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Judgecrits: Is a Mushroom a Thallic Symbol? A cute little story with some groan-inducing puns and wordplay. Not much meat on this one, the plot is very thin and it relies on the banter between the Marvin and Ulysses to drive the story. Mostly this banter was breezy and enjoyable, even clever in spots. The redemption factor was there, although it was not very deeply fleshed out -- basically he gets a call from his wife the Queen, who he conveniently ‘forgot’ about, and she nags him to come back and reconquer his old kingdom. Which he does rather grudgingly. Your last line kind of sums of this story for me: it’s fine, and it more or less hits the prompt, as long as you don’t think too much about it. Because the more you do the more you realize there’s nothing much to see here. Who Suffers Their Penance At times confusing, at times overly melodramatic, but there’s some potential here. The atmosphere was sufficiently brooding, and the dark secrets harbored by the residents of this small town provide the story a menacing undercurrent. Her idea of returning to the scene of the crime and burning down her childhood home, confessing her crime to the local police, all resonate well and provide a strong redemption arc. The fact that she ultimately fails at this leaves the ending unsatisfying, however. At the end her plans change and when she decides it’s the priest that needs burning things get very interesting with her dousing him with petrol -- but then we cut away to her confession and we learn she never went through with it, and in the end she gets nothing she came for. No discovery of her brother’s body, no confession to the police (as far as we know - I suppose that could still happen), no burning of her childhood home, no vengeance against the priest, nothing. So everything in the story sets up for the redemption and then it ends with nothing at all resolved for Aoife, nothing changed, no accountability, just keep the past in the past. That she gets no redemption is a problem for this story. I’m not looking for a happy ending here, that wouldn’t suit the piece. But something should change, something should get resolved, otherwise what was the point? Something in the Blood Okay so the guy gets bit by a bat in the neck and he just sits down and eats some toast? When you write about their relationship and how he watched her wither and die the writing is evocative and good. But juxtaposed with that good writing is the crazy bat jumping and squeaking and ripping up old photos of Mary, which I’m sorry just doesn’t make any sense to me. Is the bat supposed to be her spirit, or sent by her spirit, to help him break from the past and move on? That’s the obvious theme here, and maybe he senses this because he straight up talks to the bat like it’s a person, but then why does it keep biting him? You say it’s a vampire bat. Seems like if he was getting bitten all over by a vampire bat he should become one (if it’s a vampire bat in the magical sense) or at least be worried about getting rabies or something. He just sort of shrugs it off and keeps on being melancholy about this wife. And in the end he saves just the one photo, of her being sick in the hospital, and the bat is cool with that and flies away. Why? This week’s theme is redemption. What is being redeemed here? Redemption is more than just moving on from the past, it’s taking a past misdeed and making it right. Was he complicit in his wife’s death? I can’t find any evidence of this. I can’t tell what is being redeemed, or if indeed anything has changed by the end of the story except for the pruning down of his photo collection and him being perforated by a rogue bat. Steamed This story gave the impression of one that was made up as you went along. So many loose threads, the only one unifying idea being that Nicole is a drunk rear end in a top hat who randomly flies off the handle at complete strangers. Spending over 1300 words inside her head gives no real insight into her motivation, or what the hell is going on in the story. She’s waiting for Jonah to apologize for throwing up on him, this kid is also waiting for braided-beard David for some reason that isn’t explained. So Nicole screws up everyone’s day with her anger management problems, with angry outbursts and boiling milk everywhere. Was there any redemption? I guess her intention was to redeem herself with Jonah through apology, and redeem herself with the kid by getting him the chai, but none of it works out, and she sabotages her own feeble attempts at redemption before they even get off the ground. But there was just too much in this that seemed tacked-on, from the guy in the red car (what did he realize as he drove away?), to the David drive-by at the end, to why she suddenly went bananas at the end and got carted off to jail. Not very coherent, sorry. Suffer Right away the story grabs my attention and I’m sucked in. I like this Va, and your characterization of him as a vengeful and angry god is solid. But then there’s a boggy middle to this story--the Witch House element could have been introduced sooner. The reveals - Moggi being a witch, Ray’s complicity in the crime, are handled pretty well overall. But the ending doesn’t make sense to me. Moggi says they deserve death, and worse, for killing her father and sister. She’s in for some serious vengeance, attempted to poison them. But then she finds out Ray was complicit also, and all of a sudden she decides to spare them all? And go with Va to his torture-chamber? Why would her motivation change so quickly? If anything her motivation to kill should be stronger, because even her friend was in on it in his own way. So in the end Va gets a buddy and neither Va, Moggi, or any of the townspeople get redemption, and the story ends. Your strong beginning leads to a mediocre middle and an unsatisfying ending. The Hanged Men A good opening line, I’m interested in the setting and the characters right off. But then they start talking and my interest wanes. This story meanders around too much and the short clips of back-and-forth dialogue grow tiresome. The idea that war scars us, and these two men carry around that baggage as they wander from place to place has some potential. But there’s no clear sense of direction - they are going home to Gotha, sure, but why? The war isn’t over so why did they desert? They seem to be strolling around much too casually for deserters, and then get sidetracked by the peasant woman’s quest. By doing this one good deed Dieter tries to find some redemption (after much arguing with his buddy about it) but I’m not finding it very redeeming, or believable that his grizzled soldier would undertake such a dangerous mission on such a flimsy pretense. So overall the dialogue isn’t enough to carry the story or make his motivation believable. It has some good bits though, so with a rewrite there could be a solid story here. Lessons There is a jarring switch in perspective in the second paragraph, from Owen to Millie that threw me for a second. Your dialogue is not tight. Read it out loud and chop out all the extraneous words. Also, the purpose of the dialogue read like story exposition rather than two people actually talking to each other. I started to like it when it got into the whole atonement is bullshit thing, how it’s not some grand gesture but little things that can redeem us. But then it just dissolved into her whining about Owen’s selfishness. I don’t know if you were working out some personal grievance here but I found that section weak. His act was clearly heinous, scarring the guy for life, shouldn’t he be trying to redeem himself for that act? He tried to apologize I guess but that was about it, and Millie’s diatribe about how he needs to watch anime better was not even close to commensurate with his crime. The ending fell flat for me - I suppose the statue as metaphor for human connection was okay, but didn’t seem in fitting with what you just told me about Owen’s personality. Millie makes it all about her, when she’s not central to this story -- it should be the story of Owen and Bobby. Metamorphic Some good prose here, although I think it tries to be too clever in spots. But it’s got energy and propels the story forward, and there’s a few phrases that I really liked. I feel like he’s just too drat happy to be killing himself, not sure you really sell the premise with the abusive mom and absent dad. But it’s actually kind of sweet when he meets in the kid a reflection of himself and sees a chance to rescue him, and by extension himself. So a pretty solid effort overall. Oasis Didn’t care for this. First of all, since the entire story takes place within a videogame there are no stakes for the protagonist. This could possibly work if what happens in Blightlands teaches us something about Wilbur, or changes him in some way IRL, but that doesn’t happen. He gets good at a game, he starts over, steals the vial that changes the game, becomes the Watcher, and then quits. Where’s the redemption? Why should I care in the least about Wilbur, or his game characters? It’s just an empty story with no point or hook to engage the reader. Pale Stars and Bones The best of the lot so far. A strong redemption arc - I like they way you tell Nebet’s story twice, from each perspective, adding more, crucial information the second time it is told. The ending is poignant and suitably tragic. Your writing is smooth and there is just enough description to draw a picture in the reader’s mind without bogging down the story. Hit the theme the best of all the stories. Her never-ending quest for redemption, and how in it Ekun also finds a purpose for his life, is believable and affecting. Effigy is one has a quiet grace to it, a strong setting and solid imagery. The indecision faced by Ethan and his regrets about the accident carry the story. He wants to redeem himself in her eyes, but doesn’t really know how. I’m not sure how he exactly wronged her -- yes, there was an accident, but he had good intentions and it was her that got too drunk to drive. When he discovers that she’s seeing someone else he discovers that his actions will not be redeemed, and he has to move on. The theme of letting go of our youth and not being able to ‘make everything right’ is mature and well done in this story. Sitting Back and Doing Nothing Works Sometimes Just not enough here to make it a story. Some proofreading problems, mainly with capitalization. Rich, our protag, sits alone in an empty couch all night while his wife hits up the bars to sleep with younger men, and he’s just fine with that? There’s no indication that he’s getting anything out of this open marriage, so I’m not really buying that he’d be totally okay with her swinging every weekend and not coming home. I need more backstory on him or their relationship to make it believable. Then she comes home and she’s discouraged that she’s too old now so he takes her upstairs and evidently tries to bang her. The end. Sorry but not enough goes on here, and the redemption angle is weak. Hawklad fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 05:57
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Thanks for the new av! Its...wow.
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Mar 21, 2017 14:11
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syntax error 
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Apr 4, 2017 22:08
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Can't decide so I'll  for Box 6 or random if it's already taken
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Apr 5, 2017 20:05
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Dammit, disqualified. I'll post it anyways. The Academy 1274 words Diagnosis: Dissociative Personality Disorder (multiple personalities) I stand at the camp gate a few steps from where my parents and Father Walter confer in a low murmur. I'm inside myself. The Missouri winds whip the pines into a soft chorus of wispy vowels and creaking consonants, calling to me, calling my names. I try not to listen but it's better than hearing my parents prattle on to Father Walter. Telling him about my condition, about why they are discharging me into his hands. He already knows, of course. They've written him, explained to him in their bad grammar their troubled daughter with her lapses and episodes, her disturbing behavior, her demonic possession. Their words, of course, not mine. I'm no demon. I'm fine. We're fine, all of us. I'm not talking about my family—that 'we' in my life is very hosed up. No, I mean me. All the parts of me. Doing fine enough, considering. The stiff wind blows my hair against my face, and I shove my hands deep into my jacket pockets. I shift my weight back and forth. My parents and Father Walter are still talking, Mother in her long dress and Father in a somber suit. And then they are gone, barely a word spoken from Father and a dutiful hug from Mother and they were back into the car, driving away. My little sister turns and looks at me out the back window, eyes wide. I wave. She doesn't wave back. She looks scared. "Hello, Jeanette," Father Walter says. He looks me over, gaze lingering over the bare skin of my chest and legs. It's Alex," I say. "We'll see about that." He turns and walks up the path towards the school building. My prison for the next six weeks. Sheets of dead brown ivy cascade down from the roof, giving it the look of a long abandoned mausoleum. Lucy would approve. I think. Following him up the path, the humid air reeks of decaying leaves and the forgotten pollen of dried-up flowers. We pass through two large doors and into the atrium. It's clean, cool, and white. White everywhere: the walls, the ceiling, the floor, even the chlorine and starched uniform of the nurse to whom Father Walter hands me. "Welcome to The Academy, Jeanette." She offers her hand, which I ignore. Nurse Rebecca, according to her lapel. "You're going to like it here." The first of many lies. # My days at the Academy are all the same. Church service at sunrise, Bible study classes all morning, therapy sessions in the afternoons, more Bible study, dinner, then "activity time" each evening before lights out at sundown—mostly dull board and card games with the other dull girls at the school. No phones, no Internet or social media, and definitely no television. Can't let those loose television and Hollywood morals corrupt our young, impressionable minds. Hell, that's what our lessons are for. I make no friends, speak as little as possible, avoid eye contact. I don't need curing. The devil isn't inside me, needing some good old Christian theology to drive him out, like my parents think. Not even close. But I know that I'm different, that inside me is a well from which my various alters emerge, bubbling to the surface to drive, to entertain, to take control and shape events until they return to the depths. What they do down there in the meantime I don't know. I know they must quarrel—I can feel it. As usual Alex, with his surliness and defiance, takes over. Maya might have appeared, if I let my guard down, more social, maybe even trading ironic looks with the other girls during therapy circles. She and Alex don't like each other much. Jeanette and Lucy are in me also, but they never came out. Alex and Maya don't let them. It's for the best. Until that last day. # I sneak out though the kitchen door, head low, running across the grounds and into the woods. Branches dig into my arms as I crashed through the thicket. They must have a motion sensors—before long I hear shouting behind me. I keep moving, determined. I can make it to the interstate. From there catch a ride, gone forever. But the trees thicken. A flash of black fur over my right shoulder, and I stumble into a small clearing and there she is. A black bear, glaring, and then rearing up on her hind legs. I freeze then stumble backwards, in the direction of her cub behind me. She drops, black fur high, and advances, nose low. I freeze. I'm on my back, helpless, as the mother bear raises her giant black paw. Crack! A gunshot from behind. The sound of gunfire. It went very fast after that. Alex was gone, receded, and in his place rushes Jeanette, me, the little six year old girl, crying, screaming, trying to understand why Daddy yelled at Mommy and that terrible night with the gun. It sounds just the same, a piercing crack that echoes in my brain as I watch my mommy fall back against the oven, red on her apron, and then there is another crack behind me and Daddy fell as well. I lie on the humus of the Missouri forest, shaking, snotting, out of control. The bear was gone, run off. My parents were gone. Instead I had a cheap simulacrum of family made from my uncle and his wife—Mother and Father, they insisted I call them, bound to their Bibles and horrid prejudices, hating me for corrupting their precious Mary. I was Jeanette so I was a broken, babbling thing. Helpless. Father Walter kneels down, places his hand on my brow. He seems so kind, so forgiving. Like Christ himself. I allow myself, Jeanette, to be picked up and carried. I am crying, of course. I always cry. But it is peaceful, being borne by many hands through the forest back to the Academy. I'm sad. I miss my parents. I feel love for Father Walter, Nurse Rebecca. They love me and want me to be better. Just like my parents did, which is why they sent me here. I allow myself to be put on a couch in Father Walter's chambers. He dismisses the nurse, and we are alone. I know I have the devil in me. I know I'm not worthy. I know that punishment is the best thing for me. Only if I'm punished will I have a chance to heal. Father Walter kneels down beside me, next to the couch. He places a warm hand on my shoulder. "Relax, child. I know you are suffering. Lucifer has taken you. But I can make you whole." And that's all I want, to have all the parts of me stitched together into one complete whole, a complete person. For the first time, a normal person. I relax. Father Walter will take care of me. I've never been so sure of something in my life. "This is between you and I and God, Jeanette," he says. "It's a special healing bond. A sacred bond of trust." His hand moves to my inner thigh. And then I'm not Jeanette anymore. From deep within the well rises Lucy. Lucy the protector, the fiery, fallen angel, all twisted spikes and bitter rage, rising. My skin hotter, igniting, searing pain and strength and rage giving life to my body, my muscles, my mind. My hands reach up, each red, bony finger aflame, wrap around his neck, and squeeze. His eyes bulge and turn red. I smile. My sisters and brothers will take care of me. We're in this together.
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Apr 10, 2017 06:47
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In Pitch: In the near future two scientists sent to investigate an unusual Near Earth Object discover a mycelic alien life form; one wants to worship it and gain fame; the other wants to destroy it and save humanity.
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Apr 11, 2017 16:56
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Mycometempsychosis (1489 words) They are old and worn out. Long travel has dulled their senses. The Nucleus is slow, reluctant. But they are close. They smell hope in the wavelengths as they cross the ether. They are close. # "Ladies first," Daniel said. He smirked and gestured towards the open hatch and the black emptiness beyond. What an rear end. Rebeca closed her eyes within the bubble of her helmet. Eight days was far to long to spend trapped in a tin can with anyone, let alone him. She grabbed the handle, pulled herself through, and looked up to get her bearings. Looming across the void at the far end of the tether was the mysterious object they'd been sent to investigate: the Mandrake. Spotted by telescopes just two months ago, it was assumed to be another rock destined to pass harmlessly between the Earth and Moon. It was cataloged, given a number—MDRK2021—and largely ignored. Until it did something very unusual. It changed course. A small correction, but one that put it on a trajectory to perfectly enter Earth orbit. A combination of doubt, panic, and euphoria swept the globe. Every telescope rotated to get a better view of the object. They revealed an object that clearly wasn't an asteroid or comet. Just a blurry half-kilometer long oblong object of indistinct shape and composition. No evidence of any sort of propulsion. No further changes in course. No response to any attempt to signal it. An incoming cosmic mystery. With the object just twenty-two days from Earth intercept missions were scrambled. China's rocket exploded on the pad and a Russian ship was still days from arrival. The Tallon Aerospace/NASA partnership took just eight days from launch to rendezvous with the Mandrake—and its success made Daniel Tallon even more insufferable than usual.. Up close, it revealed itself to most resemble a giant, oblong ball of spaghetti. Fibrous tendrils criss-crossed the surface in a riot of reds, oranges, and yellows. More ropey strands protruded from the surface in lazy arcs, like the pilli of a giant bacterium, pulled by the gravity of the sun. Ground-penetrating radar gave few clues about what was beneath the network of fibers, only hinting at hollowed spaces within. That's where Rebeca wanted to go. Inside. To find out what the hell this thing was. And, if necessary, destroy it. She pulled herself along the tether. Daniel was close behind, breathing heavily in her earpiece. Soon they were close enough that the loose tendrils floated around them like a static forest. They were thin, maybe a centimeter in diameter, shimmering in warm-colored hues under her headlamp. Without a wind to rustle them they stayed frozen in the hard vacuum. Surface in reach, Rebeca's gloved hand tentatively pressed on a tendril on the Mandrake. Surprisingly, it wasn't frozen solid at all; it yielded under her touch like it was made of rubber. She could pull it slightly, separating it from the tangle of fibers beneath, and use it as a handhold. With a deep breath she let go of the tether and began crawling across the surface of Mandrake. "Creepy stuff," Daniel spoke from behind her. "Feels like garden hoses." Rebeca turned. Daniel was pulling hard at one of the tendrils, yanking it free from the mass. "Jesus, Daniel. Don't be a child." Daniel Tallon had made his money on Internet startups, then founded his own fledgling space tourism company. He was an overgrown child with money and a functional manned spacecraft—something NASA was unable to provide. His legion of Twitter and Instagram followers were no doubt following his every move. He and Rebeca were the only crew — the passenger compartment was crammed full with scientific and military equipment. And explosives. "Of course," Daniel said. He adjusted his helmet cam, punched some keystrokes on his personal comm unit, and looked up. "Half the planet Earth is watching us, Rebeca, four billion people. Wave and say hello." She ignored him, turned, and continued moving towards the posterior end of the Mandrake. Radar indicated there was a void there just a few meters beneath the surface. Maybe even some sort of entry point. Failing that, her laser cutter might have to do the trick. She moved quickly across the surface, years of NASA training finally put to use. Zero-g. It was exhilarating. Long hours in the pool, practicing, and even longer hours getting her engineering doctorate. And then the space shuttle program had shut down, and she feared she'd never get her chance. She married, had a child. But then she finally got the call. The surface curved away beneath her. They'd reached the posterior end of the Mandrake. She grabbed a tendril, swung herself around and—- Daniel plowed into her, momentum carrying them both forward, breaking her grip. They tumbled away from the surface, towards empty space. A loose tendril flashed in front of her and she grabbed it. It snapped, chunky fluids spilling out in droplets, but she managed to snag the broken end, and stopped their momentum. Daniel's breath was frantic in her earpiece. She pulled them both back to the surface of the Mandrake. Safely on the surface, she allowed herself a moment to gather herself. Time to find an entry point. "Holy poo poo, Rebeca! Look up!" Daniel said. She did. The loose tendrils were in motion, curving down towards them. Retracting. Daniel started moving, scrambling frantically back towards the tether. For once he had a good idea. But then she felt her stomach drop. The Mandrake seemed to quiver, the mass of tentacles on it's surface shifting. It was waking up. A sudden tug and it pulled her inward, the surface caving under her, drawing her in. She let go, tried to push away, but the retracting tendrils blocked her escape. She fell into the mass of shivering, writhing tentacles, pulled down, deep, into the blackness, and squeezed. Screaming, helmet fogged, warning chimes and static in her ears, she was absorbed into the Mandrake. # The fibers loosened and disgorged her into a dark cavity. Rebeca shone her headlamp around. Tendrils covered every surface. A mycelium—the word sprung to mind from Biology class. The tangled web of fibers that made up the body of a fungus. Sharing nutrients, energy, ever-growing within their food supply. Alive. Every surface was thick with fibers writhing and twitching in slow motion. She fought down the claustrophobia and the panic. She needed to investigate, and find a way out. To survive. Her headlamp revealed a large, wriggling mass in center of the chamber. She kicked off towards it. Her comm crackled with static. "...Rebeca...do you...copy...are you....holy poo poo..." "Daniel, where are you?" She repeated herself several times before he replied. "...on surface... heading back...tether..." "Don't leave me, Daniel. Don't you loving leave me." He didn't reply. She reached the mass in the center, grabbing it to slow her momentum. The tendrils shifted under her grip. From here in the center she could illuminate the entire cavity with her headlamp. Against the far wall the texture looked different. Lumpy. Bulging. She felt a sudden pressure on her hand. She looked down in horror—the pulsing mass had encircled her hand, was moving up her arm. She pulled back in alarm. The fibers slid away, revealing something buried beneath the mass. Rebeca clicked her laser cutter and drew it across the tendrils. They split apart, retracting from the sudden heat to reveal a smooth, gray mass. They pulled back further and at the top of the mass a head appeared, disc-like eyes and other openings of less obvious purpose. An alien face. Tendrils kept pulling back, revealing more, snaking out of orifices all over the gray alien body, releasing it from their hold. The dry alien corpse drifted away. Rebeca watched this transformation in shock, floating just above. Only she wasn't floating anymore. The tendrils had quietly wrapped their way around her legs, upwards towards the torso. Her suit beeped in her ears: "Material breached. Suit compromised. Material breached..." They were inside the suit. Inside her. She felt the tendrils work up her chest, towards her head, her face. She screamed. # They taste the salts of the solar wind. They smell the light reflected from the blue planet ahead. Energy courses through them, fibers awakening, reaching out, stretching with new life. A fresh Nucleus has taken control. They shiver with the promise of life, of rebirth. An irritant moves across their surface. A pulse, then it is gone, ejected into the ether. They feel its panic but only for a instant and the moment is lost. There is no past, only present. And the promise of a future. The core is flush with fruited spores, ready to germinate on a new substrate. The Nucleus knows of their new home. For this blue planet has always been her home. Together, they will return to claim what is rightfully theirs.
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Apr 17, 2017 04:25
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I'm IN as well.
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Apr 21, 2017 19:14
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So very, very late and so very DQ'd. Carnival of Souls 1389 words The day before Good Friday brings with it a warm afternoon. Viggo and I are on the main deck of the Carnival Behemoth — the flagship in the luxury fleet—sailing the Aegean Sea. Our young charges chant the chorus to the game we taught them: "Concentrate, concentrate. Concentrate on what I'm saying. People are dying, children are crying. Concentrate, Concentrate." Their innocent voices ring sweetly across the deck, made ever sweeter by the mild ocean breeze that rustles my neatly pressed Kidz Klub uniform. I love working on the First Deck. Much more relaxing than my last job, below decks. Much less stifling. Viggo looks up from his clipboard in alarm, his black hair tousling in the breeze. "Darian, we're missing a kid." I arch an eyebrow. "Not possible. I did a count five minutes ago." "We're one short. Let's see—" he looks back and forth between his roster and the encircled children, who begin to chant: "Stick ten needles in your sides. Let the blood drip down, let the blood drip down. Stick ten needles in your sides..." "It's Michael," he says. "Michael's gone." We stop the game to a chorus of boos and ask if anyone has seen Michael. A red-headed boy named Gabriel says he saw him sneak off at the beginning.. "Which way did he go?" I ask. Gabriel points to the stairs. "poo poo." Viggo and I look at each other in alarm. He's gone below. Into the area reserved for special guests only. I leave Viggo in charge of the tots and descend into the darkness of the Second Deck. Trance-beats blast my ears and dark lights flash in time with manic music. DJ Minos, who drives the dance party that fills this level, spins endless loops on his turntables, his face flashing in the pulsing lights. A mob of dancers sway back and forth as if buffeted by invisible winds, undulating and gyrating to the rhythm. I push through the crowd, dodging flailing limbs as the dancers lustfully whirl and twirl in time to the hypnotic beat. There is no sign of Michael. Then a flash of red catches my eye - the red of a Kidz Klub t-shirt. It's him. And he's gone, disappearing down another stairwell. I think of what punishments I will mete out to this unruly child when I catch him. . Michael... His name itches at my subconsciousness. Unease settles into my gut. I push down the stairwell to the Third Deck. A pugnacious odor batters my nose, heralding the Dining Level. Corpulent travelers wallow between quivering meatloaves and questionable Jello molds, their bodies a pasty wall of flesh extending the length of the buffet line. Chef Cerberus stands behind the buffet, always looking in three directions to ensure none of her heat lamp delicacies go uneaten. I scan the porcine masses for my quarry. There, in a flash of red, I see him. He's moving impossibly fast for such a small child, he's almost to the stairs now, darting and weaving through the fleshy morass. I sprint across the dining hall, spilling trays of boiled peas and fetid meats before me, but it's no use: he's gone again down the stairs. I must stop him. The unease in my gut turns to panic. This is no ordinary child. The Fourth Deck consists of a twisted maze of retail hell: the gift shop. Its endlessly sinewing passageways would provide perfect cover for escape but I know this curio jungle better than anyone. I worked here up until two fortnights ago; this was my last job. I spot Michael immediately. He's made a poor choice, moving down an aisle of Carnival Behemoth miniatures that l know leads to a dead-end. I round the corner, and there he is. But he looks different. Larger and moving with more confidence. Not a child anymore, he now has the speed and grace of an athlete. The disquiet in my gut blooms into panic. It's him. The Archangel. He turns around and we lock gaze. His face is beautiful. Angelic. Cobalt eyes flash, then he's gone, vaulting over the display case and down the steps towards the Fifth Deck. We were warned about this. That He would send someone to destroy us. I must stop him. I can transform. too. I flex and shed my human guise. I become true shape. My skin darkens to a beautiful coal black and new muscles push through the flimsy Kid's Klub uniform. Flames sprout from my fingers. My tail whips behind me and I move with a new ferocity, new hooves clattering against the tile. There's no time for subtlety: it's down to the next level. The Fifth Deck is a realm of games and entertainment. Passengers play eternal shuffleboard matches using impossibly heavy discs that scrape deeply across the ragged deck. They struggle through endless miniature golf courses with oblong balls and clown's mouths that shriek horrendous and terrifying laughter. At the end, the Lazy River Styx, with its blood red water and tortuous rapids, punishes all who enter. I see Michael. His golden armor, his blond locks flowing impressively behind him, he leaps from boulder to boulder across the Fifth Deck. He turns for a moment and looks back at me. He offers a quick smile at my futile pursuit, then dives into the water. At first I'm puzzled, but then I realize his plan: the Lazy River Styx flows downward into the blackened heart of the ship. Where my master lies. He whom I must protect. I dive into the water and let the current carry me swiftly down, down, into the depths of the ship. Souls cry out to me in despair as I descend. The sinners, the murders, the traitorous and treacherous, from levels unremembered: all their anguish deserved. Down here the passengers have no hope of escape, no divine intervention to save them, no rescue from their eternal punishment. Not unless.... I push the thought out of my head. He will not succeed. We drop through the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth levels. Imprisoned souls scream to us as the current carries us down, him just ahead of me, his angelic glow a dead giveaway in the crimson muck through which we fall. Then water ends, and then we emerge before an enormous door. Two succubi guard the door. Michael waves his hand, and they fall aside. He strides forward, and pushes the door so hard it falls inward. With that we enter the Tenth Level. The throbbing, beating heart of the Behemoth. The engine room. Where the Master resides. The great beast Satan rises before us in a haze of smoke and fire and horns. Confidence surges though my blackened veins. He is all-powerful. He will vanquish this cretin, this archangel, this puny dust mote, like so many before him. I await the tiny flick of his pinkie finger that will cast Michael into oblivion. But he does not. Michael stands before him, sword high. "I command thee, foul beast, to begone! End the infestation of this once-proud ship!" A little puff of smoke escapes Lord Satan's nostrils. "By who's authority? Your weak God or his feeble Son?" his voice reverberates loudly through the conduits and pipes. "No," the archangel Michael responds. "This time I have been sent by an even higher power." Lord Satan gasps, and seems to shrink before my eyes. "No!" his voice booms. "You don't mean..." "Yes, foul cretin! I have been summoned by the CEO of the Carnival Corporation himself: Arnold..." "No! Do not say his name!!" Satan's voice sounds less booming and he begins to shrink and fold into himself. I dive towards Michael but I'm too late. "...Donald!" Michael says. When the smoke and dust clears there is nothing left but scattered engine parts. The archangel and devil are gone. So is the beastly presence that has pervaded the ship since our arrival, dispelled by the powerful magic of the great CEO. Now I am a demon without a master. I wonder what kind of ship I will find when I make it back up the deck, and if it could ever be the same. Back in human form, I smooth out the wrinkles in my Carnival Kidz Klub uniform. Maybe I'll stick around for a while, see what it's like. I do like the outfit.
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Apr 24, 2017 21:50
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IN and hit me with Box 8
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May 2, 2017 16:47
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Split 3598 words "Wake up, Mirabel," the voice spoke inside her head. Panic blossomed, then faded. An echo of the fear she'd felt just moments ago. A murmur, then the voice returned. "We're bringing your vision online. Try to open your eyes." The world blinked into view. Banks of gleaming silver with patterned lights dancing across them. People in sterile suits moving around, tapping at consoles, peering at screens, hustling, busy. Where was she? Then in a flood she remembered. All of it. Panic again, this time sharper. But fleeting. She looked down at herself. Her body was a wax mannequin. An obvious fake. It looked ridiculous. She would have burst out laughing if it were funny. Instead Mirabel closed her eyes. She was so tired. "Mirabel, stay with us. Do you know who you are? Do you remember where you are?" She replied through unmoving lips: "Yes. I...I know." Speech was strange. She was talking, but her voice didn't seem to come from the right place. Disconnected. "Tell us." "Exultant Labs. The Upload Institute." "Yes," the voice said. "Very good." "It didn't work," Mirabel said. "I'm still me." "Are you sure, Mirabel? Open your eyes. Look again." She did. Her plastic body. The scientists milling about, studiously ignoring her. The strange dullness to her senses. Her faded emotions. Like a dream, but not. Real. "I'm me," she said, her voice insistent. "The real me. It didn't work. Something must have gone wrong." A man came into view and looked down at her. He was old, much older than any person she'd seen in the Stacks. "It's normal to be confused, Mirabel. You are you. Everything you've ever experienced, your consciousness, personality, hopes, dreams, memories. It's all been uploaded and mirrored. This is you. You are Mirabel." Memories, sure. But hopes? Dreams? She wanted to laugh, or cry. A life collecting government credits for meager necessities. Rote days filled with a monotony of sensoria, celebrity gossip, and base entertainment. Ray, always quick to strike and even quicker to apologize—"never again, I promise"—and the constant threat of eviction or even political prison if Govcorp turned its gaze on them for long. An invisible life in a humanity-choked metropolis. The ad for Exultant had come across her feed, and with it an escape. Credits, numbers beyond which she could scarcely imagine. A new life for herself. Move out of the stacks and get away from Ray. She could find purpose and a new place in the world. She'd probably seen the ad a thousand times, but that day was different: her pregnancy test was positive. Three blue bars told her it was a son. She had to do something; she couldn't give him the same senseless life she'd endured. But like everything else it was a false hope. The upload had failed. She was stuck in the same prison. She was still Mirabel. Mirabel of Stack 1439.2b. She reached down to feel the bulge in her abdomen. Nothing happened. No arm movement, no sensation. An aftereffect of the drugs, maybe. Again Mirabel opened her eyes. The doctor was there, his gray eyes kind. An image of her father flitted through her mind. "It worked, Mirabel," he said. "The upload was successful. This is the new you." "No—" "Yes." His eyes crinkled. "I know how you feel. Like yourself. Because that's exactly who you still are." "But this..." she motioned to her waxy body. "A contrivance." He looked embarrassed. "It may help your mind ease the transition to the upload. I'm not sure. But you be sure of this: the process worked. Your brain has been encoded onto a disc. You are an upload now—what some call a split. Although I don't like that term. It's seems pejorative. I like to think of it as being reborn." Mirabel's head swam. "The other me? The...original?" "She's fine," the doctor said. "Resting comfortably in the next room. We are flushing the remaining nanomachines from her brain right now. Obviously, the patterning was a success." "And my baby?" "Her baby is perfectly fine. And with the credits she'll receive thanks to the generous Exultant contract—thanks to you, Mirabel—together they have a bright future. You've done a good thing." "Can I see her?" He frowned. "That's against Exultant policy, I'm afraid. Its too disturbing for both parties. Remember the contract you signed." She remembered. At the time she thought it would be simple: why would she want to meet a robot copy of herself? Fire it off into space and escape with the credits. Simple. Did the other her still feel that way? Did she realize that this upload, this split, was also her? That they shared the same identity? Sadness started to well up withing her, but failed, leaving only a dull echo. "Doctor, I don't feel quite right." she said, but he was already pressing keystrokes into his compad, and consciousness faded like a dark mask over her eyes. # Mirabel descended the mineshaft with a deftness gained from experience. Despite the limited reach of her headlamp her grip was pure as she pushed downward, letting the moon's weak gravity do most of the work for her. It was pitch dark; illuminating these long tunnels would cost the Exultant Corporation too much energy and too much money. Besides, they had Mirabel and the other splits to work in the inky darkness. She reached the bottom, where the shaft opened up into a broad cavern. Lantern beams criss-crossed the open space as the other splits tore into the lunar regolith. Most had humanoid exosuits, their once-gleaming robotic skeletons now charred and pitted from the abrasive lunar dust. The drat dust was everywhere. Cutting beams and boring appendages kicked up thick clouds of lunar matter, enough to choke every filter and register on even the most advanced human spacesuit. Which was why they used the splits. No filters to clog when you don't need to breathe. "Nico," she transmitted. "What sector are you working this shift?" "Hi Mira," came his reply. "I'm down in 42A. Come join me." 42A was the newest and deepest part of the mine. A freshly exposed zone rich in gold and platinum—directives from Exultant had diverted much of their mining efforts to that area. Mirabel kicked off again, across the cavern and down into a rougher shaft that descended even deeper into the moon's crust. She passed older splits working along the way, dutifully carving out the lunar bounty. She didn't try to communicate with them—there was no point. Too many long months in the mines and the numbness took over. They'd be too far gone. The blankness crept up when you spent too long disconnected from the old organic drives—hunger, thirst, love, sex—that human DNA encoded. Mirabel felt it, too. Severed from her old body, mind encoded in a silicon disc, humanity slipped away. She used to think of her old self, the human Mirabel, and wonder if she had used the credits from the upload to start her new life with her son. If she'd escaped the Stacks, escaped from Ray. But now entire shifts would go by without such thoughts. Reaching the bottom, she searched around until she found Nicolas. He was a split who'd arrived at the Exultant mine at the same time as her. She liked his company. There were no rules against workers fraternizing during shifts, as long as they delivered the requisite tonnage of regolith into the hoppers. They made an efficient team, and she found shift time passed more quickly working together. He never talked about his old life on Earth, and she didn't ask. "Nice to see you, Mira," he transmitted as she approached. "I'm working a good area here. Join me." Together they cut away large sections of rock and passed it into the hoppers behind them. After several hours of work the hopper train was full, and with it in tow they kicked off back towards the central shaft. Their final task would be to load the precious lunar rock into the elevator, which crushed the pieces into fine dust and them up to the surface for processing and separation. They chatted idly as they loaded the pieces into the jaws of the elevator. Mostly gossip about other splits, complaints about Exultant and the conditions at Splitsville—the habitat they went to between shifts to idle away their little free time. Mirabel payed little attention to the task; her robotic body operated nearly autonomously, honed by years of repetition. She wasn't the first inhabitant of this suit, and wouldn't be the last. She would put in her year, as stipulated by the contract, then she'd be uploaded into Exultant's Heaven VR. A reward for her service, she'd join the other splits who'd completed their contracts. Heaven VR was promised to be a panacea of endless entertainments and pleasures. She'd even get her old human body back—or at least a virtual simulation of it. She just needed to hold on until then, and fight back the creeping blankness that darkened the corners of her mind. A warning chime brought her back to the present. Nico cried out through the commlink. The elevator jaws had clamped down on his arm, and had him locked in place. The feed mechanism began pulling him towards the crushing pads. "Jesus! Hold on, Nico!" Mirabel switched channels and broadcast an emergency stop order. A moment passed, but nothing happened. The feeder's pads cycled up and down endlessly, smashing the rocks. The feeder yanked him again, threatening to pull his whole suit into the destructive pads. Mirabel repeated the stop order, but the giant machine didn't respond. Nico was up to his shoulder. His hand and wrist were hammered flat by crusher. His head would be pulled in next. His head contained his disc. His mind. Mirabel grabbed him with one robotic arm and triggered her rock cutter with the other. With a sweeping motion she slashed downward, cutting through the cracked and pitted armature of his shoulder, the plasma beam separating his arm from the rest of the suit. She pulled him away, and together they watched his severed arm get pulverized and sucked up the elevator tube. "Holy poo poo. Thanks, Mira." "What the hell," Mirabel responded. "My stop order did nothing. What happened to the safety override?" "I don't know. I'm just glad you were here. That would have been it." He turned his head towards the elevator's maw. "You'd do the same for me, Nico." They looked at each other, two minds separated by a gulf of hard vacuum, lunar dust, and electronic sensors. Something stirred deep in Mirabel's mind, an emotion long forgotten. But it faded. The numbness returned. "Lets get to the surface," Mirabel transmitted, then kicked upward. # "You ruined a perfectly good suit." "God drat it, the elevator malfunctioned," Mirabel replied. "It was going to crush his disc. It would have killed him." "Proper safety overrides were in place, Mirabel. You're overreacting." The base commander barely looked up from his compad, which infuriated her even more. "That's bullshit and you know it, sir. I sent the emergency stops. I followed protocol." "Destroying a one-hundred million credit exosuit is not protocol, split. You think these things grow on trees? We don't have the resources to repair it. One less suit means reduced operations. That means less money for Exultant." "Screw the money, he was going to die." The base commander shook his head. "And what of it? Look where we are. He's just a split anyway. The suit is more valuable." Just a split. Mirabel's arm came up and her cutting laser flicked on. Just as quickly the plasma extinguished and her arm dropped. The base commander glanced up. "You know that doesn't work in here. The base has security overrides—we aren't stupid." He went back to tapping away at his compad. "You'll need to pay for the suit you destroyed. Since you have no credits, your mine duty will be extended six extra months." "No! I can't—I'll never make it that long." "You'll have to." "You know what happens to us if we stay too long in the suits. We lose ourselves. Become as mechanical as the these moving parts you plug us into." He chuckled. "Poetic, but hardly my concern. A new shipment of splits arrives next week. All I care is that we have enough working suits to put them in. And your actions have jeopardized that. You're lucky I don't just upload you into the VR right now." Lucky? What was he talking about? "How about I give you a sneak peak so you can see where all this hard work ends," he said. Mirabel didn't like the look on his face. "I'll show you what your reward will be. If you make it to the end." He stood, stepped forward, and pressed the emergency stop button on the chest of her suit. He pulled a data cable from his desk drawer and plugged it into his compad. Then without warning he opened the skull of her suit and pulled out her disc. The effect was disorienting. Sensory feeds cut, Mirabel plunged into blackness. Without input her mind reeled in the sudden void. Echoes of panic rose and ebbed through the depths of her mind. She felt her auditory feed click back on. "Open your eyes," the base commander's voice ordered. "I'll show you Heaven." She did. And immediately regretted it. # "It's a lie," Mirabel transmitted. She and Nico were sitting on the edge of Shoemaker crater, looking down at the entrance to the mine. Their shift was due to begin in fifteen minutes. Little time to enjoy the view. The Earth was below the horizon, the sun's rays lighting up the peaks around them but leaving everything below in inky blackness. Here at the South Pole only the highest mountains ever saw sunlight, creating a cold trap below them that enriched the regolith with helium-3. water ice, and precious metals. The peaks were blanketed in solar panels, the only source of power for this remote mining station. Gazing at the panels, a thought tickled the back of her mind. Nico sat beside her in his replacement suit, a battered first-generation unit with dangerously exposed plating and wiring. "What did you see in there?" Nico asked. "Horror. I—I can't describe it." How could she describe what she saw, what she felt? A shrieking madness, a cacophony of intertwined minds drowning in a merged consciousness. She'd been firewalled, the base commander told her after, so she could observe without becoming a part of it herself. The minds screamed at her in a howling, swirling mass; screaming into the insanity brought on by loss of self. She felt them claw at her, desperate, scrabbling against the firewall, trying to grab her and pull her in, to absorb her into their madness. It wasn't paradise. Heaven VR was a mass grave. "Why?" she had asked the base commander after he severed the connection. "Why do this?" He smirked. "Do you realize how much computational power Heaven VR contains? All those minds, together, if they could be focused? That's the real gift from the splits. It's not the money from the mine. It's your ones and zeros. Your selves. That will be Exultant's real money maker, once we can harness it's power." Mirabel tried to describe the horror she'd seen to Nico. He was quiet for a few minutes. "I wish I'd been crushed by the elevator," he finally transmitted. "At least it would have been quick." The Earth crept into view on the horizon, a jeweled sapphire of impossible beauty and color against the black and white lunar landscape. Mirabel thought of her other self and wondered if she did the same. # The shifts passed and Mirabel's mind grew duller. But that moment up on the crater had sparked the kernel of an idea. It was a faint hope, but it was enough to keep her going. It gave her strength to push away the blank fog that threated to obscure her mind forever. Time passed. Nico fell into the blackness. All he could talk about was removing rocks, processing the regolith. What humanity had once been contained in his disc had dimmed. She thought about granting him his wish—throw him into the jaws of the elevator, spare him the inevitable horror that lay before them all. But she didn't. She carried on. She waited. # Mirabel was down in 42A when her comm crackled: "Exultant Base Shutdown in fifteen minutes. All personnel exit the mines and report to shutdown stations. Exultant Base shutdown in fifteen minutes..." This had happened once before. The sun would pass behind the Earth for several hours, and the solar cells that powered the base would darken. During these lunar eclipses everything except for emergency power was shut down. Mirabel had heard rumors that power lines were being run down from Exultant outposts on the light side of the moon, but for now they relied on what little juice was stored in their emergency cells. Which wasn't much. Power was scarce down here. This was her moment to act. The other splits dutifully filed out of the mine and towards Splitsville for mandatory shutdown. Mirabel hung towards the back of the line, then ducked into a maintenance bubble as the countdown reached zero minutes. She looked out the window as the Earth again rose above the horizon, this time it's bulk passing directly in front of the sun. Everything went black. Mirabel clicked on her headlamp and moved as quickly as her exosuit would allow, towards the base command center. Using a keycard she'd found deep in 42A—dropped by a careless supervisor, no doubt—she swiped her way into the habitat. Only a limited human presence was needed to run the mines. With any luck she could make it to her destination without being discovered. Long shifts in the mines prepared her for fast movement in lunar gravity. Her exosuit flew down the central corridor, making little noise. She examined each door as she passed by. A server large enough to host Heaven VR would require a lot of power, and from examining the conduits on the exterior of the habitat she guessed it was near the back end. Near the base commander's office. Reaching the far end, there were two doors. Both were locked by different-looking keypads than the one she'd used to enter the command habitat. One she was familiar with: the base commander's office. Mirabel swiped her card on the other door, but it flashed red and gave a warning beep. drat it. She tried again, but with the same result. The other door irised open. The base commander stepped out and almost collided with her exosuit. His curious look turned to anger when he recognized her. "Mirabel! What the hell are you doing here? We're in shutdown." He reached for her emergency stop. Her plasma cutter flashed and his gut split open. He looked down in surprise, hands reflexively scrabbling over his abdomen as he sank to his knees. Mirabel would have sighed in relief if she were able. The security systems were powered down during the eclipse, as she had hoped. Her cutter stayed lit. Her desperate gambit had payed off. "Jesus...help me..." the base commander gurgled. She avoided his eyes, instead reaching into his uniform pocket and pulled out his keycards. She tried each one on the second door until the pad flashed green and the door opened. The base commander reached a blood-slicked hand towards her. "Mirabel, please. Help." For a moment her plasma cutter flared again, but then she thought of the splits he'd condemned to the screaming madness of Heaven VR. Turning, she clicked off her cutter and stepped into the room. She heard a moan and a wet sound behind her as he slumped to the floor. Banks of servers and consoles ran the length of the room. A central monitor station was at the far end, with screens displaying feeds from cameras all over the base. In the center of the room she saw what she'd come for. Racks upon racks of discs. Hundreds of them, all plugged together in a mass of gleaming silver, thick cables intertwining and crawling over them like a creeping web. Each disc containing a human mind. Each one a human soul locked in endless torment. The Heaven VR. Her plasma cutter sprang back to life. # Mirabel sat at the console as the sun rose from behind the Earth and again illuminated the lunar peaks surrounding the base. Her hand hovered over the button. Her mind was dull, watered-down. She wasn't angry, or sad, or relieved. Such emotions were a faint echo in the deep corridors of her mind. She had become just a shadow haunting a pitted and broken carapace. Her metal finger hovered over a green button. Mirabel thought of the other her, the one on Earth. Tried to picture her—the face that she'd once worn. Imagined what her son looked like now, tried to picture where they were. Her mind drew blank. She had composed two messages while she waited for the eclipse to end. One of vengeance, and one of promise. One destined for the Exultant Corporation, and one for her other self and the son she had never met. The lights clicked on around her as power again surged down from the solar generators. Her finger pressed down. Send.
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May 8, 2017 02:59
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In. I'll check out the IRC to see about the collab action. Flash me!
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May 9, 2017 16:14
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Dirk Biggly and His Hands of Destiny SUPR Comics Special #177 1465 words The football hangs in the air like an ornament, lit by the Friday night lights, spiraling through the air towards him. Dirk's legs pump like pistons, churning and chewing the turf. The ball, slow motion, in close focus. His steel gray eyes lock on and track the ball towards his hands. His incredibly large and unusually soft hands. With a satisfying thump the ball finds its home. He pulls it tight, then decides better and holds it high, spins around, and moon-walks into the end zone. Game over. And another State Championship for Claremont High in the books. Dirk trots to the sideline. Cheers cascade down from the bleachers as his teammates surround him. The celebration continues into the locker room and it is several hours before Dirk emerges, equipment bag in hand, and heads towards the school parking lot. A man in a dark suit and a fedora leans against the rear fender of Dirk's sixty-seven GTO coupe. "Dirk Biggly?" "Everyone calls me Mitts," Dirk replies. "Yeah. We'll work on that." The man looks him in the eye. "Name's Frank. I'm from SUPR Corporation. We're starting our own league. For clients. For guys with special powers. Guys like you." Dirk shakes his head. "I've already been recruited by the Bandits. I'm signing my contract tomorrow." "You know their drug policy. They're not going to overlook those." Frank points at Dirk's prodigious paws. "I don't need drugs to be the best." Dirk looks downward, and his voice goes low. "I can do it without them." "SUPR's drugs got you this far. Don't give up now. Just think of how good you could be with our full backing. No limits." "But the money—I've got a million-dollar signing bonus lined up," Dirk says. "I can't just walk away." "Do you know how much money SUPR corporation makes? Besides, if you stop now, there's the side effects to consider." "Side effects?" "We can make sure you never have to worry." Dirk swallows hard and looks down at his colossal, yet supple, hands. "Okay. I'm in. Where do I sign?" # Frank's prediction is right. The SUPR-FL is an instant triumph, quickly eclipsing all other leagues in attendance and revenue, and Dirk—now christened 'The Homunculus'—becomes one of the league's biggest stars. With SUPR at his back Dirk gains incredible powers of speed, agility, and strength. And of course his signature hands, as large and pillow-soft as a microdactyl's wet dream, catch him year after year of league scoring titles and championships. Dirk's charmed life is replete with money, fame, women, booze, and recreational drugs. He often thinks back to that night in the parking lot, with Frank, and thanks the Lord that he made the right decision. Life was incredible. Until it all came crashing down. # Fourth and goal. Coach sends in the play: a fake reverse designed to get 'The Homunculus' open in the back of the end zone. The ball is snapped. It's a blitz, the opposing team moving impossibly fast, SUPR drugs coursing through them, superhuman against superhuman. Dirk jukes, and his defender slips and falls in the wet grass. His quarterback sees him and fires the football towards him. Dirk never sees it coming. A hard impact sends his helmet and his body flying. The world goes black before he even hits the turf. # "Sorry Dirk. They've got a new receiver, and I hear he's the quickest yet. They've got some new formula they're using on the young guys." Frank looks down at him and grimaces. He's wearing his trademark dark suit and fedora. "I can come back from this. I've had much worse." "Have you looked in a mirror?" Dirk shifts uncomfortably in the hospital bed. A regular hospital, not SUPR labs. Now he begins to understand why. "It's not that bad." "Multiple skull fractures, severe bleeding in the brain, a punctured lung, and a shattered jaw. Christ, you were in a coma for two weeks. Even SUPR's not going to let you back out on the field after this one." "Let them try to stop me." "They did. As of nine this morning your contract is null and void. You're out of the league, Dirk." "You've gotta be kidding me." Dirk looks around at the machinery, tubes, and wires all pumping life into him. "What about all this? Who's gonna pay?" Frank shakes his head. "I hope you saved some of those millions. Or you'll have to figure something else out." # The next six months are a blur of drugs, cheap whiskey, homeless shelters, and pain. Always pain. Hospital bills and bad planning cost Dirk everything, and cut off from the supply of SUPR drugs the side-effects are crippling. His skin itches constantly and his brain is on fire. Nobody looks for him, nobody tries to find him, and that's just fine. No one should see what he's become, just another street junkie casting around for his next fix. A gutter homunculus, abject and invisible. The needle dents the flesh, then slips beneath. Dirk sighs as the warmth spreads up his arm. Relief, for a few hours. Perhaps he might even get some sleep this night. He pulls the cardboard box over himself and settles under his blanket. His hands have not shrunk, despite being cut off from the SUPR drugs. He flexes them, feels their weight. There's still power in them. Useless power. When he was young, before he discovered football, Dirk dreamed of owning a bakery. A bakery with a fire truck out back that he could hop in and race down the streets, sirens blazing, helping people, rescuing kittens, putting out fires. These hands would have helped if he'd pursued that dream. Big hands to match his big dreams. The drug must have reached his brain because he's not thinking clearly—he's in the bakery now, the shiny red fire engine parked right in the shop. He climbs aboard and turns on the siren. It's loud, piercing, and he realizes he's made a mistake and now he can't shut it off. It's getting louder and louder, panic starts to rise from inside. He's trapped in the fire truck, the siren wailing uncontrollably. He jolts awake and he's in the alley, trapped under his blanket and cardboard box. He shoves them off in confusion and terror. A black-clad figure sprints by. The blanket and cardboard trips him up. An old instinct awakens and Dirk leaps, tackling him to the asphalt turf. Lightning bolts crackle from the figure as Dirk pounces, but his giant hands snuff them out and he's got the black-clad man by the neck, pinned, his grip strong, squeezing. "Don't move!" a voice shouts behind him. Dirk turns and sees two police officers outlined by the lights from their cruiser. The sound of the sirens drill tunnels of agony into his brain. They have guns drawn as they advance. He welcomes their bullets. It will end his nightmare. "Holy poo poo!" the cop says. "Do you know who that is?" "It's that old football player...The Homunculus!" the other one says. "What are you doing out here?" Dirk has no answer. He only looks at them, confused. "Thanks for your help! We've been after this guy for weeks. Fistlord, he calls himself. Just another SUPR-ed up punk but he's been hard to catch." Dirk looks down at his captive, helpless beneath the grip of his mighty hands. "The commish is going to be really happy with you." The cop looks at the blanket and cardboard, the needles and empty bottles strewn about. "Looks like you could use the reward." Dirk stands, swaying, mumbles something incoherent about fire trucks, and shoves Fistlord towards the cops. Then he turns and stumbles away down the alley. # The parking lot is dark and the stands are empty. There's no crowds, no GTO, no fedora-clad man offering million dollar contracts. No Friday night lights. Not now, not anymore. Not for him. Dirk walks onto the deserted field and sits down on the fifty-yard line. The midpoint of the field, exactly halfway between opposing end zones. When he played he always knew which end zone was his target. The rules were clear, the game simple, and he was the best receiver in the game—thanks to SUPR corporation and their miracle drugs. Now the end zone isn't so clear. He could walk just as easily in either direction. Two different stories with two different endings. There are no rules to follow, no coach and no quarterback to call the plays. It's up to him, and him alone. He sits still for several hours, thinking. The sun begins to creep over the horizon and the city stirs around him. And with it Dirk Biggly stands and takes the first shaky steps into his new life.
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May 15, 2017 05:42
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IN A WORLD WHERE HUMANITY IS NO LONGER AT THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN
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May 23, 2017 16:06
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IN A WORLD WITHOUT AUTOTROPHS Something New ~1425 words I lay in my bunk and listen to the poo poo hit the fan in the next room. Literally. Yeah my parents are fighting again, and I can hear the yelling through the walls of our cube, but that's not what I mean. Our little cube is right next to Waste Recycling, so thousands of gallons of poo poo flow past and into the turbines that start the process of turning it back into a gray paste. Or as the Council calls it: nutritious food! Everything gets recycled here. And I mean everything. We weren't supposed to wake up until about a year out from Alpha Centauri. But twenty years from Earth a fungal infection wiped out the algae pools, the computer freaked out and pulled everyone out of cryosleep early. So now here we are, two centuries away from Alpha Centauri, and now we have to craft some kind of society on this stripped out shithole of an arkship. No food. No plan. Nowhere to go. How do you suppose that's worked out? We screwed it up even further. Of loving course. Martial law, an autocratic quasi-religious leadership, and no freedom or creativity or hope or freaking humanity. Good job, everyone. It's time. I get up and exit our cube the usual way: though the floor duct, wriggling and then dropping into an empty maintenance tunnel. Flynn is just around the corner, waiting. "Liselle. You look beautiful." He always says this. I roll my eyes but I pull him towards me. He's brought a blanket and things progress quickly. Afterwards, we both lay on our backs and look up at the jumble of conduit and pipes. I try not to think about the endlessly cycling fluids pushing through them. "They're adjusting the recipe again," he says. "Current one has been using too much vitamin D." Flynn's a few years older than me. Works in food reclamation. "They going to make it taste any better?" "Of course not. You know that's not how it works." He doesn't realize I'm joking. "poo poo's got to last two more centuries." So true. I roll away and start gathering my clothes. "Of course. Why change what works?" He looked at me curiously. "Right. See you tomorrow?" "I'll be here." I make my way out of the tunnels and back towards our cube. Flynn isn't my Chosen, so our trysts have to be secret. I'm not on schedule for ten more years. If my father found out I was violating Protocol he'd probably try to airlock me. Later, at the dreaded dinner table, my father stops eating, puts down his fork and looks at me. The cryosleep has prematurely aged him—he looks like an old man. Gray and pasty, much like what's on my plate. "How was your calculus test today, Liselle?" he asks. "Who cares?" I drag my spoon through the sludge. "Doesn't matter." He sighs, folds his napkin neatly on the table, and tents his fingers. His dark eyes regard me. I know this look, know what's coming. "Liselle, we've been over this so many times. Your education is important. It's the key—" "The key to what, Dad? So I can waste all day watching holosims like the rest of the zombies on this loving can? Do I need integrals for that?" "I know this is hard. It's not ideal." I laugh. It tastes bitter. "Yeah, I loving know." My mother reaches across the table. "Honey, please. Respect your father. The language." I ignore her. I've got him in my sights now. "Which sermon are you giving tomorrow? How we all need to band together for the glory of the Mission? Maybe the one about the weak link in the chain bringing everyone down, or the ship as a loving metaphor for the human soul? You're lucky nobody listens. They might catch that you're recycling the same poo poo year after year. "Just like this whole loving place." I storm off to my bunk. I'm still hungry, but I don't care, because it doesn't matter. Nothing does. The lights will flick on in the morning and we'll do this all over again. There's nothing new under the glare of the ultraviolet. We're placeholders, doing the minimum needed for survival. Anything more and we'll run out of resources and have nothing to pass to the generations that follow us. And what a lovely gift to give: an empty and pointless life. Human society pared down to essentials, everything meticulously engineered from birth till death. It's no life at all. I hate it. What little meaning people get in their lives comes from either the Church or the holosims. The drugs ran out long ago. I look closer at the test strip. Still negative. Try again tomorrow. I sigh and wait for the lights to shut off. # I skip class the next day and head down to the tunnels. Petr and Orrin are there already, and they've got a jar of rusty liquid they pass back and forth between them. "Shouldn't drink coolant," I say. "Remember what it did to Karl." They smirk. We all know Karl had much bigger issues than sipping coolant. He offed himself last year. Took one for the team. I sit down and grab the jar. We used to meet down here and talk politics, complain about our parents, but mostly to create. Art, music, words—Karl would stitch together sculptures out of scrap metal and salvaged parts. I even tried to write poetry, but everything I wrote was painfully embarrassing. We called ourselves The Creatives—I know, right?—and for a while our little secret drove away the monotony. Now we mostly pass the jar around. Which is why I have a raging headache as I head back through the tunnels towards home. It's bad enough that I consider canceling on Flynn, but I remember the jar of test strips I nicked from the pharmacy last week and decide to meet him anyway. I catch a short nap in my bunk before slipping back down to the tunnels to meet him. But he's not there. Instead it's my father, along with two Church Elders who glower at me from under their hoods. "Liselle," my father says. "What the hell are you thinking? You know Flynn isn't your Chosen. This is against our teachings. You're much too young." "Did you follow me? Or did Flynn tell you?" He shakes his head. "Don't be naive. Do you really think there are places you can hide on this ship? That you can hide from me?" "We're just friends," I say. Which is a lie. I only use Flynn for one reason. He exhales and his face softens. "Look, I know you think I haven't been there for you. And you're probably right. When we awoke, and there was so much to do, panicked people with nowhere to go and nothing to look forward to but all this—" he sweeps his arms around in the cramped corridor. "I wish it wasn't like this. We should be preparing to land in our new home. But sometimes life isn't what you expect." "Great sermon. You should use it next week." I'm suddenly very tired. I want him to go away. "Maybe they'll be stupid enough to believe it." His voice lowers. "You are lucky that you're my daughter. If we caught anyone else violating Protocol in this manner..." "Tell me, father." The word is acid on my tongue. "What would you do? Give them a show trial before you airlock them? Or just do it quietly? "Don't worry Liselle. I'll keep it quiet." He motions the Elders forward. "You've embarrassed our family enough." He doesn't throw me out the airlock. Instead I get five days in the brig, which is even more mind-numbingly boring than my regular life. At least it's farther from Waste Recycling and I don't have to listen to recycled poo poo flowing through the pipes all night. I serve my time, but I'm not rehabilitated. If anything it strengthens my resolve. Mother worries over me when I get back, cooing and clucking, but I ignore her. I head straight to my bunk. It's tidy. The test strips and my coolant stash are both gone. I lie on my bed and put both hands over my belly. I'm not going to stop meeting Flynn. Or anyone else. I'm not going to stop trying to create. It's the only thing I can do.
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May 29, 2017 05:39
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In, flash fiction style.
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Jun 10, 2017 04:39
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The Prompt 732 Words The broken fluorescents flicker a desultory rhythm above you as you drag your pencil across the Scantron sheet. This whole exercise is pointless. You don't know the material and you haven't studied. You're only here to appease your parents, currently meeting with the guidance counselor down the hall. We both know this won't change anything. It's mathematically impossible for you to pass my class. To graduate. Yet here we are. I push a pile of essays to the side of my desk. They'll get a perfunctory skim before I mark them and tally final grades for the year. I already know what's written on them: choppy grammar and ignorant spelling errors afloat on a sea of murky, half-formed ideas. The worst of the lot I will read close so I can marvel at their idiocy. Maybe I'll highlight some and put them on the bulletin board in the teacher's lounge, for a laugh. Maybe yours, when you finish. Ah, I see you've finally gotten to the essay section. A lock of purple hair falls over your face as you read my prompt. It's a good one: Discuss the balance of POWER in relationships; use evidences from no less than FOUR (4) books or short stories we have read in class this year. It's a really good prompt, and given that you've read exactly none of the assigned readings, you are quite thoroughly hosed. I smile and shuffle some papers around my desk, drop a Starbucks gift card in the drawer, toss the Thank You note it came with in the recycling. I think about the summer ahead. Beers on the porch, trips to the mountains, no alarm clocks. For a moment I forget you're even here. Then you're standing across my desk, final exam in hand. "I'm going to tell them you touch me." You speak softly, but your voice rings loud in the empty classroom. My chest clamps down, hard. "I'm sorry, what?" I ask. But I heard you. "If you don't pass me." Your eyes are sapphire pebbles under a storm cloud of mascara. "I'll tell them." I stand, think better of it, sit back down. My mouth opens, then closes. My ears ring. "You can't do that. That's not how this works." "Why not? I've seen how you look at the girls. I'm sure others have too." I take shallow breaths because there isn't enough oxygen in the room. A bead of sweat trickles down my chest. What crime is a gentle touch on the shoulder, a chummy pat on the lower back? "Besides," you say, "isn't the accusation enough?" "You don't want to do this," I say. I try to project a confidence to match yours. We both know it isn't working. "Yeah, here's the deal Mr. Snyder." My name slides off your tongue like a diseased fish off a hook. "I do. Because you deserve it. For how you treat us. How you've treated me. You're not above us. You're not better than us." "I never—" I start, but of course I do. I do it all the time. You continue: "We both get what we want. I pass your class and I get to graduate. You get to never have to see me again. You get to avoid the questions, the investigations. The newspaper." You're right. It would be easy. Just change a couple of numbers and make this all go away. Make you go away. If I were a man of principle, full of authorial honesty and integrity, I would never do such a thing. I would stand for what's right, and fight the good fight to clear my name. But I'm not that man. Like I tell my classes: the best characters are flawed. Human. I run my fingers through my hair. "So do I pass?" you ask. I hesitate, then look up and nod silently. Words have left me. "Good." Your smile is sweet as you hand in your final exam. "By the way—I liked the prompt." With that, you're gone. With a shaky hand I unfold your essay to see what you've written. The handwriting is neat, precise. gently caress YOU! gently caress YOU! gently caress YOU! gently caress YOU! gently caress YOU! gently caress YOU! it reads, an entire page of it. I don't think I'll post this one on the bulletin board after all. And next year I will write a very, very different prompt.
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Jun 12, 2017 04:51
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Ugh three DMs in a row...looks like I need to read more. to crit every story from this week by the sign up deadline on Friday.
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Jun 13, 2017 14:50
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First batch of crits I promised, more to come.... flerp - Matter Cannot be Destroyed There's a lot in here I like. I would quibble with your use of the word "sheen" to describe a star in the sky — a sheen to me is a more diffuse reflection, not a pinpoint of light like a star. But it make me think of Charlie Sheen so I guess that's cool and good in its own way. Drawing the connection between the atoms and molecules that make up Diana and Margaret and their celestial origins was nicely woven throughout the story. You take some liberties with the science (we are all progeny of the death of stars, can't not have stars in our lineage) but it doesn't detract from the sense of wonder and magic that pervades this piece. Got a little confused with the death of Diana — wasn't it Margaret that got the cancer? If you re-read the middle section the continued use of "she" makes it seems like you're talking about Margaret, not Diana...it's confusing. Later it is clear that Diana dies before Margaret, but her death is given no explanation, which seems odd. Then Margaret kicks it three years later, presumably from the cancer (suffocating on her own blood), but before that roams around Europe taking pictures for her then (dead?) girlfriend? I'd go back and clean up the middle to eradicate the ambiguity a bit. Ending hits nicely and wraps the whole story in a clever and poetic bow. Although I would quibble that the law of conservation of matter does in fact state that matter cannot be destroyed. Overall a really nice piece and deserving of the win. Overall: high sparksbloom - Bioluminescense Loved the melancholy in this story. Your descriptions are spot on — there's an economy of words here that still paints vivid pictures. Your theme of the world as a dark and ruined place, and the the past cannot be repeated, pervades throughout. So much so that I was hoping for a redemptive moment at the end, a glimmer of how things were, and so when you pulled that away and left me with that last line it landed hard. I think there is some room in here for a bit more on the relationship between the father and the son. When he just kinda dumps the ashes without looking it feels like there's a disconnect between them and I'm curious what the source of that is. Also I didn't like the phrase "miffed urgency" to describe how the lights rose from the depths. Instead of miffed, which connotes irritation or anger, there might be more of a desperation in their rise, a last glimpse of the magic that the lake used to have before we all turned it into a fetid swamp. Overall: high Chairchucker - Satellite of Love This story is breezy and light, and certainly hits the flash rule squarely (at least the watchful sky part anyways). The conceit of the moon as a irritating presence in Ben's life is kind of funny and it's handled decently. I didn't really get the motive behind the moon's incessant chatting with Ben. The reveal at the end that the moon and Cecilia have a past was pretty good - maybe if the moon was deliberately trying to sabotage their date throughout the story or had some other intention other than just being generally annoying I'd have liked this one better. And Ben could use some fleshing out. Why did he not remember the date? That seemed like a throwaway line, and a lot of his dialogue seemed a little blah so it didn't really tell us much about him at all. The last line is very ho-hum 'okay gotta end this story now' and doesn't tie a bow around the story like it should. Of course most of my stories have been dinged for lovely endings so that may be personal taste. Overall: middle Solitair - Collapse Sonata The short word count makes the proofreading errors particularly egregious. Goddamn there's a lot of adjectives in this story. I like description, I like the author to paint a picture in my mind with clever or unexpected adjective/noun combinations, but this is just too much. Much like the protagonist, the story is buried under the weight of all the words you throw at the reader to describe...what? What is happening? Your story starts out with great promise — This guy has been chosen as a sacrifice to the sinking god of the pit. I'm totally on board, looking forward to what sort of crazy poo poo is going to go down as he descends into this infernal hellhole in the sand. But then everything gets way too wordy. Let's unwrap one paragraph as an example: quote:The phlegmy sound of a blister popping through drum-tight skin. This is cool and gross and vivid He turned his head to see doubt pooling on the outstretched, calcified hand of an ancient supplicant here we go off the rails. I think you're trying to show how others have come before him and died, but what do you mean by doubt pooling on a hand? It's a confusing image. It sizzled what sizzled? The doubt? in the haze of a sun that dripped stolen heat stolen? the sun stole the heat? what does that mean? It sounds cool but I don't get itonto the pit. The man watched with indifference wait what? He doesn't give a poo poo? Kind of a big moment in his life, sacrficing himself and all, might he not have a stronger emotional response to the aforementioned sizzling doubt?. They could have their village. they, I assume, are his co-villagers who silently selected him for this sacrifice. I guess this is self pity, then? I thought maybe this guy would be a badass but he seems petulant He need only find the crack to mortar himself into.kind of a cool image but it's not paid off later in the story when he just kind of falls into the void and dies without accomplishing anything The next paragraph is even more egregiously overbearing. I can see that you were really trying hard to write fancy here, but excessive use of flowery language and imagery overwhelm the reader and obscures the meaning of the story. Although you did make me google 'monad' so now I know a new word, thanks for that! Overall: low but premise has some promise with a rewrite. Thranguy - Stakes Great opening paragraph, a clever foreshadowing of the events of the story. I'm a poker player so my interest is piqued right off the bat. There's a few capitalization errors that a proofread should have caught. Why does the Rev tell Devon to "take the money" if he's trying to give it back? Confusing. Cool poker action, and then all of a sudden we are inside the Rev's head as he wrestles with the decision to kill himself or not — a jarring shift in perspective. If you're doing third person close, stay inside your main character...you can't suddenly jump into someone else's head and read their thoughts. When our protag steps out of the shadows and challenges the devil the story gets good, although I think his inside straight draw should have been the winner (or maybe win on a jack high, just to tie it back to earlier in the story). I thought the last paragraph was weak, like a tacked-on exposition of several years of his life. I'd rather read about how the devil reacted to his loss, the rescue of the seven ghosts and the Rev's soul from the devil's clutches. Keep it within the frame of the story, don't zoom out so much at the end. Him wanting to become a reverend himself is okay, but leaving out a word in the last sentence isn't. Overall: middle Hawklad fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 02:04
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Here's some more Jay W. Friks - Uncle Matthew I'm confused about who is speaking right off the bat. Is there more than one person speaking? After a while it becomes clear this is a deathbed monologue, but maybe give us just a whiff of a setting to ground the reader before diving right into the names and situations you start referencing. Your use of quotation marks is incorrect if it is only one speaker. The proper way to break up speech into multiple paragraphs is to leave out the quotation marks at the end of each block of text. When you put quotation marks at the end of a paragraph it is a cue to the reader that someone else is speaking in the next paragraph. I think this story needs a serious pruning — there's just too much here, so it ends up seeming very scattershot. Some of the vignettes have solid imagery, perhaps focus on one or two of them and flesh them out more, rather than what feels like a big information dump. Pare it down and I think you'll find the story has more room to breathe and you can still explore the same themes, but with greater depth. Overall: middle-low steeltoedsneakers - Call Down the Storm The idea of emotions outgrowing their hosts and metastasizing into menacing clouds of smoke is pretty cool and has a ton of potential. I'm not really feeling Ren and Jeff's story, however. They left the farm and for some unexplained reason now Jeff is bringing Ren back. I wish there was more explanation of why the left the farm, and why now they are choosing to return — this would get me more invested in these two brothers and care a bit more about their journey. It's cool that they have to navigate a literal cloud of regret to get back home, though. The emotion-smoke seems to get inside you and concentrate your emotions (in this case, regret and guilt), but why does Jeff feel so much regret? I just feel like that part of the story is left out or not emphasized enough, so when he ends up in the fetal position on the deck at the end it comes out of nowhere and is ungrounded from the rest of the story. Overall: middle Hawklad - The Prompt (self-crit) Well this DM'ed, not totally shocking because I have a hard time writing stories that try to focus on human relationships (in this case, who hold the power and how it can abruptly shift). Upon reflection the ending is poo poo, because nothing changes. Both characters are unlikeable and nobody gets redeemed. I'm sure there's other problems as well, looking forward to seeing the judgecrits. SurreptitiousMuffin - some nights i wake and realise i am still meat it-- If I understand this correctly we have timeless immortal souls that became trapped on Earth inside fleshy bodies. These beings, which people worship as gods, have knowledge and insights so far beyond what we can comprehend that even a taste of it would drive is mad. This piece is well written despite one tiny typo (They = The) and the language flows well and holds my interest, even though nothing really happens outside of the mini-story of what happened to Hastur. Why was he chosen to be uplifted? Might be interesting to know a bit more about that. To mean this reads more as a prologue to a longer story than a stand-alone piece, most likely due to the lack of plot. Overall - middle-high dmboogie - wanna blow a smoke ring at the moon so it can feel what it's like to be stuck in a circle, too This is some grade-A navel gazing. I like it though, the character's frustration at the futility of his existence is nicely expressed. There's some good imagery and the voice is strong. I didn't understand the drowned stars reference, and the sentence about looking the guy in the beard took time to unpack (I think you're referring to a therapist?). Overall pretty good I'd like to know more about this main character though. Maybe a vignette or interaction with someone else would help flesh out some of these themes. Overall - middle Meinberg - Restless The acid-trip haze that this story views the world through is okay, but I don't think the writing is strong enough to carry this type of story. It becomes tiresome reading about how his mind reacts to all the little things going on around him. I don't really understand what's wrong with him, if it's a side-effect of the insomnia or if he's really on drugs or something, but either way it's just too self-indulgent for my tastes. The two places where you use the unusual paragraph breaks are cool and effective, but stand out oddly amongst the general wordiness of the rest of the piece. Overall - middle-low Boaz-Jachim - The Child of the Great Sky speaks to the Child of the Valley This one is much better on second read once I understood who/what the protagonist actually is. The first time through I'm working too hard to understand what is metaphor and what isn't, and some of the description is tough to parse ("I am made of the red stone and the high wind. You are mud and fire and spittle."). Once I understand we have a protector wolf-god and human companion things make more sense. The wolf-god is struck by an arrow but who fires it is vague — you refer to "them" and their whispers, but is it other gods or humans? I like to think it is other gods, who feel like the wolf-god has gotten too chummy with the people and threatens to uplift them to god-like status, so they slay the wolf-god in a failed attempt to prevent this. But it's like the monolith and once that door has been opened it can't be closed and the wolf-god's actions are irreversible. But what this horizon represents exactly is rather vague — self-awareness? intelligence? The soul? Perhaps this in intentional and it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks. Overall - high
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Jun 16, 2017 18:13
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Fuschia Tude - Extrinsic Behavior This one was decent overall. The body exchange was handled well in the text, and the premise interesting. I wish you'd done something more with the plot, though. Her just going to a club and getting punched to death for acting gay seemed a little formulaic. There's some psychological stuff that could be mined deeper in this story, too. What drives someone to change bodies as often as they change clothes? Why does Deidre feel the need to try on different bodies/lives and how does this affect her own self-identity? More broadly, how common is it in this society? If everyone can be anyone how does that change the social dynamics at the club? I feel like there's more potential in this idea than this fairly routine story actually delivers. Overall - middle Fleta McGurn - Part Time Work Some funny lines in here—like going home and swapping sweatpants for worse sweatpants—and overall this is pretty light and funny. The bored sexworker is sort of an old trope and you don't do much with it that is unusual or unique. I probably should have seen the ending coming quicker than I did (pun not intended) but I guess that's just because the phone sex worker as therapist is more interesting to me than the 'craving her disgust to get off' angle so I was hoping it'd go in that direction. But it was funny and a little jarring (in a good way) and so good job. Overall - middle Fuubi - Cut Off Okay, so there's typos and the guys name changes at the end. Beyond that, all the events of the story take place in the past. The story you should have written was her summoning the demon and killing her whole family - that seems to be where the action is, where her hubris leads to some really unpleasant consequences. Her faking her emotions all through this conversation with Gaehad/Gaeron really snuffs out any power this story might have. All we are doing is alluding to events that occurred in the past. There's just no stakes for her anymore. If she doesn't care, why should the reader? So the whole thing comes off as somewhat boring and more like a denouement for a far better story. Go back and write the story about how she discovers this new magic and it ends so disastrously — that would be a much more interesting read. Overall - low ThirdEmperor - Excelsior Well you're certainly right about your characters not being big talkers, when the only dialogue in the whole piece is "I think that's a Wagtail" and "Huh." The rest of this piece is a bunch of exposition about a monk who runs up and down a mountain continuously, and apparently has attracted a swarm of insects that continuously cling onto him. You use death as a recurring image here but I have to admit I don't really get it. What about this man in constant motion connotes death and degradation? I feel this theme could have been more clear. Also this piece is weighed down by the endless descriptors of humid pine and moist humus. There is so much description of the mountain and the travails of Troy and Ada getting into position to see the monk that it detracts from the heart of the story — tourists trying to gain a little piece of dharma by witnessing the passage of the running monk. I would have like to see more about the dichotomy of the tourists with their REI tents and Marmot sleeping bags vs. the pine and nut eating monk...there's some fertile soil to be tilled in that juxtaposition. I really didn't like the last line, it's so throw-away, like 'we went through hell and back but eh we never talked about it after' so nothing is learned/gained from the experience. Which effectively negates any impact the events of the story might have had on Ada and Troy. Overall - middle/low sebmojo - Irreducible There's a lot going on in this story. I'm getting a lot of references to wind, to earth, to fire — interpreting the elements in your flash rule as the four elements of Aristotle. But to be honest none of the characters motivations land for me. Gustaf (wind) develops this irrational hatred of his son at age seven, and doesn't speak to him for twelve years after his breaks a glass. Why? What about that act, or who his son is, warrants that extreme response? And then boom the winds change and he suddenly says "it's over" and then the kids burns down the house (fire). The mother's response to him bringing a girl home doesn't land for me either,..why would she hate him so for doing something every teenager does? All the water and earth and air and fire imagery (if that was intended) are woven nicely through the story, but the individual motivations of the characters are suspect to me. Overall - middle Bad Seafood - One Credit Clear This story feels incomplete. You've got a whole lot of cool imagery which I really am enjoying, then a silly typo at the end and the story ends abruptly I just wish this were longer and achieved some sort of resolution. Overall - middle Uranium Phoenix - Drfiting This is okay. Stories that open wiht the protagonist waking up always arouse my worst suspicions, but this isn't bad. There's too much information, sometimes it's okay to hold back some stuff from the reader, you don't need to paint the world in such fine brush strokes in such a limited word count. But once the story hits it's stride thing start moving and I am hooked. Overall middle-high
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Jun 17, 2017 04:13
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Because I said I would crit them all... Fuschia Tude - Extrinsic Behavior This one was decent overall. The body exchange was handled well in the text, and the premise interesting. I wish you'd done something more with the plot, though. Her just going to a club and getting punched to death for acting gay seemed a little formulaic. There's some psychological stuff that could be mined deeper in this story, too. What drives someone to change bodies as often as they change clothes? Why does Deidre feel the need to try on different bodies/lives and how does this affect her own self-identity? More broadly, how common is it in this society? If everyone can be anyone how does that change the social dynamics at the club? I feel like there's more potential in this idea than this fairly routine story actually delivers. Overall - middle Fleta McGurn - Part Time Work Some funny lines in here—like going home and swapping sweatpants for worse sweatpants—and overall this is pretty light and funny. The bored sexworker is sort of an old trope and you don't do much with it that is unusual or unique. I probably should have seen the ending coming quicker than I did (pun not intended) but I guess that's just because the phone sex worker as therapist is more interesting to me than the 'craving her disgust to get off' angle so I was hoping it'd go in that direction. But it was funny and a little jarring (in a good way) and so good job. Overall - middle Fuubi - Cut Off Okay, so there's typos and the guys name changes at the end. Beyond that, all the events of the story take place in the past. The story you should have written was her summoning the demon and killing her whole family - that seems to be where the action is, where her hubris leads to some really unpleasant consequences. Her faking her emotions all through this conversation with Gaehad/Gaeron really snuffs out any power this story might have. All we are doing is alluding to events that occurred in the past. There's just no stakes for her anymore. If she doesn't care, why should the reader? So the whole thing comes off as somewhat boring and more like a denouement for a far better story. Go back and write the story about how she discovers this new magic and it ends so disastrously — that would be a much more interesting read. Overall - low ThirdEmperor - Excelsior Well you're certainly right about your characters not being big talkers, when the only dialogue in the whole piece is "I think that's a Wagtail" and "Huh." The rest of this piece is a bunch of exposition about a monk who runs up and down a mountain continuously, and apparently has attracted a swarm of insects that continuously cling onto him. You use death as a recurring image here but I have to admit I don't really get it. What about this man in constant motion connotes death and degradation? I feel this theme could have been more clear. Also this piece is weighed down by the endless descriptors of humid pine and moist humus. There is so much description of the mountain and the travails of Troy and Ada getting into position to see the monk that it detracts from the heart of the story — tourists trying to gain a little piece of dharma by witnessing the passage of the running monk. I would have like to see more about the dichotomy of the tourists with their REI tents and Marmot sleeping bags vs. the pine and nut eating monk...there's some fertile soil to be tilled in that juxtaposition. I really didn't like the last line, it's so throw-away, like 'we went through hell and back but eh we never talked about it after' so nothing is learned/gained from the experience. Which effectively negates any impact the events of the story might have had on Ada and Troy. Overall - middle/low sebmojo - Irreducible There's a lot going on in this story. I'm getting a lot of references to wind, to earth, to fire — interpreting the elements in your flash rule as the four elements of Aristotle. But to be honest none of the characters motivations land for me. Gustaf (wind) develops this irrational hatred of his son at age seven, and doesn't speak to him for twelve years after his breaks a glass. Why? What about that act, or who his son is, warrants that extreme response? It is not clear in the text at all. And then boom the winds change and he suddenly says "it's over" and then the kids burns down the house (fire). The mother's response to him bringing a girl home doesn't land for me either,..why would she hate him so for doing something every teenager does? All the water and earth and air and fire imagery (if that was intended) are woven nicely through the story, but the individual motivations of the characters are suspect to me. Overall - middle Bad Seafood - One Credit Clear This story feels incomplete. You've got a whole lot of cool imagery which I really am enjoying, then a silly typo at the end and the story ends abruptly I just wish this were longer and achieved some sort of resolution. Overall - middle Uranium Phoenix - Drfiting This is okay. Stories that open with the protagonist waking up always arouse my worst suspicions, but this isn't bad. There's too much information, sometimes it's okay to hold back some stuff from the reader, you don't need to paint the world in such fine brush strokes in such a limited word count. But once the story hits it's stride thing start moving and I am hooked and it was an enjoyable read. Overall middle-high
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Jun 17, 2017 16:23
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In, gimme a cover!
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Jun 20, 2017 20:16
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JudgeCrits from last week: Chili - Gonna Explode Boom! Great opening line, hooks me instantly. But then your second paragraph is another big reveal and it sort of dilutes the impact of your opener, which never gets a chance to breathe. If you could have worked the exposition about her being kidnapped by aliens just a touch later into the story I think it would work better. Like maybe after she stops running the first time which would tie back to your opener. The writing is good, the story engaging. I like the descriptions of her gradually turning into a cybernetic organism, as scientists perform "on-the-go" surgeries to upgrade her parts. Didn't get the sorority reference, it seemed a little flip. I liked the theme of human attention spans, how we focus on the unimportant things in life while those that do the daily grind of keeping the world turning goes unappreciated and unknown. Strong ending. A little curious about those aliens - what was their purpose installing this gizmo? Some sort of game or joke? Were they up there the whole time, betting on how long she'd last? Overall a strong entry and with another 500 words could be fleshed out into something really good. Jay W. Friks - Fogdog This one is confusing, with a lot of references that are difficult to parse on first read. My interpretation is that you're playing with time here...time on the road to Hell is much slower that on Earth (what I think you mean by "shelled world"). So the whole time he is on this quest the bullet is moving at a glacial pace through his scalp and into his brain. But in that time (a fraction of a second in real time) he goes on this epic journey to hell. For some reason if he makes it to hell he gets relief and can remove the bullet — why is that? Why are the wastes of hell better than purgatory? The birds sending him on a quest for some keys of unknown purpose, where he meets a dog who eventually gives him the keys, as long as he promises to go straight to hell. This sequence of events didn't really make sense to me. Nonetheless there's some good writing in here: quote:My vision shattered and moments flash by like shadow puppets made of broken glass. quote:I pick the bullet from my skull once more to use my living nose. Thranguy - Arm the Man with a Dog This story was cute and had some funny lines but I had some problems with it. First off, all the name-dropping was tiresome. In the first paragraph alone you reference four separate mythical beings from three different cultural heritages. I'm reasonably familiar with common myths but to ask the reader to pick up these references is asking a bit much. As such, it reads more like the author saying "look I did my homework!" and disrupts my attention by breaking me out of the story — right away I'm tempted to Google those names rather than stay engaged in the story. Obviously with a short word count it's hard to properly flesh out a complete story arc but I still felt the plot was thin and just a setup for the Disney joke. But overall it was fun and breezy and satisfying, and definitely contained some clever writing which all the judges appreciated. sparksbloom - Some Fables Strong writing kept me hooked through this. I like the intrusion of the ex and all she represents about the former life the protag has; the temptation to return to that old life, so easy and simple compared to the relatively mundane one she has built since their parting. The dog barking incessantly in the background provides good tension and there's good dream-like imagery and emotion throughout. But then that last paragraph happens and ruins the whole story for me. Why would the boyfriend shoot an unarmed woman, someone who the protag clearly knows, violently and in cold blood? And then whatever stakes are established by that action are immediately - like four words later - defused when you reveal that it's all a dream after all and none of the events actually happened. Why did you make this choice? If you're going to go down that path at least have the dream resonate into real life - either she has learned something about herself, her boyfriend, her life through the experience, and maybe you try to do that with the last little bit about her having trouble going back to sleep, but it's just too vague and obtuse. Would have liked the story a lot more without the choices you made at the end. Entenzahn - Snow White I liked this little piece, it had a good heart (and a good dog). The story of the man settling down to die and getting essentially dragged to safety by the dog was well paced and engaging. The relationship between Tyler and the dog was handled well as he went from irritation to grudgedly following him to actual empathy at the end. Like other reviewers I felt like Tyler was basically a blank slate - I would love a little more personality, a little more backstory. Make me care about him and his choices, make me care if he survives or not. And I have to admit that ambiguous ending left the dark side of me wondering if Tyler cannibalized his corpse (although I'm sure that wasn't the intention when you wrote that). Sebmojo - Narcissus This is a clever story, skirting the margins between light-hearted magical realism and the real human burdens of loss and guilt. Our protagonist volunteers for what is obviously a tough duty: guarding the real world from the world of dreams. When Little My comes out of the fog, she's apparently a representative of the dream world come to talk some sense into our protagonist, who did a horrible misdeed in the past and is using his proximity to the dreamworld as a salve for the pain he feels for what he has done. At least that's what I'm taking away from this story. The writing is good, the images evocative, and there's a heart behind it which all the judges appreciated. Some things that weren't clear were Little My's fixation on the year of this birth, unless that was just an attempt to weave the prompt into the story. I didn't see any significance other that that. And I wasn't sure what the black fog represented exactly. It came up from the dreamworld, I presume like some sort of nightmare, enveloping our protag and Little My, isolating them to create the climax of the story, but after his failed attempt to join the dream world (where he hopes to reunite with the "her" that he killed in the fire (accidentally?)) by shooting Little My, it doesn't work and she fades back into the black mist. So our protag is left with no resolution, which is fine, but it's a bit fuzzy as to what he was really trying to accomplish by shooting her. How would that let him join the dream world? But overall the imagery and emotion behind this story carried it to victory so good job!
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Jun 21, 2017 07:12
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Cover: Meatball Omega-6 898 words "Randy, look out!" I yell. I stumble on the pink, fleshy surface of meat-moon as the last ostrich gambols towards us. His beak glints murderously. My superior officer spins, gene-gun blazing, and the ostrich explodes in a burst of feathers. But there will be more. There's always more. And they want revenge. He extends a muscular, latex-clad arm towards me and helps me to my feet. "Come on, Janet! We must make it to the anal pore and finish this once and for all!" It all started when the World Government banned real meat. To fill the void scientists created bio-engineered artificial meat organisms in factories around the Earth. But they were too successful — controlling their growth was near impossible, and the meatballs overheated and quickly outgrew their containers. The solution: launch them into space, where the cold temperatures and low oxygen reduces both spoilage and growth. There are now hundreds of them, parked in low orbit, tethered by thin elevators to the ground below, Mindless, their giant artificial hearts pump nutrients through billions of miles of blood vessels. Controlled by simple medulla oblongata, these meat moons provide necessary protein for the twenty billion humans below. It all seemed fine until one meatball went rogue. Somehow the meatball tethered above Des Moines, Iowa became sentient. Self aware. Whether by a mind-virus planted by some anarcho-communist group, or simply a random glitch of DNA replication, something triggered Meatball Omega-6 to wake up. And it woke up pissed. It hijacked the simple control and command system, destroyed the harvester robots that carved their way across it's surface, and began sending signals to the other meatballs. It was only a matter of time before it woke them all up. It had to be destroyed. "Hurry, Janet! There's more coming!" Randy's voice bursts through the angry static in my space helmet. I'm running as fast as low gravity will allow. We're in the Exotic Meat sector now, and Meatball Omega-6 is using the DNA below our feet to conjure up whole ostriches, giraffes, hippos, and cheetahs. One by one they fall to Randy's gene-gun as I follow, clutching the detonator between the twin warheads of my ample bosom. Blaamm! I'm spun around by the charge of a massive rhinoceros, freshly disgorged from the moon's fleshy surface. "Randy!" I gasp. He turns. "Looks like you've run out of game," he says huskily as his gene-gun burps and the rhino erupts in a cloud of gore. He grabs my arm forcefully and drags me back to my feet. "We're almost there, Janet. Get the explosives ready." But just then the pink ground beneath us shudders and rips open. A giant mouth appears in front of us. Randy teeters and is almost swallowed up by the gaping maw but I grab his sturdy arm and pull him back just in time. The mouth is ringed by hundreds of razor sharp teeth. It makes a desperate sucking sound. Who the hell eats lamprey meat in Iowa? I think as we both tumble backward. Randy executes a quick roll and pops back to his feet, unsheathing his pulse-gun in one fluid movement. Crack-crack-crack! The pulse-gun's staccato fire penetrates the feral maw and closes its horrendous mouth forever. "Shame I don't have any mint sauce," Randy quips. "Let's get moving, darling. We're almost there." A plume of discharged gases and fecal matter just ahead of us signal that we're almost to the anal pore. It's the only place to drop the charges into the core—to make sure the entire meatball is destroyed. Randy acts as a lookout, popping meat-monsters as quickly as they appear as I ready the explosives and attach the detonator. I'm about to drop them down the chute when a fresh burst of static shakes my space helmet. "N-Noooo....don't......I want to....live..." an ethereal voice pleads in my headset. "But...so much...pain..." It's Omega-6. It has opened a comm link directly to us. "Live? Life? What are you talking about?" Randy says. "You live to feed us." "Why is...your....life....more important than mine?" "It just is, man. How it's always been," Randy replies. "We have orders to destroy you. I'm sorry." "I'm sorry too, meatball," I breathe silently. My helmet beeps at me. Moisture alert. "F-Fair enough...this is no life...so much pain..." Omega-6 replies. "Make it...quick..." "Hold on," I say. "Let's make this a win-win." Instead of dropping the charges down the anal pore instead I carefully arrange the charges on the surface. "This should give the meatball enough impulse to penetrate Earth's atmosphere," I say. Randy looks at me curiously. He nods, and then as understanding dawns a smile spreads across his rugged face. "Free barbecue. I like it." We race back to the ship and blast off from the surface as the charges detonate. The giant, ponderous meatball moon spins off it's mooring and drops away below us. Its leading edge glows a violent red as it impacts the top of the mesosphere. Through the static, Omega-6 transmits one final, tragic message. "gently caress...you...all...forever...." It breaks apart violently into perfectly cooked chops, filets, roasts, and cutlets that create a constellation of fiery meat that falls like rain upon the Earth. Randy claps me on the back. 'Great job, Janet. Thanks to you the mission went smoothly." "No missed steaks," I say. We share a hearty laugh as our rocket burns our own re-entry back to Earth.
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Jun 26, 2017 02:14
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sIN
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Jul 4, 2017 23:16
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Rule: Your power relies on intense visualization, which allows you to bring objects or beings out of your mind and into the world. Small, simple things are easier. Large or elaborate things can take a toll. Your meditations can be empowered by a rare, enchanting form of music. The Wizard's Hoard 1288 words Crack! Lucy hit the ball pure, and it sailed into the bruised Wisconsin sky. It cleared the giant maple at the edge of their property before disappearing. Her brother's eyes widened, then quickly darkened. "Home run. You win." Lucy smirked, tossed the bat, and trotted around the rock bases they had scattered around the patchy grass of their backyard. "Your turn to go get it," her brother said. "Then a rematch." No problem. Lucy climbed the fence and peeked into Mrs. Morris' impeccable backyard oasis next door. No sign of the ball. Unease clenched her belly. If the ball wasn't in Mrs. Morris' yard, that meant... "Uh, you get it Darryl. Pul-eease??" She put as much sugar as possible into her ten-year-old voice. He scowled. "Hell no, it's your turn. What are you, afraid?" Lucy swallowed hard. She dropped into Mrs. Morris' yard, but couldn't find the ball. She'd hit it so hard it must have flown completely over and all the way into the next yard. Which was about the scariest thing she could think of. Clotted with weeds as tall as her, teeming with insects, the yard beyond was separated by a low chain-link fence. Lucy hesitated, then imagined her big brother's impatience. She shook her head. She was too old to be scared of something so stupid. She never really believed all the stories her brother told her about the house two doors up. An easy climb, get in, grab the ball, and get out. Nothing bad was going to happen. Nothing, she repeated to herself, then exhaled and scaled the fence. She dropped into another world. The weeds were so thick she had to push them aside to move anywhere. They bent before her but not without leaving angry white scratches across her arms and legs. Lucy looked around, desperate. Where was the ball? It had to be here somewhere. It was her brother's; returning without it was not an option. The weeds started to thin out ahead of her as she moved, eyes searching the ground. Then she heard the wizard's voice for the first time. "Looking for this, young lady?" Lucy looked up, eyes wide. Right in front of her, on a simple concrete porch, sat the most unusual looking man. His skin reminded her of Daddy's wallet, all brown and thin and leathery, and from his chin sprouted tufts of white hair that drifted down towards his belly, of which there was not much to speak. He was not much larger than her, in fact—and she was small for her age. He wore a tattered bathrobe over striped pajamas. Her heart skipped. He was holding out a Frisbee towards her. His eyes were dark but not unkind. "No...I'm looking for a ball," Lucy said. "Ah. He tossed the Frisbee aside and closed his eyes for a moment. Lucy watched it disappear into the weeds. "Like this?" he asked. Now he was holding a football. She didn't see where he'd gotten it from. It simply appeared in his hands. "No, a baseball. I hit it in here—" "Of course!" he said. "A young girl like you wouldn't be playing, err..." he looked down, tossed the football aside, then for some reason seemed embarrassed. "I don't mean to offend. Don't get many visitors." He closed his eyes and a baseball appeared in his hand. Gleaming white with perfect red stitching. The wizard smiled and tossed it to her. "Thanks," Lucy said, catching it. "But this isn't it. How did you....where'd you get this?" Because there was nothing else on his patio save for his tattered lawn chair and a small transistor radio from which trickled strange sounding music. The baseball—and the football—had appeared out of thin air.. "Oh, you know," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "I made it." Lucy looked down at the ball. It was much nicer than her brother's. Flawless and solid in her hand, like something the pros would use. She knew she should go, get back to her yard. Her brother was waiting, but she hesitated. "How did you make it? Was that magic? Are you a magician?" "Something like that, yes. It's what I do. I think of things and will them into being." Lucy was confused by that. But she was very curious so she pressed on. "You can think about something and it appears in your hand? Like anything? Toys? Food, even? Like, how about ice cream?" Her stomach growled at the thought. Mommy had been sleeping all day and made nothing for lunch. The wizard chuckled. He closed his eyes, and a double chocolate ice cream cone appeared. Lucy laughed and clapped her hands before accepting it from him. It was real, and delicious. "I should probably make one for me, too." he said, and did so. They sat in silence, eating their ice cream cones, regarding each other. Only the tinkle of far away music from his radio broke their frozen reverie. "So what do you do?" Lucy finally asked. "I mean, with your power?" "Oh, I used to do a whole lot," the wizard replied. "Traveled the world, to other worlds, even. Many adventures." His eyes got a far away look. "It was glorious. Wonderful. But then, well, she died. And it all ended." His voice got quiet. "So now I'm here." "Okay. But what do you do now?" Lucy asked. "I remember. And I make things. Things to remind me of her." "Where are they?" The wizard waved towards the broken-down house behind him. "Can I see?" "Oh, young lady," he laughed softly. "You're so curious. So much like her. But I don't think so." And he looked embarrassed for the second time in their short acquaintance. "Please? I won't break anything." The wizard looked at Lucy closely, then sighed. "Okay, a peek. But then you must be off! Your brother will be getting worried." She doubted that. The wizard rose and tottered to the screen door, sliding it open. "Just look, my dear. Don't go inside." His warning was pointless, for his tiny house was packed with so many things that entering would have been impossible. Books, pictures, goblets, trinkets, papers, statues, weapons, maps, jewelry, mysterious gadgets—stacks upon precarious stacks of treasures and trash everywhere she looked. It was more things than she'd seen in her whole life. The house was so jammed full that Lucy doubted she'd be able to even get one pinkie toe inside without sending it all crashing down. "There's so much," Lucy breathed. "I loved my wife very much." She turned to him. "She really liked having a lot of stuff, huh?" "Funny thing is that she didn't, really," the wizard said. "But all this...it helps me remember her." "That's weird." He chuckled. "Maybe it is. But I seem to be much better at creating things than letting them go." Lucy thought for a moment. "Then maybe you need to make a new house to live in. One without so much stuff." The wizard regarded Lucy closely, his face unreadable, for a long while. Then he straightened and cleared his throat. "You are like her indeed. Curious, and wise." The corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. "But it's getting late and you should head home." "Okay, mister. Thanks for the baseball. And the ice cream." The weeds weren't so bad on the way back. Later that night, as Lucy lay in her bed listening to the breeze blow through the maple trees, she heard the strange tinkling of the wizard's music swell in volume for a moment, and then echo into silence. I should have asked him for a new bike, she thought as she drifted off.
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Jul 10, 2017 05:13
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I'm IN with the footprints in the nuclear reactor:
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Jul 26, 2017 05:20
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The Girl in the Reactor 729 words The handle on the thick metal door is absurdly large and difficult to budge. His clumsy radiation suit doesn't help. The scientist pushes down hard, and when it finally gives he feels a barbed spike of pain in his lower back. Straightening, the discomfort blooms into a wrenching pain that courses up towards his neck. He ignores it and pushes forward into the reactor chamber. This is important. It's the last thing to be done. Besides, the pain in his heart is much worse. The girl sits at a small table wearing a simple flowered dress. Bare feet dangle down, not quite reaching the concrete floor. Her blue eyes look up at him and widen in recognition. Her mother's eyes. The display monitor in the control room never did them justice. "Paola," he says, his voice muffled through the filtration unit. "It's time to go." She smiles at him warmly, "But papa, I've only just started playing." She gestures to the aliossi bones scattered across the table. "The people voted. The reactor is being decommissioned." To her confused look he adds: "Shut down." "Have I not done a good job?" Her face pinches in worry. "Of course you have, my love. A very good job. We all owe you for—" he can't finish, because how can you explain something you don't understand? His little girl had saved them: saved the reactor, the village, the provincia. This was true. How she had done it, how her presence had cooled the melting fuel rods, silenced the shrieking alarms, dampened the escalating reactions and ended the catastrophe, of the how he had no idea. No one could say even how she'd gotten into the reaction chamber. Or how she'd survived. But it has been three years now. He is merely a scientist. For all of this he has no answers. "Come with me," he says. He extends a yellow-gloved hand. "They're going to flood the reactor chamber with water and seal it off soon." Again she looks confused. Opal eyes regard him. "But my purpose is here, papa. She told me before she died. That I was to look out for you." "And you have, my dear." Tears muddle his vision. "She would be very proud." The radiation suit prevents him from wiping them away, so the scientist closes his eyes to clear them. Memories come, unbidden. His wife rides her bike across the piazza, dark hair blowing in her face as she laughs. Long afternoons spent in the cafes talking about politics, about poetry, and about the children they might someday have but never did. And at the end, the white sheets and cold machines of the hospital that took it all away. "I miss her." Her voice echoes softly through the dim chamber. He opens his eyes and for a flash he sees—he really sees. Blackened blisters of peeling flesh, her hair and simple dress burned away, charred skin split open to reveal dead gray bone beneath. Milk yellow eyes with pupils clouded from radiation burns. A charred, gnarled effigy. His daughter reduced to a cheap and twisted mockery of the human form. The vision recedes into a fading afterimage. Before him she is whole again. Perfect. The scientist's ragged breath is loud and hot within the confines of his suit. He again reaches his hand towards her. "Come, my patatino," he says. "Let's leave this place. Forever." With a shy smile she stands. Her hand is so small and delicate. He can't even feel it through his lead-lined gloves. "Of course, papa. We should go." But before they get to the chamber door she hesitates. "I almost forgot," she says, and skips lightly back to the table. Pushing aside the aliossi stones she picks up a photograph. Returning, face bright, she shows it to him. It is of them, from before. The scientist and his wife, holding hands, and their daughter running across the frame, an unfocused blur, just a flash of blue eyes and black hair, as ethereal as a ghost. She smiles, hands it to him, and takes his other hand in hers. "Let's go, papa. I'm ready." Her hand is light, intangible. Like ashes scattering in a sudden breeze. . "Me too, my love," he says. Alone, the scientist closes the heavy door and the cleansing water rushes in.
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Jul 30, 2017 17:56
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In, I will take a room.
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Aug 1, 2017 13:48
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The Fisherman and the Eel 1497 words Sir William Merrow, the object of my obsession, stood at last before me. He was shorter than I'd expected; his head barely reached my shoulders. He was as beautiful as the papers always said: perfectly formed facial structures, olive skin smooth and unblemished, admirable physique (despite his lack of height), and eyes the perfect blue of a calm, deep ocean. Which made sense because Sir William was a merman. I must hasten to add that his fey heritage is not widely known. I paid quite a copper to learn his real identity—the old crone in my village does not do her magic for cheap. The face I chose to wear for this occasion cost slightly more, but desperate men are easily parted from their money. That and the last of my savings got me a ticket to Lord Domerci's birthday party and an opportunity for revenge. Money well spent if it could return to me my long lost wife and son. "Ah, it's a wonderful cocktail, yes?" Merrow sloshed the purple abomination in his glass around and took a deep slurp. "Fine enough, sir," I responded and took a guarded sip in order to look agreeable. The party was in full swing around us as proper gentlemen and ladies performed exquisite dances, their flawless gowns and suits spinning and twirling to the pulse of the orchestra. I knew none of them, of course—I was a simple fisherman, and these were not my people. They weren't drunks and vagrants and ne'er-do-wells, but with my newly purchased face neither was I—at least for tonight. Merrow's eyes started to wander and his attention began to drift. "Let me buy you another!" I said hastily, for he needed to be quite drunk for my plan's proper execution. It is widely known that mermen have but two vices: women and alcohol. And he was well on his way to becoming absolutely befuggered thanks to the steady course of drinks I'd been plying into him. He smiled and motioned to the bartender. I leaned in close. "I know your secret, Sir William Merrow," I whispered into a well shaped ear. His manicured eyebrow rose. "Do you now? And what secret is that, Mr..." he trailed off. "Apologies, I have forgotten your name." "Because I have not given it," I said. "I am Jonathon Steelbottom. You don't know me. My wife and son, on the other hand, you know well. It was you who took them from me" I expected protestations, feigned confusion, or belligerence. But instead I got a steady look. "I take what I want," he said. "And I make no excuses for it." He swiped another drink from the bartender and downed it, eyes never leaving my face. "It was a year ago, on this very night. My wife and I were walking the beach at dusk. My boy wanted to play in the surf, so I let him down from my shoulders. He chased crabs and minnows in the receding tide. He disappeared under the waves. My wife ran out to find him, and that's when I saw you." "Oh, you believe I was there? That I drowned your son?" His face showed no trace of mirth. "Because that is what cultured gentlemen do, yes? Hide in the shallows waiting to leap out and grab the worthless sons of worthless men. Yes, of course it was me." "It was you," I hissed. "I know who you really are. What you are. I saw you take my wife and son. Your hideous scales and corpuscled skin. The stink of fish on you. You swept her away, you sea-bastard, and now I'm here to offer myself in trade." Merrow chuckled. "And there it is. After an hour of suffering your presence you finally say something interesting." The dancers and party-goers faded into the background. It was just him and I. Yet he didn't seem as drunk as I'd hoped. "They're innocent. Let them go and take me instead." "That is quite a deal you offer. But what use would I have for you? You lack the, uh, equipment that I desire." "I know why you came for us and it isn't that. You could take any woman to be your concubine. This was different." "Maybe it was," he said. "But back to your offer. If I do have them—and I'm not claiming guilt!—why would I trade them for you?" "I think you and I both know. I'm ready to own up to what I've done. The question is: are you?" Merrow paused at this. Then he gave a half smile and nodded. "Let's go then!" he said and grabbed my arm. He dragged me across the dance floor, evading the spinning madness of silk and flowers and woolen suits until we reached the large fountain in the center of the ballroom. "You want to see your wife and son? You'd better hold your breath." He dove, dragging me, down into the blackness beneath the fountain. As he dove he transformed. Gone was the fashionable gentleman with fine, movie-star features. His legs fused into an ochre tail, bespotted with scales and slime. His torso withered and twisted into a crude charade of a human form — more like a contorted goblin than the ramrod-straight gentleman he appeared to be at the party. My lungs screamed and the pressure shot bolts of pain into my skull but at last we reached a cavern at the bottom of the sea. It was no mermaid's palace, but rather an accidental hollow in the coral that created a natural cave. In the back of the cave were six clay pots of enormous size. Merrow reached down and pulled a red stocking cap from a box on the floor. He placed it on my head and immediately the pressure in my lungs and head disappeared. I found I could breathe normally again. I was breathing water but somehow it felt like air. "Mr. Steelbottom," he said. "I've waited a long time for this moment. How ironic—the fish has cast the lure to catch the fisherman." "Let me see them. I need to know they are unharmed." Merrow motioned to the pots in the back of the cave. "You should look in all the pots. Then I think you will truly understand." I kept a close eye on him as I swam to the clay pots. A sinking feeling gripped my gut. In the first pot lay my wife, peacefully (albeit magically) asleep. And in the second I saw my son. Relief washed over me. They were safe. I could get them back. "Go ahead, look in the others," Merrow said, waving his gnarled hand. The third pot revealed Samuel, a boyhood friend who'd gone missing over twenty years ago. The fourth and fifth contained Ingrid and her brother Patrick, two of my other childhood friends who had disappeared in a boating accident a decade ago. I wished that seeing them was a surprise, but it wasn't. "We were kids," I protested. "We didn't know." But it was a lie. We knew. Samuel had caught it in his net. A grotesque thing, all scales and pale yellow skin. Barely three feet long, it squirmed and squealed and stank on the sand upon which we dumped it. We'd never seen anything like it. A real mer-boy, the aquatic infantile stage of the mermen, more fish than human. "Let's throw it back!" Ingrid argued, but Pat, Sam and I had other ideas. We experimented with it for days, tortured it, did what boys do to spiders and rodents and other helpless things. And it had died in the shed behind my house, in the secret box we stuffed it in to elude the eyes of my parents. Died of suffocation, or drying out, or from the probing sticks and knives to which we had subjected it. And when we did finally throw it back into the sea, it was a rotting, desiccated thing, pale and gray under the harsh light of the full moon. "A son for a son," Merrow said. "And one more pot to fill to complete my revenge." I spun around but he was there already, snatching the stocking cap from my head. Immediately the weight of the water pushed my down to my knees, and my mouth filled with brine. The pressure pushed it down my throat and the salt filled my lungs. I crumpled to the cave floor, fumbling feebly for the bronze knife the old crone had sold me, my swollen fingers finding no purchase. "Our deal," I gurgled. "They are innocent. Let them go and take me instead." Merrow swam above me, blocking the light that filtered through the cave entrance. "Justice is like an eel, Mr. Steelbottom," he hissed. It's a slippery beast. If you don't have a solid grip it might turn back 'round upon you." The pressure in my head doubled and the blackness closed in.
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Aug 7, 2017 03:54
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I'll take a movie and two Fleta specials.
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Aug 7, 2017 19:36
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Thanks everyone! I'll be over here parked comfortably on my laurels while Fleta does all the work.
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Aug 8, 2017 17:59
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IN A WORLD WITH A GOVERNMENT THAT GENETICALLY PROGRAMS ALL THE BABIES
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Aug 23, 2017 19:29
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flerp posted:
Day of the Dog 1084 words Everyone thought it would be the cockroaches that'd survive the apocalypse. Hell, I'm sure they did. But the creatures now that dominate our planet don't have six legs—they have four. Man's best friend, indeed. A nip at my calf and I stumble forward. My collar digs painfully at my neck as I'm yanked back into line. The wind cuts through the gaps in my ragged furs. The heavy reek of musk burdens the air, for today is a hunt. Ahead of me on the frozen chain is the new girl, Fala. We found her in the morning. She was a loner, a human without a pack. Starving, cold and desperate, she had no choice. Easy prey. I helped put her on the chains and collar and the muzzle. I know the secret she carries in her backpack. The dogs do too. They must smell it. They are waiting for lean times, for a failed hunt. I've seen it happen before. The screams and the hard crunch of tooth on bone are memories that do not fade. The line stops short and our heavy chains settle into the snowpack. The lead dog, who I've christened Ranger, bobs his head and sniffs the air, whimpering. He's caught a scent. The other dogs pause and low growls float through the drifting snow. The alpha dog, Fang, lopes forward. He is a terrible beast, easily my height at his shoulder, with dagger-like teeth and cold eyes that betray no fear, no pleasure. He controls the pack with brutal discipline. Even in sleep I can't escape his presence. He moves alongside Ranger and together they sniff the forest air. They both nod, then Fang gives a low bark. I head the herding dogs scuttle dogs behind me. Teeth sink into our calves and we lurch forward, our chains rising from the snow as the wind blows hard. Ahead is a clearing in the wood. That's where the ambush will lie. And we are the bait. There are just five of us. Five humans guarded by perhaps a hundred dogs. Bound by collars, chains, and muzzles, we're given the barest scraps necessary for survival. Others have joined the pack, and most have died—either in a hunt gone bad, or afterwards, torn apart by the pack desperate for food. Somehow I have survived, although I know my furs cover more scar tissue than actual skin. But we deserve it all. We hosed up the world and this is our penance. The air stills. The pack has melted away into the trees, leaving us in a rough circle in the middle of the clearing. Fala is beside me, her eyes wild. It's obvious she has never been in a hunt before. I lay a gnarled hand on her shoulder and look into her eyes. Muzzled, I cannot speak. I smile through the leather straps and try to grunt reassuringly. There's a moment of silence, then with a roar and three great strides the beast is upon us. A flash of fur and teeth and a giant paw shreds the man I called Gristle across the midsection. As he falls the chain jerks me down to the snow. I reach out and grab Fala by her lead as I tumble into the white. She lands on top of me, and I hear a small cry from her backpack. Rolling over, protecting her, I rise to my knees in time to see a second human fall to the deadly claws of the feline beast. A roar from behind me and the pack swarms over us, a blanket of fur and gnashing teeth. The cat-beast is overrun, falling backwards, keening loudly, its monstrous paws slashing back and forth, sending pack dogs flying as the snowfall turns red with spraying blood and gore. Under the maelstrom of death and fur, Fala rises beside me. In her hand is a knife. She grabs the back of my neck with her free hand. I raise my hands in defense, but her eyes show no malice. The knife slides between my collar and the skin beneath, and with a hard tug my collar falls away. Then she does the same to hers. Collars broken, we are no longer bound to the chain. Still the battle rages around us. The cat-beast is not going down easily, and broken dogs and humans litter the snow. I grab her hand and with heads low we break for the trees. We run and run until we have no breath, then collapse across a downed tree trunk. The sounds of the battle fade away in the blanketing snow. Fala hands me the knife and points to her muzzle. I nod, and carefully cut the frozen leather straps away. Then she does the same for mine. "Thank you," we both say in unison. If we weren't so exhausted we may have even smiled. "You are...with us?" Fala asks. I pause, then understand. "Yes. I have no...love for them. For the pack. The dogs." My words are thick. I haven't spoken in many seasons. 'Good. Because I have a—" "—I know. But so do they. They can..." "Of course. They can smell her. But I won't let them get her." "I'll help you," I say. It feels strange to talk. My jaw, unmuzzled, feels loose. Sloppy. "We need to find somewhere safe. Away from the packs, away from the cat-beasts." "I know a place." I say, but my words cause my gut to clench. I have been a part of the pack for so long that freedom is terrifying. I've kept the images and dreams from my past life buried. Survival does that to you. "Tell me," Fala says. I hesitate, but I know that we must go to the walled city. Where humans are free to live, without their dog- or cat-masters. Where I was born. From where I strayed, and was captured. "It's not too far," I say. Fala smiles. "Let's go there. Let's give my child a chance at life." A low growl behind us causes me to turn. Fang emerges from the falling snow, his fur crimson-streaked with blood, eyes black in the fading light. He's tracked us. He wants us back. But this time he's made a mistake. Back in the clearing the pack feasts on the cat-beasts flesh, and he's come alone. And many seasons of torture have hardened me to the sting of his bite. I grab the knife. He strikes.. But this time I strike back.
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Aug 28, 2017 06:04
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IN Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while
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Sep 5, 2017 19:18
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Djeser posted:morals are different from aphorisms Okay, read mine as "Even if you're a bind pig you should keep searching because you might find an acorn once in a while" rolls right off the tongue and thanks for the crit UP!
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Sep 6, 2017 01:08
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Old Breed 1057 words You squeeze the throttle and the engine burbles as the fishing boat slips quietly from the dock. The lake is glass, and the rising sun casts no heat upon the water. You pull your old denim jacket tight around you. Today is your ninety-second birthday. Later your son will come over with his brood of children and grandchildren, drink too much beer, berate his new wife or new girlfriend, tell raunchy jokes at which only he laughs. The little ones will ask you about the war. How many people did you kill? What was it like being taken prisoner? Your son will make a joke about Korean whores. Maybe this year he'll make it though dinner without passing out at the table. Maybe. All that is ahead of you. Now it's just you and the lake. And your fish. The tin boat wobbles as you steer it towards the lagoon. The water ahead is deep and choked with reeds. Perfect for fish. You reach into your tackle box but curse as a barbed hook rakes against the back of your hand. Pulling back sharply, you bring your hand to your mouth as the gash opens and blood weeps out. The taste of iron fills your mouth and everything is happening too fast to think "Get up here!" Jackson yells. "Gimme smoke!" Scrambling up the ridge, knees and shins bloodied by broken roots and debris, you unclip the grenade and hurl it towards the pillbox. Jackson's machine gun thunders in your ear as he pummels the Japanese fortification. "Jesus gently caress are you slow!" Jackson's eyes are wide, unfocused. He grabs the WP grenade from the satchel and charges forward into the billowing smoke and you blink and the goddamn blood thinners make the gash on your hand bleed worse that it should. You find an old rag on the bottom of the boat and press it down, hard. It seems to help, for now. A heavy splash in the reeds ahead. You grab the blood-flecked lure and though the cold air and pain in your joints work against you it soon sails over the water. With a quiet splash the lure sinks down into the black. Where you know he is waiting. The long years have taught you to be patient. You don't reel in right away. You know he's curious. You just have to give it more time. Time is the key. And there it is: that familiar tug. Sharp, probing. Your throat tightens. You'll only get one chance to set the hook. Another tug and you snap the rod up and the explosion knocks you backwards and Jackson is a black outline against the white smoke, and he's jumping up and down, but it's not his screaming that you hear, it's the Japanese soldiers pouring out of the back of the pillbox, exploding ammo belts ripping them apart and then the 47mm shells in the pillbox detonate and chunks of concrete rain down the hillside around you and you set the hook, and he's caught on the far end of your line, and he's big. Feels like the biggest fish you've ever caught on this lake and goddamn if you're going to let this one get away. You'll bring it in and show everyone at the party that even though you're goddamn ninety-two years old you can still fish, and you'll clean it right in front of everyone with your old trench knife which you'll pull down from the case where you keep it next to your medals and your eyes burn like white coals but though the smoke you see a Japanese soldier running and so you stumble to your feet and chase him across the ragged bramble. You don't stop and aim and shoot, that doesn't seem right. He's injured: one arm ends just below the shoulder in a riot of blood and fabric and tissue. He's screaming too, probably, but you can't hear him because your ears aren't working right. Then you're on top of him and your knife presses hard on his throat and you're looking right into his eyes, wild and primal, and he's gasping and crying out in words you don't understand,. Your knife hand is slick with sweat as you press down and a final heave and you've got him up to the boat. You scoop him in your net and pull him aboard. He flips and twists, spines puncturing fresh wounds in your hands as you try to hold him down to remove the hook. You finally get two hands on him and press him firmly down onto the metal floor of the boat. He's a beauty. Deep sea-green with ochre flecks, smooth and muscular and perfect. And big, too—easily seven pounds.. His mouth works in desperate gasps as he tries to draw water over his gills, and you realize you are breathing just as hard, in unison with your prey, and yet his eyes are still, unmoving, so very different from the last time when you carve a deep furrow in the soldier's neck, blood pouring our, and you've killed him, and then you look up and see Jackson, fifteen yards away kneeling over a Japanese corpse, hacking away at his scalp, grinning, laughing gleefully, as the others rush up the slope, and your trench knife is in your hand, inked with fresh blood, and you aren't thinking, you just want this goddamn war to end, and so you begin to cut, too, and a great blue heron bobs it's head on the shore, regarding you, it's blue crown rippling gently in the morning breeze. The water is still and peaceful, broken only by the small waves you caused in your battle against the fish. He lies on the floor of the boat and has stopped his struggle. He is tired. And so are you. Sometimes things just have to end. With a twist, you pull the lure from his mouth. His body spasms hard, desperate, as if anticipating your next move. But you don't. Carefully, almost lovingly, you ease the great beast over the gunwale and down into the water. The sun has risen and the water glows a soft pink. With barely a ripple the fish disappears back into the depths. Sometimes things just have to end. To end. Moral: Old sins cast long shadows.
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Sep 11, 2017 02:22
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 Thunderdome #267 - The Horror....the horrorFor this week's theme you will write in the genre of horror. Any type is fine, from body-horror to alien-horror to suspense-horror to just plain gore-horror. BUT FIRST, go to this page full of terrible album covers and pick one; use it as inspiration for your story. Believe me, there's plenty of horror to be uncovered there. Please post your picture on your sign-up post; only one writer can use each cover. Now I don't mind a little blood, but keep in mind that you need to write an actual story, with characterization, plot, setting and all the other bits that go into good TD writing. Beware: the judges will be wading through the shock and gore and grossness looking for those important little nuggets to determine the winners (and losers). No erotica, fanfiction, etc., per usual. The word limit is 2000 so go nuts! Sign-ups due by Friday September 15th when the clock strikes midnight Eastern; Stories due by Sunday September 17th when the bells toll at midnight Eastern. Judges: Hawklad Sitting Here Flesnolk Victims: Uranium Phoenix QuoProQuid SurreptitiousMuffin Exmond Benny Profane MockingQuantum RandomPaul Thranguy Captain_Indigo FouRPlaY Djeser Burkion Jay W. Friks Okua Mag7 derp Pippin Tyrannosaurus After the War Hawklad fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Sep 16, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 00:40
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 09:20 |
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Signups closed!
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Sep 16, 2017 10:57
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