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Feb 22, 2021 21:37
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:14 |
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Hi
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Mar 6, 2021 02:57
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Hi I am doing this too because discord streaming drains too much battery from my phoooooone https://docs.google.com/document/d/15N0Ffn_--bOPIKigSZSyBNj4u-G4mZ30bCSmC8WlAFU/edit?usp=drivesdk
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Mar 6, 2021 02:59
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hey i really like this format, i just kinda ran out of what i wanted to do with the story so here we go Men Rust Over ~ Father took me to the mines when I was young, and put my hand on the rock at the entrance. I was a wee boy at the time, and my da wanted to teach me a lesson. “Feel anything, Levin?” “No.” “That’s right, ‘cause iron and rock feels not a drat thing for you, boy.” I know why he brought me there, and it was to scare me off from following in his footsteps. He spared me enough to send me off to school, to learn something or other of a trade beyond the pick, and I picked the trade of labor organizing, as scholarly work was never for me. He got ruined well before rock, iron, or the company man gave a single whit. The last one was a lesson that he didn’t teach me, but I learned well at the hands of the Pinkertons. But I didn’t need to see the mines to know going down there would be my grave. I saw it in the lines of his face, the dullness in his eyes, the rattling in his breath. He creaked when he moved, barely saw anything in front of him. Color clear drained out of him save for his stomach, red and distended. Worst of all, his arms, moving as if he’s still swinging pick at rock. Despite all that, he pleaded with me to go back. Company Doc said it was just old age. “Some men’s place is just to keep going ‘til he rusts over,” he spoke with a disaffected air, but his eyes never met mine for a minute, and I never trust a man whose eyes don’t meet mine. I know he’s lying, ‘cause when my father coughs every night, he ain’t coughing up phlegm, he’s coughing up rust, and I don’t know a natural ailment that does that to a man. So I got Jans, Ketler, and Berg together, like in the old days, and we got to thinking, and Jans, always the clever one, brought something real interesting up. “See, Boss Lars, he got some callers a couple of months back, say they wanted to invest into the mine or something. Seen him a lot less recently, looks paler, too.” I don’t know about you, but when I hear that some business types bargaining, my hairs go on end, so when I heard that, I knew something was up. We resolved to drink ‘til deep night, and head down to the mines and see what’s going on ourselves. The fence wasn’t anything at all to Ketler’s wire cutters, and we slipped in without any a notice. The place was real quiet, only a faint moaning sound from the workhouses some of the workers without homes lived in, so we laid low and watched the houses for movement. Lovely as the full moon was, it was the only company we had, til a single bell rang and one of the doors banged open. The moaning got louder as a line of folks started shuffling out the doors, hunched over, all going to the Boss’ place on site. Something weren’t right with the way they were moving, so we crept up closer. Each of em, glassy-eyed and broken-looking, worse off than even my dad. A rusty foam surrounded their mouths as they walked, some occasionally retching off to the side and vomiting up a puddle of the same. The double doors to the Boss’ place opened up soundlessly, as they shuffled in, unaware. We were resolved to sneak in closer til Berg gave out a gasp. “That’s my dad over there!” Now we were in for some poo poo, ‘cause the town knew well that Berg’s dad, Anton, got killed in a mining collapse a month or two prior. Held a ceremony for 10 minutes afore they rang the bell for work again. I swore to Berg that I’d cut his nuts clear off with a knife if he got us seen now, as he looked fit to start a ruckus, as they got closer to Boss Lars’ place. It had been going under some heavy construction, some folks saying the whole building was getting repurposed. We crept up on some scaffolding, trying to get an angle to peek in past all the boards and such, and got a good look through a bit of torn lumber. Entire floor of the place was wrecked, with a ramp from the entrance dug down into some sort of pit. We shuffled about to get a better look, and saw Boss Lars standing next to a fellow who didn’t look quite right. The workers shuffled in and surrounded this pit, some of them clutching their stomachs as if they were barely holding back what was within. A voice rose from the fellow, and it didn’t sound right either. You know when a man talks, his voice comes from him? His didn’t, it came from everywhere. “Ah, splendid, Mr. Garmin. The mines have never been more productive, have they?” Lars couldn’t look him in the eye, and said, “Well, ah, it’s just… Some of the workers are… Complaining.” “Complaining you say?” The wrong-looking fellow stretched a limb out to walk around Boss Lars, a limb that looked too large and too black to belong to any man. “I don’t hear any complaints.” The only sounds in the room were the moans of debased men. The folks surrounding the pit began to retch, more and more, as whatever was rotten in their guts began to rise from them They spat up iron. Chunks of loving iron, from their mouths, like some kind of ore hopper. The sound was filled with tortured cries as shells of men vomited out raw metal into the pit in front of Boss Lars and the fellow. The former could do little but look away, while the latter laughed and cavorted amidst the workers. “Delicious delicious delicious! You see, Lars, you SEE how pure the iron is getting. This will be perfect.” “I…. Don’t rightfully see the reason for all this, Mr. Kavanaugh. This isn’t right.” The figure stepped across the room to stand right in front of Lars. “Ah, but you see? Workers are much better when they aren’t unproductive. You’ve seen more than your share of workers become unproductive, haven’t you, old chap?” A hand, black as pitch, with fingers more like a spiders’ legs, clutched at Boss Lars’ shoulder. “We’re just making them more efficient. They can do all the rusting they like, but they won’t stop mining, and they won’t stop making it.” Mr. Kavanaugh’s head, covered up by a broad black hat, slowly rotated to face us, at an angle that weren’t human. Underneath the brim of that hat was nothing but a wide, white-toothed smile and glaring white eyes and some kind of indistinction that hurt you to look at. We ran after that. Something seized us, and we couldn’t stand the sight. All of us fled the way we came and scattered into the night. I got back home to the sight of the lantern burning low on the porch. It was off when I had left. I heard retching coming from upstairs when I came in, along with the clunk of something heavy hitting floorboards, but that didn’t matter. A rusty foam seeped through the ceiling, dripping down to the floor below, but I didn't care, because whatever was making it wasn't my father anymore. There were some calls to make, this time not to old friends or to old chums. Who could even help with this? I picked up the phone and went to dial a number, placing the headset up to my ear. All I heard was the sound of a disconnected line.
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Mar 6, 2021 04:27
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Aardvark! posted:golly i hope the judges weren't expecting or hoping for the stories to actually be good or anything Oh no mines bad too
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Mar 6, 2021 04:33
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I dont know i saw rust and thought "man rust vomit would be grody, working in a mine probably does that right???" so I thought about what I was doing for my Thunderdome entry and said "gently caress it same universe let's go" and did that
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Mar 6, 2021 05:05
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toanoradian posted:I'm gonna go against the grain and said I'm proud of my story. I mean same, it's probably better than my thunderdome stories Thats not saying a lot though
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Mar 6, 2021 05:15
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Mr. Steak posted:btw, every single time i wrote an adverb, i could hear sebmojo shaming me in the back of my head. so thanks for that, seb i forgot what adverbs were in the haste of writing
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Mar 6, 2021 05:20
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Ironic Twist posted:I will give an in-depth critique to anyone who asks for one. I think I know what I need to work on, but I'd love another look to tell me holes I'm missing.
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Mar 6, 2021 08:30
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I really liked it as I said, I can't tell you at all the process I did because I locked onto Rust and just went with it til the story was done The choice of words I think was narrowing enough to provide a sense of guidance but at the same time were general enough concepts to result in a wide variety of stories which I think is good and neat I wasnt expecting anything from the prompt and honestly I felt I got insanely lucky with how I picked up the prompt and just went with it
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Mar 6, 2021 09:47
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:14 |
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STAT! posted:And I've passed a barrier of some kind because once I read the critiques I immediately wanted to pack up and flee the forums, but only for a moment! Now I seek out this same rush and will look into Thunderdome asap. A week of allotted time sounds great! Thanks to all the judges for putting this on. Yeah I got my first critique from Thunderdome and I was way more worried about what it was gonna say, but when the critique came out it was way less worse than I expected. I've done three weeks so far and I'm hoping I can do more
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Mar 6, 2021 18:01
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