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Costa Mesa 595 words I was in the back of my best friend’s station wagon. It was 1995 and Ihad just finished puking. As it turned out, it wasn’t just reading in a car that made you carsick; hosting a Tetris tournament was enough to send my stomach from the base of my diaphragm and into my throat. I really just wanted to get as many tetrises as possible, but the equilibrium of my inner ear had another plan for me. Three reincarnations of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich later, I had pratically crawled into the lap of the boy I had a crush on. Thank the Good Lord he was in my carpool; I was as close to intimacy as an eleven year old girl could get. We were traveling through dust country: the flat end of the US Potato Famine that nobody outside of the AP US History books bothered to mention. We, of course, had been here all our lives; we had played flashlight tag and chestnuts and all sorts of poverty ridden games througout our formative years that the landscape had burned itself into our frontal cortex’s.. The best abandoned parking lot for stickball, the tallest grass for a makeshift cornmaze, the tallest peak of makeout point; we knew these by heart, the map of our childhood tattooed on the inside of our eyelids. But somehow, collectively, we knew there was more to the land than the anatomy of our corneas. There was a mysticism that we could only fathom in nightmares. It was in this place of nauseau and ecstacy, snuggled into the apathetic shoulderbone of my prepubescent adoration that I saw the strange-lady clinging to the Gilette billboard. She was on the outermost edge, spiderlike, all fingers and bone in disgusting and specific detail as our headlights blew past, an arachnid ready to strike upon whatever unfortunate prey spied her grotesque reality. In the instant that I spied her, i wanted to recoil into my own cocoon, shut out the tyranny of day to day life and deny that I ever fathomed to bring her into existence. But utltimately, I wasn’t going to shy away in terror; I was warm and safe in my folly, certain in my under-developed synapses that I had just imagined a blur as we were whirring past, that the full-blown hormones of youth and illness and exhaustion had mingled to create a creature that surely couldn’t exist. In that moment, my heart open to adolescent love, I let something else entirely into my being. Looking back, I wish I had said something. Maybe if I had pointed the terrible figure out to any of the other sleeping students in our carpool, I might have spared myself a decade of unable escape. Maybe that boy who two yers later would break my heart would have glanced out the window towards my outstretched hand, would have seen the dark, soulless eyes, would have known the depth of the infinite desert. Maybe he would have woken up in the middle of a fifteen year old night and stared into fiteenthousand eyes, and felt the hairs of of eight legs caressing every inch of his body. Maybe he would have known how twenty years of terror had begun. As it was, I was eleven, and I was nauseuous, and he was there. I felt like poo poo and I looked out the window, and the widow was everywhere. He would break my heart and she would take my sould and I had missed my tetrimo. It was not a very good fieldtrip.
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Sep 22, 2014 10:05
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:04 |
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The Saddest Rhino posted:All these violence is very unattractive. Don't you tense changing now.
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Sep 23, 2014 05:03
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PROOOOOOOMPPPPPTTTTTTTT
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Sep 23, 2014 05:37
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In! Monophobia- Fear of solitude or being alone.
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Sep 23, 2014 09:05
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I have missed TD. Looking forward to writing this week~
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Sep 23, 2014 23:47
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There are many other phobias to choose from 
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Sep 24, 2014 00:04
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Martello posted:I've wanted to do timed stories ever since I founded Thunderdome, but always figured it was a logistical nightmare. Fanky is coming up with ideas for it, so it might happen in the near future. I was trying to get some Friday Night Flash Fiction started in the IRC channel where whoever was around would give a prompt to each other round robin, and then we would write for a set time and share our stories with each other. It was fun. We should all do it again. Maybe I'll make a Friday Night Flash thread sometime. JERK EDIT: Thanks for critting my story! 
Quidthulhu fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 03:00
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I have a busy weekend so here is my early entry. --- Untitled 990 words Franklin sipped his coffee and smoked his cigarette. The coffee was not hot, and the cigarette was not his brand. He was sitting on the balcony with his feet up on the railing, staring at his uncut toenails. His mind was clouded, lost in the last seventy-three days of a twenty-year marriage. Charlotte was sitting in a lounge-chaise with her eyes closed, staring at nothing. Franklin watched her without turning his head. Her finger traced the arm of the lounger in small circles that lifted before each revolution was complete. Circle, up, tap, circle, up, tap, circle, up, tap. It made a C for Charlotte. Franklin opened his mouth, intending to speak, but found it full of his coffee cup. This had been a problem for the past seventy-three days. When he tried to talk about it, his tongue was otherwise occupied. It was coffee or cigarettes or fingertips but it was never the words that kept surging up like a shot from the hole in his stomach. He would choke them down with his pills in the morning and keep them hidden in a drawer all day, terrified of how they would look in the warmth of the afternoon light. Autumn and truth in California were colder than he wanted to admit. “We should eat,” Charlotte said. Franklin found another cigarette in his mouth and the words got stuck around it, so he said something else, a mumble that sounded like “Food is good.” The back of his throat was acrid, and it wasn’t the smoke. Charlotte stood in response and absconded with her teacup into the house. The curve of her body remained in the cushion of the chaise. Franklin stared into the impression, trying to find where twenty years had gone. He had been trying to find them a lot lately. He tried to find them in the mirror, or in the fridge, or even sometimes in a bar when he was supposed to be at golf, or church, or bed. No matter where he went or what he did, they weren’t anywhere to be found. All he could see was cigarette butts and coffee grounds and too many empty glasses from too many nightcaps, and all of a sudden they were both forty-five. Their cooking was low in sodium, and her eyes had wrinkles when she smiled, and his hair was salt and pepper, but the boxes wanted him to have more grey before they would agree that he met their target demographic. He wanted to be ok with that. He wanted to be ok with a lot of things. He wanted it to be over. That was it, truly: Franklin wanted to be done. It had taken him twenty years to build his life and seventy-three days to dig a hole in his stomach. He didn’t want this new hole. He had tried to fill it from bottom to top, had tried to cover it up with empty calories and bourbon soaked everything, but the maw yawned within him. He was chain smoking again for the first time in twenty-two hours, and he was terrified of his transparency. Charlotte had to know the stomach wasn’t in the lungs. He had to get out, he knew he had to get out, but he couldn’t do it. He was constantly trying to convince himself. He had made upwards of twenty or thirty secret lists. Miles and miles of pro versus con, with “I love her” at the top of each column. He would burn down Marlboros and pencil nubs late into the night, late into every night, long after she had rubbed his shoulders in the living room and gone to the bedroom without him. He knew that his silence was cruel, very cruel, that it made him the cruelest, but he couldn’t do it. He was smiling and laughing and smoking and lying, but he couldn’t do it. He knew it would be better for them both if he just told her. But he couldn’t do it. He was too much kind, and not enough selfish. Or maybe, it was the other way around; maybe the whole ordeal wasn’t the self-torturous and tragic event he was convinced it had to be, that he had been searching for a way, any way, any goddamned way to circumvent. Maybe the real problem was it was too much him and not enough her; maybe it had always been too much him and not enough her. Maybe she would welcome the announcement, would thank him for his hasty retreat. Maybe she would be better off without him. If he had asked her what he should do, he knew what her answer would be: that it would be his to tell and hers to hear. But he couldn’t do it. Charlotte returned with a cup of coffee and no food. She handed the coffee to him and sat down. He put the cup down next to his ashtray and lit another cigarette. He had a hole in his stomach, and a hole in his heart. Maybe it was too much him, and not enough her. She had to know the heart wasn’t in the lungs. Franklin sipped his coffee and smoked his cigarette. The coffee was not hot, and the cigarette was not his brand. He was sitting on the balcony with his feet up on the railing, staring at his uncut toenails. His mind was clouded, lost in the first seventy-three days of a six-month prognosis. Charlotte was sitting in a lounge-chaise with her eyes closed, staring at nothing. Franklin watched her without turning his head. Her finger traced the arm of the lounger in small circles that lifted before each revolution was complete. Circle, up, tap, circle, up, tap, circle, up, tap. It made a C for Cancer. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it.
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Sep 27, 2014 01:34
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JuniperCake posted:Welp, not gonna be able to submit for the loser brawl so I will take my well deserved loss. Good show Broenheim. Do it anyway. Take the loss and take the crit. Learn and return.
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Sep 29, 2014 08:27
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Broenheim posted:I don't wanna win by default. I'd rather lose to a wirthy opponent then win without a challenge. *worthy
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Sep 29, 2014 08:58
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what is a chunderhead
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Sep 30, 2014 01:06
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In! Gimmie dat virtue~
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Sep 30, 2014 01:22
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e: wrong thread 
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Oct 4, 2014 06:05
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Been too busy. I am a shameful lameo.
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Oct 6, 2014 01:15
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crabrock posted:But "nothing happens" is valid this week, as long as nothing happens interestingly. Hoorah! In with a  . I'm taking a red eye on Friday night and will be incommunicado through MOnday, so I will write and post my story before I leave.Missed connection: Please help me find Melissa Pliano quote:Please help me find Melissa Pliano - m4w - 40 (vallejo / benicia) 
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Oct 7, 2014 03:33
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Flying to the east coast tonight, here is my entry for the week! Please help me find Melissa Pliano quote:Please help me find Melissa Pliano - m4w - 40 (vallejo / benicia) Goodnight, L.A. The blinds and my fingers were stained with smoke, both a tepid brown with spots of olive peeking through. I leaned away from the window and ran my hand through what was left of my hair for probably the eight hundredth time. Seven hours with my nose glued to the loving glass and nobody had had the decency to show up to the ball. I had reached irritated. “Charlie-ten-five, niner-eight, come in.” The walkie-talkie hissed and shot out one and half seconds of mariachi before correcting itself. “Over.” A trumpet blared a counterpoint to the bass line of a large guitar. “Jesus loving Christ.” I tossed the binoculars on the bed and hammered the “call” button, letting it shout red for three long beats before I finally spat back into it. “You’re in a secondhand flower delivery van, Charlie. Stop loving acting like you’re in the gee-dee Air Force.” I adjusted the dial, and the radio returned to my regularly scheduled program in English. “—rear end in a top hat, that was loud as poo poo!” “And you’re not supposed to insert your name into the beginning of every loving call sign, anyway.” I was so angry I coughed, three deep howls. I made sure my finger was pressed on the “talk” button. “What if someone heard that, dick?” There was the flick of a lighter around his statement, the inhale and exhale of minimum wage. “Huh?” I sputtered a few more weak hacks before adding my cigarette butt to ashtray number three, pressing harder than I needed to. “You’re five blocks away, Charlie, and you’re under an overpass. You can jack off, for all I care. Nobody is going to hear you.” “Too late on that.” He laughed. I didn’t. “Any movement yet?’ “Still crap.” I grabbed my cigarettes and the case file, both of them light. I lit up as I perused the single page I had printed earlier. “Melissa Pliano remains a hard bird to track down.” I turned the page over. “Also, I owe my drycleaner for three months in back pants.” “You can get dry cleaning on layaway?” “Nope.” I tossed the case file on the floor and leaned back. Charlie was saying something, but I was focused on the dull roar of Los Angeles. A block away, someone was honking. Somewhere farther, a car backfired. At the entrance to the motel parking lot, tires bumped over the uneven pavement. I was at the blinds. “Shut up, Charlie.” “I thought you said nobody could hear me.” “I can hear you, you schmuck. There’s a car.” I put out my cigarette and picked up my binoculars. The car was way too nice for the hourly rate I had paid for the room. “Run pointe. Black BMW?” “Oh poo poo.” “Thanks.” They were parking, right underneath my window. I shook my head. Seven loving hours. “License plate is California, Romeo-Golf-Hotel-five-oh-three.” There was a brief pause. “Sure.” “What do you mean, ‘sure?'” I grabbed the case “file” and flipped it from invoice to profile. “I just ditched two thirds of a cigarette, you better have more for me than ‘sure.’” “Are you looking at this piece of garbage?” He flapped his stack of photo, singular, in what I imagined was the general direction of the walkie-talkie. “I would qualify this photo quality as ‘nervous bathroom stall upskirt.’” “You’re a charmer, Charlie.” I had switched to the camera. “Please tell me it says something about defining characteristics.” “’She is Latin and is married to a gentleman who works for an airline.’” “Jesus Mary and Joseph I loving hate L.A.” I snapped one, two, three photos. “Both of these people are way too ugly for an affair.” “You think she’s our girl?” “I think I don’t give a poo poo.” They entered the lobby, so I gave up and tossed the camera on the bed. “I’m paid by the hour, and they want me here until seven A.M. I’ll take all the pictures of all the black BMW’s they want.” “Every girl, Melissa Pliano.” I fished two thirds of a cigarette out of ashtray number four and lit it. “Every girl, Charlie.”
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Oct 11, 2014 06:29
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In!
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Oct 21, 2014 07:02
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Ooo, ooo, can I also request judges picking my picture? I am having a hard time with motivation and I think this will do it.
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Oct 23, 2014 05:59
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I am a failure this weekend. I will Toxx next time I enter.
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Oct 26, 2014 01:56
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In, with a
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Nov 4, 2014 00:39
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Autumn Fire MY MEMORY OF A SAD TIME BY SIMON JOHNSON AGE 8 835 words I was sleeping at night and then there was many knocks at the door. I sawed the clock said 234 AM I remember because it was all the numbers in a row and also because of all of the knocking. Misses Sarah was at the door and she was crying a lot like she could not breathe from it. She was covered in dirty and her face was dirty except for the tears also she said her house was on fire. I was in my jamjams and I didn’t know how to come down the stairs because of the crying. All the times before I like to jump one at a time because its faster and funner but I had never seen a grownedup cry so much since then and I was ascared and also still from bed so I was crying too a little bit. Mommy said it was nice of me to be sorry for Misses Sarah but that it was all ok and I should go back to bed but Misses Sarah said it’s all fakdd and my mother made soft noises and held her hand so I knew it was not all ok because that’s when she does when I have a tummy ache and I came down the stairs with my blanket. I don’t know where Frank Frank is Misses Sarah said she held the tea mommy made but didn’t drink it. I wanted to drink a milk with chocolate sauce but I didn’t ask mommy because she was still rubbing Misses Sarah’s hands and saying they will find him don’t worry they will find Frank Frank you need to breathe and calm down Frank Frank was her dog but he burned up in the fire because he liked to hide and howl I could always hear him from across the street. Mommy always said Frank Frank is such a dog when he is drinking which meant he was the best dog but that night miss sarah kept saying I should have kept him in tonight I should have kept him in tonight and I guess she should have because we had a funeral for a dog later but that night I said firemen help to save people like cats and it made Misses Sarah stop crying but only for long enough for breathing. Then there was more door knocking and it was the firemen and he said there is nothing we can do misses sarah but the fire is out now and she hit his chest and said fakk the fire everything I have burneded up while everyone watched you with your hose. the firemen took off their hats and the ashes fell down to misses sarah on the ground and he told her i am very very sorry we did everything we could but we couldn’t save him but she said they were fakkers which wasn’t very nice because they had put the fire out. But I guess maybe they were that thing because they did not try harder enough to save Frank Frank from burning they just pointed the hoses instead. And also at the dog funeral I heard my mommy say the same thing to sarah’s mommy and she said it again at the other funeral after all the new crying for misses sarah. This is the thing that is hard to thinking for grownedups because sometimes they say two things that are not the same things and I don’t know which is right because I still think the firemen are nice men. My teacher told me they help people and I saw it with a cat on TV also they let me ring the firebell when they visited my school. One time too they tried to help misses sarah by taking her to the hospital when the baby came too early. I thought the firemen would help her but I guess they left the baby there because misses sarah came back to our house without it just a wheelchair and a nightgown. Then I saw them again and thought they would help but mommy said It was all too hard for misses sarah to lose so much and even the baby when I asked what did she mean by they had found her in the river simon. So maybe the firemen really are not the nice men. It was a very sad time and I had to wear a suit three times before thanksgiving once for a dog once for a baby and once again for misses sarah. I think that fires are bad but maybe firemen are nice but not for saving houses and babies and misses sarah only cats and for ringing firebells. When I think about that night it makes me very sad that a house can burn down and then Halloween can happen anyway even if for forever then all the candles for the jackolanterns we got were plastic ones.
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Nov 9, 2014 19:05
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In, flash rule me!
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Nov 11, 2014 07:03
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Crit me crit me~
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Nov 11, 2014 23:07
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It looks like your semicolon and colon need to be swapped in your final sentence. You also have a random colon to indicate dialogue once, and only once. Also: editing is not always about proof reading, it's about coming at the story with new eyes to make adjustments after you've had time to get over the honeymoon phase of "I made this thing from nothing."
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Nov 13, 2014 21:49
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That's probably the most justified brawl callout I've seen e: i mean if being whiney and dumb is a justification 
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Nov 14, 2014 03:53
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I won with my third or so TD entry. I have gotten a shitton of DM's since then, and far less HM's. Most of my pieces have been middle of the road. But I've gotten great feedback for every piece (with the exception of that rabbit story where I misread the rules ) Write better and you'll do better. Simple!
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Nov 14, 2014 06:00
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Well, I mean, clearly you don't need our help here, since you've got this writing thing down already.
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Nov 14, 2014 06:23
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All of them. All of the books.
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Nov 14, 2014 06:24
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Tell your double standard rantings to Cache Cab, SH. 
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Nov 15, 2014 02:58
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I forgot about Thunderdome. My shame. My shame. I would sign up for this one but I'm going to Disneyland this weekend so gently caress writing :hellsyeah:
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Nov 18, 2014 03:48
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:04 |
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That story is stolen from bed knobs and broomsticks you plebe
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Nov 21, 2014 19:15
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