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Turn About Is Fair Play 1500 words https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_W7ydnPtB4 Kimmy didn’t need any of the surveillance spells or auguries she’d cast to know she was being hunted. Her pursuer wasn’t subtle. His off-white pickup truck stayed in her rearview all the way across the city, bright under the streetlights. She thought she’d lost him once, when she took an abrupt left turn without signaling and he got stuck at a traffic light, but he reappeared with remarkable speed. It was hard to do magic while driving. Nobody is as good at splitting their focus as they think they are, and while Kimmy was tempted to think of herself as an exception to the rule, she really couldn’t afford to crash her boss’s car. She hadn’t signed herself over to serve and learn from one of the last dragons in exile just to wreck the old lady’s stuff. But she couldn’t drive around all night. She needed to know who it was following her. Kimmy rummaged in the glove compartment. There was no way in her own vehicle she’d have anything useful, but working for the Dragon of Prophecy had its perks. Instinct made the woman a bit of a packrat, but foresight meant that she almost always had the perfect tool for any given task secreted away somewhere. Kimmy’s fingers closed around a small sample vial, the kind fountain pen enthusiasts kept fancy ink in, full of a sensory enhancement tincture. Perfect. She swore as she dribbled the stinging liquid into her eyes at a stoplight. Then again as the world snapped into sharper focus. She’d trained for this, she knew how to sort through the sudden flood of sensory input, but that didn’t make it pleasant. She glared at her stalker in the rearview. White. Late twenties. Short hair, full lips. No particular expression on his face, just the blank focus of someone performing a task. His aura, though. That was something else. It flared around his vehicle, enormous and menacing, pulsing red with some alien hunger. She’d seen things like this before, when her boss used her draconic nature to impact the world around her. What humans had to do with complex rituals and spells a dragon could do simply by willing it to be so. Interesting. Why would a dragon be hunting her? She was, more or less, on their side. She reached out and touched his aura with her own magic, a soothing, gentle tendril of emotion insinuating itself against the raging fire. It felt like delicately brushing the back of ones hand against blistering cast-iron. The heat clung to her even as instinct demanded that she shrink away from it. Kimmy pulled back into herself with the unsettling feeling that she left something of herself behind. And maybe that was enough, because the dragon stopped following her shortly after that, turning the opposite direction and fading from her enhanced ability to see. Kimmy didn’t feel like breathing a sigh of relief. This probably wasn’t over. *** It wasn’t over even sooner than she thought. That massive aura hung around her apartment like a caul, almost visible even as she approached her door. Kimmy glowered at the lock. Her first-stage wards hadn’t been tripped. They’d been unmade. “I know you’re out there,” the voice was deep, resonant, and arrogant. “You’ve got a really unsettling number of dildos, lady.” Kimmy sighed and pushed open her door, walking into her apartment. The lights were dimmed by bolts of sheer fabric, except for the twinkling strands of fairy lights she’d strung around the walls. It was a snug, warm, cozy space. And there was a strange man standing over by her bookshelf, flipping through her books and putting them back in the shelf with the spines facing in. What an rear end. “They’re containers,” Kimmy said, tossing her purse nonchalantly onto a chair. Don’t show fear. Don’t show weakness. That’s what he’s waiting for. “For spell energy. In case I need an extra boost, you know?” The man turned and gave her an incredulous look. “So, what, do you have to have them inside you to cast?” Kimmy gave a short laugh. “No. I just live next to a porn store and they’re cheaper than crystals. Now who the gently caress are you and why the gently caress are you in my house?” The man shrugged and turned back to the shelf. “Name’s Thomas. You work for someone I want to hurt.” Kimmy leaned back, her shoulder thumping against the wall. She looked him over. He was of medium height and above average build, with scarred, muscular arms and an rear end that told her he did not skip leg day. Okay. She could work with this. “I’m a dragon knight. Technically I work for you too.” Thomas shook his head. “Not really good enough.” He turned to her desk and opened a drawer, riffled through it. The next drawer was locked. “You got a key for this?” “If I say no, are you going to break it?” He nodded. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “If you tell me what you’re looking for maybe I can just, like, hand it to you and you can leave, since apparently you’re not here to get revenge by hurting me physically.” “I thought about it,” he admitted. “But it seemed kind of trite. You’re a dragon knight, sworn to the Dragon of Prophecy and Family. She’d have given you a piece of her collection to seal the deal. That’s what I’m after. I’m gonna take it, corrupt it, gently caress up y’all’s whole thing. It’s not personal. Well. Not personal to you, at least. She can get hosed.” Yeah, no, that couldn’t happen. He was being so blatant about his plans, clearly he thought Kimmy wasn’t capable of stopping him. She considered him for a moment, a plan taking shape. “Sounds boring,” she said. “Counteroffer, what if I get hosed.” He eyed her. Kimmy shifted position, arms down, one foot up on the wall behind her, subtly pushing her chest and hips forward. His eyes lingered where she wanted them to linger, and didn’t drift toward her fingers as she began tapping a series of spells against the wall. “I don’t come cheap,” he said. “Few worthwhile things are. But think about this, you could try to steal some trinket. Or you could try to steal me. Think about it, wouldn’t it be more interesting to not just corrupt the bond, but to sever it completely? To steal me out from under her?” She grinned at him, wickedly. “Maybe I’d like it better under you, anyway.” A little fire lit up behind his eyes, but he was still cautious. “Interesting thought. I don’t know what I’d even do with a knight.” “Who cares?” Thomas walked over to her, a slow, predatory lope, until they were almost touching. “I don’t have a collection,” he whispered, tracing a finger up the back of her arm. “I don’t have any pretty trinkets to trade for loyalty.” “Trinkets aren’t what I’m after,” Kimmy whispered back. She pressed into him, her chest against his, soaking in his heat. “You know what I’m after.” Her arms circled his shoulders as her lips found the side of his neck. She inhaled the scent of him, wild and masculine and dangerous. And as his hands wrapped around her waist to carry her to the bed, the delicate net of her spell fell over them both. **** It had been too long since Thomas had been able to really let loose. The dragon knight, Kimmy whatever-her-name-was, was one of the most insanely responsive partners he’d had. He wasn’t sure she’d make him a good knight, but she’d sure make a good fuckbuddy. This was all going so much better than he had planned. But the second the first rope of his cum splashed against Kimmy’s chest Thomas knew something was wrong. No candles flared, no sigils shone, but he could feel something move in his soul, something invasive and strangling. “What… what did you…” he tried to speak through the convulsing, horrible pleasure, unable to prevent himself from spilling more across the pretty witch’s tits. She smiled at him, all teeth now. “You wanted to ruin me?” She purred. “You wanted to corrupt me? Sweet, pretty, innocent me?” She snapped her fingers and he was thrown back, flailing, his limbs unresponsive to his need. “Sorry, Dragon of Fuckbois. Turns out I’m good at this.” He struggled to his feet, snarling. He could feel the web of her magic around him now, a delicate net of spell work that bound him more tightly the harder he fought it. “You can undo this, given time,” Kimmy said. “Your aura, it’s fascinating, it’s eating away at my spell second by second. But you’re in my place of power, Tommy, and as you mentioned earlier, I’ve got a truly astonishing amount of energy stored here. So. We’re going to talk. And you’re going to tell me exactly why you’re here and what you had planned.”
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The Last Nights of the Shepherd 1136 words Flash video: Do Make Say Think, "The Landlord Is Dead" The Shepherd of Night is wavering. At first we think it's just fatigue, the kind familiar to everyone who works nights in the Pit. It's even funny, in a way, to watch the Shepherd go about its rounds with that leaden gait and downcast eyes -- we love it in those days, as we've never loved it when it's delivered us the day shift's scraps with a strong stride and a carved-stone smile. The Shepherd provides adequately, but barely enough is never enough. What the day shift gives us now is even less than barely enough. The food left behind in the iceboxes is sparse and often stale or near-spoiled; it's as if day shift is eating everything they can simply so we cannot have it, and when the Shepherd drags itself back and forth from the storerooms, it reveals little but the oldest emergency rations. (The kitchens have not been staffed at night since our fathers' time in the Pit.) What day shift fails to leave us in provisions, they make up in problems: broken equipment, half-finished orders, work so overflowing that dozens of us spend all night cleaning up the day's messes. We whisper, as we always do, about leaving it all in place for them to find in the morning, but we know the truth as well as day shift does: for the work to continue, night shift must finish what day shift leaves behind. The work must continue. We delve down into the Pit, hands as steady on the lift-ropes as we can make them, and surface again with the bounty the Pit offers. On weary legs, we haul it to the processing and packaging offices, who always have just enough nails to close the crates. Clerks sit at desks left filthy and sticky, filling out ledgers with defiantly pin-neat hand. The carriagemen drive it all in the dead of night into the sleeping town, to our comrades in the bakeries and greengrocers, who wait to feed the hungry morning populace. We feed ourselves with the stale bread in the iceboxes, sharing the butter and coffee that a few generous souls bring in, and on our breaks we close our eyes for a respite from the dull chemical light of the Shepherd's lamps. Before dawn, we leave at last, out into a sleeping world with little to welcome us -- a few sad bars and restaurants, but no libraries, no parks, no dance-halls. The only comfort for the night shift is home, even when all it offers us is sleep. So it continues, for a while: just barely worse than it was. Soon, we think, this new decline will be normal, and we will forget this indignity as we have every other. And then the Shepherd stumbles. It's early in the shift, in one of the entry corridors crowded with shuffling bodies. When the Shepherd stops in its tracks, we stop with it, sluggish minds recognizing vaguely that something is wrong; when it pitches forward, those of us underneath it thankfully have enough panic left in us to leap clear. Nobody screams, as if screaming wouldn't be enough. The lights above dim, flicker, and snap back to life with a buzz. The Shepherd is on its knees, stone flaking off of its cracked legs, and underneath is something spongy. "Meat," one of the gawkers says at last. "Pit-meat." We don't admit surprise. Surprise is not enough, and night shift in the Pit is enough to dull the mind to the unusual. One of us could have killed the Shepherd right there, if the rush of malice had taken us over then, and the rest would have stared and shrugged and shuffled off, to let the fear find us at our desks or in our descent harnesses later, or on the long pre-dawn journey home. The Shepherd was breakable -- was that such a surprise? It was something that distant fathers of fathers had built, back when the Pit offices were new, and a thing that they could build, we could surely break. But we liked the Shepherd, these days. It was one of us, more than it had ever been. Who might have broken it? Day shift, of course. They have their own Shepherds, newer and brighter, but when did that ever stop them? Day shift takes merely so that night shift will lack. Day shift fails simply to make night shift struggle. We all know this, the way we know the routes to our work stations, like the slow relentless beating of our hearts. Day shift, we whisper. There needs to be a reckoning. None of us alone is brave enough to do it. But after the shift where the Shepherd spends half the night on the floor, struggling to right itself and oozing from a dozen fresh gouges, we are of one mind, and brave enough together. We arrive en masse two hours before night shift begins. The sky is dark and overcast, a night-before-night: a good omen for those of us who live in the dark, we decide, as we file in. Day shift swarms the halls like locusts, tracking filth from muddy feet, gorging on fresh fruit and leaving drippings in their wake -- but fruit is not all they gorge on. The Night Shepherd, our Shepherd, lies prostrate in the hallway, borne down by the weight of a dozen day-shift bodies, teeth carving out layers of stone and clay to reach the meat within. The brilliant day-shift lamps above flicker and sputter. The Shepherd lows, the first noise we've ever heard it make, from a mouth that ought not to produce any sound. We close ranks. We charge. Our bodies move as one, but our minds are in chaos. Our Shepherd is dying; more and more stone falls away, revealing flesh already hollowed out by day shift's hunger. Our Shepherd, our guide -- who will light our way into the Pit, now? Some think of our own hungry nights instead, of the soft flesh revealed, and howl with a fresh new grief: why was the Shepherd not ours to eat? Gluttons and thieves! We fall on them in a wave, some pulling the day shift away from the Shepherd, others racing in to feast upon what's left. Few of us think of the endless work still to be done, of the town that feeds on what we bring up from the Pit, but why should we? The town never feeds us back. This is for us and us alone, and whether the work goes on or not is no longer our concern. The lamps die and leave us in the black. It feels right. When the Shepherds of the Day come, we sink our teeth into their fresh clay. We will take back what is ours from day shift at last.
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Aug 28, 2023 04:01
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The Other Road 987 words Tabitha looked like hell. Hair matted with blood, glass shards wedged in her cheeks and neck, left elbow dangling bent backwards. Right hand stretched out, thumb up. I pulled over, popped open the passenger door lock. We go way back. She doesn't have to look like that.She has lots of looks for every kind of purpose. The CW drama version of herself, a dead sexy twenty-eight year old actor playing her teenage self when she's looking for a quick screw. The real thing, with the prom dress and corsage and the angry little zit on her forehead, when she's doing the vanishing hitchhiker bit on some kids. Herself if she'd been aging naturally when she just wants to talk. This one, though. This one meant trouble. I could have driven on by. I had business that shouldn't wait long in Fort Myers. But she'd have just shown up on the side of the road a half mile down, then a half mile after that. Eventually someone else would have seen her, and who knows how that would have gone. "Doug," she said. "It's the road." "What about the road?" I said. "Road's sick." "Going to turn the tables, eh?" I said. "Heave up into someone's car?" She punched my shoulder. "Sick sick," she said. She'd cleaned herself up, moved to close to her real age. I guess. I never asked, rude and all that. She died before safety glass windshields, all I'm sure of. Maybe it was an old car already by then. It was one of those faces lucky people get to wear from forty-five to eighty. "Like, maybe dying. We're all scared." The thing about roads is that they're all haunted. A new house, if you don't build it over graves, is probably ghost free. Roads, though, all of them are paved with blood and souls. Most of them start as war paths, migration routes, hunting trails, forced marches. Even the trade routes had their share of ambushes up and down them. Then we worked poor sods to death paving them up, and drive at speeds that exact a bloody toll every year. Haunted, haunted with a crowd. That's a healthy road. "Where's the problem, love?" I said. "Twelve miles ahead. Nihogg Tunnel." I hit the accelerator. "That one's new, right?" I saw her nod in the reflection on my front glass. She looks more solid in reflection than directly,somehow. The old tunnel was too narrow for more than one lane of truck traffic each way, put a bottleneck in the whole regional economy. The geologists said expanding it was a bad idea, but that didn't stop them from trying. At least there wasn't traffic going through when it collapsed. So, a new tunnel. Right through something the geologists didn't know about. "Seems like I was headed that way already," I said. I knew there was something in that area. It's like a kind of itch in the back of your soul. World's haunted. The dead outnumber the living, and the afterlife resorts are all exclusive. You got to be real bad to get to hell, real good to get to heaven, and the rest of us just linger. Me, I've got a pocket full of tickets to hades and another full of get out free cards. I figure the guy with the face full of teeth will lay them all out alongside my heart and the feather, and I'll slip out while he's doing the math. Not like I was using the old ticket for anything but keeping my blood flowing anyhow. Wasn't long before I reached the new tunnel. There was an energy coming from it, pale green auras, not the honest red of ghosts like Tabitha. Who wasn't there any more, don't blame her. When you can just stop being corporeal, let the Cadillac go on without you rather than face what's ahead... I saw him. Usual thing. What wasn't usual was that about half the other drivers could too. He wasn't manifesting. He was just too strange to ignore, deep down. I pulled up, shouted at him. Not really any words, just a primal 'Oi'. Took three of those to get his attention, and that was just to mutter at me in one of those languages the snake handlers tap into. Words deep in the bones of the continent. My brother-in-law has been known to touch a snake, to speak in a tongue or two. The real deal. I've heard Etruscan and Nsibidi with proper grammar come out of his mouth. Turns out it was banal stuff, hunting instructions and a husband chewing out his wife. Nothing spiritual. But still impressive. And I've also heard this language from him, issuing commands to dead soldiers. And a spell or too. Had to get him to stop that nonsense quick, before he summoned something or set his house on fire. Point is, I understood his words. "Where are you, my King? My service has not waned. I stand ready to conquer." "Your King's dead, mate," I said. I don't speak what he does, just understand it. But I can make my own words make sense. "You too." "Death is nothing," he said. "At the end of this road is victory." "Sure," I said. "You know which way?" And then I drove away. Figure he's raging still. His type can't bear the thought of retreat. He'll be stuck until he's sure, and before that I'll be back, with a proper squad to exorcize him into a bottle, seal off whatever hole he came in through, maybe loot those pre-Siberian Transit ruins. Next week's problem. Right then, Tabitha was thumbing it a half mile past the tunnel's end, looking a dead sexy thirty-five, the same hypothetical CW show actor in the last season rather than the first, and I wasn't too proud to give her a ride to the next rest area down.
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Aug 28, 2023 04:38
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=11408&title=Night+Hunt
curlingiron fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 05:03
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Downpour 2047 words Chapalli woke up on the empty dance floor of the club. The room was dark, except a small section of the bar where half a dozen or so men were engaged in a drunken bout of gambling. He pulled himself to his feet, then had to catch himself, swaying for a moment. Still drunk. He ran his hands through the inside of his cape, checking his pockets. Wallet, keyes, papers. Watch still on his left wrist, plugs still resting in his earlobes. No one had taken anything. He exhaled, and tried to piece together the night. He had made it here with a few of his fellow exchange students and a couple local boys who suggested the spot. Club Caracal. It had been a welcome relief from the bars that catered to tourists and expats, with none of the cold, suspicious front that the locals usually gave foreigners. They had danced and drank, he had met a girl, a decent Cahuacl speaker at that. Things got fuzzy after that. There was a memory he couldn't quite grasp of insisting that he'd be fine if his friends wanted to head back to the university without him, and of buying another bottle of brandy. To split? For himself? The harder he tried to get specifics, the more his head hurt. He couldn't understand a word coming from the bar. Even if he had been sober, the men, mostly rough looking younger guys with shaved heads, certainly weren't, and were slurring their words too heavily for his meager command of Qazi to parse a thing. Better to not disturb them, and just slip out. The door was still unlocked. He opened it, just enough to squeeze through quietly. Outside, it was pouring. He cinched up his cape. He wished he had brought the thick one with the hood. This was his nice cape. He sighed, and stumbled into the downpour. This part of the city was a maze. Streets ran at odd angles, a web of unregulated development. He knew the university was only two or three kilometers away, and he plunged ahead. Less than fifteen minutes later, soaked and shivering, he realized he had no idea where he was. The streets were deserted, besides the occasional beggar or vagrant sleeping fitfully in a covered alcove or doorway. Neon signs floated hazily in his vision, illuminating the streets with a dim light advertising shops and services that would be closed and dark for hours yet. He squinted to try to make sense of them in his swimming vision. Appliance repair, something he couldn't quire translate but that seemed to be clothing for teenagers for coming of age ceremonies, imported smokables and liquors. None of the street signs were familiar, when they were present at all. He was freezing. The rain was never this cold in Tapaliccan. He wished he had brought his thicker cape again. There was a small bus stop shelter just down the street. That would have a map, and mercifully, it wasn't occupied by a sleeping transient. The bus stop did have a map, but the map assumed the reader would know where they were. Chapalli sighed. He considered wringing out his cape, using it as a blanket, and passing out here. If he got robbed, the embassy could replace his papers, and the university had a copy on hand and he only had… He went through his wallet. Two hundred thirty Tibal. Fuzzy math told him that was about sixty or so bucks. It would sting a little, but not even enough to call home and ask for more about. His parents would be furious, of course, better not to let them know this ever happened. A truck sped past, dousing him with dirty water and shaking him from introspection. Maybe there was a reason no one slept here. As he stood up and tried to wring his cape out, he saw a sign across the street. “Bagam 24-hour”. There was one of these near the university, he had been there often with his friends on late night beer runs. The convenience store would have hot drinks, and food. Might as well warm up somewhere dry before trying to wait out the night. A bell rang as he entered. A bored girl sat behind the counter, in her early twenties, about his age, not even up from a magazine as he entered. “H-hello” he stumbled over the foreign words a bit. This was so easy in class, but much harder in person “Could I get a…” The girl looked up and gave a sudden squeak of scandalized surprise. Chapalli realized his cape was hanging open, only his loincloth leaving a little to imagination between his bare, bronze chest and legs. He pulled it closed quickly cursing himself for forgetting the differing dress standards in the colder south. “Deepest apologies.” He stepped back from the counter and gave a half bow. By then the girl had regained her composure, looking as embarrassed as he felt. “Kahve?” she asked. Coffee, just what he was looking for. “Please miss, thank you for the hospitality.” he knew it was overly formal, but decided to err against over familiarity. She turned to where several bubbling glass kettles sat on hot plates. The smell of the coffee was the strongest, but he could also see two types of tea and what he guessed was the local holly-leaf drink. Without looking back she filled a paper cup with coffee, and reached for a jug of milk. He panicked a bit. “No, none please!” She looked at him incredulously. “No milk?” He rubbed his stomach and made an unpleasant face, hoping she got the idea. She laughed a little, and put the milk away. “Kawacali?” “Cahuacli.” he corrected her “Close, but no, Tapaliccani.” Her face showed she had no idea what he was talking about. He shrugged. “Yeah, Cahuacli.” Her face lit up a bit, and she yelled something into the back room. When there was no immediate answer she held up a finger for him to wait. He set down a few coins on the table. Ten tibal should cover the coffee. He looked around the small shop for something to eat. Dried meats, potato chips… he wanted something hot. There was some sort of porridge sitting in a hot well behind the counter. Six tibal. He put down ten more, just to be safe. The girl came back, dragging a reluctant boy in his early teens, clearly a younger brother. She made a motion as if to say “talk to him”. The boy looked him up and down. “Good morning, good meet.” he mumbled. His sister elbowed him again. “I am learning your speech in school, she wants me to show off.” The boy's speech was hesitant and accented, but clear and understandable. He was clearly a good student. Chapalli held out his hand. “Chapalli, First of May.” "Ghanibal. Ghanibal Kuvan. My sister is Ghanibalit Verinit.” The sister said something again, and the boy rolled his eyes. “She says you can call her Verta, if you want.” Chapalli smiled. He knew he had worn his nice cape for a reason. “Pleased to meet you both.” he motioned toward the porridge. “Could I get some of that?” “Kuager.” The boy said “Yeah, Cuacuel.” he tried to get his tongue around the harder consonants. He was sobering up, but not enough to get it right. The girl, Verta, poured a cup of the porridge. It was thin, but smelled savory as he took it and the coffee. “Fourteen.” she counted out change for him, but he waved it off. “Keep it, I'm just happy something is open." The boy snatched the leftover coins off the table before his sister could take them. Chapalli sipped the coffee, and downed the porridge. It was good, some blend of oats and buckwheat, sweetened a little with beets and spiced with bits of peppers. He already felt better with something warm in his stomach. “She says you can stay and dry off if you need to.” “Huh?” Verta gestured towards a restroom behind the beaded curtain separating the backroom from the sales floor. Chapalli’s heart beat a little faster. Was this what he thought it was? He didn’t expect any Qazi girls to be THAT easy. It wasn’t, and she wasn’t. He stood in front of the door for a second, wondering if she was coming in with him. She shook her head, pushing a warm, dry bathrobe into his hands, pushing him into the bathroom, and shutting the door. He could hear a stifled giggle on the other side. Disappointed, but also a little relieved, he stripped off his cape and got into the robe. It was soft and comfortable, if a little small. He wondered if it was her dad’s or maybe an adult brother’s. Either would probably be bad news if they came back and saw him in it. Still, it was nice to be dry and cozy. He exited the bathroom. Verta took his cape and hung it up near the stove, after wringing it out a bit. She invited him to sit in front of the counter, and he did. Conversation was awkward at first, mostly in Cahuacl with Kuvan reluctantly translating in exchange for a few more coins. Chapalli tried to get a few words in Qazi in, but that generally just got the siblings snickering at his pronunciations and telling him he was very good at it, before Kuvan would switch back to being middleman. There was a pretty glint in Verta’s eyes when she would laugh, and Chapalli loved how she stared into his when told them about where he was from, Tapaliccan, not the more famous Cahuacl City. The mention of his hometown excited Kuvan, who snatched his sister’s magazine, and pointed to a cologne ad. “You know Metlouca 19th of June?” Chapalli laughed. Of course he didn’t know the ballplayer personally, but like every boy who had grown up in Tapaliccan he had a signed poster, and watched the Tapaliccan Devils’ games religiously. Kuvan looked slightly disappointed but was suddenly much more engaged in the conversation. What felt like minutes later, but what surely longer, the sun was starting to come up. Chapalli noticed Verta catch something in the corner of her eye. She pulled the visitor to his feet and pushed him back behind the curtain. Kuvan followed. “Stay!” Verta rushed back out to the counter. There were loud, threatening male voices, and what sounded like Verta trying to apologize and deflect. Then there was the sound of glass smashing, and the salesgirl giving a startled yelp. Chapalli tried to go back out, but Kuvan held him back. “No, you’ll just make it worse. They’ll leave soon.” he whispered. Peeking through the curtain, Chapalli could make out two men who at first took for policemen, until he realized their uniforms were wrong. Seeing the tattoos on their arms, endless lines of text probably listing ancestors or some such thing, he recognized the type from dramas back home. Cold eyed, mean paramilitaries, one of the most common stock tropes assigned to Qazi characters in cinema and TV. True to the boy’s word, they were on their way out. When they left, Chapalli slipped back out. Verta was shaken, but unharmed, sweeping up broken glass from one of the newsstands. There were a pile of patriotic posters on the counter now, as well as a framed portrait of the Qazi Generalissimo Gamol. “You should go.” Verta said, through her brother as she dumped the glass in a dustbin. She slipped a map into his hands, with the university circled in red, and a phone number scrawled on the edge in the same ink. She composed herself, letting her hands linger a little as she handed him his cape. “You’ll come back though, to bring the robe back?” She smiled a little, even as her brother made sure to emphasize the last part more than the first. “Sure.” Chapalli smiled back, then slipped out into the brightening street. He was less than a kilometer from the University this whole time, and in the morning sun he could see its tower poking above the roofline around him. He’d definitely be back.
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Aug 28, 2023 05:05
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Submissions closed.
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Aug 28, 2023 11:51
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 Week 577 Eine Kline Results https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl6GNXVIwqE Lots of entries TWO FAILURES Tyrannosaurus  Green Wing There were really only two out-and-out (or in-and-out) smutty scenes in the entire 22000 words, and only one other over the pants and interrupted hand action. I guess that's . . . restraint. ------ I didn't find anything truly incoherent or off-putting so I'm not posting a loser. One lacked any real conflict and was too focused on the gimmick and the joke to really make a pleasant read, but I can see the effort. If you're Scottish you should probably brawl them: Fat Jesus - DM ------ I'd be remiss to say go for smut and not reward at least one: curlingiron - HM ya put it out there ----- I was on the fence about delivering too many HMs, but fuk it. Slightly Lions - HM fun, clear demon stomping action, it's a genre piece that works, even if it wasn't a chillwave dope up and the rest are the weird ones ----- my vibe of truly weird and esoteric. Antivehicular - HM derp - HM ----- and coming in hot you dropped a piece that felt like it was tailor made for me, both in style and vibe, but also there is amazing poetry in the detail of little things and internal thought. It's not perfect, but it's fantastic. whether they burn out or become a new star BaldDwarfOnPCP-WINNER is one to watch Ascend the throne, and get the bums to hook you up with discord and the archives winner help https://thunderdome.cc/newjudge.php ----- summary crits by post order I have readalong crits, so prepare for wall of text. I realize a couple might be a little sparse, sorry about that. It mostly meant I kept reading on and took it in as a whole. You should consider that a good thing, but if you want more detailed paragraph commentary, I'll rework it, so hit me up Fat Jesus WAIL OF THE BANSHEE Mashup of Outlander and The Village and a bunch Dialogue understandable, even with the heavy accent Seems researched well for a while, then falls off Maybe too much of a joke/stereotypes, could have had a real conflict about superstition between a couple McK’s and maybe made it funny, but also either really hiding the twist, OR making it also real spooky TheMackening You Can Take the Boy Out of the Mountains Straightforward scary dog story. Simple in execution, well done. Maybe a couple paragraphs could have been rearranged to build tension better, but it’s nothing major. You forgot about bears though, scary and very real. Over all pretty good BaldDwarfOnPCP untitled I mean, this is frankly amazing. A couple quibbles, but the style is right up my alley. And I don’t know if you lucked out and had something already that fit the prompt, but if you churned it out in a couple hours, then rat’s off to ya Ouzo Maki ****blanked by request to hide it from outside eyeballs**** Chairchucker The Evil Queen Snow White and the not evil Queen. Kind of a weird choice to have a protag who does not want any adventure and so doesn’t get it. But she meets a sexy dwarf girlfriend and lives happily ever after (in the kitchen). Flirtiness good, but probably could have helped fight the patriarchy a little better instead of leaving it up to Snow White and her boyfriend No real complaints about the general writing though, it was pretty clean and clear. Toaster Beef Six Minutes at a New Jersey Diner Trigger warning for suicide ideation Man reminisces on a stormy night and contemplates the end Those asides are well done, but could have put even more in. You get a good sense, even if it’s just physical description(and it’s very good description), of the diner characters, but the school friends seem like they should be more important but only one really has any detail. Combining the space with the current patrons and the old friends and making parallels could have been cool and described both at once. sorry, your line-by-line is probably the sparsest. with my above suggestions, I didn't want to break down anything, but taken paragraph by paragraph in isolation, I think everything is well written and flows My Shark Waifuu Awakening Stream of consciousness with a little flirty/romantic ending, even though you might be playing with fire getting involved with a roommate. Sorry, I don’t have much to say line by line, it’s got a voice. Maybe some restructuring with tempos could have improved it though. derp night thoughts This is another one that just vibes with me on style. There are a lot of callbacks and themes running through it that payoff in the end. If I’m projecting, it’s at least dense and lyrical enough that I can easily bury any subtext I want into it.. Slightly Lions Graveyard Shift Grocery clerk who is just tired of all this Buffy and Sabrina poo poo. Lots of good gore descriptions, action scenes were clear. very fun. Corny demon dialogue in ALL CAPS comes with the territory. Second story that starts out like a chill weed story and goes off the rails, but in the opposite direction Chernobyl Princess Turn About Is Fair Play FIRST CUM I think the chase scene is good, and sets up a lot of worldbuilding. I might feel a little icky about casting spells to get Thomas into bed, even with a dragonlord much more powerful. If I misread the wall tapping spell, then sorry. It’s not clear if it’s a charm or protection wards. It’s a little manipulative rather than mutual, but I get that that’s the power fantasy part. Toning it down so they’re rivals instead of hunter and hunted or maybe just the word “hurt” meaning violence might have smoothed over things for me. I don’t like that so much in my sexy tales Antivehicular The Last Nights of the Shepherd Oh, this is one of the wild ones. Cool and strange, rich vs poor, morning joes vs night owls I mean, I don’t know what else you could do, but the resolution is basically ‘we jumped em in the hallway’ the conflict, world and voice are good enough support a straightforward (uhh) conclusion in a weird world. Maybe after the rest, I just expected an even more bizarre turn Thranguy The Other Road Ghost drifters set out to heal a sick road. It’s a great premise and great characters that’s sort of an American Gods ‘throw a bunch of mythos in the pot and shake it up.’ Problem is they don’t actually get around to healing the road, and they don’t even fight the miniboss within the text of the story, just a little subterfuge and then “we’ll be back later with a team” the end curlingiron Night Hunt SECOND COMING A sexed up Colin Robinson. This is also felt a little problematic, BUT it’s basically the template of a vampire story. The devil boy wasn’t coerced beyond the skills of a master pick up artist. Just got drained (both ways) at the end. It was the most straightforwardly horny, and I applaud you for that. I don’t know if this is flattering or not, but the sex reminded me of A Court of Thorns and Roses for some reason Vinny Possum Downpour I wear a cape. I don’t know if I told you, I wear capes. BTW, I wear a cape, it’s not my all-weather cape, but I’m wearing it. I was a little perplexed by the setting until I figured out you were making it up, but the names overlap in places with real world peoples and foods so watch that. If it was intentional, then add more joke stuff for the googlers. The meet cute with the convenience store worker overcoming language barriers was fine, but more amusing without a the translator. political turmoil out of nowhere right at the end, so a restructuring would help bigtime. The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 21:28
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Week 577 Read along crits by post order Just my thoughts as I was reading through each story, and I sort of pasted my concluding thoughts at the top before the paragraph-by-paragraph, so it's not a line by line, but I tried to explain my reasoning on what I vibed with and what I didn't like. I tend to make a lot of "if I did it, this is what I would do" suggestions like, I guess a draft reader, so don't take offense, please. Or do. Fat JesusWAIL OF THE BANSHEE First one out of the gate gets a lot of attention. A parody mix of folklore, Finnegan’s Wake, Outlander, and The Village. Scottish dialect dialogue is pretty consistent and not too tough to parse, I know that’s a sticking point for some and I’ve seen (and received) advice in TD that you shouldn’t go full brogue. I was really with you in the story, as goofy as some of the things are, even through witnessing the Devon sassenach with a phone. But then I sort of get the sense that you’re poking fun at poor rural Scots by the end once they talk about tourists and football managers and not understanding the mysterious accent from the south. I don’t think this was intentionally mean-spirited, after all, you spent a lot of time on dialogue and details, then throw stereotypical Scottish stuff in at other points (like the bagpipes and Irn-Bru). So how to fix that? Well, the biggest problem is, beyond a beer money fight, a lack of conflict. It could play better as comedy and as a thriller if only one character, say, Diarmid, is a true believer in the paranormal. Then you can do a quick folklore recap for the audience who isn’t familiar beyond just saying, oh that’s a bad omen, oh that’s a bad omen. If you want a trippy and mysterious story steeped in the folklore, then reference and don’t explain. That can be cool for the reader. But you’re clearly not going for that tone. So I think you owe it to explain the significance of the white stag and be more clear about the beasties. It can also add tension as Diarmid tries to convince the others, and say, Gordon becomes more and more paranoid seeing signs. I guess Gordon is about as close to a main character as there is. And if this is a true supernatural story, like the town is in a timewarp and after Diarmid’s warning, he tries to decipher what the hell a soda can is, then that could be interesting too. (I still don’t know what the rock in the road is supposed to be. paranoia? Poltergeists? A car?) So I’m mixed on this one. Something’s wrong with it, and it might just need some restructuring to be both funny and have an unexpected twist. On the night Tavish McKenzie passed from this world for want of money, he declared on his deathbed that should none cry nor lament his demise, he would return. As the dreadful news spread throughout the glen, the men of clan McKenzie gathered in the tavern lamenting their ill fortune. It were soon decided after much drink that some keening women be brought, lest the dirty old bastard actually return. Signs and portents were all about them, and the beastie had been seen again by Diarmad McKenzie. This opening is strong, but conflicting—I have immediate sympathy for Tavish, dying from poverty and wishing no mourners; but then he becomes the villain of the piece? The beastie sounds like a different entity, but the way it’s jammed together here, it makes it seem like that’s a Tavish sighting. So maybe? I guess let’s see. After the hat had been passed around a few dozen times they looked upon the fifteen pence the forty of them had managed, stunned by their own generosity. This says a lot, good line. “Me mother, she cuid do, she be a fine one ta wail.” Gordon McKenzie said, eyes affixed on the riches before them. “Is ye mother nae ninety six?” Kennan McKenzie asked, slamming his glass upon the coffin’s lid amongst the clutter. “Aye. She’s a guid one fer a wail, trust us, McKenzie.” All gathered McKenzie nodded knowingly. “Och, she’ll ave tae do. Na carry th’ howfin’ bastid ou’side fer a air, so we can shut th’ windae.” Said Fergus McKenzie. Six stout McKenzie lifted the simple pine box covered in butts, ash and spilt Glenlivet and took it outside to the freezing sleet. They put it on trestles on the gravel road, and went back inside as dog came and pissed on the trestles, a sure omen of sour times ahead. I mean, that’s a lot of McKenzie. Unless it’s a bit, I don’t think a bunch of people with the same last name call each other by that. You could have went with first names (or more likely, family nicknames) then had the surprise of the name come later. If they’re superstitious about the return of Tavish, then why use the coffin as a coaster? I guess it’s a bit of a nod to Finnegan’s Wake. Scrolling ahead a bit, it’s more comedic than a true tale of horror. So I think maybe just the first paragraph is out of place, and not this. Dog meandering in the freezing sleet? I’d say just make it a chill, foggy night, or Tavish’s own dog (and only companion) that does the pissing. Gordon McKenzie had sat his mother Cullodena McKenzie in a chair besides the grave they had drunkenly dropped the coffin in. They had dressed the old woman in black and she sat there chewing her gums, thick glasses covered in dew that she appeared not notice. She stared down at the encrusted boot sticking out of the box with it’s lid ajar, as the parson droned his usual tale of a pious life well lived. Finally done, he slapped his book together and left begrudged back to his sherry with nothing but a promise of payment to come. The crowd of two then gathered by the old woman’s side as she stared blankly at the box. At least the parson would say, c’mon, stuff his leg in the box. And you can make a moment of it. Also, I think the vicar would be at the wake, starting early on the free drinks. Who’s is the crowd of two? It went from six pallbearers to Gordon and his mother. It’s apparent that OK, it’s Kennan, but the logistics could be made more clear, or just ignored since it also makes me ask why the other McK didn’t stick around to start scooping dirt in the hole as the reverend droned. “Garn ma, gie a keen, oh ‘’ow ye miss ‘im, and ‘at.” Gordon said to her ear. “Hoo’s ‘at?” she croaked. “That be Tavish McKenzie.” Kennan said. “At bastid?” she tried to get up. “Deid at lest! Deid at lest!” She cackled with laughter as the McKenzie’s eased her back to her chair, looking to each other as she clapped her hands and stamped her feet, screaming with triumph. “Burn, burn, burn in hell, ye devil!” She clutched her chest and rose suddenly, falling forward into the grave with a thump. Good sequence otherwise, just the parson pops in and out and it’s not even Vicar McKensie. Now here’s where you can have the weather turn to sleet and up the ante. The rain swept across the loch where Auld Cullodena was laid to rest as far as possible from where she had collapsed from grief, her great keening too much a toll. The two mourners had told the gathered astounded McKenzie of her final deed, and how she had wailed. Gordon McKenzie and his cousin Kennan had later near come to blows dividing the fifteen pence evenly, but had settled the blood feud at the tavern by buying a pence of ale and drinking half each, measuring carefully each sip. To this point, you’ve maintained an old-fashioned feel that this could be any time in the last couple hundred years, but if they didn’t have a couple half-pennies, then this must be modern. Not knocking it, but I did say, waitaminnit. But a pence of ale is either a thimbleful that you can comment on, or this is set a while ago…. “Yer wealthy noo Gordon, kin ye mother rest.” Kennan McKenzie toasted. “Aye, a dinnae ken if the keening worked, we done ah best. Well that’s me doon the road.” McKenzie got up, hitching his kilt. Soon Gordon McKenzie were on his way home after midnight with the mists rising from the moors of the loch when he felt a chill. The winds had come down from Ben Lomond, and as he gathered his coat he stumbled, falling with curses into the bracken and rising unsteadily in confusion, staring with horror at the small rock that stood motionless before him. McKenzie was quite sure the rock had not been there before. He fled through the shadows of Jock McKenzie’s backyard and back to his house, firmly locking the door, as was his habit. Ben Lomond is a little far from traditional M(a)cKenzie stomping grounds. When Gordon McKenzie had got to the tavern the next evening, he found Kennan McKenzie sitting alone, white as a sheet. “He’s back… me bagpipes, they’re gone! I cannae play me pipes a dawn whin ah finish mah baking!” “Aye, he tripped me doon and I felt his cauld win oan mah bahookie.” “Ah heard Jock McKenzie's daughter, her panties gaed missing fae th' line.” Connor McKenzie said. They all shook their red heads. “Och, that be ‘im, clatty bastid.” Gordon McKenzie affirmed. More McKenzie arrived, with more tales of strange goings on. A penny missing, Kennan McKenzie’s bagpipes had been found, stabbed full of holes. Connor McKenzie had found a bone in his haddock and chips. Fergus McKenzie’s sheep had gotten out. The door suddenly flung open as Diarmad McKenzie staggered to the bar in his fishing gear. “Th' beastie is traivelin aroond th' shores o' th' loch!” He told the aghast McKenzie, reaching for the bottle. After some drink it were soon agreed Auld Cullodena had not finished her Keening, and the ghost of Tavish McKenzie walked again, upsetting the water beastie, among other things. Uhh, is the old ghost stealing a grand-daughter’s panties? “I ken a woman!” Morag McKenzie announced. “A sassenach fae aff Devon, she bides in a tent nearby!” All McKenzie looked to the barmaid, then to each other. The hat went around, many times, and soon McKenzie was on her way gripping the twelve pence, first walking widdershins three times around the graveyard before she left, for Auld Tavish McKenzie had been a devil about the lasses, fathering half the village. The dark night passed and morning finally dawned, and Morag McKenzie returned with a sassenach witch dressed in long robes with mysterious symbols embroidered in gold. The McKenzie gathered warily. “I am told you wish to hear me sing the song of my people, dear quaint Scots folk. Your glen and loch are so beautiful, yet not on a map.” McKenzie's looked to each other, struggling to understand the witch’s tongue. She waved her hand above her head, holding a strange black mirror, looking into it smiling as she turned her back to the McKenzie, who watched in awe. The mirror gave a tiny flash brighter than the sun, causing all McKenzie to step away in unison from the witch with shouts and gasps, shielding their eyes and avoiding her gaze, making signs to ward the Eye. But Gordon McKenzie had bravely stepped forward to confront the witch. “Och, we wid lik' tae hear ye keen. Me mam, she tried bit it weren’t tae ‘is taste. Be crakin' if ye cuid keen let tae nicht.” Gordon McKenzie slurred. “You mean midnight? Yes! How about on that hill?” She pointed to the graveyard. McKenzie blood ran cold as their eyes followed the witch’s red-tipped claw, pointing at the grave of Tavish McKenzie. “Theit be a nice spot. Aye. We waant somethin’ that wull keep ‘im doon.” Gordon McKenzie gave a start as the strange sassenach witch looked at him quizzically, her once black mirror now shining as the moon. After midnight the gathered McKenzie stood close as waves of mist drifted through the gravestones as they awaited the keening sassenach witch. They huddled in fright, hearing the sounds of an elk’s spectral call drifting across the moonlit glen. “Tis’ the White Stag.” Keenan McKenzie said, greatly afeared. McKenzie's murmured a concerned agreement, wide eyes darting around by the light of their torches. The baleful sound slowly died away as the winds came and swirled the mists and gloom. Fine, stag at the graveyard, but that’s a lot of different beasties swirling around. And this one is straight up called an elk’s call, so I don’t know how to interpret it as a modern something. The sassenach keening witch appeared from the bracken, now dressed in the darkest black, and stood before the empty can of Irn-Bru that marked the empty grave of Tavish McKenzie. All gasped in fright, noting her hair matched the colour of the can, an uncanny resemblance that chilled them to the core. Cloud darkened the moon casting spectral shadows as she spread her arms and began her ghastly song. Uh, you mentioned they’re all red haired earlier. I mean wouldn’t most of them have hair near the color of an Irn-Bru can? If you mean some electric orange and/or blue hair dye, surely they would have remarked on it upon first meeting the ‘witch?’ It really gives the game away to have a soda can here, if you held out until after the climax then the twist is a little better. A dreadful screeching sound emanated from the keening witch, going higher and higher as McKenzie's clapped their hands to their ears in pain and alarm. Her wailing grew with their terror as they saw that her eyes made false tears, a Banshee! “NOBODY LOOOVES MEEEEE!! NOT LIKE YOOOU DOOOO!!” The Banshee’s earsplitting shriek shattered the silence of the glen, as the brave McKenzie rushed the Banshee and tackled her to the ground before she could call forth the dead. “Aye, she wur innocent, went straight tae th’ bottom o’ th’ loch.” Keenan McKenzie shook his head and downed his whiskey as the crowd of McKenzie did same. “Tha water beastie, he wid hae taken her, hae tae feed him.” Gordon McKenzie reminded them. Several McKenzie’s grunted affirmation. “Be as it wur, her wailings, thay surely sent Auld Tavish back tae hell. A've nae heard sic a racket afore fae a sassenach witch.” All McKenzie nodded. “Aye, Ah cuid thole it nae langer, th’ witch’s noise.” With that Gordon McKenzie went back to his paper, turning to the back page as Keenan McKenzie read the front from across the table. McKenzie’s listened with interest at their weekly Scotsman brought that morning by postman Padruig McKenzie. “Och, three oot againt th’ Rangers Seturday, Robby McBobson, ‘e cannae manage.” Gordon McKenzie announced sadly to all. McKenzie’s all huffed in agreement, for McKenzie hearts were heavy that week, having lost to Hibernian 2-0 the week before. “See, seys anither tourist missin’ near th’ loch.” Keenan McKenzie raised his eyebrows as all did same. “Sixth this yar thay say, th' polis ur boggin'.” Connor McKenzie said. “It’s Auld Cullodena, ah kin cop her aboot in me waters,” Morag McKenzie stated as she wiped the bar with a tartan rag, “We shoud nae hae fed her tae th' beastie.” All McKenzie murmured worriedly and made the sign. Confused sentence, Cullodena was buried far away and I figure based on context that they’re close to the water, and I didn’t think they went far to bury Tavish—so I assume it’s the sassenach that got fed to the loch beastie. Or was this all misdirection and they’re just dumping bodies in the water? That could be its own story. They suddenly turned in shock as Diarmad McKenzie crashed open the door, face stricken with dread and raincoat in tatters. “Ah seen th' beastie roam agan! He's a hungert laddie!” He uttered, out of breath. All McKenzie bewailed the dire news, as a dread as dark as the moonless night descended like a wraith upon them. “Och Aye, we’ll hae tae fin' anither keening woman.” Gordon McKenzie had made his mind and cast his eye to Morag McKenzie, her ruddy face set grim. “I ken a woman. She bades near, fae far aff Eire.” A dark wind blew open the ajar door, sweeping a bitter cold through the tavern and into their bones. McKenzie’s passed around the hat as the beastie’s mournful cries drifted from the loch. Blew open the ajar door? I mean if it’s a joke line fine, but it’s sandwiched in not joke description. It feels like a good closer for a somewhat different story. The twist part should have been at the end though, and maybe not McKenzies at all. Jerry Donovan passed the paper to Allen Jenkins and nodded to the headline. “Hibernian lost two-nil. Looks like the McKenzies’ are at it again.” __________ TheMackeningYou Can Take the Boy Out of the Mountains A nice little scary story. I mean, I looked up Snarly Yow since I wasn’t familiar with it, and I guess it’s a little more eastern than my neck of the woods/mountains. And I even have a cryptid hunter friend who wrote a trash self-pub book about Chestnut Ridge, but that’s the west side of PA and WV. In all our discussions of night creepers and dogmen I don’t think he ever brought this one up. But stories of black dogs or spectral beasts are right at home whatever you call them. And I even have one of my own. I guess I’ll have to find a week to write it up. The night advice I buy, but number one rule before talking a walk anywhere is “watch out for bears.” Anyway, I think a few adjustments for pacing and polish, but one of the better first entries I’ve seen. Culture shock is a hard thing to overcome sometimes. Maybe years go by, and you feel settled into your new home and then something hits you. There are some things you may never get used to after leaving home. For Billy, that was solo night activities outside. He lives in suburbia now, fairly close to two large cities. When he bought his house, there was a police officer busting people for rolling through stop signs just up the block. When Billy asked her about the neighborhood, she laughed and told him it was pretty safe. These stop sign tickets were about as rowdy as she’d ever seen it. Folks take leisurely walks through the neighborhood at all times of day and night. Good opener until the last line here, uh in this day of Nextdoor, an after midnight leisurely walk is suspicious. But I get the tone you’re working at, and I’m interested. It’s the strolling at night that Billy couldn’t figure. He grew up in Appalachia, and there are a few good unspoken rules back home. One of them is not to be in the woods alone at night. Another important one is you don’t look into the trees. The suburban neighborhood he lived in now was certainly not the woods, but there was a patch of woods on the backside of his property, so it felt close enough. Hell, deer came out of those woods and nibbled the grass in his backyard every day, along with the foxes and groundhogs. There was enough familiar there that he could not shake those unspoken rules, even this far from the mountains. Why is it an unspoken? Seems like sound advice. Of course, nothing lasts forever. That feeling did eventually start to fade. Although, he always remembered to shut all the blinds at dusk. You never really want to see what’s on the other side of the glass, out in the dark. OK, getting freaky It was a quiet summer night with the beginning chills of autumn whispering on the wind. The neighborhood was peaceful as usual. His partner and kids were visiting family, so Billy had the house to himself. He spent some time on the deck, relaxing. The night air was just cool enough to enjoy, so he decided to do the unthinkable and go for a walk. You just mentioned that he’s hiding in the house with the blinds shut at night, but now chilling on the deck? Flip the order of the paragraphs, so a little paranoia with a strange noise happens, he closes the blinds alone in the house, then realizes he’s in the burbs and is being silly. That can launch the night stroll. He did the circuit of paved trails around the area and stopped to sit at a bench near a park. From here, he could see the stars almost as well as when he was back home on top of the mountain. He sat there for some time identifying the constellations, until he was tired enough to head home. It was when he stood that he saw it. A large, black dog. Are the trails and park what’s behind Billy’s house? Geography is a little unclear. I don’t think I would call a park behind my house just ‘the woods.’ I guess it doesn’t really matter. Billy’s Mamaw had been a great storyteller and she loved telling folk stories that would scare the hide right off you. She had more than a few stories about black dogs. The one on the path ahead, blocking his way, fit the description of a Snarly Yow to a T. A big, shadowy dog with a red mouth, glowing eyes, and massive paws. This is a specific name I haven’t heard before, but there are a ton of ghost and monster stories, for sure, and a lot are quite insular. ‘What the hell is that doing here?’ he thought to himself, his heart racing. He tried to glance at the path going the opposite way without taking his eyes off the dog. Of course, it was blocking his way back home. He looked back at the dog… and it was gone. Was his mind playing tricks on him? ‘I could have sworn I saw it,’ he thought with a shake of his head. He let out a slow, steading breath and started walking back home. Around the bend of the path, and Billy heard a quiet growl from behind him. He froze, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The growl got a little louder. Looking over his shoulder, he saw something move in the shadows. ‘poo poo, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo,’ he cursed mentally. He was ready to bolt. He turned back to start running, and there it was, right in front of him. He backed away slowly, raising his hands. A couple nice tension building paragraphs. “I, uh… My Mamaw used to tell me stories of you, Snarly Yow. You’re called dog fiend, shadow beast, and black dog. I know you.” He spoke with a steadier voice than he expected. The dog stopped, cocking its head. “You’re a long way from home. You did a good job of scaring me. I know that’s what you like doin’, and you’ve sure scared the hell outta me tonight. You… you don’t actually hurt people, though. At least my Mamaw said not directly. Just, uh… don’t scare me into running off a cliff or into a broken branch, eh? You done yer job. Get on back to the mountains now, won’t ya?” I think maybe you could internalize the “Dog fiend, shadow beast, black dog” as thoughts, since you want to explain it to the audience, but it sounds a little weird to be saying it out loud. Or mix it into the other dialogue—”You’re a long way from home, Black Dog. They call you the dog fiend, but but Mamaw said you don’t hurt anyone.” Something like that. I dunno, it’s fine, it just stood out. The black dog continued to look at him curiously, its body blending into the shadows. Only its red mouth and glowing eyes were easy to see. Billing started to try to edge around it, and it growled again. It ran at him and jumped. The growling is at odds with the curious look, like if a normal dog looks at you curiously, I don’t think you’d imagine they’re growling at you. Even like “the dogs eyes interrogated him” sounds more menacing without necessarily being truly dangerous. Billy screamed, throwing his arms in front of his face, and flinched away. As the dog leapt into the air, lunging towards him, it seemed to dissipate into the shadows and disappeared. In an instant, it was gone. Billy’s heart still pounded, but slowly the sounds of night bugs and frogs picked up. He hadn’t realized until he heard them again that they had been absent. Hurriedly, he headed down the path. He kept an eye on the path and his surroundings, but he made a point not to look into the trees. God only knows what he might see looking back at him now. Getting home, he went inside and locked the door. He leaned against it with a heavy sigh. You can take the boy out of the mountains, they’d always say. But you can’t take the mountains out of the boy. All in all a good little story. It’s not overly ambitious, and it sticks to the point it was trying to make. ________ BaldDwarfOnPCPUntitled This is a heavy one. Slick writing all around. It can be a tough TD entry since it’s tough to just skim it and get a sense of what’s going on. But I doubt anyone would deny it’s a poetry jam. Do I fully understand everything? Probably not. There are a few passages where I think it’s unintentionally obtuse, and that’s just a matter of editing or rearranging maybe a couple words at most. Maybe there could be more frequent oscillations between main character syndrome and thinking he’s an NPC. I’ll be thinking about Every car passing under the new street light takes on the tone of an emergency services vehicle, to the clerk. Once a customer had asked him why the light was that color in a very earnest way as if expecting him to answer with an authority he didn't have. He worked in a shop and didn't have anything to do with the putting up or maintaining of suburban infrastructure and wondered how the guy could so plainly ask him that. The ones who call you sir not out of some sly disrespect or a knowing joke but with total sincerity. They bother him. The ones that wheedle and plead not for anything in particular but just a license to continue on their way without fear of--what? The slap of a newspaper? The burn of a cigarette on their skin? What do they expect from life that causes them to address a total stranger with all the authority of a pricing gun or a headset as sir? If he and others like him go around perpetually with an external locus of control what will happen if something put that out, or caused it to flicker? He supposed there was no flickering for a man like that it was always on or if once lost, well the mind reels, Lovecraftian horrors. Very interesting opener. A heady mix of self-loathing and projected loathing. And juxtaposing the decorum life of a sincere ‘member of society’ with the checked out attitude from a not very pleasant upbringing. The light is blue he supposes and as it glints off the glass and paint of passing cars the frequency of it shouts to him cop or ambulance. Some gut feeling that says something is emergent in the corner of his eye every time they pass. That light is special in his mind and shouldn't be misused it signifies something and is diminished by the wearing away of one after another. How would he know a real cop car now out there? Because he's always waiting for one isn't he? That's disturbing. He hadn't done anything wrong. But had he? Was he afraid of another? Needing intercession? Ramping up. The regular asks him to double bag the bright red hand grenades of hard apple something. She buys a lot of them most nights which wouldn't be noteworthy but she's real small. He's carded her more than a few times absentmindedly because she looks like a child and he wonders sometimes if it's fake and he's selling to a delinquent but his boss knows and sells to her too. She's a grown woman you can see in her eyes and hear in her voice but she's really small. At first he thought they must be for someone else but no, and then he wondered how she could drink so many with her size. She mumbled something about dropping them before that was masked by the air conditioner and it's clear even though you can't see in her walk that she's lit. She's overly familiar in the way of the drunk and ever present as if you must know not just her name but her mother's as well. And then she does, out in the parking lot she drops them. He wouldn't have pegged her for it. Thought she must have some kind of grace to her in spite of the booze because she's really beautiful in a way and so must. He figured the drinks were tougher too but nope at least three were taken out in the fall and she's coming back in. And she's with someone, suddenly a car arrives and she is known and they must be going out together. Her compatriot is at least sober he thinks but then is he even a good judge of that now? The new woman goes back in her slip ons and pajamas to get her own drinks and the little one follows without an explanation and grabs replacements for the fallen comrades. She sets them on the counter to his left away from the driver's purchases by just a little as if to say she's next in line. He rings the thank god someone's in charge here woman up first and she heads out towards the door. Crystal clear descriptions and great language. I wonder if the clerk would call anyone delinquent tho? It doesn’t seem with the character so far. The measure on the wall by the door of every shop is for the cameras and the witnesses for the inevitable robberies he supposes. Not sure how useful it is he's never even practiced on regulars or even this one who might be shorter than five foot. The girl with her hair dyed the same shade as the glass bottles she now reaches for follows in step without paying, alluding to the smashed ones she left on the sidewalk out front. Dumbfounded the clerk just lets it happen and the two walk out in to the night to a car to a party or a concert or a club that he can't attend. He has to hold the counter down and clean up the dribbling remains of her party fouls later. He lets some customers obviously steal or take that way if they have the right attitude. His boss who supposedly watches at all times would not like that but has never said anything so he wonders if he's taking advantage. Guy has a kid on the way and can't be watching video feed from several stores all the time like some lesser god using a phone app to peak down on him and check on the floors or the stock that he should be cleaning and primping in low spots in the night. Sometimes he doesn't remember to turn on the outside lights until late in his shift but there is no complaint from the customers or a boss. Sometimes he deliberately doesn't sweep and mop before close because he doesn't like the job and doesn't want to keep it. So it’s not clear quite why the clerk feels that he’s taking advantage. Like if he’s really just a wage robot, would it even occur to him? The manager is probably not the owner, just another wage slave with a more inflated sense of self-worth, being watched by the same unflinching cctv of capital. He really doesn't get a lot of complaints and it makes him wonder if he's just great, or being ignored or maybe he's not really here. On enough dissociatives those kinds of thoughts do run rampant. In life in general it seems like feedback is at a lull and in the dark at night he sometimes wonders if after the plague and the ongoing war most people don't want to engage with the small stuff. He knows there are types of people who believe there only a few others in the world or none, besides themselves. Solipsists who think that a few actors or holograms make up a small universe to test or contain them and how lonely that must seem. He believes in other people but feels like the world is depopulated some nights. If there was a nuclear exchange out of the blue and the pulse knocked out concentric rings of communication cutting people off from the wider world when does the notification come? Checking a phone for a signal that isn't there, if news or weather doesn't come up and then text and last to be checked actual phone service is gone what then? This is p great In a fit of ebullient paranoia he decides the girl actually likes him and wanted him to join her later and had left the broken bottles mostly full of booze by the trash instead of in it to entice him. He guesses it would taste good after the initial stench of alcohol is washed away by its effects. All he'd have to do is pick one up from over by the trash and walk away from here drinking. In the direction of music and the smell of hot food. He had the run of the place, money, snacks, all manner of intoxicants all at his fingertips and all held down by himself alone. Could walk away at any time to follow them down the street and hope he wasn't some kind of sicko for finding someone that young-looking attractive. Part of him knew the consequences to all this would be tremendous. His lost sobriety, the crashing realization of unemployment, a little tease from a girl who would probably lose interest in him immediately after sex. She'd laugh and go on heedless and he would probably go to jail again somehow for job abandonment and theft and whatever they do to people who walk away thoughtless into the night after strays. He never cleans up the bottles and leaves them for the wanderers. Locks the place up and walks under the blue light looking down the road towards a club she might be at and back to his house. After The Fourth there had been some fireworks set off in the city, even though it was forbidden as a fire hazard among other things. Some nights there would be a string of explosions that sounded to him like gunshots. He was almost as worried about gunfire as he was about how embarrassing it is to think about drive-bys in a tiny quiet city like this. He speculates he should have told the guy it's so not to attract insects. He plans out a lie he'll tell someone else about it knowingly as if he'd read it in an article. There aren't any bugs circling around the flat head of the thing. There is no bulge either like there was before for a yellow bulb like before. He wonders about the lack of bugs and whether it has do with a somehow shrinking biomass. Is the world getting thinner? You'd think if it were dying there would be more flies to feed on the corpse. The line about not attracting insects didn’t initially make sense. The last ‘guy’ referenced is the manager, so it took a sec that it was about streetlights and not the cider mess. Maybe if it was “He speculates he should have told ‘sir’ it’s so not to attract insects” or something like that. That it pops in while thinking about the rest is fine. Engines revv and shriek and howl in the distance and in his imagination they are road warriors in from the dirt on missions to steal identities and wifi and sell dope for food. Pick up girls like they must with their tattoos and shiny chrome. Always at the periphery since the cars he sees come in are modern sleek and efficient, or at least bloated gas hogs with mortgages. No toy cars like in Mad Max but serious adult vehicles of people who have careers and families and places to go at night. But out there beyond his scope people are wild and free and careless. They don't sleep alone or maybe that much at all and probably smell like sex and gas and booze. All the things he sees leaving from here but never for him. And when the fear grips him at night after all the pills settle in up down and sideways and he is content he checks the news. It's true people have been shot around here, one in front of his house, another in a club. This woman was murdered in her home but they don't say how. I guess this could be parr of why he doesn’t just disappear into the night, so he can get his pills. If he’s sober, then these are not recreational pills and something something health care. Either way, they’re not working all that well, or he’s under-diagnosed. The fear is after the pills, which is confusing, but they enable him to check in with the airwaves like the phone zombies referenced before. I’d guess it’s like a fomo fear of not being part of the rest of the masses, but He wonders if he was the murderer sometimes because he reads those stories and has seen the movies, his own kind of Tyler Durden id because he seems so dispassionate, even to himself that there must be something more under the surface. A killer, maybe a rapist. Something awful and animalistic and real. Does the murder necessitate rape? He feels guiltier about the idea of rape than of murder. Being able to see his place of work from his home is disconcerting. It's not that small of a town but he managed to finagle a job that near. People used to live at their jobs, farms and mills and mines just right there, like incidentals in a video game. The light is very efficient in only illuminating the road beneath itself. It doesn't scatter everywhere messily like those old yellow or orange ones but that leaves him in darkness very quickly across the way. As I recall, the Fight Club narrator is too obsessed with meaningless ‘stuff’ not just a blank slate, but rather than try to feel something, this clerk wants an ego death. Or is halfway there through medication already. Walking up the driveway he has to be careful not to stumble on loose pavers the light is so low and irregular. Maybe people need to watch for stars he thinks, or satellites at least. At least he can see that he's turned the sign off at work to settle his mind. Probably could have made an allusion or explicit callback to the drunk woman staggering, but this all works as a fine wrap up. ___________ [b]Ouzo Maki****story blanked by request**** So this started out, and I was like, oh cool, it’s just going to be sex and drugs and dubstep, but it turns into a nightmare-fuel cautionary tale. The quantum mechanics and the ocean/sealife imagery is beautiful throughout, and it’s juxtaposed well with the mundane dialogue. It’s deft with the external goings-on and the internal meltdown, until it all blends together at the end. The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 21:29
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Week 577 Read along crits by post orderChairchucker The Evil Queen A colloquial retelling of Snow White through a very unusual version of the (not-so) evil Queen. I see some fine cutesy passages when they’re flirting but the queen doesn’t have a lot of agency, and is too simple to really think things through. That’s fine as a protagonist, but maybe not one with this sort of message. I dunno, a protag who says I never wanted excitement or adventure, and is explicitly not part of the adventure, and not even a mastermind sure is a concept. She gets the ball rolling by summoning Stuart, but she’s still having a man come save her. And she’s not even party to the plan that works in the end. The queen falls into a domestic role at the end anyway, and aside from the sex, it’s still sort of the same situation. I mean if she’s not going to do something traditionally masculine like join Hilda as a stonemason, then maybe at least she could hone her cooking enough to open a restaurant. (And then maybe even as a bigger play on the original, become the best chef, have Snow ask a question about it, and create a poisoned gourmet meal for the king). I’m naked in front of the mirror, and I look good. I look more beautiful than any other woman in the nation, and I know this for a fact, because I have been here almost every night since I was married. “Ask the question,” he says from over my shoulder. I ask the question, and the mirror assures me once again that it is me, undisputed queen of being the prettiest woman. Once again satisfied that his is the prettiest trophy wife, my reward is five minutes of unfulfilling sex. “You love it, don’t you?” he asks. I don’t, but say I do. “Of course you do.” He finishes. I barely start. We could be asking this mirror way more pressing questions than whether being the only woman to live in a palace and have regular baths and makeup is still giving me the edge over women a decade younger than me. It strikes me as unreasonable that an item of furniture gets to be the arbiter of who’s the prettiest. I expressed this to it at one point, and it said it’s just based on popular opinion. So a take on Snow White from the Queen’s perspective, and she’s a victim of patriarchy, while also appreciative of her own rockin bod. I know we could be asking more interesting question, because I have asked it about neighbouring countries, (at this stage non hostile) the meaning of life, (beyond its remit as an item of enchanted furniture) when he will finally make a widow of me, (the future remains unclear) and look I know that looks like a poor success rate, but at least I’m branching out in my questioning. I also know that the gap between me and other women is gradually closing, and I don’t know how he’ll take it. ~ The moment has arrived, although I do not know it yet. I’m naked as always, because the mirror has told me that boosts my perceived beauty. I ask the question, and reflected back at us is another woman. You know what, I see it, she’s gorgeous. “Can’t even be better than some peasant,” he says. “Work on it.” Once he’s left, I get dressed. I’m not sure how he wants me to ‘work on it’. She's much younger. I’m on my way down, she’s on her way up, according to whatever criteria the mirror uses. I know it said it’s just majority rules; I would wonder if it’s just men’s opinion that counts, but on this occasion, I think the mirror got it right. Hell, I’d consider myself lucky to be with her. I mean, not her, I could almost be her mother, but someone that looked like her. It’s sort of interesting that the Queen is as much into superficial beauty as the king. Maybe just someone who’s not him. I’ve planned ahead for this, though. I just didn’t really want to do this. After a brief chat with the mirror regarding the borders of our country and conveniently neutral areas, I call for Stuart. Stuart’s one of my friends’ kids from before I was queen. Back when I was thrilled that the mirror had apparently told the King that I was the prettiest of all the women, and he’d asked me to marry him, and well… you just say yes when the King asks, right? Stuart had also grown into quite an imposing figure, which is very useful for what I had in mind. I just needed her to not be in the country, right? Just for a bit, just while I figure out what to do next. So, he arrived, I told him what I needed and pointed out the place on the map. You don’t even really notice it, the map has it as impassable mountain; I guess the cartographers didn’t go everywhere. ~ For the next few weeks, I’m back to being the prettiest, and can concentrate on just surviving having a jackass as a husband without having to worry about whether he’ll try to replace me, and what method he’d use to get rid of me so that he is better able to replace me. And then, one night, bam, up she pops again. He sighs, like he’s telling me off for something I did. “I thought we talked about this.” The Queen could have worked on some sort of permanent escape plan during this time instead of relaxing. Cuz the king only pops in once a day. Or try some different twists on the question, like who’s the most alluring or erotic or best in bed. See how those responses go. If it wasn’t for the fear of what he might do, I’d really enjoy the nights where the revelation that I’m not the prettiest in the country means he just can’t bring himself to give me the dubious pleasure of his company. ~ The next morning, I call for Stuart again, and once he arrives, explain the situation. “Ah,” says Stuart, and looks a bit embarrassed. “Sorry about that, I’ve sort of been seeing her, and…” “After you did the whole tough guy thing?” He shrugs. “Well, I may have made it seem like you really wanted her dead, but I didn’t, so…” I sigh. “Can’t you just… convince her not to come across the border at nighttime?” “Sorry,” he said, “this situation’s kind of hard to explain to her. You’re better at that kind of thing, why don’t you explain it to her?” “Like, leave the palace? Don’t think His Highness would allow that. Also, how is she going to react to an explanation from someone who she thinks wanted to kill her?” Wouldn’t the simplest step be to just give Stuart enough money or jewelry to get a place across the border and live there with Snow? It’s doesn’t solve the long term problem, but gets rid of the immediate one. He shrugged. “I’ll convince her to hear you out. With the King, couldn’t you just say you’re going for some beauty treatment or something?” “Hmm,” I say. He’s right; that’s probably the one reason my husband would let me leave. He offers to take me; being able to visit your new girlfriend under the guise of Royal Business is clearly an opportunity he can’t pass up. I’m not sure I trust the usual carriage drivers with the location, so I accept. ~ The trip takes a few hours, so I see how if she came over to visit Stuart during the day, she might still be in country while my husband is having me conduct my nocturnal beauty check. We arrive at a wooden cottage built into the side of the mountain. Out the front, a small, bearded dwarf is tending the garden. “Ah, young Stuart. Snow’s just out at the moment, singing with birds or whatever it is tall women do.” I get out of the carriage, and the dwarf raises an eyebrow. “Another one? Leave some for the rest of us, ey?” Stuart chuckles. “It’s not like that. This is, uh…” he pauses, then shrugs, “…the Queen.” “Oh, me too, lad. I’m the King and Queen.” The dwarf looks me up and down. “Are all you tall women this beautiful?” Stuart laughs and turns to the horses. “I’m going to tie the horses up and then go find Snow, if that’s all right.” The dwarf nods, then looks at me. “It’s getting close to lunchtime. Come give me a hand, Your Highness.” This last bit is said in a teasing voice. “Oh,” I say. “I don’t really know what I’m doing in the kitchen.” “Just follow my directions.” The dwarf walks me through the process, but I mostly stick to chopping things and stirring when I’m told. “You learn fast.” I shrug. “Maybe I would’ve made a good cook, although I’m a bit old to start learning new skills now.” A shake of the head. “Never too late.” The two lovebirds arrive, giggling as they come in the door, and she starts giggling even more when she sees us. “I’m always telling you, Hilda, you don’t need to wear that thing.” The dwarf takes off her beard and hangs it on a hook. She looks at my expression; I realise my jaw is open, so I close it. She shrugs. “Some people don’t take a stonecutter without a beard seriously.” missed opportunity for the cabin to not have a sign out front: Stuart and Hilda, stonecutters for hire. ~ “Delicious as always, Hilda,” says Snow once we’ve eaten. “Her Highness helped.” “Oh, you already know she’s the Queen?” “Come now, I was just playing along,” says Hilda. She looks at our faces. “Really? Well, then. If I’d known, I would’ve curtseyed.” “While wearing the beard?” I ask. She chuckles. “Bowed, perhaps.” I shrug. “I’m not your Queen anyway; the border is why we’re here in the first place.” She winks at me. “You can be my Queen if you want to.” “Hilda!” says Stuart. She shrugs. “What? She said it herself, she’s not my Queen, so this isn’t inappropriate at all, when you think about it.” Snow rolls her eyes. “So, Stuey tells me you don’t want me dead after all?” “What?” says Hilda. “It’s a bit complicated,” I say. “I feel like wishing someone dead is a simple yes or no,” she says. So, I explain the whole thing, with being chosen by the mirror, and moved into the palace before the wedding, then married on my eighteenth birthday, (Which is weird that the mirror picked out a seventeen-year-old for him, right? Like that means a majority of people would’ve thought a seventeen-year-old was the prettiest at whatever time he asked, and given what the mirror’s since told me about how to make myself seem prettier, maybe it was when I was bathing or changing, like that’s a bit much, right?) and my husband first introducing me to the mirror a month after our marriage, and almost every night since then, and at first it being a bit of fun, but as I got older it getting scarier and scarier… I mean, the original Grimm has Snow White outshining the Queen at age seven, sooo…..yikes Well, I try to explain the whole thing, but the look on their face… I trail off. “So, what’s this got to do with me?” asks Snow. I shrug. “I’m not the prettiest anymore. And that’s going to be a problem for His Highness.” Hilda snorts and shakes her head. “Can’t believe he’d rather ask for a survey than use his eyes to see how gorgeous you are.” I mean the language is rather colloquial throughout so it would have been cute to have the Queen recite some technical “The aggregate beauty standards as perceived by the 18-49 demographic of the kingdom rely on a degree of facial symmetry with a bust to waist ratio of….” “You think he’d leave you for me?” asks Snow. I shake my head. “He’d be too worried about appearances. He’d need to be a widow first.” “And then he’d want me as a wife. Or whoever the next pretty young girl is.” I nod. She turns to Stuart. “Stuey, I’m getting an idea. I need to chat with you in private. You’re going to think it’s a lot, but then you’re going to realise I’m right.” So, the two of them go to her bedroom to talk, and Hilda and I sit awkwardly for a moment. “Do you need a drink?” asks Hilda. “Because I need a drink after hearing all that, and I’m not even the one it’s happening to.” “Please.” She pours two drinks and we’re halfway through them when Snow and Stuart return. “All right, so here’s the plan,” says Snow. “We’re faking your death. You tragically fell off a cliff. We need your clothes.” “Um,” I say. Isn’t she supposed to be at a spa? Some sauna or mud treatment accident would be a more amusing cover story. Hilda raises an eyebrow. “Not sure she’ll fit into mine; are you lending her yours, or is she hanging out with nothing? Either works for me, but it can get cold at night…” “She can wear my spare dress, and Stuart will send more later. You have to stay here though, for the same reason you wanted me to.” “Aren’t you just inheriting my problem, then? And what does that mean for the two of you?” “Trust us,” says Stuart. And I do. Or at least, I want to badly enough, that I’m happy to do what they say. ~ Later, the part of the story that people are interested in hearing is not the part that I’m that familiar with. I hear snippets; like how after a month or so of mourning to keep up appearances, Snow is moved into the palace. How the king is tragically killed by a bear in a hunting accident after the wedding, but before the consummation of the wedding that night. How Snow, the new Queen, grieves for a year before marring Stuart. I don’t tell people that Snow made sure she knew where the mirror was, and what kind of questions it could answer, like the location of various types of wildlife. And besides, while most people find that exciting, it’s not my life. What’s exciting to me is learning how to do things other than be a King’s trophy. Eventually learning how to cook by myself, and to garden all the things that we’re going to be cooking. What's exciting is, one night after a glass of beer, kissing Hilda as kind of a joke, but also because I realised that I’d been really wanting to. What’s exciting to me is that from that night, and every night following it, I am never in any doubt that to Hilda, I am the most beautiful woman in the world, and she doesn’t care what a mirror thinks. What's exciting is actually getting to finish. Good callback to the beginning. The love story is fine, maybe more could have been done with Hilda *before* taking the beard off, or the real traditional all dwarves have real beards? And on our fortieth wedding anniversary, I trimmed Hilda’s beard and she waxed my moustache before we set off for the castle. There’s a lot with aging and beauty standards you could have toyed with. __________ Toaster BeefSix Minutes at a New Jersey Diner He warmed his hands on a mug of coffee, huddling over it like he was telling it a secret. The heat radiated through his fingers, marking its advance with pinpricks. Outside, winter raged. He squinted at the window. Through the ghost of his reflection, swirls of heavy, hard-driven snow obscured whatever view the tar-black night was willing to relinquish. Somewhere in the invisible distance, the 9th Street Bridge stretched proudly over Great Egg Harbor Bay. At its peak, it was roughly 65 feet from the railing to the water. Not fatal, but not fun. Last he’d checked, the water clocked in at a touch over 40 degrees. Fatal, but not quick. One-thirty in the morning in the middle of winter would never be a particularly busy time for a barrier island diner, but the storm thinned the crowd out even further. He’d come in only a few minutes ago and done an immediate inventory while shaking the snow from his coat and boots. It didn’t take long. In one of the small corner booths sat a young couple, their hands and eyes glued across the laminate table, their conversation hushed. A few tables, an old jukebox, and a pastry display away — not very far, really, but across the diner nonetheless — sat a very drunk older gentleman who’d clearly stumbled in from the inexplicably open bar next door and was being given the leeway to sober up a bit. Each in their own world. Galaxies between. Nice Just emerging from the kitchen had been the waitress. She pointed him toward his booth with a warm smile and was pouring coffee before he even had his coat off. Her voice, complexion, and fingernails — not to mention the weight of her perfume — all indicated a heavy smoker. Her jittering hands and the storm outside indicated it had been a while. Regardless, she couldn’t have been nicer getting him situated. He’d been left with a menu and his mug of coffee. He hadn’t even touched the former yet. He continued staring out the window. The waitress fiddled with the coffee station. It sounded like she was loading a new pot into the machine. Off to one side, some shuffling footsteps got his attention. The drunk older man had gotten to his feet and made it to the jukebox. He slowly and deliberately reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and dropped it into the coin slot. Nothing happened. The box was unplugged. The old man grumbled something to himself, smacked the glass, and wandered back to his table. A few steps in, he turned slightly, waved, and apologized to the machine for losing his temper before slumping back into his booth and resuming his stupor. Back in his senior year, there was very little reprieve from the loneliness of being a commuter. One time, torrential rains had forced him to be a few minutes late to campus. He pulled into a spot and checked his phone to find an email about class being canceled — then spent the next hour with the car off, listening to rain pound the roof. There was a serenity in that juxtaposition, that contrast. A feeling of safety. It ran through him, made him calm, made him content, drowned out the loud parts and stalled their progress. He found something similar there, in the dull glow of the diner’s recessed lighting, watching the winter punish Ocean City. The waitress finished up at the coffee station and walked down the counter to the register. She bent to reach under it and grabbed a few paper placemats for one of the unset tables. She licked her finger before peeling them off the pile. He smiled to himself and looked down at his own placemat, with its coffee ring off to the left from where the waitress had filled his mug to the brim as he sat down — and, on the edge of one side, the faint impression of what had been a damp fingertip. The placemat itself was nothing but ads for local businesses. Mostly construction. One psychic. Someone willing to buy junk cars. A landscaper. A masonry company. A gun range. Quick. Ostensibly painless. But firearm laws in New Jersey complicated things greatly. Not worth writing off entirely, but probably more of a last resort because of the time and expense involved. He sipped the coffee. It was bitter, a little burnt. Over at the young couple’s table, the girl laughed loudly. She surprised herself with it and took a sheepish glance around the room. For a fraction of a second, across the diner from one another, they made eye contact — then broke it and went on with their lives. The boy and girl whispered to each other and laughed quietly. They contrasted so heavily with the faded, worn red padding of their seats. He had to jolt himself away from watching them. Two booths away and four years prior, he and six other friends crammed themselves into those gross padded seats at 10:30 one night and didn’t leave until the sun started lighting up the eastern sky. They’d made the trip down from campus — this was when he still lived in the dorms — the morning before to spend a day at the boardwalk. They visited what felt like every single shop, weaving their way through the modest springtime crowd, making slow progress up and down the three-mile stretch. When night came, they grabbed an irresponsible amount of pizza and sat at a picnic table in a small food court laughing and chatting until a security guard ushered them away hours later. Unwilling to let the night rest, they’d found their way here — and, being young, decided stomachs full of pizza shouldn’t dissuade anyone from night waffles. Only six months later, two of those friends were no longer speaking because one had slept with the other’s ex. Another had dropped out because their alcoholism was no longer of the functional variety. The other three, perhaps feeling weighed down by the drama, perhaps growing as people, perhaps just in pursuit of more interesting company, all dispersed in their own ways. To the best of his knowledge, each — save for the one who dropped out — went on to graduate. Of those five graduates, one didn’t make it through the summer. He’d gone back to his small town to live with his parents while the job market decided what it wanted to do with him, and one night on a dare with some local buddies he tried to swim across the town lake and just … never came up. They wrenched the guy’s body out of the tangled vegetation about 12 hours later, overcast skies hanging low over a gathered crowd of shaken friends and neighbors. He thought about the dead one a lot. In part because that’s just what you do, sure, but in part because he couldn’t shake himself away from wondering what was going through the guy’s mind when the situation turned. Did he believe right up until his last second of consciousness that, bad as it looked, he was going to escape and laugh about this later? Or was there a moment, surrounded by pure blackness, where he realized what was happening? None of the others from that day in Ocean City showed up to the funeral. He sat all the way in the back and didn’t say a word to anyone else during the entire service. When it was over, he quietly slipped out the back, got into his car, and drove nowhere in particular for a few hours. “Been a long while since we saw one this bad,” said the waitress, staring out the window. It startled him, and the booth seat gave a loud, indecorous grunt. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Figured they were done with.” She glanced down at his still-closed menu, then at him. “You ready to order, or are you still deciding?” Two minutes to lose consciousness. Depending on who you ask, it’s either one of the most guttural and terrifying experiences imaginable or shockingly calm and peaceful. After that, it’s another eight or 10 minutes before the body succumbs. He shook his head and stared down at the coffee. “Still deciding.” Jawns goin down the shore? Rather die. Yeah, it’s a clever structure hook, maybe there could have been some other asides, like “Smoking. 40 years.” Cuz I mean when you’re ideating in a detached way, you tend to see it everywhere. Likewise it might have been nice to see the six companions as the patrons/staff in the diner. The lovers, the alcoholic, and flesh out the rest just a bit to sketch the old gang all around for a final meal (especially if the narrator doesn’t order). The other patrons get pretty hefty descriptions, but the OC friends are kind of bare bones.
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Aug 28, 2023 21:29
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Week 577 Read along crits by post orderMy Shark Waifuu Awakening it was kind of hard to line by line crit this, aside from a detail here and there. Stream of consciousness and getting lost in a book. I think it would have been cool if it started slow and groggy, then you know, that “I can hear every sound” stage of awake, then as the cups of coffee go down, the speed ramps up until it’s a whirl of words before resolving in silence as the protag gets into the book, then at the end "I can hear birds chirp I know why' I’m awake. Confusing, it’s pitch black. Silent too. Creepy. Maybe if I do nothing, I’ll go back to sleep … OK, that’s not happening. What time is it anyway? 4 AM?! gently caress me. I just gotta try harder to fall back asleep, my alarm goes off in like 3 hours. Yeah, nah, I’m officially awake now. This is what I get for going to bed early, like a responsible adult. Ugh. What to do. Lying in bed is nice, it’s warm … but sooo boring. Where’s my phone? Ah, charging. Dammit. If I get up to get it, I might as well get up for real. Fine. gently caress, why is it so cold? Where’s my hoodie? OK, to the kitchen. Quiet past Niko’s room, though he’ll probably be up soon anyway, he’s got early classes. He’s a … what’s the opposite of a night owl? A morning … wren? Gotta be something small and cute, like him. ANYWAY. With the door shut he won’t notice the light on. Argh, why’s it so bright? I swear they’re not this bright in the daytime. It’s quiet out here. Like the whole world is sleeping. Which everyone is, except for me. Phone’s charged, nice. There’s not even any cars driving by, not that I notice them normally, but their absence is weird. Did the clock always tick so loudly? Surely I would’ve noticed that before, so annoying. What the hell am I going to do for three whole hours? Let’s check the phone … yeah, no new messages since 10 PM last night. Big surprise there. Would boiling the kettle be too loud? Nah. If I’m wrong, then too bad. I’m not being awake without coffee at loving 4:20 in the morning. Ha, nice. get an electric kettle, they're nice and quiet, and way faster Oh, there goes a car. Poor bastard. At least there’s no traffic, I bet. Kettle’s boiled … ah yes. That coffee’s hitting just right. Cool. But I’ve still got sooo much time before my first class. Normally, I have to slam the coffee down in my rush out the door. Now, I get to savor it, like it’s the weekend. Who knew there was all this extra time at the beginning of the day? Right, I’m savoring my coffee. But there’s still nothing to do. It seems wrong to turn on my computer. I mean, I could, but like, what would I do? Definitely not in the right headspace for games. gently caress, imagine the absolute degenerates playing at this hour of the day. And I’d be one of them. Hell no. TV? Nah, Niko wants to watch that season finale together. That dude needs to come out of his room then, probably chatting up a new flame or something, or else I’m just gonna watch it myself. Not this morning, I’ll give him another chance. i mean i'm trusting that the gaming degenerates is a self-burn Hey, there’s that book he got from the library. Said it was “pretty good.” Huh, magic and dragons and poo poo? Not usually my thing, but I’ve got nothing else to do. Maybe make another coffee … … Was that a bird? But it’s still dark outside. What’s this bird singing about? No idea they did that. Sounds like it’s just the one bird too, who’s he singing to? Not me, dude probably does it every day. Early bird gets the worm? Better be hustling instead of singing, bird. Not that I mind, it’s nice. And literally the first signs of life from the outside world. Wonder why super-late nights never feel like this? Probably ‘cause I’m usually drunk as poo poo by this point. Nice not being hungover. Right, now where was I? Niko was right, this book’s pretty good … … Uh, that wasn’t a bird. That was a person. God, I knew the first-floor flat was a mistake. Joke’s on you, would-be burglar, it’s the one day where I’m awake! You’re not getting my computer! Or Niko’s vinyl collection either. Now, what’s the heaviest thing … Oh. They’re humming. Probably not a criminal, then. Who is that? Ah, I bet it’s Joe going to the gym. drat, that’s dedication. Although, the blinds are glowing. The birds are going nuts out there. The cars are driving past more frequently. Yep, the sun’s up. Sort of, the light’s all cold and pale, like the sun isn’t quite awake yet either. It’s nice though, makes everything look fresh. Maybe this is why Niko gets up early? OK, that’s enough of that. What time is it? Ah, I’ve got time for one more chapter at least … … “Oh, hey Niko.” drat, that just-out-of-bed look looks good on him. “That’s my book.” Oh no, he isn’t happy. “Also, your alarm’s been going off for the past ten minutes.” gently caress. “Sorry, sorry!” Argh, I’m such an idiot. Does this mean he hears my alarm each of the, like, five times I hit snooze? Oh my God, embarrassing. Whew, he looks happier now. And he still hasn’t combed his hair, nice. “I didn’t know you read books like this?” he asks. I haven’t combed my hair either, I bet it looks terrible. “Oh, uh, I don’t.” Real smooth. “Not usually. But this one’s good. I mean, I haven’t finished it yet, but so far … yeah, I like it.” I sound borderline illiterate, but he smiles. “What part are you at? Oh, wait, do you have class?” Ugh, he’s so responsible. What’s the clock say (can hardly hear the ticking, strange), and what’s my schedule today? A flash of pure rage: my first class is at 10 AM. I got up early for literally no reason! But Niko’s scooting over to make room for me on the sofa. Looking at me as if he’s seeing me in a new light. Thank God I didn’t watch that season finale without him. I smile. “Nope! This morning, I have plenty of time.” Maybe not no reason … … Epilogue: gently caress, it’s 2 PM and I’m exhausted. Send help. Or coffee. cute ending. I guess it’s a little flirty with Niko or wishful thinking, it could just be companionship bonding, I guess the best flirt is both. ____________ derpnight thoughts I once read in a book how strange it is that ice floats. Most elements, the book said, are denser when solid than when liquid, and so it’s actually unusual that ice floats on water. Imagine, the book asked me, a world where every winter millions of tons of ice rush down through the oceans straight to the bottom, crushing all the fishes and everything else, piling up and never melting again because no sunlight reaches down there, imagine that world, the book asked me, where life in the oceans and by extension all over earth would be utterly different, if not impossible. The book went on to say this was evidence that the earth and universe were designed. Was the book Cat’s Cradle? My boots crunch on frozen slush and I scrape hardened snow from the railing with gloved hands, lean on the rail and watch the dark waters through foggy breath. Moonlight and lamplight make twin streaks on the water. It’s always silent here on the harbor at night, especially winter nights, only the hollow plonk of the waves under me, the crick of the wood and metal under me. On my nights off like this I enjoy walking alone, and looking at the water alone. There is no better way to be alone than to be outside late on a cold winter night. The streets hibernate, the buildings are placid and dark, and inside people lay prone and cocooned, waiting for the sun. Nice I often think about the line that separates day from night, an edge of darkness cutting across the globe every twentyfour, and everyone it touches falling like wheat to a scyth. What is it in our biology that forces us to sleep, I wonder. Somehow, we evolved the need to lay completely motionless and unaware for hours at a time. It seems impossible in a brutal prehistory where all our surroundings were aiming to kill us. But then, maybe that is exactly the reason we sleep. Maybe in the world of our rodent-like ancestors, where everything was stronger, faster, and deadlier than us, laying still as if dead through the long, dark hours was the best way to survive the night. I think I read once, it’s not the stillness, but the dreaming that’s the important part. Some black object is lolling on the waves. Each rocking motion takes it toward me, up and down, slipping forward. A piece of wood, or piece of trash, crawling toward me, the only thing moving on that glistening expanse. I can’t help but invent a mind for this aphotic shape, can’t help but see it as a fellow solitary soul, here at the end of a long journey across the lake, here to meet me and tell me of all its travels. I wonder of its origins, what tree or factory, what long and pockmarked life led it here. I lean forward anticipating its arrival, and shards of ice and slush plop into the dark waters as I shift my feet. Some winters ago I found, on this same pier, wedged between the wood planks at my feet, a 1967 Canadian fifty-cent coin bearing the worn image of a howling wolf. I plucked it from the gap and rubbed sticky grime away with my thumb and pondered what had brought it here. I held it for some time, I remember, as the night wind rustled my hair and the water lapped at the dock posts. I turned it so the wolf winked in the moonlight and I imagined the places it must have been, the things it must have witnessed as it moved from hand to hand over the past half century. Then I tossed it over the railing and watched it land in the water, sink, vanish into the dark and silt. Who can guess, I thought then, the years or millenia that will pass before that coin continues its journey. It may rest there after humanity is gone, and I will be the last one who touched it. The dark shape is near now, bobbing on the waves, and somewhere beneath it is the coin. I kneel down on the planks. Cold wetness seeps through to my knees as I reach out to the shifting waters. It is, I think, a piece of driftwood. It bobs nearer to my grasp and I stretch out for it. As I bend and reach I see, under the dock, almost directly beneath me, some splash of color in the moonlight, deep blue like the underside of a glacier and for an instant I think it is ice floating there, strangely buoyant ice, evidence of god. But it is not frozen, it undulates with the water. There is a sweater there, stretched out, with two arms and a hood clearly visible, pressing against the dock post right under my feet. I wonder, momentarily, why it doesn't sink, then I notice a pale hand at the end of one sleeve, white, bloated fingers grasping at nothing. Disgusting. I snatch the dark object from the water and stand. It is, as I suspected, driftwood. A piece about the length and width of my forearm. I turn it left and right in the lamplight and think that it has the vague shape of a fish. A once living piece of a body that may itself still be living, somewhere, a perhaps centuries old being growing and living beside a river somewhere, struck by lightning or broken by a climber, its limb falling into rushing waters that led it here, to me. Good twist. From the start, I was like oh OK, either this is about death or ruminations on death; and it’s actually ruminations about life. The sky is lightening, subtly shifting from black to blue. I always make sure to return home long before the sun splits the horizon and ends the hibernation, melts the ice. I take the driftwood with me and leave the pier. At home the lights are dim. I keep them that way, like candlelight. I only use incandescent bulbs with adjustable brightness. The searing white of LED is so unnatural, it impedes thinking and rest alike. I place the driftwood on a shelf among other such objects. Other bits of wood, stones, coins, metal pieces such as screws and bolts, or unidentifiable relics, bones, a tooth, many such things, all of which I have found on or around the harbor and the surrounding streets. Should have saved a space for a 1967 Canadian 50-cent piece, (just in case) I draw the shades, close the blinds, seal myself away from the thawing world. Out there, bodies are beginning to rustle in their cocoons. Soon they will emerge and flood the streets like locusts, eating everything and shouting and crowding everywhere, covering every path with their mindless motion, leaving their droppings, their trash and corpses piled up behind them. And there will be noise, oh the noise they produce, the endless noise. I mean, they kind of like the detritus, it’s like an alien archaeologist at this point. Later, in my bedroom, I prepare to enter sleep. I remove my clothes, and select new pieces of clothing for tomorrow. I lay them on my bed, which I no longer use for sleeping. No earplugs, no volume of white noise can combat the racket of the swarm outside my window. For the true silence I require, something else is needed. Next to my bed is a glossy white lozenge eight feet long by five feet wide, my isolation tank, my chamber of peace. I lift the lid, and inside a welcoming blue glow, ice blue like a glacier, is illuminating the dense, salt-laden water in which I will float for the night. I step in, slip into the body-temperature water, pull the lid closed above me, and the blue light blinks out. I welcome the complete and utter silence, the darkness and stillness of a temporary death. When the blade of shadow circles around the earth once more to cut down the masses, I will wake. And continue, then, my explorations of the night. OK, so it’s a little about death. Lots of good juxtapositions with the cocoons and floating bodies, especially a driftwood that’s in people clothes, and ‘somebody’ in people clothes that’s adrift. It’s a very tranquil story about someone who either has such loathing or severe anxiety about the chaos of the daytime world that they’ve completely disconnected from it. __________ Slightly LionsGraveyard Shift It was the Godless hour of night known only to criminals and 24-hour retail workers; the time when sunset is a distant memory and dawn an unreliable rumor. The hour of bloodshot eyes, jaw-cracking yawns, and the gritty feeling that is your diurnal brain telling you you’re a real rear end in a top hat. The fluorescent bulbs rattled and buzzed overhead casting flickering, fishbelly-white light across the racks of potato chips, dish soap, macro-lagers, and energy drinks. The PA speakers rattled off Top 40 pop in a faint and tinny drone. The air smelled like lemon Pledge and boredom. Behind the register Marissa checked the clock above the door, judged the time to be right, and started rolling a joint. Good setting and great first sentence. Spliff terminology argument my choice for retail fight song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsoIfkNQYEg&t=7s (girl from ipanema, blues brothers instrumental version) She took her time with it. She was a meticulous person like that. She carefully picked fragments of stem out of the weed, added a pinch of rolling tobacco, tossed it about like a salad to homogenize it and carefully, delicately sealed it into a slender cone. She savored the anticipation of the smoke, something that would let her mind pleasantly wander and eat up the hours until dawn and shift change. See, Ouzo Maki, this is the chill retail smoking experience I want. She walked over to the front door to lock it and put up the “Back in Five” sign when she noticed the walls were bleeding. C’MON, WHAT THE Hoarfrost bloomed across the door despite the unseasonal warmth of the October night. The intricate crystals shaped wailing faces and grasping fingers, and beneath them words scrawled in a rough and frantic hand: I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE MEMORY OF SPRING. I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE SHAPE OF YOUR FACE. WHEN THE TERROR COMES WE SHALL CRUMBLE. Marissa rolled her eyes and sighed. Again with this poo poo. “Go to Salem State,” her parents had told her, “They’ve got a great theater tech program. It’s near home and soooo affordable. Get yourself a part-time job and you’ll graduate with hardly any debt!” Easy for them to say. They’d never worked graveyard shift at the loving Tedeschi’s on North St. She supposed it served her right for not job hunting over the summer break, if she wanted booze money she had to take what she could get. Still, it was insulting to do this crap for minimum wage and all the American Spirits she could steal. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep her gorge down as music from the speakers warped and twisted into guttural, wet-sounding chanting and agonized shrieks. Involuntary reaction, she told herself. Just part of the experience. Follow procedure and you’ll be fine. The lights flickered and started casting queasy-making colors she’d never find in the scene shop paint supply. The shadows of the shelves began to twist and bubble. The speaker-voices shifted from tortured glossolalia to a nails-on-a-chalkboard voice that wailed and howled “MY FATHER HAS TURNED FROM ME. THE LIGHT HAS LEFT ME. I AM SCOURGED WITH LASHES AND BROKEN ON STONES. THE TERROR CONSUMES, AND I CONSUME IN RETURN.” The worst part about ghosts, Marissa reflected, was that they’re all drama queens. I like the cat who eye-rolls a hellmouth. I mean it’s not new, but it usually means a good time. She shuffled back behind the counter, her feet squelching in some kind of nameless viscera that coated the old linoleum. She rooted around back there, ignoring the rotten-meat reek that was growing really quite oppressive. She tossed aside her parka and the oversized backpack with the Hello Kitty ornaments her parents were sure she still liked. There it was, a big orange plastic box labeled FOR EMERGENCIES. She popped it open and sorted her way past tubes of burn cream, boxes of off-brand Band-Aids, a roll of gauze, until she found the gray plastic pouch emblazoned with “GHOST KIT.” She rifled through it to a collection of crucifixes, selected one at random, and threw it over the counter. Yes, but maybe the first aid kit is a little too conspicuous—try the canister of Zig-Zag on the shelf behind the American Spirits that’s been there since 1983. She peeped over the scuffed plastic counter and saw a clawed, almost skeletal hand coalesce from the thickening shadows and grab it. At first the flesh of the hand bubbled and smoked, threatening to decohear, but with a shriek of effort from the speakers it crushed the little cross which evaporated into steam. She groaned, exasperated. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Marissa chose another charm, this one a silver St. Michael medallion. She trudged wearily down the aisles, stepping with practiced ease over yawning, toothy mouths that opened in the floor. There was a tricky moment where she had to duck underneath a twist of razor-wire darkness strung between the ice cream chest and the Slurpee machine to reach the mop closet. She fished the smaller bucket out from under the dump sink and looked back to the store floor. Yep, right on schedule the space in the corners of the room began to warp and shift into unreal angles. The shop rattled with a feeling like trying to take a deep breath through pneumonial lungs, air choking past thick fluid and phlegm. From the diseased non-space another clawed hand burst forth and began grasping for purchase on the linoleum tile. Marissa blew a lock of stray hair out of her face and turned back to the sink. All good ick, an a twist of razor-wire darkness is a cool thing. She opened the tap and started to fill the bucket, but the first vesselful of water was oily, black, and stank of spoiled seafood. She dumped it out and let the tap run until the water ran clear and filled the bucket half full, tossing the medallion in it. She looked over her shoulder to check the apparition’s progress. It had hauled itself about halfway into the real by now. Long limbed and emaciated, it looked like a nightmare scarecrow, all rotten leather stretched over warped bone. When it moved its joints bent in unwholesome directions. It looked around, its head an oversized goat’s skull with a mouthful of needle-like teeth and burning red eyes. Around its neck it wore a length of hempen noose strung with fingerbones. It howled: “LITTLE FLAME, LITTLE FLAME, YOU FLICKER IN THE DARK. GIVE ME YOUR WARMTH CHILD. IT IS EVER SO COLD DOWN HERE.” Marissa reached down and grabbed a large carton of sea salt from under the sink. All the screeching was making her ears ring, she made an annoyed mental note to bring ear plugs to work from now on. Oh, flicker She picked up the bucket and ducked back out of the closet heading for the open space by the door. The caprine ghost-thing leapt up on top of one of the shelving units, its gaunt eight-foot-tall bulk scattering Fritos across the floor. “THE REEK OF THE LIVING IS ON YOU, GIRL-THING. I WILL BE AVENGED BEFORE THE TERROR. I SHALL BREAK YOUR BONES AND CAST AWAY ALL JUDGEMENT.” Gaunt bulk is a little at odds. I guess it’s all skull. “Yeah yeah, sure thing.” Marissa muttered. Always the same with the bones and the terror, these loving guys. She carefully set the bucket down by the register and stepped into the open area between shelves and counter. The ghost thing cocked its head at her, nonplussed. She opened the container of salt and poured a measure around herself in a broken circle like a large C. “Well,” she said, “If you’re going to eat me then get on with it, I haven’t got all night.” With a screech like brakes failing the creature leapt at her, toppling the shelf it had perched on. This was the tricky part, she thought to herself. You’ve got to time it just right to get the thing in the circle before you close it. She could feel fetid breath on her face, smelling of rotten grain and poisoned earth and moldering cloth. She jumped to the side, careful to tuck her feet up under her so as not to disturb the salt. As her feet hit the floor she was already tossing a fresh line of salt to close the circle. There was a soft but audible snap as it sealed. The ghost thrashed and flailed in the binding, slamming clawed fists into an invisible, but very tangible wall. There was no way it should fit in the little circle, but space did funny things at the edges, keeping it locked in place. Its gibberish shrieks grew fainter, sounding further away. Marissa grabbed the short step ladder from behind the counter, climbed up with the bucket and, careful not to disturb the circle, dumped it all over the ghost. It began to melt. Rotten skin and warped bone ran runny as hot wax, the goat-skull of its head dissolved like a sandcastle in an incoming tide. A dark, colorless goop sloughed down the sides of the invisible barrier, collecting at the bottom and slowly drained away. Suggestions were revealed of a slim figure, young and feminine, in a severe dress. She seemed to be weeping. “Everyone’s got issues, lady,” Marissa said to herself, “But you don’t see me ruining your Tuesday night.” After a minute even that disappeared, leaving a dingy, viscous puddle and ring of damp salt. The lights went back to their normal, mundane flickering. The speakers played a new Taylor Swift remaster. Space returned to its regular dimensions. The smell of fetid water and rotten food remained, though. Marissa put the ladder away and got out the mop and broom. She carefully swept up the sticky, crumbly detritus and dumped it in the trash, then mopped up as best she could and sprayed scented Lysol around the store. She righted the toppled shelving and put its contents back in order, making a note in the day book about damaged goods. She marked off a case of Modelo as being destroyed and put it in the back of her car. When she was done straightening up she sat on a milk crate out back of the store and watched the sun rise while she smoked. An hour later Luis came to relieve her. He wrinkled his nose as he came in the door. “You have an incident, Marissa?” “Yeah, nothing major.” I dunno, it might be a better coda to end it here. He sniffed again, noting the smell of stale water and salt. “The Captain again?” “No, I think it was one of the witches.” Captain Aldin or whatever? I thought he was pretty clearly just hated for hanging with the natives. I read that his trial transcript exists, but I haven’t perused it, so maybe there are some deets “drat, that sucks. Hey, before you go can you run down to the basement and just clear a space for the Coke delivery?” She scowled as she slung her bag over her shoulder, “No loving way, man." She shivered, "It’s creepy down there.” The fight choreo is all clear and well defined, the monsters described in detail and while a few stereotypical things, there were some novel hell traps (I think) ___________ Chernobyl PrincessTurn About is Fair Play Kimmy didn’t need any of the surveillance spells or auguries she’d cast to know she was being hunted. Her pursuer wasn’t subtle. His off-white pickup truck stayed in her rearview all the way across the city, bright under the streetlights. She thought she’d lost him once, when she took an abrupt left turn without signaling and he got stuck at a traffic light, but he reappeared with remarkable speed. It was hard to do magic while driving. Nobody is as good at splitting their focus as they think they are, and while Kimmy was tempted to think of herself as an exception to the rule, she really couldn’t afford to crash her boss’s car. She hadn’t signed herself over to serve and learn from one of the last dragons in exile just to wreck the old lady’s stuff. But she couldn’t drive around all night. She needed to know who it was following her. Kimmy rummaged in the glove compartment. There was no way in her own vehicle she’d have anything useful, but working for the Dragon of Prophecy had its perks. Instinct made the woman a bit of a packrat, but foresight meant that she almost always had the perfect tool for any given task secreted away somewhere. Kimmy’s fingers closed around a small sample vial, the kind fountain pen enthusiasts kept fancy ink in, full of a sensory enhancement tincture. Perfect. She swore as she dribbled the stinging liquid into her eyes at a stoplight. Then again as the world snapped into sharper focus. She’d trained for this, she knew how to sort through the sudden flood of sensory input, but that didn’t make it pleasant. She glared at her stalker in the rearview. White. Late twenties. Short hair, full lips. No particular expression on his face, just the blank focus of someone performing a task. His aura, though. That was something else. It flared around his vehicle, enormous and menacing, pulsing red with some alien hunger. She’d seen things like this before, when her boss used her draconic nature to impact the world around her. What humans had to do with complex rituals and spells a dragon could do simply by willing it to be so. Interesting. Why would a dragon be hunting her? She was, more or less, on their side. She reached out and touched his aura with her own magic, a soothing, gentle tendril of emotion insinuating itself against the raging fire. It felt like delicately brushing the back of ones hand against blistering cast-iron. The heat clung to her even as instinct demanded that she shrink away from it. Kimmy pulled back into herself with the unsettling feeling that she left something of herself behind. Should be unsettling but intoxicating, set it up some more. And maybe that was enough, because the dragon stopped following her shortly after that, turning the opposite direction and fading from her enhanced ability to see. Kimmy didn’t feel like breathing a sigh of relief. This probably wasn’t over. *** It wasn’t over even sooner than she thought. That massive aura hung around her apartment like a caul, almost visible even as she approached her door. Kimmy glowered at the lock. Her first-stage wards hadn’t been tripped. They’d been unmade. It’s funnier without the ***, I think. Like no break in time. And you really didn’t need a scene change for clarity. She escaped, she went home. That’s easy to follow. “I know you’re out there,” the voice was deep, resonant, and arrogant. “You’ve got a really unsettling number of dildos, lady.” Kimmy sighed and pushed open her door, walking into her apartment. The lights were dimmed by bolts of sheer fabric, except for the twinkling strands of fairy lights she’d strung around the walls. It was a snug, warm, cozy space. And there was a strange man standing over by her bookshelf, flipping through her books and putting them back in the shelf with the spines facing in. What an rear end. “They’re containers,” Kimmy said, tossing her purse nonchalantly onto a chair. Don’t show fear. Don’t show weakness. That’s what he’s waiting for. “For spell energy. In case I need an extra boost, you know?” In a world like this, is fairy lights an insulting term? Or by the end are we going to see Tinkerbell dryhumping one? The man turned and gave her an incredulous look. “So, what, do you have to have them inside you to cast?” Kimmy gave a short laugh. “No. I just live next to a porn store and they’re cheaper than crystals. Now who the gently caress are you and why the gently caress are you in my house?” The man shrugged and turned back to the shelf. “Name’s Thomas. You work for someone I want to hurt.” Given the thrust of the rest of the story, hurt is kind of a brusque word. Someone I want to take down, or I dunno, dethrone, or he was just hired so they can be rivals and fuckbuddies with a more ambiguous conflict between them Kimmy leaned back, her shoulder thumping against the wall. She looked him over. He was of medium height and above average build, with scarred, muscular arms and an rear end that told her he did not skip leg day. Okay. She could work with this. “I’m a dragon knight. Technically I work for you too.” Thomas shook his head. “Not really good enough.” He turned to her desk and opened a drawer, riffled through it. The next drawer was locked. “You got a key for this?” “If I say no, are you going to break it?” He nodded. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “If you tell me what you’re looking for maybe I can just, like, hand it to you and you can leave, since apparently you’re not here to get revenge by hurting me physically.” “I thought about it,” he admitted. “But it seemed kind of trite. You’re a dragon knight, sworn to the Dragon of Prophecy and Family. She’d have given you a piece of her collection to seal the deal. That’s what I’m after. I’m gonna take it, corrupt it, gently caress up y’all’s whole thing. It’s not personal. Well. Not personal to you, at least. She can get hosed.” Yeah, no, that couldn’t happen. He was being so blatant about his plans, clearly he thought Kimmy wasn’t capable of stopping him. She considered him for a moment, a plan taking shape. “Sounds boring,” she said. “Counteroffer, what if I get hosed.” He eyed her. Kimmy shifted position, arms down, one foot up on the wall behind her, subtly pushing her chest and hips forward. His eyes lingered where she wanted them to linger, and didn’t drift toward her fingers as she began tapping a series of spells against the wall. “I don’t come cheap,” he said. “Few worthwhile things are. But think about this, you could try to steal some trinket. Or you could try to steal me. Think about it, wouldn’t it be more interesting to not just corrupt the bond, but to sever it completely? To steal me out from under her?” She grinned at him, wickedly. “Maybe I’d like it better under you, anyway.” A little fire lit up behind his eyes, but he was still cautious. “Interesting thought. I don’t know what I’d even do with a knight.” “Who cares?” Thomas walked over to her, a slow, predatory lope, until they were almost touching. “I don’t have a collection,” he whispered, tracing a finger up the back of her arm. “I don’t have any pretty trinkets to trade for loyalty.” “Trinkets aren’t what I’m after,” Kimmy whispered back. She pressed into him, her chest against his, soaking in his heat. “You know what I’m after.” Her arms circled his shoulders as her lips found the side of his neck. She inhaled the scent of him, wild and masculine and dangerous. And as his hands wrapped around her waist to carry her to the bed, the delicate net of her spell fell over them both. I mean, this can be metaphorical, but it sounds a little problematic, even fighting the forces of evil. Like the wall tapping spell at that point feels more like a charm than a power up or shield to protect Kimmy from his aura. You know, so it can be completely consensual, then she binds him and “tortures” (in whatever way fits) him for info. **** It had been too long since Thomas had been able to really let loose. The dragon knight, Kimmy whatever-her-name-was, was one of the most insanely responsive partners he’d had. He wasn’t sure she’d make him a good knight, but she’d sure make a good fuckbuddy. This was all going so much better than he had planned. You could have Thomas mention feeling her caressing his aura and comment on her power, surprising for a human; and query about how long the sensory enhancement potion lasts before he, you know, takes care of her needs. He might be an rear end in a top hat, but he’s not a monster But the second the first rope of his cum splashed against Kimmy’s chest Thomas knew something was wrong. No candles flared, no sigils shone, but he could feel something move in his soul, something invasive and strangling. Oh, like 17000 words into the week and there’s the first splash of cum. He knew his mission was to get the DoP’s trinket and corrupt it, maybe it would have been a little better if there was a piece of the DoP in the trinkets instead of just implying they’ve been enchanted. So the turnaround with binding him with semen was a little more spelled out. Or uh, Kimmy rubs it into her chest and draws a sigil. “What… what did you…” he tried to speak through the convulsing, horrible pleasure, unable to prevent himself from spilling more across the pretty witch’s tits. She smiled at him, all teeth now. Good reversal with the teeth “You wanted to ruin me?” She purred. “You wanted to corrupt me? Sweet, pretty, innocent me?” She snapped her fingers and he was thrown back, flailing, his limbs unresponsive to his need. “Sorry, Dragon of Fuckbois. Turns out I’m good at this.” He struggled to his feet, snarling. He could feel the web of her magic around him now, a delicate net of spell work that bound him more tightly the harder he fought it. “You can undo this, given time,” Kimmy said. “Your aura, it’s fascinating, it’s eating away at my spell second by second. But you’re in my place of power, Tommy, and as you mentioned earlier, I’ve got a truly astonishing amount of energy stored here. So. We’re going to talk. And you’re going to tell me exactly why you’re here and what you had planned.” I wish Thomas’s motivation was hinted at—Kimmy doesn’t know if there are factions of good and evil dragons, so seeding a couple clues would have been nice. I never thought I’d say this, but I wish the sex scene was a little hornier rather than a power play.
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Aug 28, 2023 21:30
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Week 577 Read along crits by post orderAntivehicular The Last Nights of the Shepherd The Shepherd of Night is wavering. At first we think it's just fatigue, the kind familiar to everyone who works nights in the Pit. It's even funny, in a way, to watch the Shepherd go about its rounds with that leaden gait and downcast eyes -- we love it in those days, as we've never loved it when it's delivered us the day shift's scraps with a strong stride and a carved-stone smile. The Shepherd provides adequately, but barely enough is never enough. OK, no idea what’s going on here, maybe it’s a story about rats watching a human—it’s evocative and interesting. What the day shift gives us now is even less than barely enough. The food left behind in the iceboxes is sparse and often stale or near-spoiled; it's as if day shift is eating everything they can simply so we cannot have it, and when the Shepherd drags itself back and forth from the storerooms, it reveals little but the oldest emergency rations. (The kitchens have not been staffed at night since our fathers' time in the Pit.) What day shift fails to leave us in provisions, they make up in problems: broken equipment, half-finished orders, work so overflowing that dozens of us spend all night cleaning up the day's messes. We whisper, as we always do, about leaving it all in place for them to find in the morning, but we know the truth as well as day shift does: for the work to continue, night shift must finish what day shift leaves behind. Alrighty, post apoc I guess. Fuggin day shift The work must continue. We delve down into the Pit, hands as steady on the lift-ropes as we can make them, and surface again with the bounty the Pit offers. On weary legs, we haul it to the processing and packaging offices, who always have just enough nails to close the crates. Clerks sit at desks left filthy and sticky, filling out ledgers with defiantly pin-neat hand. The carriagemen drive it all in the dead of night into the sleeping town, to our comrades in the bakeries and greengrocers, who wait to feed the hungry morning populace. We feed ourselves with the stale bread in the iceboxes, sharing the butter and coffee that a few generous souls bring in, and on our breaks we close our eyes for a respite from the dull chemical light of the Shepherd's lamps. Before dawn, we leave at last, out into a sleeping world with little to welcome us -- a few sad bars and restaurants, but no libraries, no parks, no dance-halls. The only comfort for the night shift is home, even when all it offers us is sleep. So it continues, for a while: just barely worse than it was. Soon, we think, this new decline will be normal, and we will forget this indignity as we have every other. Welp, maybe it’s an Amazon warehouse And then the Shepherd stumbles. It's early in the shift, in one of the entry corridors crowded with shuffling bodies. When the Shepherd stops in its tracks, we stop with it, sluggish minds recognizing vaguely that something is wrong; when it pitches forward, those of us underneath it thankfully have enough panic left in us to leap clear. Nobody screams, as if screaming wouldn't be enough. The lights above dim, flicker, and snap back to life with a buzz. The Shepherd is on its knees, stone flaking off of its cracked legs, and underneath is something spongy. "Meat," one of the gawkers says at last. "Pit-meat." Pit-meat. I guess it could be an actual meat pit, or like a missile silo that has supplies (and also radioactive ghouls) but the only thing that might fit flour and greengrocer and meat is a mushroom. It’s a sentient fungus golem. We don't admit surprise. Surprise is not enough, and night shift in the Pit is enough to dull the mind to the unusual. One of us could have killed the Shepherd right there, if the rush of malice had taken us over then, and the rest would have stared and shrugged and shuffled off, to let the fear find us at our desks or in our descent harnesses later, or on the long pre-dawn journey home. The Shepherd was breakable -- was that such a surprise? It was something that distant fathers of fathers had built, back when the Pit offices were new, and a thing that they could build, we could surely break. But we liked the Shepherd, these days. It was one of us, more than it had ever been. Who might have broken it? Day shift, of course. They have their own Shepherds, newer and brighter, but when did that ever stop them? Day shift takes merely so that night shift will lack. Day shift fails simply to make night shift struggle. We all know this, the way we know the routes to our work stations, like the slow relentless beating of our hearts. Day shift, we whisper. There needs to be a reckoning. None of us alone is brave enough to do it. But after the shift where the Shepherd spends half the night on the floor, struggling to right itself and oozing from a dozen fresh gouges, we are of one mind, and brave enough together. We arrive en masse two hours before night shift begins. The sky is dark and overcast, a night-before-night: a good omen for those of us who live in the dark, we decide, as we file in. Day shift swarms the halls like locusts, tracking filth from muddy feet, gorging on fresh fruit and leaving drippings in their wake -- but fruit is not all they gorge on. The Night Shepherd, our Shepherd, lies prostrate in the hallway, borne down by the weight of a dozen day-shift bodies, teeth carving out layers of stone and clay to reach the meat within. The brilliant day-shift lamps above flicker and sputter. The Shepherd lows, the first noise we've ever heard it make, from a mouth that ought not to produce any sound. We close ranks. We charge. Our bodies move as one, but our minds are in chaos. Our Shepherd is dying; more and more stone falls away, revealing flesh already hollowed out by day shift's hunger. Our Shepherd, our guide -- who will light our way into the Pit, now? Some think of our own hungry nights instead, of the soft flesh revealed, and howl with a fresh new grief: why was the Shepherd not ours to eat? Gluttons and thieves! We fall on them in a wave, some pulling the day shift away from the Shepherd, others racing in to feast upon what's left. Few of us think of the endless work still to be done, of the town that feeds on what we bring up from the Pit, but why should we? The town never feeds us back. This is for us and us alone, and whether the work goes on or not is no longer our concern. The lamps die and leave us in the black. It feels right. When the Shepherds of the Day come, we sink our teeth into their fresh clay. We will take back what is ours from day shift at last. It’s short on answers, long on speculation, but there isn’t a clearer conflict than some have food and others don’t. The battle isn’t much of a battle, it’s simply an act of revenge/rebellion. It works for the story, I guess, so the greedy can start eating night shift’s one thing, but why do the Shepherds arrive so long after the day shift? It doesn’t seem like they can currently control the Shepherds, so I would assume day shift wouldn’t show up for work until the Shepherds are ready to go to the Pit, like those day shifters would. It plays out nearly the same if the Day Shepherds are destroyed before the people arrive, but they arrive to complete darkness in confusion and dismay and ‘The lamps die…It feels right.’ ends it instead. It’s I guess just a nitpicky suggestion based on trying to puzzle out the world. ____________ ThranguyThe Other Road Tabitha looked like hell. Hair matted with blood, glass shards wedged in her cheeks and neck, left elbow dangling bent backwards. Right hand stretched out, thumb up. I pulled over, popped open the passenger door lock. We go way back. Hell of an opener. She doesn't have to look like that.She has lots of looks for every kind of purpose. The CW drama version of herself, a dead sexy twenty-eight year old actor playing her teenage self when she's looking for a quick screw. The real thing, with the prom dress and corsage and the angry little zit on her forehead, when she's doing the vanishing hitchhiker bit on some kids. Herself if she'd been aging naturally when she just wants to talk. This one, though. This one meant trouble. I could have driven on by. I had business that shouldn't wait long in Fort Myers. But she'd have just shown up on the side of the road a half mile down, then a half mile after that. Eventually someone else would have seen her, and who knows how that would have gone. "Doug," she said. "It's the road." "What about the road?" I said. "Road's sick." "Going to turn the tables, eh?" I said. "Heave up into someone's car?" She punched my shoulder. "Sick sick," she said. She'd cleaned herself up, moved to close to her real age. I guess. I never asked, rude and all that. She died before safety glass windshields, all I'm sure of. Maybe it was an old car already by then. It was one of those faces lucky people get to wear from forty-five to eighty. "Like, maybe dying. We're all scared." The thing about roads is that they're all haunted. A new house, if you don't build it over graves, is probably ghost free. Roads, though, all of them are paved with blood and souls. Most of them start as war paths, migration routes, hunting trails, forced marches. Even the trade routes had their share of ambushes up and down them. Then we worked poor sods to death paving them up, and drive at speeds that exact a bloody toll every year. Haunted, haunted with a crowd. That's a healthy road. "Where's the problem, love?" I said. "Twelve miles ahead. Nihogg Tunnel." I hit the accelerator. "That one's new, right?" I saw her nod in the reflection on my front glass. She looks more solid in reflection than directly,somehow. The old tunnel was too narrow for more than one lane of truck traffic each way, put a bottleneck in the whole regional economy. The geologists said expanding it was a bad idea, but that didn't stop them from trying. At least there wasn't traffic going through when it collapsed. So, a new tunnel. Right through something the geologists didn't know about. "Seems like I was headed that way already," I said. I knew there was something in that area. It's like a kind of itch in the back of your soul. So like, do ghosts refer to their entire ethereal form as their soul? Even if Tabitha in incorporeal, if she can change her outward appearance, that’s not really changing her soul. I guess it’s choosing to present one aspect of herself rather then the whole, so where does the rest go? Or maybe a soul sea cucumber situation. I should probably take a break if I’m going this hard on ghost logic World's haunted. The dead outnumber the living, and the afterlife resorts are all exclusive. You got to be real bad to get to hell, real good to get to heaven, and the rest of us just linger. Me, I've got a pocket full of tickets to hades and another full of get out free cards. I figure the guy with the face full of teeth will lay them all out alongside my heart and the feather, and I'll slip out while he's doing the math. Not like I was using the old ticket for anything but keeping my blood flowing anyhow. Wasn't long before I reached the new tunnel. There was an energy coming from it, pale green auras, not the honest red of ghosts like Tabitha. Who wasn't there any more, don't blame her. When you can just stop being corporeal, let the Cadillac go on without you rather than face what's ahead... Not an aura expert so I had to do a quick look, and pale green is enlightenment, growth, healing etc. I guess in character, it makes sense that the action part of the red aura is more honest to Doug, but she also shifts her outward appearance and playing pranks. The healing and concern for the road seems more pale green and an honesty from Tabitha’s perspective, and the darker shades are associated with transformation (up to moving spiritual planes). I dunno, I guess it’s like you can almost read anything you want from them. I saw him. Usual thing. What wasn't usual was that about half the other drivers could too. He wasn't manifesting. He was just too strange to ignore, deep down. I pulled up, shouted at him. Not really any words, just a primal 'Oi'. Took three of those to get his attention, and that was just to mutter at me in one of those languages the snake handlers tap into. Words deep in the bones of the continent. Waidaminit, didn’t derp just write a snake handler story World dragon is just upping the ante/i My brother-in-law has been known to touch a snake, to speak in a tongue or two. The real deal. I've heard Etruscan and Nsibidi with proper grammar come out of his mouth. Turns out it was banal stuff, hunting instructions and a husband chewing out his wife. Nothing spiritual. But still impressive. And I've also heard this language from him, issuing commands to dead soldiers. And a spell or too. Had to get him to stop that nonsense quick, before he summoned something or set his house on fire. Point is, I understood his words. "Where are you, my King? My service has not waned. I stand ready to conquer." "Your King's dead, mate," I said. I don't speak what he does, just understand it. But I can make my own words make sense. "You too." "Death is nothing," he said. "At the end of this road is victory." "Sure," I said. "You know which way?" And then I drove away. Figure he's raging still. His type can't bear the thought of retreat. He'll be stuck until he's sure, and before that I'll be back, with a proper squad to exorcize him into a bottle, seal off whatever hole he came in through, maybe loot those pre-Siberian Transit ruins. Next week's problem. Right then, Tabitha was thumbing it a half mile past the tunnel's end, looking a dead sexy thirty-five, the same hypothetical CW show actor in the last season rather than the first, and I wasn't too proud to give her a ride to the next rest area down. Yeah, so it’s lead up with an ending that’s before the real action. You set up a lot of fun stuff with the ghost roads and underworld hall passes, just punking on Anubis. But the sick road isn’t resolved at that’s a disappointment. How do ghost cars work? ____________ curlingironNight Hunt ****blanked by request**** Aside from some light ribbing about a few details, well written and clear. Protag knows what they want and they get it. The devil gets most of what they want too without being especially damaged, so can’t complain too much.[/i] ___________ Vinny PossumDownpour Chapalli woke up on the empty dance floor of the club. The room was dark, except a small section of the bar where half a dozen or so men were engaged in a drunken bout of gambling. He pulled himself to his feet, then had to catch himself, swaying for a moment. Still drunk. He ran his hands through the inside of his cape, checking his pockets. Wallet, keyes, papers. Watch still on his left wrist, plugs still resting in his earlobes. No one had taken anything. Classic start of waking up after a lost night, but he wears a fuggin cape, yes He exhaled, and tried to piece together the night. He had made it here with a few of his fellow exchange students and a couple local boys who suggested the spot. Club Caracal. It had been a welcome relief from the bars that catered to tourists and expats, with none of the cold, suspicious front that the locals usually gave foreigners. They had danced and drank, he had met a girl, a decent Cahuacl speaker at that. Things got fuzzy after that. There was a memory he couldn't quite grasp of insisting that he'd be fine if his friends wanted to head back to the university without him, and of buying another bottle of brandy. To split? For himself? The harder he tried to get specifics, the more his head hurt. He couldn't understand a word coming from the bar. Even if he had been sober, the men, mostly rough looking younger guys with shaved heads, certainly weren't, and were slurring their words too heavily for his meager command of Qazi to parse a thing. Better to not disturb them, and just slip out. Maybe I’m showing my ignorance here, but I can’t pin this stuff down, caracal are central Asian cats, that’s fine. And Qazi is from the same rough region, but it’s a sausage, not a language? And the best guess is Cahuacl is Cahuaci from Peru, which fine, other foreigners and exchange students could be in the local dive, so maybe it’s the cool place that doesn’t cater to but also doesn’t mind the tourists. But it’s all a little puzzling to me? The door was still unlocked. He opened it, just enough to squeeze through quietly. Outside, it was pouring. He cinched up his cape. He wished he had brought the thick one with the hood. This was his nice cape. He sighed, and stumbled into the downpour. He’s a capes and cloaks all the time guy With no other real concrete description, I’m picturing tuxedo mask with 50mm plugs. It’s a good look (though I find tunnels disconcerting, glad that wasn’t the option you went with) This part of the city was a maze. Streets ran at odd angles, a web of unregulated development. He knew the university was only two or three kilometers away, and he plunged ahead. Less than fifteen minutes later, soaked and shivering, he realized he had no idea where he was. The streets were deserted, besides the occasional beggar or vagrant sleeping fitfully in a covered alcove or doorway. Neon signs floated hazily in his vision, illuminating the streets with a dim light advertising shops and services that would be closed and dark for hours yet. He squinted to try to make sense of them in his swimming vision. Appliance repair, something he couldn't quire translate but that seemed to be clothing for teenagers for coming of age ceremonies, imported smokables and liquors. None of the street signs were familiar, when they were present at all. He was freezing. The rain was never this cold in Tapaliccan. He wished he had brought his thicker cape again. There was a small bus stop shelter just down the street. That would have a map, and mercifully, it wasn't occupied by a sleeping transient. We get, capes The bus stop did have a map, but the map assumed the reader would know where they were. Chapalli sighed. He considered wringing out his cape, using it as a blanket, and passing out here. If he got robbed, the embassy could replace his papers, and the university had a copy on hand and he only had… He went through his wallet. Two hundred thirty Tibal. Fuzzy math told him that was about sixty or so bucks. It would sting a little, but not even enough to call home and ask for more about. His parents would be furious, of course, better not to let them know this ever happened. OK, I’m getting the sense that maybe you created fictional countries and currencies? That’s fine, I guess try to make sure you avoid coincidences that will have funny results, as you’ll see later, or slang for money like bucks. Make up a new word for consistency. A truck sped past, dousing him with dirty water and shaking him from introspection. Maybe there was a reason no one slept here. As he stood up and tried to wring his cape out, he saw a sign across the street. “Bagam 24-hour”. There was one of these near the university, he had been there often with his friends on late night beer runs. The convenience store would have hot drinks, and food. Might as well warm up somewhere dry before trying to wait out the night. A bell rang as he entered. A bored girl sat behind the counter, in her early twenties, about his age, not even up from a magazine as he entered. “H-hello” he stumbled over the foreign words a bit. This was so easy in class, but much harder in person “Could I get a…” The girl looked up and gave a sudden squeak of scandalized surprise. Chapalli realized his cape was hanging open, only his loincloth leaving a little to imagination between his bare, bronze chest and legs. He pulled it closed quickly cursing himself for forgetting the differing dress standards in the colder south. Well, there we go. Tuxedo mask has gone Conan the barbarian “Deepest apologies.” He stepped back from the counter and gave a half bow. By then the girl had regained her composure, looking as embarrassed as he felt. “Kahve?” she asked. Coffee, just what he was looking for. “Please miss, thank you for the hospitality.” he knew it was overly formal, but decided to err against over familiarity. She turned to where several bubbling glass kettles sat on hot plates. The smell of the coffee was the strongest, but he could also see two types of tea and what he guessed was the local holly-leaf drink. Without looking back she filled a paper cup with coffee, and reached for a jug of milk. He panicked a bit. Oh dear god, the coffee and tea stays boiling all day?! “No, none please!” She looked at him incredulously. “No milk?” He rubbed his stomach and made an unpleasant face, hoping she got the idea. She laughed a little, and put the milk away. “Kawacali?” “Cahuacli.” he corrected her “Close, but no, Tapaliccani.” Her face showed she had no idea what he was talking about. He shrugged. “Yeah, Cahuacli.” Her face lit up a bit, and she yelled something into the back room. When there was no immediate answer she held up a finger for him to wait. He set down a few coins on the table. Ten tibal should cover the coffee. He looked around the small shop for something to eat. Dried meats, potato chips… he wanted something hot. There was some sort of porridge sitting in a hot well behind the counter. Six tibal. He put down ten more, just to be safe. The girl came back, dragging a reluctant boy in his early teens, clearly a younger brother. She made a motion as if to say “talk to him”. The boy looked him up and down. “Good morning, good meet.” he mumbled. His sister elbowed him again. “I am learning your speech in school, she wants me to show off.” The boy's speech was hesitant and accented, but clear and understandable. He was clearly a good student. Chapalli held out his hand. “Chapalli, First of May.” "Ghanibal. Ghanibal Kuvan. My sister is Ghanibalit Verinit.” The sister said something again, and the boy rolled his eyes. “She says you can call her Verta, if you want.” Chapalli smiled. He knew he had worn his nice cape for a reason. “Pleased to meet you both.” he motioned toward the porridge. “Could I get some of that?” “Kuager.” The boy said “Yeah, Cuacuel.” he tried to get his tongue around the harder consonants. He was sobering up, but not enough to get it right. The girl, Verta, poured a cup of the porridge. It was thin, but smelled savory as he took it and the coffee. “Fourteen.” she counted out change for him, but he waved it off. “Keep it, I'm just happy something is open." The boy snatched the leftover coins off the table before his sister could take them. Chapalli sipped the coffee, and downed the porridge. It was good, some blend of oats and buckwheat, sweetened a little with beets and spiced with bits of peppers. He already felt better with something warm in his stomach. “She says you can stay and dry off if you need to.” “Huh?” Verta gestured towards a restroom behind the beaded curtain separating the backroom from the sales floor. Chapalli’s heart beat a little faster. Was this what he thought it was? He didn’t expect any Qazi girls to be THAT easy. Here it is—””Qazı is a traditional sausage-like food of Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and other Turkic or Central Asian ethnic groups.”” He didn’t expect sausage girls to be easy It wasn’t, and she wasn’t. He stood in front of the door for a second, wondering if she was coming in with him. She shook her head, pushing a warm, dry bathrobe into his hands, pushing him into the bathroom, and shutting the door. He could hear a stifled giggle on the other side. Disappointed, but also a little relieved, he stripped off his cape and got into the robe. It was soft and comfortable, if a little small. He wondered if it was her dad’s or maybe an adult brother’s. Either would probably be bad news if they came back and saw him in it. Still, it was nice to be dry and cozy. He exited the bathroom. Verta took his cape and hung it up near the stove, after wringing it out a bit. She invited him to sit in front of the counter, and he did. Conversation was awkward at first, mostly in Cahuacl with Kuvan reluctantly translating in exchange for a few more coins. Chapalli tried to get a few words in Qazi in, but that generally just got the siblings snickering at his pronunciations and telling him he was very good at it, before Kuvan would switch back to being middleman. There was a pretty glint in Verta’s eyes when she would laugh, and Chapalli loved how she stared into his when told them about where he was from, Tapaliccan, not the more famous Cahuacl City. The mention of his hometown excited Kuvan, who snatched his sister’s magazine, and pointed to a cologne ad. “You know Metlouca 19th of June?” I like the date/surname convention. That’s pretty cool. Chapalli laughed. Of course he didn’t know the ballplayer personally, but like every boy who had grown up in Tapaliccan he had a signed poster, and watched the Tapaliccan Devils’ games religiously. Kuvan looked slightly disappointed but was suddenly much more engaged in the conversation. What felt like minutes later, but what surely longer, the sun was starting to come up. Chapalli noticed Verta catch something in the corner of her eye. She pulled the visitor to his feet and pushed him back behind the curtain. Kuvan followed. “Stay!” Verta rushed back out to the counter. There were loud, threatening male voices, and what sounded like Verta trying to apologize and deflect. Then there was the sound of glass smashing, and the salesgirl giving a startled yelp. Chapalli tried to go back out, but Kuvan held him back. “No, you’ll just make it worse. They’ll leave soon.” he whispered. Peeking through the curtain, Chapalli could make out two men who at first took for policemen, until he realized their uniforms were wrong. Seeing the tattoos on their arms, endless lines of text probably listing ancestors or some such thing, he recognized the type from dramas back home. Cold eyed, mean paramilitaries, one of the most common stock tropes assigned to Qazi characters in cinema and TV. True to the boy’s word, they were on their way out. When they left, Chapalli slipped back out. Verta was shaken, but unharmed, sweeping up broken glass from one of the newsstands. There were a pile of patriotic posters on the counter now, as well as a framed portrait of the Qazi Generalissimo Gamol. “You should go.” Verta said, through her brother as she dumped the glass in a dustbin. She slipped a map into his hands, with the university circled in red, and a phone number scrawled on the edge in the same ink. She composed herself, letting her hands linger a little as she handed him his cape. “You’ll come back though, to bring the robe back?” She smiled a little, even as her brother made sure to emphasize the last part more than the first. “Sure.” Chapalli smiled back, then slipped out into the brightening street. He was less than a kilometer from the University this whole time, and in the morning sun he could see its tower poking above the roofline around him. He’d definitely be back. OK, maybe you could have had a paramilitary guy pick him up and throw him out of the bar at the beginning so it’s a callback and we already know about the danger and the info is front loaded so all you have to say at the end is Chap saw the tattoos and we’re there in an oh, poo poo moment. Cuz what are they doing there? It’s the first time we hear about political unrest and it’s 200 words from the end. The meetcute stuff is all pretty good, and overcoming the language barriers, and even lactose intolerance is a funny moment. All the frivolous stuff I like. There’s no tension since the little brother is an instant translator though. You can mine the misunderstandings for comedy. Otherwise, if the Generalissimo is planning a coup (since paramilitary is not official govt) then that’s a big detail to hide away, and certainly doesn’t seem like the place where expats and tourists would be barhopping. If some uncouth military guys have checkpoints up or are patrolling, then that creates tension during the first half with Chap trying to avoid being stopped and questioned or even blocked from getting to school. But it’s just a guy going, no I was definitely NOT robbed. Still, it’s amusing, but it could have been way better The Cut of Your Jib fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 21:30
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1) Thank you for the kind words and constructive criticism, I really appreciate it 2) gently caress, is it Thunderdome/CC policy to include trigger warnings? My sincerest apologies to anybody and everybody if that's the case. Even if it isn't, I should've thought about it.
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Aug 28, 2023 21:53
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Toaster Beef posted:1) Thank you for the kind words and constructive criticism, I really appreciate it I don't know that it's official policy, and I didn't know quite how to word it either. Like I wouldn't put a warning on a generic hitman gun story, or even a story about a suicide. It's the fixation and fantazing ways to do it that sets off my concern for readers
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Aug 28, 2023 22:09
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Toaster Beef posted:1) Thank you for the kind words and constructive criticism, I really appreciate it Its not policy, judges can request them for their weeks if they want them.
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Aug 28, 2023 23:12
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Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying. Still something I'll keep in mind if I'm fiddling around in that subject area again.
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Aug 28, 2023 23:15
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Thanks, I guess I have to do up a prompt now so I'll get on that in a moment, I have an idea.
BaldDwarfOnPCP fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 23:29
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Thread culture is not to respond to crits, but feel free to jump into discord https://discord.gg/wYDRHTgr
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Aug 28, 2023 23:34
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 Thunderdome Week DLXXVIII Forces of Nature Personified. I won't specify if they should be classical or scientific. Should Mud be a force of nature? Sure. Should the Up, Strange, Charm, etc from quantum physics be forces? Sure. Lightning, Water, Gravity (Love? please no) can all be forces. They all need personification somehow, I won't even go so far as to say they know each other familiarly or must interact a certain way. They don't have to be superheroes and they don't have to have powers or be in a club. It might be nice if they recognize each other of course but it's on you. Good luck. The deadline will be midnight Friday GMT September 1st for signups, midnight GMT Sunday September 3rd for submissions. I read fast but comprehend slow so I'll just keep the ball rolling with 1750 being the word count as was the last round. That seems like a good amount to shoot for. If you overshoot and can't finish by all means pull back but don't feel like you have to trim a bunch of lines to get that exact number. Just in that range really, be reasonable and check the word counter every so often. You do you. Judges: ____________ Beezus, derp Entrants so far: ____________ The Cut of Your Jib, beep-beep car is go, Fuschia tude, Thranguy, Fat Jesus, Ouzo Maki, rivetz BaldDwarfOnPCP fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 01:00
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I’m in.
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Aug 29, 2023 01:10
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yeah, sceINce
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Aug 29, 2023 01:19
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OK I'm 
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Aug 29, 2023 01:43
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I volunteer to dispense judgment.
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Aug 29, 2023 02:15
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In.
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Aug 29, 2023 04:01
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Only four of you so far? Ok, I'm in then. Might even try make sense.
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Aug 31, 2023 09:31
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get me in
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Aug 31, 2023 14:52
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Going away with family for the weekend, so I have to post early. Theme: Forces of Nature Personified Words 786 Carry Me Home Don looked out at the water as he pushed the rudder hard over. It looked smooth enough. He keyed the radio. “No, I’m not going to wait, I’m just going to turn and go again. I’ve got enough fuel to make another run.” Snapping the toggle on his radio, Don slid the throttle forward as the whine of the jet engine behind him grew insistent. The small steel and aluminum hydrofoil – it was barely a boat – surged ahead on the still water. The military jet pushed the boat faster and faster over surface of the lake as he approached the measured kilometer for his second run. So long as this run goes as well as the first, Don will have completed the requirements for the water speed world record. Everything was working well. The boat rose on plane and skimmed the surface of the lake. He looked down at the little speedometer. It wasn’t very accurate – accuracy was for the officiants – but it gave him a rough idea of how close he was. He soared past 200, then 300, then 400 kilometers an hour. There was some buffeting, but nothing Don hadn’t felt before. The jet’s scream was loud in his helmet. 450, 470, 500 kilometers an hour. It had taken months to get here. So many setbacks. Finally, things were working as they were supposed to. He was where he was supposed to be. Deep into unknown territory and entering the measured kilometer. He only had to maintain his speed and he’d be the fastest person ever to travel over water. Faster than his body’s ability to transmit an impulse to his brain, it was over. A rogue wave, a wayward duck, at the speed he was going, it could have been anything. The boat rose above the water, flipped a few times, and smashed into the lake. At five hundred kilometers an hour, it didn’t matter what he struck. Water or concrete, it would have felt the same. “Woah! That was quite a run, mate!” The voice sounded surprised and impressed. He stuck a hand into the water. Don grabbed the outstretched hand and was pulled out of the water. Wasn’t he strapped into the boat? How did he get out? “I nearly had it!” Don was confused about where he was and what was going on, but he knew he didn’t make the record. He worked the straps of his helmet loose and tossed it away, frustrated. “Must have been a rogue wave or something. Still, any landing you can walk away from and all.” It was at that point that he saw the rescue boats speeding to his location. Don looked around. He appeared to be standing on the water next to the figure. “Oh, I see.” “Yup.” The figure nodded. “Still, well done. You exceeded five hundred kilometers an hour there. During that time, you were the fastest person ever to travel over the water. That’s why I’m here. I come out and visit in person for the special events.” Don stared at the figure. It was hard to focus on them. It was almost as if they were moving all the time. Nearly blurred from movement. Sometimes a woman and sometimes a man and sometimes both, they switched appearances too quickly to really focus on something. “You’re not Death… are you?” Their laugh was music. “Nah, they come later. Or I’m doing their job right now, I’m not exactly sure. Like I said, I appear during special events. I’m Speed.” “Speed?” “Sure. I know you’ve felt my presence. Anyone who tries for records like that has felt me. I know you felt me at Bonneville, I know you felt me at Lake Eyre, I know you felt me at Dumbleyung.” Speed gestured out at the water. “Those moments when you’re going faster than anyone else has ever gone, on the ragged edge, you can feel me egging you on.” “Okay, but what happened? Why are you here?” Speed rolled his eyes. “I told you. This was a Special Event. The water speed record is especially perilous, as you learned. Think of me like… a Valkyrie. I came to carry you to the great beyond after an especially wonderful demonstration of speed.” Speed looked out at the water, at the pieces of boat still floating. “It was a wonderful demonstration. A worthy sacrifice.” Don looked out at the water, casting his eyes over the landscape. “What now?” Speed looked at him. “That’s up to you, mate. I just show you the way.” “Will there be races?” Speed laughed again. “You know there will. Go win them.”
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Aug 31, 2023 22:12
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I haven't entered Thunderdome for like five years but I've been lurking this thread for several weeks now and am tired of running from destiny, IN
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Sep 1, 2023 04:20
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Week 578 Submission The Humour of it All 1242 Words Haima spun a spicy tarantella, skirts whirling, spaghetti straps floating like the rings of Saturn around a set of lean, tatted shoulders. The sonogram bass pulsed through the heels of all in the room, but no one else danced. Chole grazed the buffet in the proper way they had been taught—fill up on crab legs and shrimp scampi and whatever else was the most expensive. With a frown, they flicked a bit of that crab innard mustard off their plate and it plopped in the untouched creamed corn, cleverly disguised. Phlema slouched against the jamb, double doors in the gothic style of high school gymnasium, one propped open with a dirty wooden wedge, the other locked tight with a drop bar latch. They cupped a hand over their nose to disguise a stealth-thumb-pick-n-flick, but no one was watching anyway. Melaina sat crosslegged in the corner, their own nose buried in a book. It was Camus or Kafka or whatever the saddest and most alienating book you can think of. Invariably, whatever they were reading was sadder. You might expect Melaina to be wearing a The Cure t-shirt or some such, but they were as looking in a mirror, even if you do have Robert Smith hair. The beat quickened and Haima’s toes tapped with the precision of a machine press, faster and faster without fault. Then the music stopped. Melaina raised an eyebrow but not her gaze as the floor opened and Haima fell through. Whirling became whooshing and their skirts tangled and tightened to the fletching of a tranq dart, pushing them through the darkness until they were birthed onto a run of salt flats, punctuated only by the occasional jut of a reed. They were about to say ‘well, this is not how I expected the day to go” when Haima saw the giants. Beaks like sythes and button eyes, tall collars and taller hats, the third eye brighter than the sun waving a cold elephant’s trunk, mouthless monsters of green skin and squeaky flesh—visages onion-skinned on top of each other, fanning like a trick shuffle. Haima was overcome with the urge to run, but their skirts were caught in the subtle cracks and the more Haima scrabbled, the longer the skirts became, until they could no longer see from where they arrived, just a scarlet thread dangling from the horizon. And all the brightness faded from their dress and from the world and from their vision as Haima fell through the sky. “Well, that was not how I expected the day to go,” said Chole and turned back to the grub as the beat began again, a quiet swish of hi-hats before the bass kicked in. From the walls and ceiling the party streamers fell and tornadoed until Haima was back on the parquet. “There were giants and a beach and, and an expanse like I’ve never seen, and there were giants!” “A flight of fancy, like all your travel stories,” murmured Malaina. Phlema snorted and scraped something from under a nail. It was true, whether the rest believed it or not that Haima raced up and down the highways and byways with the alacrity of a sprinter and the tunnel vision of a marathoner. Smelling the roses was never part of the itinerary, even as they collected themselves and tucked a long-stemmed baccara behind their ear. The skirts were a long trailed ball gown, a glittered waterfall draped into the hole still in the floor. But happy feet is happy feet, and it was only a moment before Haima danced again, gracefully circling the breach as a partner. The music shifted, off, like a waltz waiting for the drop. Then Phlema stumbled from their cool greaser pose as a gust pushed them into the room. The ground shook with a crescendo of snares and tympani. As Chole and the rest blinked the fireworks from their eyes, Phlema was gone—only a whistle of a musty breeze to remind them. “Not again,” said Chole through a rift of acid and shifted the plate to the other hand. “Exactly how I expected the day to go,” dripped Malaina. The prom’s worth of party balloons pulsed with a damp shine then shriveled ever so, a raisiny dullness to the silver and periwinkle canopy. With another rickety shake of the room, Phlema was in the doorway once more, just as shaken. “I saw them. Giants. Unflinching colossi.” Haima extended their hand, and Phlema took it. They glanced at the others as the wind took them. Haima’s gown trailed down the hallway and cascaded into the pit. It might be a trick of the light, but Chole noted the shimmer of sequins fade. Much like before, they were back. Haima’s dress now a ball of yarn laced through the labyrinth and tangled around Phlema, the world’s laziest Halloween mummy. The music sputtered in unsynced syncopation, then stopped. You can imagine a record scratch if you like, but there wasn’t one. Phlog was in the doorway, exuding big vice-principal energy. “Wrap it up, party’s over,” he said with a finalizing clap of his hands. Chole put down the plate, and joined Haima and Phlema. They nodded to each other, and took hands in an open square, waiting. Malainia snapped the book shut and finally looked up, eyes resting on Phlog. “It’s time then?” Phlog rested his hands on his thick leather belt. “You know it is.” Malainia stood and hobbled to the rest, unable to work the pins and needles from their ankles. Perhaps the distraction was for the best. Haima lunged at the portly shadow in the door but the tangles kept them in place and they collapsed in a heap. “It’s not curfew yet, they still haven’t played my favorite song. Just a few more minutes . . . please.” They wriggled with petulance as Chole reached out and caressed a shoulder. “No sense getting weepy about it,” said Malaina, tears blooming in the corners of their eyes. If you took notice, there were always hints of little diamonds catching the light there. Before Phlema could make a quip under their breath, they were gone. Phlogiston snapped some beefy fingers and the balloons shriveled into broiled shrinkydinks. The streamers caught fire and the edges of the parquet dance floor blackened to charcoal. Haima raged, but too, was gone. There was silence. Malaina thought they might be the last, to sit in the dark for eternity, for they felt a push from every whichway that was more of Malaina but from the outside. Then they felt a fading. It was slower than the blink of ceasing like Phlema and Haima, but it came. Chole was alone for a moment. Then through the charred remains of the dance hall, Chole lumbered for the back door as fast as they could. Gone. - The four danced, Haima, Phlema, Chole, and Malainia. Precise and in time, trading partners freely between them on a clean floor that sparkled with wax. The balloons didn’t need netting, they floated on helium fresh from the tank, streamers dangled and spiraled in the cool breeze from the spring air. Even Chole was light on their feet, cutting lithe lines around the checkerboard. Haima wore a romper in candy apple red. Phlema didn’t sneak it when they dug for gold. Malainia smiled at the friends, and would smile for a good long time, but in the corner of their eyes, they felt the first jab of little diamonds.
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Sep 2, 2023 22:17
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Week 578 Submission The Wind In Their Bones 1884 words Eleanor was pulling laundry off the line out back when the thumping began, and her first thought was to wonder what clever new indignity or nuisance Clem might have brought with him. But then: *thump* *thump* *thrrp* “owwwwpoo poo” Eleanor pursed her lips testily, gathered the last sheets into her basket, and marched up the back steps and through the old house, sweeping through the kitchen with a cursory glance at the chowder simmering busily on the front burner. She deposited the basket on a side chair under the great, curving stairs that overlooked the living room. Bertha’s bedroom door at the top of the landing was ajar; perhaps she’d be down soon. The front door was opened wide, as usual, and Eleanor emerged onto the porch. The old maple’s leaves cast patchwork shadow across the lawn. The roses were in bloom, and the thick purr of droning bees was just audible from the front garden. Monica was sitting on the porch swing, a board across her lap and a small brown bag by her side, contentedly and methodically pulverizing small handfuls of pecans into rubbled chunks with an ugly blue ceramic ashtray she’d found in the attic. The pie Eleanor had cooked earlier sat nearby on the tea table, a mute witness to the carnage. “Oh, Monica, really,” Eleanor said. “It’s not a crumble on the top, you know. Would you please not make this one of your strange variants on a recipe we all agreed on? The pecans go round the border -” “It’s not really a different recipe if It’s the exact same ingredients, is it?” Monica asked without looking up. “I toleja I hate them in a circle like that. It looks like a buncha... dead beetles holding a seance. This’ll be better.” She snapped her gum to punctuate her decision, and primly scooped the crushed pecans into an uneven pile to one side of the lapboard, before wiping her hands on her cargo pants and resuming her work without further comment. “Wash your hands when you’re finished. And bring that in when you’re done, please, and don’t leave a mess?” Monica half-nodded, brushing back loose strands of hair behind her ear, intent on her destruction. Eleanor huffed and went back inside. The truth was that she liked having Monica around, with her skater-girl chic and her strange wit, and her seemingly-inexhaustible inventory of rock band tees. Tenants and friends were all too often Eleanor’s age, or older, and that held its own pleasures, but having someone younger like Monica in the house always lent a welcome lightness to things. Eleanor felt it most of all some nights after dinner, curled up in the living room, watching the fire together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. She couldn’t call it memory - what even were those? - but she knew what dreams were, and imagined memories to be much the same: dreamlike but somehow more immediate, moored to one’s senses, buoyed by emotion. Eleanor returned to the kitchen to find Bertha had padded downstairs and was sitting at the kitchen table in her magnificent paisley bathrobe, peering at the directions on the back of a jar of vitamins with bleary dismay. Her hair was done up in a haphazard jungle of curlers, as had been the norm lately; she’d come across the ancient set of curlers buried behind some old pillows in an upstairs closet and had determined on the spot to make good use of them, but had no apparent understanding of how to use them correctly. She had steadfastly rebuffed all advice and offers of help, but that was just Bertha down to the ground, needing help in so many ways but mulishly independent in others. “‘Dicalcium phosphate. Dihydrate’,” said Bertha, reciting the ingredients in sluggish monotone. “‘Titanium dioxide’. Sounds like a battery. Sooooodium something.’” She looked up. “I thought this stuff was supposed to make it easier to sleep.” “I said it might help your body, dear,” said Eleanor, busying herself with the washing up. “Get your body right and the sleep will take care of itself.” Bertha shook her head as she pried the jar open, dry-swallowing two of the pills. “You know that I haven’t had a really good spell of sleep in a week?” Eleanor did know this, of course, but said nothing. “Just lyin’ there, trying to drift off, eyes closed, just lyin’ there waitin’.” She scratched the folds of fat under her chin. “I can’t even think about what I want to think about, you know? To help me drift off. It’s just dark, and that rumblin’ we talked about. In my ears.” She sketched a vague spiral near the side of her head with a thick finger. “This might be a good day to stay in, dear,” said Eleanor without turning from the sink. There was a barely detectable undercurrent of tension in her tone. “I can bring some soup up and we could play a game, or work on the quilt?” If Bertha had heard, she gave no sign. “I almost hope that trash bastard comes by today. I really do. Let him come by. Really. I won’t let him bother me.” Eleanor turned to face her, drying a plate. “Have you been saying your words?” “Yes.” “All of them? In your head and heart, like we talked about?” “Yes, I said yes.” There was no anger in Bertha’s reply, only weariness. Eleanor approached and sat, carefully tucking a stray curler into place. “Then you’re going to be fine. Better than fine.” Monica, returning from the porch, strode into the kitchen from the living room, presenting the pie before her like a trophy. “Check it out, I made it a circle pit.” The pecans obediently formed a ring around the riot of chunks and pebbles in the middle. Eleanor feigned exasperation. “I am sure I don’t want to know.” “Now why would you do that?” asked Bertha. “Smash a bunch of perfectly good pecans for a joke? What if we don’t have enough pecans for another pie?” Monica rolled her eyes as she deposited the pie on the kitchen table and sat. “There’s always more pecans. There’s always more everything.” Eleanor was about to reply when they all heard the singing, a gruff bellow from the front of the house. “If you like to gamble / I tell you, I'm your man…” “Oh, great,” muttered Monica, and skootched her chair sideways so it was no longer directly facing the living room. The singing got louder as he entered, accompanied by the stolid stomp of his galoshes. Clem was back to his rock n roll look: black leather biker jacket and pants, a greasy red bandana hemming in the last few strands of blond hair remaining on his balding head. There was mud on his shoulder, as if from a recent fall. “Ahh don't share your greed! The only card ahh need is the Ace of Spaaa-yeedes! The Ace of Spaaa-yeedes!” Clem lurched into a spirited air-guitar routine, whipping one arm windmill-style across invisible strings. One of his boots left a pair of muddy stains behind on Eleanor’s rug, two thick imprints from the sole and heel forming a grimy exclamation point to herald his entrance. “You really should announce yourself before just marching in,” Eleanor said severely. “What, you didn’t hear me?” Clem replied. “I was singing it all up the way.” He wiped his brow. “I’m sorry, but these rock shows…not to rub it in, but man. What you’re missin’. Sorry, but man.” Bertha said nothing, but Eleanor thought she saw her lips moving wordlessly, and hoped it was so. “What do you want, Clem? We were enjoying a lovely quiet time here before-” “Just checkin’ in, is all,” Clem said. “Just checkin’ in, swingin’ by, sayin’ hi, bein’ neighborly, just wanting to see where everyone’s… at.” His eyes tiptoed appraisingly between Monica and Bertha. “Say, where’s…uh…” Clem snapped his fingers speculatively. “What’s her name, with the braids, uh-” “Nancy left yesterday, said Eleanor, adding pointedly, “on her own.” Clem nodded vaguely, as if the topic no longer interested him. “No one invited you,” Bertha muttered, glaring at him. “In point of fact, that is not entirely true,” said Clem. His tone was suddenly quite serious, but impish glee flickered behind his eyes. “What she means to say,” said Eleanor with a sigh, “is that nobody here invited you.” Clem spread his arms wide. “And yet, here I am,” he said, and grinned, showing twin rows of teeth far too wide and clean for the rest of his face. “Oh you are just so full of bullshit,” said Monica with quiet and perfect truth. Clem favored her with a brief stare of open, empty dislike, and turned his attention to Bertha and the pie sitting in front of her. “A little dessert for the day’s repast, have we?” Bertha said nothing. He ratcheted out a chair from the table, its legs rasping on the tile, and spun it about before sitting. “How about it, then, Queen B.?” asked Clem, his eyes bright. “Let’s not waste time. You ready to see the world? The original Fabulous Disaster?” The overhead light seemed to dim slightly. Bertha met his stare evenly. Clem leaned forward in a conspiratory whisper. “You know they’re making such a mess of things. It’s all wrong on the other side, all gone wrong. And nobody’s doing a thing about it,” he breathed in wonder, as if momentarily transported by his own words. Eleanor stood motionless at the sink, her face a carefully-composed mask of neutrality. The steel in my soil! The wind in my bones! “Come on,” wheedled Clem, searching Bertha’s face. “Run a red light once in a while. You know you’d be putting things right.” Bertha’s eyes were fixed on his, and Eleanor saw her lips moving with silent diction: To grow is to recede…to return is to diminish…though my mercy be blind… Clem frowned and leaned further forward. Without breaking Bertha’s gaze, he raised a hand and slowly closed it into a thumbs-up gesture, then deliberately inserted his thumb into the center of the pie, roughly scooping out a clump for himself. Bertha seemed to quiver; one corner of her mouth twitched and was still. Clem grinned, crooked and suddenly disarming. His eyes were bright and daring. Eleanor stood frozen. For my waters are as one, and I as one. Ah! The steel in my soil! The wind in my bones! --------------------------------------------- Outside, Clem sighed and wiped his thumb on his pants, dismayed. He’d been so sure, so sure, but had come out all this way for nothing. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. That little bitch with the mouth was one to keep an eye on. Such hatred! She will embrace it as a weapon, he mused, never realizing how much easier that makes things. His good spirits fluttered to the surface again, and Clem picked up his step, lighting a cigarette. There were many other visits yet to make today, appointments yet to keep. And he knew where to start. “That lovely beach villa,” he said aloud. “The one with the view.” And, he thought, the one with Katrina. Lovely, fragrant Katrina, who was at once so quiet, and yet, Clem felt sure, had so much she needed to say. rivetz fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 05:33
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WEEK 578 RECOLLECTIONS OF A HOLY WAR 1171 words Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum Iudicium Collectione Summa Secreto translata a Byzantine #3983645 - 1010-1011. Commendatur destrui To His Divine Holiness Pope Urban II 12 February, 1101. I beseech you to heed my words for I swear before Christ all I say is true, that an evil beyond imagination is at work, as I shall attest before Him, and the Others. In July of the year of our Lord 1099, Tancred, the Prince of Galilee, believed that he had found the Holy Lance that had pierced the Saviour on the cross that had been found in the hidden tomb. And afterwards many of us saw that his manner and behaviours had changed, such as eating with his fingers and speaking like a peasant, using foul words not in accord with his nobility, and refusing the Holy sacrament, and soon his knights also acted thus, with increasing coarseness and brutality which alarmed us greatly. Finding the relic had renewed fervour amongst the faithful after the endless hardships, and had blinded us to the evil that had overcome them, and spread amongst us like a plague. Knights and their men now killing all before them when previously we had given mercy to those who did not resist the will of God. For Tancred had assured the Jews of their safety when we had breached the gates by way of the Holy relic, a miracle witnessed by many, by giving them his banner and gathering them in their synagogue to safety, where upon he had the doors barricaded and the building burned. He had then gone to the Temple Mount and slaughtered the Muslims that had been given the same assurance, their blood ankle deep in the mass of headless corpses which I saw with my own eyes, so many I could not count. The Holy Lance seemed to give a black radiance as Tancred held it high and his men went to frenzy, committing the most vile acts upon the people of Jerusalem, man, woman and child, as God is my witness. Only Raymond of Saint-Gilles had confronted him, demanding answers to his depravity and to see the Holy Lance for himself. Tancred did hand it to Raymond, but not letting it go, and we saw amazed that Raymond’s manner also changed as they held the thing, and the two men, who would be mortal enemies in other times, were now seemingly friends, a strange thing indeed. And so it were the peoples of Jerusalem that suffered the wraith that had taken hold of once just and righteous men, so that all lay slaughtered in parts arrayed about as the crusaders stripped themselves and washed and rutted with the bodies in the blood, which caused us to flee in terror knowing demons had taken their minds and souls. For when I had beseeched them to stop I saw they all had the same face, and spoke in whispers to each other a language I did not understand, nor understand how these men, Franks, were speaking it as one. We had raised our crosses and prayed but they snarled at us as dogs and spat upon us and cursed us. And thus we fled, I and two other men of the clergy taking the Lance as they slept like beasts of the field, naked upon each other. We saw with dismay many horrors I dare not describe, but the sight of christian men cooking a child while chanting in an ancient language had finally sent us in flight with the evil relic. This confirmed our belief that the relic they held was not the Holy Lance, but another thing, that we believed belonged to a demon, and should be destroyed, and thus we had stolen it, and were pursued. We had made our way across a plain to the city’s north, hoping to alert Godfrey of Bouillon as to the madness that had overcome the city, but found he too along with Robert had fallen to it’s darkness and had joined the slaughter. And thus we fled with the relic north, finding ourselves near Acre some weeks later, when I began to have visions of Hell and found my holy brothers also were troubled by these dreams. We had wrapped the black long stick with it’s obsidian blade in skins with a bronze cross to avoid it’s corruption but to no avail. We soon found the thick cross crushed to a ball so smooth we amazed at the miracle. But soon the relic’s call to us withered our strength to resist, finding ourselves unable to destroy it by any means. Finally I took it up in my hand and cast it as far as I was able in my weakened state, but I looked in horror as it flew about us as a hawk, driving through and killing my two companions then landing in the ground at my feet. I had run from it though the olives in terror and confusion coming at last to a small cave where I took shelter from a storm and awoke to find the thing beside me. It has been nearly a year and I had tried my best to remain devout unto the word of God, though forsaken, and I swear before Them all I have witnessed and pray that They guide me to be free of this evil thing that will not leave me, that draws me to return it to it’s place in the Holy Land where it belongs not. They have hunted me across the Levant and as I write this I am but a day from Beirut, and fear soon I will be taken by the knights of Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, who has taken Godfrey’s place to seek it, Tancred now returned to Antioch to seek us there. I had hoped to find passage by ship but the port is blocked with hundreds of galleys, and I find myself surrounded as the knights prepare to siege. The thing has led me here as if it knew where the next great slaughter would be, I am convinced of it, or I have lost all sense. Please forgive me should I fail to keep it from his hands, for it has shown me the vision of what awaits the people of that city, a vision of Hell that makes me want to dash myself to the rocks below me to escape it’s hold, damning my immortal soul, if it is not already. For I have seen in those visions to whom it belongs, I know from the visions it is not the Devil’s treachery, but the knowledge of more Gods than one tears my mind with dismay, but also wonder, and I dare not yet speak such heresies, weak as my faith is. May all the gods help me now, to understand the meaning of the horror, for it’s purpose is still unclear, but the nature of God is not what we believe or think we know, for They are legion. This I know and trust you wil [terminos]
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Sep 3, 2023 11:22
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rivetz posted:rivetz hosed around with this message at 14:37 on Sep 3, 2023 An FYI for future weeks (I think it's mentioned in the OP) editing your submission after the fact tends to be an automatic DQ.
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Sep 3, 2023 13:06
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Unsettling 539 words The man who was tomorrow yawned, and this was unusual for two distinct reasons. The first was the appearance of it: a moray-like circle of tiny sharp teeth surrounding a deep starry darkness reminiscent of the night sky on some planet far closer to the galactic core than Earth, and the second was the fact of itself. Tomorrow does not sleep, does not tire, does not dream but while fully awake. Nevertheless, he yawned. "Tomorrow," said the woman who was revenge, "Is attempting to be subtle." She drew deep on the holdered cigarette she held, then blew smoke in the shape of some eldritch horror born from nightmares brought on by contact with the Dutch and their cheeses. "Could have fooled me," said the man who was gravity. He stroked his thick red beard, shaking loose a handful of crumbs, which he shoved back at his mouth. Most of them made it in. "What happens when he's being unsubtle?" "Aren't you supposed to be, I mean, patient?" asked the woman who was revenge. "You've got almost as many songs as I do, and they're all about optimism and patience, right." "Janis Joplin knew me best," said the man who was tomorrow. "I have a song," said the man who was gravity. He started to sing it. He hit all of the high notes perfectly, which was far more disturbing than it would have been if his voice had cracked or if he had sensibly dropped an octave or two. "That one's more against you than in favor though," said the man who was tomorrow. "Hey," said the man who was gravity, "As long as they spell the name right, right?" He reached for his water bottle, accidentally knocking it aside. It tumbled half a rotation, then stopped in the air. He grasped it, then moved the opening to capture the floating drops. "Most of her stuff is down on the whole concept." "So?" she said. "Just as with her brother," said the man who was tomorrow, "Even media firmly against her domain glamorizes her." The fourth at the table grunted, but said nothing. "I tell them to dig two graves," said the woman who was revenge, "and they ask 'How much for the shovel?'" "I've got the other one too," said the man who was gravity. "From the cartoons for children. With Newton." He took a long drink from his bottle, soaking his beard. "Good man, Newton. Not daft as Aristotle or nerdy as Einstein. Anyhow." He took a deep breath, then started to sing. "Down, down-" The man who was tomorrow was through with subtlety. He cleared his throat and turned to the fourth person at the table. "It has been your turn for a full twenty minutes." The boy who was freedom blinked. Sweat was running down his face, from brow to bare chin, sublimating instants after dripping free. His hair, strawberry blonde and perfectly tousled, kept dry but for the ghost of product. "Sorry." He placed a single road onto the board and passed the dice to the man who was gravity. The man who was gravity rolled a six. "Anybody got wood for sheep?"
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Sep 3, 2023 16:01
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Chairchucker posted:An FYI for future weeks (I think it's mentioned in the OP) editing your submission after the fact tends to be an automatic DQ.  . I've been lurking this thread for some time as mentioned above; having participated in the past, it didn't even occur to me to review the rules. For the record I was fixing vB tags (my submission is heavy on italics) and adding a title/word count.I guess this post will serve as the somewhat-obligatory plea for clemency based on the <5min proximity of the post/edit timestamps, but rules remain rules and
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Sep 3, 2023 16:54
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The Great Anarch 1775w In the beginning, in Her infinite wisdom, The Universe made a place for her children to play. She built the Village of Law out of raw stone hewn from Her very body, and was pleased to watch the young ones frolic in the cradle of creation. To each child She gave a gift, a power that would enable them to shape the Village and make it their own. I will not give you a complete accounting of these gifts, because you know them already. But I must remind you of a few. To Gravity She gave the power of attraction. He went around the village drawing all the children to his side; he was tall, vibrant, handsome, with fine, straight teeth and glossy, dark skin. There was no one who could resist him. It was Gravity who was the first to understand love. I remember the day when Gravity declared that Mass was his lover. All of us were in the kgotla, some wrestling in the dry, red dust, others just basking in the warmth of the morning. They walked up, hand in hand, and Gravity’s smile was a beaming crescent made from pure sunlight. Beside him towered Mass, the largest of us all, a walking mountain of ruddy, hairless flesh. Mass nodded, silent as was his way, and together they went to walk the grassy bank of the river and kiss under the shade of the palms. I crept after them, to watch. Their tryst was a spear thrust through my heart, for those kisses were my kisses. My lifeblood warmed when I looked upon that face, carved from ebony, and I knew I would love no other. Others found their mates, some romantic, others friends, and our childhood games were quickly left behind like so much chaff from our harvests. Understand that there was no formal process for this; those that became lovers simply cleaved to one another because it was natural, as if The Universe had intended it all along. Not all in the village were so lucky, however. One such was Entropy, to whom The Universe had granted the power of chaos. None of the other children could appreciate this power, for while Gravity brought them together, Entropy drove them apart. She loved the sound a clay pot made breaking against stone. The sound of an argument was a chorus of melodious voices to her ear. As she walked through the village, singing her own songs, the others would flee because her voice was full of discord. When she would speak, they heard only scorn. When she joined their games, they would find soon that their toys were broken and friends were made enemies. And so Entropy found herself alone, her pale skin ghostly in the moonlight as she now stalked the village’s edge. Over time, she became a specter, one so misunderstood that when the children told each other stories around late-night fires, her name was one cloaked in fear and monstrosity. The village aged, as did we all, for that is natural. I must thank you, Sister Time, to whom our Mother granted the power of measurement, for tracking the passage of our days. As you counted our minutes, so we grew in our strength, and in our understanding of ourselves and each other. Pairings yielded offspring, variations on The Universe’s original design. Our roles solidified, as did our standing within the social circles. Gravity eased naturally into the role of village chief, others falling neatly in line with his will. I remember the feeling, a twisting of my insides, as I listened to Gravity on the morning of his ascension. It was my first experience with despair, for while I loved him, I knew Gravity’s ego relied on the constant attention of those around him. You could see him going around the village, joking and laughing and play-fighting, but never willing to listen. He could not understand when people needed to pull away. Despite this, our lives went on, everyone believing that these moments together would never end. But this isn’t a story about beginnings, or middles, but rather the end of things. One day, while Inertia and Density were out among the wheat, they noticed a whorl of dust hanging above one corner of the field. The cloud was stagnant, seemingly immune to the breeze. Upon inspection, Inertia could see that the things that were there before, the stones and dirt and wheat, even the air itself, had all been taken apart and jumbled together. Where once was ground a perfect square of darkness was carved, plummeting down into the earth. The two looked up and saw a void etched high into the sky as well. They fled back to the village, screaming for everyone to come and witness the strangeness. The village emptied, and when they saw the infinite blackness, they cowered in fear. Gravity came forward, sweeping his hand through the cloud of matter, nudging particles aside that seemed stuck in space like it was honey. He turned to his subjects, watching the fear twist their faces. “Subjects! Do not fear! This is simply a trick from that wretch Entropy. She seeks to scare us! Let her come out and deny it if this is untrue!” His voice was confident, kingly, as befit a leader. The villagers waited, breathless. But Entropy did not come to claim or deny responsibility, and so the crowd dispersed, leaving the squares of darkness to be forgotten. Gravity stayed behind and tried to remake the wheat and ground and sky, but with all his powers of attraction he could not put the pieces together. The dust cloud was a stain upon his heart, and to cover his shame he piled rocks over the hole and forbade everyone from looking at that patch of sky. More tricks followed. Things around the village were unmade, split into their constituent parts. Clay figurines were reduced to a pile of dirt, water, and pigments. Mbege transformed overnight from the familiar sweet liquor to a pot full of overripe bananas, bark, and porridge. The village was terrified. These inexplicable events made them wail and gnash, and beg first Gravity, and then The Universe Herself, to deliver them from this evil. Gravity tried in vain to restore order, but a mania had swept through the people. Some fled from the village, while others cooped themselves up in their huts, refusing to come out. I was there, watching from the shadows, when Gravity was raging at the village gate. “It is that viper, Entropy!” He was yelling at Mass, who stood impassive. “I will find her and drag her from the forest. I will take my club and smash in her head!” Mass shrugged. “If you can find her.” Gravity’s marble face was slack in shock. Mass had never spoken, and yet here he spoke with doubt to undermine. This disorder was tearing him apart. He searched every inch of the forest, beginning when the sun rose and stopping when the sun set. Entropy could not be found. On the hundredth day, as he returned to the village, he came upon the riverbed, dry as firebed ashes. He went quickly upstream, only to see that the river now flowed into an inky abyss, disappearing to pool in some other unseen point of creation. There was nothing to be done, but it should be noted that even Gravity saw it as the beginning of the end. He rent his garments and cried out, but The Universe did not answer. The next day, the first person went missing. The two Energies, Kinetic and Potential, were so enmeshed that at times it seemed they shared one body. And so when Kinetic ran through the village, calling for her twin, the villagers all dropped whatever they were doing to help in the search. I did not help search, of course, because I knew that Potential had been returned to Mother. Gravity did not help either, consumed with his own search. The villagers noted their chief’s absence, and when he returned from his fruitless pursuit the villagers all turned their backs upon him. He fell to the dirt; his hair was matted, and his skin and teeth were dull. The force of his pull had weakened. It did not stop there, of course. More of the sky was consumed by the void. The river disappeared entirely. Those villagers that had yet to disappear overnight sat around the fire struggling to stay awake, eyes and faces lined with worry and exhaustion. Like Gravity, they found that their own gifts were sapped away, and so they discarded them, leaving them behind for me to collect one by one. The end came suddenly, a cataclysm in the form of a great un-making. There was no sound to announce its arrival. One moment the villagers sat, waiting, and the next they were gone, each returning to the aether from which they were born. You see, Sister Time, deep in the shadowed places of the jungle, where the green fades to gray and the lesser beings crawl freely without fear of predation, I studied the truth of myself. I thought I was broken, a mistake of creation, but I was wrong. Our Mother, in Her infinite wisdom, did not give me an impulse for destruction. I do not simply cause disorder; I am disorder. What we did not know as children, but what I know now, is that this is the natural state of things. Let my teeth snap shut forever if this is a lie. The village stands empty now, my sister. You and I are the last. I met Gravity and Mass on the road, just outside the gate. With a click of my tongue, I turned Mass into nothingness. First he was there, and then he was not. I looked into Gravity’s eyes, a beautiful vastness of burnt umber, and the tears I saw there would have shattered me were I not already shattered. His lips were still full, and I thought I could still steal kisses, but he recoiled from my touch. For the first time in his existence, he wanted distance. He could not know, however, that I was already a part of him. Deep in the spaces between his atoms disorder lurked, put there from the beginning. I snatched that chaos and made it grow, and in a swirl of darkness, I absorbed him. Now, sister, I come for you. As I place my hands upon your wizened body, I hope that you feel the Mother’s touch, for She and I are one, as soon you too shall be.
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Sep 3, 2023 17:57
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rivetz posted:Yeah it's very much prominently mentioned in the goddam OP Being a newcomer myself I feel like I'd have to have clearance from the OP, the resident mod, my fellow judge and all participants before considering putting you in actual contention but I'll gladly informally judge it along with the others and give an appraisal/ranking. I did note the timestamp and would appeal to anyone reading for your clemency but don't feel like it's my place to be unilateral here.
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Sep 3, 2023 18:02
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Submissions are closed.
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Sep 4, 2023 05:16
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BaldDwarfOnPCP posted:Being a newcomer myself I feel like I'd have to have clearance from the OP, the resident mod, my fellow judge and all participants before considering putting you in actual contention but I'll gladly informally judge it along with the others and give an appraisal/ranking. you are head judge, what you say goes, if anyone is unhappy with that they can brawl you 
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Sep 4, 2023 05:40
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In the spirit of video games forums I'm going to  these one pellet at a time like a pac-person.Also, thank you all so much for your submissions they're amazing I enjoyed the whole thing. beep-beep car is go posted:Carry Me Home Great, workmanlike. I was hoping for more but the format is limiting, so much like the space the boat has, your story felt crumpled up and cut short early. I was in it though and wanted something magical but in the end there isn't a brass ring is there? I did want to know more though so good construction here.
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Sep 4, 2023 06:40
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The Cut of Your Jib posted:The Humour of it All Someone else had this pegged as the winner but I'm gonna have to call it the HM. I liked that I didn't know what was going on or what was coming next. I don't know enough about this bodily humour theory stuff to tell you what say, Choleric should be like, although listening to This Podcast Will Kill You the other day, I would guess scary. But you made me feel clever with each revealing trait, as if you'd had more space you could have written the characters out large and still given your reader a chance to guess these semi-obscure forces. I won't claim to understand all of it but blood is red--I picked up on that. Probably a lot of subtlety went over my head here. Great fun story, liked it a bunch.
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Sep 4, 2023 07:03
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rivetz, you dirty dog you edited your post after 4 minutes or something. Awful dumb way to put your foot in but okay I don't think this is shenanigans and am going to declare you the big winner rivetz posted:The Wind In Their Bones Collect your prizes. I enjoyed a lot about this and in spite of some misgivings would like to spend time down south with these women. I almost called them raucous because they seem like they're on the verge of it don't they? It works so well it's elemental. Clem, I don't fully understand other than he had to be the counterpart, someone to offer them a ride up to the club maybe all the way to Mardi Gras or whatever little old thing they do down there. Honestly, I'm northern and don't know from pecans or patois so probably should stop trying to type like it. The use of language here is so great it really gets me and I don't know how sustainable that sort of thing is or if it's just the magic of the form here but I'm feeling lashed like Odysseus with a bunch of nautical nonsense that's so subtle it's not funny it's just delightful. It doesn't feel effortful but it's just so elegant and crafted I love it. I don't get out much maybe but for a short story to do so much with so little and leave me wondering about a lot and wanting to re-read it? Weird. I must be in a mood. The subtleties are, forgive me if I'm gushing, good enough that if you pointed to them someone might be like, "nah you're imagining things". And maybe I was but it wrapped me up with word choice so well.  Congratulations to you and the other players for really fulfilling the spirit of the challenge in a surprising and robust way for such a small showing. and, To the tune of Alanis Morissette's Thank U -- Thank you Eleanor, Thank you Hilary, thank you thank you, Thank you 2 all the wet and wild ones
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Sep 4, 2023 08:24
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