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I know a lot of people are gonna cling to the deadline as tightly as possible, but just in case we get no entries, let me say before: If there are less than 4 stories entered, we won't be handing out prizes.
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Dec 27, 2014 17:37
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I know a lot of people are gonna cling to the deadline as tightly as possible, but just in case we get no entries, let me say before: Don't worry, I'm already working on it. I was hiking a bit today in the mountains and got hit by a major inspiration on my way back to the city. Some vague idea I had suddenly crystalized into a full-blown premise and I spend a few minutes scribbling down notes. Tomorrow I have to visit relatives, but I'll probably write the story down on Monday and polish it a bit on Tuesday. That should cover three entries already, so you'll only need one more. 
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Dec 27, 2014 19:38
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Libluini posted:That should cover three entries already, so you'll only need one more. I'm entering for sure, got my 1.4k words so far and just need to find some quiet time to finish it up. It will be poo poo, but I'm entering. (EDIT: I started in November. Wow.)
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Dec 28, 2014 01:23
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I'll be wussing out. Thought I could finish during this trip, but that went to hell. Maybe I'll write that tale for a travel or weather-themed contest another day.
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Dec 28, 2014 01:34
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Cool, just checking. It's normal for like 50% of the entrants to submit literally at the last minute but that never stops me being nervous about it.
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Dec 28, 2014 05:08
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I won't be able to submit, sorry Muffin. I have to do adult stuff like "frantically look for a job" and poo poo.
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Dec 28, 2014 09:03
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Mercedes posted:I won't be able to submit, sorry Muffin. I have to do adult stuff like "frantically look for a job" and poo poo.
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Dec 28, 2014 09:15
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Going to have to respectfully withdraw from the runnings I'm afraid. Bit disappointed in myself but this year's been a fucker and I'm burnt out.
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Dec 28, 2014 17:57
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I'll def submit.
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Dec 29, 2014 06:14
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I'm out.
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Dec 29, 2014 06:34
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The Day Summer Died 2,701 words https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m_hlsA2izKK2nezjp30A-AqfyvacV6twAnFBxQsesH8/edit?usp=sharing I would appreciate crits on this piece, too.
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Dec 29, 2014 13:53
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Just as an assurance since some people have been jumping ship, I'm finished. I just have to polish it up a bit tomorrow and make two versions out of it (I had so much fun writing, I noticed too late I was a little bit over the word limit. Now I have to cut the story down by at least 543 words.  )Edit: A Visit in Winter Link: Finished and posted! Word count, after some heavy editing, came down to 2996 words. The longer version (3543 words) will be posted after the contest ends, just so you can compare both. Libluini fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2014 16:57
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Hey guys, didn't see the thread to sign up in time, but hoping that I can sub in for one of the no shows. Crits welcome. The Concept Restaurateur’s Main Complaint (2024 words) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dz3goNFAVfvb5rdG8kaD1YKizace0Yi0FRMT9fYzATg/edit?usp=sharing
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Dec 31, 2014 23:56
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Critiques welcome. This is the first short story I've written since June, been concentrating on screenwriting. So I feel a bit rusty. ======== Santa Claus is a Son of a Bitch (2401 words) The last day of school before Christmas vacation is even better than the last day of school before summer vacation for one reason only: anticipation. Everybody knows they're going to have a good time when summer vacation starts. It's guaranteed. But we based so much of our enjoyment of Christmas vacation on the presents we woke up to on Christmas morning. The week leading up to Christmas morning the anticipation mounts to a fever-pitch. No work ever gets done on the last day of school. Mrs. Smith, our second grade teacher, who had the week before roasted us for our failure to memorize multiplication tables, had given into the holiday spirit that pervaded our classroom. She took a sip from her mug that she wouldn't allow any of us children to get near and wished Bobby Glass a Happy Hanukkah, blissfully unaware that the festival of lights had already passed. All of us gathered around Jeremy Nelson's desk. He always kept something in there worth seeing, although there usually was only a five-minute window to see what it was before it was confiscated. This day he didn't have something to look at. He had an idea. An idea that seemed unholy and blasphemous to us all. "What did you ask Santa for last year?" Jeremy asked Matt Green. "A paintball gun," Matt said. "And what did Santa Claus bring you?" "Monopoly." "Ain't that a load of poo poo," said Jeremy, who already knew how to swear more than the rest of us. Jeremy then turned to me. "What did you ask for, Kenny?" "Walkie talkies," I said. "What did you end up getting?" The question was loaded. All eyes were on me. "Walkie talkies," I said. Disappointment rippled through the group. "Aw, Kenny, you don't count," Jeremy said. I kept my mouth shut. Jeremy then said to his rapt audience, "I asked Santa for a lousy football and you know what that son of a bitch got me? Socks!" We were mortified. Our ultimate fear had been realized. "So I ask you one thing. Why do we, year after year, let Santa keep getting away with this?" We were hooked. And by the time the final bell rang to let school out for winter vacation the plan was already in motion. We were going to kidnap Santa Claus. One look at the sky outside and we knew the clouds threatened snow. I mean, it could’ve happened a day earlier and given us a coveted extra-day-off-before-vacation-due-to snow-day but the world was not and still is not a perfect place. We knew we had to act fast before the snowfall and we all had our assignments. Jeremy and I walked to the mall on a reconnaissance mission. We were going to watch Santa, learn his habits and secrets. We each carried one of my walkie talkies so we could stay in touch. It felt wrong to spy on Santa using the very gifts he had given me, but I had to admit it was all very thrilling. The mall was packed with last-minute shoppers so we blended in easily. I doubt Santa ever even realized we were there despite the constant squawking of our radios. Being around the man himself was disappointing. He waved, laughed, and posed for pictures. The whole time I expected some sort of retribution. Some sort of punishment for what we were planning. I waited for him to look me in the eye and say, "I know," before my name instantly transferred to the Naughty List for the rest of time. In fact only one thing of note happened the whole time we were there. At eight-o-clock, an hour before the mall closed, Santa took a break. Which was fine, Santa was a man like the rest of us, albeit it a magic man who has lived a very long time. But what he decided to do while on his break made my young heart sick. Santa Claus took a smoke break. He and the mall employees took great care in whisking him away from public view, but Jeremy and I were sneaky. Jeremy wasn't even fazed by the smoking. In fact, he treated it as the perfect addition to the plan. "Besides," he said, "Santa is an old man. It was okay for people to smoke back then. He's too old to change." The reasoning made sense, but it still left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. On our walk home the snow finally began to fall. The snow fluttered slowly, unsure whether it wanted to coat the ground or not, as was common in snowfalls near the beginning of the season. Big, wet flakes dusted our hair and eyebrows, giving us the appearance of old men. I remember thinking that someday we would both be old. Not as old as Santa, but too old to enjoy a good walk in a chill snowfall. I guess that day is a lot closer to me now than when I first thought it. We got to Jeremy's house first and he crunched up the dead and rotten leaves left over from fall that covered his lawn up to his porch. My mom said there were a lot of neighbors pissed off with the state of Jeremy's lawn, something about property values in the neighborhood. Then my mom always said, "But can you blame her," referring to Jeremy's mom and, "We're so lucky to have Brad around," referring to my mom's new boyfriend and I only kind of knew what she meant. Mom woke me up early the next morning, Christmas Eve, to shovel snow out of the driveway to free her car. The snowfall the night before had transformed everything in the neighborhood into a blinding white sheet. Mom had to get to work and, without dad around, she relied heavily on me to help with such things. Brad had spent the night, again, and at first he tried to make awkward small talk with me as we both shoveled. Thankfully, the effort of removing the wet snow reduced his attempts at conversation to grunts of exertion. Despite the shoveling, it was the perfect Christmas Eve. Enough snow to sled in as soon as I was finished, but not so much that it made walking difficult. After Brad went inside to a hot cup of coffee, I lay in the undisturbed snow. I made a snow angel, lazy arms and legs moved back and forth. I felt the snow pile around my exposed neck. I dreamed about what a perfect day it would be. How I would go inside that night and see the tree standing alone with its decorations and no presents. How I would wake up the next morning greeted by all the things Santa left me and the one package my dad had mailed me that had showed up a couple days before. My mom poked her head out the door. "What are you doing?" she asked. I scrambled to my feet, embarrassed at having being discovered doing something as childish as making snow angels. "Jeremy is on the phone," she said. My dreams of a perfect Christmas collapsed. Santa wasn't going to be leaving me presents ever again because Santa was going to be very mad at me. I fumbled with my mittens before grabbing the phone. "Hello," I said. "Meet us at Steven's house at 7 P.M." And then the phone clicked dead. The rest of the day lost its fun. Sledding down the hill by the school became a chore. Hot cocoa lost all flavor on my tongue. All I could think about was the evil we were about to commit: we were going to kidnap Santa Claus. All because of Jeremy and his plan. I thought that maybe it wasn't too late to back out. Maybe there was hope for me. Maybe if I quit before that evening I wouldn't wake up to a stocking of coal. Mom made her traditional Christmas Eve dinner of too-dry Cornish game hens that both Brad and I pretended was the most succulent dish we had ever tasted. Then they settled on the couch in the dueling glow of Christmas tree lights and the light from the television. I found my feet headed inexplicably towards the front door. "I'm going to Steven's house for a bit," I said. "Don't get in too much trouble," my mom said. I felt like garbage the entire walk over. We met in Steven's garage: a cluttered space nobody seemed to ever visit. There were five of us, all drawn there by the powers of Jeremy's rhetoric. Steven was nervous. He didn't want his parents to know we were there. His parents were the strictest of anyone we knew. "Are you sure we have to do this here?" Steven sounded like he wanted to get out of this even more than I did. "You're the only one in our class who has a fireplace. We need to know Santa's point of entry." "But just because you don't have chimneys doesn't mean Santa doesn't visit you." "Yeah, but with us Santa has to climb in through a window or something. With a chimney we have the luxury of knowing exactly where Santa will be coming in. Know your enemy." The logic was sound. Steven couldn't argue with it. "Besides," Jeremy said, "we'll be hiding until your parents go to bed since Santa doesn't come until late." The garage became our staging area. Jeremy laid out the plan and we listened to our parts. Jeremy pulled out a large, decorative plate. "We need a lure. Something to attract Santa." "Like cookies," I said. "Something better. Something he can resist even less than cookies. Something we know he wants even more. Tony, you got the stuff?" Tony pulled out a crumpled, but unopened pack of cigarettes. "Yeah, but if my brother finds out I stole these, he'll kill me." "We'll have it back to him before he even knows it's gone. Now, what's the one thing that happens every year you wait for Santa, no matter how late you stay up?" All of us were silent. None wanted to give the wrong answer. "You fall asleep and when you wake up, Santa has already come and gone. But we have a secret weapon this year. Matt, bring out the coffee." Matt looked at his toes. "Well, I couldn't exactly bring coffee to drink." Jeremy's eyes stared murder at Matt, who said, "I asked my dad for a pot of coffee and he laughed and told me no. But I was able to sneak this out." He procured a tin of ground coffee beans from his coat. "I mean, this is what he uses to make coffee, right? So if we eat this, it'll basically be like drinking coffee." "Everyone grab a handful." Jeremy said. I felt the coarse grains stick to my sweaty palm. We crunched down with all the seriousness of eating communion wafers. The bitter, disgusting grounds stuck to our throats and threw us into coughing fits when we tried to swallow. I swear my spit was mud-colored for a week. We waited in the cold garage until nine and then it was time. We had sent Steven inside an hour before. He had to act normal to make sure his parents didn't suspect anything was amiss. After he had been tucked into bed and his parents retreated into their room, he sneaked down and let us in the house. We all went to our places, we knew what to do. The cigarettes were set up on the plate by the fireplace. Surely Santa wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of a smoke after working so hard through the night. When he reached for it the rest of us would spring out and tie him down with twine and jump-rope--all we had. "What are you going to ask him?" Jeremy said to me. We spoke in whispers from our hiding spot behind the couch. "Like for a toy?" "Bigger than that. You can ask him why he does what he does. Why we never get what we truly want." I thought about that for a moment. Jeremy seemed to be thinking to because then, after a moment, he said, "You can ask him why your dad won't be around for Christmas either." It hit me then. This was Jeremy's first Christmas without his dad. All that planning, all those components he pieced together was so he could have the chance to talk to the magic man who made wishes come true for children. I swear in that moment I heard the tinkling of bells. Jeremy must have heard something too because both of our attentions were behind us. All of us prepared to spring from our hiding spots. But something was off. The sound wasn't coming from the direction of the chimney. It was coming from deep in the house, near Steven's parents' room. "Bastard knows something's up," Jeremy said. "He's trying to be unpredictable to shake off kidnappers." I looked out, desperate for a glimpse, but only saw Tony peek out from under the coffee table. Then we heard the unmistakable crinkle of wrapping paper and a swaying pyramid of gifts came into view. They were piled so high that I couldn't see who carried them. The gifts stopped at the pack of cigarettes and seemed to consider them for a moment. Then a hand snaked out and grabbed them. I could feel the satisfaction radiate off Jeremy. It was time. It was now or never. Jeremy jumped out from behind the couch with a vicious war cry. He tackled Santa with his entire weight. The rest of us followed. We had him on the floor in a moment, beneath an avalanche of falling gifts. Our knots were quick and sure. So caught were we in our fervor, we didn’t notice some key facts until afterward, like how Santa seemed to be wearing pajamas instead of his traditional suit. My emotions rode high until I came face-to-face with our captive. Of course it wasn't Santa. Of course it was Steven's dad trying to stock the tree while his son slept. I tried to warn the others, but nobody listened. "Santa, you son of a bitch!" said Jeremy, who knew how to curse better than the rest of us. ==========
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Jan 1, 2015 00:46
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Muffin, I'm a shameful piece of garbage. I wrote a story but I couldn't keep it anywhere near 3000 words. I started writing something about Vikings but then we went to my in-laws so basically I'm worthless.
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Jan 1, 2015 04:35
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The report from the shooting of Stanislava. 3000 words. To Granny. ========= Ah, there you are. I was getting worried. Come in, come in. Are you cold? Sit by the fireplace. I have some hot tea in the making, you will be warm before you know it. Are you comfortable now? I'm glad. Your mother sent you here so that I can tell you about myself and my life. She is worried about you wanting to enlist. I know you are sick hearing about it from your family. They know it too, which is why I'm doing this favour for them. I would appreciate it if you indulged me and listened for a while. Ah, here is your tea. Thank you, Miss Plum, that will be all for now. Milk and sugar, my dear boy? Enough pleasantries. Let's talk about me and my work that I do in the army. I don't like it much. I'm sure that one can do worse, but I haven't seen it yet. You see, I am the commander of the shooters. If you know your history, you may wonder what is so bad about leading the living legends. Don't believe the propaganda. Being a shooter isn't worth a drat anymore. Once upon a time, when the world burned in flames, we fought to protect our homeland. The other nations were greedy for our oil, our land and our milk. Our bullets kept them at bay. There is quite a bit of truth in the stories about the people who never miss their intended marks. We are good at placing our bullets. Of course, we miss sometimes, but we hit what we want to hit very often. No, we weren't all about the killing back in the day, quite the contrary, my boy. The shooters never had to kill much. Early on in the war we aimed for the arms and legs. The enemy learned quickly. Soon we only had to fire warning shots. A crack of a single gun would time and time again turn back whole companies of invading Easterners. "Go away. The shooters are on guard today. The second one won't miss." Such was the message of our shots. We were feared. To not even harm but merely to deter, this was our goal. I miss those days. I see. Well, I suppose it is fine not to believe me that things have changed since then. You are young, you have seen a lot of propaganda. All our leaders say is how glorious a life of a shooter is. To be a shooter is no longer glorious. It is a humiliation. The stories are perpetuated to keep the new recruits coming. A precaution in case the war breaks out again. Do you ever wonder why some people spit on the ground when a shooter passes by? Do you know why they call us "shootaparters"? Let me explain it to you. The war is over. The shooters aren't needed to defend anything anymore. A new duty was given to us, although forced upon us is a more accurate way to put it. We are employed as firing squads to deal with foreigners. Executions are meant to be our daily bread and ultimately are what we get paid for doing. A couple every week, each to be followed by a formal report. And the drat reports is what keeps me up at night. They come to me in my nightmares and haunt me during the day. Hundreds of them, all against me! No, I haven't had too much to drink. Please don't be insulting. I don't drink at all, it would interfere with my aim. Overly sugared tea is my only vice. I'm telling you, we are supposed to be cold-blooded killers, and I'm supposed to make sure that each and every atrocity goes smoothly and is thoroughly documented for posterity. This is the truth. My station weights heavily on me. I'm often terrified of the things that I do. To be honest, I'm not sure how for how much longer can I keep this revolting business going. Sometimes I even think that I should resign. I think your stubborn approach begs for an example. Youth these days loves examples, so often ignoring everything else. I come prepared. I have an example. Are you sure that you can handle it though? It isn't a pretty story. Good. It was last year, in the early summer. The winter was long gone and so was the post-snowmelt mud. As you can imagine, the solid soil allows for foot travel without too much difficulty. The economic forecast for the east had been poor. We knew they would come for our milk. We were waiting for them, but one of them managed to slip past our watchful eyes and ears. Don't be so hasty to judge. Yes, they are often crude in their ways, but the Easterners are very tenacious and will do amazing things when desperate. This clever lady made it all the way through our patrols and to the milk storage tanks. What gave her away was the automatic silent alarm. When we found her she was still at the overflow pumps, filling plastic bottles with fresh milk. She knew what she was after. You cannot possibly get fresher milk than from the overflow pumps. Once we revealed ourselves she knew that she cannot escape and did not resist. We were gentlemen to her, we always are to both friends and foes. To shooters all humans deserve respect. Her name was Stanislawa. When asked to state her occupation she told us that she was a grandmother. The people of the East do not keep time in years, but her silver hair was a sure sign of her age. She clearly had seen many winters. She was dressed in traditional Easterner travel clothing, without any sign of an attempt at camouflage. Loose bright blue clothes! An orange straw hat! At the time I could not believe that we missed her approach. She gave us her word of honor that the chains will not be required and in return we let her be unchained. We drove her to the court station. It was an open and shut case. Stealing of milk by a foreigner is punishable only by death. The death shall be by shooting. The judges wanted to go home early, the heat was getting to them. She did not even try to testify. All told, they convicted and sentenced her in 15 minutes. Her age was not a mitigating circumstance, nothing is. Theft of milk is theft of the highest magnitude and must be paid for in blood. Such is our law. Why are you taking off your jacket? Are you warm? You can do as you wish, of course, but I'd keep it on. The fireplace isn't that hot. That heat you feel is deceptive. Your mother would not forgive me if you got chilled. Miss Plum, can you bring us some more hot tea? Thank you. She was now passed back to us. The execution was to be at sunrise the next day. We took her to our outpost. She said that she won't try to run, and we in exchange let her be free and walk about. It is our job to kill, but we aren't monsters. Words of honor mean something to us. The heat was getting to her. We have her a room where it was the coldest, on the north side of the outpost. I will never forget that heat. It was as if hell had opened up to claim me, my accursed reports and my drat work. I knew that I would be writing another report soon and that there would be no helping it. I came to Stanislawa that evening, brought her food and my company. She looked like she needed it. "Granny, please eat. You look so thin." "Thank you. I'm not hungry, Commander." "Granny, please don't worry. Everything will be all right." "No, nothing will be all right." "You are very resourceful. I have very many are careful people. They are out there, looking for intruders. How did you get through unnoticed?" "I didn't. They saw. They shot at the ground before my feet. They shouted and shot some more. In the end they let me through. Your people have good hearts." "Thank you. I try to teach them humanity in all circumstances. Tell me, Granny, why did you come all the way here. Your papers say that you came from a village far away." "I needed milk and your country has more milk than it can use. I thought if I took a bit no one would mind." "But why milk? Surely you know the penalties for taking milk?" "I do, but I had to try. You see, I have a daughter. She in turn also has a child, a newborn. In our village there isn't much to eat. My weak and hungry daughter had no milk for my grandchild. I spent my entire savings to buy what milk I could find in my land, but that supply isn't big and it won't last. I had to find more. Your milk tanks can be seen from many hours away. Why do you hoard so much milk? Don't you think it would be better used elsewhere?" "I do, Granny. It is meant to be a secret, but I will tell you. A scientist once theorised that it is possible to transmute milk into oil. I think the man was a fraud, but what matters is that everyone believed him. Oil is very rare here, but milk is common. With more oil to power out machines we would be able to become the masters of the world. The generals demanded experiments to be run. Experiments on a scale you haven't heard of before. Hectoliters of milk are pumped to the laboratories every hour." "All this milk wasted on the absurd. I don't know what a hectoliter is, but it sounds like a frightful amount." "It is. Granny, please get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a difficult day for all of us." Oh, I know. I told you the secret there. Fact is, almost everyone knows. You are quite late to the party, my boy. I'm not worried. After we talked she watched the sunset, the one to be her last according to our laws. I spent my time sending out a motorcycle courier. I gave him a sign, the blood-red flag of the shooters. I knew that this flag would let him pass uncontested through both our and Easterner checkpoints. My flag always gets through. Always. I told him to ride like the wind and get to Stanislawa's village before the sun rises again. Yes, the courier is my own idea and I do it for many reasons. Most often I just send a message that a family member ran into trouble. I make sure no one goes to search for the lost relatives or follows them. Sometimes other things, but most of the time this is a measure to reduce bloodshed. I couldn't sleep that day. It was night, but the heat was only building and building. The forecast told me that the next day would be the hottest day of the year. I knew that I would be writing a report soon. I hate those reports more than anything else. I hate myself for writing them, but I see no other choice. They have to be written and my guilt is written in every single one. At two in the morning I saw a flare in the distance. Blood-red. Our color. "The Shooters of the Technocracy." And then a second one. First blue and turning orange as it ascended. "The Sky and the Sun of the East." My courier had arrived safely. We were supposed to kill her at sunrise, but I could not bring myself to wake her up. We waited. My boys looked serious. I'm not surprised. Many of them had grandmothers. All this business made them nervous. Stanislawa woke up. I knew that I cannot delay putting things into motion any longer. We took her to the execution grounds. The court had notified the people that there will be a shooting. There weren't many spectators, but some always come to hear us do the deed. They don't get to see much, the tall wall granted us privacy. I felt watched anyway. I saw the devil himself sitting in a shady corner, laughing at me and at my reports. Maybe it was the heat and the lack of sleep. Maybe. I think it is the time I show you a copy of my report. I wrote it the day after. I usually take my time with the reports, you see. I have to think carefully about what I put down on paper. The words will be read by the generals and I will be evaluated on my performance. I know that I am expected to write down the event exactly as it happened, without even a slightest embellishment. This was a very hard report to write. No, I insist. If you won't read it, boy, then I will read it out to you. This is important. This must be heard. "I regret to inform you that the execution of condemned #4673 did not go smoothly. The condemned declined a blindfold, choosing to look the shooters in the eyes. Five men were chosen and equipped with traditional execution muskets. A random musket was loaded with a blank. The condemned for her last words chose to sing lullabies to her grandchild which was sure to starve without a supply of milk. At the designated time I have started the countdown and as per the usual protocol the salvo was fired instead of the count of two. Due to the intense heat almost all of the guns misfired. I blame the fact on the mixture of powder used. Only one musket fired properly, hitting the condemned in the chest. The other muskets failed to hit their marks. The condemned fell to the ground, obviously gravely wounded. She continued to sing, her voice breaking due to the intense pain. My men are trained to use repeater rifles and do not know how to quickly reload muskets. The second salvo followed after four minutes, with similar results. I commanded a bayonet charge to shorten the condemned woman's suffering. To her last moment she kept singing songs to her grandchild. The body was deposited into the mass grave as per the regulations." That is what I wrote in the report. Boy? Boy? Where are you? Miss Plum, where did he go? Where did he go? * * * I'm glad he came home safely, Ms. Goldbaum. I'm sorry, I did not expect him to run off like that. That is good. We all have to make our choices and I'm at least happy that he made up his mind. I can see why he would think I'm a monster. Did he tell you what I told him? Pity that he did not let me finish telling him the rest of the story, maybe he would have thought of things differently then. Well, that is what I put down in the report, yes. This is what the world and my superiors will know. It isn't the truth though. We let Stanislawa go. Oh, sure, we staged a nice show for everyone in town. We took her into the execution grounds, that is true. She was great at the whole singing and crying bit, very convincing. We shot a few volleys into the wall. We carried her out in a corpse sack, alive and well. The next day we gave her a ride to the border and as much powdered milk and nutrients as she could carry. She did not have to walk very far, her family picked her up. Yes, that is one of the reasons for the courier. I like arranging those little reunions. An Easterner often leaves under some pretext only to spare the family having an extra mouth to feed. Many die, but we catch a fair amount. We certainly try. There is never any trouble, why would there be? A courier comes with my message and the next day I make sure that everyone in the family has enough to eat for a long time. And yes, it also helps to keep other people from getting the same idea, those kinds of things can avalanche quickly. This time I was also worried for the kid and the mother, so I sent some urgently needed gifts, some straight from the overflow pumps and the rest from my pantry. None of my reports are true. I haven't killed a single person in my life. I hate this job because I have to constantly come up with some sordid scenario and write it down. I hate lying more than anything else. It isn't honorable, just shameful. My shame! I used to dread the possibility of being found out every single day. Five hundred reports, none of them even remotely true. Many years of lies. Five hundred damning reports. At least I try to make the reader feel bad, hoping they will reconsider their policies. I just cannot keep doing this. I'm leaving soon. To the East, where else? Don't worry, I will have plenty of company. I took the issue to a vote yesterday. It was unanimous. The shooters are coming with me. All of them. We are sick of charades. We believe in defending the weak and don't believe in starving countries out. The Technocracy could feed the East ten times over, if they wanted to. This is wrong and we will object with out feet. Yes, Plumsie too. Did I mention that we are getting married next month? Thank you. No, I don't expect trouble. The Easterners will see the flag of the shooters and will let us pass. Funny thing, they call it the flag of hope returned. I like that. No Gravitas fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 04:54
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STORY OF 2095 WORDS A Totes Rad Fantasy “Really, Max, that’s it?” “Yeah. So, what’s your secret fantasy, Ana?” “I dunno if I really have any.” “Come on, there must be something.” “Well…” “Uh huh?” “Yeah OK, there is this one thing.” “Well, let’s hear it.” “All right, so basically in this fantasy I’m a hero.” “Right.” “And all across the land, there’s an eternal winter.” “Like in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” “Oh. Hmmm. OK, so there’s an eternal summer.” “All right, well that’s not quite as bad.” “Tell that to the farmers. There’s a massive drought, see. Crops failing all over the place, it’s pretty crazy. People dying of thirst.” “This is kind of a sick fantasy.” “Through adversity comes… uh… some other thing. Anyway, the endless summer is because of a black mage.” “So. Like the White Witch from Narnia, but in reverse?” “No, shut up. Black mages are a thing.” “Sounds kind of racist.” “What? It’s got nothing to do with… ugh shut up, you’re ruining my fantasy here.” “Sorry, please continue.” “All right, so the world is in trouble because the black mage has cast the world into eternal drought so he can go surfing or whatever. Luckily for the world, there’s me, the mighty warrior princess, ready to go adventuring and be awesome.” “Warrior princess.” “Yes.” “Like Xena.” “Yeah, you know what, sure, like Xena. Xena is awesome, and so is Lucy Lawless, so yes I’m like Xena.” “Do you wear the same outfit as Xena?” “Yes. Her armour and leather skirt thing is awesome and that’s what I wear.” “Shame, I was hoping maybe you’d rock a chainmail bikini.” “You were hoping that, were you?” “Yeah, I think you’d look pretty hot in one of those.” “Yeah, well, this isn’t your fantasy, and also chainmail bikinis would be super impractical in an eternal summer situation. Or ever, but especially in summer.” “All right, whatever.” “All right so I’m like Xena, but instead of that throwing disc thing she has, I rock a battleaxe, and instead of Gabrielle, I’m travelling with a wandering monk.” “Oooh, that’s me, right?” “Sure, why not.” “Do I know Kung Fu?” “Actually, you use like a quarterstaff thing.” “So I’m like Monkey from Monkey Magic.” “Actually, your mastery of the staff is a metaphor for your sex life if you keep ruining my fantasy by comparing it to pop culture things.” “Sorry.” “So anyway, we go to this nearby village and the mayor is like oh no save us, save our crops, we’re helpless peasants and so on. And I’m like no don’t bother me with your petty squabbles, I’m kind of sort of retired anyway, where’s my mead.” “You’re not… you’re not gonna help them?” “It’s just my character, man. I’m kind of a jaded hero or something. I’ve seen some things, things you wouldn’t believe or whatever. Obviously I’m going to help them, but we haven’t gotten to that part of the fantasy. You don’t understand how a narrative works.” “All right, but…” “So anyway, this pretty young serving maid…“ “Aha!” “Shut up, this doesn’t tie in to your fantasy at all. So anyway, she brings me my mead, and says something about how she wishes she could be a warrior, but the guys all reckon that women can’t fight at all, and I’m all like oh, it’s on.” “Right, so now you’re helping them?” “No, I’m just proving how badass I am, the fact that it’s gonna help them is purely coincidental.” “Wow, this is kind of selfish.” “Well fantasies are inherently self serving, aren’t they? And after your fantasy, you don’t get to critique mine.” “What? There’s nothing wrong with…” “So anyway, I finish my mead and pay the maid and go down to the stables, because in my fantasy I also get to ride a horse.” “Of course.” “Horses are beautiful intelligent creatures, and also in this fantasy there are no bicycles or cars, so how else am I expected to get to the lair of the black mage? So anyway, we go down to the stables and get two horses.” “Oh, I thought maybe we’d just ride on the one horse, one behind the other.” “I bet you did. It’s a long ride, and there’s no way I’m gonna make one horse carry us both there and back.” “Fine, so where is this lair?” “So the black mage – let’s give him a name, maybe Alec – he lives in a castle about a day’s ride away.” “So you get to ride a horse all day.” “Pure coincidence. We need some sleep first, so we go to the hotel and order two rooms.” “Wait, two?” “Keep your mind on the job. We have oppressed peasants to liberate.” “I thought you didn’t care about them.” “That’s just my gruff exterior. Anyway, the next day we set out to Black Alec’s castle.” “Black Alec?” “Has a nice ring to it. Anyway, the ride to his castle is uneventful, and we hitch our horses – I’m naming them Beardlord and Vern – Beardlord is the one I’m riding – to a nearby post.” “Beardlord?” “It’s a horse thing, you wouldn’t understand, you’re not a horse person. So anyway, we stride up to the big double doors of the castle, and I rap on them with the handle of my axe. The door is opened by a goblin manservant, and I cut off his head with one mighty swipe.” “Whoa, you’re not even going to talk to him?” “No way, this is a combat area, kill first and search the bodies for clues later. So we enter the castle and there are more goblins. You take the one on the right, and I take the five on the left.” “That seems unfair.” “Don’t worry, I’m a woman, I’m used to things being unfair.” “Oh, come on.” “Anyway, I cut off all five heads in one swing, whereas you have a long and drawn out battle while I pour myself a cup of tea from some things the goblin manservant was carrying.” “So he was just going to offer us tea?” “Who knew. Speaking of tea, perhaps you’d like to make me some, talking about my innermost fantasies is thirsty work.” “Two sugars?” “Good chap. So anyway, you finally beat up that goblin with your staff, and we search their bodies and don’t really find anything, and then we start exploring the castle.” “What kind of castle is it? Are we talking, like, European castle, or Disney castle, or what?” “Good question, Max. I’m thinking Transylvanian Dracula castle. Plenty of parapets, whatever those are, and some high towers with windows to swoop from.” “So Black Alec is a vampire?” “No, but he does have the same interior designer. Also there are a bunch of surf boards around the place. So anyway, we go down a hall or whatever, and suddenly there are like, a dozen ogres.” “Black Alec sure has a lot of monsters living in his castle.” “They have a lousy union, so you can pay them next to nothing. Perfect for a budding evil mastermind. Anyway, while I’m fighting three of the ogres, the other seven knock you unconscious.” “Well that’s lame.” “Ogres are tougher than goblins. Anyway, you were complaining that I got to fight more, last time. You take out two before you go down, but the other five knock you out and drag you off. So anyway, I kill two of the ogres I’m fighting, but noticing that you’re missing, I hamstring the other one, and interrogate him. I’m like, standing with one foot on his chest, and my axe above my head, and it looks totally fearsome so the ogre caves in and tells me that the other ogres have probably you to their own little ogre dungeon, where you may be ravished.” “Whoa, steady on!” “You’re right, that’s a bit much, isn’t it? So they’ll probably just beat you up to try to get information out of you. Ogre torture lacks subtlety.” “I’m not sure that’s any better.” “Trust me, it’s much better. Anyway, I dispatch the ogre…” “You mean you kill him.” “Yes, I kill him.” “You have him at your mercy and you just kill him.” “Well I’m angry, because he’s just told me that my companion is probably being beaten to a bloody pulp.” “All right, no need to go into too much detail. I’m not sure how much I like your fantasy at the moment.” “Just give it time, all right? You don’t stay captured in this fantasy. Anyway, I make my way to the dungeon, and sure enough, you’re being beaten with a phonebook by an ogre who wants to know who sent you.” “A phonebook?” “A recipe book, then. The other four ogres are playing cards. So I come in and kick over the table, and quickly decapitate the two nearest ogres. In the same swift movement, as the ogre head nearest me flies through the air, I use my axe as like a pole vault pole or whatever, and kick the head at the guy beating you with the recipe book. It slams into him and smashes his head into a nearby wall. He’s dazed, and you start strangling him with your manacles.” “About time I get back in the fight.” “Quite. So then I disembowel the ogre on the left, dodge a clumsy punch from the other guy, and shove him headfirst into the other ogre’s disembowelled stomach.” “Ana, this is getting pretty gross.” “The realities of war, Max. Anyway he chokes to death and so does the guy you’ve got in the grips of your manacles. I manage to find a key to your manacles, and help you up, but you’re in kind of a bad way so I have to half carry you.” “I really saw myself as being a bit more useful in this thing.” “Yeah well, it’s my fantasy, so deal. Anyway, it turns out there’s like a dumb waiter – you know one of those little lifts that fancy places have that are hand operated to send meals between floors or whatever? That’s in the dungeon for whatever reason, and because it’s ogre size we both manage to fit inside.” “Oooh, sounds cosy.” “You spend the entire lift ride recovering from your beating. Fortunately you have some kind of mystic monk training so I can see the wounds begin to heal in front of our eyes. We climb out of the lift, and I can see that we’re just outside of Black Alec’s personal study, and I can hear incantations or whatever coming from inside.” “All right, it is on now!” “But not for you. You’re still not fully recovered, so I prop you up outside his room while I kick the door down.” “Awwwww.” “Anyway, he’s doing weird wiggly finger stuff over a tome or something. You know, whatever mages do. And I’m all like oi Black Alec, time for you to get messed up. He cackles maniacally or something, and shoots fire at me, but in one fluid movement I do a flip over the fire he shoots at me, swinging my axe down and cleaving him in twain.” “What’s that mean?” “It means I cut him so hard he turns into an author.” “Really?” “No, it means in half you gumby. Right down the middle. Bits of brain all over his tome and everything.” “Gross.” “Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we go back to the village we were at before and they throw us a massive party, and they’re so grateful for how badass we are, but mostly me, that they decide we can own the castle now. And I redecorate it and get rid of all the spiderwebs, and we get rid of the dungeon because it gives you the heebie jeebies, and it looks really pretty and has spires and minarets and cool things that castles ought to have. And also summer finally ends and rain comes and we’re both big heroes, but mostly me.” “And so then, after it all, we get to celebrate with a bit of… you know…?” “What? Oh that. Come on man, you’re a monk. You can’t just forget your vows.” “You made me celibate? What the hell kind of fantasy is this, anyway?” “I think you’ll find that firstly, it is a completely badass fantasy that ends up with me being a big hero and role model to fantasy women everywhere. And secondly, and perhaps more relevantly, it is exactly as likely to come to fruition as your stupid threesome fantasy.”
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Jan 1, 2015 07:49
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That's officially time up in my part of the world, but I'm giving 24 more hours to allow for timezones and/or hangovers. Good luck.
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Jan 1, 2015 20:06
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Sincere apologies for how late this is. For some reason I thought the due date was 15th Jan, and I just checked in on this thread this morning and shat myself. Luckily I had free time this afternoon to pull together some of the ideas I'd been kicking around. It's one draft and it's a lot rougher than I'd like, but... well. Kicking and screaming, covered in mental placental goo, here it is. Crit welcome. --- #SOLSTICE# - master - Master. - MASTER! = What? What?! - Wake up, old one. The aether's so busy today that I can hardly get a message through, let alone have to contend with rousing you from geriatric slumber. = Hmph! When you are this age you too will avail yourself of the opportunity to sleep when it presents itself... should you make it to this age, of course. - What could possibly stop me? = You might offend the wrong geriatric. For instance. = Anyway, where are you, child? It is point seven three two and the sun is due to set at point seven six five today. You are supposed to be here for the midsummer sunset. - I'm close. I'm walking up the Bee Path now. = Ah, how are the hives? I love them so; haven't been able to get out there for years, of course. - They seem content. The new strains have been a great success, apparently. Viczh was telling me before that there was a hornet incursion last week, but the soldier phenotypes tagged them and took them apart before even one worker was lost in the hives. = Viczh, hmm? I begin to see why you've taken the long path here and dawdled along the way. How is young Viczh? - Good. = Just good? Is that all you have to say? - Yes. = Heh-heh, very well. I won't pry any deeper into matters of the adolescent heart; for now, at least. - I'm at the top of the path. Be with you in a couple of decasecs. = Pause for a moment, will you? - Master? = I haven't had my eyes for the best part of your life, child, and I miss them. Cam taps are fine for work and socialising but it isn't... the same as being there. The sun must be low, low in the sky now, and you have a spectacular view to the West from there. Lend me your youthful vision. Describe it for me. - I'd image you but my width allocation su - I mean, is not very good at present. The gods are running something enormous called Solstice that's gobbling up most of the aether and they're telling everyone to just be patient when we petition for more or ask what it is. = We'll consider growing more memory fungus in the longer term, although the pressure should be off by this evening. For now, use language, child. Tell me what you see. - Well... the sun is low, yes. It's bright reddish-pink, just the colour of the tail fins of the koi we call Shy Lady. There's a lot of particulate activity this month and it's made sunset and sunrise very colourful. = Setting the sky on fire... I remember - sorry, continue. Please. - The clouds are high and streaky, and they have golden highlights all along the sides facing the sun, and the rest of them is all the bright pinkish colour. The sky is more black than blue because of how the dome filters light at this time of day so the clouds are hanging there like... like glowthread on a dark tunic. It's lovely. Oh! - The sun just now hit the right angle where the dome panel edges refract it and the whole thing lit up with a hexagonal grid of rainbows. I used to wait for that moment when I was little. I haven't thought about it for years, though. = Growing is a funny process, isn't it? We hurry so to become more than what we are and we end up leaving so much of what made us behind. - I... will have to interpret that statement before I can comment on it. = Keep telling me what you see. We have a little time before sunset, I think. - The trees inside the perimeter are growing thick and tall. We've introduced some new varieties to the ecosystem and some new ground covers as well. There are so many different colours of green here now, and some reds and purples as well. I can see seven... no, eight different species of bird in flight; their populations are really taking off! - I'm at the top of the switchback path up through the hives. The grass on the slope below me is more yellow than green and some of it has a dark red stripe up the centre of each blade. There are too many types of wildflowers to count growing in between the hives, but the only thing I can smell is the white jasmine that you have growing all around the Observatory up here. The bees are singing all around as they get ready to turn in for the night. - Someone is riding a couple of the horses down at the bottom of the hill. They're too far away for me to visually identify but it's probably Briget and Esteban, because the horses look like Mylor and Phar. They're giving the horses their head and letting them have a splash around in the creek - they'll come back soaked, of course. - The sun is nearly touching the horizon, Master. The grey hills outside the dome are almost out of sight. = Yes. In you come, then. - Coming. - ...Master? = ? - What are the Solstice calculations that the gods are running? It's obviously something to do with today... and you wanted me here... for midsummer sunset? "There you are, child. Come in, sit down. Shoo the cat or let her stake a claim on your lap as suits you. Would you like a cold water?" "That would be lovely, thank you Master. The Bee Path is steep. I... notice that you haven't answered my question." "You're fourteen in, what, three weeks?" "That's right. Um..." "Patience! You are the youngest of your particular intake, yes? Don't worry, that was rhetorical. I've decided that you're ready for the oaths today so you'll be taking them three weeks early." "Uh. But... uh." "Don't let your eloquence desert you now, child. You'll need it." "Why?" "Why initiate you early? Because the gods decree it thus. Because of the Solstice calculations. I already have... some idea what the output will be, but the Table has agreed that we need the reaction of a younger mind. I know you well, child. You are possessed of both a quick mind and a deep one, when you can be bothered to apply it. And you are the youngest potential candidate. So both the oldest and the youngest Initiate Cognites will be exposed simultaneously, our reactions and responses assessed, and we shall be the two who decide what to communicate to the other Initiates. If anything. There is poetry in that, and you know the gods love their poetry." *** shiva-who-speaks initiating contact "Ah!" *** report available :amusement: was not intention to startle child = Shiva, be nice. You are addressing the soon-to-be newest Initiate of the order. - C-contact acknowledged, Shiva. Report. *** information manipulation #SOLSTICE# ninety-nine point eight three five per cent and approaching unity *** astarte - mimir - persephone / concordance 100% / *** hades - mercury - amaterasu / variant // within tolerance / *** apollo negotiating resolution *** all other DEI processes / concordance 100% / *** :satisfaction: shiva / concordance 100% / *** resolution achieved all processes / concordance 100% / *** information manipulation #SOLSTICE# in unity *** output available upon request "Well then! There's just the matter of your oaths, and then we can get started." = Here <OATHPACKET> is the template you must integrate, child. - It's big. It's so much information. I mean - not compared to what the gods were just throwing around (?) but it's much more than anything I've integrated before. I'm a little worried that I won't cope. = It's structured for delayed release. Over a week or so, as you sleep, it will infuse your neural structure and you will simply wake up with new knowledge, distilled from many of the best sources... - There's a fair bit of you in here then, I take it? = Nothing personal. But I have lived for so long; learned so many things, and learned how those many things all fit together... - It'd be a crime to lose that organisation when you die, yes. So it will live in me. = As will all the other knowledge structures in that template. Ways of thinking. Protocols of the Aether and of human behaviour. An understanding, perhaps, of our caged gods, their architecture and the mysteries they love so dearly. "Will I still be me?" = You after integration will be as much the person you are now as the person you are now is the person who used to watch for rainbows at the sunset. - OK. - Execute <OATHPACKET> - Oh, wow. OH wow. I can - I can see the gods in the aether. I can feel them thinking! Their thoughts... their thoughts are like the bee song... in the flowers. *** all DEI processes initiating contact *** welcome initiate welcome *** shiva-who-speaks maintaining contact *** :gentle reminder: #SOLSTICE# output is available upon request *** this data has been evaluated as the most interesting encountered in the last three hundred and twenty-four years and one hundred and twelve days *** all DEI processes are hungry for human review and input - Contact acknowledged, Shiva. Master... I'll need an overview of #SOLSTICE# before we proceed, I think? = A concise overview of the Solstice project for the new initiate, please, Shiva. *** your world's supporting star is called sol by humans *** it is a very typical g-type main sequence star with no unusual features *** this means that it can be compared easily to other g2v stars *** #SOLSTICE# project involved close analysis of exactly one year's observation of sol by earthly ground-based / earthly orbital imaging devices *** midsummer solstice to midsummer solstice *** (supplemented by data from twenty-three recorded historical solar drone flybys) *** sol's core is very dense (~one hundred and fifty times density of h2o at one atmosphere) *** your sun rings like a great bell *** the discipline of helioseismography exploits this fact to map sol's interior via infrasound waves *** it was realised that gravitic disturbances would have a similar if slight effect *** the logical progression from this is that with sufficiently sensitive equipment the history of all bodies in your solar system could be extrapolated from the present vibratory states within the star *** however when these measurements were taken unanticipated information became apparent *** the most plausible explanation for this information is that focused gravity waves were beamed directly through Sol's core ~four billion years ago *** again ~two point five billion years ago *** and again only ~twenty thousand years ago - This is unbelievable. = Yes. Shiva, relate the rest. *** analysis of this information imparted upon sol by gravitic beam led to only one conclusion *** it is internally structured and nonrandom but not repetitious *** there is no known natural phenomenon that could produce any similar signal except conscious activity *** it is a message - Twenty thousand years is, is a second in the time scale of the Solar system. It's us. It has to be related to us. But then... what were the older messages? Who were they for? - Master... I'm frightened. = Yes. - How could we read it? I mean... we have to know what it says, right?! How... this... = There were difficulties. We have no shared context with the originator of such a missive, obviously. But the gods prevailed... with a little creative input from the members of the Table, of course. *** there are techniques *** semantic decoding *** emotive parsing *** find a conceptual pattern and see if it fits *** repeat ten to the ten trillionth times *** select the most coherent candidates *** breed them for aptness *** evaluate for probability *** repeat *** :smugness: this was a problem that the power of the gods was uniquely suited to and we have the final translation candidates for the content of the three messages available upon request "So, child. Initiate - I beg your pardon. You understand now what it is that you're here for." "I... don't know... if I want to know what they say." "Is what you want important in this situation?" - Shiva. - Request #SOLSTICE# outputs. *** delivered
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Jan 2, 2015 12:02
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Hope I made the deadline. 2,730 words. Crits welcome. Locked In “This seems a little unnecessary, Captain,” Cash said. “Me and Marcin are risking our asses to save what, 30 minutes, an hour tops?” “Just think of it as another reason to get out of the business,” Captain Andersen replied. “You have your orders. You’ll be fine. Tell Marcin on the way back to the barges, OK?” Cash kept his reply to himself, instead giving the Captain a quick “Aye aye, Cap.” He descended the ladderwell of the pilothouse and carefully picked his way along the icy deck. Marcin, Jones, and the rest of crew were waiting on the bow. “What’s the word?” Jones asked. “Cap’s got a hair up his rear end. He don’t like this ice and he wants out as soon as possible,” Cash replied. “Ah poo poo,” Marcin muttered. “Yep,” Jones and Cash said together. The barge was almost fully flush with the dock, and the men started to steady themselves. A couple started to swing ropes, a few clicked their ratchets in anticipation, feet stamped in the light snow for better footing, and knees bent for the change in motion. The towboat lurched as the Captain slammed it into reverse. Cash slid a good six inches toward the bow. He hated having to rush and be careful, especially in this cold. “Break tow!” Cash bellowed. “Watch your footing! Throw some salt on that dock! Dammit, keep her steady!” On it went as Cash went up and down the line, hauling chain back from the barge onto the towboat, pointing at ice patches, and directing his men who had jumped onto the dock. The barge unhooked and inched towards the dock, finally grinding against the concrete as the pull was completed. The men knotted and secured the lines before jumping back into the towboat. Cash looked at his watch. 15 minutes. Good. Cash gave a thumbs-up to the pilothouse. The Captain returned the gesture, and gunned the reverse again. As the towboat began its three point turn, Cash walked over to Marcin and Jones. “Two more to go and this season is over with,” Jones said between heavy breaths. “Two more to go and I am done with the job,” Cash said. “Bullshit,” Marcin said in his thick Polish accent. “You say that two years ago, and last year too my friend. You here for life. 30 years on river, that is Cash.” “No no, I mean it. This time.” “And have you talked this over with Kittie Pride yet?” Jones asked with a wry smile. “She’ll understand. She’s cool,” Cash said. Cash shook his head and smiled. They called her Kittie Pride because she would jump and shout how proud she was of Cash whenever she came to pick him up. Kittie always was a bit hyper, but Cash loved her energy. And her rear end. “You have erection, Cash? Hard like steel, yes?” Marcin asked. Marcin started to move like his was going to poke Cash in the groin. “I told you to buy extra socks so this wouldn’t hap-,” Jones started. Cash slapped Marcin’s hand away and pointed his finger at Jones. “I’m fine with toilet paper you. I’ve just been busy. And how many times do I have to tell you not to flick penises Marcin? I swear to God.” Jones shook his head while Marcin just shrugged. The thought of a 6’5” Polish man flicking Cash’s penis had caused his half-mast erection to dive right back up his bladder. Cash breathed deeply and adjusted his pants, trying to alleviate the sudden discomfort. Don’t think about Kittie, focus on the job. Around the bend of the river a horn sounded, accompanied by puffs of black diesel smoke. Cash glanced upriver and smiled. The William Alexa was a little early. “The little towboat that could,” Jones said. “What’s the plan, Cash?” “The Alexa has a three man crew. We have eight. We all break tow on the last two barges. Me and Marcin will help and build tow on the Alexa, while you take over here on the Delta Jane,” Cash stated. “Three men can handle the chains, Cash. This ain’t necessary,” Jones said. Cash agreed with Jones, but wasn’t going to contradict the Captain’s orders. “This is a friendly gesture on behalf of the Captain. We’re one big family. Or something.” “Okay, sure we help,” Marcin began, “How do we get back to the Jane?” Cash slapped the big Pole on the shoulder. “We jump.” “Is middle finger a friendly gesture?” Marcin asked. “We slip, we not last in this water.” “Marcin, we’ll be fine, remember the cargo?” Cash asked, pointing at the barges. Cash pointed at the two mounds of purple salt in the barges. “3000 tons of road salt, dude. We’ll salt the poo poo out of the barges. We’ll be fine.” “Still don’t like it,” Marcin muttered. The box barges were right where they left them. They were connected stern to bow (or rear end in a top hat to bellybutton as Jones called it, idiot) and lazily slapped against the embankment. The Jane swung around to one end while the Alexa steamed straight towards the other side. So far Captain Andersen’s plan was working well. Cash still didn’t like it. The Jane was bigger and faster than the Alexa. Captain Andersen aligned the boat with the barge and eased her in, gently scraping the embankment. The smaller Alexa aligned on the opposite end of the barges. Instead of easing in however, the Alexa kept plowing forward, causing a loud grinding as she hit the embankment. Her Captain gunned the engines into reverse as she closed in on the barges, and then started gently easing forward after coming to a full stop. “How is the Alexa still running?” Jones asked. “They have a good contract with the city,” Cash replied. “Almost no competition too.” “Double hull. Thick. Break ice with that thing,” Marcin added. “They’re going to need it,” Cash said. “Let’s move. Jones, you got the crew.” Cash was over first, dipping his hand into the barge and spreading purple road salt in front of him as he shimmied along. Marcin did the same with his giant hands, filling the deck with purple grit. Well, Cash thought, at least it won’t be icy. “Is that Cash trying not to fall into the drink?” a voice crackled on a loudspeaker. Cash looked up at the pilothouse of the Alexa. A chubby old black man waved out the side. Cash broke into a grin. He returned the wave and continued salting his path forward. He reached the middle and told Marcin to salt both decks as best he could before continuing onto the Alexa. When he hopped off the barge onto the towboat, the old man was waiting. They grinned as they shook hands. “Good to see you again Captain Green,” Cash said. “You too, Cash,” Captain Green replied. “Bill told me you were coming over to lend me a hand.” “Me and Marcin, Captain.” “Marcin and I, Cash,” Captain Green said. “Right, right, Marcin and I,” Cash said, shaking his head. “I appreciate the help, Cash, I do. But Rodriguez and Redcloud can manage just fine.” Captain Green sighed. “Why didn’t you tell Bill to suck your rear end? It’s dangerous out here.” “Uh, well, you know, uh,” Cash spluttered. “I told you Cash, following the Captain’s orders are all well and good, but sometimes you have to tell him to go gently caress himself.” “Well, it seemed like it would save time, and you know, get us on shore sooner, so…” “There is no load worth you life Cash, you know that,” Redcloud said. The squat tank of a man had snuck up to Cash’s side, eyeing him intensely. Rodriguez stood behind him, a few inches taller but giving a friendly smile. “You thinking with your nuts again Cash?” Rodriguez asked through his grin. Cash made a face at him before turning back to Captain Green. “Let me ask you Cash,” Captain Green began, “if you were Captain, would you have made this call?” “Hells no, Captain. I wouldn’t be risking my men just to save time and avoid ice. If it takes a couple hours longer, then it takes a couple hours longer.” “When was your first season?” Captain Green asked. “Katrina, sir.” “Nine years. You’re about four years overdue to make pilot. How come you don’t have your pilot’s license yet?” “I didn’t take the class, sir,” Cash said softly. “I thought I would leave the business and go to college, you know? Just save a little bit, then out.” “You blow all that money?” asked Redcloud. “No actually, I have more than enough to go now.” “What you gonna study?” asked Rodriguez. “Law.” Captain Green looked at Rodriguez and Redcloud. They all shrugged. “You survived Katrina on your first season, and all this time later you still here,” Rodriguez said. “That tell you anything dummy?” “I been here 8 years too long,” Cash replied. “Should have gotten out a long time ago.” “They right, Cash. You should be Captain Cash. The Delta Jane should be yours,” Marcin said behind them. They all turned to look at Marcin. His hands and shirt were covered in purple dust. “What’s the haul?” Redcloud asked. “Purple road salt,” Cash said. “Why’s it purple?” “It has some special purple poo poo in it that makes it all sticky,” Cash answered. Captain Green, Redcloud, and Rodriguez all snickered and shook their heads. “You know what, your dumbass should be in school, what was I thinking?” Captain Green snorted. “How we doing Marcin?” “Good, sir. Cash, we’re ready.” Captain Green clapped his hands. “Alright, let’s get moving, gentlemen.” He shook hands with Cash once more. “Be careful, Cash. I’ll see you when I see you.” “Thanks, Captain.” Captain Green turned back and started the climb into the pilothouse. The four deckhands got to work. The chains were uncoiled, Cash and Rodriguez dragging them across the boat and over to the barge. The chains wrapped around the towposts and back onto the boat. Cash snapped his chain down and locked it on the deck, while Marcin started to ratchet the chain tight. When they were done, Redcloud gave them a couple of rags to clean off their hands. The deckhands gave their quick goodbyes. Cash could see that the Delta Jane was ready to go. The barge and towboat had started to drift away from the William Alexa though. The Alexa had her hull planted against the embankment, but the Jane had started to distance herself. “Get your asses over here!” came Captain Andersen’s growl over the PA. “Marcin, we gotta move!” “Right behind you!” The barge was 200 feet long, but it seemed to be getting longer. His steps crunched as little puffs of purple dust flew behind him. How much salt had Marcin put down? It was like running through loose gravel. His feet wanted to slide, but somehow he kept his balance and plowed forward. He could see the barge and the widening gap. Must be like 5 or 6 feet, shouldn’t be too big a deal. Cash did his best to go into a full sprint, slightly losing traction in the purple grit. At the edge of the barge he felt traction in his boot, and leapt. He smiled as he started to come down onto the other barge. He brought both feet down together to land. Both feet hit purple gravel. He skidded onto the deck and into a mountain of sticky purple salt. Cash started to push himself up when he got pushed hard back into the pile. The taste, feel, and smell of salt engulfed him. There was a lot of pressure pushing him into the salt. He had trouble breathing. His thoughts were a salty purple haze. The pressure released suddenly, then a meaty hand clamped onto his shoulder and pulled him up. Cash sucked air in one long gasp. Jones was slapping salt off of him while trying to suppress a grin. “You all right there, Cash?” Jones said. “What I score?” Cash asked. “I give you a 6, but man, Marcin, I’ll give him an 8.” “What the hell man?” “You boofed on the landing, but Marcin? Man, he leapt over the gap, over the deck, right into you, dude. He loving jumped!” Jones stopped dusting Cash and started to laugh. “That was pretty awesome.” “You okay, Cash?” Marcin asked, concern on his face. “I didn’t hurt you too bad?” “Why did we do that? We could have just waited for the Jane to pull up beside the Alexa or something and I wouldn’t have been crushed,” Cash said. “Well, we made it didn’t we?” Marcin asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, we did make it,” Cash agreed. The rest of the trip went by peacefully enough. The respective boats and barges made it off the embankment. Cash finished dusting himself off. It had been another 9 months on the water, and he was drat sure going to finish it. He watched the tiny Alexa make its way up the river, where its size could allow it to go under Chicago’s old low bridges that the Jane was too big for. After breaking tow and docking the barge, the Captain steered the Delta Jane one last time for the season. The towboat would spend winter outside the dock office. Gangplanks were raised from the boat to the dock, and the process of moving gear onto shore began. Cash grabbed his duffel bag. He was ready to just go. Before he started making his way ashore, Captain Andersen stopped him. “Hey Cash,” the Captain started. “Sir?” “I just wanted to thank you for the effort you put out today,” began the Captain. “We probably should have planned things a little better, but I wanted out of this ice before we got stuck.” “Yeah, maybe. No harm, no foul.” “You know what you’re going to say to Kittie Pride?” Cash scowled. “How much you got riding on me?” “A bill,” the Captain muttered. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me.” They both headed out into the snow. The temperature had dropped with the fading gray light. Cash looked out and could see the river’s current had slowed, and ice was forming in patches along the banks. In this weather the river would be a solid sheet by morning. Cash and the Captain were the last ones ashore. Most of the crew had started their cars and were warming up. Cash looked for his black pickup and an energetic redhead bouncing behind the wheel, but Kittie wasn’t there. Marcin and Jones were waiting in the parking lot. “You coming to the party?” Marcin asked. “I never miss it,” Cash said. “Good luck with the talk, man,” Jones said. “I’m sure Kittie will enjoy having you home. And she’ll just love you being a law student.” “It’ll be fine. Assholes. Get out of here, I’m tired of looking at you.” Marcin and Jones laughed as they shook Cash’s hand. The Captain gave the crew a quick fistbump before heading for his truck. Cash gave a quick salute as the crew started to drive through the snow covered parking lot. He turned at looked down on the Delta Jane. Ice had already formed around the hull. She didn’t sway or rock at all. Not more than 90 minutes after docking, the boat was locked in ice for the winter. She would stay that way until March or April. Cash thought he would feel relief that the season, and the job, was over and done with. He felt nervous though. Anxious. Antsy. Cash thought that this was the time of year to turn over a new leaf. He was locked in; he had made his decision. A new life was out there, he just had to take that leap and go for it. A pair of headlights swung into the parking lot. That was his pickup alright. And of course it was bouncing up and down slightly. Cash heard a high pitched hollering and yelling coming from the truck as it slowly bounced through the snow. Here comes Kittie, ready to jump out and crush him and tell him how proud she was. What a spaz. He thought he was ready. He could do this, right? Just get her on board, and everything would be cool. Goddamnit. gently caress. poo poo. Here goes nothing.
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Jan 2, 2015 14:56
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aaaaaand that's entries closed. We'll try to get results back to you in about a week. Thank you for entering, and good luck.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:04
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:aaaaaand that's entries closed. We'll try to get results back to you in about a week. Thank you for entering, and good luck. I'll get on this in the next couple days.
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Jan 4, 2015 01:58
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I have consumed your words and unfeelingly assigned numbers to them like a robot. I have submitted my beep boop opinions to Head Judge Man. I'll probably have more words to say about the stories when he releases the results. edit: it's been a pleasure though, most were good and a couple were excellent SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 21:59
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UPDATE: all judges are in except me, and I have a slow work day today. I'll try my best to get results up within the next 8-9 hours.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:11
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 THE FANTASTICAL AND AMAZING RESULTS POST  Every word of winter tells a promise of spring. The door swung open, and a raggedy band walked in. Nestled deep in their fur coats, they looked more bears than men. Grigor rose to greet them, and smiled. "My friends," he said, "what stories have you brought for me today?" In third place is Libluini, with A Visit In Winter. An interesting, competently told tale that rises above most of the pack, but could've risen further had it taken a few more risks. From all three judges came some variation "Which one was that? Oh, right, yeah. That was one really good" at some point in our discussions. Good, but needed to be more memorable if it wanted to take the top spot. In second place is Morning Bell with The Day Summer Died. Some nice lyrical flair, interesting characters, and a decent plot. Stumbles because it doesn't give the reader enough credit, and insists on overexplaining everything and repeating itself when it really didn't need to. The ending was kinda weak, too. Still, everybody agreed it was fun, clever and memorable. Nice work. In first place, by unanimous decision, is ... No Gravitas, with The Report From The Shooting of Stanislava. Soundmonkey absolutely loved this to bits from start to finish. Both SittingHere and I started reading with reservations ("OH GOD IT'S AN WALL OF UNTAGGED DIALOGUE TALKING TO AN UNSEEN PERSON WITH ABSOLUTELY NO DESCRIPTION HOW MANY RED FLAGS DO WE NEED BURN IT NOW") but it hooked us early on, and had totally won us over by the end. You set out the gate with a whole load of terrible writer cliches (hence our trepidation) but managed to make something incredible out of them. Somehow blunt, elegant and deep at the same time- it's a Swiss Watch of a piece: all smooth finish on the outside but ticking like mad beneath it all. Great work. Winners, we need a real email address to send your stuff to. Either post yours inthread, PM it to me, or hit one of the judges up on IRC (either SH or I can usually be found in #thunderdome on SynIRC). Full crits to hopefully come over the next few days. Please feel free to post your own crits of the other pieces, and help your fellow writers! Thank you all for competing, and I hope to see you next time.
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Jan 9, 2015 08:06
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:No Gravitas, with The Report From The Shooting of Stanislava. Yeah I gotta say a few words on this, I started reading it and was like "oh cool it's one of those 'gramps is telling stories' things i'm sure this won't be tedious at all", and if you'd just presented the entire premise up front it might not have been that interesting, but the progression of the story is pretty god drat nice, and managed the only "I would read this again" feeling out of the lot. Well loving done. For laffs and whatnot, these were the notes I had written down for it: - great intro - actually interesting - cool plot twist but not huge or dumb - "real fkn good" As an aside, I had "proof your poo poo" in my notes for two entires, so like, other people get on that I guess
SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 08:43
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Wow. Thank you. Thank you. In my wildest dreams I could have not expected such beautiful comments. (Especially considering what my proofreader pointed out to me after I put the entry in. I was mortified. Stupid idea to not do external proofing before posting as a challenge! UGH!) I have a post-mortem half-written up, but being 2am... I shall hold off till tomorrow night. firefly@gmx.ca thank you thank you thank you
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Jan 9, 2015 11:07
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No Gravitas posted:Wow. Thank you. Thank you. In my wildest dreams I could have not expected such beautiful comments. (Especially considering what my proofreader pointed out to me after I put the entry in. I was mortified. Stupid idea to not do external proofing before posting as a challenge! UGH!) I feel like you could have done so much more with double the word count, like I would expect to read this caliber of work in an anthology by an author who I consider to be good. As it is, it's pretty nuts what you managed to squeeze into under 3000 words. edit: phrases such as "knocked that poo poo out of the park" and "there wasn't even a question of who should win" were used. also i feel like one of the things that most added to it was the initial expectation that it would be terrible, due to what Muffins up there mentioned, then bringing it together pretty quickly and again more firmly at the end, with the never-described character. edit2: yours was actually not one of the pieces where i wrote down "proof your poo poo", so i guess whatever errors may have existed were too minor to notice while following the story. i end up seeing a lot more errors when i'm plodding through something i'm not entirely sure i want to read. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 11:57
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Congrats to the winners! And thanks to the judges for all the organising and reading.
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Jan 9, 2015 12:44
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Prizes sent out for first and second. Let me know when they show up. Amazon is being weird about currency conversion and I'm worried they're going to go through weirdly.
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Jan 9, 2015 12:46
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My prize is through, thank you very much to all the judges. No Gravitas I think your story is just wonderful, well done.
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Jan 9, 2015 12:48
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Morning Bell posted:My prize is through, thank you very much to all the judges. I'm not sure if you're open to crit or not? I felt like the story was really coherent and enjoyable through almost all of it, if a bit silly at times, but the ending really disappointed based on the premise, I wasn't even sure what was going on. If that were polished up a bit, I think this would be really solid.
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Jan 9, 2015 12:53
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Open to crit, for sure. I'm inexperienced and haven't really written a piece this like before. Tear it apart.
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Jan 9, 2015 12:59
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Wow. I won something! Getting to third place is nice, hearing my story was good even nicer. Also I'm really lucky no-one noticed the email-address I put into my profile, because I look that one up maybe twice a month! Here's a better one: thegreyprophet@gmail.com. (Please take note of the British "e". I had people stumble over this.) Since practically everything I post on SA is bound to that email-address in some way, privacy isn't really an issue. Google took care of that. And as I promised, here's the original, far longer version of the story: A Visit in Winter As I said, I had to cut out over 500+ words to make it fit the contest, so this version has a more natural feel to it. Well, at least for me. Feedback is appreciated! Last but not least, congratulation to the other winners and thanks to the judges for organizing this. Was great fun!
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Jan 9, 2015 13:04
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Morning Bell posted:Open to crit, for sure. I'm inexperienced and haven't really written a piece this like before. Tear it apart. This is crude and non-cultured, but my first thought when finishing the story was "why the gently caress didn't the cat do whatever it was going to do?". It seems like you could have either tied it all together with the ending that was implied (the cat demon possessing you), or gone for some kind of twist ending, and pulled it off. As it was, I really enjoyed the story (although the witchcraft bit seemed somewhat overwrought), but the ending just left me confused.
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Jan 9, 2015 13:07
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Libluini posted:Wow. I won something! Getting to third place is nice, hearing my story was good even nicer. Thank you for this, after finishing reading your story, I sorta wanted an "expansion" on it, since I'd only realized the twist right at the very end (thinking "wolves can snap necks that easily? really?") and wanting a bit more exposition. The only thing that kinda bugged me was the third-person thing, which I think a lot of people are challenged with in the sorta-fantasy genre. The switch between monster-third-person and human-third-person is sort of jarring although it doesn't ruin it. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 13:08
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Would people be interested in making this a regular thing? I can't run it for Jan/Feb because I'm moving back home which means 1) I'm too busy 2) I'm not going to have a bank account for a bit, but I think it's nice to have a longer-form competition. Thunderdome is cool but it's not for everybody, and more writers writing (rather than thinking about writing, then telling the girl at the bar they're a writer) is always a good thing.
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Jan 9, 2015 13:17
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SoundMonkey posted:Thank you for this, after finishing reading your story, I sorta wanted an "expansion" on it, since I'd only realized the twist right at the very end (thinking "wolves can snap necks that easily? really?") and wanting a bit more exposition. Wolves? Heh, I thought I had made her grab enough things with her hands to make the twist clear, nice to hear it could still be a surprise for some. That perspective-switch gave me some headaches, myself. But overall I decided the story would be better if at least at one point a "human" viewpoint shows up. In a longer story I probably could have made that part less jarring by sticking it in its separate chapter. SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Would people be interested in making this a regular thing? I can't run it for Jan/Feb because I'm moving back home which means 1) I'm too busy 2) I'm not going to have a bank account for a bit, but I think it's nice to have a longer-form competition. Thunderdome is cool but it's not for everybody, and more writers writing (rather than thinking about writing, then telling the girl at the bar they're a writer) is always a good thing. I would be OK with it! Small contests like this are like guaranteed feedback for me, which combined with my vanity makes it easier for me to write, since I'm incredibly lazy.
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Jan 9, 2015 13:26
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Would people be interested in making this a regular thing? I can't run it for Jan/Feb because I'm moving back home which means 1) I'm too busy 2) I'm not going to have a bank account for a bit, but I think it's nice to have a longer-form competition. Thunderdome is cool but it's not for everybody, and more writers writing (rather than thinking about writing, then telling the girl at the bar they're a writer) is always a good thing. This would be grand since Thunderdome is short on time and word-count, and it's fun working on a larger piece for a longer amount of time.
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Jan 9, 2015 13:34
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My price came and I bought two nice eBooks with it. Thanks again!
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Jan 9, 2015 16:01
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