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 Write It Now is an ultra flash fiction contest. There have been two of these contests so far and they’ve been an absolute blast. Let’s do another! Here’s how it works: You may sign up from now until 2/6/25 @ 9PM EST. On 2/7/25 @ 9PM EST, a prompt will drop. At that point, start punching keys, because only a mere 2 hours later at 11PM EST, submissions will close. On your honor, do not write anything in advance or prepare for this contest. Any registered member of SA is welcome to join. Judgment will be fast, and all entries will be judged by myself, previous champ, My Shark Waifu, and runner-up Dermit! We will declare a winner, a place, and a show. First place will win 50 USD, second place will win 25 USD. There’s a chance that these prizes will go up, and/or more places will pay but that’ll be contingent upon other potential benefactors swooping in and making it rain on the contest, and more than at least 15 entrants signing up. Should that happen, I’ll announce it here. I’m running this contest in largely the same fashion as the last one. We’ve got a discord that you can join whenever you like: https://discord.gg/dYdauAyz3v and it’s advised that you join in at least for the contest so you can ask questions/commiserate/celebrate with everyone. That’s all you really need for now, but here’s Some rules and things:
The Fast Crew:
Chili fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Feb 7, 2025 |
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Jan 23, 2025 18:52
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Snagging this for announcements or somesuch.
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Jan 23, 2025 18:55
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ok i'm in
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Jan 23, 2025 18:58
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In
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Jan 23, 2025 19:24
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Sure I'll do it.
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Jan 23, 2025 21:56
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k sure let me see if i can get this
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Jan 24, 2025 00:52
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In
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Jan 25, 2025 20:51
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Sure, I'll give it a go.
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Jan 28, 2025 11:16
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Hi all, I'm bumping this thread as a reminder to sign up! You can win real money (and will get helpful feedback)!
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Feb 5, 2025 00:01
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Almost forgot to say in!
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Feb 5, 2025 01:11
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Very well
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Feb 6, 2025 21:46
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Hey all, apologies for not being quite as active in promoting this. Bad brain things etc. Suffice it to say: I'm not closing registration tonight. Anyone can sign up to participate until the contest starts.
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Feb 6, 2025 21:59
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We're getting started in just an hour! Sound off if you're here and ready. And if you haven't pulled the trigger to sign up, we'll give you 30 more minutes to get in the hot tub!
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Feb 8, 2025 01:02
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Hello there I'm in EDIT:Sorry, never mind. Good luck to you all! redshirt fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 8, 2025 |
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Feb 8, 2025 01:14
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Already sounded off in the Discord but I'm in this weird mode where I stopped what I was doing at 8:00 because I got the time wrong and now my brain won't let me go back to anything else. Thanks bad brain!
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Feb 8, 2025 01:23
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I might barely get home in time, dental visit went long
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Feb 8, 2025 01:24
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Now would definitely be a good time to jump into the discord and make sure you're all set there. I won't be looking at the thread during the contest but we do have PhantomMuzzles checking in to copy and paste your entries into a google doc. If she sees something she'll bring it to our attention but your best bet for a quick response is the discord! https://discord.gg/dYdauAyz3v
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Feb 8, 2025 01:27
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if anyone is interested in following along, I'll be writing in this Google doc
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Feb 8, 2025 01:54
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Good news everyone! Here's your prompt. It is but one word, with many different meanings! How fun?!  Additionally, when we selected the prompt word, our invaluable factotum, PhantomMuzzles, informed us that she knew of a very good dog that shares the name with our prompt.  How does this help you? As an option, not a requirement, you may also use this dog as a prompt, either by itself or in combination with the word! Oh joy! Stay tuned. If you're stuck, a new prompt will be dropping in ten minutes! GET TO IT!!!!!
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Feb 8, 2025 02:00
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Sorry for the delay. Prompt 2: You story features something that cannot be opened! I'll give you all an extra 10 minutes now. Cos that's my b!
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Feb 8, 2025 02:23
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That's half the time gone! Well almost, adjusting for the bump, entries are due now at 11:10!
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Feb 8, 2025 03:03
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you will eat dust 1,151 words I waited for hours in the pitch black. The uneasiness in my heart felt somehow lessened as I stood there in the shadows of the night. Like it was hiding from God. And succeeding. But as the sun began to rise so did that uneasiness grow within me and the church across the street, the one I’d grown up in, the one I’d been baptized in, that I’d opened my heart to the Lord in, it seemed to stare right into my soul and I could almost hear it speaking to me. Get on back now. Ain’t nothing right for you here. This here is a holy place. Ain’t for you no more. Maybe if Father Harleaux had been late to open the doors that morning then I would have lost my nerve or regained my sensibilities. But up the crooked sidewalk he strolled, cigarette in hand, blessing the morning fog with little puffs of smoke. He saw me coming. Stopped walking. Didn’t smile. Just stood there and waited. Even when I was a foot in front of him, he didn’t say a word. He just stood there and waited, watching me with those pale blue eyes, glittering in the early half-dark like a cat. Sister used to say them pale eyes and that dark skin made him look more like a witch or a hoodoo man than a preacher. Of course, she only said that once in front of Mama. Got a right beating for it. I rubbed my nose and exhaled.. “Got a minute, Father?” He was always weirdly perceptive. When we was kids, he always seemed to come round the corner just in time to catch us getting into trouble. I wondered if he already knew I had a gun in my jacket pocket. He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Got as many as you need. Come on inside with me.” I followed him in. The echoes of my footsteps seemed louder than his. Heavier. Even though I was trying to step soft as cat paws. He opened the rectory windows, fished out a silver cigarette case.from his pocket, and lit up a new smoke. He cocked his head towards the booth in the back. “You need to make a confession?” “No, Father,” I said. “But I hope one day you’ll forgive me all the same.” Harleaux flashed a yellow-toothed smile, crooked and curious. I paused. The red butt of his cigarette twirled lazily in the air as he motioned for me to go on. I rubbed my nose again. “Now,” I said, “you know I done been tithing to the church my whole life.” “Not recently.” “No,” I said. “Not… recently. But… my whole life otherwise. Ten percent. Every Sunday. For years. Years. Years and years. And years. Ten percent. Every Sunday. That’s a lot of money, Father. And I was giving it even when I didn’t have nothing to give. Only got a dollar in my pocket? I’m putting a dime in the plate. Every Sunday, Father, since my first job down at the boatyard. You know that.” “I do.” “So, I, uh… I’m gonna need you to give me some of that money back.” “Mmm,” he said. His smile faded like a book left out in the sun. He took a drag and exhaled through his nose. He looked almost… bored. “That’s not how this works, I’m afraid.” “Maybe not normally,” I said. “But I gotta walk out of here with money. That’s my money!” “You gave that money to God, son.” “What the hell does He need it for? I’m the one that needs it!” I slapped my chest with my hand. “And where the hell has He been? Huh? I’ve been praying! I have clasped my hands so tight that I thought I was gonna break my fingers. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for Him to take these curses from me and He has done nothing.” “It can be difficult to see the presence of the Lord when one walks with his back to Him.” “No,” I said. “I’ve done prayed right. I’ve begged Him for help. Begged him. Begging as I walked down to the Row. Asking, ‘Please, Lord, turn me around. Give me the strength to stop my feet or take the strength from my legs so I can’t walk one more step.’ ‘Please, God, break me from these chains. Don’t let me put this needle to my skin. Or make me as hard as iron so that it breaks against me.’” And you know what He did?” Harleaux kissed his teeth. “Nothing,” I said. “This isn’t your fault, Son,” he said. “And it isn’t God’s. The devil got his hands on your heart. But if you want to get clean, if you’re truly serious about it, there’s places you can go. There’s a spot upstate that does good–” “With what money am I gonna pay for that with? You have my money. You wanna talk about the devil? Well, I have met the devil’s servants and I owe them great debts and they will take my flesh for it.” Harleaux started to speak but I fished the gun from my pocket and I put it against his chest and I felt hot tears run down my cheeks. “Father,” I said. “Please forgive me one day. I just need the money. Not everything here. Not everything, I swear. Just enough for me to get back on the level, okay?” He looked down at the gun and then he looked at me and then he… chuckled. He put his cigarette between his lips and then rested both his hands atop of mine. He inhaled deeply, letting the cigarette dangle from his lips as he looked to the ceiling. “Christ Jesus,” he said. “Is today the day I come home to you?” He paused for a moment before lowering his gaze to mine and smiling. “No. I don’t think it is. Son, why don’t you put that down and pray with me?” I shook my head something fierce. “Son. Pray with me.” Harleaux reached for my shoulder but the evil in me was faster than the good in him. When I stepped across his body to leave, I did so with every dollar from the church stuffed in my pockets. As I crossed the street, I looked back over my shoulder and could see him lying there through the open door. And I could hear the church itself speaking to me. This here is a holy place. You had no business here. I felt the pitch black stain soak through the entirety of my soul. One that even Christ’s blood wouldn’t wash clean. Yet still I prayed to Him. I asked Him to strengthen the poison in the next needle. If I was to be in the service of the devil, let it be not here on earth but in Hell where I belonged.
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Feb 8, 2025 03:38
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Hundred Dollar Hat (1252 words) "Frank, have you gotten it out yet?" Half stuck in the dryer, Frank grunted as he scraped his knuckles against the metal of the unit once more. Something felt very wrong, but he'd dropped the drat screwdriver already, so instead of disassembling it any further, he settled for tugging at the hat where it was stuck in the back. "Not yet Gladys!" he growled through his teeth. The laundry room was dark enough already, but the inside of the machine was pitch black. The damned thing was an antique; a quirky, quaint, lime green unit he'd picked up off the curb and sort of fixed himself. Didn't even have a maker's mark, but it looked pristine, and why give up on a classic like that? Frank figured if he didn't shut off the power to the whole drat basement while he took it apart that he'd be in for a shock. And surprise surprise, the one working flashlight in the house had dead batteries. "I'm sorry Frank!" came Gladys' voice from somewhere on the basement stairs. "It was my hundred dollar hat, Gladys!" he screamed. "My hundred dollar hat! It doesn't go in the laundry and it sure doesn't go in the damned dryer!" His favorite hat. His most expensive hat, ruined! It was a white cowboy hat with gold sequins and a purple ribbon 'round the rim. The smiling man at the antique store told him Elvis was found with a hat just like it when he died. She should have known. The rim of the dryer pressed sharp against his belly. In the dark, he gave the brim a tug again, but it just would not budge. Switching tactics, he settled on a strategy of firm but constant pulling until, after a minute or so, it finally began to give. Frank lurched backward out of the dryer, scraping his back against the edge as he went. He cursed under his breath. Something was still stuck to the hat, something that looked wide and flat and furry in the gloom of the basement, like an old blanket that might have been caught in the back panel. He stared for a moment, trying to make it out. "Hey Gladys, I got it!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Hit the breaker for the laundry room!" It was then the smell hit him: musty fur and spilled gas. The muffled noise of his wife's steps sounded from somewhere else in the basement. A couple of far off clicks later and the lone fluorescent light droned to life. The thing stuck to the hat did not look any different in the light. It was still pitch black, still fuzzy and flat, like a hundred years of lint all dipped in an oil slick. He'd just given it a whiff when it shrieked to life and yanked him back towards the dryer. Frank banged his chin on the outside, cursed and started tugging back. Alarmed but angry, and not about to give up on his hat. "Oh my god, Frank, what the hell is that!?" If it had been anything else he might have let go. Anything else. But this was his goddamn hundred dollar hat! Whatever it was had just as good a grip on it as he did and was flailing around, jolting the dryer off the floor and shaking away tarry gibbets of itself that stuck here and there around the room. "Hit it! Gladys hit it!" Frank screamed. Gladys grabbed for the bent old nine-iron he'd been meaning to fix up, yanked it off the shelf and started whacking at the black blanket, only for each strike to bounce off harmlessly. "Get my knife, woman! Get my knife!" Gladys ran out of the laundry room, and all at once the thing went quiet, slack, but it didn't give up its grip. Frank pulled away a little and the thing stretched out like taffy. He'd almost let go when the thing began pulling back again, not with wild wrenching this time but with a firm but constant pull. Gladys ran in and stuck the knife straight through the thing's middle. It screeched but still did not let go of the hat, and suddenly, a little tendril of itself shook loose, holding the knife at the other end and flailing at her. Gladys screamed and ran out of the room, shouting "I'm calling the police!" as her voice retreated upstairs. The knife suddenly shook free and slammed into the wall by the door. Frank leaned back and tried to dig his feet into the bare cement of the floor but he was slowly losing ground until finally the thing was mostly back in the dryer, with Frank holding onto the hat just outside. Gladys came back with the wireless phone in hand. "Oh god, Frank, just let go!" "I'm not letting it get away with my hat, Gladys!" Frank was now on his knees and could see inside, straight to the back of the machine. He'd thought something was wrong before, and now with the little light that reached back there, he saw it. The parts inside were all wrong, like they'd been put there by someone who'd heard of a dryer but never knew how one worked. He'd never actually fixed it up. Just plugged it in to test when he got it home that day, and it worked straightaway so he told Gladys he did the repairs. But this was the first time he'd taken any of it apart. And the back was cracked open, slid half to one side like an iris. Exposed wires strung about like entrails. His fingers were going numb. His face felt red and hot. The hat was back inside of the dryer now, as were Frank's arms and head. The reek of gas and damp fur was overwhelming. Gladys screamed at him to let go, but no, he wasn't gonna lose it to some drippings out of a drat appliance! Why was it so wet anyway? It was in a dryer! And yet the black thing wouldn't give until soon, Frank was once again stuck in the dryer at the waist. He could feel Gladys grabbing at his ankles, trying to draw him back out. "That is MY hat, you son of a bitch! Elvis would've died in this hat and you sure as poo poo aren't gonna get it!" The blanket went slack once more. Frank started sliding backward, out of the machine, maybe an inch. And then the machine started and he was rotating end over end. Red sparks flickered all around him, his head swam, flue stars filled his eyes, there was a sudden rush of air and he let out a scream as the dark at the back of the drum sucked him in sharp. *** The lights had gone out in the laundry room. It had taken Gladys what felt like an hour to navigate the basement, find the breaker box and flip the right switch. She returned to the scene, her fingers trembling on the door frame as she stumbled into the room. Frank was gone, but strangely the hat was there, quite a bit worse for wear from the tumble it had taken. She called his name, and after a moment, even found the courage to look inside the machine, but there was nothing there. Just a drip of tar from the half-disassembled guts of the thing, and a patch of black as pitch dark as a dead end.
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Feb 8, 2025 03:45
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Attention Writey Friends! This is your sixteen minute warning. Submissions are due in sixteen minutes. Thank you and you rule.
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Feb 8, 2025 03:54
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One Small Choice 1446 words Henry’s was always slow on the weeknights, and tonight was no exception. One or two couples, some frat guys towards the back watching Bulls-Knicks. I was alone at the bar, nursing a whiskey sour and trying to figure out how to tackle an operations presentation my boss had casually pawned off on me today at work, just before closing. I checked my watch: a little before eleven. “Hey.” It was a college-age kid, maybe a little older, at the far end of the bar. He pointed at me. “You’re Jerry, right?” “Yeah,” said, shifting on the stool to face him. “How’d you know?” He smiled, a little uncertainly, I thought, and raised his hands. “You’re about to have the weirdest conversation of your life, man.” He took the beer he’d been handed by the bartender and approached with a grin, sitting at the bar with a stool between us. Older than college, I could see now, but not by much. He was a good-looking dude with a shock of red hair under a baseball cap and a smile that was easy to like. “Sorry to intrude on your evening, and hope I’m not freaking you out by knowing your name, but… okay, this is weird.” He grinned again and fished around in the pocket of his denim jacket, retrieving a smallish rectangular jewelry box, the kind that might hold a necklace or pendant. The guy briefly held it at arm’s length, cartoonishly eying it with skepticism, and then handed it to me. “This is for you.” I took the box, almost unthinkingly. Without hesitation, to be honest. It was a little heavier than I expected, maybe the weight of a small tablet. The box was crisply tied with a bright white ribbon; tucked beneath the ribbon was a carefully folded piece of stationery. I looked up. “Okay, and why are you-” “It’s not from me,” said the guy. “It’s from you.” I said nothing and he snickered. “Right? It’s such a fuckin’ weird thing to say, but okay. Here’s the deal. I work downtown, all right? I’m on lunch, having a sub down at the waterfront, when this dude comes up to me and he looked just like you. He told me his name was Jerry, and he’s gonna give me $100 cash if I come here tonight and give this box to you.” I didn’t know what to say. Who would? “Wait… a guy who looked like me and who said his name was Jerry?” “He didn’t look like you, man, he was. You. Like, he told me that I’d be giving it to someone who looked like him, know what I mean? Like you would look like him. He said it’d be a trip, and he was right about that, man.” “Okay…” I trailed off. I was trying to figure this out on the fly with a couple drinks already slouching around in my head. “So he gave you the $100 when you agreed to do this, to give me the…” I jiggled the box; there was something inside, something chunky, maybe metallic, sliding around in there without padding. “Yeah!” The guy pulled a $100 bill from his shirt pocket and popped it by the corners for my inspection. “And he said I’ll get another $100 tomorrow if I do it. He’s gonna meet me somewhere else and give me another $100, right? So - that’s my story. He said you gotta read the note first. And I gotta give you this cap. I dunno why, that was part of the deal too.” He took off his cap, grey with no logo, and placed it on the bar. “Okay, so that’s it?” It occurred to me from somewhere that I was doing a pretty kick-rear end job at taking all this in stride. “Can you tell me more about the conversation? I mean, what was I wearing?” The guy shook his head. “No can do. He said to give you the box and that was it, like I’m not supposed to.” He waved vaguely at the box in my hand. “Read the note. I’m done, got paid. loving weird, right? Have a good night!” He got up, took a long swig from his beer, and left it on the counter pinning a $10 bill as he walk out the door, humming. I watched him leave, then opened the note. It was typed, cleanly formatted. quote:I’m sure this comes as a shock, and I don’t know well you’re taking any of this, but multiverses are weird, and neither of us have time to spare right now. Either you buy this, or you don’t, just don’t gently caress around and pick a lane. I slouched forward on my stool, thoughts whirling. Unbelievable, in the most literal sense. But in that moment, I slipped effortlessly over to the flip side of the insane debate fermenting in my mind: why not? Who had any motivation to do all this? Besides me? The choice wasn’t really to go along with this or not, I realized. The choice was whether or not I wanted to live the rest of my life knowing I’d chosen not to believe in the unbelievable. That I’d picked the clean Ralph Lauren polo I hated, with the added bonus of not looking like middle-aged Marky Mark on the walk home. I could choose that, of course, which would make it more valuable, more desirable than the dream, the opportunity to change everything forever. That was the choice. I upped the glass, depositing whiskey and ice down my front. Dropped a twenty on the bar and picked up the cap. Sauntered out, swaggered, even. The box was a comforting weight in my pocket. * * * * * A couple minutes later, the grinning guy with the denim jacket walked in, beelining for the group of frat guys. They whooped as he approached, raising their drinks. “Pay up, gentlemen. That’ll be a twenty each, if I do recall.” “Bullshit,” groused Paul. “How’d you have that box and letter all set?” “Because he knew he was gonna bet us on it, idiot!” Monty shook his head in mock embarrassment. “He's been carrying that poo poo around all night. But yo-yo-yo, what was in that box you gave him?” “Fuckin rock from the parking lot,” confided Craig, and the group exploded with laughter as the waitress cruised past. Craig waved her closer with a grin. "Could we get another round here, please?" Craig leaned towards the waitress and offered here one of the twenties he'd just acquired. "Thanks for giving me his name, honey."
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Feb 8, 2025 03:57
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I'll have to take the L. My brain didn't get past the need to do it perfectly first go or not at all.
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Feb 8, 2025 03:59
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The Mirror 945 words “Listen, I get why you aren’t enthusiastic.” The boy does get it, but that’s hardly worth noting. It’s not like this is any great test of empathy. He’s frustrated, and as he looks at her with her own eyes she can’t meet them. This seems to exasperate him more. She was supposed to die first. What was originally anticipated after the diagnosis came to be something of an understanding as weeks and months of care progressed. What had been at first expected soon became expected of her: in sickness and in health was a nice idea, but how could it be fair to render your love a constant exercise in servitude? The man was himself old and frail, and though he tried to hide his weakness while playing nurse, little moments betrayed him. Her sister had called to ask if she intended to drive him into the grave so that he could warm it up first. It had hurt to laugh, but they did anyway, even as they both understood the truth beneath the joke. It wasn’t the work that killed him, though. He’d been struck by a wayward car in the yard while watering the grass. She’d heard it, lying in her bed, the crashing and thumping and moaning and water rushing until the sirens appeared and drowned out all the rest. Amid the disruption and noise she had lay silent, waiting for his return. She lies silent now, too, and mother and child wait for the other to speak. She had taught him how, of course. The “ah” in “mah-mah” came naturally to him, and when for a moment it had seemed like “dah-dah” might win the race she’d switched to calling him “Daddy” as often as possible. A dirty trick, but it had worked. She’d been first. After that, though, he’d always taken to his father more. Maybe it was the mystery. They’d agreed that she would remain home, but that required plenty of overtime. For the first few years, Daddy was a special guest, appearing at occasional breakfasts and dinners and other occasions. She, meanwhile, had been ordinary in her constant presence. She was everything, and in being the sun and moon and stars she too had become the setting, a background piece for an adventure more thrillingly punctuated by his father’s cameo appearances. She’s center-stage now, though, and she’s about missed her cue. “It’s not that I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to burden you, I really don’t. But I don’t want to die in a place like that, either.” It’s now his turn to look anywhere but at her. He never talks about his father. Will he talk about her? He finds his nerve. “You’re not a burden, mother. I’m not saying that to make you feel better. I just can’t keep up with it, and I know that I’m not doing a good enough job.” That’s somewhat true. He’s slow to attend to the necessities, but he’s getting better. If she couldn’t bathe and use the toilet on her own, though, things might be different. “You’ve always been far too critical of yourself.” She’s dodging the issue, for sure, but he could stand to hear it anyway. “If you can’t do it, though, I don’t expect you to. Use the money to bring someone in.” He’s thought of this. “We could probably afford someone on a light schedule, but the insurance company isn’t being reasonable about this.” He extends the brochure again. He’d done the same with dandelions, once. When was the last time? “This is one of the best facilities in the state, and they can’t wriggle off the hook for it. Between that and what we’d get for the house you could live like a queen.” The prince seems to believe it. Maybe’s it’s even true. They’d bought the house soon after the boy was born. The cold reality of a few months in the apartment had shattered the dream of saving for a dream house, but they’d been fortunate to find a place that needed some work in a good neighborhood. While she couldn’t handle the heaviest of the heavy lifting, much of the repair and beautification of the house had been her responsibility. As he’d gotten older, the boy had become her assistant. She held a distinct advantage in blood and sweat that had gone into the house, but he’d been so prolific in his tears that she failed to claim the triple crown. He’d been such a crybaby for so long until his father had committed himself to putting a stop to that. Successfully, too. She’d cried alone at the service. “I’ll think about it.” The boy sighs, but the frustration seems to dissipate. “That’s all I can ask.” He forces a smile, and once again, the two have nothing to say. His phone rings. He looks at it, hesitates, and answers. “I’m with my mother, love. I’ll call you back. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You too.” He lowers the phone. “She says she misses you, and that she’s sorry. We couldn’t find anyone to watch them, or she would have come. I’m sorry too.” The smile is gone. “Nonsense. You don’t have to be sorry that you have a life.” He’s looking down again. “I know. I just… you get it.” With no small amount of pain, she raises her hand to his face and cups his cheek. He continues. “I get it now, too. I’m sorry that I didn’t before.” He’s crying. She leads him with the lightest touch and he raises his head. Her own eyes perceive her, but in that look, something new. “Don’t be. You never had to.”
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Feb 8, 2025 04:08
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Ecoscoial Animatronics Word count: 938 “An animatronic dinosaur park?” I’m flabbergasted at the words coming out of my mouth. “That sounds…interesting.” All of a sudden my tongue and even my limbs are fully infiltrated by terminal conflict avoidance, which is irritating because I’m an architect with considerable training in the principles of design, and also animatronic dinosaur parks are terrifically orthogonal to the task at hand: building a municipal park that provides, well, basically everything, for everyone. So naturally, I decide to deflect. “I think the main challenge will be the landscape architecture: how might we integrate animatronic dinosaurs into the park, keeping it ecologically interesting while hiding the spectacle a bit?” Wait, gently caress, that wasn’t deflection at all. That was tacit acceptance, and I think I’m locked into this now. poo poo, poo poo, I did not get to this point in my career to put a disney ride smack dab in the middle of the most radical urban social project of a generation. “This is why we’re so lucky to have Rosita,” says Mayor Freitas, glowing victoriously. “This is a landscape architecture problem. Ivan, you and Rosita can draw up plans for the dinosaur park. Juan and Jackie can can focus on plans for the music school and domestic violence treatment center. We’ll regroup next week!” I signed onto the Mayor’s EDEN (Ecological Depots Enhancing Neighborhoods) project three years ago. The idea was to spend just a few million bucks building huts in a park, alongside sports and recreation areas, with a dazzling array of free services. Here, for example, we have a community spa with free peer-led accpuncture sessions alongside a harm-reduction oriented addiction clinic, right next to an urban gardening hub and a god drat aquarium. And each of the other EDEN hubs has a slightly different mix of radical public services. The first state-sponsored project even remotely like this anywhere in Latin America since the Cuban Revolution. “So, a dinosaur park. This is gonna do numbers with the neighborhood for sure,” Ivan tells me with wry bitterness, “ nd I don’t think we’ll have to worry about presenting at any design conferences again. Who needs a long-lived career anyway?” He’s right. The EDEN project is genuinely inspiring, but for some reason Freitas is committed to the most inane gimmicks, and thanks to my trigger-happy lizard-brained freeze response when I’m faced with the slightest bit of conflict, we are now locked into building it. “We might be able to make this not suck. It’s actually possible.” ~~~~~ We managed to actually build the drat thing. Three weeks after the launch, our EDEN is doing numbers. “Try repeating this phrase,” Ivan says as our GPS lead us down the twisting roads on the way to the site where we are set to welcome a delegation from the US government. “It is okay for me to let go of the heavy ship’s anchor attached to a string that’s pulling on my ribcage and making me feel heavy and depressed.” He’s way more into woo woo stuff than I am. It’s a low bar, because despite my radical pedigree and general posture of extreme skepticism towards received wisdom, I can’t shake the need for at least some evidence, or even some plausible mechanism, for health interventions. Either way, I’ve been entirely paralyzed with anxiety in the face of our upcoming high-profile event, where we are going to be meeting with actual foreign dignitaries to present on our work. “Now take a few deep breaths, and breathe into the part of your body where that weight lives. And now find a part of your body that ‘s much more relaxed, maybe your toes, and breathe into those. Switch back and forth, and see how they compare.” I’m pretty sure I saw a tweet the other day that said ‘my toxic trait is that when my yoga instructor says to breathe into your hips, I believe that this is a real thing that one can do and moreover I am very good at doing it.’ I suppress a chuckle as I attempt to comply. Would you know it? I think this is actually kind of doing something. Maybe. Anyway, it certainly can’t hurt. “We’re arriving,” he says, spurring me to open my eyes and see the entryway to the EDEN site. Sure enough, it looks like a bustling urban park, with a glade of tall grass offset about fifty yards from the entrance. No tacky animatronic dinosaurs visible from the entrance at all. ~~~ As we sit in the front row of the seats, filled with media personalities and local VIPs watching the Deputy Secretary of State. “Friends from across the border,” says the Secretary. And then before I can really process what’s happening, his head is detached from his body and in the jaws of a creature that I placed myself. The pandemonium is strangely boring and subdued. I look at Mayor Freitas from my seat. She’s not even feigning shock, but is actually just grinning. I am amazed, more than anything, that I was able to lose sight of the distinction between psychopathy and inanity, between tasteful design and geopolitical accelerationism. I suppose I had always had a thought in my mind as we developed this project: the US empire would never allow something good to survive in the long run. Did the Mayor of our silly little neighborhood just invite a war of possibly genocidal proportions? Perhaps. What for? Her face is fixated on the horizon, towards some unwritten future. Ivan was perfectly correct, though: our careers are over. And who needs to be a landscape architect anyway. In this economy?
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Feb 8, 2025 04:09
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That's time, beauties! I've copied all your awesome words to the judge's top secret google docs. They're currently reading them all and you'll be hearing from them soon. Thank you so much for your time and creative energy and I hope this was fun for everyone!
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Feb 8, 2025 04:13
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In the meantime, please enjoy these anagrams of the five story titles you will eat dust = Slutty Owl, Adieu Hundred Dollar Hat = Nude Droll Hardhat One Small Choice = Alcoholic Semen The Mirror = Him, Terror Ecosocial Animatronics = A Cameo Scrotal Incision
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Feb 8, 2025 04:26
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A video with our comments is currently converting but we don't want to keep you waiting! In first place is Tyrannosaurus with 'you will eat dust' And our runner up is Quite Feet with Hundred Dollar Hat! Congrats you two!
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Feb 8, 2025 05:45
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Here's our video of us chatting about your stories. We talked about them in order so you can scrub through to find yours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jz2DHNzTos
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Feb 8, 2025 05:54
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I haven't read the others yet. I would've signed up for this but I was busy with waterpark activities. Anyway, I just had a go at it. Here's a late, bonus entry I did to see if I could do it. (didn't do exact timing but it was ~45 minutes so well under deadline) --- I Don’t Remember the Last Time I Wrote a Story (397 words) Joan was nervous. You only get 3 minutes on Shark Tank to explain how you’re going to help the rich get richer, and her average practice time was 3:04. Maybe we’ll skip thanking Mom for all those evenings of picking up David from soccer practice while she worked on the financial projections. Deep breath, smile, time to shine. “We’re not trying to disrupt Hollywood but there are so many talented, underemployed skilled artists & artisans that can truly help make movie magic happen. And phenomenal writers who have scripts that are sitting around for years collecting dust because the industry is such an Old Boys’ Club where personal connections are everything. We’ve got a marketplace that connects the two.” Joan’s heart is racing now as she gets into the real selling point, the movie that has already been made. “Francis is a classically-trained opera singer who has perfected a talent — breaking glass by voice alone. Done mostly as a stage routine, Francis winds up in a whirlwind romance with an MLB executive and gets roped into singing the national anthem at a cultural-exchange all-star exhibition game in mainland China. Audio engineers rig up special speakers for the event, all fans get a souvenir glass for the occasion, and there are drones covering the spectacle from all angles.” A voice in her ear pulls her out of her flow, “Joan, that’s half your time.” Almost there. “Okay, and so we get to the main event, Francis is hitting that special note, all the glasses shatter! Incredible! But then a rumbling starts. Not the glass, not a resonance of the stadium, but the ground. A gigantic sinkhole swallows the entire infield and almost all of the players, except for the backup reliever Ralph who was “conveniently” in the bathroom during the anthem. Francis and Ralph had known each other as kids. The official drone footage released is missing a certain slice of angle at just the right time. An underground conspiracy theory network forms around "The Chinese Baseball Sinkhole Incident" (excuse the name, the media were having an off-day)." "Was the MLB brass in on it? Were there explosives beneath the stadium and the glass trick was just a cover? The online sleuths pored over detail after detail. What they found would shock the world. They congregated on the web forums of an easily-remembered URL: pit.ch"
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Feb 12, 2025 06:16
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