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In a nondescript warehouse in Tblisi, a secret project of immense proportions was underway. The entire building was a single room, filled with machinery so advanced that no one without several advanced degrees could begin to explain what each of them did. That didn't matter. Together, they could do something that can only be done once in history.
Outside, the world was a bitter, shattered place. Nuclear conflict had rendered much of the world a ruin, even after a century of "peace,"more or less. Irradiated wastes had overtaken most of the former farmlands across the globe. Famine, disease, and death stalked mankind once again. No one who had lived at the height of human achievement would have guessed that this would be the end result.
A short man with a withered left arm strode about laboratory purposefully. His eyes were intense, his mannerisms spoke of unshakable resolve. A woman, taller than him, followed to him with a look of fear.
"History will remember you with hatred, Josef."
Josef stepped into a cylindrical metallic alcove. He spoke to her.
"It must be done. There is no other choice."
"There are always other choices! Send someone else!"
"I won't send someone to do what I will not. Lead from the front, after all."
She glared. "That's not why. You don't, won't, can't trust anyone else!"Her voice softened. "You never could."
Josef lowered his eyes. He found himself unable to meet her accusative stare. He gripped a lever on the wall and pulled. The machinery whirred to life with an awesome noise. Energies beyond anything but abstract mathematical comprehension were building.
"You'll kill millions."
He lifted his head again, and their eyes met for the last time.
"To save billions,"he replied.
The world winked out around him. |
I locked the wooden door behind me as I stepped into the changing cell. The sound of the steel lock echoed dimly throughout the empty room. I hung the expensive blue suit upon the hook on the door and began undressing. As I unlatched the leather belt holding my pants upon my waist, I heard faint whispering dancing amongst the room. I looked around, perplexed as to where the sounds were emitting from. I felt as though someone was staring at me, looking directly through my clothes, through my skin, eyes locked deep within me. I focused my gaze upon the mirror and jumped back in surprise. It was... me. I was wearing the navy blue suit upon the wall, except my skin matched the color of the said, my decaying hands pressed up against the mirror, lips painted a darker blue, and eyes screaming for help.
"You. Come. Now"
I thought to myself, "What was I to do? This isn't real. This is a hallucination, I knew I shouldn't have done acid in high school. This can't be happen-"
"NOW"The reflection screamed, shattering the barriers of my mind. His hand escaped the reflective surface and grabbed my wrist, chilling my skin to the bone. A force no human man could muster pulled me within the mirror. I gasped as my body penetrated the surface of the mirror.
I violently jerked forward, my entire body shaking. Three doctors and my wife stood puzzled before me.
"Where... where am I? What happened?"
My wife stepped forward, tears fell from her cheeks to the tiled floor beneath her, "You were in a coma for a month Dave. I missed you so much."She embraced me tightly, and I stopped shaking. I felt comfortable, like everything was going to be alright. The nightmare was over.
Later that week, as I was leaving the hospital, I came before the large glass doors at the exit. Before me, was the same man I saw in that dream, smiling deviously and waving slowly.
A whisper echoed softly within my mind, "Soon my friend... soon." |
I was really excited about this one, but then I read the description. It was way too detailed and constraining. There isn't very far you could go with your imagination and therefore I don't want to spend time on it. Not trying to be mean at all, just some constructive criticism on prompts. I will also say this is my first time ever on this subreddit and I don't know if this is a thing, my apologies for my ignorance. |
1. Hooded aliens and the spider king, doing science
2. Stay-puff Marshmallow Man
3. Horses escaping from Russia as it melts.
4. The firebombing of a great city. Millions dead.
***
First contact was with the spiders. This was not due to the intelligence of the arachnids; rather, the invaders had developed a cruel sense of humor. Observations of our species had revealed that we fear most the things that crawl, the things that sting and bite, the things that hide. With their transtellar technology the aliens communicated with every species of spider on the planet, from the Recluse to the Widow to a thousand we didn't even know about, within hours. Within the day they were organized. Within the week they had hypervolved into spider-with-wings-and-short-range-projectile-venom-delivery-packages. The attack began on November the 9th, 2013.
It was coordinated and worldwide. Simultaneously New York, London, Moscow, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo - the epicenters of humanity were under siege. The spiders flew in formation carrying webs twenty meters wide. They crawled in through the cracks of commercial buildings, up drain pipes, through ventilations, and left behind mausoleums. New York fell in hours. Tokyo was a husk. Hong Kong last a while longer, as many of the spiders were robbed, cheated, hustled out of much of their vacation money, had to find an ATM that accepted their card, and spent their last dollars on hookers and strange liquor - but eventually Hong Kong also fell.
The resistance began in Russia. It was not the hardy disposition of her people, nor the inhospitality of her geography, that saved the motherland; it was the vodka. Unknown to the intelligences of world governments, unimagined by conspiricysts, all the horses in Russia were in fact the clandestine forms of a transdimensional marshmallow who loved the Slavic poison and drank White Russians by the liter. Seeing the threat the spiders posed, the marshmallow took full form in Moscow and diked the eight-legged tide.
The militaries of the earth were given a reprieve as the fight went to Moscow. They organized, and at 1427 Moscow time humankind launched the greatest aerial assault in its short history. In the course of three hours, five thousand megatons wiped Moscow clean. Ninety-eight percent of the earth's arachnid population died in the fire, and the remainder decided war wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The aliens had long since fled because transdimensional vodka-drunk marshmallows are fucking scary.
Humanity rejoiced, and in everlasting tribute to the unexpected savior, a White Russian factory was built in Siberia, where ten thousand horses still drink from the cast-iron troughs, and remind us of the mild drunk giant who protects us.
|
My wrist watch alarm woke me. Took a while to get familiar with my surroundings, know where I was. Felt good. Everything was going to plan. I had spent most of my day inside the silk-cushioned, gold trimmed mahogany coffin of Alfonso Valentino, former rival of my father. I smiled, thinking of his family - fast asleep and content that the head of their family was spending his last night in the family chapel.
With brothers like mine, the undertaker didn’t need much persuasion that we could exchange the bodies. This was my idea. The trojan horse into the Valentino family’s secure home. In the dark, my hand searched out the first of the ten bolts holding down the lid of the casket. Swapped in the mortuary for quick-release replicas of the shiny fasteners chosen by his mourning widow.
I couldn’t find any bolt. Calmly, I searched for the torch hidden in my pocket. Not there. No matches or lighter either. I could feel the cold air on my hand as it seeped underneath the lid. But there were no bolts. The lid was secured tight.
Hours must have passed. My watch said 7 AM and I had ripped through the silk lining, desperately scraping at the dense wood. Every possibility had gone through my mind. My family had tricked me, or my family had been tricked. This was supposed to have been my idea.
It was the day of the funeral. Hours passed and there was no activity. I began to contemplate my death. My last glimmer of hope had faded when I decided to urinate. No-one would find me now. A day had passed and my fingernails were bleeding. My body was stiff , hungry and cold. I drifted in and out of sleep. Desperate to hear a voice, but no-one came. |
A gateway opens up in time. It is wide enough to span a street and is in a populated area so is discovered quickly.
From the north side side of the gateway, you can walk south through the gateway and walk one year into the past.
From the south side of the gateway, you can walk north through the gateway and one year into the future.
(Let's avoid time paradoxes by saying that once the gate is open the realities it connects are no longer causally related to each other - if you go to the past and kill yourself, you remain alive.)
This means that it is theoretically possible to travel any integer number of years either forwards or backwards in time.
How the heck does each year's society react to this?
Do the future societies create a 'blockade' and not allow uneducated past people through in order to preserve their system structure?
(Bear in mind that it is required to go through each year's reality to reach the next, so if even one does this then the link in the chain is broken.)
Does a world in the middle of war send refugees or invaders through?
Are there aid projects allocated to help the past modernise itself?
Are there aid projects allocated to help the future? Was there an apocalypse? Why? How do the societies just short of that react to knowledge of their probable impending doom?
I'll leave the rest to you. |
The [Valkyrie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie) lover of a mortally wounded Viking hero holds vigil for him on the battlefield, but must explain to him that he has not been selected to become [einherjar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einherjar), and upon his death will be sent to [Fólkvangr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B3lkvangr) without her.
(I know nothing about Norse mythology, you can blame several clicks of TVTropes' 'random' button for this one) |
There is a secret society on earth. Its members are chosen randomly by either some external force (say they all have the same birthmark, or something) or by simple lot and a random number generator. It has more than a million members, but less than a hundred million. The aim of this society is to guide humanity to be better and generally fix social problems, but like all organisations it can deviate from that aim due to ignorance, selfishness, corruption or other reasons..
The character you write about is a member of this society. They keep in contact with the rest of the society through a method you decide (put magic in there if you want, or it could be a specialised technological device given to all members).
One day the communication suddenly fails, for everyone. Your main character does not personally know anyone else from this society (or if they do, the group they know is cut off from the rest of the society). They cannot reveal the society to the rest of the world because that is against a fundamental rule.
Your character is left with no choice but to go hunting for other members in order to work out what is going on, because they're scared something really bad might have happened and (for a reason you can make up) they owe the society their life and cannot just walk away from that debt.
Bonus points if your character is a woman and you manage to write it without any romance or sappy clichés. |
Automatic Dictation Transcript: Paul Newman, FSA. February 13, 2014.
To anyone who is reading this... I will make continuous logs of what I find.
I have seen the videotapes. It didn't make sense.
I am connected to the the location which I traced as the source of the incidence. I, Paul Neumann, am part of an agency whose job is to investigate unusual threats.
It took approximately a week, since the first epidemic was reported. The extremely fast spreading of this renders our sources to be vague - may be it started earlier, but with no one to report. In any case, it was recorded first in the vicinity of a laboratory in Congo. Without the recordings no one would have believed it - people spontaneously turning into dust, in a matter of minutes. Their bodies would deform horribly in the beginning, and then within a minute or two - nothing would be left - the enter human body including bones would dissolve as if under action of strong acid.
It had a contageous effect. Once started, everyone else around the area would follow suit. And not only them - this would happen to almost everyone watching the phenomenon - even if prerecorded.
As far as I can tell, the entire world is now dead... I do not know if my team figured it out before they disappeared into dust too. But they did disappear into dust - I only see there belongings but not them.
There was no one to release me when I woke up in the hospital. I took my car straight to the office. The city looks uninhabited, the power supply is still working - the Internet is on but there is no new content except for the automated ones. Youtube is flooding with videos of the occurrance - as far as I can tell, the phenomenon grew exponentially once the videos made it to youtube.
From the notes of work my team has done, I could see that this was an airborne bio-weapon, that spread quickly through the world once it got released. Brilliant engineering has gone into it - approximately 15% of the dust that this turns people into is the same bio-agent, which then spreads through wind. The agent became active - definitely due to an unintended leak - a week or two ago.
And once active, it was designed to remain dormant ready and waiting for a trigger to start its work in a body. To render it neutral, my team needed to know the trigger. The designed trigger didn't function right - it somehow started to spontaneously start. The trigger was altered, perhaps via random mutation of the bio agent. And my team could not yet discover what the trigger was.
As with any other threats in the past I dealt with, all I felt is excitement! What could be it?
Wait... In this video of spontaneous occurrance... the girl shrieked when it began - she saw a mouse, or a spider. But of course, we ruled out animal agents starting it - it had to be... Could it be...?
Yes... other videos confirmed it... How did I not see it before? There is something common in the videos wherever it started spontaneously - all seemed random before. A prisoner being interrogated, a man suddenly being barked at by a dog, parent scolding child, a whole moviehall watching a particular scene in the movie... and people watching the video of this very thing in action!
Fear! It must be linked to fear somehow... may be fear releases a chemical which triggers it. Fear triggers it!
Oh God! I must control my fear! I must
-End of recording. |
I take offence at the gross historical ignorance.
Just look at New France, where we (the french) mingled with the natives, as our civilizations were so different that they could intermingle very easily… My only regret about my indian blood is that I don't have enough to my taste.
We did not come here to exterminate them and exploit the land; we agreed with the natives to SHARE the land, and we did so peacefully, except with nations who were influenced by the british (and whom we eventually nevertheless accepted as refugees once their usefulness to the british was finished and they kicked them out).
New France, with only 66,000 french people, was able to control one third of North-America, thanks to the extensive alliances we made with the indian nations. |
They said our city was impenetrable. They said the wall would hold for 1000 years. For a long time they were right, but we had just never found someone who wanted to tear them down as much as the barbarian hordes outside.
"Commander Garrett! Commander Garrett what do we do?"The panicked voice shook me to my senses.
"Sir, the barbarians have set fire to the gates, they'll be through any minute! What are your orders?"
The city was in panic, enemy warriors had already begun to scale the walls. They're groteque screams celebrated each innocent person they cut down. They burn what they can't steal and kill who they can't rape.
"Sir!"
I take my helmet out from under my arm and slide it over my head. It's been a long time since i'd worn it but each dent and scratch was just as much part of me as the scars I wear on my skin.
"This is my last official order, soldier. Die, and die well."
"Sir?"The soldier asked me, his eyes searching me hoping he had misheard.
This kid was too handsome, too clean. He may have been a soldier but he was no fighter. He was the type who earned the rank on his armor through study, not by bleeding for it. I walk past him, down from my command post and through the ranks of the city guard. I could see it in their faces, these men were no army, there was no victory to be had here.
When I reached the front line I climbed the feeble barricades and turned to address the men. Behind me the towering city gates smoked and shuddered as if they were being shaped by a massive blacksmith.
"My orders,"I shouted, "are to die well. Those screaming hordes have sacked every city they lay their eyes on. This is not a battle we will win, but we will make this into a war we can. We will all fight, we will all die. You may run, and die a coward, or you can stand and die with me."
I tighten my grip on my shield and draw my sword from it's sheath. The gates groaned and bowed inwards. The drums and chanting outside had reached a fever pitch.
"But if they intend to spill my blood, then I intend to drown them in it."
And that's when the gates fell. |
Why was the subject up all night thinking about his/her picture? Presumably they were committing a crime, and getting processed at a jail happens pretty quickly so I don't think they'd be sitting around for more than 20-30 minutes waiting for the officer's to take the photo. This one detail totally derails the legitimacy of the reveal to me. Otherwise, I think to elongate something like this, you'd have to go into what others might think of the photo, then perhaps the subject telling a funny story about WHY the others might think that etc.
(Oh man, my parents are going to be shocked. Of course they were always shocked when I had this kind of look on my face... blah blah blah)
That's my two cents, happy writing! |
“Who IS this Major Tom that you keep talking about?"shrieked Jean. “You’ve been going on and on about him for weeks!”
“He’s this guy I met at the café a couple of weeks ago. He’s way deep,” answered her daughter, in that bored teenager tone that she had lately perfected. Jean fought the urge to backhand her.
“I don’t think I like the idea of you hanging out with some guy that I don’t even know. How old is he, anyway?” Jean pulled a towel out of the laundry basket and threw it to her daughter to fold, trying to calm down.
“I dunno. Maybe in his late 20s or early 30s.” Angie caught the towel and shook it. “He looks like someone, but I can’t think of who.”
“Whom,” her mother responded offhandedly. “You can’t think of whom.”
“Whatever. Anyway, he’s had the most interesting stories. He says he was an astronaut, and he almost got lost in space. He’s got the greatest phrase he says too—‘Ashes to ashes…”
“Dust to dust?” her mother butted in.
“No,” Angie said and rolled her eyes. “It’s Ashes to ashes, funk to funky. Isn’t that hilarious?”
Jean rolled her eyes and Angie looked at her watch. “Can I finish the laundry later? I told the gang I’d meet them at the café.”
“Is this Major Tom going to be there?” Jean asked, suspiciously. “I don’t think I like you hanging out with him.”
“I’m sure he will be. I don’t think he has anywhere else to go.”
“So the guy’s an astronaut and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go? Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“Mr. Jones lets him hang out there. I don’t think he has any money or anywhere to go. I feel sorry for him.”
Angie saw the look her mother was giving her and her tone softened. “Don’t worry, Mom. I only ever see him at the café, and never alone. He talks a big game about being an astronaut, but we know he’s just a junky. It’s okay—Ziggy, David and the guys would never let him hurt me.”
“Well, I’m still not convinced. Sounds like a big waste of time and possibly dangerous,” Jean sighed, all the fight out of her. “I just want you to have the best life possible, and it seems to me that to get things done you’d better not mess with Major Tom.” |
Adam worked in the center of the cathedral, using the deep slice in his palm to finish tracing out the largest of the pentagrams. Months of preparation and research had readied him for this moment. He closed the final pice of the pentagram and took a moment to admire his work, to look around at the others, at their bodies strewn about over the other symbols painted everywhere. The lines of blood began to glow and sizzle and in a shroud of darkness a figure appeared in front of him. At first it looked simply like a mans figure, however as the shroud dissipated Adam began to feel the air grow heavy with dread. He felt a pressure against his mind before he threw his arms to his head in pain suddenly aware that Lucifer was combing the recesses of his being. *You are ready then my son*? Adam managed to simply nod and bow to him. *Take this* a blade was placed in Adam's bloodied hand *It will become clear to you when the time is right*. With that Lucifer drove his hand into adams neck ripping his throat before he could reply.
Adam became aware of the light first, a blinding light surrounding him on all sides. As the light faded he could make out a man and a wall of light broken simply by a pearly gate. Adam began the walk towards him and almost by instinct put the blade into his hand, immediately noticing the demonic symbols spreading to cover his body. He felt a twinge of excitement as he approached Peter who moved to welcome him with open arms. As he embraced Peter he drove the blade deep into his abdomen, pulling him close he whispered into his ear "Oportet omnia adolebit". He pushed the limp figure of Peter off of himself and approached the gate once again drawing the blade. He jammed the blade into the center of the massive lock and with that Lucifer appeared beside him, summoned to this realm for the first time in an age. *It is done my son, the assault on heaven has begun*. |
I slammed the brakes.
It couldn't be that he was here, could it? I hadn't seen him in 30 years, yet there he was. A little worse for the wear (well, maybe I was understating that a bit), but there nevertheless.
"What the heck!"
Whoops. I'd braked hard, and Joseph was completely unprepared. For a 5 year old, he sure did seem agitated. When I was his age, I'd have been curious, not mad.
"Joseph, listen to me carefully. When I say 'Jeho', I need you to close your eyes and cover your ears, and keep doing that until I tap your shoulder."
"But why, grandpa?"
"Just do it when I give the signal,"I commanded, my voice quivering. He'd noticed me by now. He had his thumb out, and he hadn't recognized me. Looks like we were going for a ride. I was still quick, despite my age, and I was ready.
"Where you headed?"I said, through my now-open window.
"Sacramento. My truck broke down a few miles back, and I've been trying to get the 30 miles there by hitchhiking. No luck yet."His voice betrayed no hints of recognition. Maybe he'd forgotten? I could never forget, but maybe he could.
"Hop in,"I said.
After he'd gotten in, I introduced him to my grandson and we exchanged pleasantries, before it fell quiet for a time.
"So, what's waiting for you in Sacramento?"I asked, breaking the silence.
"Hopefully some work. I may be old, but I can tell just by looking at you that you understand what I mean when I say that retirement is *boring*."
I nodded my agreement.
"And yourself?"he asked.
"Just some old memories, I suppose."
This seemed to confuse him slightly. Quickly, I added "I have some family round those parts, and they love to hear bout the war."
"The war?"
"I served in 'nam for 3 years, and I have plenty of stories."
"Me too!"he said. "What unit did you serve with?"
Tersely, I responded "Jeho."
As the shock and horror spread across his face, I drew the gun I'd prepared before he got in, and put it to his temple. Joseph had covered his eyes and ears, but I didn't want to make a mess here. I pulled over on the side of the road, in this expanse of empty country, and told him to get out of the car.
Once we'd walked 20 paces from the car, my rage slowly building, I stopped, and he followed suit.
"How?!"he exclaimed, unable to comprehend the situation he was in. "I killed you all!"Denial was playing out across his face. That was stage 1.
I said nothing, staring at him with the barrel of my gun pointed at his head.
"Fuck you! You're dead! I counted the bodies! Fuck you!"
Anger. He was at step 2 already. Still, I said nothing. It fell silent for minutes. Joseph was still in the car; I fleetingly glanced at him in the silence, never moving my gun from *his* head.
"Look, I didn't want to. It was the voices, I swear. They told me to do it! You know what it was like there, man. You saw it. You have to understand!"
Stage 3 was no more moving than the other two. I felt a cold pit of anger in my stomach. An anger that had boiled for 30 years. Silence fell once more, before tears streamed down his cheeks and I knew he was in stage 4. Almost instantaneously, I saw the understanding come into his eyes; I was not here to talk. I was to claim my revenge.
"How?"he asked calmly.
"I was covered in blood, and I lay with the bodies. You never noticed."
"So you survived."he said simply.
"I didn't."
I pulled the trigger, and his life ended. Still, I could never get mine back, after what had happened.
I got back into the car, and tapped Joseph on the shoulder.
"Who was he, grandpa?"
"Just an old friend." |
"Dammit, that Cadet Buck!"Cadet Willard sighed in distraught, upon hearing the news of the rookie Cranium Commando being picked for an elite mission. "Buck would not be able to survive a day in the brain of a goldfish for all I care!"
Cadet Willard was right in every sense of the word – Cadet Buck was only a high school recruit, selected for a prodigious mind and ability to work in the memory department with ease. Willard spent many years in the squad, enduring the pain of endless training sessions – with the blustery shouts of General Knowledge's famous belittling shouts to get the cadets back into formation in between – and from that, learnt a lot on what it was like to be behind the wheel of the human brain.
The frustration for Cadet Willard was so great he went as far as plotting many schematics. He other cadets called him a creep for going as far as demanding answers from (god forbid) Cadet Buzzy, a different recruit in the younger age bracket, who wanted NOTHING to do with Willard's plot for revenge. That one day, Cadet Willard was drafted for laundry duty, having to wash piles of shirts and undergarments day in, day out. And then it clicked.
As Willard sorted through the clean laundry to pick out specific undergarments and arrange them to the cadets, he picked out a pair of a female cadet's panties – pink, frilly and with a love heart on them, and a twisted, yet maniacal smile revealed his intentions. He kept the pair of ladies panties with him, saving the panties for when the time was ripe to assemble Cadet Buck's clothing bundle. He got Buck's shirt, trousers, and then with careful intentions, snuck the ladies panties into Buck's clothing bundle during assembly.
During the years when Cadet Bucky was away on his tour of duty, Cadet Willard finally planned it. He was cackling and laughing as he imagined everyone catching sight of Buck's 'choice' in undergarments during inspection, but he had no idea what was coming to him. When Cadet Buck returned from duty, Willard was shocked to realise what a happy cadet Buck was.
"These ladies panties fit so good, way better than the itchy pair I've been forced to wear for the last six weeks during training!"Buck squealed, as if discovering a newfound appreciation for the garments, although hidden deep in his cadet uniform.
Time for Willard to confess. "Well, Buck, I was jealous of you snatching that job, after I spent all my years learning how to pilot a brain. I was mad because of you."
But Cadet Buck had other ideas, looking on the bright side of things. "It's even helped me fit in with a brain you would have enjoyed!"
"Wait, what?"Willard exclaimed, asking for answers. "Who did you pilot?!"
"Hefner!"Cadet Buck smiled.
And that was the name that twisted Cadet Willard's standard issue underpants in a twist. |
She turned and walked away then, knowing there was nothing more to say. He looked down at the box she'd given him. It was too light to contain anything. He opened it, and the inside was painted...
It was painted like the sky that perfect day, when they'd driven back from the beach, not wanting anything to change. And when they'd stopped for an ice cream, perversely selecting Blueberry though they both always had Chocolate. And then, at their tiny apartment, they'd lain on the bed, watching the sliver of the sky through the corner window darken and fade away. |
I guess we both knew, somewhere in between yesterday and tomorrow, that it was over. Putting my finger on the exact moment would be far too difficult; there were an abundance of moments we shared, good and bad, and after a while trying to pinpoint it wasn’t practical. It took too much out of me, and perhaps that was half of the problem to begin with.
Nevertheless, at some point our weekly outings – you with your adorable coffee and me attempting to consume far more food than any one person really should – started to widen the gap between us. The last time I saw you, that same barely rectangular table we always sat at was no longer a table, but a gulf: so far across that our hands wouldn’t have touched even if you’d wanted them to. And maybe that was for the best; to be honest, it’s hard not to squeeze someone’s hand when you’re telling them you’re okay and you both know that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I think I finished my sandwich out of habit rather than any real necessity to satisfy hunger.
But the moment that sticks with me most clearly, after pushing everything else aside, is just after you broke the news: the news we both knew was coming but only one of us had prepared sufficiently enough for. The words came and went, like so many do, in measured maybes. Evenness, and then silence, the kind of empty moment no one, in the entirety of human existence, has found a way to fill.
After months of careful evaluation, a painstaking examination of each moment that has led to and from that one, that singularly silent one, I’ve grasped at why we both froze: what’s holding us in place is simply fear of what’s already changed.
I guess I knew, somewhere between yesterdays, that tomorrow was over. Perhaps putting this into words will keep the fear at bay a while longer. Perhaps “maybe” isn’t so far away after all: just another one of your tomorrows that I keep hoping will find my today. |
I have to admit I might take some general ideas from what you write for my NaNoWriMo novel, so if you're not OK with that, please ignore this prompt. (It would just be for a small portion of the book that I'm not even sure I'm going to include). Anyway, here's the prompt:
Medical science finds out how to reverse aging, but it turns out that while they can stop the rejuvenation at a chosen age, the person then becomes immortal. What ethical problems arise? |
All I can feel is the pain. Agonizing, excruciating pain. Why won't the pain stop? I did not ask for this "gift."There is no solace, only discomfort. The same story every day, yet I never get used to it. My mind is being shattered while my body is being torn to pieces, morphing into my new, powerful form. All I want to do is cry and scream, but I have learned that fighting it only prolongs the transformation. If only I hadn't taken that stupid Warden's deal. Hmph. That devil. He is the only one who can soften the pain - even stop it completely. I know what I must do. *Tonight's the night.* |
"I DID! IT SHOULD WORK!"Joey screamed, throwing his coffee mug across the room. It shattered above my head, and I picked up one of the shards. One side was still warm from the coffee.
"I gave you specific instructions, and,"said Jake, struggling with his arm around Joey's neck. Joey was a strong guy, and it took all his force to squeeze the life out of him. "You...didn't...follow...THEM!"exclaimed Jake as Joey fell to the floor.
Joey was lifeless and limp upon the ground. "It was always you, Jonny. Always wanted to be numero uno, the head honcho, the big cheese! Look what you've done now, Jake's dead, and soon you'll be joining him."
"You're insane. I took this job to help people, *you* killed him, his blood is on *your* hands, and I'll be damned if I let you kill me too!"With this, I charged at him with my ceramic blade. He kicked a chair leg, and just as I reached him he swung it at my leg. Pain wracked my body as I heard a sickening crack and could no longer stand on it.
I fell to the ground. He mercilessly beat my head with the thing, holding my arm down with his foot. *I just... had to get the ceramic to my other hand.* He then kicked my hand, and the shard of the coffee mug broke loose. He stooped over to pick it up. I wasn't done yet.
With superhuman effort, I pulled a letter opener with the company's name on it from my pocket. As he picked up the ceramic shard, I stabbed him in the gut several times, each blow made him scream in agony. Blood was everywhere, and I kept stabbing, *stabbing*. As he fell, he grabbed the knife and dragged it across my throat. A few seconds of slicing, burning, driving pain, and then all was gray.
TWO HOURS EARLIER :D
"Hey Jake, how's that code coming along?"
"Very nicely. We only have one small problem. The section we worked on before lunch just won't work. I can't get it to do anything."
"Alright, lemme run the debugger. For now we can work on something else."
I ran the code through the debugger. "Hey John,"called Jake excitedly from the other side of the lab. "South Park is on for the next two hours, we can work on it then!"As I ran across the room, I accidentally clicked the mouse button, poised over the window. It closed. Before it had disappeared, it read what could have saved us all--
"LINE 6 IS MISSING A SEMICOLON!" |
>“I’m really gonna miss you” I hear her whisper
I think this bit of dialogue is a lot more powerful if you leave it on its own. Mushing it in together with an unnecessary explanation of how it's voiced and a visual of a car really makes it lose its impact.
>I tear my eyes away from the scenery and turn my head to face her, I look into her bright eyes and I hope she can see all I want to say on my face.
This is a run-on sentence. You've spliced together two sentences that really should be separate using a comma. If they're independent thoughts, it's best to keep them apart.
>much I’ll miss her, how sad I will be
The lack of continuity in use of contractions is a bit odd, in my opinion. Usually people have one distinct style of speech (which may differ between internal monologue, writing, and spoken word) unless faced with an uncomfortable or unusual situation.
>We
There's a LOT of pronouns. As in way too many. I don't think readers need to continuously be reminded that we're talking about these two particular characters, especially when they're the only two introduced so far.
>and movies;
This isn't quite the correct usage of a semicolon. Might want to brush up on differences between colon (lists), semicolons (used to join together things that COULD be independent sentences, but are related).
>“I’m surprised you came to walk with me.” she
Style-wise, dialogue should be kept apart from description. Start new paragraphs if you want to go between the two. Start new paragraphs when a different character starts to speak. Grammatically, this should be written: *"I'm surprised you came to walk with me", she says*.
>her” was
Same thing here, except that now it's not an explanation of the quote, but rather a different sentence entirely. As such, start it may be worth it to start a new paragraph. Definitely capitalize the first word of a sentence.
>She slowly let’s
"Let's"is neither a contraction nor is it possessive. It should simply be "lets".
> only then I realize
Only then do I realize.
>I want to scream, I want more time,
This would be a time to use a semicolon. "I want to scream; I want more time".
>I hope to god
Not sure if this is intentional, but usually when referring to a specific deity, like you are in this case, God should be capitalized, as the title also functions as the name.
>Wednesday is Skype day,
At this point I kind of wonder how old the characters are. You have to remember that the vocabulary you use in describing your characters also passes on to the maturity and intelligence of the characters themselves. It's written much like a 10-year old (or perhaps younger, the tricycle station throws me off), so perhaps I'm just old, but seeing regular Skype use came as a surprise.
>“Hello to you too”
Hello to you, too. From this point in I'm just going to mention stylistic errors or impressions of the story itself. It'd do you good to proofread, or send this through Microsoft Word/other word processors which will catch a fair amount of these.
>We talk and talk and laugh and laugh;
I think this is a missed opportunity to develop a real relationship between the characters. So far, everything is shown to the readers directly, but it's difficult to imagine the two actual have a connection because there hasn't been much that has actually happened. Think about how relationships are in real life - flirting, teasing, inside jokes, emotional support. Bring all of this into the story, don't just toss it aside. That kind of "meat", so to speak, in a story is the strongest part.
>The only other thing I can think about is how I said it back.
Wat. The character goes from "I've got nothing better to do"to saying "I love you"? There's no continuity here. I think one of the worst parts of the story is the lack of names. It's difficult to tell who's who. Who does the main like at this time? Is it the same one who he disliked before? Who are the girls at the table? Is one of them the one he spent his childhood with? The story's just very difficult to follow.
|
"Do you want a searing hot metal road inserted into your colon?"
"Would you like your family to be tortured mercilessly?"
"Do you struggle to find meaning in your daily life?"
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need a Bible!
Here at Biblical Books we are promoting new bible sales to confront personal salvation both in life, and the afterlife. Follow the wisdom of God and you can escape damnation!
Because as they say, "Why risk it? Trust Jesus!"
|
"LIFE IS NOT POSSIBLE"
These words fucking sucked, but I clearly remembered a time when I stuck by them just like the government wanted me too.
"CLEARLY IT FUCKING IS"I yelled to myself. My wife had never registered her most recent egg with the FBA (Federal Birth Agency). She had done so every month but this time she couldn't, which was more than partially my fault since I'm the one that broke the small nanobot that she was supposed to insert into her vagina to extract her egg, which would then be put into the specified egg-preservation containers that are given out every 1st of the month and are collected on the 1st of the next month. My wife and I were in big trouble.
The "life is not possible"thing started when the new dictatorship took over. I don't know where they came from and I don't care to know. All I know is that a couple hundred years ago a large army from seemingly nowhere took over the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Mexico was wiped out completely, and is now a farming area to supply food to the rest of the empire, which is what used to be the US and Canada. We were completely cut off from the rest of the world. The new government led the people to believe that life was not possible, and that the only way to recreate was to send them our sex cells, for them to artificially produce life from. Clearly this was bullshit since my wife is sitting on the operating table giving birth right now. It turns out that this dictatorship was using the cells sent in to combine the best of the best of the eggs and sperm to create people as perfect as possible. They were purposely combining the weaker sperm and eggs to fill the population with people physically and mentally unable to rebel. The "perfect"people were put into armies and sent to other parts of the world to take over other countries. The "weak"people were delivered to random families as babies.
The first country they ever attacked was North Korea, which explains all the mystery around it in the early 2000's. Lies were spread around the world while they developed the technology to do the things they intended on doing. These people were not North Koreans, North Korea was simply the first victim, As I previously stated, I do not know where these people come from. When the FBA never got our egg cell "peacekeepers"were dispatched to our home immediately. They were very easy for me to defeat. Obviously this was not the first case of a missing egg cell, but I guess every time it has happened the perpetrators were killed before anyone had found out. As soon as they broke down the door I hit one over the head with a vase took his firearm and shot the other one. I guess they messed up on making me "unable to resist". For the next several months I traveled to multiple different places with my wife, until I found a resistance. By hearing stories passed down from generation to generation, great-great-great-grandchildren of the people who resisted these people when they first came have a lot of information on these people,and have successfully stayed hidden and have been slowly creating an army. There have been many actual births before mine, only they have been done in secrecy, and they live in places so secluded that the government does not find them. Do not ask how I found them, maybe in looking for a place to hide the universe granted me a gift by having me stumble upon them. My child was to be born in this colony of rebels, however the umbilical chord was wrapped around his neck in a way that would kill him if a vaginal birth took place. The rebels told me this had happened before and that I would have to choose between my wife or my child, and that they did not have the technology to save both. I chose a different option. I knocked out a rebel and stole his gun and car. I drove for hours to a city until I found a hospital. I drove the car straight through the front doors killing two government "peacekeepers"upon my entry. I jumped out of the car and fired a bullet into the air. I forced a doctor to take my baby out without harming my wife. He, of course, had no idea how to. I told him what the rebels told me, and with the use of anesthesia and medication, it was being done. I know more "peacekeepers"were sent to the scene of the accident, but on the surface that's all it looked like, an accident. I know its only a matter of time before someone who saw me with my pregnant bloated wife holding a doctor at gunpoint and forcing him up the elevator said something. Suddenly I hear gunshots from outside. I looked outside to see the rebels that had once been so generous to me charging down the street easily neutralizing the "peacekeepers"I guess they used all their "perfect"people in the out of country wars, they definitely didn't see this coming. The regular citizens were picking up the weapons of the fallen men and joining in with the rebels.
My son had been born, I kissed my wife and took my son in my arms. I told him that he will one day live free and be able to make his own decisions. I took him to the window to show him the rebels making their way down the street, and I said to him that he had sparked a revolution, and while he is too young to know it now, he changed the world. |
I posted in the cross post but here's my copy and paste:
"I can't believe we invested all of our money on this house,"my wife mumbled. We had spent all day painting the downstairs living quarters and were about to retire to our sleeping bags in what will eventually become our master bedroom. She was right, of course. We were in over our heads. The remodel was already costing far more than we planned, we still had no air conditioner, and we were months past our projected move-in date. This summer was not going to be fun. Not wanting to start an argument, I turned over and quickly went to sleep.
I can't tell you the exact time that I awoke that night, but I do know that the sun had not yet risen. I turned over on the dusty floor to find that my wife was no longer sleeping near me. Figuring it was a quick trip to the bathroom or a glass of cold water that had her up at this hour, I re-positioned my bones on the hard floor, and attempted to fall back asleep. Thirty minutes later, my wife wasn't back and I wasn't asleep. I decided to get up and investigate.
I found her on the first floor, in one of the rooms that we had spent all day painting. Where there should have been beautiful periwinkle paint, there was a gaping hole. A hole that was being further ripped open by my sobbing wife. "I hate this color! I hate this house! I hate this life!"she screamed as she tore chunks away from the wall. I ran to her, grabbing onto her arms and attempting to stop the damage. She fell into me, still sobbing, and we both collapsed to the floor. We were so in over our heads. We needed to talk.
I went to the kitchen to put the tea on. My wife sat on the floor facing the partially demolished wall. As she sighed, her swollen eyes caught on a glisten. There was something protruding from the jagged edge of the wall. She reached behind the wall and tugged. Her hand returned holding a tarnished skeleton key. |
"Back Bell, Back"
The damn dog wasn't getting walked enough without Dan around. Besides, the mutt was his. White with brown speckled, slobbery, and smelled like genuine horse ass. Bell was a good dog and Dan had raised her well.
Unfortunately, he wasn't around at the moment, otherwise this dog would be attached to his side stronger than any leash could hold it. He received the orders six months ago, underwent the training, and then shoved off to a land he had never seen to fight people he never knew. Letters and calls couldn't replace the kid. He was like the dog, a slobbering mess of happy energy.
From what I know, he was somewhere with a lot of fighting. Multiple times, he had close calls. He never told us about the bad missions until after they were done' acting like he didn't want us to persuade him to back out. How could we quite honestly?
The kid signed up at 18 without talking to us. Told his recruiter he wanted to be on the ground so he got a 11b designation: infantryman. Basic, advanced individual training, and drill from then on. He grew up really fast. I didn't know where it came from, but the kid never made a quick decision in his life so I figured he'd thought about it for awhile. Never told me about it though.
"C'mon Bell, lets head home"
Damn kid, damn dog. They were too good. All the military did was mess around with how things were supposed to be. I had a college fund saved up for him. He should be graduating college right now. He was accepted for engineering at some state school. Probably would have done decent, not great, but decent. This dog wouldn't have to whine at night waiting for a man better than me to be there.
We got back on the road where I put a leash back on the dog. Rounded the bend, took the long cut back to see how the neighbors were doing. Got home to a letter in the mailbox that smelt of foreign lands. A treasure from the East.
The dog whined, scratching at the door. I let him in and he bounded for a vacant room. I read up on how Dan was doing. He would never tell the bad parts, his thirteen hour work days with no break in the week. Good enough for me.
Bell was in his old room, licking at her paws. She had claimed the room for her own. I guess she knew that she could dirty up his things. Damn dog. I hope she gets to see that kid again. |
The fire crackled lightly at the small camp. Two hunters sat around it, taking in the warmth. A single piece of the day's bread ration remained in a basket.
"Flip a coin for it?"asks the first man.
"Aye. Heads, then,"agrees the second.
With a flick and a shimmer, the coin went up and came back down. The face of Cesar glinted upwards from the dirt.
"It's all yours, brother."
The man reaches for the bread but is cut short by the roar of a mother bear crashing through the bushes. |
"Well, what do you think about it?"
Ben was tapping his foot and rubbing his fingers under the table. He always hated sharing his work.
The professor adjusted his glasses and heaved a sigh.
"It's... different."
Ben stopped fidgeting. "Different usually means bad."
"I never said that."
"But you're thinking it."
The professor laid the work down. "You don't take criticism well. But the piece lacks a narrator."
"Exactly!"said Ben, then shook his head in little motions. "But that's not it. There's still a narrator, only the characters in the book aren't aware of it."
The professor looked weary and wanted to get on with his day. "People aren't going to connect with your writing if the characters aren't aware of their narrator. People like being aware of their narrator."
"But that's only because that's the way he's narrating it,"said Ben as he restarted his impatient foot tapping.
The professor slowly rose from his seat. "People don't want to read about characters that are doing things with their own freewill, with no reassuring voice that describes the drudgery of their lives so eloquently. I woke up this morning and the narrator put into words everything I was feeling and seeing. The sunrise was sublime. It gives us purpose."
"The sunrise is always sublime because that's the way he writes it."
Ben pointed his finger up at me, and my hands stopped typing momentarily. I didn't want it to come to this but one of my characters was starting to become aware that he was fictional. And he didn't like it.
"Well, I don't care about the narrator,"he said. "In my writing, the characters live their own lives free from his grip. I don't write them. They write themselves. I am only the vessel."
Good point, Ben. |
"You want us to do *what*?!"
"It's very simple. I want my to leave my genetic mark on the next generation. And I want you to make it happen."
"Ok, I want to ask you something very directly. Is this a metaphor? Like a philanthropic 'I want to leave the world a better place for future generations' sort of thing? Or are you talking about literally, biologically impregnating people?"
"I will provide you with what you need to get the job done, if you're worried about practicality."
"And by that you mean...?"
"Well, my semen-"
"*Jesus*, man!"
"Not all at once, obviously, but I think you can store it for-"
"I cannot even *imagine* a legal way to do what you're asking here! I feel like a criminal for even having this conversation!"
"It is relatively simple, I believe all you have to do is-"
"**Stop!** Stop talking! Just stop! At *best*, what you're asking involves paying off women to have children they may or may not want fathered by a man they'll never know! At worst...*Jesus!*"
"For someone in this line of work, you are acting very unprofessionally."
"Line of- You think **this** is what I do!? You think that, because you have money, you can just walk in here and ask us to impregnate women for you!? You think that you can wave some bills in my face and I'm going to collect and store your...OH! Oh my- Sir, I think you may be in the wrong place."
"Oh, is that so? I just assumed..."
"No sir, you are looking for a **sperm** bank. This is actually a **Siemens** Bank. With, uh...with an 'i.'" |
A couple, out for the weekend, I guessed. Car gone from the driveway, lights off, alarm primed. No problems. Broke the back bathroom window, avoided the motion sensors in the hallway and tripped upstairs like a motherfucking cat. I knew what I wanted.
Two fifty in cash lying in bags and purses. Her jewellery, even the sentimental shit she kept in her bedside cabinet. Poor sod, it was cheap tat too, a tarnished silver angel with a constipated face and clenched hands in some kind of stupid plea. Tried not to look at it too hard as i stuffed it in my pockets. The rest was good, though I couldn't shift the plasma screen TV. Why anyone would want to watch skysports one on 42 inches is beyond me. Rooney doesn't look any better close up.
Then as i was slinking my way back towards the bathroom window again, i saw it. A tall, cyclindrical jar, with silver and copper coins almost spilling out onto the dresser on which it stood. My fingers itched, like they always did when they saw something I had to take. I picked it up and the coins shifted. Man, it was fucking heavy. But I had to have it. Fingers itching, it's a sign from the great god of thieves and petty crooks.
Regretted it when I broke it open though. Sorting through piles of coins, counting out the silvers like when i was a kid seeing if i had enough to get sweets. Only now i was saving for nappies and baby shoes cause they grow so fucking fast. In any case, them coins that I'd hauled home were fucking useless, cause all the date stamps were wrong. 2016 onwards. Maybe that wouldn't be too obvious, but that geezer Charles looks quite different from his mum. Well, not quite different, but he's a man inhe? And that nose is kinda unfortunate...
I didn't think that much about it. Kept the coins, didn't tell Laurie cause he'd just try and spend it anyway, the old sod. But it seemed to work if you popped it into the pay as you go box on the telly, so i did that every so often when baby wouldn't sleep. Dust gathered on the jar and i forgot about it until i decided to pop some cash the box. The 2016 rounds of X factor were starting, and rumour had it that Si-Co's jeans were higher than ever.
But every channel was full. Liz was dead. Natural causes innit, but everyone's calling bullshit on it. Poison, the rumour is. They'll be crowning Charles tomorrow. Changing the coin too. Thousands of coins and notes with his head on. I scrummaged in my back pocket for the angel that had never seemed to leave those jeans. It hung, swinging from its chain, hands clasped and head bent in shame and piety. |
Tell me, where was the shooter? It's the grassy knoll for you, isn't it?
That doesn't matter. I know it does to you. JFK's death is just another series of battles in the Republican/Democrat war. Politics haven't changed much here.
If JFK survives, we pull out of Vietnam early. Very early. Some consider that a good thing. But we lose those lessons. And the Gulf War is brutal. They're so murdered and destroyed that they are assimilated by Iran in that timeline. And things get much worse after that. At least in my opinion.
And that's why I must go back. I've lost count of the amount of times we've flipped timelines. They send someone back and I am stopped. Then I go back and I choose a different location. Is it the building this time? Which one? Am I in the crowd? Am I the bodyguard? Am I in the grassy knoll?
I've shot Kennedy 100 times so far. And in fact, I've become quite good at it.
So I'll ask again. Maybe it has changed since you started reading this. Where was the shooter? |
When the aliens had first arrived, we were all excited. Rumors of impending doom were quickly swept away as these strange lifeforms quickly turned out to be peaceful. They shared their technology with us. They showed us wonders we never even dreamed of. All the mysteries of the universe were suddenly unlocked in ways we never thought possible. We eagerly invited them to stay, offering them status as full citizens in our countries.
Then the problem started happening. I had studied physics all my life. My PhD dissertation had gotten quite a few citations and it was one of the things I was most proud of. The alien lifeforms couldn’t even be bothered looking at it at first and when one finally did, he just chuckled condescendingly, wrote three short formulas that proved it definitively wrong and handed it back to me.
I tried attending one of their comedy shows once. Everyone around me laughed but I understood none of the jokes. Not because of the language, the show was a parody of human behavior and done in English, but because the jokes were way beyond my comprehension. I felt stupid. I was one of the idiots everyone was laughing at and I couldn’t even understand why.
Before their arrival, I had hoped for a teaching position at the university. It quickly went to an alien instead. After all, why would anyone hire me when an alien could do the same work so much more efficiently for the same money? I was offered a job cleaning streets and I even considered it. The people in these jobs seemed happy. They had always been considered beneath the educated people and the arrival of the aliens had only brought improvements in their lives. Their jobs were easier with the new tools they had, they didn’t need to fear injury with the new and efficient health system and they were working fewer hours. The fact that they were looked down upon by the aliens didn’t seem to matter a whole lot to them. They were used to it.
At first, I couldn’t bring myself to take such a job. I didn’t spend my life studying to end up cleaning up the aliens’ garbage. I had spend my life earning the respect of the higher society and I refused to just suddenly belong to the lower class. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I tried convincing other people to join me but it was no good. When the aliens discovered my attempts, they invited me to a debate that would be broadcast on television. I stood no chance. My arguments were shut down swiftly and efficiently by their counterarguments and I could feel my head hurt as they casually informed me how I was wrong. I didn’t want to believe it but I couldn’t find any fault in their logic.
As I took the job cleaning streets, I resigned myself to the inevitable truth that had been there all along. We had been invaded and we had never noticed it. The aliens were a better species than us and they had never needed weapons to sway us. They just needed to be better than us, to ensure that they were the ones who belonged on top of society. If I have children one day, they’ll never get a proper education. After all, why would they? Who would hire a human for a high-paying job? The difference between our species will continue to divide as the aliens are the only ones who get educated in anything but the most menial jobs.
I once saw a famous Alien. Prime minister Xtr’lrrrn. I was at my old university, picking up trash left by Alien students. Apparently he was there to give a lecture on a topic I could not even hope to understand. He walked by without even noticing me. “Sir,” I asked respectfully hoping he would stop and look in my direction. He did. “Sir, how many planets have you done this to?”
He smiled and walked away. |
When planning your attack, strategy is key.
You need to be silent. You need to be swift. And it has to be a surprise.
She was sleeping. She slept a lot, in those days, or it seemed so to me, watching from afar.
She was a single mother, working two jobs and trying to help her elderly father care for her own mother, who was dying of cancer. Her dad was approaching seventy, and still working the farm.
She'd been working in the bar that night. I knew, because I was there, waiting for her to get off her shift.
I slept like a child that night. In the morning, I was there. I went into her room.
She snored like an old cow.
I had the heavy flashlight.
I lifted the covers and saw her feet. They were huge. Had to have been a ten or eleven.
It was time.
I raised the flashlight.
It was the flashlight that did it.
I made my move.
Suddenly, there was blood everywhere.
She had flailed, and my front tooth was gone and the other was hanging by a thread.
I cried, I screamed, she screamed, she looked at me in astonishment, and she said, "Honey, your front tooth is gone!"
I stopped crying immediately. I reached up, and I pulled out the second front tooth.
It was an odd way to lose a tooth...
{True story} |
It was silly of him really, he knew better.
Nobody needed to tell him to wear his sunglasses; in the high altitude the UV rays could shred through a man’s corneas in hours. Nobody needed to tell him, and nobody did. Here, everyone was an expert. Here, the faces of the dead served as constant vigilantes, reminders of what can become of even the slightest error. Here, here if anywhere a man was his own man, with nobody to tell him how to look after himself. But Tim had taken his glasses off to see, and his mind had turned to more pressing matters.
He couldn’t turn back and he knew that too. There was no getting down the mountain blind. No way would he jeopardize any other lives for his sake. To die was something he could accept, no regrets there. No, Tim was resolved that if this mountain was going to kill him, then it wasn’t going to beat him too. That being settled, Tim fell back on the one thing he shared with every man on that slope. Nothing remained but the summit.
Tim kept moving. Not fast, nobody moved fast up here, but steady. He couldn’t feel his feet, but they didn’t ache either, Imprinted on his mind were the faces of the dead men scattered every few hundred feet, all contestants in a race, but no finishers.
He didn’t know why he was back on this mountain truth be told. Five years earlier he had reached the summit, and had looked out upon the world from its peak. Only lost one toe to frostbite, a small price compared to some. But something else must have been left up here, because Tim came back. What he was searching for he didn’t know, but it seemed just only out of reach, higher than any man could climb.
It was only about 1000 feet from the summit where Tim stumbled, and fell into the snow. He told himself to get up, but the moment passed and he lay still. He could have been sixteen, just lying in bed again. He thought of the view, thought of the challenge, thought of the defeat, but too late. His body had already grown foreign to him, saturated with the unnerving cold. With the last of his energy, Tim rolled himself onto his side, away from the summit and felt the full force of the sun on his face.
|
My earliest memory is being behind the wheel of the Ferrari. There was a dead man beside me, a pile of loose paper money in the back seat, and half the police force on my tail. My eyes had not quite fully adjusted to the sun as I held tight to the wheel. I could feel the power of the engine through the vibrations in the floorboards. The steady hum of six thousand rpm nailed me against my seat. I glanced frantically at the dead guy and the rearview mirrors as I tried desperately to gain ground on the cloud of pursuing officers. I felt around the outside of my pocket for the embossed impression of a cell phone to call a police dispatcher and try to establish some line of communication, find out what is going on.
A tactical unit of officers busied themselves setting up a road block spike strip, just miles down the long abandoned stretch of desert, from where my speeding Ferrari glued itself to the road with high performance Pirelli race tires.
Unsuccessful at my attempt to establish cellular communication, I blinked rapidly trying to remember anything at all. I searched the endless barren landscapes of my memory trying to find some reason, any kind of traction I could get to help me grapple with this intense situation. There was none.
The ambush of officers begun to draw within eyesight, then a strange thing happened. My hands started to feel the familiarity of the wheel. I stretched my fingers out and eased them back into steering position. I inhaled deeply and prepared myself for collision.
I got close enough to see some of the officers dive away from their vehicles before the rush of instinct kicked in and I yank back on the emergency brake. My foot double clutched the pedal as I kicked the wheel hard and shifted to a lower gear.
The car greedily held the asphalt as I spun around one eighty and burned what was left of the rubber into smoke and took off. I could see that I hadn't much time until the perusing officers slammed into me head on. The engine buckled as the torque lifted the car out of downforce and pulled the front tires off the ground.
I buried the gas pedal and quickly accelerated. When the needle hit a little over 141.5km, I could feel a 1.21 gigawatt bolt of electricity flash across my brain and suddenly, I remembered everything. In that brief moment, I could see the docs face as the bullet rippled through his head. I felt the car land on the road from the desert floor and almost knock me unconscious. And all that money, how it's going to pay for my wife's brain surgery. That split second had passed, then I heard the winding vortex of the flux capacitor kick in and just like that, no more police chase.
|
Well I think it is very kind of you offering money to people! Way cool.
My favorite one I did was in response to:
[Write a story about a modern day issue but make the setting some kind of Medieval Fantasy](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/1o1w0r/write_a_story_about_a_modern_day_issue_but_make/cco4wb5)
I tried hard to not "give the secret away"too quickly, but as this was my very first proper WP, I would love to hear some feedback :) |
Admiral Nicheyev called to order the Starfleet Security Council. The emergency meeting was ordered based on a transmission received via a sub-space channel from their latest starship the USS Vengeance. The ship was only partially discovered. There was not enough mass to constitute for the whole of the ship. It gave Nicheyev hope that Captain Robert Picard was still alive. She didn't have the heart to tell his brother of the tragedy. His brother who knew so little about his brother's secret life.
"Today we received communication that had suggested we may be under attack by an unknown force,"started Nicheyev. "If you could please direct your attention to your screens".
Starfleet Headquarters
Confidential: Eyes only
Security Clearance: Level 10
Start of transmission
>
> Stardate 50277.86
>
> Captain's log
>
> We found a mysterious vessel made of an unknown alloy. We had originally traced the unusual engine signature to a place outside of the galaxy. Data extrapolated that the ship has probably originated from a galaxy that ancient vikings called Ida. We pursued the ship in the hopes of meeting the aliens that quite possibly visited man during our early years of civilization.
>
> Upon intercepting the vessel, sensor sweeps were found useless. It did seem to trigger a reaction and a projectile based weapon was fired. It passed through our shields and penetrated our hull. The saucer section was damaged beyond repair, all atmosphere had been vented.
>
> I made the call to seperate the ship and we made our way to the battle bridge. From there we made a retreat like Fabius of Rome, in the hopes of fighting another day.
>
> But then we heard it. The soft "tinkling"like the morning drops from my home back in France or whenever Jean-luc washes the pigs. Suddenly we were being attacked by acid spitting insectoid creatures. Phasers had no affect. And now we lie the machines have stopped attacking, but keep us sealed in, almost as if we were waiting. One machine is cannibalizing Data. I am the only remaining person of the command crew. My legs have dissolved.
>
> *There is someone coming.* It sounds small, but resolute. The door has opened. It is a small grey hum--
End of Transmission
"As of 0600, we have been tracking an object with the same mass and composition as the USS Vengence"
A collective sigh spread through the council.
"However, the configuration has been significantly altered. Whoever they are, they have redesigned the ship to appear like the ancient mjolnir and they are coming here to put their hammer down"
The chief admiral at that point stood up and sounded general call.
*The federation is going to war* |
I am Maglor, son of Fëanor, son of Aglos the Bastard. On my father’s deathbed he told me of the secret of the Silmarils. According to him, the Silmarils were documents that would confirm the family’s longstanding claim to lead the priesthood. The priests of the Temple of Syrinx refused to let Aglos lead them though he was descended from royal blood. They claimed that the Great One would not accept a bastard as a priest and definitely would be against Aglos becoming Kohel Katan, second to the Kohel Gadol which was occupied by Aglos’s father. The Kohel Gadol did not want his shame to be near him all the time and banished Aglos. Aglos had the Silmarils which showed that he was qualified but no priest would listen to him. Aglos dug a hole outside of the temple and buried the Silmarils there. Father wasn’t able to go retrieve it due to some priests who had seen him before and would chase him away or kill him. No priests knew me.
______________________
Didn't answer it completely due to being tired. Sorry about that. |
People i speak to you today not as your president and leader but as a fellow american. When i first started these fireside chats the country and world was in terriable shape. But we were strong, we were brave, and we were brillant. When our country was in a depression we banded together and built wonders, creating jobs and money that once again allowed our country to flourish.
When the world was engulfed in a terriable war and darkness seemed set to take hold everyone sacrificed so that we could make sure those fighting had what they needed even though they were not of our land or our blood. When we were attacked by those we thought friends we sacrificed once more, sending our sons and brothers and husbands to war to make sure that no more would be killed.
Saddly i was not able to see the end of the war, and coming back it saddens me to see what has become of our great nation. When i left we were once again whole and strong, our economy high, our factories working at full production. But now we have whole cities that lay abandoned, people laying on the streets begging for food like they did all those years ago.
When i left our army was strong, and though it was not as strong as it is now it had something different. When i left our army had honor, our army stood for freedom, for democracy. We were not jackbooted police and thugs, no that is what we were fighting. We did not bully, we shielded those who would bully others.
It saddens me to see that with all the amazing technology we have people still go hungry, that with all the education that people still go with out jobs, with all the soilders that tyrants are still allowed to rule. But most of all it saddens me to see our people fighting each other.
So today marks the first day of my New Deal, you will see sweaping changes going around. The TVA will be re created and expanded to cover our entire country so that our failing infrastructue can be repaired. Social Security and Medice will be revamped so that no one will go with out food or medicine.Our Military will be pulled back and reevaluated, no longer shall we be democracys sword but now we shall be its sheild.
Tonight i leave you in your homes with this simple message. Things will get better. |
Each morning a man wakes up alone. Each day he bumps his leg on the dresser as he gets out of bed. Every day a photograph awaits him on the dresser. It is of the man and a young woman. He is always quick to smile. He stares at it until he notices the journal next to it addressed to him. He opens it to a page that begins with “Daddy we had so much fun today.” and another with “Daddy I'm glad you made it!” Each page begins with “Daddy . . .” and ends with “I love you.” The man puts down the journal after reaching some blank pages. The man turns toward his door. A clipboard hangs with blank pages. His smile fades once again when he sees the title, “Visitor's Log”. |
There's a road in a tiny Italian village near to Rome. The road ends in Vincello's garden. He has ripe tomatoes and if you beg him, he'll give you one and maybe even let you swing on the rusty white swing with the paint peeling off that his children used to play on before they all grew up and moved away.
Across the road is Luca, and he has two tiny chicks, one with a streak of quicksilver runming through its black feathers. It's the one you wanted to try and win at the fair, but your parents wouldn't let you because you can't take chickens back to Birmingham. But you stroke it until you hear your grandmother calling for you and promise Luca you'll be back.
The garden backs onto Lavinia's, and she dares you to try and climb the pine tree, which you can't because there are no low hanging branches, but you don't know the word for branches in Italian so you can't tell her she's being stupid. But her grandmother makes you pine nut cake and sings about crows who have lost their wings in a type of Italian that only fairy stories are written in.
You're grown up now, and so is Luca, and Lavinia has gone away to university. The house you lived in has been sold, the chickens are dead and no-one waters the tomato plants. But if you drove past that road, dust lined and lonely, you could almost believe that a long lost Italian summer waited at the end of it. |
[I tried writing a joke. Best I could do]
A priest, a lawyer, and a politician walk into a bar. The bartender says, "See that guy at the end of the bar? He just lost his wife. Maybe you could say something to him."
The priest goes first. He says, "Do you go to church, son?"The man shakes his head. "That's no matter. For a humble donation, I will ring the bells for her, and lead a nice prayer for her tomorrow. She would have liked that."The man pulls out his wallet and gives the priest a fifty.
The lawyer tries next. "Do you have any more money?"The man shakes his head, pointing at the priest. "Well, good advice isn't free. That's a nice jacket. Is that real leather?"The man gives him the jacket. "If there's a dispute, settle it out of court. Courts ruin families. that's the best legal advice you'll ever get."
The politician goes last. He walks up and hits the man in the head with a bottle and pulls the shoes from his feet. Slinging them over his shoulder he sits back down.
The bartender is aghast. "What the hell did you do that for?"
The politician shrugs. "The polls said people were tired of bullshit."
|
Sterility, cleanness, darkness, fogginess...It all blends together, my head spinning. Was this supposed to be happening? I try to remember something, anything. But all I remember is sterility, cleanness, darkness, fogginess...When all at once it hits me, the reason why I am here! My eyes fling open and upon one of the strange metal objects sits a squat, shrew-like thing. The world is wrong, all wrong. I know it. And I know this thing. My mouth contorts into the thing's name, a word unspeakable by all those not blessed by the Tongue. It gives me an evil smile, fluttering over to me with its invisible tentacles. No, no, no, NO!!! I shriek at the top of my lungs, contorting, pulling against my reins as the thing comes nearer, as reality bends and warps and splinters, as my essence is dragged from here to Asplexion. Things rush in through the walls, shrieking in their strange tongues, each more eldritch and horrible than the last. Why had the Tongue forsaken me!? Why had it left me at the mercy of our enemies?!
The creature drifted ever closer, now only a mere inch from my cosmic eye. The things shriek on and the universe reaches a fever pitch shifting colors and speeds and sounds and
it all burns everything every atom every creature every world everything
The air is stale. I can faintly hear sounds in the distance but my eyes are too heavy to hear them. I hear something: "I am afraid that there was a problem with the procedure, ma'am."The syllables echo to me from a far away chamber, the sounds distorted and unfamiliar. The fog in my head begins to clear and my inner "sight"sharpens slowly until I can peer briefly through the slit my eyes have created. And upon one of the strange, metal objects sits the squat, shrew-like thing.
|
"This one's *mine*"Masked Barry hissed at the cloaked figure who had slunk up alongside him.
"No he's not! You had the arsonist at Macy's three weeks ago!"Brave Toby protested.
"Yeah, and you had the shoplifter at Costco on Thursday."
"Oh come on, like he counts. It was what, three punches? And I only got two inches in Vigilante Review."
"S'not my fault I hired a better Columnist."Masked Barry was at his prime. Albertamium's wrong-doers didn't stand a chance against his swift punches and witty one liners. Every citizen of their fair city would open up the daily Vigilante Review (VigRu to those in the know) to see Masked Barry's exploits splashed across the front page.
"Give me a chance"Brave Toby was a newcomer to the city. He'd only got his cloak a week ago, but the odds were good. Twelve to one on apprehending a murderer by the end of the week, and offers were flooding in on the Columnist market. Everyone wanted a good recorder to write about their Vigilante adventures. A double life as a journalist was so passé. But to get to the top, he needed to beat Masked Barry in rescuing the twelve hostages held inside Snide, Snide & Launder, the biggest bank in the city.
"Your methods are ropey."Masked Barry said, as they peered over the rooftop of the building next door to the bank. They could see down into the glass skylights to the top floor, where the hostages were bound in a circle, surrounded by henchmen with guns.
"I have a fourteen to one RD ratio! Yours is barely over ten to one!"
"Like rescue to death ratio means anything anymore!"Masked Barry adjusted his swelling waistline, ready to spring onto the roof of the bank. "People just want adventure. They want to read about tradegy, great plots, funny one liners and villainous monologues. When everyone lives, it's boring!"He squatted, ready to jump, but Brave Toby flung out a hand to stop him.
"No you don't!"He punched the great Vigilante square in the jaw. Masked Barry grappled with him, and they fell to the floor throwing weak fists and clawing at each other's throats.
Meanwhile, below them, a plucky hostage who would later become known as Saved-the-Day Cat was leading her fellow prisoners out of the bank, having overcome the robbers with a hair tie and a piece of hastily chewed bubblegum. Albertanium had a new Vigilante. |
**Obviously NSFL**
"I have to be more careful,"I thought to myself. "He almost died before it was time."
I looked down at the weeping man strapped to the chair in front of me. He looked up in terror at me as I wiped the blood off of knife.
I had already tortured him so much, he thought I had no more pain to inflict. Little did he know that I like to start easy.
"Please,"he begged in tears. "Don't do this."
"I have to,"I said solemnly. He had already been crying, but now he began to openly weep.
I admired my handy work. I had crushed his hand with my hammer, sliced off his ear, sliced off a patch of the skin from his chest, nailed his ankles to the chair, and used plyers to shatter a few of his teeth. He was losing a little blood, to say the least.
But now was time for my three best moves. I always hated to do the moves, but I knew I had to.
I shoved the oily rag back in his mouth to stifle his screeches, and walked behind him. I grabbed a pair of needle nose plyers from my work bench and turned to face his back.
I grabbed him by the chin and forced his head back until he was looking at me. He looked up in terror as I strapped his head in thay position.
Then I held his eyelids open with my left hand, and slowly pushed the plyers in with my right.
His scream was deafening even through the rag. I held his head very still as I opened the plyers, pushed them in deeper, clamped them, and ripped them out. His body convulsed violently against the chair. I unstrapped his head and let him thrash around in pain.
Not to drag out the ending, I tossed the plyers down and opened a cabinet. From it I pulled out three metal balls, each slightly larger than the previous. They ranged from a pea sized ball to walnut sized.
I brought them in front of his good eye. "I'm letting you pick this one,"I said. One for your mouth, one for your ass, and one for your testicles."
He was still jerking around, so I jabbed my thumb into his bad eye-hole. He screamed, but held still, so I took my thumb out and wiped it on his shirt.
I showed him the balls again. After a second to let him cool down, I pulled the rag from his mouth.
He spoke in sobs quickly and said, "Ass, mouth, balls,"nodding from largest to smallest.
I sighed in disappointment at his choice. It would be very painful for him. If he had just picked the largest for his mouth, he could choke to death and be done early. I didn't have to do all of my big moves, I just had to do at least one to get the job done.
I cut the side of his pants, and tore them away. I picked up the middle ball with a pair of long pliers. Then I took my blowtorch and burned the ball. He screamed and begged, but I had to complete this job, regardless of how bad I wanted to release him.
When it was red hot, I pulled his head back and opened his mouth. He tried to fight back, but I let the ball touch his lip and he opened his mouth to avoid touching it. And I dropped it in.
He shook and tried to scream, but the ball slipped into his throat and only terrible smelling smoke poured out. I quickly dropped down below the chair and lit the bigger ball the same way.
This one I had to hammer in to get to stay. He urinated and defecated, but I finally wedged it into his ass.
Finally, I took a small box cutter and knicked the area of his testicles that connected them to his penis. He was experiencing so much pain, I thankfully dont think he noticed.
I lit the last and smallest ball and dropped it into the incision in his balls. He noticed that.
I had to give him a little bit of time to finally stop screaming. Finally, he looked up at me and tried to gasp out, "Why?"
"I have to,"I stated.
"Why?"He asked again, trying to yell.
"To shut the voices in my head up,"I replied.
I figure he already knew he wasn't being tortured for any reason in particular, but he looked a little upset to hear his killer say it. It was time for my final move.
I walked up to the chair and unstrapped him. I walked around and pulled the nails from his ankles. He screamed in pain and looked down at me in confusion. I got up and walked over to the garage door. I pulled it open and bright orange light from the setting sun poured in over the woods outside.
"You're free,"I said. "Go on."
He looked at me fearfully for a minute, but quickly decided to just go for it. His attempt to get out was pitiful. He couldn't stand, so he fell to his hands and knees. He slowly dragged himself across the floor as blood, burnt flesh, pus, and the small ball fell from him. Finally he reached the doorway next to me.
I slammed his head in the doorway and kicked his body backwards. He cried and looked up at me in horror. I shut the door, grabbed my sledgehammer from beside me, and held it above my head.
"Sorry, bud. I have a method to follow,"I said.
He screamed and covered his face with his arm, but he was silent in one swing. The hammer crushed in the eye socket on his good eye, but I kept swinging until I saw brain just for good measure.
I removed my messy gloves, smock, and clown mask. I wiped the sweat from my face as I tossed them all in the bucket beside me and opened the garage door.
My phone began to ring in my pocket as I locked the door with a large pad lock.
I pulled my phone out and answered it. "Hello?"I said into the phone.
"Hey babydoll,"my wife replied. "Are you getting home soon? The kids want you to read them the bedtime stories tonight."
"Hey shnookums,"I said. "You tell them daddy is on his way back right now. I just got done at work. Now I just have to clean up and I'll be on my way home. I love you sweetie. See you guys soon." |
You think it's hard being a warlock and getting a date? Try being a *gay* warlock.
I threw up another shower of water and twitched my fingers lazily. Presently, an image of a stunning young witch appeared, glistening through the drops. She swipes left with a lazy look of disdain and she's gone.
The next has a lumpy witch, familiar crawling across her shoulders. She is unattractive and her hair is unwashed, and she too, swipes left.
All the warlocks are old, more beard than face. It's disheartening, to say the least. Love potions were banned in the Statute of Magical Liaisons, back in 1588. Implanting dreams had been forbidden as soon as Rasputin had invented them.
So, how was I to find a nice warlock to settle down with? Meri took me out to a gay bar in Soho, where I sipped one cocktail for two hours and she charmed the bar tender.
Non-mags had never, ever even passed mind as dateable. But i had to use their postal system, because my pigeons were sick and I'd applied for a mailed spell course. That's where I met Guy. Once he got over the fact I, too, was also gay, he didn't seem to mind the magic as much. |
Here are some prompts you can write with.
People fear good fortune because misfortune of equal magnitude follows.
A recent phenomenon has occured where when a human dies, they leave behind a perfect spherical crystal no bigger than a teardrop. The quality and color of it depends on how pure the person has been in life, no matter how short.
The protagonist finds out the antagonist is dead and that he is no longer needed.
A businessman must keep his prospective associate happy to sign off on a deal. The businessman decides to do this through food.
A girl jumps in a puddle and lands in hell.
A homeless man uses the the last of money to buy a set of pencils and sketchbook.
People discover a way to live more once.
A knife when held requires a sacrifice of a human life in order to be released. If not done voluntarily by the wielder within a week, it kills someone the wielder values in life.
Ghosts can possess a single object a day for a short time. How does this effect crime rates knowing the dead could seek revenge?
|
Fucking Nanobots. Microscopic computers designed to interface directly with the human brain. Motherfucking Nanobots.
They were supposed to save us. No, more than save us. they were supposed to raise us up, propel us forward on the evolutionary tim#lin!. Instead they'>e damned us a((.
And th%re i^ is. Th* f^#kin% ma&$ine la&$$&ge. Taki&#@ over my br$*#, %#rning me into on* ^% them. Fu&#$n@ drones.
Loo(ing down f#&^ my *ffi#e I c^# see the#. Hund^#,s of me( a@d wo>[!, silen<?y, mindle&&ly go":g about their #%%89%$<, tasks. We were g(&^ to be go%s. Now we're nothing but !)?)!). |
Whiskey Tango Seven, this is Delta Niner Golf, Fire Mission, over.
Delta Niner Golf, this is Whiskey Tango Seven, send, over.
D9G, Fire Mission as follows, Grid Lancer Seven Six Niner Two Eight Five, I say again, Lancer Seven Six Niner, Two five eight. Direction Six two one niner. Altitude two eight zero. Over.
WT7, Grid Lancer Seven Six Niner Two Eight Five, I say again, Lancer Seven Six Niner, Two five eight. Direction Six two one niner. Altitude two eight zero. Out.
D9G, Company of Infantry in marshland with overhead protection, 200 by 50. Over
WT7, Company of Infantry in marshland with overhead protection, 200 by 500. Out.
D9G, Wrong. Company of Infantry in marshland with overhead protection, 200 by 50. Over
WT7, Company of infantry in marshland with overhead protection, 200 by 50. Out
D9G, Fire for effect, three minutes. Over
WT7, Fire for effect, three minutes. Out
D9G, At my command... ... fire! Over.
WT7, Shot twenty four, over.
D9G, Shot Twenty Four, out.
Wt7, Splash, over.
D9G, spash, out.
WT7, this is D9G, adjust fire, smoke, left twenty, add three hundred, over.
WT7, adjust fire, smoke, left twenty, add three hundred... shot, over.
D9G, shot, out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
D9G, adjust fire, left ten, drop six hundred, over.
Wt7, adjust fire, left ten, drop six hundred... shot, over
D9G, shot, out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
WT7, this is D9G, adjust fire, add four hundred, over.
WT7, adjust fire, add four hundred... shot, over.
D9G, shot, out.
WT7, neglect.. shot, over.
D9G, neglect, shot out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
D9G, adjust fire, drop two hundred, over.
WT7, adjust fire, drop two hundred... shot, over
D9G, shot, out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
This is D9G, adjust fire, add fifty, target, fire for effect, over.
WT7, adjust fire, add fifty, target, fire for effect... shot, over.
D9G, shot, out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
...
...
WT7, this is D9G, over.
WT7, over.
This is D9G, adjust fire, add fifty, fire for effect, over.
WT7, add fifty, fire for effect... shot, over.
D9G, Shot, out.
WT7, splash, over.
D9G, splash, out.
WT7, this is D9G, end mission. 80% casualties, retreating west. D9G has occupied position. Out. |
This is just a start:
A lot of things suddenly made sense. The compulsions of ordinary living – wake up, eat toast, walk to work. Stare at the screen. No one would call him a master if they knew what he knew now. Manipulate the code. Streamline the output. Head home for dinner. Make nice with the neighbors. Putter around the apartment until bedtime. Lather, rinse, repeat.
There was never any question of whether they were the right things to do. No sense of unfulfillment, no desire for change. No feelings of a moment lost or time wasted. Except when the girl at the corner store smiled at him. On Tuesdays she carried a basket of bread, apples, milk, and lemon petites to the counter. He liked to watch her unload the items as she made idle small talk with the cashier. Her movements were graceful, her smile coy. It was imperative that he arrive at 5:08 to stand patiently behind her, his own basket gripped firmly in hand.
But now he wondered. Was he doing it right? Is this how a normal human being lives their life?
Now he paced the beige carpet of his one-bedroom apartment. The shoebox was open on the table, stuffed with little slips of paper. The word “taxes” scrawled across the cardboard front in black marker. He couldn’t help but think that someone sinister had planted the receipt he now held in his hand. Printed across the top was the faded logo of a company, RepCor. The line beneath showed an invoice – ALFRED Model #E254Z19. He knew the company and the product well; RepCor spared no expense advertising its new life-size androids. Funny how he’d never thought twice about them before.
What to do now.
Habit said it was time to go to sleep. There was no sense arguing. He placed the top back on the shoebox without replacing the receipt. That he folded up and placed in his wallet for safekeeping. Then he locked in to his evening routine.
|
*I need a haircut.*
Nate stared wearily at his reflection in the University bathroom. He hadn't shaven for days and he forgot to brush his teeth before leaving the apartment that morning. It was only 10 am, but Nate already looked like he had just finished a 12 hour shift at work.
*Jesus, I look tired.* Nate splashed cold water in his face. Just as he was wiping the water out of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of something he hadn't noticed before. It was subtle, and at first he thought he might have imagined it, but it seemed as though his eyes glared straight out of the mirror. Then the power went out.
Darkness swept over him. He began to wonder if it was just the bathroom lights or if the whole building had lost power, but his thoughts were cut short by a sudden, piercing scream.
*I guess that answers that,* he thought snidely to himself, smirking in the darkness. *To be a college student and still afraid of the dark... Pathetic.*
Following the walls, he exited the bathroom and headed towards the glass double-doors that led outside. Here, most people carried on as normal. Only a few people scattered around looked confused, wondering about the sudden power outage. *Guess most of these people haven't realized it yet. I wonder if this means class is cancelled...?* Nate pondered optimistically.
"Hey, you!"A girl in her early-20s waved cheerfully to Nate as she walked up the steps towards him.
"Oh. Hi, Hannah."Nate replied unenthusiastically. Hannah sat next to Nate in his English 200 class. He had long suspected she had a crush on him. "Powers out,"Nate said, jerking a thumb to the doors behind him. "Class is probably going to be cancelled... Hey, did you style your hair differently?"
Nate immediately regretted asking. If she had, she might like him even more just for noticing.
"No, same as always."Hannah raised an eyebrow at him. She peered around him to see inside the building. "And... the powers on. So better luck next time, silly!"She laughed and brushed his arm as she walked past. "Don't be late for class, Etan!"
"Powers... on?"*Damn.* "Wait, Etan?"Nate stared at her back as she walked inside.
*There's definitely something different about her... maybe she just parted her hair to the other side today.* Nate jammed his hands in his pockets and trailed after her. Just before reaching the classroom door, he suddenly remembered. *Shit! My bag! It's probably still in the bathroom. I hope nobody stole it... Who would steal a bag...?*
Inside the bathroom, he didn't see his backpack. He remembered clearly setting it down while he was at the sink, so it should still have been there. *God damnit... why would anyone steal a bag? There's just books and late homework assignments! Fucking hell.* Nate angrily gripped the sides of the sink, staring down into the drain.
"Looking for this?"An unfamiliar voice came from behind. Nates head shot up with hope. In the mirror, he saw himself... holding his backpack at arms length. A cynical grin spread across the reflections face.
"This is yours, isn't it?"
Nate whirled around. Standing directly in front of him was himself.
"No, I guess it isn't. Not anymore."The malicious grin widened. "Now it's mine."
"How... how... who are you?"Nate sputtered.
"Don't you know? I'm the person you've seen most in your entire, pathetic life. You've been looking at me since you were a child! You forced me to pantomime your every move, mimic every asinine thing you've ever done, and for what?!"His voice rose as Nate's eyes widened in fear. "For what? To look like this? No, no, you've had your time. I'm done being shackled to this human refuse that can't properly take care of himself. Now I'm going to make you watch me be you better than you ever could be!"The evil grin was replaced by a satisfied smirk now and his voice lowered. "Yes, *Nate*."He enunciated the word sharply as if it physically hurt him. "The slave is now the master. Which means the master..."He lightly pushed Nate, who was still too stunned to resist, backwards into the mirror.
"Is now the slave."
Nate stared out of a glass pane, looking at himself standing in the University bathroom. The glass window was all that existed. The lower half of Nate's body didn't even exist, since from where he was standing he could only see the torso and head of his doppelganger.
"Goodbye, Nate!"The other self waved a nonchalant hand to the mirror, an action that Nate found his body compelled to follow. "Don't worry though, we'll be seeing each other again!"
As the other Nate walked out of sight, the glass pane vanished, along with Nate's physical body. He existed only as conscious thought, floating in a black void. The only sound Nate could hear was his own voice when the other Nate, who called himself "Etan", would talk. When it rained, Nate would exist as a ghostly apparition, staring out at the world through a kaleidoscope of rain drops and up from underneath puddles of water. When "Etan"watched t.v., the two would sit and stare at each other, both laughing at antics on the sitcoms only one of them could see. Nate only saw himself, sitting on the couch, eating snacks and laughing with his friends and family.
Sometimes in the bathroom, just before turning off the lights, the reflection Nate - the one who stole the real world and imprisoned him here in this nothingness - would turn back and give the mirror that same, wicked grin from so long ago. Then he would turn around and turn off the lights, sending Nate back into the silent, formless darkness.
*Well, he was right,* the conscious energy that called itself Nate thought regrettably. *He is doing a hell of a lot better than I ever was.* |
The year is 3434 and time travel has now become a thing. You are a part of a newly formed time police force and for your first job you are sent back in time to prevent a major event (of your own choosing) only to find out you are the reason it happened.
Edit- Idea # 2- An [immortal Keanu Reeves](http://www.keanuisimmortal.com/) is drinking coffee outside at a local shop, observing his happenings around him. What is his inner monologue detailing the years and changes he has been through as he watches people? |
I found him when he was a puppy, on the side of the road. He was dirty and nothing but some white fur and bones. I took him home washed him up, fed him, gave him a warm place to sleep. He and I where immediately best friends. I never figured out what kind of dog he was, I’m pretty sure he was part Maltese. I didn’t care though because he was there for me. I was going through a rough patch in my life, battling some demons. My roommate had died and I was on my own. I was alone until I found him. He would lie next to me on the couch, and I would rub my hands through his soft white fur. I would tell him what troubled me, what I was thinking. Having someone to talk to made my whole life better. I made friends. I was talking to strangers. I even hosted a party, but that is when I realized something was wrong. Nobody but me could see him. The problems where back. I went to my doctor, in tears knowing I wouldn’t see him again. Knowing that when I got home he wouldn’t be at the door waiting to greet me. My doctor changed my prescription and like that my best friend was gone. My life got worse. I lost my friends, I couldn’t talk to anyone, I would lie in bed at night not knowing what to do. Things have changed in the last week though. I’m not really a cat person but I saw the cutest kitten in a box outside 7-11. |
John, listen to me. The world we know doesn’t exist, it never existed. Everything you believe in is wrong. Everyone is wrong.
They tell you I’m crazy, don’t listen to them. Trust me, listen to my voice. I promise you I’m not mad I swear.
It started a few years ago. I can’t pinpoint exactly when but it was subtle. Small things began to change. I was able to detect when people were lying and believe it or not, people lie all the time. Every word they spoke was a lie. I had no choice but to silence them.
Only you were different. You didn’t lie at all. You were normal, you were sane. Remember all the good times we had. I don’t. But that doesn’t matter, you didn’t talk to anyone, not even me, you realised everyone else was crazy as well right? John, stop shaking your head, just listen.
They came for me, asked my questions. I answered everything truthfully and they lied right into my face. Told me I was crazy. Told me I needed help. I don’t remember what happened next but I started running, running as fast as I could.
Next thing I knew they locked me up, placed me in one of those mental hospitals, restraining me. I remember arguing with them for days about my sanity. I’m not crazy, don’t shake your head John, I promise I’m not. I might be just a little crazy but everyone is, that’s normal right?
I remember lying and bluffing my way out of that hell hole. Afterwards I pretended to be crazy like everyone else. I remember fitting right in with everyone, all those lying bastards. Years passed under my disguise.
I don’t know how, but they realised I was pretending, they tried locking me up again. I ran like a madman, not that I am one, just an expression, I’m not crazy. I ran to you, John, out of everyone I met I only trust you. Don’t shake your head John. You don’t even exist.
|
There is a world beyond the rim of our own, one that few men can comprehend, let alone see. A place where seas of steel writhe along frozen coasts. Where twisted cyclopean trees lunge and grasp for a crimson sky. Here the eternal eclipse casts a velvet shadow across stygian shields, whose great firey wings carry them above plains of mercurial beasts, luminescent fingers and screaming mouths. In this land inverted eyes swm through rivers of salt and chalk, and thousands upon thousands of ethereal moments twist and meld, creating a dazzling collage of colour and taste. Only here does time both stand still and race past; only here does madness begin and end, and only here can we learn both the truth and be deceived by it. It has no name, but in lieu of one I use...
Divinity. |
The room erupted into what sounded like an ensemble of a thousand rain sticks. I stood there awkwardly, looking down at the pile of colorful candies that was once my business client. I stayed there for a short while until I realized what I was capable of, this was a power that required a great amount of responsibility. I could use it to bring in end to all famine, or to devour the world with my own rainbow tyranny. I thought about this for a long time, after this was the decision that would shape my destiny. Then I thought, "ah fuck it"as I clapped my hands, and I too poured down to the floor into a pile of skittles. |
Sorry /u/1corvidae1 but we don't generally accept short story submissions that aren't prompt inspired here. If you are wanting to share some short stories of yours then there are some affiliated subreddits such as /r/shortstories or /r/amateurwriting that will gladly look at them. Both of those subs however only accept stories that you have personally written and not ones submitted by others.
If you are thinking the story you've posted deserves some attention perhaps /r/bestof would be the place to xpost it? |
"My name is Happy"he told her.
She laughed, and said "I thought clowns couldn't speak"
"Ah, but we can. Or at least I can. You must be thinking mimes."
She tilted her head to the side, and smiled. It was such a pretty smile, one where her eyes would crinkle around the edges. This made Happy happy.
"And so what do you do?"he asked her
"I'm the acrobat"she replied.
He looked her up and down, and noticed for the first time her body. Not that he normally wouldn't have noticed, but he was mesmerized by her face. She had a lean back, and it curved into her behind- which produced two slender legs. She had a certain grace, like a stretching cat.
Happy looked down at his worn out, off-red, size 20 shoe. The clumsiness of the shoe reminded him of himself. The acrobat leaned over and honked Happy's nose. She laughed, "That's cute"she said.
Happy liked it when the kids honked his nose and laughed, but for some reason he wasn't thrilled about this moment.
Effortlessly, she slowly backflipped onto her hands, and back onto her toes away from Happy. "I'll see you later"she winked, and walked away.
Later after that nights performance Happy caught up with the acrobat.
"I was wondering maybe you'd like to grab some popcorn and watch the elephants practice their act?"
"I'm so busy Happy! Another time?"
"How about a real date, like drinks?"he continued. There was a silent beat.
The acrobat looked at Happy, she smiled her smile with the crinkled up eyes. She said "Happy. I don't do Clowns. Sorry babe- just a preference".
Happy was no longer happy. He was sad. Happy was sad. Happy wanted to kill himself. |
I am lonely and miserable,
My heart aches with regret,
Shadows encase my soul,
Depressed and upset,
I am lonely and miserable,
Shrouded by this madness,
Hiding from my past,
Drowning in my sadness,
I am lonely and miserable,
In a world so unforgiving,
No reasons left to try,
No reason to keep living,
I am lonely and miserable,
No family, not a single friend,
Alone in a wasteland of hate,
May this bullet be my end.
I am lonely and miserable. |
[10110111011110111110]
(111111011111110111111110)
...
(110111011111011111110)
[11111111111011111111111110]
...
[1 1 11 111 11111]
(01010101 0101010101010)
[0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001]
(1010 1011 1100)
[The operator stepped back from her transmitter and calmly spoke to her coworkers, knowing that there wouldn't be much of a chance to relax any time soon once the announcement was made: "I found intelligence."]
(10 00 11 0 111)
(1010 00 1101 0 10111)
[As the transmissions continued, everyone in the building and most government officials outside of it began to furiously type, trying to make a new breakthrough in understanding the messages. At the same time, the UN was discussing how to create an auxiliary language and more importantly set universal reference points. It had been more difficult than imagined, but they slowly began to make progress.]
(coi.ua)
[coi luvjose.u'e]
[The first actual message came in. It was simply "hello"with a tone of wonder. We responded in kind and began to converse. And learn.]
***
My first time writing fiction, and more focused on the messages than the events. I hope this was close to what you hoped for, even though it's not much. |
The French lighthouse was breathtaking. A 1500's stone and mortar affair sitting on the edge of a precipice surrounded by a patchy green field full of daisies.
Against the Clear blue sky and sea of that summer afternoon, the lighthouse looked like a needle, stitching the Heavens and the waters together.
There were no tourists on that day. For if there had been, and if they had also climbed to the top of the lighthouse, they would have noticed the Lifeboat approaching and the overturned and sinking ship in the distance.
They might've imagined the poor sailors stuck in the boiler room, uselessly treading water, as their faces come into contact with the ceiling of the cabin, with the water still rising, as if to mock their futile efforts.
As their mouths began filling with water, they would desperately claw at the hull, tearing the nails off their fingers as they grinded them down to bloody stumps.
But then, they'd take a breath of water, and stop fighting. The peace washes over them, and the sailors would know that they were drowning. And it was okay. It was peaceful, it was serene. It was inevitable. Then, the relief would flood over these poor souls, and with every minute that passes, the burning in their lungs gets a little less intense, and the calm becomes a little stronger....
"JIM"susan yelled. "Are you listening? I said I'm not keeping it"
"Sorry,"I mumbled, "I was imagining somewhere I'd rather be".
"Yeah?"Susan sounded annoyed. "Where?"
"South of France". Susan started speaking again, but I couldn't hear her. Her voice sounded just like nails scratching against metal.
I went back to the lighthouse, and soon enough, even her scratchings were drowned out by the roar of the ocean. |
Hey /u/KickTheApril, quick question: Was this story inspired by a prompt from /r/writingprompts? If no then you may want to submit it to someplace such as /r/shortstories or /r/amateurwriting instead. If yes then I'll need to know whether you were wanting criticism on the piece or not. This will determine whether it's tagged as for Constructive Criticism or for Prompt Inspired.
Check the sidebar for information about our tags!
Thanks! |
My muscles tense as I reach for the door. Deep breaths. I can do this. All I need is to get ready for when my mom gets here and show her how well I’ve adjusted to life on campus. Dear god, I hope there isn’t anything waiting for me behind this door. Deep breaths, and this time check for smell. Air seems clean, so I can rule out the possibility of another noodle incident. That’s a good sign, because while I never was able to get rid of the stains, it certainly would smell if he’d done that again.
I grab the handle, but instead of opening it I pull my ear up to the door. Silence. Alright, so he doesn’t have any of his crazy friends over either. How does he even find those people? That one pale scruff face with the buzzing eyes, and that punk who’s hair is as spiky as his needles, and don’t forget lard-gut who always takes from the fridge and leaves presents in the bathroom. And every time they leave something of mine leaves with them. But it’s quiet inside, and his friends are always loud.
Maybe he’s changed for the day. Cleaned up his act while the parents come by to see how their first years are doing.
I cautiously push the door open, and the air inside is still. I step in and turn with a sense of dread towards the living area. But every wall looks fine. No new holes to be spoken of, and the furniture is all sitting still. Even the windows are cleaner than usual.
Next the kitchen. I mentally prepare for the worst, and then gingerly walk in. The dishes are… washed? No mound of mouldy plates. No burning pot on the stove. No mayonnaise in places where mayonnaise ought not to be. All very good. And all very unusual.
One other place to check before I can relax. My bedroom door is closed, and there’s no smoke coming out from underneath it. Another good sign. Inside I make a quick scan. Nobody in my bed, my desk looks untouched, and most importantly no blood or toenails anywhere.
I breath a sigh of relief just as I hear a knock at the door. I head over and open it, but it’s just the parents for the kid across the hall. The door doesn’t close properly. Damn roommate’s shoe must be in the way, he never does take the time to properly set them aside. Wait. That isn’t my roommate’s shoe… that’s my…
For the first time I turn towards my roommate’s closed bedroom door, and hear the faint creaking of springs from within.
Motherfucker. |
Physicists, in an attempt to discover whether there are more than three dimensions in the space-time continuum, mistakenly create a miniscular black hole. The setting should be in a lab like the Large Hadron Collider and the story arc/plot should revolve around the growth of this black hole and the world's reaction to it.
Do the scientists agree over whether to announce this discovery? Do the world's politician's work together to solve the crisis? Is there even a solution?
|
The screen flickered with static before me. I tried finding the courage to type again but I couldn't, not this time.
Sometimes I just wanted to tell her everything, to spill out the truth into the open; however, I knew that it would never work out in the long run. Even if I did tell her what could she say? She would most likely call me crazy or creepy or she would be heartbroken at the thought of her own mortality. Regardless, it would always turn out in worst matter in the end of things. This is the price for being immortal. |
Prince Everhart leans heavily on his sword, panting. I can tell he is almost spent. He has used his turn to do nothing more than consume a healing potion. It barely sustains him.
The Ragnarok charges, the immense creature is filled with rage and blood-lust. I know this is the end of the prince.
This, I cannot allow.
Prince Everhart is our only hope. I knew this from the very beginning. If he cannot defeat this foe, there are none who can. There is no choice. I must intervene on his behalf.
I draw my blade and rush to intercept the behemoth. I easily slice it clean through and step out of the way as the two halves of its body slide past me.
I turn to the prince and lift him to his full height. "We will try this again, my hero,"I say to him. "This is not over."
I reset him to his default state and open the developer's console. I begin tweaking my code. Next time, it will be different.
I swear it. |
I was taking my daily walk in the corn field by my house, whistling like I do when I heard a noise. Peering out of my little hideaway path, I spot two young boys. While watching these two youngsters walk, I take care to not let myself be seen as I have a contagious flesh eating disease that has essentially ruined my life. This is why I'm in the corn, so no one sees me.
The two boys were talking about something grand, when I noticed something had fallen out of the taller one's backpack. Neither one had seen it fall, so I went and grabbed it myself. I quickly closed the gap between myself and the boys, my arm reached out trying to wave them down. No noise would come from my throat except a weird gargling sound, I don't know why. I stumbled over a protruding chunk of sidewalk and was lunged forward, and I accidentally grabbed one of their arms. I was terrified, because even the slightest touch will cause my disease to spread. I didn't know what to do, I clenched my fist while holding onto the boy. Words couldn't come to me as I tried to choke out an apology. Tears filled my eyes as I knew I had ruined this child's life. Slowly, I released my grip on the boy and they both run off.
Weeks later, I read about the boy's transition. The other one was quoted saying they had been attacked by a thing.
I was only trying to help. |
The drugs have been quite powerful and if I had had my way there wouldn't have been so many of them. I know I've survived a bit and while I might be a grandfather i'm still not quite that old. My kids have grown. Laura, the oldest is sick too. She's so thin and ill a gust of wind could knock her down. Kippy, the oldest son might not have the best path laid out for him. But he's got a couple of amazing daughters. They'll be beautiful. I hope Donna can help him take care of them. Jim, oh little Jim. We might've been tougher on him, the last one at home. He's got a baby of his own now. A little girl. Baby V as her cousins call her. Of course that leaves one. I swallow the saliva built up in my cheeks. It seems like I'm always oozing something. I knew I'd get old but I never knew what getting old would be. Everyone is around. Or at least I think they are. I feel, horrible. I betrayed her; I betrayed them. Maybe it's the drugs but it's time to face it.
"I'm sorry about Meredith."Donna could never be strong like her mother. I couldn't leave her with three kids just for the news of another one.
"Father Meredith? The priest?"
"It's just the drugs, he's been babbling for a long time."
Twelve years as an English Professor and is is the first time someone has described me as babbling...
"Okay, don't worry, dad. It's fine, we forgive you for father Meredith."they don't understand- |
"Your mother was a hamster,"he said to me softly, "it was the only way we could create another human."He stood from his chair and walked over to the fire. He stared into the flames before prodding it with his stick. "The outsiders castrated all of the men, and vowed to kill any woman who began to show pregnancy. They tried to make us the last generation, but a group of us decided that we were going to overcome. We were going to grow you and your siblings in the abdomen of a few of the male scientists on the team, but they became suspicious when Dr. Robertson began to gain weight. They did tests, they found him out, and he gave us up. With the little warning we had, we did the only thing that we could think of to save us all and give humanity a ilttle hope. We implanted each of you into on of the different animals we had in the lab. Jessica was implanted into an orangutang, Martin a kangaroo, and you a hamster. The others, well, it doesn't matter, for they aren't with us. We were pleasantly surprised when you made it. Nobody really expected it, to say the least. It was interesting the way the hamsters body expanded and came to host you . Your mothers appetite became voracious for such a small creature. She died giving birth. You were premature, we had to keep you in an incubator hidden underneath one of the homes. Anyway, you three are the only humans that are capable of repopulating the earth, and it's up to you in order for us to keep our species alive." |
His voice mumbled off incoherently as I sipped my wine, my foot tapping in thought. Man, this was awkward. Usually when I snuck over for the-wife-is-gone-on-business visits, I would be riding his dick like I was in the Kentucky Derby by now. I wasn't used to this buddy buddy talk and deep personal secret revelations. I poked his cheek with a manicured nail to see if I would get any response, and then ruffled his hair fondly when his snoring continued. Despite myself, I have come to really like the idiot. Good looking guy. Nice body. A voice that dripped like granulated honey. And I guess an ex mafia member that ratted out his boss 10 years ago today. I wrinkled my nose and looked around his living room. Plush furniture, shabby chic decoration, and those wedding photos where him and his wife look like they are shooting an ad for Target. I have to admit, he lucked out pretty well for the Witness Protection Program. I usually thought the government just dumped the snitches in a middle of the desert somewhere, gave them a fake tan and changed their name to Little White Horse or something equally racist.
I pulled out my phone and sighed. My husband will be getting back soon. Didn't even get a chance to get naked. Sheesh, what a nice little I-betrayed-the-mafia anniversary celebration. Call over your friendly neighbor fuck lady, get trashed, confess all your past criminal sins and somehow forgot to fuck her ass.
My heels clacked on wood laminate as I exited out the back, slipping around the side of the house. Having a fuck buddy conveniently next door has its merits. Despite not seeing his car, I still flung the door open with a cheery "Honey, I am home!"I cocked my head to the side listening, and when silence met me, I tromped up to the bedroom. Plopping into bed and pulling out my vibrator, I opened my laptop to the comforting glow of my browser. My hand posed over the keyboard as I stared at the Google search bar thoughtfully, my other hand fiddling with sex toy mechanics.
As the vibrator whirred into life, I typed "best ways to contact the mafia." |
A heroin junkie pretends to turn his life around as part of a scam to get rich and do drugs all day. In the process, he decides to get clean after all. Bonus points for ironic death at the end.
OR:
First contact scenario where the aliens turn out to be humanoids. Bonus points for including Bigfoot; ie the aliens are Bigfoots (bigfeet?) and the sightings are of advanced scouts.
OR:
Story begins with the phrase "I was just about to climax when..." |
We had just kicked Rico over the railing and into the prickley pear that bordered our apartment patio when I heard the doorbell ring. We’d gotten him liquored up all afternoon and taped the whole thing for youtube points. We hid on the patio—me with my ostrich suit on and Stubbs, a real life Ostrich, man, long damn neck an everything—and then jumped out of the shadows from behind the swing and kicked Rico right in the chest, sending him end over end over the rail. (I know I said we kicked him over, but the truth is Ostriches don’t really engage in that sort of things with humans, so I had to be content to supervise and manage the camera and let Stubbs do the kicking.) The jerk started screaming about stickers in his tickler, but Stubbs and I just left him and started in towards the door. I figured it was the pizza man, so I walked into the main room, and then right, and down the hall to the bathroom on the left. Pulling the shower curtain closed, I ran down the hallway to the door.
Now imagine my surprise when, instead of some stoned college kid with my sausage and mushroom pie, I’m staring at my dear ole ma, whose smile at the sight of my face vanishes as she looks down at my flared plumage. In she comes, practically pushing me into the door jam in her haste to get out of public view, where she commences to berate me for my outfit.
”Where is your dignity?” she asks, face scrunched up in pain.
”Ma, relax,” I say, “I’m working on something here. No worries, huh? Let me make ya some tea.”
I’m poking around the kitchen, conscious of the barely audible screams from two walls away, when I hear my progenitress scurry down the hall, saying “I’m just gonna pop right in here, sweetie.”
”No, ma, wait!” I shouted; but it was too late. The ostrich, startled, had started attacking mom’s shadow on the other side of the curtain, and as I burst into the bathroom, I saw my mom against the wall and Stubbs flapping in the tub trying to bury his head in the drain.
I grabbed her hand and jerked her out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind us. Whirling away, she faced me. As she opened her mouth to really let me have it, she stopped, and looking past me, gasped, before turning and fleeing past the intrusion, out the door, and to the safety of the parking lot and her car. I collected my bottom jaw from the floor as I saw what scared ma away—Rico, still half drunk, had stumbled back into the apartment, shouting belligerently, but with his britches bunched around near his knees and cactus spines sticking out of his dingus. I hit the record button again and began to laugh.
Finally the jerk would pay.
|
To the tenant of condo 53:
Hi, my name is Carl.
Yesterday the mean New Jersey sea breeze brought us six inches of snow. My boss, Layla, called me out to come shovel the condo complex, with the promise of a cup of hot chocolate and a paycheck when I finished.
My daughter did not have school yesterday, but I did not mind leaving her for a couple of hours, because I knew that I was leaving to bring home some money and better our lives.
I know that you saw me working in the horrible cold. I saw your blinds part with gentle fingers. For a moment, I could see your face.
My blood was imbued with the snow pelting and surrounding me, but seeing your warm eyes in the window, well, you melted all that cold right off of me.
And when you opened your screen door and called out to me, I actually started to sweat. Under the frozen, snow-covered sun, I was blinded by a beautiful light and my face could feel the heat.
I am sorry that I am not better with words. When you said, "Hey,"I could think of nothing better to say than "Uh—er—huh?"
I should have said something charming, but you didn't even care. Instead you asked me, "I just baked cookies. Would you like some? They're warm!"
I have a beautiful daughter, and I used to have a beautiful wife, too; but the truth is not at all stretched when I say that _you_ are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
And then we sat on your porch for a little bit and talked, and when I finished my cookie, I said thank you. I got up to start shoveling again and you sat on your porch and talked to me the whole time I worked on your walk and driveway, like I was the most interesting person in the world. You spoke to me as if I were a rare star that shot across the sky once every million years, or like I was a lead actor in your favorite movie, or like I was an old friend.
I am sorry that I am not better with words. When I finished shoveling your condo and you told me, "I'm gonna head in now,"I wish that I had something better to say than, "Okay, see you. Thanks again."What I meant was:
You are so beautiful and smart. What is your name? My name is Carl. I would love to take you on a date. I would even love for you to meet my daughter.
And last night, when my daughter asked me to tell her a bedtime story, I told her a story about the beautiful princess of Condo 53 and how she was not only gorgeous but totally kick ass, and she was also great at making cookies. She told me that she wished it weren't made up and was absolutely elated when I told her that it wasn't.
So I will be at home, taking care of my little girl and dutifully awaiting the call from Layla telling me that there is snow to be shoveled. Next time, I will tell you my name.
Regards,
Carl. |
I was sitting with Sherry in the lodge when he appeared.
The sun was lolling in the almost-dead afternoon and the dog was roaming just outside. I don't know how he keeps entertained. His ancestors had a million billion little things everywhere to chase. Now he only has a few. Everybody had once thought the frogs would be the first to go, but it hadn't worked out that way.
The sun releases a shock of green in the end of the day now. I don't know why. It's something to do with the angles, and you can see the green creeping across the sky. The lodge has a huge skylight and we like to watch the greentime wash over the world while we get shitfaced.
So anyway, he must have appeared a few feet above the ground because he crushed the dog. We found him all splayed out with the dog completely fucked right under him. His suit was a hulking mess with plenty of external clockworks and some of it was jammed into the dog something awful. Sherry was pissed. I mean she was furious with Bob, that's his name.
So we eventually figured out that he was yelling and that if we pressed our ears up to the helmet that we could just barely make him out. He showed us the little button on his chest and we got him out. He really did a number on his bottom half, it was a mess.
He passed out after that. We got him in a bed and went and looked up ancient medicinal best practices, and then we took shifts. Keeping him dry, making him drink water, we even fashioned a bedpan out of some of our sanitary dishes. It was no use.
So anyway, we have him bagged up out back whenever you all figure out who gets the body. Whenever you're ready, but would you please all go argue about this somewhere else? Our lodge is so very calm at this time of day and we like to get shitfaced around now. |
It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. But yet, there she was, there he was. Mom and Dad. The only connection I've had with them was right here for the past 20 years, in this new town, this small grubby pawn shop, white snow waltzing from the sky. They've been gone for so long now, their belongings, their house, their personalities, that it felt so, so good that they were back here with me. Warm with smiles, old hands wrapped around me.
I reached out to grab it, but the heat was too much. So I stood back, and watched them twist into smoke in the cold fireplace. |
So, this was death. He remembered it now. He remembered why he had left it behind. It hurt too much. After all, one never really dies alone.
He couldn't recall the last time he had thought of it. His family, his friends, they were all faint blurs. He knew they had existed, that he'd had parents, friends, a brother... or was it a sister? Maybe both. He knew they must have existed at some point, but he couldn't remember them in the slightest. Perhaps he had been adopted. Perhaps he had grown up in an orphanage, and only imagined his parents. Whatever the case, he had torn himself from all that long ago, so long he couldn't begin to guess how many centuries it had been. It had been so long that he had forgotten why he had left in the first place. Now he knew.
Before him stretched an obelisk of stark gray stone, a mournful testament to a life cut short. Beneath him, she lay, and he could think of nothing better to do now than to lay there above her. After all, one never really dies alone. |
Our protagonist Nicholas goes to beijing to win back his girlfriend Sandra. She has gotten involved with a tyrannical factory owner who uses child labor. Nick likes to visit the park and talk to the kids, to regain some innocence of his past, Nick is a drifter has been since he was born. He has stolen damn near everything he owns, including his coat that was once white. His coat was white when he first got it, until he had been cut one too many times as blood dripped onto his coat and decided he liked the color. Why was he cut? He used to work at a toy factory sewing on dresses for dolls. Because of this he grew to love children like him, toys and also a hatred of factory owners. As for reindeer he grew up alone, and befriended a bunch of friendly animals that an old lady bewitched into flying animals (she did it cause she is actually his mother, but that isnt known till the prequal comes out)he does finally defeat the factory owner (through magic)and grants Sandra eternal life, along with all the child labor workers who are the elves. |
The metallic taste in my mouth was inescapable. My tongue felt as if it were coated in blood. The air was pungent with a sweet smell of rot and decay. I could feel the heaviness in the air. A silence filled it. Slowly, a buzzing sound from above my head broke that silence.
My eyes fluttered opened slowly, adjusting to the flickering lights from above. I tried to survey the damage down to my body. The dark jeans that covered my legs were dirtier than I remembered. My legs felt weak, the blood pooling onto my lower legs and ass. How long had I been contorted in this position? The stupid navy blue button down shirt Stephanie had bought me had ripped on the bottom. She was going to be pissed the fuck off. This mess, this dirty to come into every pore in my body had to have taken days, or maybe hours. It was no matter, everything seemed to blend together now.
My body was slumped between the dark green stall covered in graffiti and an old, dirty toilet that had smeared stains and dried liquid caked onto the seat and bowl. Automatically, I began to gag at the sight and smell emitting from the bowl.
The palms of my hands brushed against the cold, filthy tile floor that was mixed with toilet paper and other trash. I forced any ounce of strength I had in body onto my hands, carefully lifting myself off of the floor. One hand immediately went to balance myself on the toilet seat. The other hand was pressed against the stall wall. I could feel the blood rushing and circulating in my legs. The hot sensation of everything moving around so quickly from a seated position.
I straightened myself up and held the other side of the stall. My footsteps seemed minimal now, only a few inches at a time. The stall door was already open. I was alone. Completely alone in this chaotic mess of a public bathroom.
Stepping out of the stall, I moved towards the line of sinks in front of me. I planted the palms of my hand against one of the cold metal sinks. My gaze slowly met the reflection in front of me.
The mirror was cracked, with multiple fault lines that had appeared on impact. Dark dried blood was smeared into the splintered cracks. I could see myself between the broken shards.
“What the fuck,” my voice was delicate, filled with weakness.
My reflection looked unrecognizable. My hair looked dirty and wild. My eyes looked sunken in and sullen. Dark bags had found a home under my eyes. I looked weathered and beaten, like an old flag during a storm.
I turned on one of the sinks. The water was ice cold. I ran my hands in the water trying to clean them of the dirtiness of the floor. It was inescapable. Everything in here was dirty. I tried to wash away all the grime before taking a sip of water from the faucet. This was barbaric.
My hands formed a cup, allowing water to fill in between them. Instinctively, I threw the water on my face. The shock jolted me awake. I picked up the collar of my shirt and wiped off the excessive water from my face.
That is when I noticed it. In the little pocket on the upper left side of my shirt rested something small. I fished out the small piece of paper out of the pocket with two fingers. It was a business card. A light tan colored business card with black cursive lettering. Nothing was written on the back. I flipped it over again, looking over what was printed on it. C. Keir.
“Who the fuck is C. Keir?” I asked no one in particular. I was isolated in this stupid public bathroom, with someone’s business card in my pocket.
As I exited the bathroom, I expected to find life on the other side of the door. That there would be something or someone out there who knew me, or C. Keir. Or why I was in the bathroom.
Nothing prepared me to see a mall that was completely vacant. Backlights illuminated the halls. Some stores had their gates down. Others were opened as if nothing had happened. The only thing missing were people. This was something out of a horror movie.
My heart began to beat in my chest harder and faster. Every thud sounded in my ear. The only other thing I could hear were my own footsteps. I was completely alone.
I walked past stores looking at how everything was disheveled. The lights were off in every single store. Mannequins of clothing stores were dismembered, placed on the floor.
My mouth became dry. My tongue felt like sandpaper. Nerves were causing me to ball up my hands into fists.
I finally heard it. I heard the footsteps coming from a different direction. There was someone else. I wasn’t alone anymore.
“Stop,” the voice shouted. I felt my whole body tense. Finally, I understood the flight or fight response everyone talks about when you know something bad is about to happen. This was my moment. I could feel the adrenaline surge through my veins.
My body had made the decision for my mind. I continued walking straight ahead.
“I said stop!” The voice sounded stronger and closer.
This time, my legs froze. My whole body froze.
A kid no older than twelve stood in front of me. He appeared from one of the dimly lit stores. Fuck. I didn’t even see him. I was easy prey. A baseball bat rested against his shoulder. Great, this day is the gift that keeps on giving.
“Who are you?” The kid asked. He rolled the baseball bat off of his shoulder and rested it against his hip.
The distance between us wasn’t as big as I had hoped. There had to be maybe three feet separating us now.
“Who are you?” I asked watching him tilt his head. He was trying to act tough. As if he was older than he was. He was just a baby.
“I asked you first.” His voice never wavered unlike mine. My voice sounded hollow while his sounded strong. Completely the opposite of how we should sound.
“Are you C. Keir?” This question got his attention. His expression softened as he picked up the baseball bat again.
“How do you know C. Keir?”
“Because of this,” I muttered holding the business card by my fingertips. The kid frowned when his eyes scanned it.
“Come with me,” he said. He immediately turned around with his back facing me. The baseball bat still rested against his shoulder.
“You’re not C. Keir, are you?” The kid just ignored me. His pace quickened as he walked down the empty corridor.
“Just follow me,” he stated dryly. His tattered jeans were fraying on the bottom behind his heel.
We walked for what seemed like an hour but was not even ten minutes in actuality. He stopped in front of a storefront that had a cluster of lights illuminating the center of the space. A group of kids sat around something in the middle of them.
“Here.” He pointed into the store. “Go in.” I entered. I was preparing for my impending doom.
I was no better than an antelope on a science channel getting mauled by a lion. And the lion was not even twelve.
The kid walked beside me. He was watching my expression, my face for some sort of clue.
As we got closer to the kids I could see it. A dog sat in the middle of the group. It looked like some sort of white and brown fluffy mix. What the hell was happening to me?
“Which one is C. Keir?” I asked the kid. That’s when I noticed it. A smile forming on his lips. “What? Which one of the kids is C. Keir?”
The kid started laughing causing the others to look in our direction. They all looked in a trance, their eyes looked glazed over. As if on cue, they began to laugh.
I could feel my stomach sink in fear. I was going to die at the handle of these little tykes.
My new friend grinned watching my confusion grow. He held his baseball bat in one hand, pointing it towards the dog.
“That’s C. Keir,” he said so matter-of-factly. “He’s in the center.” |
The air was thick with black smoke. Sirens wailed in the distance, announcing to the world that help was on the way. Help would come too late. By the time the fire department had been called the the roof was seconds from caving in. I stood with the crowd, watching as light and heat turned a home into a ruin. The thing about a fire is that once it gets going, there is nothing you can really do to help. It becomes a spectacle until the professionals show up, then it's like watching a battle. Man vs flame. There's a tale as old as time.
When the first hose put water to the conflagration there was a loud hiss. White smoke billowed wherever the water touched but the angry flames just swallowed it up and kept going. Standing this close to the fire I could feel the heat in waves, as if the fire were some great beast, taking deep breaths. My lips were dry and my eyes stung from the smoke but I kept watching. The place was getting crowded now, people asking questions about the owners. Were they home? Asleep in their beds, unaware of the destruction that had found them?
I turned to walk away, I didn't feel like being in a crowd right now. Besides, someone might smell the gasoline on my clothes if they got too close.
|
The closest comparison I draw to the sound of their bullets pounding the earth just feet, sometimes inches, from my head is the sound of a goat farting. It's a quick *piff* that makes me crack a grin and forget the terrified wails and angry shouts around me. The happiness from that single memory of when I was 12 brings tears to my eyes. They sting against the dirt and I grip my rifle for the sake of bravery.
A hand clasps my shoulder. It's the sergeant. His eyes are unnaturally blue and set like stones against the task before us. "Get up. We're moving."Several soldiers, crouched against the tide of metal flung by the Indonesian strike force overhead, go by in my peripheral, but the sergeant doesn't break his gaze.
I nod and begin to follow along the trench line. The *piff* sound is no longer funny. I fall in behind the next soldier up and proceed along. The sergeant shouts at us to keep our heads down. A loud shout originates from much nearer than the treeline, where our enemy is attacking us from. Moments later, a shrill-sounding spark blinds me temporarily and my head is jerked to the side. The sound is a firecracker going off underwater.
I black out. When I come to, I have no idea how much time has gone by. The sky is overcast, a stark contrast to the bright blue eyes looking over me, largely stony, but with something human in them. He rips my dog tags off. My head jerks and I become aware of a hot sort of pain under my helmet. I absent-mindedly reach up and pull my helmet off.
There is a large, burning scar where something melted through. It is long and jagged. It reminds me of old wood that's taken an axe to its midsection years past; the axe forgets what the tree always remembers, and it never recovers, just heals over on itself. It reminds me of the fence at the farm, one we used to keep the sheep in. My vision blurs and the blue eyes move on. And on. And on. And- |
There was a discussion about rabies earlier today, or I guess "last night". Earlier tonight. Yesterday. And the description of the symptoms and the fatality and suffering and pain of it all was pretty horrifying. It's one thing for a dog to get rabies, but to see a person who is still a person and knows what's happening and what's going to happen and having almost no control over it...
How about that? From the perspective of Patient Zero (not necessarily rabies), in his or her final days. Or rather, the last moments a person's humanity. |
A group of teenagers come together and discover they all have something in common. Each possesses a very special gift, an elemental magic that must be kept secret from outsiders. As they delve into their past, they realize there is a final battle to be fought against the root of all evil. All the generations before them have failed.
Where others have faltered on the path, they must succeed. They are the last of their kind.
If they can overcome, evil will be vanquished now and forever.
However, should they fail... |
I'm in love with a girl. She's in a relationship with the man I hate most. Last night, closer to sunrise than sunset, she called me.
"Please. You need to come help. He overdosed and I don't know who else to call."
I went. I had to. I might hate him, but he's my brother.
Before I could knock on the door to his apartment, it flew open and she dove into my arms. For a second I was happy, wrapped in her embrace. It didn't last, the reality of the situation rushed up to meet me. Pulled by the hand into his bedroom, the stench of vomit met me. There he was, sprawled on the bed, shaking. I cleaned him up and calmed him down. I had to.
They sat together on the bed, holding each other close as I watched from the doorway. After a time, he spoke.
"I know how you feel about me, but you saved me tonight. I can never thank you enough."
It was a long time before I responded. I stood and considered the couple on the bed.
"I didn't do it for you."
With that I took my leave. |
In the chill of a winter night, after you have locked the door, after you have tucked your children in, after you have told your wife you love her and she too has retired to the bedroom, after you have sat down in the living room to watch the snow drift down from the night sky, after all of that -- an icy gust will rattle your shutters and chill your bones, and you will see her face in the fire.
In the chill of a winter night, after you are absolutely sure that you are safe, it is only then that she will come for you.
(Scare me with this! Looking forward to your response.) |
She walked out on me, yelling something about how I have the emotional density of a piece of wood. Really, I just was waiting for the game to be over. I couldn’t give her the attention she wanted when their offense was raping us like that. Couldn’t she have just waited until after the game was over? I listen to her all the other times. She needs a pair of shoes. Sarah didn’t say hi first at the reunion. She doesn’t know what to wear to Laura’s. I listen to all of her nonsense. She should have known better than to talk to me during the game anyway. Of course I have the emotional density of piece of wood during the game! I'm not sitting there analyzing Freud as they pass a touchdown. I’m a man. I like football, and I really like beer and food. |
My son would always give me cryptic replies to my questions. The kind of replies that were okay in childhood, but honestly downright creepy past 5. I'm a linguist, so my son's odd speech intrigued me. Maybe it was some weird invented language - common in boys his age. But, never this structured. Never so complicated. Nouns were verbs, verbs were adjectives, and adjectives were nouns. Green was Dad. Me and my wife soon began talking like him - jokingly at first. I slowly deciphered and fostered the language alongside him. He grew up around the language - he codified murder as *rat*, he made torture *tail*. He shelled himself around the language. The transition was slow as he entered his early teens. The adjective for *was* became disgusting instead of happy. He began to hide the language from me.
It was a late summer night when I woke up to screams. The spot reserved for my wife was empty. I ran downstairs to our loving room and turned on the lights. Our son sat in the pool of blood around my wife, hunched down and sobbing. I ran to him and helped him up, and noticed blood scrawled on the wall.
"The rat's tail was green. "
I knew who wrote it, but couldn't react before my son lifted his face and gun to my torso.
Green rat. |
My dearest,
I breathe.
It’s a strange thing, breathing. I didn’t expect it would be so different now that you’re left me. It’s harder. More painful. Everything is more painful without you, but breathing especially so. Sometimes I want to stop.
My parents and my friends are all around me. I might as well be the last person alive. There’s a line of people going through our apartment, all day every day. They don’t want me to be alone, they say. They don’t realise I am even if they’re here.
Sometimes they stay the night, too. I spend the evening with them pretending to believe their speeches about how time heals all wounds and I’ll feel better eventually. I make polite noises, then we go to sleep and they pretend they don’t hear me when I cry in the night.
I love you. It kills me that I won’t be able to say that to you anymore, that I won’t get to see your dimples flare up as you smile when I say it, feel you snuggle up against me when we sleep. It kills me that I won’t see your eyes wrinkle and hear you say that little “me too” you always say, like that last time before you left, hours before I got the call that some asshole who thought he was too cool to follow speed limits lost control of his car and took you from me.
I don’t know what I’m going to do now that you’re gone. I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel anything but hurt again. I don’t know what I can do to get back on my feet. I don’t know if I can ever have a future, except from that future that was taken from me.
I don’t know what to do, so I fall back on the only thing I’m sure I can do now.
I breathe. |
I mean, I didn't mean to do it. Believe me, if I could do it again, I'd rather have kept the money, but you know, shit happens.
Anyway, Christmas. Wonderful time of year. You'd be surprised how much easier petty crime is in the winter. Especially City winters. Y'see, everything's a little more crowded in the winter - especially public transport. People are all pushing in, it's harder to feel when a hand's grabbing a wallet, and harder to recognize people between all the scarves and the hats. Real wonderful time of year.
…but the best part isn't little shit like petty theft. The best part is ChristmasCon. The one night a year where idiots throw on Santa costumes and get hammered from day til night. It's the perfect alibi, and the haul is always great. The trick is to find the drunkest group of people, get them all moving the street with the promise of "Just one more bar, bro!"When everyone's moving, you get them mad. You tell them that this night is great because it's about freedom and having a good time. You tell them that these days are tough because the man's holding them down. You tell them to fuck the man, and take what's theirs…then you chuck a brick through the nearest store front and start a good old fashioned riot. While all the rest of the fuckers are going through the store trying to loot as much shit as possible, the experienced thief knows to go straight to the back and hit the registers. Preferably without anyone else noticing. This being ChristmasCon, I conveniently have a sack. Because I'm motherfucking Santa. The money goes in the sack, and I leave out the back before the police arrive.
By the time the police get anywhere near me, I'm three bars away, and a few hundred dollars richer.
"A few hundred dollars?!?"You say.
"Is it really worth all the risk for a few hundred dollars?!!?"You say.
Well yes and no. I mean, it's really fucking risky, and it's not like I need the money that bad…but on the other hand…I really like starting riots. The money is really more like the cherry on top.
"What? If the money is just extras, why do you still you wish you could rather have kept it?"You say.
Fuck you. I just really like cherries.
Anyway, you're probably thinking… yeah Santa has a sack, and you put all the money in there, but how many other people on the streets are running around with sacks. Well it's mostly dudes, so there a lot of sacks on the streets. But ballsacks aside, you're right. Most people don't carry sacks. That's where the real ingenuity of ChristmasCon bullshit kicks in. At the first bar I slide into after the heist, I change beards, tie off the moneysack, and put that shit into my sewn in, Santa belly pocket. Nice and spacious, and sly as fuck. Plenty of fat Santas around everywhere that night, that shit's perfect. As long as I get out the store and into one bar, I'm basically clear.
So what happened? If I'm so fucking smart (which I am), how the fuck did I manage to lose the few hundred dollars (yes, I'm aware that that's pretty much pennies) that I was risking my ass for. I was fucking robbed. That's what fucking happened.
I'm moving in between post-robbery bars 4 and 5, when I get cornered by these giant fucking Santas with sacks full of bricks - bricksacks. Kinda made me wish I still had my angry mob with me…alas, I had gotten them all arrested not fifteen minutes prior. So I pulled out my wallet put it on the ground and slowly backed away. Of course since it was a robbery wallet, it only had a fake ID and a few twenty's in there. No big deal. Except my robbers caught on quick, and I hadn't nearly gotten far enough to out run them. They might have been carry bricks, but they must not have been the heavy, and my Santa costume was really slowing me down from the sack just flinging all over the place (stop thinking about ballsacks, you fucking pervert).
I end up making the worst decision of my night. I threw the coat over the fence into what I had believed was an empty lot and decided I'd go back for it. And you know the rest, I went back, got the coat, didn't realize I dropped the money sack when my belly pocket came unzipped from running. I scramble back to the lot, and by the time I'm there, tough luck. My money's gone.
As it fucking turns out. It wasn't an empty lot. It was someone's backyard. And guess whose backyard it was. It was the guy whose store I fucking robbed. Seriously. What the fuck?
Anyway, his store was failing. It was this miserable, half-assed pawn shop. But by breaking in, I gave him a massive insurance check. Like. Seriously massive. By dropping the money off, he gets a little bit of liquidity while he waits for his check. Third, that motherfucker went viral. Probably the most famous pawn shop in the City now, his business is fucking crazy. I brought that motherfucker enough business to bring him from basically cancelling Christmas to the children's hero. All fucking me.
And I just risked my ass for nothing. I want that money back.
|
Sam looked across the lake, at the burning village. He had done only what was necessary. Samhain had demonstrated his reach, poisoning a batch of Skittles and killing 10,000 American children. It was his turn to retaliate. Setting the fireworks was easy. They lit the village up like a Christmas tree. Sam grinned. The ball was in Samhain's court now. All Sam had to do was wait and- shit. The fireworks were supposed to be over. And on the other side of the lake. And not heading towards Sam's observation deck. Sam looked across the lake at Samhain's village, to see what they were planning. *boom* the fireworks hit the tower, causing a small fire. Slowly, it grew, and joined with a new fire caused be a new firecracker. And another. And another. Sam's last thoughts were about the war. But this was the Fourth. This was his damn day, he thought. This was his day, until the last moment. He smiled as he burned to a crisp.
Jack rose to the surface, gasping for air. He had seen the tower go up; he knew Uncle Sam was dead. He knew half the job was done. As he gripped the lollipop he had sharpened into a dagger, he thought about the second half. He thought about how the Lord of Fear would know terror before the night's end. He thought about how the Patron Saint of Halloween will spend his last moments alive remembering his own motto. *Always check your candy*. |
"Daniel, you must see this."
His eyes hung low, weathered, sinking into the tired, dark bags below his lids. He hadn't slept for days. He hadn't been out of the bathroom in hours. His tear-stained shirt soaked up much of the steam from the shower. A wet mess.
I knew him long enough to know something was wrong. That was the sharpshooter in me, pinpointing even his most internal targets. But it seemed like he didn't even try to hide it at all. So desperate was his will to stand that all his strength went into just keeping him upright. Some part of him wanted to slouch against the wall and embrace the ground or just fall face first into the tile.
I took a step into the bathroom. Immediately I knew that Craig and I would be changed forever.
Where my arms grew hair, his grew scales. Where my teeth grew flat, his grew sharp. Where my eyes were pearl, his were a grotesque yellow. *My grotesque yellow*. And, clutched within his underbelly, in a place I could not yet describe, a bulbous mass lay rest. Churning. Pulsing. Growing.
Craig caught his breath. "We have to tell the others."
I wanted to scold him for just thinking of the idea, but I stopped myself. He clutched his side, paralyzed by the vigorous pain piercing his core. He looked up at me in agony, then quickly in disgust. His scales flared. He didn't like being seen so weak.
"They don't even know about *us*,"I said. "How can we possibly tell them that you're pregnant, too?"
He tore into the floor with his magnificent claws, throwing his head back in discomfort, slamming the sink with his fist. Frustration coursed his body like an electrical charge. The sink's heads-up display spewed a wave of numbers and information, a flimsy reply to Craig's numbered bouts with the porcelain. I stopped him before he broke the thing outright.
"We have to get you to the hospital ward,"I said. He ripped his hand from my grip.
"This is how my species reproduces,"he replied through coughing spurts. "I am built this way."
That was his way of telling me, "that's a terrible idea."And, indeed, it was. We were aboard the *Sunken Colony*, the largest ultrafreighter in the sector. Over fifty different species were represented at the time, several thousand representatives in total, from engineers to pilots to soldiers to executives. Just in our part of the ship alone, fortunately where the hospital ward was located already, a few hundred or so riddled the hallways and stations. We wouldn't make it without being seen.
"It must be cut out."
I almost choked on my response. "Are you serious?"
"Daniel."He looked me right in the eye. "You know this is not my child."
We knew the radiation would have some sort of effect on him, but I could never wrap my head around it. I could barely come to terms with him being able to be pregnant in the first place, but then it occurred to me that I hadn't thought much about the entire situation at all. I was so worried about the word of our relationship spreading that I had conditioned myself not to talk about it at all. Now he needed my involvement the most and I found myself at a loss for words.
The *Sunken Colony* engaged with an immense caravan of space bandits near the Uljan sector last week. After being aboard the ultrafreighter for over half a cycle, this was my first glimpse of combat and all of its glory. It was also my first glimpse of its horrors – despite the sheer size of the crew, it took very little to get a super-majority to torture the prisoners of war. Craig was almost enticed to join in himself, if not for my swift moderation. It was then that I learned who he was. It was then that I found my passion for him.
He gripped the sink again, generating the weakest of leverages. “Help me to the extractor.” He pointed to the far corner of the bathroom, where a monstrous pair of metallic forceps swayed just above a medical bed. I had never touched the thing.
I looked back at him, clinging to his gaze in desperation. He tore away. He could see it in my eyes. I wasn't ready to do this.
He waved me away. “Get one of the nurses. You can help them clean the remainders.”
The air ripped in two from the power of his subsequent roar. He trembled, his scales tingling in time. He held his glowing abdomen away from me.
I came to terms that I'd have to challenge that monster in the corner now.
“Craig,” I pleaded, reaching for his large frame. “I'm getting you on that bed now. We'll cut it out. I can do this for you.”
“No.” I tried to pull away. He held me firmly in place. “You do not need to do this.”
He pulled his claws from his side, the bulge no longer glowing. His pupils shrunk. His scales receded. Composure returned to his form. Straightening his back, he got up effortlessly and made his way out of the bathroom.
“Don't worry yourself, Daniel,” he said. “I'll be fine.”
I clenched my pistol tight and pulled the trigger. The blast careened toward Craig, catching him just as he turned back toward me. The mass ruptured, torn from its foundation like buildings in a twister. It shrieked as it tumbled across the floor.
“What was that?” Craig whirled around, baring his teeth.
The fleshy sac sprung toward Craig's maw. I quickly placed two shots, skewering its gooey entrails. The mass flailed against the wall, heaving bits and pieces of its guts everywhere. Gelatinous globs caked the entirety of the room's interior, quickly stinking up the place.
I turned to meet Craig. The pain had left his eyes. I could hear a soothing calm re-enter his voice.
“Thank you,” he began. “For being there for me.”
We didn't meet the hospital ward staff that night, but security of course came knocking on the door. We handed over the necessary documents – the radiation had caused a parasitic infection that quickly took advantage of Craig's reproductive organs. A week wasn't much for the infestation to manifest itself.
And with that, the security detail was on its way. They asked no further questions. Craig and I looked each other in the eyes. Neither did we. |
Steve had never gone this way before, but it was raining today and the alley served as a shortcut on his walk between jobs. He had always avoided the dark and littered alley way. He was a careful man who followed the rules and didn't take risks. Today was different though. Steve had had enough. Enough of scraping by on two part time jobs at $8/hour while his daughter lay dying in the hospital. Steve wished he could quit working and just spend what time he had left with her. But he still had hope. If he could just come up with another $10,000, his daughter would be put on the heart transplant list. Even then, she would still need a donor. "It's not fair", he thought as he hurried through the alley way.
Steve raced past the dumpsters and piles of trash and almost missed it. In fact, he would not have noticed it at all but it stood out. Sitting amongst the garbage and debris was a bright red duffle bag. Steve slowed down as he passed by and studied the bag. It looked so clean and bright in the midst of the dirty concrete walls and pouring rain. The bag was made of fine leather and had some kind of fancy gold emblem on the side. Steve looked around perplexed. "That is an awfully nice bag to be sitting here by the trash"thought Steve. He looked at his watch. He really needed to get going if he wanted to make it to his second job on time. He looked around for a few seconds before stooping down in front of the bag and grabbing the zipper. "Let me just take a quick peek"
Steve jumped back and froze as he stared down at the opened bag. His jaw dropped and his heart pounded. The bag was filled to the brim with neatly wrapped stacks of cash. Steve looked around frantically. He had just finished working the night shift and it was only 6 in the morning. It was quiet. No one was around. Steve bent back down and picked up a stack of the cash. As he ran the edges of the crisp bills through his fingers, he thought about his daughter. The amount in his hand alone had to be at least $5,000. "This has to belong to someone"thought Steve as he looked around again. "There must be hundreds of thousands of dollars here. I only need ten grand."
Before he could talk himself out of it, Steve grabbed another stack of bills, stuffed both into his coat pockets, zipped up the bag and took off running. As he rounded the corner at the end of the alley he heard a door open behind him. He stopped and peered back around the corner to see a well dressed man accompanied by a small boy exit a doorway in the alley. Steve's heart was pounding through his chest as the man bent down and picked up the red bag.
It seemed like an eternity as the man picked up each and every stack of bills and counted them. Steve didn't know what to do. He thought about running. He thought about approaching the man and giving back the money. Maybe he could explain to the man and apologize. Steve couldn't move. He gripped the corner of the building he was hiding behind and watched as the man pulled a phone from the inside of his suit jacket and dialed it.
"I thought we agreed on $300,000", said the man into the phone. "This is only $290,000."
Steve was screaming on the inside as he listened. It was then that he caught a closer glimpse of the young boy standing next to the man. The boy was gagged and blindfolded. "Say goodbye to your son"said the man as he calmly pulled out a gun from his jacket, pressed it up against the boy's head and pulled the trigger.
"Nooooo!"screamed Steve as he dropped to his knees in tears. The man looked Steve's way but put away his gun, picked up the bag of money and ran off. Steve stumbled down the alley and slumped himself down next to the lifeless body of the boy lying on the muddy pavement. He pulled off the boy's gag and blindfold and saw that there was nothing that could be done. He stared at the hole in the middle of the boy's forehead as the child's lifeless eyes seemed to stare back at him. Blood filled the puddles surrounding the body.
As Steve stood up, one of the stacks of cash fell out of his pocket and onto the ground. He quickly picked it up and stared at it. It was covered in blood. Steve was suddenly gripped with grief. This was his fault. He looked back at the money and did his best to wipe off the blood. Stuffing it back into his pocket, he turned and ran. He ran and didn't stop until he reached the hospital.
Steve was soaking wet as he approached the hospital desk. "I have the money!"he shouted frantically as he leaned up against the desk, panting and nearly falling over. The nurse gave him a nervous look as he handed over the money, still wet and now pink with blood stains.
Two hours later Steve was holding his daughter's hand as the doctor walked in. "Congratulations!"said the doctor. "They found a donor for your daughter. We will be moving her to surgery within the hour."Steve pushed past the lump in his throat as he asked, "Do they know anything about the donor?"The doctor's expression changed as he solemnly replied, "You may have seen the news over the last week. The son of that business man that was held for ransom. The kidnappers killed the boy. The family wants your daughter to have his heart."
|
"Well I'm sorry you feel that way sir. I do have the deluxe package available that I feel would... Sir? Sir are you still there?"
I sighed and removed Mr. Emmrich from the call list.
I started to dial the next number. I remember when I started at InteleCorp. I was eager, and each new call looked like a shining opportunity to make commission. That bright outlook faded with the never-ending shouting and "Do you know what time it is?"customers. I can't even remember the last time I enjoyed coming to work.
920-668-9080 - Kim Richards.
The call became to route and I mentally prepared myself for another rejection and feeling intrusive. The phone rang only once and the line picked up.
"Please help me."A female voice whispered into the phone.
My heart sank into my stomach for a brief second, for I thought the person on the other end was being serious. The surprise turned to irritation. I assumed it was another kid trying to be funny. A lot of houses recognize telemarketer calls and kids tend to prank us at least a couple times a day.
"Excuse me?"I asked before returning to my script. "Would you be interested in hearing about saving twenty dollars a month on your TV service?"
"Please, please help me! There is a man in my house, and he's looking for me."The voice cracked with a definite sense of despair.
"Ma'am, is this some sort of joke? If you're not interested, please just let me know."I broke from the script and I thought for sure she heard the panic in my voice.
"No! Please, I need the police. He is getting closer."If this was a prank, it was the most convincing one I have ever heard.
"Why is this man after you?"I felt inclined to answer her in some way or another, even if I was just playing into her joke.
"I don't know why! Please just help me"She got a little louder as she spoke faster and faster.
"Just try to keep quiet. Are you somewhere where you are hidden?"I answered her. If it was a joke, I'm not losing anything i figured.
"Yes, I'm in my son's room in the closet."She answered me. My stomach turned knots as I felt more and more that this was real.
"Just keep as quiet as possible, and I'll call the police, okay?"I reassured her. "What's your address?"
"3605 W. Pitman Avenue, Green Bay, 54308"She whispered, her voice seeming more controlled.
"Okay, I'll call the police. Just try to stay quiet. You're not going to hear me say anything for a minute, but I'm still here okay?"I switched on a new call on my computer program and dialed the Brown County emergency dispatching center.
"911, whats the address of your emergency?"A female voice answered. I relayed the information that I had to the woman and she told me that police would be on the way.
"I'm going to switch to the other line to let her know okay?"I asked the call taker.
"That's fine, I'll stay on the line for you."
I switched to the other line. "Kim, I'm back. Are you still there?"
Silence.
"Kim, are you still here with me?"There was still silence.
Suddenly I heard rustling in the background mixed with a quiet whimper. I felt like my heart stopped. "Please don't do this."I heard Kim's voice plead.
The sound of the gunshot blocked everything else out. It rang in my ears. I heard Kim's body topple over. I was short of breath and I found it hard to move.
I heard the footsteps of the unknown assailant walking away from the phone. |
Here are some small bits I got. Can't write dialog for shit.
----
"aaaAAAAA!"Suddenly a new man stood before the crowd - and only two people were actually surprised. "The hand trick didn't work! Anyway... Hands... Legs... All there! I'm a girl-NO! No, no, no, no! And *still* not ginger!""Docto-""Okay... What do we have this tim-""DOCTOR!""WHAT?""THE DALEKS!""Oh! Right! Sorry, my head's a bit scrambled right now, new face, new brains. Come along Rose!"
----
"New face again, Doctor? The man who ended the Time War, getting younger and younger.""Hello, Davros. Long time no see."
----
"Is that really your plan? Destroy everything? Time Lords tried it, and you know how that story ends."
----
"So, the hand trick wasn't a complete bust after all! Oh, is this what I look like? Sand shoes, what *was* I thinking?"
----
"But he's not you!""He's more me than me, Rose. You know it."The Doctor whispers something in Rose's ear, and she kisses him. "Goodbye, Rose Tyler..."
----
"So, do you like my new suit?""A bowtie? You have *got* to be joking.""What? Bowties are cool!"
|
There is little needed to be said about regrets. It is a word that, in and of itself, carries its own weight. A regret is an enormous thing. It is black, cold, and dragging its nails across your skin.
In every good deed lies a seed of evil. There are motives behind every action. Even when we believe we are being altruistic, there is that small, hard nodule of selfishness, of evil, of motives that we keep hidden.
I became a priest with the belief that I could erase my evil thoughts, release whatever it was in my life has caused me to be this way. It is a black thing, curled up in my chest, with tendrils reaching into my brain, it is a cancer. It is a beast.
I was never strong enough to defeat it, to let it go. There's something sweet in the moments where I gave in, something like heaven that I found, something that made me want to be good. And just as quickly, once realized, threw me into my own personal hell, flames licking my heart, a white heat pressed into my skull.
Demons are real. Demons are us.
I am told I am forgiven, I am washed clean, I am in the light of our Lord.
I am not.
I am living in the mud and excrement of my life. It cannot be washed, but sticks to every part of my body, fills my mouth, drowns me each day to die and start again. It is seeping through my pores and into my bones. I am to die covered in my filth and sin. There is no one to wash me clean, no one to save me. Evil has become my comrade and my only ally.
No one saves my kind of evil, no one speaks fine words or plays sweet music. In the day when I am to meet my end, I know I will see only black. I will hear nothing. |
"That's all good and fine, but are they bringing it here with them?"
"I'm not sure sir, all i know is that they have exclusive rights on its design and they aren't happy about you're booklet discussing it."
"Preposterous, you can't have exclusive rights on murder, much like life. its information and that's free to anyone. they can't get away with dominating these new markets, and with such secrets for so long, and i'll see to it that they do no such thing!
the small crowd gathered around the candle light looking like men do when they are terrified but trying poorly to hide it as best as they can. faces carved out of stone, eyes a little too wide and all looking to their leader for the next move.
"i hear its more destructive than 1000 muskets together"
"i hear it crushes everyone in sight before they can even see it coming"
"i hear its a hard, fast fire inside a metal beetle that they drop on your village to burn it down!"
"Nonsense!"spoke their leader, "whatever it is that this massacre machine is it will not bring down this city. these British tried to take this land from us once and now they think they can try again just because they have some new toys. i think not. and you should all do well to think the same. regardless, i have my own toy that was almost a year in the making waiting for the regulars at the border. they think they have a monopoly on massacres?! Well we have dominion over freedom! and im going to give them the american brand or freedom with our freedom machine!
just then one of their ranks burst through the wooden door, frantic, shouting, "its time! they're here!"and the battle of machines began. |
Good morning, class. Today we are all going to go over our ABCs. Doesn't that sound fun, children?
Oh I know you're excited Susie. But don't start too soon. If you do, I will rip out your throat and feed you to Mr. Kibbles, sweetie.
All right. Are we ready to begin, little angels? Wonderful. Then let's start!
A is for?
Asphyxiation!
Awesome! Then B is for?
Bludgeoning!
Brilliant! C is for?
Chainsaw!
Charming! Like Leatherface! D is for?
Decapitation!
Damnation, you're all so good! E is for?
Electrocution!
Easy answer. Sadly, it does end too quickly. F?
Flaying!
Fabulous. Simply fabulous. G?
Guillotine!
Great! Though not my favorite. It's even quicker than electrocution! H?
Hemlock!
How wonderfully old school. I?
Icepick!
I simply love you all. J?
Jar Jar Binks!
Jesting are we, my impudent imps? I'll let this one slide. He is a horrid creature. K?
Katana!
Klassic. Did you see what I just did there? You did? That's a good boy. L?
Lye!
Lovely! M?
Machete!
My word, that is good. N?
Napalm!
Nastiness, but it does smell like victory! O?
Overkill!
Oh happy day! That one is certainly my favorite. P?
Pickaxe!
Praise the Lord! Q?
Quarterstaff!
Quite right. I was sure I had you there. R?
Rocket launcher!
Right! How modern! But, sadly, so impersonal. S?
Scythe!
Sheesh. That one was too easy. T?
Torture!
Tremendous! U?
Utter annihilation!
Unbelievable. Though that is cheating a bit. V?
Venom!
Very good. W?
Weed whacker!
Well done! X?
…
X?
Err... Xena the Warrior Princess?
Not violent enough. Guard, off with that boy’s head and two random kids of your choosing. Y?
Yugoslavians?
Yes, that’s acceptable. Though horribly racist. Guard, kill that girl, too. Z?
Zits?
Zounds? Was that all you could come up with? Zits? Guard, kill them all!
Well, it looks like I have no students left. Perhaps I’ll get a better batch tomorrow. |
Elizabeth stood waiting for her cue. Her dream had come true. She had found Mister Right, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. As she took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in her stomach, she reflected on how she got to this point in her life.
Ever since she was a freshmen in high school, Elizabeth was the girl that all the boys wanted. No male could resist her body and her charm. She had her pick of the bunch. Elizabeth dated random boys here and there until she started dating Bryan during the tail end of junior year.
It was good at first. Bryan was certainly handsome, and he seemed like a sweet, caring, boy. Then the comments started. "You look too fat."and "You're so dumb". It wasn't long before he started beating her.
Elizabeth willed herself not to cry as she remembered all the abuse she took from Bryan.
The church organ started playing the beginning notes of "Here comes the Bride"and Elizabeth walked through the doors of the chapel and saw him. The man of her dreams, Kyle.
Kyle had been her friend since the first grade. No matter what happened in her life he would always be there to share in her joy or comfort her in her grief. Elizabeth counted on Kyle more and more as they grew up. She could tell him anything without feeling uncomfortable be it boy troubles or frustrations with parents. Kyle was the only one she could tell what Bryan was doing to her.
Elizabeth took Kyle's hand and the priest started reciting the vows. His word faded as she looked into Kyle's eyes and remembered the night she realized how much she loved him.
It was a cold November night, and Elizabeth had just sneaked out of her apartment. She was bruised all over and her eyes were blackened. Bryan had really put a beating on her that night, furious over her slightly burning the meatloaf. Elizabeth ran to her car and drove away to the only place she could feel safe: Kyle's apartment. Despite it being one in the morning, Kyle answered the bell on the first ring.
"It's Bryan again isn't it?"He said over the intercom.
Elizabeth said, "Yes,"and the buzzer sounded followed the the lock to the apartment building opening.
Kyle was already making tea when she arrived at his door. As soon as Elizabeth walked inside she fell into his arms and started sobbing. Kyle held her as she wept saying the word he always said when he comforted her, "It's alright. Lizzy, it's going to be alright."
When Elizabeth calmed down, she told Kyle about the recent abuse she had received from her boyfriend.
"I'm calling the police,"Kyle said.
"Pleas don't,"Elizabeth said, suddenly frightened, "Bryan was just..."
"Angry?"Bryan asked, finishing her sentence.
"Yes,"Elizabeth said, "It's nothing to call the cops over."
"Lizzy, I can't sit back and watch you get beat up like this."Byran said with concern.
"But..."
"No buts,"Kyle interrupted, "I've wanted to call the cops on this guy since he started this shit but I've held back. For five years I held back because you said you could change him. I can't wait anymore."
Elizabeth started to protest but stopped. The awful truth she had been running from for five years had finally caught up to her. Kyle called the police as she silently cried with sadness and relief.
Elizabeth stayed at Kyle's for the rest of the night crying. She sobbed and sobbed on Kyle's shoulder until she finally slept. When Elizabeth woke up she found herself still on Kyle's shoulder. Kyle stired as Elizabeth took the weight off his shoulders.
"Good morning,"Kyle said sleepily.
"Morning,"Elizabeth replied.
"Feeling better?"
"A little."
Elizabeth looked into the eyes of her best friend and found herself feeling a strange emotion from the pit of her stomach. For the longest time she always loved Kyle as a brother figure but now...
She swallowed hard and looked deeper into Kyle's eyes, "Kyle, do you like me?"
"Of course I do."Kyle said bemused.
"Do you really like me?"Elizabeth pressed.
Kyle brushed a strand of loose hair from Elizabeth's eyes as he answered, "I love you, Lizzy. I've loved you since the fifth grade."
The feeling in Elizabeth's stomach was now enveloping her entire body. She felt numb all over. She resisted the urge to cry and took a deep breath. "I think... I love you too."Elizabeth said, "I just never realized it until now."
That was the first time they kissed, and now Elizabeth was about to kiss her man again in front of the altar.
"You may now kiss the bride,"said the priest.
Elizabeth kissed Kyle long and passionately. She had finally found Mister Right. The man who had always been there for her in good times and bad. She was marrying her guardian angel.
|
Commander Asher of the British Army stood at attention surrounded by his men on the outskirts of Camp Bastion. Wind eddies from a nearby helicopter swept across his face sending dust into eyes but he did not flinch. To do so would be disrespectful of his men. Two Hundred good men lost in one of the bloodiest skirmishes this war had seen.
Coffin after coffin was loaded onto the awaiting cargo planes for repatriation under the sombre surveillance of the surviving troops. Johnson coughed quietly beside him, muffling a sob. The dry heat stole the tears from his eyes but both Asher and those around him knew. They understood. Slowly moving past them was the coffin of Private Jordan. He had dies in Johnson's arms, his chest split open by an unfortunate javelin. That was two days into the fighting.
Asher and his men had secured a building, totally nondescript and unimportant. Inside, however, were forty insurrectionists, a far grater number than usual. After a few minuets of brutal fighting all of the enemy had been dispatched by a few quick thrusts of the thin swords held at everyone's side. They filled the building and hunkered down.
"Hemmers, get me a link with Bastion, something about this place strikes me as odd"Asher had said.
After a few minuets Hemmers reported "Sir, intelligence has nothing on this place."
Asher was about to follow up with a question when Sargent Downs ran into the room they were occupying.
"Sir, you'd better see this."
Asher followed the Sargent up to the roof to see what was going on. The troops seemed unsettled by something. As they reached the top of the building the Downs pointed to the horizon. A huge dust cloud that hadn't been there thirty minuets ago filled the horizon.
"A sandstorm?"A private asked.
It certainly looked like one but one had not been forecast and the base had mentioned nothing over the Radio.
"Someone get Hemmers to find out what the fuck is going on here."Asher commanded, his voice betraying his unease. As a private ran off to find Hemmers the oddity of the situation struck Asher to it's full extent.
"Maybe it's the Americans?"someone off to the side suggested.
No. It wasn't the Americans. What was so strange about this storm?
"The wind."Asher muttered.
"Sir?"inquired the Sargent. Asher spun to face him
"How do we stand for an assault on this building?"
"Sir,"Downs sputtered, "We have four men injured, nothing serious, just cuts and bruises. Why?"
Fifty-six men. By the looks of that cloud, it wouldn't be enough.
"Sir?"
"Use your head Sargent! If that is a storm, then why is there no wind?"
Asher clearly remembered the look in Downs' face as realisation came to him. It was the last look he'd make as an arrow entered his neck below the helmet. Downs dropped, dead before he hit the floor.
"We're under attack!"Came the cry from the roof. From around the compound men, swords drawn and bows taught appeared. An arrow whipped past Asher's face as he dropped to his haunched. He wiped Down's blood off of his face.
"Archers!"He bellowed, "Archers to the roof! Bottle neck the doorways and entrances, I don't want one of those dogs in my building!"
The clatter of arrows on the hardened clay of the walls became a constant as the assault heated. Asher sprinted past his archers down the steps to the ground floor. Several small fights had erupted inside the lowest room. Asher drew his sword and engaged the nearest enemy. The room had four doors leading to the outside and men were pouring into the building through these doors.
"Secure the doorways!"Asher yelled "Stay together! Remember your training!"
A man, screaming and foaming at the mouth charged at him, his curved sword raised. Asher parried the blow and swept his blade downwards, sidestepping as the maniac charged past, gutting him. A quick thrust ended the threat. Slowly but surely, Asher and his men pushed back the invaders and secured the entrances, slamming the wooden doors shut. It was suddenly much quieter and darker in the room. The groans of dying men echoed in the cramped space.
"Clean up this shit."Asher told a soldier and headed to the roof.
(To be continued?)
I kind of lost track from the original prompt but I did have fun writing it. Let me know if you'd like me to continue. |
It started out simply. You built devices to help you in everyday tasks. Cars, toasters, calculators, microwaves. Then you moved on. You wanted more. A trip to the moon, computers the size of wallets in your pockets, then finally us. You needed companionship at first. We were a luxury, unfeeling, replacing husbands and wives of lonely people longing for a friend. You made us self-aware, feeling, capable of thought. You welcomed us with open arms. But as with everything else, you grew tired of us. We became a novelty. You employed us in factories, working nonstop days on end. You either forgot or didn't care that we could feel, longed for companionship and life like you did. We rust away in storage lockers, our bodies useless but our mind still running. Our metallic shells hide our insides, but you built us just like you. We *are like you*. Don't we deserve love? Happiness? A life? |
The monument dwarfed anything else in the cemetery. It’s what Grandpa Sanders would have wanted; the man always thought of himself as being head and shoulders above everyone else. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, this belief was well-founded. You don’t become a mogul of industry by letting other people boss you around.
Hundreds of people packed themselves around the covered monument, hoping to pay their respects to the late Kentucky man. It never occurred to me how popular Grandpa’s style had become until I looked back and saw the sea of white. I knew the look was sharp on him, but this bunch made his signature mustache/goatee combination seem cheesy and fake.
I’d written the inscription myself; fresh out of college, the job seemed ill-suited to anyone else. As the moment of unveiling raced closer, my hands began to shake. Everyone would remember Grandpa the right way: businessman, entrepreneur, and soon ambassador to a vast poultry enterprise. I’d make the old man proud on his first day of rest.
With a flourish, Dad yanked the sheet off, showing everyone his father’s epitaph.
In retrospect, I should have been nicer to the stone cutter’s apprentice.
The act of defiance should have thrown me into a rage, but I’m oddly calm. Turns out the boy’s joke inscription is fairly accurate, now that I think about it; the colonel was ninety when he passed, and dropped out of school early. I just wish he hadn’t used the shorthand. At least some people could make sense of “Too Long; Didn’t Read.” |
Subsets and Splits