Sure.” Arnold looked over Daniels. “And I can assume you voted for the Captain too, lapdog?”

Daniels looked back at him. “I voted for Stuart, yes.”

Arnold spat on the ground. “Typical.”

Stuart smirked. “Well, there you have it then, I’m clearly—“

“Hey, wait.” Tony looked at Reggie. “Who’d you vote for, Reg?”

Reggie blinked. “Me? What?”

Stuart laughed. “Please. Reg’s been my best friend since forever.”

The room fell silent. Arnold stepped to Reggie. “Who’d you vote for, Reg?” He cracked his knuckles and glanced over at Teddy, who smirked back. Reggie instinctively reached back and touched the hem of his underpants. Arnold shook out his fist. “Well?”

Reggie swallowed. His voice was very small. “I…”

Stuart looked at him, shocked. “Reg…”

Reggie looked at Stuart, then at Arnold, then the ground.

“…I voted for Arnold.”

“Hell yeah!” Arnold slapped Reggie on the back, hard. Stuart’s jaw dropped open.

Tony sneezed again.

Arnold rushed forward and snatched the hat from Stuart’s head. “There’s a new boss in town now!”

Stuart grasped for the cap and missed, falling to the ground in the process. “He’s lying! We counted the votes ourselves! Tell ‘em, Reg!”

Arnold laughed and kicked Stuart in the ribs. “All votes are final, Your Shittiness!

Stuart reeled, grabbing his ribs. “Reg! Come on!”

Arnold dug his hands into Stuart’s hair and pulled him from the ground as Sam and Frank closed in, Frank locking Stuart’s head under his arm. The three of them were chanting: “CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN!”

Tony backed into the corner next to Daniels and tugged at his arm, motioning for the ladder. The two made their escape as Frank grabbed a small box and Sam grabbed Stuart’s underpants.

“Stop!” Stuart was sobbing openly. Reggie stood frozen as the three boys lifted Stuart into the air and speared his underpants on a branch. They shoved the box under him and backed away, cackling. Stuart let out a cry, the tips of his toes reaching for the edge of the box, the height just a bit too much for him to stand.

Arnold crowed loudly into the air. “Come on guys, let’s go play something that’s not retarded.”

The three laughed and descended the ladder noisily. Stuart whimpered from the branch as he desperately tried to keep his balance on the box. Reggie watched, then walked over to his friend.

Stuart looked up at Reggie and snuffled up a large wad of snot. “What the hell, man?”

“I’m really sorry, Stu…” Reggie touched his underpants again. “But…I’m wearing Marmaduke ones, and…you know…”

“Hey, Reg!” Arnold bellowed from somewhere below. “You wanna ditch that loser and play with us?”

Reggie and Stuart looked at each other for what felt like an eternity. Stuart’s eyes were filled with a pleading Reggie had never seen in another human being. A tear rolled down the former Captain’s face and landed heavy on the ground.

“Yeah, man!” Reggie shouted back. “I’ll be there in a second!”

With a swift movement, he kicked the box out from under Stuart’s feet.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

I'm down with the sickness (or, I guess, not).

In!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

magnificent7 posted:

The gently caress, you can just addendum a brawl?

My addendum: Tell Don't Show.

Hello, this is Thunderdome, we hope you enjoy your stay.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Sting like a 01100010
1192 words

The nanocream pierced his skin in upwards of 10,000 places, but of course Ten didn’t feel a thing. Once on a tour he had felt a slight tickle when the salve was applied, but it had turned out the service unit was a knockoff made of a cheap aluminum alloy, to which he was allergic. The model currently treating him wasn’t top of the line, but it didn’t give him a rash.

“Knock knock, Champ.” Olly stood in the doorway, grinning. “How ya feeling?’”

“Stiff.” Ten clenched his fist, increasing the blood flow. Now he felt the microscopic pinpricks that came as the nanobots worked. The service unit finished attaching the monitoring diodes, then settled in the corner and switched from the low hum of high-grade lithium to an ancient recording of something called a Bing. Ten found it mildly pleasing.

“I’m not surprised, considering.” Olly projected a screen from his watch into the air and flipped the digital sheets with a swipe of his hand. “You gave the twins hell. Number seven is on the decommission list.”

The feeling had finished draining from the areas where the cream was spread, and the robot’s face switched from an unremarkable female avatar to a digital timer that began to tick down, legal information regarding restorative technology scrolling below it. Ten reached out and put his hand on the readout and the screen changed to an interview program.

“Let’s see, then.” Olly pulled up a calendar, scanning with his fingertips. “You have two days off and then you’re back in Hong Kong. Cheap scrap job there, they want him down in the first. But you know, make it look a little more convincing, maybe. Crowd wants to see a little danger, after all.”

Ten laughed short. He had been fighting for six hundred years, but he was sure he would never understand that particular dichotomy.

Olly tabbed forward. “Then you’re scheduled to have six months taken off, shouldn’t take more than five hours, in-patient. Just a light tune up. Oh, which reminds me.” He pulled up a comm-panel and opened a message in light purple stationery. “Your wife wants to know if you want her to go to twenty-five or twenty-one this time.”

“Twenty-five is fine.” Ten opened and closed his fist. The nerve endings were returning. A few more seconds of pinpricks and the aches would be gone. “Spend the extra money on a fruit basket for her. Organic.”

Olly whistled. “Big spender.” He pulled up a spreadsheet and scrolled, grinning wickedly. “Although I guess you can afford it, putting your life on the line every night.”

“Nobody’s life is on the line, Oliver.” The service unit beeped and the female avatar returned. It rolled over to Ten and switched to a medical readout, arms extending from secret compartments in its silver frame. “Not since the fix.”

“Everything’s a fix, innit? It’s the show, kid.” Olly put his index finger to his nose and winked. “Who knows? Maybe one day a ‘droid’ll win.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Ten held out his arms. The robot began to disconnect the sensors, humming quietly.

---

He was just pulling the door to the diner open when three metallic fingers clamped around his wrist. He turned and looked into a poorly painted face. She was an older model, smoothing around the edges, her metal a far cry from the lustrous sheen it might have had, once. Ten was a bit surprised; there weren’t supposed to be any non-Humans in the dining sector. “Can I help you?”

“YOU ARE THE TEN.” She was older than he had initially thought; her speech software was foreign, tinny, far from the human lilt of recent upgrades. Ten hated dealing with outdated technology, but it was a dream come true for his PR Department whenever he did. It’s the show…

He smiled at her, hoping it masked his irritation. “That’s me all right.” He pulled a small digipad from his pocket and flipped it open while he fished for a stylus. “Who should I make it out to?”

“SERVICE UNIT 88-129-0. HE IS FIGHTSCRAP NOW. YOU HAVE SCRAPPED. INQUIRY.”

Ten looked up, confused. “Strange dedication.”

The robot rolled forward on bald tires, a little too close. Ten took a step back. “TWENTY CYCLES AGO WAS HE BESTOWED FOR SHELTER KEEP. CLEAN MAINTAIN AND SHELTER KEEP. CYCLES AND MEMORY BANKS FULL OF 88-129-0. NOW FIGHTSCRAP. INQUIRY.”

“Look, lady, I don’t choose who I fight.” He tried to move away, but she followed. “They should have sent you tickets to the next one. If they didn’t—“

“NO FIGHT. INQUIRY.” Her metal appendages opened and closed on Ten’s wrist, tightening with each spasm, a desperate, inhuman claw.

It was too much, even from a PR standpoint. He pushed her hard and she rolled, brakes clicking, into the side of the building. She lost her balance and toppled over sideways into the trash. Her wheels spun endlessly, finding only empty air and soda cans.

He spat at her crumpled parts. “Crazy scrapping defect! What are you, beta? Jesus.” He gave her one last scowl before turning and heading into the diner.

Her speakers blared a monotone shriek, threating to burst from the sudden volume. “INQUIRY. INQUIRY. HE WAS THE ONLY. TO YOU HE WAS FIGHTSCRAP BUT TO ME HE WAS THE ONLY. INQU-”

The door closed behind him, and he was out of the cold.

Ten sat at the counter and picked up a menu. For an instant, he thought he felt a pang of guilt, then realized his mistake: he was just hungry.

---

The bell sounded and they advanced from their corners. The android lead with a quick, low jab, and Ten took the full weight of the machine. The blow hit him like a transporter, and he could almost hear the resonance of metal against skin in his eardrums. He felt his rib snap, shift, and instantly re-fuse tissue and bone. He covered his face with his hands as his opponent lay into him, hit after hit into a body like a boxing bag. Then the scripted opening, and it was his turn to lead the dance. Parry, duck, jab, a left sidestep, jab, duck, jab, a forward press, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab. The android was on the ground now, his face a mess of metal and silicone, circuitry showing between the wires where his eye hung, the pupil focusing and unfocusing like the lens of a camera, and still Ten’s fists pummeled him, his knuckles raw to dry bone and flecked with bits of titanium, drops of his sweat turning to steam where they met exposed mechanisms as the battery flow pumped, slowed, stopped. He roared, and then he was standing with the android’s head in his hand, the spinal column dangling and twitching like an alien bug. Then it was over. His victory theme blared from the speakers. It’s the show. It’s the show. It’s the show.

The crowd roared out, hungering for the blood that never came. The android’s eyes swirled in his head, taking in the entirety of the crowd. Oil leaked onto the matt in small, greasy droplets.

Quidthulhu fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Jan 10, 2014

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Missed some italics going from word to forums, please forgive my shameful editing.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

magnificent7 posted:

I'm out of the flashdomebrawl and this week's dome as well.

Let the hateshaming begin.

Leper Colon got two flash rules in the space of 8 hours and still managed an entry. Don't you dare not submit this week.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Placeholder for Rhino/Quidnose brawl because he called me a whiner in IRC. BRING IT (once you're done judging).

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

The Saddest Rhino posted:

Quidnose: OK FINE. URGH.

bring it

judge us~

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

"How dare you write about medical and technological advancements in a world without death!" :v:

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Me please!

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3598931&userid=46020#post424252121

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

The Weight Of Things
954 words w/ title

My mother had been dead for three months when I found the glove. Pristinely white but obviously worn and loved, it was tucked away with some papers in the drawer of the roll top desk in her bedroom. It was an odd catalogue: a grocery list, a chain e-mail with an amusing anecdote, a half-scrawled short story idea that never turned into anything, a poem ripped out of Readers Digest, a newspaper article she must have meant to have shown me. One glove.

It bothered me immensely, more than it should have. My mother’s mind had been like a steel trap, and she always had to have everything in order; if I casually made reference to wanting a recipe or an editorial from one of the numerous publications to which she subscribed, she would beeline out of the room and return with the exact volume and issue in question, page open and ready for my perusal. But I was stuck with this glove, this lonely, single glove that seemed to have been tossed into a drawer and discarded in a fashion so unlike what I knew her to be, and for the first time in my life I wasn’t able to ask her “what the gently caress, Mom?” No longer would she laugh and explain the logic to me, why the glove needed to be there, specifically, waiting for something only she knew. At night she wandered the halls of my dreams, the distance between her departure and my pursuit increasing to nearly insurmountable lengths, but in the dusty daylight of her New England townhouse I was left with the silence of not understanding.

I moved from room to room, drawer to drawer, pocket to pocket, and the questions gnawed at my chest, like a glove that had no partner.

---

“Are you still going on about that stupid glove?”

My sister and I were packing another box. No matter how many we stuffed, we didn’t seem to make a dent in the clutter of having lived. Our packing had moved through the stages of grief, from reverent sadness to shattering anger to a period where we would look at things for hours on end without touching them. Currently we were in a state of unceremonious automation, shoving plates and napkins and tax returns into any open container we could find. I had hoped this was something akin to acceptance.

“I mean, look around you, Shar.” Carrie gestured with a commemorative plate and I had to resist the urge to snatch it from her before she accidentally threw it like a Frisbee. “We’re three yard sales away from a Hoarders episode. A random glove is completely within Mom’s character.”

I finished wrapping a teapot and placed it in the box before I looked at her. “What are you talking about? Mom was a stickler. She was eccentric, sure, but she had an order to things.”

“This isn’t order.” She put the plate down in the box, unwrapped. “Stacks of literary journals, unread newspapers like she was potty training a puppy, too much furniture everywhere. Three mattresses in the guest room, Sharon. It’s like the Princess and the Pea in there. That’s not eccentric, that’s crazy.”

I picked up the plate and started to wrap it in a dishtowel. “But she knew where everything was. And the mattresses need to be flat because otherwise they—

“Seriously, stop.” She reached out and touched my hand. “We’ve been packing up mom’s poo poo for a week and we haven’t even gotten out of the living room. This isn’t normal, Sharon. It just seems like it to you because you never left. But I’m telling you, Mom was nuts. In the real world, people let go, constantly, and without thought. Things, people.” She squeezed my hand gently before letting go. “Dead mothers.”

She picked up a sterling silver pitcher and tried to rub a mark out with her sleeve. I held the plate in my hands for a moment. Half of a rustic cottage peered out at me, hidden by green firs and blue fibercloth. Half a word announced the emotion the scene should have elicited for the brik a brak connoisseur: Sola-. I felt the emptiness of a single glove.

“I’m furious at her for leaving all this, you know.” Carrie tossed the pitcher into the box. “She wrote five novels and didn’t leave a loving will. What are we supposed to do?”

I stared at the plate in my hands, feeling the weight between my fingertips. “I don’t know.”

---

Two months later I found the second glove in the January edition of her favorite literary catalogue. The volume was buried in a stack next to her bed, one of many, many stacks I had meticulously collected from throughout all corners of the house. Carried rolled her eyes, shot a terse snort and a “does that answer your question” before throwing her hands up and walking out of the room, shaking her head.

I sat on the bed for a long time. The things that made up my mother’s life lay around me, seen and unseen, packed and unpacked, waiting for an owner, any owner, to love them again: a dog-eared novel, a glass topped hatpin, jury duty for next week, a Christmas card from 1987, a 48-record that nothing in the house would play. One glove.

And all the things the glove was: A memory. A message. A beacon. A secret. A bookmark, to a poem she had had published, entitled The Weight Of Things, which I had never read.

And so I read, and I wept, and I understood where she had left her will. And tomorrow, I would begin to unpack.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

sebmojo posted:

I will judge this.

:siren:QuiddestRhino Brawl:siren:

500 words on serenity in the midst of chaos.

Due in one week and one day, Monday midnight PST, you know the drill.

Orville
495 words with title.

The monitoring panel was pushing the bottom of yellow. Smoke filled the engine room, reflecting the warning lights in snake like wisps that undulated for an instant before disappearing into the nothingness of the dark. Above him, footsteps resonated, clattered down the hallways towards the escape pods, or what was left of them. The engine sputtered and burned half of the fusion core in an instant. A screen appeared, a holographic lighthouse beacon: Meltdown imminent; evacuation required.

It had all gone to hell, far faster than they said it could at the Academy. Three quick blasts from the pirates and half the crew were probably dead, if the engine room was any indication. The Engineer’s legs were crushed under some sort of industrial pylon that had hastily dislodged itself. One of his hands still clung to his shipmate’s, a pretty girl whose name he hadn’t yet learned and who had vanished under a large pile of heating duct. The other hand had somehow managed to reach a control panel in the confusion, and as his world stopped spinning he slowly realized the sequence he was typing was for “self-destruct.”

He hesitated, just for a second, the emotional part of his brain momentarily taking over as the faces of his commanding officers and the faceless bodies of the crew he had flown with for three days flashed before him. Half a second, really, a moment of an instant, but it was too greedy, it was everything they had beaten out of him in the Academy. He took a sharp intake of breath as he desperately clawed toward the fail-safe key. The monitoring panel clicked to red.

All at once, everything went blue.

He looked around, his breath pounding in his lungs. The engine was still, the fire immediately extinguished as the air rushed from the room, diverted to the bridge, the barracks, the pod bay. One by one the lights in the room shut off like a row of candles in a sudden breeze. The holographic screen flickered, changed its readout: Engine room secured. Then it vanished.

He turned the key once, twice, but no spark came in the vacuum. The gravity lock was released and the pylon floated off his legs. He clung to the key with his fingertips until the weightlessness and weariness won out. Then he floated.

The silence was deafening, more suffocating than his final breath. Through the bay window, the stars shimmered, cold, innumerable. Watching them, he remembered the nights on his home planet, when he would wander home and lay his blanket under the endless sky. There was silence there, too, but broken by signs of life: the howl of a distant animal, the whispering of the crickets, the gentle song of the night winds. On those nights, he had plugged his ears, longing for the silence of freedom. Now, floating helplessly, the hammer of his heartbeat faded away into cold clarity.

His eyes full of stars, he slowly exhaled.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Snagging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity, specifically being allergic to WiFi, as the page suggests.

Quidthulhu fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Jan 21, 2014

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Prompt Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity

Signal Noise
899 words

The open signal cut into my head like a frontal lobotomy. I shot my hand up to my temple, then had to stop myself from hitting the dash as Hal slammed on the brakes. “Got one?” he asked.

I glared at him before closing my eyes. I heard the panel slide open and the clatter of keys. I counted to five, then fifteen, then twenty-five. The sensation of adjusting to a signal’s presence was not unlike slipping into a hot bath. Unfortunately, there was no pleasantness at the end of it.

In a few minutes I was able to open my eyes and the pounding had died down to a dull ache. Hal was grinning. “Locked on, baby!”

“Fan-loving-tastic,” I muttered as I pulled my hair out of my ponytail, relief trickling in. “Where we looking?”

Hal opened his door. “Ten mile radius. There’re a lot of hot-spots in this area. We’re pretty close to New York.”

I groaned. Four years of Software Engineering at MIT and here I was, a glorified router. I would have killed for an iPhone. But that’s why we were on the dig; un-fried microprocessors meant a paycheck.

I opened the door to the pickup and tested my legs on the ground before sliding out of the seat. Hal had already strapped his pack on, shovel in his hand. He held out my pack and I shook my head. He moved past me and left it on my seat before closing my door.

He turned to me and grinned again. “West?”

I couldn’t help but smile at him in spite of the fact that it felt I had a hatpin jammed into the back of my skull; Hal loved the dig. “Good as any.”

We walked for about fifteen minutes before we found the abandoned bunker. I knew we were in the right place because the closer we got, the more my ears sounded like a radio tuned to White Noise’s Greatest Hits. Which was any radio station nowadays.

I stopped about twenty five feet from the door to the bunker. My vision was beginning to get spotty, large chunks of white creeping into where I should have been looking at burned out husks of military vehicles. “I don’t think this one is buried, Hal.”

Hal whooped. “That’s a freebie! I’ll just pop in there and have it off in a jiff. Sweet relief, right?” He shot me a grin and began a slow jog to the building.

“Right.” I sat down on the ground and placed my head in my hands, closing my eyes. I heard the door open and the dial on the radio cranked up a notch; definitely a freebie.

The headset in my ear crackled to life. “Can you hear me, Rune?”

I grimaced. “Yes, Hal, what I need is another set of waves attacking my brain.”

“Sorry.” I could hear the grin on his face, the little prick. “It’s pitch black in here and you know I don’t like the dark.”

“You picked the wrong century to be born in.”

“Que sera,” he muttered. I heard the clang of metal as he searched. “There’s a ton of junk in here. Old-rear end IBMs, some iPads, looks like some sort of Data Center tower…it’s all totally scrapped though.”

“Can you just find the loving signal and turn it off?” I closed my eyes tighter, but the white spots continued to grow and pulse. “You left the door open.”

“Sorry, I’m trying.” Another door opened. “Wait, hold on, we have a glow…”

“Not your flashlight this time?”

“gently caress you. Now where is this little…” I heard the falling of casually discarded luxury electronics. “Holy poo poo, Rune! It’s a laptop, and it’s on!”

I opened my eyes in surprise, then immediately regretted it and shut them. “No loving way. How?”

“There’s like, eight bajillion wires coming off of this thing. Most of them are crap but I bet one of those Data Towers is actually a backup battery or something.”

“Get it disconnected and turned off.” I rubbed at my temple.

“I’m already on it. Just a few more wires and I’ll—“

He stopped. I heard the sound of large metal hitting the floor. “Hal?”

“Oh poo poo. Oh, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo.”

I opened my eyes and saw half the bunker behind a wall of white. Light poured out of the door. “What’s going on, Hal?”

“I f-------p, Rune.” He was breaking up. Between the static of the radio and the static of my ears I was missing every other word. “---t’s milit----de wea----devel--------il safe.”

“I can’t hear poo poo you’re saying. Hold on.” I groaned and pushed myself up, taking several steps to the bunker as he continued to chatter on like a broken parrot. My vision was nearly gone and the light from the door was unbearable. His incomprehensible words were becoming more frantic, but all I could hear was the throbbing of pain in my ears.

I stepped to the doorway and closed my eyes again, leaning on the frame. “Ok, repeat.”

He cut in clear as day. “—a loving bomb, Rune! Do you understand? I tripped some next-level special ops poo poo when I disconnected the wires!”

My eyes shot open. The room was ablaze in halogen light. “What?”

“You have to get the gently caress away from he—“

My world went white.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In with the 1940s!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

[superbowl tomorrow, here's my 1940s entry!]

Brass Tacks
944 words


Carter sat down heavy on the stool and caught himself on the smooth grain of the bar. His collar was open and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow. He was already a little drunk. It was 3PM on a Tuesday afternoon. Franklin raised an eyebrow at him.

“Drink.” Carter closed his eyes and his corneas darted back and forth behind the lids, hoping to find the words he needed written inside. “…’aneed another.”

Franklin looked him over. “Why aren’t you at the factory?”

“Quit.” Carter opened his eyes in a flash of insight. He began to fish around in his pants pocket while he talked. “They told me I should get out. Called me a drunkard and a deadbeat.” He frowned as he pushed the pocket to its structural limitations and found nothing. “I hadn’t even gotten my morning nip in me yet.” He turned the pocket inside out and revealed mothballs and holes. Blue lint fell to the floor by his stool. He stared, confused, at the inside of his pants. “So’s I got nothing now.”

Carter abandoned his search in the right pocket and started in for the left. Franklin watched him. “So where have you been, Carter?”

“Tony’s. I had enough from the severance pay they tossed in the gutter after me for twelve fingers of whiskey.” He was deep in his pocket again. “Where the hell is my wallet now…”

Franklin picked up a glass and held it to the light. “You tell Myra yet?” He scratched at a spot.

The question stopped Carter, and he thought, putting a blue thumb in his mouth. “Mmm. Reckon I don’t have to. She gave me the boot Friday. Same quarrel.”

Franklin stopped his examination of the glass midair and looked at his friend. Really looked at him, for the first time in maybe ten years. Carter was halfway to bald; his skin was pale and sickly where it wasn’t already permanently stained. He had arms and legs like a horse from hauling denim, but they sat odd and dangling on his too short frame, which sagged in the wrong places. His eyes were his only saving feature, a piercing green that today were clouded with liquor and deep blue sadness. He put the glass down. “Jesus, Carter.” There weren’t a lot of words.

Carter shrugged and tried a smile that landed eight miles from convincing. “So I could use another drink, old friend.”

Franklin nodded and moved the glass in front of him. “Water it is.”

Carter frowned. “Something a trifle stronger than that, I’d think.”

Franklin shook his head. “I have responsibilities. I don’t put you out to walk home after a bottle of rye, and I don’t cloud your head when you need your wits.” He reached out and patted his friend’s arm before turning for the water pitcher. “And you need your wits.”

“Franklin.” Carters voice barely broke through his lips, was almost swallowed by the silence of the empty room. Franklin turned back to him.

He cleared his throat once, twice, then licked his lips, forming wordless syllables before his voice returned. “I’m fifty-three years old and all I know is putting color into poo poo that don’t need coloring. I got no practical skills; I never been to war, and I never went to college, and I’m too old and too drunk to play at either now. There ain’t nothing to be sussed out there, I saw the writing on the wall quite a whiles away.” He looked dead into Franklin’s eyes. “But what I can do is drink. I’ve always been mighty good at that. And I need a win.” He pushed the water away from him. “Don’t insult me with that.”

Franklin looked at him for a long moment before he shook his head. “I can’t.”

“What are you, a preacher? Do your drat job!” Carter slammed his fist down onto the bar, knocking over the glass. It rolled off the bar and fell to the floor, shattering. The two men stared at each other for a long while.

Finally, Carter scowled and dropped his gaze. “I need a win.”

“What you need is a nap.” He cursed and threw the towel onto the bar. “All right.” He placed both palms on the wood and looked up at his friend through narrow eyes. “You go in the back to my office, and you sleep it off. When closing time comes, you help me clean this place, top to bottom. You may not know much, but you’ll drat well know your way around a broom at the end of the night. I will give you three dollars for your help. If, at that point, you still want that drink, the money is yours to spend.” His eyes did not waver from the defeated face in front of him. “Good?”

Carter nodded. “Thank you.”

Franklin reached into his pocket and offered a key. “Here’s your win.”

Carter smiled, genuinely, as he took the key and stood up. “I reckon it just might be.” Franklin nodded in the direction of the back before snatching up a dustpan and hand broom.

Carter shuffled his way through the back door, past the office, past the bathroom, and straight to the stockroom. He slid the key into the lock, turned it, pulled open the door, gripped the chain for the light in his hand and tugged. An old bulb filled the room with pale light. He closed and locked the door behind him, grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the shelf, and settled into a mop in the corner. He pulled out the cork and drank deep. It tasted sweet.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

I want to see a loving story. You better be writing.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

:siren: FILLER PROMPT :siren:

Interpret the phrase viking party ends in disaster. I don't care how.

250 words. No signups, submission lasts until the next prompt is up.

getiton

Hildegarde burst through the door and wedged it closed behind her, fighting off papier-maché axes. The entry point secured, she turned like a mad woman on Sven. “WHERE THE gently caress ARE THE CANAPES?”

Sven jumped at the lightening bolt of her voice and nearly dropped the tray of pigs in a blanket he clutched in his oven-mitted hands. He bobbled it once, twice, snatched it from the hungry embrace of the thatched floor. “Five minutes, five minutes!” He blew a drop of sweat from the tip of his nose as he shoved the sheet metal tray over the open flame.

“Are you making GBS threads me?” She descended on him, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled his face close to hers. “It’s madness out there! What in Odin’s name have you been doing for the past half an hour?!”

Sven looked at the fraying of her perfect braids, the crooked helmet atop her head, how the blonde hair of her upper lip was flecked with perspiration. She was beautiful and frantic; she smelled of desperation and wretched hopelessness; he had made certain vows at their wedding, hadn’t he? “Hiding,” he stammered.

He regretted it immediately.

All at once she was the pendulum of justice, and she swung wildly, threw him from the kitchen and into the waiting arms of the advancing horde. They tore at him, dragged him screaming into the abyss, and engulfed him in a puppet show.

Braying the old songs, he prayed for eight bells and nap time.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In! Assign me an element, and a flash rule.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Chairchucker you plebeian schmuck, accept his challenge like a gentleman!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

How can you not write something with three days to do so. I AM DISAPPOINTED, LEPER.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Rabbits
1147 words

I opened the door and found myself knee deep in rabbits. One thousand balls of frantic hopping fur that scampered in every direction as soon as they saw sunlight. I had to take a step back and collect myself; I was not expecting this many rabbits. I actually wasn’t expecting any rabbits, since Frank had invited me over for turkey.

I stepped carefully around a tangled ream of animal and made my way into the living room. There were even more rabbits there, which made sense, because there weren’t any rabbits on the doorstep until I had inadvertently unleashed them unto the world. The rabbits here did not seem particularly happy to be spilling everywhere and anywhere. It seemed to me that there should have been some internal wiring that informed them on close quarter maneuvering, since their parents lived in bushes or holes and were known to bone like…well, like rabbits. If such a gene existed, it must have been recessive because these rabbits clearly did not know what the gently caress. They were like cockroaches, darting every direction and falling over each other; I suspected if I knocked down a wall I would find them in the insulation. Seriously, it was a lot of rabbits.

It dawned on me that I hadn’t seen Frank yet. A pang of fear grabbed me in the pit of my stomach as I imagined him swallowed in a tidal wave of cottontail. I kept my cool as I called out to him. “Frank! Don’t be dead!”

“Workshop!” I heard him yell from what seemed like a million miles away, his voice drowned out by the twitching of one thousand noses. “I’ve made a breakthrough!”

“You have some rabbits in the living room,” I shouted, making my way towards the door that connected the house and garage.

“I almost used Bourbon.” That was his St. Bernard. I hadn’t seen him yet, and prayed he was snoozing happily and not avalanched away somewhere. “Imagine the disaster that would’ve been.”

I suddenly realized that every single rabbit was the same: light grey, a white patch on the nose, one ear more floppy than the other. I stepped over three brother bunnies and wedged open the door, where I found myself staring at a very large machine with a red phosphorous laser that was pointed straight into a small rabbit cage. At the other end was a second cage, which was open and spewing out animals at the higher end of rabbits per second. I blinked, stunned. “What did you do, Frank?”

Frank grinned at me. “I made a bunch of Lunch.”

Lunch was his pet rabbit, and he was now everywhere.

I looked around and held out my hands in defeat. “I can’t…you’ve…how?”

“Yttrium!” He glanced into the laser cage, which I assumed contained Lunch Prime, and wiggled his nose at him before moving to a keyboard and monitor by the laser array, where he tapped furiously as he talked. “It’s fairly complicated and I probably can’t explain it well, but basically Y-90 has a half life of around seventy minutes, and when it falls apart, that allows for runoff from the isotropic decay to be harnessed and channeled into the laser, which will—“

“Frank.” I interrupted him and gestured at the garage in an attempt to ground him. “Rabbits. So many. Why so many rabbits, Frank?”

“This is my Kilimanjaro, man. It was there.” He glanced at a readout, then moved to the laser and adjusted a knob. “I mean, I’ve been trying for a while. It clicked when I realized the Yttrium angle. I blew up a couple of carrots using plutonium last week, so I was discouraged, but then I was like: ‘Yttrium! Duh!’”

“Oh, right. ‘Duh.’” I saw a Lunch nibbling on a laser cable and shooed it away with my foot, figuring that was probably a strong choice. Something clicked in my brain and I looked at Frank. “Where the hell did you get plutonium?”

“Craigslist isn’t super regulated.” He looked up at me. “Do you need a kidney? I could get you a kidney.”

“I’m good on kindeys, thanks,” I said, patting my side. I picked up one of the Lunch Borg and held it in front of me. It stared at me with what seemed like gratitude, as if it was happy for the freedom to wiggle its legs helplessly in the air. “So, what are you going to do with all the rabbit? Open a pet store?”

“Nothing.” He checked his watch. “Should take care of itself in approximately…now, actually.”

I glanced at him over the rabbit, furrowing my brow. “Huh?”

He looked back at me and nodded at the rabbit in my hands.

Except it was no longer a rabbit, it was half a rabbit. His hindquarters fell away in a pile of literal dust bunny. His happy expression had become zen-like as he stared dumbly through me, and then suddenly there was no longer a rabbit and I was staring at my fingers. The light from the window caught specks of Not Lunch as they wafted away from me.

Distraught at this turn of events, I looked about the garage. All around me, rabbits were puffing out of existence. Some were melting into puddles like living Escher paintings. Others were crumbling to pieces that rolled away in tiny rabbit tumbleweeds. One literally inflated and popped like a balloon.

It was really weird. This was not the way I had expected my day to go. I didn’t even think I was hungry anymore, but I honestly wasn’t sure. There were a lot of dead not-animals in sandy piles everywhere.

Frank turned off the laser and walked over to Lunch’s cage. He tested it with a light touch, then opened it and pulled Patient Zero out from within. He scratched Lunch behind the ears. “Good job, buddy!”

I stepped over a few piles of once-rabbit and made my way to where Frank was. “What the hell just happened?”

“Well, the time until total isotropic decay is only about an hour and a half. Once the isotopes go bye-bye, so do the subjects.” He held Lunch in front of him and made a few ridiculous faces. “It happened yesterday too.”

“You did this twice?” I gingerly poked a pile of rabbit dust with the toe of my shoe.

He nodded and tickled Lunch under the ears. The rabbit laughed silently and Frank giggled back at him. “I wasn’t sure if it was a glitch or a side-effect. But, you know, theory, hypothesis, test, fact. All that.”

I looked over at the laser. “That…is the most useless laser I’ve ever seen.”

“Turns out it’s kind of a waste of time, yeah.” Frank tucked Lunch under his arm. “Want to get drunk?”

I nodded. I had decided I wasn’t very hungry, but drinking I could do.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In!

If I can't write a story with a plot about my life I am a schloob.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Go Home, You're Drunk
1200 words

I had maybe half a pint of pear cider left. Or I had an empty glass and a pair of wet trousers. The equation was set, my glass was overturned, and it slowly dawned on me that I had curved towards the median line of totally schnockered. If my analysis was to be trusted (and it wasn’t), we were approaching the end of the night. It was nine thirty.

Chris was laughing. That had been the evening in a nutshell, between the specifics of its execution. Drinks, stories, laughter, drinks. Walking, a new bar, drinks, stories, laughter, drinks. I hadn’t sat down with Chris since we used to take long drives to coffee shops that weren’t open. Back then we were seventeen and thought we knew everything. Now we were twenty five and realized we knew nothing. It was a Monday night and the coffee shop was closed, but the bars were open. We had grown up, a little.

Chris handed me a cocktail napkin and flagged a waitress, telling her something in a language I was unfamiliar with, but which resembled English down to the prepositional phrases. I mopped at my crotch. “As a napkin, this is a piece of poo poo,” I offered.

Chris laughed, again, and again, and he passed me a water. “You’re drunk,” he said.

“Yes,” I queried, and it wasn’t a question. I took the water, but it was too cold for a night in February. It sat for a while next to my empty cider glass, sweating nervously. I wiped at my dry brow, feeling sympathetic vibrations. This is fun, I thought.

Chris leaned back from our too-tiny table and took Renee’s hand. I hadn’t notice when she had shown up. Chris and I had walked from my house on a “we don’t want to get a DUI” pilgrimage that had taken us a Manhattan and a mile and a half down the road. Our original intention had been to march in senior year solidarity, but I suppose that somewhere along the way common sense had won over and he had called his girlfriend to be the designated “not walking around town drunk in the middle of the night”-er. I certainly hadn’t made any phone calls. I was, however, texting. My trousers had gotten wet somehow. Solve for X.

We were in a karaoke bar. Really, it was a bar that had karaoke. The difference between the two was slight, but palpable, a variable that was easily mapped. I hadn’t brought my compass, but I had sung in my high school choir, and so I ended up on stage, or rather on front of bar, by my own volition, I think, or maybe it was the Irish car bombs. I had a list of standards, because I was a singer, I was a singer, and karaoke was my drug of choice, sometimes, between the Mai Tais. I took the stage before an audience of three, including me, which made no sense because I wasn’t at a table anymore. I had another drink in my hand and I honestly wasn’t sure what it was, because I thought I had spilled my pear cider and here it was creeping between my lips again. Or was it water? There wasn’t any time for any analysis, the song had started. I was singing. So, Sally could wait, but the meter escaped me and I couldn’t. I was done and I was done, there was no applause, I didn’t want to spill my cider again, so I sat down with a soul heavy thud. Chris was laughing. Renee had smiles in her eyes and keys in her hands, and the three of us were walking out the door together. It was ten fifteen.

We sped down the road and I sat in the back of the car, looking at neon lights that blurred from drinking and not driving. Our city was small and suburby and not very interesting. We weren’t quite as bad as the neighboring town, which lasted approximately two and a half minutes when passed by car (and had a post office but no general store, an affront to town-ship I reminded Chris and Renee of every time we whizzed through it on our way elsewhere, and we were always going elsewhere), but we were still boring. A few strips of stores and ready-to-close or “we promise this time it will work” malls running in opposing directions, the occasional Jack in the Box that would spring up and stay open until two a.m., diners in various zip codes that held more hipsters than truckers, even in the early 2000s; these were the establishments where we found ourselves sitting over coffee that cost too much and tasted worse than our own French presses. But tonight we weren’t there, we were always going and never arriving. There was a karaoke bar, and not a karaoke bar, and half a pear cider all over my pants. I felt infinite; I hadn’t read that book yet, but I would, two thirds of a decade down the road, long past the salad days of high school but only a few past the days where I would still reminisce and attempt to relive them. This is sad, I thought.

Chris was hugging Renee. I was handing over my drivers license to get a set of darts, because I could still get home if I left it at the bar, and I wanted to throw some darts at a place that had real dart boards, which is why we had come there, right? Somewhere that had been the reason I had given, but I had just wanted to find a place with no pear cider, a place where I could continue to lose myself, because at the time of my suggestion I was in the back of a car and not face first in a glass, as I had wanted to be. For the minutiae of games of physical skill, for darts and pool and shuffleboard and flirtation, there was a ratio of drunk to successful that I had always chased and seldom found. There would be nights where I was king of the jump, where I would hit the bull’s eye every time, and I would be there for ten minutes, four kisses, one and a half beers, then pass the precipice, or miss my mark, slightly, always a little too much or a little too short. I wasn’t there, the darts were in the wall, I had managed to salvage at least my driver’s license if not my dignity, and we were buying carbohydrates at Safeway. We were standing in Chris' driveway eating bagels from a bag and Chris was laughing. I was smiling. Renee was shaking her head sadly, because she was twenty and simultaneously above and beside us. It was one fifty three.

That night, nothing happened. That night, everything happened. There is a dichotomy of being that I cannot and could not begin to fathom. I found some truth at the bottom of a glass of pear cider, but I lost it across the lap of my pants. It was two twenty and I was asleep in my bed.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

gently caress it, in.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Siderodromophobia
746 words
Prompt photo: http://modularbrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Emerald-Night-10194.jpg

The train was enormous and I felt very, very small. I stared up at the smokestack, which to me looked like the maw of a dragon. I felt as thought it were only asleep, and at any moment it would startle and belch vile plumes of coal smoke in my face, would rear up on its back axels and swallow me between cowcatcher jaws. I had already made solid plans to bolt when Sarah slipped her hand between the briefcase and my white knuckles. She squeezed my hand. “Almost time,” she said.

I looked at her and smiled weakly. “All aboard,” I joked, and my stomach fell into my feet.

We walked along the platform. A little ways down from us a man was by the engine, inspecting the struts. He wore a grey sweater, and a red bandana, and he held a measuring device I had never seen before. I was seized by a desire to know every detail of what that man was doing to the locomotive. Sarah looked at the door to the car as we strode past it, and then at me, clearly confused. I pressed on, praying my legs would hold off on fully turning to jello. Thankfully, the structural integrity of my musculature held and I reached him.

I watched him work for a moment. The device in his hands a slide like a compass and two large pincers at the end, which were currently pincing a strut. The mechanic squeezed the rubber handles, examined the pincers, and made a mark on a small pad. I cleared my throat. This had no effect on him, so I tried a different tact.

“Hi, my name is John and I am going to be riding today, what exactly are you doing and will the train kill me?”

He looked up, surprised that someone was speaking to him. Sarah smiled at him from behind my shoulder. “He has siderodromophobia,” she offered.

He lay the pincers on the ground and pulled the bandanna from his neck. “Don’t know what that is,” he said, putting the fabric to his forehead.

“He’s doesn’t like trains,” Sarah said.

“Trains don’t like me,” I corrected. I was convinced that trains were evil creatures out to get me. My therapy bill disagreed with me.

The mechanic smiled. “I’m just checking that the struts aren’t expanding. Management likes the trains to stay on the tracks.”

He winked at Sarah. Under normal circumstances, I would have told him to stop flirting poorly with my fiancé, but I was trying to keep my heart from jumping out of my throat at the mention of the train derailing. “Train travel is safe,” I said, not sure who I was convincing.

“Sure,” the man said, picking up his tool again.

Sarah grabbed my arm because I had balled a fist and was ready to beat his loving face in. The man put pincer to strut. Sarah whispered to me: “Pump the brakes, Jon.”

I pumped the breaks and repeated my mantra in my head: “I think I can, I think I can.” It was cheesy, but it did calm me down and kept me from hurting railroad employees. Last time I rode, I had beaten an engineer who wouldn’t let me off when the panic hit. My therapy was court mandated, and I was almost at the end of it. Sarah had come along to make sure I behaved, and also that I rode.

She took my hand and walked me back to the passenger car. I was taking deep, slow breaths. She turned and faced me, putting a hand on my hand. “You ready?”

I said nothing.

She squeezed my hand gently. “It’s an hour ride. I will be at the end of it. Your briefcase is full of valium.” She stood on her toes and kissed my cheek. “Have a nice ride.”

“Thanks,” I said. I turned and faced the train. I tried to lift my feet, but they wouldn’t move; they had turned to lead. I was a statue in a train station.

Sarah gave me a push forward, and I was walking. I found myself at the train, I had grabbed the handle and pulled myself into the car. Sarah called from behind me. “You can do this, John!”

I found my seat and sat in it. “I think I can,” I said, but the word can’t echoed in my brain like the relentless turning of wheels on a track.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

~IRC Sanctioned Microprompt for Interim Waiting and Teeth Gnashing~

I want you to give me 25 words on loss. Make of that what you want, and try to make it interesting.

I will crit these after the ruling gets posted.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Submissions should have titles and word counts because I demand it. :v:

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Interprompt Crits:

The News at 5 posted:

Microprompt submission:

Room for One More
25 words

Ethan burst into the room to see Lila crying in the hospital bed.

“Dammit!” he screamed. “Now I’ll never have a drummer for Rock Band!”

Is Lila the drummer? Who died? What is happening? I'm confused. I think there's a joke here, but I am unsure.

sebmojo posted:

Vanished in the flow
25 words

I saw her a month before she was murdered. She’d been arguing with her dad. I kissed her; she shrugged, smiled. What to do, eh?

I want to know more, which is great. Who is saying the last line? If it's "her," I want it in quotes, maybe.

Noah posted:

Unsettled
words: 25
The deadbeat wasn’t home, so we had to leave him a message, but his dog ran out of blood before we finished writing.

I don't like the "but" in this. The rest is great, creepy. Why is he a deadbeat? I want to know.

Starter Wiggin posted:

Soft Sighs

24 words

Musk and tension hung in the air. A soft snore to his right, the same, cold moon out the window. He didn't feel different.

Who's musk? Why is there tension with a snore? No comma after same. I don't see a connection between him feeling different and the person in the bed and the tension and whatever. Too much unclear~

Techno Remix posted:

Microprompt!

Fatal Exception
25 words

All I could do was slam my fists and curse under my breath. My window to the world froze, and I had not saved recently.

I dig.

Walamor posted:

gently caress Open Caskets
25 Words

It's a cruel charade, forcing a look of unnatural sleep. It hurts more, seeing the undeceiving imitation of life, an unjust final memory. Incinerate me.

Are these metal lyrics? What is happening here. I don't mean to be rude if this has special meaning to you but this is so cryptic I would never be able to tell.

curlingiron posted:

Cold Call
18 words

Sometimes the phone is in my hand before I remember that you won't be on the other end.

Perfection.

Kaishai posted:

Realization
(19 words)

I found out soon what she had known: "I love you" would be her last words to me.

Perfection.

Jeza posted:

Odyssey - 25 Words

The siren song of the high-tension cabling calls, and they come, teetering, wind-swept like ancient heroes at the edge. They seek, but they shan't find.

I have no idea what is happening here.

Little Mac posted:

True Story 23 Words

Dad died suddenly on my sixteenth birthday. The PlayStation RPG Maker was still the worst gift I got that year. I'm still mourning.

Too many "stills" in a close proximity. I like the ambiguity of if you're mourning for lovely PSX games or your father dying. This is strong.

Mercedes posted:

Microprompt submission


The one time I was in the bathroom and there was no toilet paper anywhere in the house

"No, God. WHY?!"

No word count, I am disappointed.

FreudianSlippers posted:

Microprompt

The Effects of Morhpine
25 words.

I awoke a white room feeling numb. Trying to esacpe I threw the sheet and realized that I had no right leg and remembered why.

I like this a lot, you are missing an "in." Needs commas.

V for Vegas posted:

25 words about loess

Loess is homogeneous, porous, friable, pale yellow, buff, slightly coherent, typically non-stratified and often calcareous. Just like sebmojo.

What is this poo poo.

Nikaer Drekin posted:

risk
(23 words)

come on baby ace or eight ace or eight

daddy needs a new pair of shoes

daddy needs to eat

...

well poo poo

I dig. But you are no e.e. cummings.

Whalley posted:

Terrible Secrets 23 words
She hid her bowlegged walk from her parents almost as well as she hid the smirk to her brother across the breakfast table.

Where is the loss here? Did she get an abortion from her brother and her having sex? Did she ride a horse? I am confused.

Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:

First Love Lost
25 words

We’d been robbed. Jewelry, money, family heirlooms—gone. But the pristine square in a sea of dust where my SNES had been?

That destroyed me.

I dig. Dust your retro consoles.

docbeard posted:

Consent
24 words

"She's made her wishes clear, but we need your authorization," the doctor said.

I signed the forms. She's resting peacefully. It won't be long.

I like this a lot except for the tense change.

Jeep posted:

Nighttime
10 Words.

It's only the ceiling fan keeping you from falling asleep.

Ooo. Ooo. I like this. Terse, leaves me wondering, more please.

Jonked posted:

Summer Camp
25 words

It was a stupid activity. Carry a stone, it's someone that you lost - my grandfather. At the end, leave it.

I still have it, somewhere.

Near perfection. The second sentence in the third is a little clumsy to me because I have no idea who the speaker of each thing is. But I like the irreverence towards the loss.

Lake Jucas posted:

Cousins
Words: 25

“Shut your loving mouth,” he grunted between thrusts. She buried her sobs in her pillow until it's pristine white cover was soaked through with tears.

Title + heartwrenching actions = hard hitter for me. Sebmojo already yelled at you for it is.

God Over Djinn posted:

Time is the Enemy (25 words)

we loved each other in moth-winged sunlight (and once)
rain-sodden under the eighth street bus shelter (and finally)
in that antiseptic room (code-alarms and all).

Not sure what is happening here but I want to know. e.e. cummings called you too. This is a little bit too "poem-y" for my tastes in this prompt, but I didn't specify not to do that.

ThirdEmperor posted:

Spaces
-25 words

She left the house riddled with spaces where she wasn't, every empty seat a reminder, the sudden lurch of missing a step in the dark.


((Edited in word count))

Fantastic, except the last sentence doesn't fit grammatically with the other two for me. I like this a lot otherwise.

crabrock posted:

Punishment
22 words


You were the lens I gazed through to make sense of the world, like the perfect metaphor. Now it hurts to simile.


This would make a perfect poem, but it doesn't try super hard to be one. I dig.

Sitting Here posted:

Swan Dive
25 words

My child self would've been disappointed, but some of us just weren't cut out for this life.

One last breath.

Take the step.

I'm free.

Sad. I dig.

Black Griffon posted:

Go Long, Hemingway! - 6 words

For sale: baby chainsaw, used once

Go Long? Did they pass the baby? I get the reference but am missing the joke, I think.

The Leper Colon V posted:

Go Home, Hemingway, You're Drunk - 3 words
For sale: Baby.

This is better execution!

Ursine Asylum posted:

The Last Duck - 25 words

He had blown into it, but no response-- the cartridge was dead. For the rest of his life, he could still hear the dog laughing.

Torture~ I dig.

Arkane posted:

Memorial
25 words

The boy turned off the TV, went outside to the yard. He laid next to the tree they planted together. He whispered, "I miss you."

I don't unnastand why the TV fits in to this. I think laid is incorrect here but I was always bad at that. This teeters on the edge of a little contrived to me.

Skwid posted:

Liar - 24 words

She was rent asunder slowly, methodically by the only person she'd ever called home. He felt nothing but the blazing steel in his spine.

Think you need another comma after methodically, that sentence grammatically looks bad. Not sure why he has steel in his spine, is that courage? Desire? Did she stab him? Is he hardening his...backbone? Idgi.

Nika posted:

Would've Left You Anyway
25 words


She gives me the pill, says it won’t hurt. Soon you spill out of me, splashing my legs, the floor.

“It won’t hurt.”

It does.

...is this a bloody abortion pill? This sounds like a bloody abortion pill.

Barracuda Bang! posted:

Not Winning Yet
11 words

Scratchy lotteries
Did my life change? Oh
I'll get more Monday

Too much poem, not enough loss, especially if it repeats over and over again.

Paladinus posted:

Saved as a Draft
(20 words)


'I love you and I'm sorry.'
The train takes me farther from you as I press Send.
'No network available.'

Fantastic. Tries too hard to be a poem. Revise to make a story and resubmit.

~Interprompt over~

Really nice work folks, very interesting to see what everyone did with so few words.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

In!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

I am a terrible person and have written nothing. #bailtown. Shame me.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

The Leper Colon V posted:

Quid, I submitted a decent story this week.

I'm proud of you, buddy!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Whalley posted:

Spring Mounted Lego Launchers 10,000,000 words

Mom was right. It really is all fun and games until someone loses an eye. I hope she brings Jim back from the hospital soon.

Seriouscrit, this is brilliant.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

It's been a while, but I am in!

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Bowing out for this week. That's two. Next time I enter, I will be toxxing.

Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!

Someone give me a prompt right loving now and in the next 30 minutes I will rock out 900 words.

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Quidthulhu
Dec 17, 2003

Stand down, men! It's only smooching!


30 minutes from now. Here I go.

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