|
crabrock - "Not All is Cricket in Cricketsburg" This is a fun, goofy story that fits in some seamless worldbuilding without ever getting bogged down in it. Sped the spider is likable despite being kind of a mess (love the detail about him not tipping the Uber driver), and I wanted him to succeed; the other characters are just kind of goofy foils but I think that works. The story kind of loses its focus once Sped sits down in the therapist's office, in my opinion – there's less cute details about the bug world, and the last scene feels kind of tacked on (maybe to fit some part of the prompt?) I think the highlight of the story is just the slice-of-life buggishness, though. The point-of-view is never too serious, but it's never rib-pokingly goofy, either, so the little bug details are great and leave me wanting more. Like, of course the spider gets discount rents high above the ground, of course he's not happy with eating moths and feels dissatisfied by flies. It's a little Zootopia in how the spider can't eat the bugs in everyday life but the web is fair game. It's definitely the kind of playful thing that feels fun to write and held my interest from the first paragraph. I even did a dramatic reading of this.
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2020 16:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 15:01 |
|
|
  Asking for Directions 1,183 words When Jinel was away at college, her dad had discovered a wormhole in the attic. She worried about him, all alone in that house with just an interdimensional portal for company, but when she’d returned home for summer, he was giddy, grinning and humming through their game of Boggle. After Jinel bested him, he suggested swimming, but when he shucked off his shirt, he revealed a tattoo on his back. Between his shoulder blades was a map of their suburb, with a red X marking a street corner. The X moved to a different location every time her dad took a trip through the portal, and so far, the maps had just led them to heaping, abandoned bags of take-out. One was at a local Chinese restaurant, and the other was at a Taco Bell. Jinel was a vegetarian and couldn’t have eaten anything in the bags, but her dad was as happy as a dog with a squeaky-toy. “If this thing gives us a free lunch every time, just think how much I’ll save in a year.” “But you’ll have to walk around with a tattoo of a map to Taco Bell on your back.” “A free tattoo,” her dad said. Her dad was proud of his frugality; he wore T-shirts until there were holes on the front and dumped dozens of non-dairy creamers in his bag when Jinel took him out to breakfast. So when he said “Another try?” she knew he was hoping for more than a dozen Whoppers. “I know it’s going to give me some hidden treasure eventually,” he said, as he stepped through the wormhole. “These are just the consolation prizes.” When he popped out again, five minutes later, the map on his back pointed to the forest behind Jinel’s old high school. “I don’t see how this could be fast food,” Jinel said. “But don’t get too excited. It’s probably an abandoned six-pack of Bud Lite.” “I thought I raised you better than that—you have to respect free beer. Anyway, I’ve got a good feeling that this time, it’s a treasure trove,” her dad said. She hadn’t seen him so excited since her mom died. He was always happiest when he had a project, like when he made Jinel a treehouse. He just got so frustrated when the project stalled, like when wasps moved into the treehouse. “I just don’t want you getting disappointed.” “Well, if it’s disappointing, I’ll just go again.” The high school wasn’t far, so they hopped on bikes and were there in a few minutes. A couple of kids were tossing a football around on the field, and Jinel felt their strange looks as she cut through the woods with her shirtless dad. Don’t worry, kids, she wanted to tell them, we’re just tracking the map a wormhole put on my dad’s back. It was hard to pinpoint the exact location of the X—there were no streets or buildings to orient them. At a point in their stumbling, the forest turned to swamp. The air was humid and lousy with gnats, and there were some suspiciously large footprints in a slick of mud. “Dad, let’s go,” she said. “This one’s a dud.” “The wormhole hasn’t let me down yet, and I don’t think it’s going to start now.” And then the ground trembled so hard it knocked both Jinel and her dad on the ground. Rising out of an algae-coated puddle came a claw, then another claw, and then a pair of black, delicate wings. The dragon pulled its head up from the muck, flinging mud onto Jinel’s face and her dad’s back. Sparks sputtered from its mouth as it rose up to tower over them. Around one of its ears was a McDonald’s bag. “Dad, I love you, but you have to know it’s time to go.” But her dad wasn’t listening. He’d pulled out his phone and was fiddling with the buttons, squinting at the screen with a look of tight concentration. The dragon let out a loud roar, and one of its feet swung forward. Jinel pulled her dad by the arm and he moved aside, just in time to dodge the kick from the dragon’s clawed foot. “How do I take a picture on this thing again, Jinny?” The dragon let out a belch of flame, lighting a strand of pines ablaze. Jinel cringed and hoped the kids playing football would notice and call the fire department; the introduction of an invasive apex predator was clearly having a detrimental impact on the suburb’s ecosystem. The dragon spread its wings, pulling itself all the way out of the swamp, and Jinel pulled her dad down behind a big boulder, while her dad finally opened the camera app. “I’m curious,” Jinel said, whispering as they crouched behind the rock, “what exactly do you see when you jump into the wormhole?” “Mostly dragons. Hungry dragons. You know, I think the wormhole is dragon Doordash.” “I’m sorry—hungry dragons from another world asked you to bring you food, and you decided to eat it yourself? Were they all as big, sharp, and fiery as this one?” “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d be like this. Miss Thinks She Knows Better Than Her Dad.” “Dad, I’m twenty.” “Why do I pay so much for your tuition if you already know everything?” The dragon let out another roar, setting another section of the forest on fire, and a shadow crossed the two of them. The dragon was directly overhead, peering down at them with a merciless dragon glare. Jinel’s dad pulled out his phone and, having finally figured out the camera app, jabbed at the screen, lighting up the dragon’s face with a brilliant flash. The dragon staggered back. “Dad, I think you’re onto something.” “All part of the plan,” he said, although Jinel suspected he just didn’t know how to turn the flash off. She took out her own phone and took a burst of photos, the flash going off again and again. The forest blazed as the dragon toppled onto its side. “I’m sorry, friend,” Jinel called out to the dragon. “We’re just sensitive about forest fires in this dimension.” “I’m sorry too,” Jinel’s dad said. “Next time I go through the wormhole, I won’t eat your lunch. I promise.” “I’m also sorry,” the dragon said. Jinel and her dad jumped. The dragon had staggered to its feet. “For the fire. I’m just hungry, that’s all. I’ve heard the word is ‘hangry.’ They don’t have quick service restaurants in the dragon dimension. Think about that.” Jinel thought about it. What would it be like to live in a world where you couldn’t get lo mein at 2 AM? She thought about all of the samosas, tacos, and pita pockets it would take to make a big dragon feel full. “If you give us a ride,” Jinel said, “we’ll show you where you can get any kind of food you like.” And then they all hopped on the dragon’s back and went to the food court.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2020 04:10
|
|
|
In and flash
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2020 14:00
|
|
|
Bonus week 421 crits! MockingQuantum - “Whiteout Conditions” The story is about an Antarctic researcher whose fellow researcher disappears while looking for him; he also vanishes and disappears while attempting to find him. The story is wrestling with a few different themes – I think it’s trying to say something about isolation, but I’m not exactly sure what. I liked the bizarre scenes at the party, like the researcher protecting his bad fries, but the story ends with our protagonist surrendering himself to the Antarctic. I’m not sure if there’s supposed to be a supernatural, SCP-tinge to this, or if this is just a character giving into blankness and hypothermia after living in isolation for so long. And then there’s the conversation the character has with Donnie earlier in the story – is the implication here that he’s convinced Donnie to abandon himself to the Antarctic? We don’t have a sense of Donnie’s reaction, so I’m not quite sure. So I think it speaks to the story’s richness that it raises all of these questions, but unfortunately I don’t have a lot of clues in the text that could help me make a case for any of these. More unfortunately, the story drags a little bit; I’m not quite sure what the protagonist wants. After reading the story, I’m kind of left with the impression that the character eventually chooses oblivion, but I think we need more clues about this, and an understanding of why (other than their isolation where they’re still relating and connecting to the other folks at the base.) Yoruichi - “The donkey enjoyed the mints, but decided not to go on TV again” This story is about a TV show where heads are matched with bodies; through a series of events, Bob merges with a bear, a radioactive blob, and a human announcer. I think this story is just trying to entertain with these bizarre hybrid images, and for the most part it works; there’s definitely a sense of high-concept imagination here. But I did find myself struggling to follow the action here, with so many entities to keep track of. The blocking is a little messy, and there’s not much of actual character here, this is just kind of an imaginative slapstick sequence. GrandmaParty - “Mellix and the Goblins” Mellix is a god who commissions a house and commissions one from a salamander, a minotaur, and a human, but they all make bad houses and the goblins hijack the human’s idea instead. The story mostly just wants to have fun with the fable structure, and it works on that level, with the unsuccessful attempts topped by the third. I think that the moral at the end doesn’t quite work; it’s not absurd enough to be funny, though I like the goblins getting their reward for farting out butterflies. The story sets up that Mellix tries to gently caress over architects, and implies they’ll find fault in things that are basically fine, but the contestants actually turn in incompetent work. I think I like the sense that the goblins win by making something high-concept more accessible, but I think there’s too much windup to this (you can cut a lot of the first few paragraphs without losing anything.) crabrock - “Extra Good News” Some banter about frogs on the moon, and it ends in half a pun. Ultimately the story just wants to have fun with the image of moon frogs, and it succeeds. This is enjoyable to read but there’s not a lot of substance here. Liked the whole runner of the captain who’s left out, although I was wondering “who’s Michael?” at the end. Could probably use some heavy cuts and maybe the story could lean into the threat of apocalyptic consequences here; there’s kind of a Dr. Strangelove vibe already. Wetlich - “Room 421” In some sort of cosmic-horror world, an organized crime unit executes a suspected snitch. The piece is mostly worldbuildy, but peppered with details about the Lovecraftian-crime-syndicate, never getting too explicit. I can see why this placed well this week – the piece is evocative of a certain kind of mood, and the voice is lively. That said, I didn’t love this. The character is pretty passive and kind of a non-entity here; they don’t make any choices, don’t seem to have any particular opinions, and the spectacle here is their passivity and apathy in the face of this haunted bureaucracy. Love the “I’m not a fan of veal either” line, and I do like that there’s some energy and life in this piece, how the worldbuilding is done through assembling scenes and moments rather than summarizing or expositing. QuoProQuid - “Couple’s Retreat” The protagonist goes on a retreat with her older boyfriend with the intent of a mutual suicide, but the protagonist changes her mind. I gave this a pre-crit, so I’ll be brief here: I think the core of this story is strong, but we really do need more of a sense of what the protagonist is choosing to live for and why she makes the choice at the end. Disenchantment with her partner is one thing, but I think we need more, a sense of understanding how she’s going from accepting death to adamantly rejecting it. I think it’s probably difficult to fit this into 1,200 words, unfortunately. magic cactus - “Long Haul” Ruiz and Yancey, two elderly women, stage a caper in a futuristic world, but when they get the cargo, it turns them into grass. I think this story is trying to capture the energy of a heist film, but the ending doesn’t really fit this; I think there’s definitely an interest in these elderly characters being involved in this high-action heist, too, but my issue with that is that it’s hard for me to tell Ruiz and Yancey apart. The ending here just doesn’t seem signaled by anything that comes before; I guess I’d expect some ominous plantlife, but that doesn’t really show up, and it doesn’t fit the mood of the story beforehand. There were words to spare here, so I’m a little baffled by this – what if the glass jars were fine until they were interrupted by hostile, non-human forces that broke the jars and caused this transformation? How does this connect to Ruiz’s sense of being marginalized due to her age – would there be a way to work this into the story to make the ending feel like it’s fulfilling the promises this story makes earlier on? I do like the worldbuilding here, though I admit I have no idea what a “casper” is supposed to be. I just wish it paid off a little more. Thranguy - “The Case of the Fiendish Green Meanie (Part the Second)” Mystery solving young people of indeterminate age try to find a bug, and they do, because it’s formed a bug monster and it almost attacks an old man. In a week of genre pastiche, this is the pastichiest – it’s trying to go for some goofs on the mystery-solving-teens genre, working in six characters in a 1,200 page story consisting mostly of banter. It’s extremely silly and doesn’t really go anywhere, but I think there’s a dumb charm to this, even if I did want it to get to the point. The story raises more questions than it answers, and I don’t think there’s enough jokes for the banter to land here, but I guess I’m just impressed by the size of ambition of this story; it does indeed feel like an excerpt from a Young Readers Mystery series. The Saddest Rhino - “I N T E R N E T || D A T I N G || 2 0 0 0” In a cyberpunk world, our protagonist iROM and Y2Gay must defeat Y2K and the plague. Another pastiche story, this time doing Gibson-esque cyberpunk, and I think it’s pretty rich and flows well; it’s goofy (probably a little too goofy, in my opinion) but there’s a joy to the details. Is it worth complaining that I don’t care about the characters and that I’m disoriented about the plot in this sort of story? This story exists to have this nostalgia-inflected cyberpunk bit of year 2000 flavor, and it definitely delivers that. There’s a lot of character in almost every sentence here, and unlike a lot of this week, this piece seems like effort and thought was put into it. I’m not sure why this story needs to be in second-person – I guess to convey this sense of Internet-as-collaborative-project-but-also-ultimate-narcissism? I don’t know: this is a well-written story that’s just not-for-me. Maybe if Y2Gay was gayer I’d be more into this. Favorite line: “The Cybersecurity officer of the virtual planet, dressed in furs harvested from MUCK perverts, zooms towards you on their webboard.” M. Propagandalf - “The Transubstantiation at Maneki Lake” Hugh is on the run after stealing a cat status from a museum; a sheriff pursues him, but is unable to stop Hugh from summoning evil cats. The story tries to answer the question “what if cats were extremely ominous?,” and while this story has some problems, I kind of love this anyway. I genuinely love the ending of this, with the huge cat coming out of the water – I think maybe the story should have lost some stuff early on (either of the first two scenes are kind of disposable here) and just leaned into scary, huge Lake Cat a little more. The imagery here is actually pretty cool, with hundreds of murderous housecats. I wish we knew a little bit more about what Hugh was hoping would happen here – we get that hint at “key to eternal ecstasy,” but a) how and b) isn’t Hugh like a grade school kid? On the whole, I really do find this delightfully bonkers, and I’m a little sad it ate a loss. Dr. Kloctopussy - “Vampire Dad to the Rescue” Dad and son rescue Elric, a monk trapped in a toaster, from a vampire. This is a goofy romp, and doesn’t aspire to be anything more, and it actually works here – this is a fun joke-delivery story, even if it’s not super substantial. Liked the “kids these days” jokes, liked the suggestion of various alternative vessels. I think the ending is cute in the moment, but it directly contradicts the beginning of the story; the joke here would have landed if Dad hadn’t told us directly that he was friends with Elric. I think it might have been a good idea to center Valeria a little more as the obstacle here, as the parade of other obstacles can’t be developed enough for them to be great jokes. Still, I liked this a lot, and probably would have pushed for an HM if I’d judged this week.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2020 23:16
|
|
|
The Saddest Rhino posted:Pret (Thailand) An Itinerary 1,584 words Even though Kul said nothing to his family about his trip to Bangkok, his brother Udom waited at the gate. What the hell was he doing there? Kul hadn’t told his family about the trip; he knew they’d ask him to travel to Phuket, and he wasn’t doing that. This was business—he was here to close a deal with a contractor. Once he got them to sign the new contract, he’d save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they’d have to promote him to Senior Manager. He didn’t have time, let alone the brainspace, to travel half a country away just to get a guilt trip about how he didn’t call enough. He sent them plenty of money—he didn’t need to make visits that no one was going to enjoy anyway. “What a surprise,” Kul said, not smiling. Udom had these little bird-bones in his shoulders and a weak chin; it always gave Kul the impression that, if he wanted to, he could squeeze Udom between his forefingers. Kul cocked his head to the side and took a step toward him. “You stalking me?” Udom closed his eyes for a few seconds, and Kul wondered what emotion he was trying to suppress. “I've left a few messages for your assistant. It sounds like she's taken messages, but I guess she's, ah–forgotten them. She did let me know you were coming here. I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this, but you have to know—Pa’s dead.” “I got the message,” Kul said, turning around, fist wrapped tight around his duffel bag. “You think I didn’t?” “Sorry. I’m sure you did. I just—I just don’t think he’s all the way gone.” “You’re too old to believe in that superstitious bullshit,” Kul said, weaving through a crowd of tourists. God, the simpering piety; he couldn’t stand it. It’s just what their Ma expected for both of them. Kul was smart enough to listen to Pa, who knew that success was money, and the best way to get money was to get yourself in a good place and never apologize once you were there. Kul went to the states and outsourced jobs; Pa loaned money to gamblers and hit them until the paid him back. And Udom washed towels at a beach resort. “You gotta get out of there, buddy. Take it from me. Never been happier since I left.” “Everyone’s seen the shadow on the beach. Me, Ma, the aunties—even one of the tourists asked Ma about it. It goes on for miles. It’s a pret, Kul. When I’m walking down there to think, after Ma goes to bed—I feel him. There’s no end.” “Sounds like a cloud to me. You know these stories are metaphors.” “I need you to see it,” Udom said, stepping in front of Kul. “You have to feel it. You have to know. You were always just like Pa. And you’re going to end up like him.” They were at the taxi landing. Kul climbed in and looked back at Udom. “Hope the twelve-hour drive was worth it,” Kul said, before closing the door and giving the driver his hotel address. * * * As soon as he got out and paid the driver 400 baht, an aching settled into Kul’s temples. It was the loving Bangkok air and the jet lag—everything was a blurry mess of light and flesh. But there were no shadows, and as he rode the elevator up to the forty-fifth floor, he tried to make sense of what Udom actually wanted. With Pa gone and Kul in the States, Udom answered for the family; this was how he showed his strength, by pulling Kul back home. By the time Kul shoved his key card into the hotel room, he was feverish and shivering. It had to be that lovely chicken they served on the plane, he thought, as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor and looked out the room’s rear window. Bangkok’s bustle was shrouded by a thin green mist, and Kul smelled the hint of something ripe and rotting. He ran to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before throwing up. As he pulled himself up, he thought about Udom. Maybe he’d had some bug on him, gotten too close, passed it onto Kul and ruined his trip. Or maybe… He splashed water on his face. What was he going to say to his boss? The company had fronted this money to fly him out so that he could sign things in person, shake hands with people, make them feel like they had a friend at the company. They’d think he was trying to grift them if he complained he was too sick. And what’s more, they’d think that he didn’t have the constitution, the backbone, that he didn’t want his promotion, couldn’t handle the power, the responsibility. Then he caught another whiff of the rotting smell and he was kneeling over the toilet again. He’d returned to the toilet five more times in the course of an hour. Around him, the HVAC system was making the weirdest noise: something weak and whistle-like, like air hissing through a leak in a balloon, or an animal punctured in the chest. And then, as he dared to crawl out of the bathroom, a tongue lashed the window. He knew it was a tongue because it was attached to a very small mouth of a balding, severe man, its stretched, emaciated torso stretching up forty-five stories. Kul crept to the window, feeling poisoned in more ways than one by Udom. He remembered feeling too old for the pret stories from friends’ grandmothers, like they were quaint nonsense, while Udom ate that poo poo up. But some of it had lodged in his head, set loose from its prison by whatever microorganism was camping out in the plane’s cacciatore. “Pa,” Kul said. The word was barely out of his mouth. So loving weak. This was Udom bullshit. But the man licking the window with a tongue like a fire hose wouldn’t be anyone else. And then the window wasn’t there; the humid malaise of the Bangkok air cut through the air conditioning and roiled Kul’s stomach again. The pret lingered, sniffing, maybe. Then its lasso of a tongue swept into the room, prodding around the baseboards, getting under the carpet. Kul crept back and retched, but nothing came out this time. Eventually the pret found its prize. Its tongue coiled around an air vent and pulled taut. The vent burst off with a sound like a firework. Beneath the gate was a weasel with a distended stomach, its head half-blackened and slick with rot. The pret—Kul’s father—wrapped the thing in its horrible tongue, which then pulled back suddenly; Kul thought of the snapback of a roll of measuring tape. The tongue strained to fit the dead creature into the small pucker of the pret’s mouth, which was no bigger than the hole of a beer bottle. Both ends of the weasel bulged, and then it burst and slipped free, its wretched carcass falling on the streets below. Kul pulled himself to his feet. His weakness was still there, but he had to get closer, had to see what the creature would do, so rejected. It let out another one of those gut-shaking low moans, and when Kul made it to the edge of where the window used to be, the city streets below had vanished as well, its paved streets and lights replaced with a layer of banyan trees and the sound of the ocean, and the sound pushed the pinned animal button in Kul’s brain, the feeling of listening to Ma just not stop talking about money, the wheedling of the alcoholic souvenir salesman and the flat staccato sounds of Pa’s voice. The long, snaky tongue jabbed out again, wrapping around Kul’s torso, his neck. The tongue was as dry and rough as a cat’s. But the tongue pulled away as soon as it had touched him; not good enough, Kul thought. Not rich enough. Not as good as a liquefied weasel. “I’m trying,” Kul said. “I really am trying, you rear end in a top hat.” A swell of fog billowed up between them, and another wave of weakness seized Kul. He staggered back and fell into a deep sleep. * * * He missed the meeting. Of course he did. Probably it would be OK. He called Udom. Udom didn’t pick up. Kul didn’t blame him, but he didn’t leave a voicemail either. The window pane was back. The air conditioning grate was still popped off, and the inside still smelled like death and decay. Maybe Kul was imagining it. He took a thirty minute shower. The fever had broken, but he felt heavy, constricted, and flattened. There were two whole days before his flight back. In two days, he could rent a car and drive to Phuket. He could see Ma and maybe that would do something for her. Probably it would. He thought about it for at least a few minutes. And then he called into work, pleading and dripping apologies. Just like Udom. He would, he resolved, visit Phuket again. Not this trip. But sometime soon. Not to stay. He’d just remember the air, remember the faces, remember the best bowl of poh taek in the world—and remember the beach, as it was, as it should be, bright and shadowless.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2020 05:23
|
|
|
 Week 421 Recap! Antivehicular, Yoruichi, and myself discuss the stories of week 421, with some fresh hot takes on a week where people were Definitely Trying Some Things. Come to hear people talk about something you wrote, stay for a discussion of good beginnings and a dramatic reading of M. Propagandalf's "The Transubstantiation at Maneki Lake." Special thanks as always to MockingQuantum for editing our chatter into something listenable. Listen on the archive or wherever you get your podcasts!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2020 23:57
|
|
|
In, flash, hellrule.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2020 18:38
|
|
|
Seed sender Core desire: to defend Hell Rule: Once planted, the seed requires no nutrition. Instead, it generates waste that must be attended to or it will not grow. Junk 1,331 words Jaclyn’s husband spends all day in the greenhouse, fussing over the nasslaphil plants, and Jaclyn hates him for it. For one thing, he’s too old. She tends her strawberry crop and watches his hands shake, as he holds a magnifying glass up to the nasslaphil ovary. No seeds yet. And in his other hand, he plucks a long tough slimy strand of fibers and filaments from the soil, totters ever-so-slowly across the slight swelter of the greenhouse, and deposits the garbage in its designated bin. “Dear,” she says, “let me do it.” David shakes his head. This is important to him—that his love alone foster the plants. They’ve been married for nearly fifty years, and this is still his rule. Some seasons, it irks Jaclyn, but this year they’re ugly things, almost obscene: the puce-tinged drooping flowers, the scent something like a decomposing animal doused in cheap cologne. And yet they’re still a novelty, a kind of life that hasn’t existed before. Jaclyn reminds herself that that’s the beauty, that’s the magic, whenever she take the filth excreted by the thing’s roots to the garbage. David returns to the chair, sinking back down into it like he’s melting into a pile of goo. She comes over and rubs his shoulders. “We don’t have to send them this year,” she says. “We can—” “No, no, no. You give up so easily. You don’t try hard enough. I thought you believed in me.” “We all have fallow years.” The envelopes in Jaclyn’s office are addressed and stamped already—the career botanists and the hobbyists, the merely curious and the devoted followers. David is well-known in cult horticulture for his plants, which are rarely pleasant and always a pain to care for. Last year he’d developed a carnivorous plant that would only eat venison, and they’d gotten letters all year asking for the secrets. David refuses to indulge them. “If they don’t figure it out for themselves,” he says, “it’s not special anymore. It’s just a product.” But the nasslaphil was different; it wasn’t just odd or confusing, but it threatened to make the world worse. “David, isn’t there enough trash in the world?” “It’s not trash, Jackie. It’s just something we haven’t figured out yet.” As far as Jaclyn could tell, this is too optimistic: the thorny, sharp film coming up from the soil resists anything she tries to do with it. Grinding it up makes a slurry that doesn’t even work as an adhesive, and any other plant exposed to it seems to die. Even the nasslaphil itself. It’s a needy plant, requiring near-constant attention to pick out the ugly, unusable parts. She wishes he would make something beautiful again, but he turns away whenever she offers her suggestions. David coughs, and he doesn’t stop. Jaclyn hurries up to him, searches his desk for an inhaler. He’s swatting her hand away—leave it—but the cough sounds like there’s a monster in his chest about to pop both of his lungs. Tears pool in his eyes, but he’s still squinting at the plant, poking at its ugly, greasy flowers with a pair of forceps. And then, in a gap between fits, he reaches in behind the bulging flower of one plant and plucks a large, white seed. It looks like an eyeball. “We’ll have,” he says, and pauses to cough, “we’ll have our season after all.” *** He’s too sick to go to the greenhouse by the end of the week, so for the first time, he lets Jaclyn take over for him. It is a long-awaited privilege that now feels like a burden; the smell of the nasslaphil reminds her of all the times he nearly fell this winter, all the times he stared blankly at the leaf of some plant and Jaclyn had to figure out if it was artistry or a petit mal seizure. She plucks seeds and combs through the soil beds with a tiny rake to peel out the slimy, thorny waste. The repurposed compost bucket is full of the stuff. Together, it looks like a tangled ball of purple yarn stuck through with burs, and there’s nothing quite like it. David is a genius, even if, sometimes, she wishes his was cancer-curing genius rather than art-plant genius. In the evenings, she sits by his bedside and fills the envelopes. The plants don’t produce a lot of seeds, so David agrees to ration the samples more tightly than they usually would. Two or three, not whole handfuls. “They’ll just have to be careful,” Jaclyn says. “They won’t be,” David says. “They’ll cut their hands in the soil and curse my name.” He smiles, and she remembers the young gardener she’d met in the sixties. He’d been growing grass then, and he’d been good at it—there was a postcard in one of Jaclyn’s scrapbooks signed by three of four Beatles, with the inscription To our dear friend David — how does your garden grow? And Jaclyn, dragged along to his house by her burnout roommate, had asked him what else he liked to grow. “Anything you can imagine,” he’d said. “I mean it.” And he’d done it—flowers like fractals, stems that French-braided around themselves, buds that drooled with bubblegum-pink sap. Now, he dozes between wheezing fits, as she finishes the stack of envelopes. One of them is addressed to the Mayo Clinic’s research facility. David objects to this sort of thing; he finds the idea that his plants would be used for practical purposes profane, but as she listens to the heaving, terrible breaths, she thinks: Let the world be lousy with profanity! On a day where his lungs are less traitorous than usual, Jaclyn brings him a Tupperware container full of the nasslaphil’s marblelike seeds. He sticks one big, trembling, liver-spotted hand into the bin, wiggles it from side to side, and there’s a look of satisfaction on his face, like that of a cat rubbing its head against all of its favorite things. “Promise me that you won’t ever tell them the secret,” he says, grasping Jaclyn’s hand with his right hand as his other stirs the seeds. “Which one?” Jaclyn isn’t sure what the secret is. To throw away the filth so that the stinking flower can grow, live, and wither? Any fussy-enough gardener could figure it out. “All the ones you’ll find next year. And the year after that. And…” He’s coughing again, and Jaclyn takes a handkerchief and wipes his mouth. “That’s not me,” Jaclyn says, gripping his hand tight. “You know it’s not. You never let me near the plants.” “I don’t collaborate. And I don’t compete. Especially when I know I’d lose.” He falls asleep, his hand still halfway immersed in the tub of seeds. Jaclyn gently removes it and kisses each of his fingers. She walks back to the greenhouse with the tub of seeds. It’s late, so she places them on David’s table—a tomorrow job. When she flicks the lights off, it’s still bright, even though it’s nearly 10 PM. The compost bin is lit up in an eerie blue light; from outside, a ray of moonlight cuts through the greenhouse, beaming straight onto the filaments, now radiant with a thousand different colors. It’s beautiful—the first time this season she’s seen something that’s put her in this hallowed mood. She hurries back upstairs—does David know? Has he seen this? Was it part of his plan? When she reaches the bedroom, she stops, knowing before she opens the door. The air is cool, and the moonlight pools in through the window, and as she approaches her husband, as she takes his now-cooling hand, she catches a whiff of the scent of the nasslaphil, and although it’s foul and pungent, it is so purely him that she knows she will never throw its tendrils away again.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2020 02:30
|
|
|
Week 424: Convicted of Doming and Driving This week we’ll be writing road trip stories! Who doesn’t love a road trip – hours of being in the same car with other people with no chance of escape? And there’s all the things you could pass, like cornfields, farmland, thousand-year-old ruins, UFO crashes, and cornfields. Don’t feel limited to just stories that take place in cars. As long as the story is about characters traveling together to a destination (or maybe away from a destination?), it’s a road trip. Note that this is characters, with an “s” – no solo travel! Use the buddy system! Word limit is 1250 words. If you submit on Saturday or earlier, you’ll get 1750 words. While they won’t earn you extra words, I’ll also provide flash rules on request, providing a destination and a reason for travel. Don’t submit: poetry, erotica, fanfiction, Google Docs Enter by: Friday, September 18th, 11:59 PM EST Submit by: Monday, September 21st, 7:00 AM EST Judges: sparksbloom GrandmaParty Flesnolk Entrants: crabrock magic cactus MockingQuantum Thranguuy Mekchu take the moon derp sparksbloom fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Sep 20, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2020 12:51
|
|
|
crabrock posted:in, flash plz destination: a hometown Purpose: getting the ol' gang back together
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2020 16:50
|
|
|
magic cactus posted:In and flash please destination: a national park purpose: a really good selfie MockingQuantum posted:yeah okay, in and flash me please destination: the sea! purpose: a very rare fish
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2020 00:17
|
|
|
take the moon posted:in & flash pls & tia destination: Disneyland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or another park of your choice purpose: someone just turned 9 years old
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2020 00:53
|
|
|
Antivehicular posted:In, flash destination: some really really olde ruins purpose: true love... or is it?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
oh yeah entries are closed.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2020 19:42
|
|
|
submissions are closed. I'll still crit your story if you submit late.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2020 12:49
|
|
|
Week 424 results take the moon wins with some memorable imagery and a powerful oppressive atmosphere, even though this plays a little loose with the prompt. magic cactus loses with a story that isn't terrible, but lost points for the "vengeful native" trope and a prose style that rubbed some of the judges the wrong way. No mentions this week. To quote my co-judge Grandma, "the rest of you are safe. Safe is a bad place!" Will post crits by the end of the week. take the moon write a prompt please!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2020 01:34
|
|
|
while we wait for take the moon to post a prompt ...here's the week 422 recap for ghost week!, starring The Saddest Rhino, weltlich, and myself. Rhino provides background and context for each of the ghostly stories. We also talk about the writing in the stories, too! The end features a dramatic reading of GrandmaParty's "The Logistics of it All." Available on the archive or wherever you get your podcasts. Special thanks to MockingQuantum for editing these recaps.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2020 03:22
|
|
|
in
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2020 23:08
|
|
|
Red Light 796 words My client bought the Benton Tower back in May, and it was still in bad shape when I went to conduct the assessment in August. In half of the rooms, we found people dead of starvation, sitting in front of the windows with pads of paper, the sheets covered with petty observations about the strangers on the streets below. “2:12 PM. Man carrying a Subway (?) sandwich. Looks at phone, then jaywalks.” It was unpleasant work, weaving between the paramedics and the detectives to take inventory. I called in my executive assistant, Sheila, to help with the really nasty rooms. I know it wasn’t what she’d signed up for, and I almost felt bad, but I needed her. Some of the people had written on the walls, the furniture. Someone had scrawled no one even looks at each other all over their couch and bedsheets, and aside from the human stench, it just wasn’t something I could look at for long. The human brain attempts to form narratives, and at a certain level of consultancy, you just have to short-circuit that with either booze or subordinates. When Sheila came by she took one look at the room and retched. “You can’t hire a cleaning company?” “I don’t want anyone sniffing around in here. Liability.” Some of the details leaked out anyway. Sheila was dodging a reporter who was asking about a notebook that had been posted on Reddit, full of these mundane observations at first (Red car followed by a green truck followed by a tractor trailer) but then becoming something grittier (They’ve stopped feeding us. No one is coming. No one is coming.) The company line, which Sheila was so good at delivering (“We don’t comment on speculation,”) was getting less convincing, especially after they deposed the building’s previous owners. I went and picked up a couple of tortas for Sheila and I to share after she finished inventory on the eleventh floor. I met her in what used to be a ballroom; now it was full of filing cabinets and lawyers, although no one had taken down the mirrorball. She met me an hour late, smelling of death and ink. I’m a professional. I didn’t even grimace. I just passed her a torta and we ate. She’d aged years in the weeks we’d been on this project. It’s what happens when you press down on something you don’t want to think about, when you have to the work to jump between the neurons in your head and stop them from kissing. It all comes out in your face. “Mine’s cold,” Sheila said. She took another bite anyway. Around us, TVs were playing all of the major news networks. We were part of the Benton Tower Event now. “Can I ask you a question?” Sheila said. She was staring vacantly at a TV. Not even about the BTE. Just a Tupperware commercial. I crossed my arms. “You can ask.” “Are you seeing anyone?” “No, I’m not seeing a therapist. And if you are, you can’t talk about—” “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I mean, romantically—are you seeing anyone?” I realized I had been folding and unfolding the receipt from the tortas. Sheila had a lot of promise. She would show up for the tough jobs and figure out what needed to be done without asking a lot of questions, so it was strange to hear her be so forward. “Not anymore,” I said, eventually. Then, although I never ask this question, I asked “Why?” “Oh,” she said, still looking at the TV. Now it was a life insurance commercial. “Just trying to understand you better, I guess. Like what it means for you to go home.” “It means I have everything the way I like it,” I said, “and exactly where I want it. What does it mean for you to go home?” Half of her torta was lying on a napkin like a corpse; a big shmear of guacamole traced a green line across it. She looked down at her hands, and I felt a big stab of feeling in my chest that would come out on my forehead later. “Some of the rooms were empty,” I said. And then I broke my rule: “The people left. And I bet the people here were very sad people, that chose to be here, that were paid to be here, that found peace and happiness and tranquility in this beautiful old building. At least some of them. But you didn’t hear that from me. Okay?” I coughed on a wisp of smoke coming from the other room; a laywer hurried past with a notebook in his pocket. Sheila looked past me, nodded, and finished her torta.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2020 02:59
|
|
|
In, flash.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2020 02:51
|
|
|
Week 424 recap! If you wrote a story for road trip week, come listen to Flesnolk, GrandmaParty, and myself discuss it here. Featuring a dramatic reading of Gorka's "An uncommon passenger." Get it on the archive or wherever you get your podcasts.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2020 00:15
|
|
|
Weltlich posted:sparksbloom - The Diggers The Best Years of Your Life 1,500 words The junior high principal finally caught Louisa skipping class in the courtyard. It had taken him too long, Louisa felt; she was trying to make a statement about the shoddy state of the school lunch program. They never served fresh food, so Louisa decided she would grow some. Half the school could just have looked out the window when they were daydreaming in math class, and they’d find Louisa there, digging up the grass and planting the seeds from her bagged apple. Sitting across from him in the office, she crossed her arms. Getting in trouble was new to her. She liked it when everyone just did the things they were supposed to do; whenever there was tension in the classroom between teacher and kid, her skin started pricking, and she would wonder if they were going to cancel lunch forever, or if someone’s fangs were going to come out. The principal was made of dirty food and bubblegum. All of the teachers at the school were. He stared at her, his eyes mold-eaten grapes, and he said something almost entirely unintelligible, except for the word “aspire.” From a desk drawer he retrieved a meat cleaver and brought it swiftly down on his desk. The wood cracked and Louisa scooched her chair back. The whole room smelled like rotten eggs and body spray. “I won’t go into the courtyard anymore,” Louisa said, trying to meet the principal’s grapes. He considered her. The door swung open and the vice-principal, made out of noodles and gauze, walked in with Maggie H. behind her. Maggie was always first in line when the cafeteria was serving reheated beetles and everyone else was eating the lichen they scraped off of the gym bleachers. “Why can’t you be more like Maggie H?” the teachers would ask them, and they would stare listlessly at the splintering wood on the termite-riddled tables. Louisa imagined Maggie was doing it to prove a point, though she wasn’t sure what. The vice-principal was making a noise like a lawnmower crossing a yard full of silverware, so Louisa used the opportunity to scoot her chair back further while the principal studied the meat cleaver. Most kids who visited the principal’s office made it back to class unscarred. But what if you weren’t going to class? Was that still a guarantee? Then the vice-principal put a gauzy appendage on Maggie’s back and one on Louisa’s back, and she led them out into the parking lot, which was empty of cars but three inches deep with swampy water. The vice-principal handed both of them a bucket, gestured at the woods, and made the lawnmower noise again. When she left, Maggie H said “Look. I don’t know what your deal is, but I need to make a pact with a primordial beast.” “I was just hoping to get some better food in the cafeteria.” “OK, that’s really wonderful for you. Listen, could you bucket this swamp water into the forest for me? There’s just some wrapping up I have to do — if the candles burn out, I won’t be able to perform the ritual until Jupiter’s in the 4th house again, and let me tell you, that’s a really long time.” “Can I help?” Louisa wasn’t especially interested in witchcraft or primordial beasts, but she didn’t want to be left alone in the parking lot; there were some teachers that would come out here to feed after dark, and the sun was setting soon. “I don’t know. You’re like, invisible. I bet you could totally perform a summoning ritual without anyone noticing. You’re not even on Instagram, are you?” Louisa shrugged; her parents wouldn’t let her on social media until she gave them the password to her account. “I can do whatever you need me to do.” Together they slogged their way out of the parking-lot swamp, circled back around the school to what used to be the football field but was now occupied by the fetid corpse of a very large yeti. “Before the ritual,” Louisa said, “I want to ask you. Do you think they feed us OK at the cafeteria? According to the USDA, these meals don’t meet nutritional guidelines.” “Uh huh,” Maggie said. “Listen. Can I give you some advice? You have to pick your battles. Unless you’re strong enough to summon a primordial beast that feeds on vengeance and beetles. Then you can probably just win all of them.” Louisa thought about it, but as sound as the advice was, she really just missed mangoes. How long had it been since she had last sunk her teeth into the succulent flesh of a ripe mango at its most velvety and juicy? Years. She imagined herself as a Mango Appleseed, feeding the folk of the school with mangos, tossing pits here and there to feed future generations, giving back to the community in a way she had never felt confident in before. “You’re probably right,” Louisa said. Maggie told her the incantations and the correct order to light the candles, and once Louisa had repeated these back to her, she pushed Louisa toward the hollowed out side of the yeti, where Maggie kept her altar inside a femoral artery. “Just remember,” Maggie said, “you’re just my vessel. You’re just saying the words. You have to make the intention be ‘give this demon to Maggie H.’ OK?” Louisa shrugged, held her breath, and stepped inside. The stage was already set—all of the right essential oils, rare herbs, and animal organs has been deployed at their correct stations. Louisa took a deep breath and recited the incantation while lighting the candles, but she still couldn’t keep the thoughts of better lunches out of her head. She wasn’t entirely sure what the reception had been to her proposal, but it felt, frankly, oppressive: what world was it where the simple wish for fresh food was met with the drawing of knives, the issuance of Sisyphean tasks? The yeti’s body began to shake, and the walls of the blood vessel grew grey with angry lines and a smoke that smelled a little like fruit. And then, a mango twice the size of Louisa appeared in the summoning chamber. “Hello, human,” the mango said. “You have awoken me from a slumber that has lasted far too long and I see that I am in quite an unsuitable vessel.” The mango could feed the whole school for a week, maybe. It would depend on how much the teachers could or would eat. “Oh, sorry about that,” Louisa said, realizing the mango was waiting for a response. “So what kind of things can you do?” “I can crush minds on a whim, make mortals believe that they can find God by cracking their heads in twain, and—” “How’s it going in here?” Maggie called from outside. She stepped into the chamber, and in the dim candlelight, Louisa couldn’t make out much of her expression. “Oh, come on. What did you do?” “The mango was just telling me about the things it can do. It sounds pretty powerful.” With a squishy noise of impatience, the demon mango rolled toward them. Louisa grabbed Maggie to pull her out of the way, and the mango rolled out onto the football field. The yeti was already smelling fresher. Outside, the mango has rolled itself through the school’s brick wall into the gymnasium. Maggie chased after it. “You’re dead if you don’t help me get this back!” Maggie said. The mango had happened upon a group of students cowering under the bleachers. In an instant, the students were transformed into wildcats, and they darted out of the giant mango sized hole in the gym, heading right for Louisa. “That’s it!” Louisa said, now running away from the school and its wildcats. “Why don’t you turn someone else into something that eats mangoes?” And then Louisa realized—the power was within her the whole time. She was no longer afraid of the wildcats. They were no match for her appetite for mango. At the sheer force of her determination, the wildcats ran off in diverging directions to eat a squirrel or something. Behind her, Maggie was incanting something—something, Louisa was sure, that would allow her belly to fit an entire mango inside her, even if it was kind of unripe and not really that appealing yet. She dashed past the principal and the vice-principal, who were both covered in something syrupy and mango-scented. The principal tossed her his meat cleaver, which was either an apology or attempted murder (Louisa wasn’t sure), and Louisa snagged it, just as she reached the cafeteria where the mango was holding court over hundreds of captive children. “We meet again,” Louisa said, and plunged forward with the meat cleaver, cutting loose a piece of demon mango. It was succulent, dripping with juice, and rich—all the things a mango should be. She dug in.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2020 04:21
|
|
|
I'm in. Flash and  for charity.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2020 03:47
|
|
|
Institutional Memory 1771 words Ollie and his mother were huddled at the window, watching the last of the Union ships depart from the Kuramvilk outpost. His mother took a sip from a flask, leaned back in a recliner, and said “It’s too late, you know.” Ollie didn’t know, but he had a few guesses. His teachers had all been Union and taught lessons exclusively in Standardized English, and he couldn’t understand half of the Kuramvish dialect, which was a matter of great disappointment among his mother’s friends. And then there were the Union social workers Ollie had been seeing twice a week. Usually they just played chess and talked about his friends (nearly all of whom Ollie had invented), but the way his mother talked about them, Ollie knew they wanted something more, something that Ollie couldn’t give them. “If they could,” she always said, “they would pin your head down under a machine and extract all the thoughts from you, all the things that they could never think of themselves.” But they couldn’t do that anymore, not legally, not since the Keltencisz compact. Ollie was never sure exactly what was contained in the compact, but he gathered that terrible things were happening all the time before it. People running scared in the entry bay. The people around his mother all talked about it the same way — hushed voices, fingernails digging into palms, all of that. The way they’d stiffen and speak with a fragile voice when a Union member crossed them in the hall. Ollie was glad they were gone, if only for his mother’s sake. Maybe she’d stop drinking so much. Maybe she’d stop looking at him with those laser eyes, like she was trying to empty something in his brain out. “There’s something different about you today,” she’d say to him, at least once a day. “Show me.” And she would take pictures of him and compare them with the previous pictures of him, like she suspected he had been replaced by an imposter. And she was half right. *** “You’re what we’d call a show-off,” Anyuda said, as Ollie turned his hair from long, running, and curly to the neat, short crew cut. “Just because the people who call the Union home have left, we aren’t free from the Union.” “I’m not doing this for fun. I’m going this because I have to.” Together they were working on sorting through boxes of sealed documents, bequeathed from the Union upon their leaving. Mostly the boxes were legal documents, written in Kuramvish in a stylized script that Ollie couldn’t read. Most of the papers had been burned — an oxygen storage issue, supposedly — but together Ollie and Anyuda would salvage anything that could still, theoretically, be read. Ollie only knew a few words, like the word for “beloved,” ki’zirom, which his mother would whisper to him when putting him to bed. And it certainly wasn’t on these papers. This was an interim job, anyway — the kind of thing they threw people who they didn’t have any use for. The Union wanted everyone to put things together, to build things, to make circuit boards bloom with possibility, and Ollie had resisted this so much that he’d made the wiring to the whole school bay vanish in a fit of pique. That was why they’d paired him up with the social worker. “Listen,” Anyuda said. “I’m not sure I’ll be around tomorrow.” Anyuda had always been around, looking twenty years old since Ollie could crawl. They had gone from babysitter to peer at some point, and Ollie was never sure if either of them had really been comfortable with that transition. They claimed to have witnessed the Union’s rescue of the Kuram from their dying planet, but wouldn’t talk about it directly; instead, they transformed into the merchants, the artisans, the spirit workers who had been left behind, and muttered rapid-fire Kuramvish. As if they expected Ollie to be impressed. Mostly, Ollie was just happy to have someone else to talk to who hadn’t repressed the shape-changing. Ollie’s mother thought it was a filthy thing. “Playing with yourself,” she’d say, and rip a chunk of his hair out. “Go on. Fix it, and I’ll do it again.” “Listen,” Anyuda said again. “Tomorrow, we’re going to get some people together to depose the ship’s Parliment. If it goes well… things are going to look a lot different around here.” “I’m sorry,” Ollie said. “Aren’t you always asking me to not get myself in trouble? Staging a coup sounds like trouble.” Anyuda crossed their arms. “You’re fifteen. I’m… older. I can handle trouble. People on this ship are starving.” Ollie said nothing. Of course he knew. His mother was one of them — that’s why she’d yanked Ollie out of his apprenticeship with the Union metalworker and sent him into odd-jobbing and scrounging, although he was only fifteen years old. “There’s people who want to see things differently. Food for everyone. The right for people to actually choose who they want to be. What they want to do.” Anyuda smiled. “Come on, Ollie. I know you’re with me on this.” With them? What did it mean to be with them? Ollie wanted to say yes — I’ll join you on your attempt to overthrow the government. Sign me up. “You can read this, can’t you?” Ollie said, holding up a piece of paper that only suffered minor burns. “What is it saying?” “What do you think these papers say?” Anyuda asked. “And why do you think someone tried to destroy them?” “I asked you a question,” Ollie said. He could play the game—oh, Anyuda, these are clearly very damaging documents to the Union, rife with abuse and treachery, and they destroyed them so no one could see their cruelty. This is something people tried to do to him — they were slippery, avoiding any kind of tells, any kind of opening, in hopes that this would be enough for him, the mere attention of another adult, and that he would grow to parrot exactly what they thought. Well, Ollie had plenty of attention. But he didn’t have plenty of answers. Anyuda shrugged. “Contracts, mostly. I don’t know a lot of legal terms. The language was outlawed for a while, you know. So there was a lot I forgot. But the one you’re holding—let me see.” Anyuda picked it up, traced the words with a finger. The temperature in the ship was dropping, and Ollie wrapped his arms together in front of his chest, willing his arms to grow hairier for that bit of extra warmth. Now that they were free of Union control, the Union was selling them the fuel that used to be complimentary. “This one,” Anyuda said, “this was a contract for a Kuram man to live for fifteen years as a Union officer’s golden retriever.” “And that was… common?” “Not that, exactly. But sure. We were starving, and we could change our shapes. Not a lot of practical things you can do with that. You can give yourself the strength to mine, and a lot of people do. Or you could sell yourself. The people who got in early sold themselves as spies. But you only need so many spies, and food and fuel for a planet is expensive. So sure. Servitude in a hundred different flavors until it was outlawed.” Ollie ran his hands through the other singed documents, thinking of all the years of bondage hidden in this indecipherable script. “And that was outlawed.” “Sure. Eventually some people stood up long enough and yelled long enough that the soft-hearted Union people said no more servitude contracts. It’s enough that you work for our companies and raise your children with our language — and while you’re at it, cut it out with that shape-changing stuff, it gives everyone awful memories.” *** That night Ollie waited for an announcement or an alarm. He wondered what it would mean to stage a coup; there were only a few thousand people aboard the ship and fewer were armed. Possibly Anyuda had stockpiled weapons somewhere. Ollie hoped they were OK. His mother was watching a television program — some old Union war film, with grinning, dirty men that Ollie supposed fit some Union standard of beauty. Every time Ollie tried to get up, his mother would snap “If you’re not comfortable, there’s more blankets under my bed,” and it was decided. Stuck on the couch, forced, for his mother’s comfort, to wear the girl’s body she needed him to have, while all the while Anyuda was out there changing the course of history, or maybe just the next month—it all left Ollie feeling exhausted, drained. Still, when the movie ended, he asked his mother: “What was it like for you? Growing up.” She took a swig from a flask. “You’re lucky,” she said. “You know that, right? You will never know how lucky you are.” “What’s that supposed to mean? Lucky? We have to skip dinner half the time.” She stood in front of a window, gazing out at the stars, one hand pressed against the counter. “Your grandmother was a show-off, you know. Different hair, different face every day. Filthy. Shameless. They asked her to stop—the Union—and when she tried to disappear into someone else, they put a bullet in her head and shoved her out the airlock. So you’re lucky that I don’t do that to you. That’s what’s lucky.” She took another long sip from the flask, and Ollie’s stomach roiled at the sharp reek of vodka. “The Union pushed Grandma out of the ship?” “No,” she said. “Your father did before the Union could catch her.” *** The next day Anyuda was, as promised, not there to sort through the unsealed documents. There hadn’t been any announcements. There was no traitor’s promenade, as Ollie would have imagined it. There were just boxes and boxes of singed contracts in a language Ollie couldn’t read. He sat at the desk in front of the stacks of documents and grew out his crew-cut to Anyuda’s long, untamed fringe, twisted his face to Anyuda’s sunken eyes and jutting cheekbones. He tried to put the weight and wisdom of hundreds of years into the new cells. He had hoped that there would be some difference, or at least some catharsis, in taking Anyuda’s form, that he’d have figured out where the real Anyuda would have ended up. Instead he looked down at the cask of documents and thought — If nothing else, I am free.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2020 04:52
|
|
|
in toxx
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2020 23:10
|
|
|
Atmospheric Disturbances 805 words It was raining goldfish. A carp day would be better, but you’d be surprised what you can do with goldfish. Abigail went out and fetched her stockings, and we hung them up by the grapevines so we could catch the fish for dinner later. I was finally going to meet Abigail’s mother, and we wanted to surprise her with fresh goldfish soup. “What does your mom like to do?” I asked her, as I sauteed some leeks in a cast-iron pan. “In her spare time. How do we entertain her?” “Well, she’s always been a workaholic. Very into attending zoning board meetings and arguing in strict opposition to whatever the first person to speak said. She also likes monster truck racing.” “So she’s what you’d call a messy Marcia?” Abigail cocked her head at me and gave me a can’t you be serious look. “Listen. If you want her to like you, first, don’t burn the leeks.” I splashed the leeks with goldfish stock and a heaping helping of horseradish. “And second—well, I think she just wants to make sure that you aren’t about to run out the door. That the two of us—we’re a certain thing.” “We clearly got the certain,” I said, “yes.” Abigail laughed as the pan started to bubble. The whole room was starting to smell like goldfish and horseradish—bon appetit! *** Abigail’s mother arrived just past midnight. I was worried, because the weather was reporting a potential shoe storm that evening, but by the time the loafers had started pelting our roof, we had secured Abigail’s mom away in the guest room. “A little dank,” she appraised, putting her bag down and squinting at the windows. “How old are those curtains?” “They’re vintage, Mom,” Abigail said, yawning performatively. “Come on, we’ll all be rested tomorrow.” “What’s that horrible smell? It’s like a fish died five years ago.” The goldfish stew had gone cold, but we had left it out in the kitchen, just in case her mom was hungry. “No one died,” I said, “and we’re all happy to see you.” “Hm,” she said, and sniffed. “Abby, dear, do you mind finding me a heavier blanket? I absolutely can’t abide light blankets.” Abigail shrugged at me and went out to the hallway, probably to find the blanket we’d stuffed with gold bullion, which was absolutely the heaviest blanket in the house. I smiled nervously at Abigail’s mother, whose name was actually Frances. “How was the drive?” “Don’t bullshit me,” Frances said. “I know that you’re only interested in my daughter for her appricable dowry. Well, I attest that the dowry is worthier than a man such as yourself.” To be honest, I was barely even aware of Abigail’s dowry, except with the knowledge that Frances insisted upon offering one, and that she had squawked terribly when Abigail dated the son of an unholstery tycoon. Abigail told me how Frances had been absolutely insufferable. She called up all of Abigail’s friends and told them “She can’t pay that family,” even as Abigail’s friends told her that no one would honestly expect a dowry these days. “Okay,” I said, hoping that Abigail would come back soon, “what would make me worthier?” “Dignity. Poise. A grand gesture. Maybe you could show up on Good Morning America. Or commission some weather, just for Abby. She likes tulips, you know.” Flower rain was nicer than goldfish or shoe rain, but one of the most expensive to commission; that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. “Listen,” I said, “I love Abigail, and she loves me. Isn’t that enough?” Abigail came in then, hauling the gold bullion blanket. “Heaviest blanket in the house,” she said, “just the way you like it, Mom.” Frances gave a tiny nod, as I helped Abigail lay it out on the guest room bed. I mouthed the dowry again to her, and she rolled her eyes. “Mom,” Abigail said, “I know it’s late, but have I told you that we’ve been very successful with cryptocurrency?” I nodded. An avalache of sneakers slid off the roof and landed in our backyard; we’d be spending all day tomorrow cleaning them up. “We’re doing well,” I said, “completely independent.” Frances suddenly looked weary. “It’s awfully late,” she declared. She palpated the blanket nervously. “We’ll let you sleep, Mom,” Abigail said. “We’ll have some steaming goldfish stew for you in the morning,” I added. Abigail kissed me, and we were about to turn the light off, when Frances said: “Can you make sure there’s oyster crackers?” “I don’t know,” I said. “What’s on the weather report?” Abigail checked her phone. “No oyster crackers. Wedding rings tomorrow.” Frances looked like she was about to choke on something. “I will if she will,” I said.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2020 02:06
|
|
|
In with I2.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2020 07:05
|
|
|
Two serfs on their way to Helsinki Declared that they'd get rather drinky They stole flagons of mead And consumed them with speed But found them too warm and too stinky.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2020 19:04
|
|
|
Sparksbloom the Blushing Man of Law *Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT *Tuesday's terrible inn: ABSENT * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like me, if I were holding a squirrel?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Shy Battleship demands GRAY * Thursday's Encounter: JUSTICE: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law / Unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty * Limerick: Entered (+50) Won 1st Place (+250) Began with 1300 words. Currently have 1650 words. Sparksbloom the Blushing Man of Law *Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT *Tuesday's terrible inn: ABSENT * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like me, if I were holding a squirrel?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Shy Battleship demands GRAY * Thursday's Encounter: JUSTICE: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law / Unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty * Limerick: Entered (+50) Won 1st Place (+250) Began with 1300 words. Currently have 1650 words. A Matter of Decency 688 words The local vicar summoned a judge to deal with a plague of naked people. Horace, fresh out of his legal training, having graduated with top marks in Repressing the Perverted Acts, arrived in a caravan of lechers and profiteers. The vicar greeted him outside of a busy market, which was crammed full of the nude and underdressed. “Your Honor! Truly it is a blessing for a man of such stature to come on such short notice.” Horace rubbed his hairless chin. “My pleasure,” he said, and looked down to avoid witnessing the sight of an elderly man’s buttocks. “Why are the people not wearing clothes?” “They have declared them uncomfortable and oppressive in the heat wave, sir.” Well, Horace thought, that was certainly no reason to surrender dignity and decency. The thought of his own shame being witnessed by any passer-by—why, that made him shudder to even consider it. “What remedies have you attempted?” “Ordeal by fire, sir.” “Ordeal by fire! And they still insist on not wearing a scrap of clothing?” “Aye, Your Honor, they claim that their garments interfere with the healing process.” A nude woman came up behind the vicar and whispered something in his ear. When the woman had slipped away and Horace could finally bear to look up, he was mortified to find the vicar, too, was now undressing. “Good heavens, my man!” Horace said. “What in the world are you doing? Remember your vows.” “It’s out of my hands now, your Honor,” the vicar said as he dropped trou, then left his sacred robes upon the cobblestone path as he strode into the market. Horace crossed the market, searching for anyone of sense who was still committed to decency. To a man, each person was as bare as Adam and Eve. The sun beat down upon his neck, beading a swamp between him and his judge’s cloak, but he relished in his suffering—it brought him closer to God. The only thing that made him closer was a breakfast he made from soaking millet in the leftover laundering water for seven days. “Sir,” Horace said, spotting a man wearing naught but a cloth tied ‘round his head, who was hawking an array of pungent fish. “you are in violation of the laws of our land.” He had never accused a man of a crime before, and he wasn’t sure if he was equipped for it. He considered that he would much rather come up with crimes that other people could be accused of, and explain at great length why it was important that these crimes exist, but alas, the English court was probably not established at the time this tale takes place. “What are you going to do about it,” said the man. “I shall make you wear a hairshirt,” Horace said. “You first.” “Good sir,” Horace said, “I have not committed the sin of displaying the most intimate parts of my body in broad daylight, and I will not commit myself to a punishment for a crime I have not committed.” Then, behind him, someone tapped his shoulder, and whispered “You’ve been tagged by the Clothing Arsonist.” And then his new judge’s robe went up in flames. “I will not give into your blasphemy, fiend,” Horace said, although, even though the heat on his back was growing hotter, he really just could not stomach the idea of being naked in front of these people. His cheeks burned brighter as the fishmonger looked at him expectantly. Horace burned to death. If you don’t send this story to at least five of your friends, the Clothing Arsonist will light your clothes on fire as well. Zero friends: the Clothing Arsonist burns your whole house down and then lights your clothes on fire. 1-2 friends: the Clothing Arsonist turns you into an eager new judge and lights your clothes on fire. 3-4 friends: the vengeful ghost of Horace himself lights your clothes on fire, but only the ones that sit at the bottom of the drawer that you’re really thinking of donating someday soon.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2020 07:22
|
|
|
I'll judge this week.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2020 06:24
|
|
|
to post crits by 8:00 PM PST on Friday
|
|
#
¿
Nov 16, 2020 20:06
|
|
|
Week 427 Recap! Is your name magic cactus, Tyrannosaurus, Uranium Phoenix, MockingQuantum, Anomalous Blowout, Thranguy, Dr. Klocktopussy, Walamor or sebmojo? If so, crabrock, Antivehicular, Weltlich and myself discuss your story on the week 427 thunderdome recap! Additionally featuring a dramatic reading of Pththya-lyi's "Ephemera." This recording was somewhat plagued by technical issues, so the audio's a little rough, but the crits go down smooth!
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2020 03:25
|
|
|
Also I'm in and will take song
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2020 07:26
|
|
|
space week crits Staggy - Getaway Trip Our hero is in a ship piloted by ants and needs to harness his own connection with the ants and the ship in order to survive. This is a neat, high concept idea, and it’s a fun, inventive ride with just enough different elements to keep things interesting. It’s a good example of a story that allows the protagonist to fail in ways that feel eventful, and the patter between the hero and Mama helps break up what could have been stacked technobabble and Things Happening. The ending feels a little abrupt, and I wish the story hinted a little more at what’s driving our character – are they chugging positivity because they’re trying to put something behind them? - but on the whole this is a well-deserved win. Djeser - First Contact Protocol Jone crashlands on a planet with an advanced consciousness, Telaion, that is very lonely and wants to make people happy so they stay with them. Overall, I like what this story is trying to do with its themes of understanding, of exploring what humans want – what is a good life. I think the character development suffers in the attempt to get philosophical, though, and Jone isn’t much of a character here. I think the beats of Telaion creating a predator because they believe Jone (and humans) want conflict are interesting, but they should probably be explored a little more, since I think there’s nuance here that isn’t on the page – so I’m not quite sure if this is supposed to work more as a comedy moment or to get at Telaion’s loneliness. GrandmaParty - Where to Go When the World Doesn’t Need You Marky is doing gladatorial battle in a world where people can be reincarnated; he has never been reincarnated and is anxious about the process, but his worries are assuaged by Kettrick, an experienced fighter. I think this is a good story, powered by an internal conflict that’s clearly on the page, and with a strong arc to it. The dialogue really pops here, and more importantly it gets at Marky’s anxieties and gives him a good foil for them. It feels really human and personal in a way I meshed with. (I’m also wondering if this story was at all influenced by Hit Video Game Hades.) Nae - Love Train Our protagonist and her friends do a lot of drugs and build a love train. This story is deeply rich with thoughtful, clever details and is infused with this period voice that glances at being “too much” but stops short of corny. This was my favorite story of the week, but I had to agree with Welt that this is not the positive ending or vibe that was asked for this week; honestly, this story feels deeply tragic, and our protagonist comes off as someone who’s been deeply alienated from most of the people in her life for a long time, and the 70s dressing feels like an attempt to paper over this. Which I think is a super neat dynamic and something you can absolutely work with going forward – it just wasn’t necessarily what this prompt was asking for. Gorka - Beyond the boundary This story needs to make its stakes clearer early on – in flash, you can’t hide what the characters want, or what they’re trying to do, and the first paragraph tells me nothing about this. I have a hard time getting interested in this story until the bugs show up, when this story then becomes kind of goofy but also pretty exciting. But once the bugs are dead the story becomes kind of unremarkable and like it’s just treading water. I think one thing that would help is giving the characters something to make them unique – sure, Steve wants the best Aquavit in the universe, but how come? Does he have any special memories associated with that? What drives Ethan to seek out the furthest reaches of the universe? This is the sort of thing that would really liven up the parts of the story where there are no intergalactic space bugs. Applewhite - The Dark Planet I’m sure this was fun to write, but it left me cold and a little annoyed. I know the sexism here is very tongue-in-cheek – and yeah, it’s very 70’s – but it really adds a sour note to the story (especially that awful “measurements” line). And the rest of the story – well, it’s very tropey and stays very faithful to those sci-fi tropes, but it strikes me as just so over-the-top goofy and pulpily written that it’s hard for me to really engage with. Even with a telepath in the crew, these characters don’t seem to have any inner lives, and I suppose that’s not the point, but it makes this feel like a stack of “another thing happened.” You gotta give us some reason for Duvall to sacrifice herself for this dude, even if it’s a cheesy one. I’ll say, though, that I don’t think any other story this week did a better job at staying on-prompt. flerp - to those who stared at the stars and wanted to know them Got bored when we were on the fifth paragraph and the character was talking about being bored. Look, this story is well written and the prose is very poetic but the story goes out of its way to avoid any kind of conflict or even any events for the most part, and it’s just this monologue about space explanation being beautiful and magical and mystical. And that’s nice and very pretty on the sentence level but it’s just not substantial at all. I mean, I like this whole idea of this character going through this change from a person of science to a person of – if not faith, than wonder – but the story sits directly in the wonder, so there’s no real sense of movement here, just this very static mood. Thranguy - 2021 This is awfully detail dense! I like the idea of this structure: the sense of a “we” as the protagonist, the reckoning of a shared history, but honestly the cavalcade of proper nouns and events kind of made this drip out my ears. The “twist” of “these invaders are actually from the past” could be interesting, but it comes too late in this story for these revelations to take effect. I also think this is a couple of shades too bleak and doesn’t feel especially lighthearted and positive for this prompt. I do think there is a cleverness in the density here – long periods of time and societal suffering are captured neatly in subordinate clauses – but it’s a little hard for me to get invested in. I’m blaming my own brain for this, though.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2020 02:27
|
|
|
In , please assign me a song
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2020 14:51
|
|
|
Song: The Things We Did and Didn't Do Lost Time 1057 words Robin screamed into her pillow and glanced, again, at the glowing alarm clock. It was past midnight, and Marina hadn’t come home yet. She’d been staying out later and later since she returned from Korea, and it kicked Robin right in the stomach. Like Marina was just daring her to ask where she’d been and who she’d been with, like some paranoid freak, like the kind of women they’d made fun of together when they first met. So Robin had been keeping her mouth shut, singing along to Demi Lovato over morning pancakes, making jokes about the neighborhood’s mysterious shower-yodeler while Marina offered a suspiciously faithful imitation, when all Robin wanted to ask was: Are we going to last? After tossing and turning for more than an hour, she changed out of her pyjamas and threw her coat on. She was going to go to the woods, where she ruled the fauna and Marina ruled the faura; usually she would let the animals be this late at night, but there was nowhere better for clearing her head, and the idea of just lying in bed another night to wait for Marina felt unbearable. The air was crisp and cool, the chill of a coming winter somewhere beyond the scent of autumn rot. Robin whistled, low and clear, at the foot of the woods, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. A woodchuck emerged, jittering, from a shadow of a pine, and blinked at her. “Hey, buddy,” she said, kneeling down. Its eyes quivered at her before skittering off; the forest had been peaceful, once, but they’d been building more houses and there’d been more kids moving in. Dogs. When Marina was in Korea for her internship with an intense-but-gifted sorcerer, Robin would tell her on the phone every week that they absolutely had to move – the magic was weakening here. “We have roots here,” Marina had answered. “Literal roots. The first tree I ever blessed is here.” And that was Marina – tethered to the idea of the old druidic traditions even when she flew halfway across the world for a year, or kissed some hedge witch and confessed with zero remorse months later, or threw up in the sink at Robin’s cousin’s wedding and never admitted to it. There was a sense of serene constancy to her, whatever her failings – a warmth and openness that made her feel like the truest home Robin had. On that moonless night, Robin listened for the sounds she expected; the near-but-not-too-near sounds of coyotes, the tread of little paws on leaves, the gentle thrum of the year’s last cicadas. But the forest was too quiet, thinner with life, or at least not nearly thick enough to cut through the turbine of doubt. And she felt the quivering thead of anxiety, little filaments of fear clouding the energy of the forest. The last time Robin had felt something like this was when the bee plague had descended on their town. That week Robin and Marina had clung to each other, Robin twitching with the panic of the bees and the hunger of the animals, Marina nearly paralyzed with the unfulfilled need of the plants. And they’d clung to each other, the touch of their hands something grounding and familiar as the forest writhed with a permanent loss. Now, as Robin reached the lake at the center of the woods, she began to understand. On the other side of the lake came a great swell of light, a pale white light retreating and extending out again. Even in the darkness, Marina’s silhouette was unmistakable – especially as she stood at the foot of her heart tree. “Babe, it’s me. It’s late,” Robin called, across the rippling black water. “Please. Come home. Come to bed.” The light dimmed and flickered out, before starting again, weaker than before. No response. And then from the darkness came a terrible roar. At some point, Robin broke into a run. At one point, Robin had enough magic to walk atop the lake’s water, but she was too distant from the forest now, and certainly too distant from the frogs and fish that lent their power, that she could only cut around them now. She felt a terrible sense of guilt – she hadn’t been visiting when Marina was gone. “Hey,” she said, as she came closer to Marina, spying her between a low canopy, “what’s–” “Stop,” Marina said, “please, just – I need to focus.” She laid her hands on the tree, eyes closed and brow furrowed, aura shimmering about her. The ground cracked between them, and the trees trembled with another terrible roar. Robin took a deep breath and tried to focus on understanding the beast – what sort of things it needed to be seen, understood, satisfied. But its signature was alien to her, unlike the rest of the forest; it had crept in unseen, its trail unabsorbed by Robin. A parasite, left to suck out the sap of every tree and the blood of every mammal. It was everywhere and nowhere. “I need you,” Robin said, “I can’t focus without you.” The ground shook again, and a tree limb crashed down in front of Robin; even in the ruckus, she hoped that no bird had built its next there. She ducked over it and closed the distance between her and Marina. Marina’s face was red, spent, her eyes dull and lost. “It’s not coming back,” she said, “the connection.” Even though the beast was roaring now, ceaselessly, blocking out all sound, Robin wouldn’t let that sit. She reached out and grabbed Marina’s hand, closed her eyes, and placed their clasped hands on the trunk of the tree. “Then we’ll make a new one,” Robin said. A flash of light burst open around them, tearing open the night and reaching right up to the sky. And suddenly there was silence, blackness, stillness. “Welcome back,” Marina said, extracting her sweaty palm from Robin’s grasp, before hesitantly laying it on her shoulder. “Hi,” Robin murmured, laying her own hand on Marina’s back. They were both, she realized, incredibly dirty. But that was an issue for later – for the moment, they laid by the tree, by the water, and thought about how to make up for a missing year.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2020 07:14
|
|
|
ok I'm in hellrule me week 365 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2020 23:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 15:01 |
|
|
I’m in
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2020 18:56
|
|