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IN please thank you
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Jun 28, 2022 23:49
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Working.
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Jun 29, 2022 00:05
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In
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Jun 29, 2022 03:00
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In.
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Jun 29, 2022 03:08
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Fuckit, in
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Jun 29, 2022 13:31
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in 
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Jun 29, 2022 21:08
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Data Graham posted:Fuckit, in 
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Jun 29, 2022 21:25
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I could use an editor pass. I'm at 1679 words but I don't know what to cut. Is asking for a volunteer contrary to the letter and/or spirit of the thread?
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Jun 30, 2022 14:11
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Data Graham posted:I could use an editor pass. I'm at 1679 words but I don't know what to cut. It's encouraged! If you're up for joining the discord you'll have no problem finding a set of eyes. https://discord.gg/DXTke97H
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Jun 30, 2022 14:46
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What chili said! Also note that the discord is the designated place for discussion, and we try to keep the thread for stories, prompts, judgments, crits, and signups.
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Jun 30, 2022 16:26
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Blades of Crimson and Azurequote:
ok wow that was a lot. much like your stories, my crits are becoming cliche, but to recap my two major points. 1) think about the needs of your story. dont include details from other stories without thinking why those details and setups and moments happen. just because other stories have cool sword tournaments doesnt mean that your story needs it. 2) use details and action to show character. your characters are generic because they dont do anything. when you have characters take action, whether it be through dialogue or physical action or even through narration, we gain insight into them. just having the princess describe the twins in her own words would tell us about who the twins are AND who the princess is. as ive talked about a lot, saying things about characters doesnt give us a lot, but having characters do and say things reveal way more about them. one larger form issue with this story is that i think your focus is too large here. you have a lot of things happening (princess grows up with the common kids, princess goes on adventures with the twins, the twins and her get caught, and the tournament) and none of these are given the adequate time and space to really land. its very hard to have a lot of things happening in flash, so i suggest trying to whittle down your story into a single “moment” or scene. work on trying to make that one moment standout, be powerful, be meaningful, instead of trying to do so much. less is more in flash fiction, to quote a modernist (that i hate). i do think you really do need to read some other fiction outside of thunderdome. honestly, its not even anything specific, i just think you need to go buy a short fiction anthology and just look at how successful authors construct their stories (the pushcart prize anthology does a yearly anthology of modern short fiction and poetry, if you want a specific suggestion, but anything of quality works). just see what authors decide to describe and how they push their characters forward and that kind of stuff. like there’s a common fundamental flaw in your stories and that it feels like you just dont know how people usually tell stories. which is fine, you can learn, but please, read some fiction. not watch movies and tv, but read some actual real books.
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Jun 30, 2022 18:44
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 REDEMPTION DOME The Blood God demands Blood! Post a redemption story and declare a challenge and I will judge it as a brawl against the next redemption poster. ERASE YOUR FAILURES! FILL THE BLOOD-O-METER! OBTAIN GLORY! Who will be crowned the 10th birthday redemption champion? Will it be YOU?
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Jun 30, 2022 22:09
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Yoruichi posted:
Three. Days. Three days after I put myself through the tedious rigmarole of summoning up the ghost of a TD in-joke like Rosa Flores to crap out a redemption, you decide to incentivize it?! I SAY NAY. I am planting my flag on Redemption Hill. I dare anyone to take up the challenge and FIGHT ME (and Rosa Flores)
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Jul 1, 2022 02:21
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Aye, you speak of Redemption. But is it another form of redemption to improve of a previous loss? JIB! Let us see! I challenge you to "Loser's Brawl"! We shall rewrite a loss, same prompt(s) and Word Limit! Any other rules is Judge's Digression! (Though the deadline shouldn't be anytime soon.)
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Jul 1, 2022 19:04
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The man called M posted:Aye, you speak of Redemption. But is it another form of redemption to improve of a previous loss?  Apologies to the judge, who will surely lose hardest
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Jul 1, 2022 19:18
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BRAWL OF poo poo WRITING BY poo poo WRITERS You will each pick a losing story by the other author for them to rewrite. M's choice is easy, as Jib has one loss. Please indicate what story you choose within two days. You may change the plot however you like, but the setting, general themes, and most of the characters should remain the same. Specific flash rules WILL NOT remain in effect, unless that flash rule is integral to that week's prompt (example: Trex's dream week). Due 7/15. Albatrossy_Rodent fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jul 1, 2022 19:22
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To make things official, I choose Anemic Structure.Solitair posted:I never thought for one moment that I would actually win Thunderdome last week. It just goes to show that sometimes all of the assumptions one makes about the world can reflect nothing about the way it actually works. We cling to flawed beliefs, warped by confirmation bias, until something comes along that shatters everything we ever thought possible. For me, reality got redefined in my favor, but most people aren't so lucky. The man called M fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jul 1, 2022 19:26
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In on the work prompt
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Jul 1, 2022 19:28
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The man called M posted:To make things official, I choose Anemic Structure. I choose: The man called M posted:Dreams Deferred, Dreams made Here we are in 2022, the year in which Soylent Green and The Purge are set, so the Zeitgeist demands some Dystopian Fiction. You have a luxurious 2022 words. I'm looking for well-realized characters doing interesting things in plausible worlds. Make it real enough to hurt. All the usual exclusions apply, no fanfic erotica etc. e: archive link Dreams Deferred, Dreams made The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jul 1, 2022 19:31
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Week 516 Crits! I'd say apologies for the delay but man, I'm always late. Anyway... Sir Middleton, February 29 - PhantomMuzzles You've got a strong voice here, and a talent for communicating visuals, and I'd be remiss if I didn't compliment you on a wayward pun. This isn't much of a story, however, and therein lies its weakness. You describe a situation, but nothing is changing, progressing, or revealed. The protagonist has been turned into a beast. They miss the before times. Then, at the end, the beast threatens to take over...but nothing in the story prior really emphasized this turn as either a threat or a temptation. The protagonist is pretty consistently tired of being a bear, and longs to be human again, only dabbling in their bestial nature as required by inconvenience. If there'd been a little more push and pull between their human and animal nature, then - even in less than 400 words - you'd have a story. This is actually a bit better than the DM moniker usually implies, but in a week of relatively strong stories, that story that wasn't a story takes the hit. The "Puzzle" presentation didn't do you too many favors either; my co-judge and I spent some time trying to figure out if we were missing something before ultimately dismissing it. This submission found itself a little detached from the S&S theme as well. Distance - Copernic I liked your opening line; then it kept going. While S&S does have a bit of a reputation, regarding purple prose, restraint is often key to a flourish. Within five feet he could smell the man. A crush of animal sweat. Very good. It could penetrate the open jars of myrrh, Okay. the heady spices of the Reihn, We're done here. the dull blur of torch. Move along. Setting that aside, I'm not sure I would've opened with the ending like this. The core premise works (in a role reversal, the formerly antagonistic sorcerer is being asked to put down the formerly heroic, corrupted warrior), but what you've written amounts to talking a lot about stuff without actually doing anything. I would much rather have read the parts of the story that preceded or followed this conversation. S&S can be more than just action-adventure, but even in the quiet moments something is usually happening. You open with the anticipation of conflict, then go back in time to explain the conflict...without ever actually having the conflict. This is the promise of conflict. Gimmie the conflict! That said, it's not unsalvageable. Something like this could work in the middle section of a larger story. You have a few good turns of the phrase here and there, though it sometimes leans comedic. The sorcerer reluctantly greeting the girl in his robe (without pants, the narrator informs us) radiates "Get off my lawn" old man energy, but then the rest of story takes itself relatively seriously, which made me wonder if you changed directions while drafting your story. Even if that was never your intention, you should know I read it that way. Duel at Goblinopolis - Something Else A firmly comedic story, but not without substance. The opening is fun, and the protagonist's chattiness endeared me to him. This is a little more straightforwardly fantasy than S&S, but I didn't hold that against you (though some of these names feel...too modern?). The arena was well-described, at least, even if the opponent amounted to a Dark Souls boss (big dude in armor). Futhark's win is easy, though he does face some challenge, like flipping around in a kilt. Having worn a kilt, I can't say that'd be my first choice for doing gymnastics, but perhaps I am simply not as light on my feet. In the end, it's just a day in the life - the hero gets in trouble, gets out of it - but that's a lot of classic S&S fiction, and there's nothing wrong with it here. Shackles of Shadow - MockingQuantum Here I've gotta disagree with my esteemed co-judge. I liked this one a lot. It didn't reinvent the wheel or anything, but it delivered a competent tale competently told in a genre I enjoy reading, and for TD that's pretty good. The opening's strong, though I wouldn't have repeated "Scorching heat" twice like that (or at least, not only twice). While sparse, your invocation of the enslaved people's god as "Green," in contrast to the arid mountains they find themselves in, does a lot of separate the two cultures of the oppressors and the oppressed; these people are out of their element (though as an aside, Aruth-kan is hard to say; always say your fictional people and place names out loud to make sure they roll off the tongue). I also like that it is not your protagonist's combat skills that make her the hero, but her leadership abilities. In a genre overrun with lone wolves, it's nice to see a protagonist who knows how to work with people. The introduction of the wizards later is a bit clunky, and the jungle being so close at hand also feels like a misstep, but these are relatively minor points. A bigger point is how the prose flows. Here and there you get flowery, but in ways that trip over themselves. The more purple your prose gets, the greater the need to read it aloud, to ensure it flows properly. Avrina works well as a protagonist, but would work better if she weren't the only character in the story. Everyone else is described in vague, general terms. They are ideas, rough sketches of people, to the point I didn't even realize she wasn't one of the Aruth-kan until she said so, at the end. Nothing was done to highlight her distance to them. Even if it better suits your needs to keep the villains as faceless mooks, consider giving her even one named character to bounce off in the future. The Tower of Kings - Ceighk Now this was a great story. Despite my allowance of purple, you kept your prose lean and intentional, and gave us something that really flowed. The details are sparse, but collectively build a picture of the setting. The protagonist's growth from a helping hand to a hero...and then to a tyrant, against his own wishes, is well-done, as the power he uses to save these people becomes the tools to keep them in line. In a way the mysterious spirits felt like a metaphor for the culture and traditions of the one who came before, whose rules the new generation must adhere to even in death. Great stuff. The minute I read this one, I knew it'd either win or HM. Blood for the Blood Throne - Nae A well-written in-joke is still just an in-joke. It was entertaining enough to read, and well-written enough to avoid the customary slap on the wrist, but I really can't say much more about it than that. I was briefly tempted to go into greater depth here, but I'm not sure there's cause. Made me exhale air through my nose, like all good Internet gags. Memes do not a good story make, but good-enough prose will save you from the stake. Blades of Crimson and Azure - The Man Called M So first of all, I actually know a little bit about Joseon-era Korea. I've lived there (Korea, that is; South Korea, if you needed clarification), and I've researched it for my job. More on that later. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "Show, don't tell." This entire story is just that: telling. A thing happened, here's a Wikipedia-tier plot synopsis of events. The characters barely have character (the twins are basically indistinguishable, apart from their names), the ending is spelled-out for us basically from the beginning, and anything of interest in-between is vaguely referred to without further elaboration. Nothing here really rings true to the S&S theme either, except in generous approximation. A dull story, dully-told, which fun factoids about naming conventions can't really fix. Now, this wasn't historical fiction week, so I didn't ding you on that front. Historical accuracy wouldn't have saved this piece, and a lack of historical accuracy wouldn't have killed it if it were otherwise solid. However, instead of setting your story in some vaguely Asiatic-themed otherworld, you specifically picked Joseon-era Korea, a knowable time and place we actually have a lot of records about, thanks in part to the tireless efforts of the court historians of the king. I'll spare you a longer history lecture, but I will say this much: this piece reads like you wrote a generic fantasy story, then painted it Korean at the end, with some anime Chi stuff cause that's Asian, right? The Joseon Dynasty was a culture steeped in Confucianism (to the point they adopted Neo-Confucianism when garden variety Confucianism just wasn't up to snuff), with the landed aristocracy tied-up in the civil service and related intelligentsia, and a greatly diminished status of women in noble households. Bok's father would most likely have arranged her marriage, but even if he didn't, scholarship (rather than swordplay) would be the more likely avenue to win his approval. This is not to say a story like this would be impossible in the setting, but by specifically placing it in that context, you create a greater need to justify bucking the trend. I read Flerp's critique and saw he mentioned the elements of sexism in the story, and while I don't have a problem with depicting historically accurate sexism, I do ask that it actually be historically accurate, to the best of our ability to know. And we know quite a bit about sexism in the Joseon Dynasty. What you invoke here is a very generic kind of old timey, almost folksy sexism, as we often imagine in our whitebread depictions of vaguely-historical fictions, which is quite a bit removed from actual Confucian sexism, which would be more specific in many regards. The Legend of Larella - Thranguy I really dug this story at first, but the longer it went on, the more that feeling deflated. S&S stories are often stuck in the moment, so a story following a protagonist throughout her life is definitely a welcome and interesting change of pace, but what do all these episodes add up to? One of them clearly received a lot more attention than the others, to the point that the other two felt like side-dishes to the main course, but not in a way that really complemented it. Your description game is strong as you weave a myth-like depiction of events, but then characters open their mouths and talk and the dialogue demystifies them. I feel like another pass would've tightened up the words, and maybe found a through-line to better link these various episodes together. In the end, though, I enjoyed reading it, but the style does a lot of the heavy lifting. Gods at the Edge - Flerp First-person present-tense can be a hard sell for me, but I wouldn't strike you down just for that. This story is a little more adjacent to S&S than it is S&S proper, but I can see some of that "Western" influence I mentioned in the prompt post, and that works for me. There's some voice here, and an interesting core concept - gods as embodiments of forces, rather than administrators over them (at least, if I'm reading this correctly) - but the main meat of the story is just one long semi-philosophical conversation. As a segment of a larger story, I could see its value as a little more easily, but given the nature of the genre and the aims of the prompt, I need a little more actually happening. The Light of the Moon - My Shark Waifuu The core premise works, but feels underserved by the girl the protagonist is taking with them. She seemed content enough to leave her home, but also seemed fine returning. Does she have any stake or opinion in this? I'd imagine having her life saved at the cost of being taken away from where she grew up would trigger some level of emotional response. The vibe of this story, in general, is strong, and I liked the fake-out with the plea to the Moon being ignored by the hyena matriarch, but the girl being such an obvious prop feels like the missing cornerstone the narrative collapses around. Three Moments in the Old City - Sebmojo What we have here is a simple story told in a complicated way, not that that's an inherently bad thing. I enjoyed reading it, it's solidly-built (not that I expected anything less from a Sebmojo story) and well-constructed, and gave me a nice a-ha moment when I pieced it all together. The core narrative is simple, but that's fine for an S&S story (and, really, for a lot of stories). However, the act of piecing together a complicated narrative to uncover a simpler story can be distracting. We both had to think on it a bit, and while I fared a bit better there, I kept wondering if I was missing something, and that lingering feeling eroded some of my enjoyment a bit. In the end, a good story, and a solid HM. Bone Bound - The Cut of Your Jib Aside from the somewhat awkward sentence structure in places, my big take-away from this piece was how lethargic it felt. I didn't feel a lot of energy reading it, to the point that I reread it later wondering if I'd just been tired, but no, this is just a sleepy piece; a slow build-up to a spritz of violence at the end. There's some strong descriptive work on the objects and tokens the characters adorn themselves with, but the characters themselves just feel a bit blank. The Old Man and the Sea Monster - Rohan This opening seems strong enough at a glance, yet proves unnecessary to the overall piece. This is a (presumably) a story about a man fighting a sea monster, which only appears in the last few paragraphs of the story. What's with the opening where he gets mugged? Felt a little superfluous to the rest of the story, and undercut the cool fight at the end by reducing it to a mere third of the finished product. Anyway, this is a competently written story which I generally enjoyed, to the point I realized I'd previously made an uncharitable assumption about your writing abilities (in the wake of your story from week 501, which was a poor introduction to your work; my apologies). There was nothing too terrible about this piece, just a mix of priorities that bogged down the front half, making the back half more hastily-written by comparison. All-around, solid with some slip-ups. The Wicked ZOGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdftbYqA_VQ Plague, Power and Plot - Hard Counter Firstly, thanks for the submission, stranger. Secondly, check Copernic's crit. You've got a strong opening here that just keeps going beyond when it should. I would've stopped at the evergreens. Likewise, man, this cast. It's not immediately clear how many people are present, and my perception of how many of them there were kept shifting. Venram, Ogito, and the unnamed Warlock are the only characters who really feel like characters, but there's also an unnamed wanderer (who does nothing) and noble (who does next to nothing), with who's who fading into one another. I can give you a line-by-line later if you'd like to see where the confusion is. The story itself is very standard, not that that's necessarily a mark against it this week, but combined with the confusing character count (and somewhat bland characters besides), it ended up feeling very rote. Why are we here and what are we doing, exactly? You allude to reasons, but none of it sticks. In the end there's a betrayal, but it's hard to care about. The prose is workmanlike, neither terrible nor praiseworthy. The real Dark Souls starts here.
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Jul 2, 2022 05:40
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Also, in.
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Jul 2, 2022 05:40
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punching in as late as possible w/o getting into trouble, just like in real life
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Jul 2, 2022 06:05
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clocking IN even later then heading straight for the break room ty 516 judges/critters
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Jul 2, 2022 06:42
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In
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Jul 2, 2022 08:46
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Application window closed However we still have a vacancy on the review panel if anyone is interested
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Jul 2, 2022 09:55
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Bronze Fade By Copernic The clients trust me more when I list my limitations. “You’ve paid for two and only two social security numbers,” I tell her. “Treat them like ink in a rainstorm. They are gossamer.” Finding the right numbers is most of my job – IDs from the recent dead, ideally recluses, their identification light in government databases. I’ve written the numbers in soft pencil on the back of a blank business card. The client takes it from me. “You’ve been scrubbed from social media.” This is the easiest part. I ask nicely but firmly from a routed signal located in a privacy-minded jurisdiction. I am sure all the information still lurks in some whirring database, but it is no longer public, and that is what I am poorly paid for. “To the extent that’s possible. Detagged, deauthorized, delisted. I quit your job for you, here’s all that paperwork. I’ve canceled insurance, phone, e-mail.. Here’s your new address, for next week.” Another big part of my employment, finding places to live. We find the bleeding edge of leasing, subleases of sub-subleases, where contracts and paper have wholly devolved into cash and handshakes. “You’re best off with a cover roommate. Its in the manual.” “Thanks,” the client says. “I’ve read it. Have sex with someone on a lease. Got it.” I shrug, and hand over a plastic bag containing her life’s savings, minus my fee. It doesn’t have to be in a cheap grocery bag. But I feel like it conveys the company’s limits. Disappearance is an industry in flux. Surface disappearance has become harder – from social media, automated number IDs, the disuse of cash. Still, deep disappearance has never been easier. Deep disappearance is where no one cares about you at all. “You’re dissolved,” I tell her. “The reinstating fee is in the handbook. It’s steep.” “Thanks,” she says. Sometimes the clients misunderstand the service as a fresh start. It is not that. It is disappearance. “I threw the handbook away already. By this time tomorrow—” “Don’t tell me,” I say. It doesn’t really matter if she tells me. I know where her temp housing is after all. But it sets the right tone. Off company time, purely out of professionalism, I try to forget her name. — During her paid six month window the client’s phone and e-mail ping directly to me. I’m surprised when they both spike, and right away. The client was already half-dissolved. Her parents were triangulated divorcees fleeing a common point of origin, and neither of them called. Her social media world was an empty storefront, void even of half-hearted birthday greetings. Standard company procedure is to ignore a mere spatter of contacts, but it spirals in a way I don’t like. The company’s automated tool – the main reason I can’t freelance – documents a bevy of search hits for the client’s name. I check the voicemails during my lunch hour. It’s a man. “Amy, they didn’t even know you quit,” he says. He never leaves his own name. “All your stuff is in a box underneath your desk. Where’d you go?” Beep. He calls again. “Amy, are you okay? I know this is your personal number, isn’t it? Are you alright?” Fifth call. “Hey, I’m getting really nervous. Can you call me?” Hesitation. “It’s Benny. I hope you’re okay.” While the Company SOP encourages slow and gradual disappearance I decide to disconnect the number. A vain hope this guy will lose interest. The Company’s ROI on this one plummets when the police report gets filed. My supervisor has a talk with me. This always gets treated like a failure on the employee’s part. And it’s not like I can disappear. I can’t blame the client so I blame her employer. The box of emotionally active knick knacks should’ve been removed. This one goes on the record as a loss. I get my professional pride back with Benny’s amateurish missing person site. The man knows nothing about her. Just first and last name. He can’t even trace to any former friends. I follow him on facebook groups, among alumni groups that have no clue who he’s referring to. The photo he uses is her employee ID badge. It’s the same one the police have. They aren’t looking. No one else is. — I report the contact at the three month check-in. A Tucson area code, and I can hear the air conditioning behind her. “Reception desk, medium-size commercial building,” she says, amused. “Unattended all the time, just like the manual said.” “The handbook tells you how to block caller ID,” I tell her, but half-hearted. I have not been looking forward to this call. “You’re not a blip,” I tell her. She’s done everything right. Her database presence is a whisper. “Well done.” “And I have two illegal credit cards!” she tells me. I guess she has to tell someone. “Plus I’m sub-sub-sub-sub leasing. Anything else?” “No. Not really. Well. A former co-worker is still trying to find you,” I told her. I wait. Somewhere on her end a security guard will soon complete his rounds and find his landline in use. “He’s not getting anywhere. Of course. But he’s persistent.” “Someone is– who? No. I don’t want to…” her voice is suddenly soft. “Is it Benny?” The Company policy is: move her along. I say nothing. We listen to each other. I close out the recording that she doesn’t know about. “That’s the name,” I say. If she had paid at the platinum level we'd even throw a heavy at this guy, tell him to go away. If she asked me, nicely, I’d probably do it myself. She says nothing. I return to the Company contact manual. “Do you want to rate our service? On a scale of one through ten? Your answer will be in confidence.” Her line goes dead. She misses the six-month closeout. Around the same time I see her missing person poster stapled to a telephone pole, nowhere near where she used to live. It looks pretty new.
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Jul 3, 2022 02:56
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Friday Night 1480 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Dec 31, 2022 |
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Jul 3, 2022 08:39
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Machinations 1481 words Some people said that a life well lived was the best revenge. Since Sebastian had been killed and turned by the head of the Ruby Syndicate, a wretched vampire by the name of Cassius Corvus back in 1988, he was pretty sure it no longer applied. So he supposed he’d just have to settle for regular old revenge. Not that he hadn't done well. He'd built Haven Casino from the ground up to be a place for mortals to spend their money and a place where the supernatural community could feel safe. The fact that he used Cassius's money to do it rankled slightly, but he figured he earned it by enduring night after night of the man's attentions. If today went well, he wouldn't have to endure it much longer. “Cornerstone restaurant group’s contract is almost up,” his executive assistant said, flipping through the morning schedule as Sebastian settled into his office for the day. “They’ve indicated that they’re interested in renewing. The new croupier you hired has been agitating for unionization, not many people are listening, but the ones who are have a lot of clout. I read over the rider for that singer you have coming in next weekend; there are some unique clauses that make me think she’s from the weird side of the street. I’ve flagged them for you. Also Mr. Starlight is here for your meeting.” Sebastian steepled his fingers, trying to ignore the sudden rush of adrenaline. Ellis, owner of the Starlight Lounge, the premiere nightclub for the supernatural, was pivotal to his plans. He was too important to lie to, and as a duke of a Fae court he was too powerful to be open with comfortably. If Ellis revealed even the smallest piece of the plan to Cassius… “All right,” Sebastian said. “Send Cornerstone's contract to legal and see if there’s anything in there to complicate us renewing the contract. See if Sharon can draft some pro-unionization public statement, I’m not going to fight that. Leave the rider on my desk, I’ll check it over.” He took a deep breath. “And give me two minutes before you send Ellis in.” As soon as Sebastian was alone he jumped up and tried to check his teeth in a mirror. gently caress. He’d been a vampire for what, forty years? How was he still forgetting that he didn’t have a reflection? When Sebastian had been young and alive he’d gone on a ski trip with a friend. The trip was an unmitigated disaster on all fronts, but Sebastian remembered the way the mountain smelled. Crisp air, clean snow, and the distant tang of wood smoke. Ellis smelled like that every time he was close by. It made Sebastian a little dizzy. It made him feel a little lonely when the man left. Sebastian told himself it was just nerves. This meeting was going to decide his future. If it went well, everything he’d been planning for the last fifteen years would come together. Cassius and his followers would be done for. He was taking a hell of a risk, but it was worth it. Anything was worth getting out from under Cassius. And I'd hardly mind if it puts me under Ellis instead… He shook the stray thought out of his mind. It was a distraction that he didn’t have time for. Ellis entered, all charm and smiles, gracefully accepting the seat across the desk.“You’re looking well, Sebastian. What a lovely place you have. You know, you’ve actually become my primary competitor in the night life industry?” His voice was light and lilting and his smile showed perfectly even teeth. “And you know what I am, as I know what you are. So I wonder: what does my vampiric competition want so badly that he’s invited me into his place of power?” Sebastian leaned back. Ellis was starting on the offensive. Good. Fine. He planned for this. “What do you think of Cassius Corvus?” Ellis tilted his head to one side. “The head of the Ruby Syndicate? He’s fine. Cheats at poker. The Syndicate keeps buying up properties that I want to turn into lovely luxury condos and turning them into awful luxury condos. And then he refuses to let me manage his in-house clubs, which is just insult to injury.” “Do you know how vampires maintain order among their ranks?” A brief flicker of emotion, too fast for Sebastian to identify, touched Ellis’s face. “Of course,” he said, his tone still light and airy. “Mental manipulation, drinking the blood of subordinates, and the threat of murder by sunlight. Classy. Classic.” “Do you think it’s right?” Ellis laughed. “My dear competitor, I am the son of the Winter Queen herself. I can hardly pass moral judgment. And one might make the argument that you’ve profited extensively from your… relationship with Cassius and his methods.” A spasm of rage twisted Sebastian’s jaw. An eyebrow twitch told him that Ellis saw the brief lapse of control. “My 'significant pause' relationship with Cassius is not what it looks like from the outside.” Ellis leaned forward, a wicked smile on his face. “I do love a bit of gossip. So there's trouble in paradise?” Oh, God, he had to stop this conversation before he lost his absolute poo poo. Sebastian took a deep breath and got to the point. “I have a plan that will neutralize Corvus, place you in control of all Ruby Syndicate assets, and kill every vampire in the city.” Ellis laughed, but his heart had begun beating faster. “Oh really? Is that all?” Sebastian shrugged. “It’s a start.” “What would you need from me?” “I need people who have certain powers I don’t have access to. I need people who can keep secrets. And most importantly I need a safe place to stash the squirrely son of a bitch while we’re working.” “Oh, it’s we already, is it?” Ellis chuckled and brushed nonexistent lint from the shoulders of his tailored coat and leaned in. He was interested. Or at least interested in being perceived as interested. God, the Fae were worse than vampires sometimes. Sebastian just gave another self-deprecating laugh and spread his hands. “It had better be. Otherwise I just handed my primary rival the perfect way to unmake me.” He let a slow smile spread across his features. “But I think you and I would be much happier working together.” Ellis grinned back. “Yes, I think so.” He stood, the movement just slightly too quick to be human. Well drat, the man was actually excited by this. Sebastian must have baited the hook correctly. “All the vampires, you say?” “All the vampires.” “Including yourself?” Sebastian shrugged again. “If I were human I’d be well into my seventies,” he said. “Seems a reasonable lifespan.” Ellis froze in place, one hand on the back of his chair. Frost crept up the collar of his shirt and into the corners of his dark eyes. Sebastian could feel the chill rolling off of the man. “Um,” he said, cleverly. He wasn’t expecting that kind of response to what he considered the least important part of the plan. “But if we find a way around that it would be fine, I suppose.” “Hmm.” Disapproval dripped from Ellis’s voice. “I despise waste. We’ll workshop it.” “Sure.” The frost cleared slowly. Ellis paced Sebastian’s office. “A saferoom, you say? I can do that. Winter has many prisons. Power? I have that in spades. Secrets… the type of secrets you are asking me to keep would pit me against my mother. The current balance of power suits her. The Queen of Winter does not make a good enemy, Sebastian, and my decision to live in this realm of iron already puts me on her shitlist.” gently caress gently caress gently caress he was going to scuttle the deal and tell the Queen and she’d tell Cassius and it was all going to be ruined forever and I absolutely do not have time to freak out about this. “Surely you must have some way of keeping things secret from her. No child ever tells his mother everything.” Ellis laughed at that. Some warmth came back into his features. He approached Sebastian and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Too true. I know of a way. There’s a special type of contract we can make that will give us a year and a day of privacy, but no more without,” he paused and looked Sebastian up and down, some alien emotion playing across his handsome features. “Additional binding clauses.” “That timeline is acceptable,” Sebastian said. He smiled, the adrenaline rush from earlier was back, but smoother, more manageable. It was working. It was going to work. Soon enough he’d be free. He held out a hand to his new partner. Ellis took it, smiling broadly. “We’re in business.”
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Jul 3, 2022 14:15
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Week 517 Entry Was it a hat I saw 1123 words Hannah took a deep breath. “Five…” “I didn’t mean to break the singing rule! I wasn’t think-“ “MOTHERFUCKING SIX” “Oh no I’m sorry right I’ll wait I’m so sorry.” She exhaled and closed her eyes. “Seven.” Eyes still closed and teeth clenched, she took a beat to feel the room shake and listen to the machines rumble and scrape. She opened her eyes and stared at Bob, mentally punching his stupid happy smile off his stupid happy face. “Now. Can you please repeat what you said, but like a normal loving person?” Bob looked a little hurt, which made Hannah feel even shittier. “Look man, I’m sorry, that was harsher than I meant. I just… what? What do you want?” “I’m sorry I broke the singing rule, but you don’t have to be so grumpy about it. It’s my bad, I hid a roll of tape in your drawer and was asking you for it, but I found another one. I’m just trying to make our workplace a little bit more cheerful. To that end… ta da!” Bob, already recovered from his weekly ten second break from smiling, revealed his latest creation. Another poster. Bob loved his posters. He knew they had a finite amount of toner for the printer, but that didn’t stop him from making his stupid little posters. Every Wednesday like clockwork, Bob would come up with a funny or inspirational saying that he absolutely had to print out and tape to the walls. He started out just taping them above his cot, then above the drill controls, but he quickly ran out of room. Now every inch of the control room was filled with 8.5x11 sheets, all featuring a terrible drawing and a cloying phrase. A smiling kitten on an escalator saying, “Just because you’re heading down, doesn’t mean you have to frown”. “Live every day like it’s the best thing ever” inexplicably featuring a happy frog. A cheerful groundhog digging a hole asking, “Going my way?” Hannah rubbed her temples, trying to force her brain to melt out of her ears so she had the same IQ as Bob, before turning around to face him. This week’s poster featured a big fat worm, smiling of course. It said “Just keep digging! I promise you’ll be there soon!”. Hannah paused, looking back and forth between the poster and Bob’s desperate smile. She sighed and switched the drill controls to automatic. “Hey Bob? Is everything… I mean, are you okay? You seem, um… eerily cheerful. Like, forced?” Bob looked startled at her change in demeanor. “Of course! I just have to stay positive a little while longer! I bet our estimates were only off by a… maybe… week or two? We’re going to reach the core soon, I’m absolutely sure of it! I just wish we had more yellow toner for the posters, that’s all.” He smiled, but his eyes pleaded. Hannah knew this look. “Look, I know it’s been a long time. We’ve been stuck in here, week in and week out with only each other. And I… I know I’m not always the best company. It’s just gotten to me too, that’s all. I never thought it would have taken us this long to get there. And I get so mad. That must be hard. For you, I mean. Hard to be around. I’ll try to talk more. I know our conversations are all we have. But you know what, Bob? Maybe you’re right. Maybe we will reach the infernal planet core soon. The depth readers have been broken for so long, we really could reach it any day now.” She knew it was bullshit, and he probably did too. But the fact that she was trying seemed to make them both feel better. “Then at that point all we have to do is head back to the surface. I know it will take us just as long to get back. Maybe we can even get the dumbass radar screen fixed. But I’m sure we’ll find what we need in the core. Then we just have to experience everything we’ve already seen, but in reverse. That’s… easy right? And we can repaper the control room with even more posters. In the meantime… umm… do you wanna play What Will We Find?” Bob exploded. “Yes! You haven’t wanted to play in forever! Okay I’ll go first. I think we’ll find…” He smiled and scrunched his face, thinking. “…A giant crystal ball, and when we look at it we’ll see ourselves, but our arms and legs are switched! Like we can see into a parallel universe where our arms are legs and our legs are arms! Okay what do you think we’ll find?” “I think we’ll find… a giant silk worm, spinning the softest and warmest clothes you can imagine. She makes me a big hat with ear flaps to keep me warm as we head back to the surface. I wish I had a hat like that, the way these garbage temperature controls have been acting up. My ears are cold all the loving time.” “I think we’ll find a magical gummy worm seven feet wide, and infinitely long! If we could get one end of it to the surface, this gummy worm could feed everyone forever!” Bob laughed and mimed pulling a huge worm out of the ground, eating it, and pulling it more. A renegade smile betrayed Hannah’s stony demeanor. “Yeah but then someday a deep sea-“ Suddenly everything changed. The control room shook. The drills shrieked. Hannah dove for the panel, switching the controls to manual. Bob powered on the viewscreen. The soil was different. It was dark, almost black, with an inky sheen. They looked at each other, terrified and excited. It was the outer core. They were close. So close. Within minutes, they would reach the core. They held their breath. As they emerged from the outer core, they floated, weightless, in an enormous chamber. The walls were black obsidian, laced with the most brilliant veins that sparkled like diamonds. Large, writhing columns made from pure gemstones crawled out from the walls and snaked through the space, converging toward a single point directly in the center of the chamber. There was an object, floating in the empty space between the columns. It hovered there, motionless, the singular focal point in this immense and silent space. Hannah couldn’t believe her eyes. There, suspended in midair in this dark, icy chamber, was the comfiest looking hat she’d ever seen. It had a fuzzy lining, and big, thick ear flaps. It shimmered and glistened when the light caught the fabric. Hannah stared, enthralled and reverent. After an eternity, Bob whispered bewilderedly. “Is that… a yellow toner cartridge?”
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Jul 3, 2022 16:48
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Week 517 entry Night Shift archive MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Dec 10, 2022 |
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Jul 3, 2022 17:41
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Barista 1500 words I’m getting better at this, I thought wryly. Two weeks into this gig and I was finally starting to get the hang of the things Shirley had rattled through on the first day. Beans go in here. Milk down here in the fridge. This is a portafilter. I had fumbled my way through the first hundred tries, with no small number of customers giving me a quizzical glare upon receiving their orders, picking up their to-go cups and peeling back the plastic caps that I’d snapped in place like rugs over carpet stains. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t… okay, fine, look. Just don’t freeze in your tracks and turn back to me with that …that little wrinkle in your eyebrows. I’m trying my best here! But those looks were coming infrequently now. I was starting to be able to meet customers’ gazes; if they smiled winningly at me, doing their part for the amicable commercial transactions with which they were used to starting their own workdays, I was now capable of returning the favor without feeling as though it was all a rote part of the script. I actually felt like smiling. Even Shirley had noticed. Two or three orders ago she’d finished packaging up a bagel sandwich fresh from the toaster oven and turned to me with a look downward at my cup, then back up to lock eyes with a brief flash of toothy white in the dark and somehow forbidding expanse of her braid-framed face. I’d managed to pour a passable, if rudimentary, round white heart in the middle of Craig’s cappuccino. “I’d drink that,” she’d said, and then disappeared, off to the other end of the bar. I’d handed the cup over sightlessly, replaying the past minute obsessively to my inner hectoring cricket, but with a smile that I’d really meant. I hadn’t even put a lid on top to hide my shame. Why am I so afraid of her? We’d probably be friends if she weren’t writing my hours, I thought. I wonder if it’s even really possible to be friends with your boss? And now I found myself moving my hands almost automatically, mechanically, as though I were brushing my teeth or tying my shoes, so independent of thought that if I stumbled it was easier to just start over. There was no salvaging some of these mudras once you’d messed them up. But those times were rare. I now began to try enjoy the movements for their own sake, to let the fundamentals fade to the background, and I found my mind focusing on the pour. Trent, said the ticket. I thought I’d seen him ordering, though he wasn’t immediately visible across the counter. I remembered a tall, thin guy, blonde spikes like a rooster’s crest above a point-nosed and smirking face. Blue Oxford shirt, cuffs rolled back. Some kind of hedge fund guy maybe—there was a building full of those on this block—or maybe, like, a crypto bro. I wrinkled my lip as I pulled the shot, swirling milk foam with the other hand. The pitcher’s contents surged up around the wand in silky waves. If I sloshed a little too enthusiastically, it might spill over the edge, and the wastage was way less of a worry than that one of those well-dressed … professionals across the counter was watching, never missing the slightest drip or fumble, and would give me the ol’ eyebrow crinkle. I fixated on my imaginary Trent, contempt mixed with determination. Here we go now. My hands steadied as I gripped the cup and the pitcher opposite, and began a slow rocking motion to build up a small standing wave in the espresso. I had to know what I had in mind before I started, as I had learned painfully. I’d spent days thinking I could just wing it—begun pouring the milk just expecting a shape to form on its own. All that it had gotten me was a parade of muddy pools of shapelessly blended brown and white, crowned with unruly bubbles, which I was all too happy to hide beneath plastic carapaces. It was the dine-ins that I really dreaded; with their big ceramic mugs there was no hiding a mistake, so I’d had to learn to place them anonymously on the counter and retreat to the shelter of the machine and my queue of tickets, there to hide my face from the looks of reproach from the customer, or—worse—from Shirley. But now I knew what I was doing. I started a slow, thin trickle of white into the gently swirling coffee, and for the first few seconds it disappeared untraceably into the brown, the liquid level rising. But then abruptly a pool of white spread from the stream of the pour, and the wave action caught it, sloshing it to one side and enveloping it with a melting line of brown. The white stream broke through its razor-sharp wall and made a fresh pool, only to be caught up in another wavefront and off to the side, and again, and again. With five folded ovals of white now layered together like the steel in a katana, and with only a skiff of milk left in the pitcher, I redirected the stream backwards toward the far edge and through the center of the white leaves, dragging a coffee-brown spear with it as I pierced them. Whisking my pitcher hand away I retreated a step. A five-lobed flower, nearly perfectly centered. Pretty abstract, not the work of a coffee Michelangelo, but it looked cool. This time my smile had nothing inward about it; my cricket had nothing to say. Even before I called out “Trent!”, the spiky tall man was full in my field of vision, and I was ready for him. I handed over the hot cup in a paper holder with a napkin and gestured with a sidelong nod toward the lids. “Here y’are.” And he grinned sharkily back at me, glancing briefly into the cup, the smile unwavering. He turned away without a word, and I watched him go, defying one of Shirley’s earliest pieces of advice, daring him to stop. And he didn’t. Silence wafted from my left. It was a strange feeling—the morning rush was abating, and there were no orders stacked up. An admonishment from a spectral Shirley to clean my equipment rang in my ears, and I returned to the machine for the tenth time that morning. A wipe down of the wand, a release of steam to clean the inner surfaces, turn to the sink to rinse the pitcher—and when I reemerged it was with a rising sense of elation that there was an honest-to-God break in store. I scanned the floor and the few patrons sitting at tables. Nobody in line. But— There was someone at the pickup end. Someone I thought I remembered. A hunched figure, all shoulders, a thick neck and a t-shirt topped by black hair and a goatee, all aimed straight at me. Craig. Oh no, my cricket chattered. He doesn’t like it. I hosed it up. I hurried to meet him. The counter was a poor shield against any assault. I stiffened, putting my hands on either side of the near edge, then quickly whipping them away. Shouldn’t show weakness. Project confidence. I could feel Shirley’s eyes on me. “Hi, sir?” I chirped. “Anything the matter?” His goatee spread open. I noticed his dangling cup was empty. “Hey, so… yeah. Um…” he fumbled. This didn’t sound like a complaint. I raised my eyebrows, promptingly. He took a breath. “So… I couldn’t help but notice,” he said, each sentence fragment bursting out in a rush, “You put, you know…” He jiggled his hand with the empty cup in it. “A heart?” His grin now combined with eyes that struggled to meet mine, under plaintive brows. “You know,” he continued. “So. Like… I’m Craig. Uh, but you know that. Of course you know that. What’s, uh… what’s yours?” My smile must have been frozen in a rictus, and now I mentally begged for help. “Oh, uh… yeah. I’m Beth. It’s… good to meet you. Craig.” I stuck out a hand, as professionally as I could. He bobbed at the knees, taking it gingerly. “So when do you, you know. Get off?” I admitted to myself that I admired his chutzpah, if not his… anything else. This was what I needed, all right. “Hi sir, can I help with anything?” It was Shirley, at my side, having materialized from the ether. Her jaw was set, her eyes level. Craig pulled his hand back, took a step from the counter. “Uh, no, I mean… no, that’s all right.” He backed off further, then hustled for the door, hunching back into a lope like a hunted animal. Shirley watched him until the door closed, then glanced sidelong at me. “Yeah, that’s the real job.” It was muttered to herself as much as to me. And she was gone.
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Jul 3, 2022 18:13
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1500 words technology isn’t magic (but it can feel like it sometimes) archive flerp fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Oct 9, 2022 |
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Jul 4, 2022 00:47
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The Sewer-Beast 1498 words I didn't return to work immediately after the accident. The sound and fury of the explosion rattled my head days later, and the image of Flatback's face before he disappeared still haunted me. Boss Astor blamed me for the loss of large amounts of industrial chemicals into the sewers, as well. Being a boy of twelve and not in school, I spent many days that summer walking the dockside, all the way down to the stinking mire where the sewer let out to sea. I would poke through the filth there, not entirely believing, but hoping, that I might find something of Flatback's to take to his family. Flatback had been a funny boy, an expert gambler, a swindler in the making. When I found nothing of him on the shore, I imagined him hiding just inside the sewer, behind a tangle of wire, waiting to surprise me. So, one day when the tide was out and the sand before the sewer tunnel was hard, I ventured into it with a lantern. In my curiosity, I wandered far too deep, and there I felt a frightening growl reverberate around me. I scrambled for the safety of daylight, but turning a corner, I saw a wide reptile nearly filling the tunnel it sat in. What I thought was daylight was the glow from its eyes, burning bright orange, the exact same color as the phosphorescent paint used at the manufactory. Its hide had a flowing metallic sheen, like mercury. I couldn't keep my footing in the sewer muck, but neither could I move from fear until this beast lurched toward me, its middle bulk shifting side-to-side and throwing sparks where it scraped the wall. I ran, and perhaps with the spirit of Flatback guiding me, escaped with my life. I told nobody of what I'd seen. My zeal for exploration was gone. It wasn't long before I returned to the only thing that made sense: Astor-Jackson Manufactory. The other boys made a raucous welcome for me, though it didn't last long with Boss Jackson on the catwalk. "That's enough," he snarled. I had had a growth spurt in the intervening months, so I was put to work packaging and loading the distribution trucks. Several boys I had known before were there with me: Irving, Neils, Lenny, Owen, and Pieter. I nearly forgot my encounter with the creature - until it returned. We were loading a truck when I felt a rumble come up through the floor, through my very bones. I froze, unable to take my eyes from the patched-over spot where Flatback had disappeared. "Did you hear that?" I asked nobody in particular. "It's excavations for the new train line, isn't it? I'm surprised they're back at it," said Pieter. "Papers said dynamiter crews keep disappearing. Tales of a beast." A wink and a grin. The boys all laughed. My blood went cold. The rumble returned, accompanied by a pounding that shook the building. Barrels of chemicals rattled in their stacks. Every boy in the building stopped his work, waiting warily. Another pound from below broke the silence, and a hole opened under Pieter. In an instant, he was half-gone, clinging to the bricks. "Help me," he croaked. The boys ran around to take his hands, but they were leery of getting too close. I was frozen, watching a fiery orange glow pour up out of the hole. "What the devil's going on down there? Mind the shipment!" Boss Jackson shouted, leaning over the rail of the catwalk. Pieter gasped, and we heard the wet crunch and rip of flesh. All the expressions of pain and death that we'd long since come to recognize played out on Pieter's face. He sunk out of sight. Irving sobbed. Lenny prayed. The building shuddered. The glow from the hole intensified, and two massive, scaly hands emerged. I fell on my behind, splashed in Pieter's blood, and finally came to my senses. We all scrambled back under the catwalk as the beast tore through the brick floor until it found purchase. With great effort, the beast pulled itself up. It had evolved since I met it in the sewer. The swirling metallic coloration on its scales was unchanged, but it stood on its rear legs, like a menacing bear, with its back severely hunched. Its long snout bobbed about, and rows of teeth numbering in the hundreds curved upward like the grin of the demented. Boss Astor, ignoring Jackson's twitchy pleading, pulled a pistol from his waistcoat and fired five shots at the beast before clicking dry. Each shot bounced off without even a scuff. The beast twisted around and smashed at the catwalk with its heavy tail, destroying the stairs. We boys just barely made it up them - except Lenny, who was thrown through a stack of boxes and landed somewhere, unmoving under debris. Boss Astor dropped his gun, stammering, and let Jackson drag him out the window, onto the roof of the next building. The beast sniffed its way towards the piled-high chemical barrels. I was halfway to the window when I saw something that made my heart nearly stop. Another boy, one so green I hadn't yet learned his name, cowered behind the barrels. He winced and cried as the beast slashed into a barrel and gulped at the paint that poured forth. "There's another lad still down there. We have to help him," I said. The boys didn't take any convincing. There was a certain spirit amongst the boys who had done what we had, seen what we had. Knowing we left a boy behind would haunt us longer than any wound. Irving shouted for help, but the Bosses were long gone. Neils told us the boy was his second cousin, Karl. We watched as the beast's wicked claws slashed ever closer to his hiding spot. It was Owen that came up with a plan. Being the longest, skinniest boy, Owen went first. Strong-handed Neils held Owen's ankles and lowered him over the edge of the catwalk. Irving and I, of no particular physical gifts, held Owen by the belt, lowering him over the edge as far as we could. The beast was losing its composure, frenzied by the industrial chemicals. Sharp chunks of ruined barrels littered the floor, and fumes burned our eyes. "Karl," hissed Owen, waving his arms. The boy, who couldn't have been older than 8, was watching us, but he refused to move. "Now!!" Owned urged. Finally, Karl sprang from his hiding spot. He moved fast, stepping through the debris. The beast paid no attention, but ripped off the top of the barrel. It flew across the room and ricocheted off of Karl's arm. He went down and didn't move, as the beast tipped its head back and poured thick mercury into its maw. "Get up, Karl! Get up now!" Neils raised his voice. I feared drawing the attention of the beast, but we were out of time. I shouted too, and the other boys joined in. Karl stirred, climbing slowly to his feet. The beast dropped the empty barrel, and one massive black eye swiveled toward us. With a deafening bellow, it hauled its bulk around to face us, whipping its tail into the wall. The building shook like nothing before, and a bolt holding up the catwalk burst. We dropped by a foot, but the catwalk held. The railing groaned as Irving and I braced against it to keep our grip on Neils. "Take my hand," screamed Owen. Karl's mercury-slick hands struggled to grasp Owen's. "Lower!" Owen shouted over his shoulder. We had but a scant few more inches to give. All the while, the beast dragged its distended belly across the factory floor, snarling and snapping its jaws. A few inches was enough - Owen wrapped his fingers around Karl's blackened wrist. "Pull!" We pulled. It was agony. Neils wailed, stretched taut. Closing in, the beast extended its neck and opened its jaws wide - it could engulf Karl and Owen both, in one bite. But it snapped on air. We bundled Karl across the catwalk, and out the window onto the roofs. The sun was faint behind the usual overcast sky, and a light drizzle fell through the smog. Out there, it was an unremarkable day. Inside our hearts, we knew we had done the impossible - and we had done it together. The bellowing and thrashing of the beast echoed out from the factory, along with gouts of dust. Eventually, it went quiet. It was seen around the docks a few times, reportedly even larger and more deadly than it had been that day. But after a while, it disappeared altogether. Nevertheless, I had the feeling it wasn't gone - it was simply out to sea, feeding, growing. Waiting for its day to return, and crush us without remorse. The other boys felt it too. So we resolved to get together, and get ready. When that day came, we would have to save ourselves.
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Jul 4, 2022 01:52
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A Very Canadian Mystery (1498 words) “Lake’s gone.” “…Can’t be. Check the co-ordinates again.” “The Lake’s gone, Gus.” Gus and Jerry stood afore a great, dusty pan, pluck in the middle of a rich boreal forest on the edge of the Kluane National Park and Reserve. Almost everything was where it should be. The Foxes, chary in their dens below. The Goshawks, vigilant in their nests above. Even the Kokanee Salmon were exactly where they should be. It seemed quite absurd for their lake to be missing, but so it was. Gus frantically crosschecked the numbers in his notebook with the ones on Jerry’s GPS. They always matched, no matter how hard he glared. “How do we take water quality samples from a missing lake?” Gus wondered. “Maybe we could take some silt and mix it around with bottled water. Should be fine enough for testing,” Jerry replied. “…We have to sample lakewater, from the right lake.” “Maybe we should call in? See what the boss says?” Gus winced as Jerry fished out the sat-phone from his backpack. It wasn’t long before their boss hollered unkind words at them. Though Gus made sure to stand far away, he could still perceive the profuse profanity. “I don’t care how it gets done, just do it! Every single lake on the list gets assayed or you’re both fired!” the voice blustered before disconnecting. “…Guess, we’ll have to hope there’s a puddle left somewhere,” Gus grumbled, hopping from the mossy backshore onto the naked foreshore. Though plump carrion eaters munched happily at their windfall, Gus and Jerry’s noses wrinkled at the leftover fish. Not a puddle was left of the great lake. Even the loam they tread upon crunched instead of squished. A sinkhole on the other shoreline was the only lead. Gus and Jerry shrugged, then ventured in, setting their flashlights ablaze. The channel ran steep and deep, but yielded no trickle. They followed the canal to its end. A stout, stony door, with a shadowed figure standing afore it, capped the path. Gus swallowed hard. The figure was surely a giant animal. He’d already seen one too many grizzlies up close this season. Jerry yawned and dispelled the figure’s penumbras with his flashlight. It was definitely a Sasquatch, caught mid-stride. Its gawky pose reminded Jerry of the time he’d caught his roommate pilfering cheese from their fridge at midnight. “Hey, do you know where the water went?” Jerry casually asked. The Sasquatch’s eyes widened, as if it’d just seen a bison talk. Gus stood agape too. Sasquatches were not on the list of fauna they might encounter. The stare-off persisted ‘til Jerry brandished a water bottle. He sloshed it about. “Waaa-teeer…?” The holophrase didn’t register so Jerry drank from the bottle with great theatre. The Sasquatch ceased its ponderings and opened the door a skosh. It bobbed its head towards the entry. Get in, it probably meant. It disappeared into the ingress. Jerry followed suit. Gus wondered whether he should update their boss, but he couldn’t take another haranguing. They’d surely just be cursed at again. Gus followed Jerry into the realm beyond the stony door. ***** Bioluminescent fungi planted in sconces at every meter lit the way in neon. The passage’s stonework looked clean and square. Bas-reliefs on its walls depicted a march of Sasquatch, with their bison herds, returning after a grand adventure. They carried water back to a hive of underground ziggurats. Gus studied the bas-reliefs as he walked; the symbols etched into them reminded him of the cave paintings he’d seen in Neanderthal books, back when he still aspired to be an anthropologist. The job market wasn’t ready for his dreams, so he became a field analyst, to still be a kind of scientist. Cave paintings combined pictures and symbols to tell stories, as comic books do, he recalled. Meanwhile, Jerry contemplated the architecture; it reminded him of the bigger qanats he’d seen in history books, back when he still aspired to be an archaeologist. The job market was sluggish, so he became a field analyst, to be outside at least. He recalled qanats were underground aqueducts. Though Gus and Jerry both shed a single tear at the handsome stonework, they averted their gaze from the many horrible piles of slimy rubble. The Sasquatch halted at some bare stone and pointed. Paintings. Bas-reliefs still uncarved. Gus and Jerry peered closer. A march of Sasquatch dug a tunnel. Then they built gates and a pit. They opened the first gate. Water rushed in. The water spun all kinds of wheels. Pipes filled up. The Sasquatches celebrated. Then a lake monster washed in. A gargantuan waterserpent. It smashed the gates on the way in. Too much water now. Wheels broke, pipes split. The Sasquatches diverted the floodwaters into the pit. Some Sasquatches died trying to throw another switch in the pit. The monster got them. The monster lives there now. The Sasquatches mended some damage, but don’t know what to do next. “I’m not going through an Ogopogo just for some lakewater samples,” Jerry groaned. “…Hey, did that stone door slam shut just now?” ***** “Did’ya ever think life was gonna be this way?” Jerry queried, staring distantly, skipping stones off the Ogopogo. The monster’s snorting threatened a hungry reprisal. “…Nah. I wanted to become a famous anthropologist,” Gus replied, absently casting down pebbles. Over the past two days they’d tried everything to evict the waterserpent. Nothing from their hefty backpacks worked. Not bear spray, not flares, not gasoline, propane or butane. The best they could do was hurl rocks from the safety of the pit’s highest gallery. A stairway circumscribed the pit’s edges. The oversized steps continued below the new surface, towards a partially submerged relief valve. The valve would empty the pit into a subterranean river, or so they guessed from further study of the bas-reliefs. “What stopped you?” “…Two recessions, a couple pandemics and more wars than I can remember.” “Something like that happened to me too. Hey, I bet we’d get a second chance if we make it back. An underground civilization would be the find of the century.” The thought warmed parts of their souls long since frozen-over, but the pit’s crypt-like chill soon postponed the thaw. “…If we make it back.” Once the Elder Sasquatches realized little Jamie had brought humans into the settlement, they politely imposed quarantine. They needed to deliberate. Gus and Jerry were confined to the watercourses, unable to explore elsewhere. They’d have liked to tour the ziggurats. Jamie, by the way, was what they named the first Sasquatch they’d met. It’s a good name, for boys or girls. Jerry sighed, imagining the peril the Ogopogo must’ve visited upon the settlement. “If we could get a ‘quatch into the water, it’d distract the ‘pogo. We’d easily get that valve. Lose one ‘quatch but save the rest.” Gus frowned. The idea reminded him too much of the problems their boss made him solve during hiring. ‘Trolley problems,’ he called them. That interview had been obnoxious. Sadly, that was the only idea left. “…I think the Sasquatches are testing us, seeing if we’re brave enough to fix this ourselves.” “That ‘pogo’s gotten real ornery. At us, in particular. No other way to get close.” “…Maybe we could try something like that? A distraction, I mean. We could stuff food into our extra clothes, shape it like a person, and throw that down...?” ***** With the pit draining and the Ogopogo ejected, a great gurgling echoed across the underground. Eventually Jamie, and all the Elders, came to greet Gus and Jerry. The Elder Sasquatches had parchment drawings they wanted to share. The peril turned out to be imaginary. The Ogopogo would’ve eventually starved, but the Sasquatches preferred to spare the majestic beast. There weren’t many left anymore. They were surprised a pair of humans fixed the problem without a whole lot of death or violence. Humans tended to make messes of things. They did fear a disaster, however, if these humans told even more humans about these goings-on. They detained the two, not knowing they might be different. The Elders led Gus and Jerry to the bare stone where Jamie first explained the problem. There were more drawings now, with a wet palette underneath. The first paintings depicted two humans braving the waterserpent, banishing the floodwaters, waving good-bye and departing in triumph. The next drawings were faint, chalky scratches. It showed the Sasquatches celebrating, living happily ever after, alone in their sunken cities. The tentativeness of the thing suggested the idea wasn’t fixed, like it was more of a question. Gus and Jerry exchanged shameful glances with one another. Maybe it’d be better if Sasquatches weren’t the find of the century. Gus dipped his finger into the palette and thickly painted the drawing in, hoping the gesture would answer the question. A happy ending, for Sasquatches anyway. “Guess we’d better go back for that lakewater sample,” Jerry sighed. “…At least we’ll keep our crummy jobs,” Gus murmured.
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Jul 4, 2022 01:57
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Yoink.
Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jan 15, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2022 04:30
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Week 517 Entry Staff Support 1250 Words Janelle sat in the corner of her therapist's office with her shoulders as far forward as they could go. Her bangs draped over her eyes, and she squeezed her left forearm with the nails of her right hand as her therapist awaited an answer to his question. A question he could no longer recall since they had been sitting in silence for minutes. "You know," he said as she jumped. "I'm cool if you don't want to talk. It's kinda nice to just have things be quiet, isn't it?" He caught a sliver of an eye turning up to him through her bangs. "Maroon Unit's so loving loud." She mumbled. "Well, it's quiet here, and as long as you're in here, my boss thinks I'm working." Ross leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "You're trying to trick me. You want me to say something." Ross kept his eyes closed but smiled, "You know, I wouldn't put it past me. But, when you catch me, I admit it, right? Like that time I tried to show you a card trick." "Yeah," she said, looking back up. "You wanted me to like you, so I'd trust you." "You caught me. When I do all the intakes for your unit, I show the kids card tricks. They're surprised and think I'm a different kind of therapist, and it gets us started on a good foot. But…" "...not me." Ross chuckled and opened his eyes. "Not you. You know, this whole therapy thing would probably be a lot easier if you weren't so smart. You realize that, right?" "The gently caress does that mean?" She shot up out of her chair. Ross didn't flinch. "That I'll never get out of here because I see poo poo and call it out? I thought you said that I was special. That I have everything I need to get out of here if I can just see it in myself and trust people." "Oh, I was saying all that, huh?" Ross asked. "Well, you've said it before." "And I guess you've been listening. I'm glad." Janelle sat back down. "You know," Ross started. "Maybe someday I won't need to keep saying those things if you keep saying them for yourself like you just did." "Our time's up, right?" Janelle asked. Ross looked up at the clock. "For this week, yeah. Ready to go back?" ***** Ross and Janelle arrived at the Maroon Unit just in time to hear a loud thud on the other side of the entrance door. "Oh lord." Janelle sighed. Ross pulled his walkie-talkie off of his belt and clicked it on. "Let's see what's going on." He said. "Staff support! All available units to Maroon!" Ross ran through his options quickly. He was, technically, available. But he was also with Janelle, who was firmly safe and outside the unit. He did the quick math and decided that the best option was to remain outside, where it was safe, and keep Janelle out of harm's way. But, his hands twitched in protest as it had been weeks since he last was able to intervene in a conflict, and his body begged for the adrenaline rush that went along with de-escalation. "You good?" He asked Janelle. "What?" She responded. "You good to hang out here? Just sit right here, and wait for me." He wasn't supposed to leave her by herself, but Janelle was not generally a risky resident. "I think they need me in there." He said. Janelle nodded and sat down against the wall. She brushed her bangs back out of her face and scanned the hallway, ensuring it was vacant. Ross yanked his ID badge off his belt loop, unlocked the door, and strode inside. A room several doors down the hallway was ajar. Several staff members stood around, warding off other residents and trying to calm down whoever was inside. The door closed, and Ross inched his way forward as he nodded at the other residents and maintained his posture. The door flew open again, and t-shirts and bras belched out of the room as it swung closed. "Oh hey, Mr. Ross." Amaya, the unit director, greeted him. "Whatcha doin' here?" Ross stepped back, and his hands dropped for a moment. "I heard the staff support call." "Oh, OK, we don't usually get many therapists responding. You know we got this, right?" "Is that Mr. Ross out there?!" A voice roared out from inside the room. "Yeah," Amaya replied. "He's here. He'd like to help." "What's the matter?" The door flew open, and she stared at Ross. "That bitch you work with ain't good enough? You gotta come up here?!" She pulled the door shut, and the unit door opened. "Who the hell left Janelle out here all by herself?" A livid residential worker called out. Ross deflated a bit and raised his hand. "The hell's wrong with you? You know we don't do that here." "No!" Janelle called out. "No no no no no!" She took off toward the crowd around the room and was stopped by the staff. "Who's in my room?" She cried. "Is it Carisa?" "That's right bitch! And I'm breakin' all your poo poo!" Janelle crumpled to the floor, dropped her head into her hands, and wept. "Will you please look after her?" Amaya asked Ross. "Just get her out of here." Ross frowned and nodded. "Come on, Janelle." But Janelle stayed on the floor, so Ross sat beside her. He waited for a moment until Janelle took a breath. "You know if this poo poo happened a month ago. You would've gone into crisis. They probably would've had to restrain you." Carisa flung open Janelle's door and saw Ross and Janelle sitting down. "Oh gently caress no!" She charged at them, and Ross shot up to his feet as the day staff surrounded them. Carisa crashed into the staff. They went hands-on and restrained her. "You're lucky they're here!" She yelled at Janelle as she struggled. "Or I swear to god I'd kill you." Janelle had had enough and stood up and walked away. Ross followed her. "That's right, Mr. Ross," Carisa called after them. "You walk away. That's how you do. Always walking away." Ross nearly took the bait and turned around, but Janelle reached out and grasped his arm. "Don't," she said as she wiped away her tears on her sleeve. "It's not going to help her. She needs to move on." "Move on?" Ross asked. "You know, she still talks about the trick you showed her when you did her intake." "Really?" "Yeah, I may not have bought that poo poo, but she did. You might have been the first person to be nice to her in years." "Well, sure, but I'm not her therapist. I just did her intake, and she works Sarah, who's gotta be the sweetest out of…." Janelle laughed. "Oh, Mr. Ross. Aren't you supposed to be the therapist here?" Janelle straightened her back and cleared her throat. "It seems like you're talking awfully fast, Mr. Ross." "She thinks I abandoned her?" "poo poo she thinks everyone abandoned her, she gets like this during our sessions. She gets like this when the others on the unit get family visits. She just gets like this." "God, you know, I hadn't even realized that our whole way of doing intakes here is screwed up, isn't it?" "I'd say so," Janelle said. "Don't think I woulda been too happy if I got shuffled over to someone else after you." Ross smiled. "Don't let it get to your head, though." Janelle continued. "But yeah, you should talk to your boss about how y'all run things around here." Ross shook his head in disbelief. "What was it I said, back in my office, about you being too smart for therapy?" "Was some bullshit." "Fuckin' right."
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Jul 4, 2022 06:07
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Week 517 Entry Send in Bob from Accounting 1029 Words To the view of many, Bob Dexter was your average account. He helped with taxes, made sure businesses were financially stable, and was extremely suicidal. But Bob had a peculiar hobby, one that he shared with quite a few accountants. A few weeks ago, when Bob first started in Accounting, Bob was searching the dating site Accountlove.com (it wasn’t very successful). While browsing, he saw an ad that interested him. Do you want fulfillment in your life? Do I ever! Bob thought. He clicked the link. It was an address, along with instructions mentioning that what he sees, he must not tell anyone. Since the word anyone was in italics, Bob knew it must be serious. Still, he was interested enough to want to come. Later that night, Bob went to the address from the website. It appeared big enough that it might be a warehouse, although he had passed by Gyms that looked similar. He opened the door, and heard the kinds of noises one would expect in a gym. Now, a “98 pound weakling” like him had obviously not been to the gym recently, if at all. Still, Bob could not help but wonder… What kind of gym opens up this late? Bob looked further, hoping to find someone who could tell him what the hell was going on. Bob was so focused on looking for someone, that he didn’t notice someone tapping his shoulder. As soon as contact was made, Bob jumped in fear. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” Bob looked at his scarer, and got even more scared. After all, he’s never talked to a woman before! The shock was enough to make Bob hyperventilate. The woman gave Bob a paper bag. After Bob calmed down, she properly introduced herself to Bob. “I’m Katie. You must be Bob Dexter?” Katie appeared plain, but for Bob, it didn’t help. Katie took Bob along as she explained the situation. “A few years back, our founder was working in accounting, and when he got in an accident, his boss told him to, excuse my language, ‘man the gently caress up’. So, he decided to do something about it.” As Katie was finishing, she and Bob entered an area with a ring that was shaped like an Octagon. A man with a similar build as Bob went over to them. “You must be Bob Dexter!” He said. “Welcome to Accountant Fights. I’m Pipin Squeak.” Bob looked very confused while shaking Pipin’s hand. “What the hell is Accountant Fights?” “Let’s put it this way. You ever felt like beating someone up, but were too afraid to get your rear end kicked?” Bob nodded and sighed. “Well, here’s where we accountants can safely beat each other up, and since most of us have little to no experience lifting anything heavier than a pencil, we get only minor bruises!” Bob seemed relieved, but didn’t say anything. “Plus,” Pippin said. “All this equipment here is tax deductible!” “Wait what?!” Bob was amazed at the two words that came out of Pippin’s mouth. No wonder accountants were attracted to this place! “So,” Pippin said, extending his hand. “You want to join us?” Bob felt nervous, but he knew that this was an opportunity of a lifetime. A way to vent out frustrations without getting killed, and with tax deductible equipment? “Sign me up!” Bob was nervous, of course. But he was excited, as well. “Great! If you want, you can go have a fight right now?” “Sure!” Bob said, without thinking. “Great!” Said Pippin, who then turned around and yelled, “We got some fresh lean meat!” Bob was escorted to the Octagon Ring, and was asked to take off his shirt. Bob was at first reluctant to do so, but when he saw that his opponent was doing it and looked as scrawny as him, he took it off. Pippin came in to referee the bout. “Bob, this is your opponent, D. Endy. D, this is Bob Dexter.” Pippin said. He then explained the rules, then said, “Let’s get it on!” D landed the first blow. In fact, he landed the first few blows, yelling out a word after every punch. “Why? Couldn’t? You? Just? Carry? The? Two?” While Bob felt the brunt of all the punches, they didn’t feel that bad. Sure, they still hurt, but they felt manageable. Bob then went on the offensive. Due to the lack of any training, he had to improvise, but it turned out he was a natural Southpaw. Bob and D continued to hammer (Or, in their case, gently tap) each other. At first, they were afraid to go for kicks, but soon after, D lifted his leg. Bob could see what was coming, so he blocked the kick with his leg. This made their legs sore, so they both dropped to the ground. Soon after, they both got up, and started punching each other again. Eventually, both of them were completely out of breath, and it was only a matter of time before at least one of them dropped to the ground. A few seconds later, one of them did. It was D. Soon after, Bob dropped as well, but it was clear that he won. Everyone outside the Octagon cheered. Some even chanted repeatedly, “Holy poo poo!” Sure, Bob was in pain. Sure, Bob felt like it was a miracle he was still alive. But he had the time of his life. Afterwards, Pippin went up to Bob, shaking his hand. “Same time next week?” “Yeah,” Bob said. “Same time next week.” They both knew that accountants were rarely late for their appointments, and this was one appointment Bob did not want to miss. A few years later, at the offices of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC President Dana White received a call from his secretary. “Mr. White, the accountant you hired is here.” “Bring him in.” The accountant came, papers in hand, and sat down. After introducing himself, Dana asked him a question. “I know this isn’t why you’re here, but I have to ask, how much do you know about Mixed Martial Arts?” Bob smiled. "I know a few things."
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Jul 4, 2022 06:17
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Week 517 Submission Riley's Last Rind 1500 Words “Not interested,” I say again as Toussaint leads me by the horker down a gallery of movie posters. Pork’n’Beans Blah-Blah-Blah through Pork’n”Beans ad Nauseam. I get it. “I have photos. I know what the most famous pig on the planet looks like.” He hands me a collar with a medallion on it. “Bits,” I read aloud. “Pork’s just a stage name, you see. Protect his privacy. Beans is, of course, me.” I glance down the hallway, and Beans hasn’t aged a day. The walls are brightly lit, but in the dim center, I can’t tell how much work Toussaint’s had. Could sell it for a couple bucks to a gossip rag if I dig up something, but cash in hand trumps my natural snoop. “Hmm. Start with what happened last night. Spare the backstory.” As Toussaint thinks hard I stow the collar in my pocket. “Bits woke me for a midnight snack, as is his wont. Then I took him to the jacuzzi. Aids digestion.” He gets teary. ”Before I knew it, these jackboots in black masks, they grab Bits and disappear into the night. Woe.” “Whoa, what?” “Woe as in woe and misery.” “Uh-huh.” “Take this,” he says and hand me a mass of straps. “Bits likes to ride in his papoose.” Brown Betty takes some coaxing but I rattle down Wilshire in a haze of Irish coffee and smog to check out Animal Magnetism. On the card: Premier Non-Human Talent Agency, and in Toussaint’s script, ‘Craig.’ It smells like the city pound inside, but reception chats away on a headset, unphased. He pulls a ‘one moment’ finger on me until I lose patience and snatch the headset. “Rude.” “I’m looking for Craig.” That’s me,” he says, “but you’ll have to wait your turn.” As he tucks the headset around his ear, he whispers, “VIP, very important pachyderm.” I sit while Craig yammers on about hay rates and day rates. The door chimes and a familiar face rumbles through. He pulls the same shenanigans with the headset, and it seems like Craig deals with this ten times a day. But I know that lumpy sack anywhere: Billygoat, small-time crook and some-time snitch with a coincidental nickname who’s beaten my ears cauliflower more than once. He turns to take a seat. “Riley!” he shouts and I return a “Billygoat,” as he lumbers out the door. I hustle after and Craig’s shushes fall on deaf ears. Billygoat dives into the bed of the El Camino, and I tumble in beside him as the driver speeds off. We tussle, round ten or so, through the years. He heaves his perennial fave, kidney punch, but fortune favors the lush and he claps his knuckles hard on my hip flask. On his recoil, I kick out from under him and knock the tailgate down. Gravity begs to roux me into road gravy. In desperation I grab at Billygoat’s duster balled in the corner, and hear a squeal. Billygoat freezes. I lift and the wind takes it in a tornado of cologne-disguised BO. Bits is huddled against the cab, but when he sees his papoose strapped awkwardly across my paunch, he leaps into the safety of the pouch. Billygoat grabs me by the straps. “Easy, don’t want to bruise the bacon,” I beg. “Just a payday, Riley. Gimme the squealer.” “Right, so you get it. Let me get mine. For all I care, kidnap the pig again after I cash the check. And decide quick before me and the pig are grease.” Billygoat’s knuckles whiten around the strap and the threads creak and snap. He pounds the cab and yells, “Pull over.” I scurry and they leave me in a cloud of exhaust the emissions inspector would have a thing or three to say about. Bits’s wheezes a grunty little snore as I trek back to my car. I take a breather mostway up the hill so I have enough lung to argue about my bill, especially considering the answer at the gate was a burst of static and I hopped the retaining wall. Topiary barrels line the way, pruned in a series of poses of the pot-bellied porcine package. I nod to an improbable penché, impeccably trimmed tutu and a trotter touching the clouds, and murmur to the little fella, “You can’t really do that, can you?” A whiff of rust and decay breezes downwind and Bits starts whinging. Wouldn’t think twice down at the wharf, scrounging for info or a place to crash in the pick-n-mix of rusted out hulks. But in the hills, where I’m huffing up a marble drive towards the Corinthian facade of a mansion new enough the plaster’s still wet, it was definitely fishy. I reposition the porker and my paperwork to pound mahogany. “Toussaint? Got your pig. Open up, both the door and your checkbook.” Locked tight. The papoose gives up the ghost and Bits squirms out of my grasp to clickety-clack around the house. “Dammit.” It’s an acre of opulence, more pool than ground, the powderpuff pink ceramic the only hint it was pig shaped unless you were sky high. Then the horrorshow. Toussaint lays sprawled at the culmination of a bloody trail from the smashed glass of the sliding doors, head stoved like a rotten cantaloupe and bobbing in the water, some award trophy on the deck. I wonder how much of the pink is actually faux-pig. Cherry on this poo poo sundae—Bits lapping at the gore like it’s all-you-can-eat at the slop trough. Bits is still snuffling up a heady dose of Toussaint as I tuck him under my armpit and repress a gag. Low voices and clomping boots come from inside the house. Before I can sneak around to have a listen, Bits chomps down on my forearm and this time I squeal, and not because of the discount tattoo removal courtesy of Bits. Billygoat pours out of the shattered door like an unholy host, and I unlatch the snorking glutton and raise my hands as his double-barrel gets pushed into my snout. Bits goes for a second helping of Toussaint. “What happened, Billy?” “Wasn’t me. We just got here. Didn’t think you’d take so long. Your plan sounded fine, why don’t we both get a slice? Maybe somebody wants the whole pie.” A fireworks crack peals across the valley. If Billygoat was the unholy host, the brimstone was right behind. The sulphur tang of gunpowder overcomes the chlorine and iron as Billygoat crumples like a wet towel. “We?” “You dummies never think, do you.” I recognize the voice. He materializes through a puff of pistol smoke. “Craig. Sir. I’ll just get my check and be on my way. I have plenty of dirt on every high roller in LA, I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.” “Tempting, but I know you, Riley. Billygoat has a big mouth, and you spend half your time sleeping in your lice-infested car. If you had anything valuable to say, you’d have spilled it for a payday already.” Hell of a thing to say about Betty. Craig presses his nose to my nose and his Smith and Wesson to my gut. I reflex a breath, sucking up the chemical scent of his hair gel. Not hair gel . . . not hair gel . . . wig glue. I bring my hands down hard and tear that sucker off. His face droops like a silly putty homunculus, and it’s at once obvious. Toussaint wasn’t the original Beans, just looked close enough. Craig was. Aged and or balded out, like any kids watching those crappy movies would care. Hell, I surmised, Bits isn’t the original Pork, either. “You got me, Riley. But there’s too much at stake. Bits just cracked a hundred mil box office. You think that’s valuable? I have a cage full of pigs more talented. Nah, clients want to eat a box office star. Tough to disappear a human, but Pork? C’mon. You know how much for that? More than you’re worth. And if that piggy has a taste for human flesh? More than this house.” “Jesus Christ.” Craig pulls the trigger and I see more stars than the Walk of Fame. Craig teeters backwards and drops the pistol. I gasp a breath like I’ve been underwater too long and see the rose blossom from his gut. I reach in my pocket and pull Bits’s collar tag, dented, but sturdy enough to ricochet the point blank shot. Bits, that disgusting little scamp gnaws on Craig’s scalp before he’s even cold. “Bits, c’mon.” I jigger the papoose into a semblance of security and the siren’s call is too much. Bits is asleep against my chest before I dig out my phone. Billygoat’s slunk away to troll a bridge another day. Gutshot’ll keep him down for a while. Ring ring. “Hey, Skimmer. Got a story you’re gonna love. Ten grand. Better say ‘yes’ before the disco lights scoop you. OK, fine, a taste. Cannibal pig stalks Hollywood Hills. Semantics. You write the headline.”
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Jul 4, 2022 07:07
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Week 517 entry 1101 words Sleep All Night and Work All Day John Timbers silently swore as the coffee he was pouring spilled on his hand. He was running behind and today was the big pitch to the mystery client. Little Jacob had been up most of the night crying, and Melanie needed her rest if she was going to handle a gassy baby all day. He wiped up the coffee and grabbed some heavy cream, it smelled as if it was turning but not quite yet, so he loaded up the coffee. A kiss to Jacob and Melanie, then grabbing his briefcase and he was out the door. Melanie's "Good luck!" rang in his ear while John ignored the frantic texts of coworkers who had been working overnight. He'd address them on the train, but for now it was driving time, and nothing was going to stop blasting Journey as he zoomed over the speed bumps towards the station. The train was running late, so late the one that arrived was supposed to be there twenty minutes earlier. There was just enough room for John to squeeze onboard, but not enough to type quickly with one hand explaining to Simmons how to reset the copier. Seriously, Simmons, just wait until I'm in to print copies of the media spend plans. At least Kathy's presentation order suggestion was legitimate, and probably correct. The boss Sarah Fillman insisted the clients wanted it all hush-hush so no one would know anything until the meeting began, which had put most the office into a panic cycle. Not John, he could move in the moment and already had half-thought ideas for over a dozen industries. John was still typing off a reply to Barb when the train hit Lone Pine Station and he walked off with the crowd. By the time he hit send, he noticed the crowd was keeping its distance. He looked up to see a man glaring at him, blocking his path. "Excuse me," John said, attempting to go around. The man moved to block him. "Jonathan Noah Timbers," the man said. John paused at hearing his full name, usually only spoken by his angry mother. He gripped his suitcase tighter. "Who wants to know?" John replied. The man grinned at that response, teeth yellow behind a bushy dark red beard. "It is you, Jonathan. You've been a very bad boy. You are coming with me!" He reached out. John dodged to the side. "I don't have time for this today!" he said as he pushed by. "You have to come back, Jonathan. You have to come back to the forest!" John froze. Suddenly he realized the man was wearing a flannel shirt. He hadn't been in the forests for years, not since he quit and moved back to the city. He turned to look at the man. "You broke it, Jonathan." Broke? John had not broken anything. "What are you talking about?" "You broke the Lumberjack's Code! Now it is time to pay!" "Look, friend, I quit being a lumberjack years ago." "No one quits, Jonathan, not without facing the tribunal. You are coming back with us!" "Us?" John asked, then he saw them. The twins, Jeff and Jim, dressed in the same red and black flannel as the man before him. They were walking slowly, carrying a big two-man saw between them with smaller axes strapped to their sides. He had worked crews with both twins, Jeff was far more reasonable than Jim, but they were both excitable and mean. "Huh huh huh!" laughed Jeff and Jim. "We will take your flannel!" "Jeff, Jim, I'm not wearing flannel, not since I left. I’m no longer satisfied with just chopping things down, I want to build things up. Please, go back to the forests and let me live my life." "Your life is lumberjack life, and lumberjack life is our life!" yelled the stranger, and the twins charged. John sighed, then sprung into action. He leapt into the air and landed on the side of the big saw carried between them, forcing it down. The twins barely had time to turn their heads before John’s blows reached their faces. The force knocked each twin flying in opposite directions, Jeff slammed into the wall and shattered tiles, while Jim tumbled into the tracks. John stood atop the saw, then jabbed the blade with his heel and snapped it in two. The station signal for an incoming train rang in the air. "You better get your brother," John warned the groaning Jeff. John advanced towards the stranger, who stood still in shock. He tried to back away slowly, swinging an ax. John easily swiped it from him and broke the handle over his knee, tossing the ax head aside. He shoved the snapped handle stub into the man’s hand and grabbed him by his flannel shirt. "Take this back to the Chief Operators and tell them don’t EVER come after me again, understand?" "H-h-how?!" gasped the stranger. "You aren't wearing the flannel!" A gust of wind from the incoming train caused John's tie to flutter. On the back, a stripe of flannel was visible. John winked and then headbutted the stranger, who fell unconscious. “I lied, friend.” He ripped the stranger’s flannel, a mark of shame that would take the stranger months to earn new red and blacks. It would maybe give John a few months of peace. Jeff and Jim watched John pick up his suitcase and leave from the platform's edge, they made no move to stop him. John arrived to work almost forty-five minutes late. The team was in chaos, the clients were due to arrive soon, and Sarah Fillman was running around trying to organize. She was excited, this was the biggest client her firm had ever had the opportunity to pitch, and they had approached Fillman & Associates’ advertising firm first! After a few minutes, John had his team in order and helped Sarah whip the rest into shape, and the whole company waited as Darren brought in the clients. Half a dozen important looking people in crisp suits marched in and began shaking everyone's hands. John noticed the long beards, the firm grips, their friendly eyes switching to all-consuming hatred when they caught his. That's when John found out who this mystery client was. Brawny. The clients had blocked the door, and were all tearing off their white shirts to reveal red and black flannel underneath their suit jackets. The whole firm was confused, except for John, who unlocked his briefcase and pulled out two short axes. "I should have insisted this was a Zoom," John sighed. "Typical Monday."
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Jul 4, 2022 07:25
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Shoot 1102 words The order list comes in while I'm making breakfast. A long scroll, a busy day. Shoplifting in the morning, to get going. A couple of armed robberies in the afternoon. Murder in the evening, with an arrest scheduled just before midnight Of course, I'm technically in prison right now. Seven times over, in fact. It may look like a high end luxury apartment seven-room suite but it's legally a maximum security prison. Does it's job, too. None of the ankle bracelets ever leave. Crime isn't what it used to be. Case in point: usually when I do a shoplift job I try to find some kid actually lifting a bottle or a top, someone with a prime rib under their shirt, and time my job to run interference with theirs. Lately, it's harder to find one, and it's not that the kids are getting cleverer. No, the trend lines just keep trending. Minimum living standards and rising mental health are making petty crime as obsolete as the harder stuff already is. Pretty soon they'll have to start hiring guys like me to drive eighty in a sixty-five zone too. I give it a while before making my move solo. Blatant, just grab a television and walk out the door. Loss prevention is no confront, so I just get a picture taken and sent to the precinct, get another face added to their store ban list. I dump the face and the television in a garbage bin six blocks away and move on the the next job. Lunch is a fast food hamburger. Some people think they aren't what they used to be either, what with no real meat in the patties and no human labor the the restaurant other than one guy minding the computers from the basement. Not me. Just as tasty, and no need to look anyone in the eye. And the package is right there under the table for me. Three handguns, cherry records, as usual, and the box with the kit. Someday the police are going to run out of confiscated guns that don't have any crimes attached to them. Not any time soon, though. The banks and jewelry stores are mostly no-confront too. Armed security, but they won't pick a fight if they don't have to. They have a script, and it's all about stalling until the police arrive. I have a script that usually skips past most of theirs. The guns are mostly for show. The same mental healthcare that cures nearly all the villains also weeds out heroes. You can rob a bank with a finger in your coat pocket, especially if you don't mind dye packs and tagged bills. And I don't. Money just goes in the river with the guns and faces anyhow. "What I want to know," asks Mynne, "Is why?" Every day I go off tracker for a few hours. Always have. Drives my handlers nuts, which is half the fun. Usually I'm just taking in a movie anyhow. That and petty revenge are what keep me going. But not today. Today I'm having a little chat with Mynne Vesk. Way off the record. "They have to justify the budgets," I say. "No, not that. I get that," says Mynne. "I mean, why you?" "The usual. One in a million combo of violent tendencies that resist every known therapy, plus authority issues that rule out the military and the cops." I say. "Not that I'd want to be a cop." "Sure," she says. "Tell yourself that." This is why I don't like people. I agreed to the meeting out of curiosity and was beginning to regret it, thinking about going off schedule. "You're part of the system, helping then. The budgets, like you said." "So a few dorks get to keep in fancy doughnuts and six-rooms," I say. There's a weird echo, down here in the parking garage. Nobody comes here but a few vintage freaks whose cars can't retrieve themselves. No witnesses but a few cameras that we both can logic bomb out of commission. "It's not just that," she says. "Mostly it's the riot squad you're keeping alive." "Riot squads?" I say. "Nobody riots anymore." "They would if they knew," she says. "About me?" I lean back against a concrete pillar. "If people knew about me they'd make me wear a bodycam and sell ads on the stream." "Not just you," she says. "Forget it," I say. "Interview over." "You don't want to know the truth?" she yells. "About Faraday Heights?" She's playing dirty. My parents died in the Faraday Heights fire and collapse. A brother, too, who I barely even knew. Probably made me who I am today. Playing dirty. But I keep walking. We've got us another date tonight. The kit is parts, some printed, some machines. In about two minutes I turn those parts into a scoped rifle. I'm in position. She's having her usual late shift end coffee. The laser dot appears on her forehead. Murder is different. The cops keep it off even the crooked books. The cases get solved. I get arrested, a face goes into the media, and another bracelet joins me in my maximum security penthouse. There aren't many working criminals out there. Fewer still that will do this part. I won't say I don't enjoy it. But I will say I can justify all seven. Awful people. Corrupt, power-abusive. Some of one in a billion with sex crime tendencies that can't be therapied clear. And even her, I could justify. Someone who could bring riot to our utopia? Surely worth the bullet. When I see the second dot I act before I realize what I'm doing. My aim shifts and I fire, high-speed bullet passing so close to her cheek that its wake leaves a burn scar. She hits the ground, and the other butter misses too, all while I'm spinning and reloading the rifle. I know where the dot was, where the other nest must be. When I'm pointed the right way I look down the scope, take aim, and shoot. No need to agonize when your body has already made the decision, right? I can't go home, obviously. But that's okay. You don't spend a decade and a half as a kayfabe criminal without setting aside money and faces here and there, and more importantly, you make plans. I have a lot of plans, ways to do it for real, places they tell you never to hit. And people, too, for that matter. I'm not sure how long a run it'll be, but it's going to be fun.
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Jul 4, 2022 08:07
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