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Challenge #159 [Creative Writing]

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A

Ashes

Banned
Theme - "Ashes Trolling Patrolling"

Word Limit: A bazillion words

Submission Deadline: Friday, February 6th by 11:59 PM Pacific.

Voting begins Saturday, February 7th, and goes until Monday, 9th February at 11:59 PM Pacific.

Optional Secondary Objective: #Rebel

Rebel. Rebel. Toil and Trouble. Hash tags and everything.

Submission Guidelines:

- One entry per poster.
- All submissions must be written during the time of the challenge.
- Using the topic as the title of your piece is discouraged.
- Keep to the word count!

Voting Guidelines:

- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting.
- You must vote in order to be eligible to win the challenge.
- When voting ends, the winner gets a collective pat on the back, and starts the new challenge.

NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge FAQ
Previous Challenge Threads and Themes
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Man. Out of all the entries last time, the one damn thing that I can't get out of my head is "Bad, bad birthday," bemoaned Batman.

For Christ's sake!
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Will there be a hangout today or is everyone occupied watching that strange sport you people dare call football.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
It really would more properly be called "handegg," now, wouldn't it?

I had assumed it'd probably get skipped this week.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Mike M said:
It really would more properly be called "handegg," now, wouldn't it?

I had assumed it'd probably get skipped this week.
Click to expand...

:) Yes a far more approiate name.

Damn, I was looking forward to the hangout so I could bombard you with questions regarding pathfinder...
 
C

Chainsawkitten

Member
timetokill said:
It's played on foot! arrgh don't get me started on this XD
Click to expand...

No, it's played on a field, not a giant foot.

The 'egg' part of 'handegg' is stupid, though. There is nothing in the definition of a 'ball' that says it has to be spherical. They're not calling it 'footsphere'.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Hangout is up! Quote for link:

As usual, we'll do ten minutes chat followed by a half-hour writing period, starting in about fifteen minutes. Everyone is welcome, newcomer or regular.

I'll probably only be on through two writing periods because sportsball.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
I'm about to pile the family into the car to go to some sort of superb owl viewing event, so I won't make it. I hope you are all entertained by the sportsball while I'm off expanding my knowledge of ornithology : P
 
N

Nezumi

Member
The embarrassing thing is that I actually believed you until Cyan pointed the "joke" out to me... I mean, you told us how much your daughter loves owls some time ago...
I honestly don't know if I'm more disappointment in you or me right now!
 
L

LaMagenta

Member
(353 words)

I keep watching movies and endless documentaries. Over and over, listening to survivors recount memories. I wonder if the people at Netflix would think that I have a perverse fascination with Hitler. On the contrary, I keep watching, no matter how scary, searching for answers. How dare I want answers? I am in no way affected by the torments and history that was for too long undetected. But I am. I am just as bit as appalled as the first people who learned about the atrocities that occurred over half a century ago. I want to learn about every single incident. I don’t know why. I think I feel that if anything is left unsaid, it is as if they never occurred. It is important that no one ever forgets. That centuries from now, people are still affected when learning about the atrocities the Third Reich brought upon the millions of human beings. How any of them survived and talk about it still, is incredible. To know that the majority of the SS men got away without punishment based on technicalities is unbearable to comprehend. I am glad that at least the remaining SS men that are still alive today will soon be dead, even if of old age, they will no longer breath the same air and walk upon the same Earth of their victims’ offspring. How could I not wish to have some sort of super human power? That I could go back and rid of the Fuhrer and his followers before they committed any of the inhumanities. But if not him, then any other would have arose. So many followers. Even now, there are so many that think like him. The scariest part of all is that I understand that absolute desensitizing is possible for human beings. Atrocities happen all over the world all the time. That is why we must never stop writing. Write about anything. Good and bad. The good, to keep our minds sane. And the bad, to keep our minds fresh. That no man should ever act on their deepest, darkest desires and get away with it.
 
F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
Has anyone else been having a weird amount of trouble with this prompt? I didn't think what would essentially be free writing would end up being this tough :/
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
I came up with something really gimmicky and called it a day.

Work is really cramping my style lately...
 
R

Rock And Roll

Member
I banged my story out earlier this afternoon after mulling over it for the past few days. The outline is there but I definitely need to do a lot of work on it.

I truly believe creativity comes from within confines. It is much easier for me to do something when given guidelines than to be told "do whatever".
 
R

Rock And Roll

Member
625 words...


At 8:57PM, Warden Martins cleared his throat and began. “Jeremy Wright, you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers for the murder of Remy Barron. You have-”

Linda Wright's eyes welled up with tears as she listened to the Warden. Her only child was about to be taken away from her. Jeremy had always been such a kind, obedient and loving boy whom she instilled with high moral values. Her father was an extremely abusive alcoholic towards her mother and her siblings. The house she grew up in was broken and she swore to herself at a young age that if she were to ever have children, they would never grow up the way she did. Money had been tight raising Jeremy as a single parent, but it never had a negative impact on how she nurtured her son. She knew she would never be able to understand why her son committed such a heinous act.

“- been sentenced to death by lethal injection to be carried out at 9PM tonight. Do you-”

Mark Barron listened to the Warden intently. Beside him his wife wept softly into his shoulder. He looked upon the monster who had viciously beaten his son to death outside of a nightclub years prior. The day he had learned about the death of his son was the worst day of his life. He remembered how he had sat in stunned silence with a whirlwind of emotions racing throughout his head. His wife had broken out in hysterical shrieking, the heartbreaking wail forever ingrained in his mind. The casket had to be closed at the funeral, as Remy's face had been savagely kicked in and was largely unrecognizable. Mark thought that he wished another parent would ever have to suffer the loss of a child like he did his.

“- have any final words that you wish to say?”

Jeremy looked upon the room, divided halfway down the middle. On one side, his mother, aunts, uncles, cousins and a few select friends. The other side, the family and friends of his victims. Never before (and never again) would he see so many different faces conveying different emotions. Sadness, anger, and even some sort of perverse happiness. He thought back to the night of the incident but was unable to comprehend what had snapped inside of him. Aside from the odd fight at school as a child, he had largely been non-confrontational, so what had possessed him to engage in the lowest form of human interaction? Fuelled by a mixture of alcohol and bullshit machismo, Jeremy had become the centre of a ripple effect that would effectively destroy the lives of both loved ones and complete strangers. His mouth was completely dry and was barely audible when he spoke.

“All I have to say is that it only takes of moment of foolishness to create a lifetime of pain. I am sorry for what I did and I love you all.”

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. Linda Wright did her best to choke back her tears.

“Jeremy Wright, your sentence will now be carried out.” Warden Martins said in a cold, indifferent voice. “May God have mercy upon your soul.”

It was 8:59 and a minute seemed to last a lifetime for all of those in attendance. The clock changed to 9:00 and the timer was activated on the IV. The drugs pumped directly into Jeremy's blood, rendering him unconscious before stopping his heart. His body last twitched at 9:04, where he was declared dead by the doctor. Upon pronunciation of Jeremy's death his mother began to sob heavily. Mark Barron didn't know what he felt. His wife continued to weep into his shoulder. Justice was served.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
It was a shock when--after the UFOs touched down, spinning lights and whistling noise and a startling sense of vertigo--the aliens turned out to be us.

In shape, in build, in eyes and nose and lips and tongues, they were unmistakeably us. Their skin was black as night and their hair was short-cropped curls and their dress was loose-fitting robes of beaded cloth. When they smiled, their eyes crinkled up at the sides and their postures relaxed, and when they laughed their whole bodies shook.

We had seen them coming, on telescope and radar and finally with the naked eye. And in all the places where they landed--Giza, Nazca, Stonehenge--large crowds had gathered round, heedless of government warnings, of police presence, of tear gas and pepper spray and water cannons.

And when the aliens came down the ramps of their flying crafts, smiling and laughing and looking surprised at the size of the crowds, a great hush fell.

And then we bombarded them with questions.

Where had they come from? was an early one, and Why did they look like us? another. These were quickly followed by How had they gotten here? and How difficult was space travel, exactly? How much more advanced was their science than ours? How much more advanced was their culture? Did they still have poverty? Aging? Disease? Did they still have wars? Did they believe in many different gods? One? None? Had they found the meaning of life? A meaning of life? Had they worked out where everything came from? Or what happened after death? Had they overcome death altogether? Did an ultimate morality exist? Did free will exist? Did anything?

The smiles faded into awkward silence. The aliens took several steps back, gathered in a circle, conferred in hushed tones.

The silence stretched. The crowd grew restless, the police nervous. A baby screamed.

And at last one of the aliens came down the ramp again, smile back in place. His eyes didn't crinkle. He beckoned one of the police officers over, spoke quietly in his ear.

The police officer listened carefully, nodded several times. Got a megaphone and told the crowd that the aliens couldn't answer our questions, but would be happy to show us some art and poetry they had brought with them. Poetry from the stars.

The crowd muttered, and the police prepared their sprays and their gases. The alien retreated back up the ramp, wringing his hands.

They say, now, that we don't know who fired first. That there was too much confusion, too little documentation, that we may never know for sure.

But this is a lie. I was there, and I know who fired first.

It was them.

I have thought on it a long time, and I believe that it was fear, not anger that brought them to it. The fear of unknown others, of a group that was not their own, of the malice of a crowd. The fear of being misunderstood.

Screaming melting churning chaos. The crowd stampeding, the police turning their weapons around but far too late, fiery pandemonium and the certainty that we were all going to die.

Only--we didn't. Not all of us. Some of us survived the flames, dragged our burned and broken selves away, found safe spaces to sleep and heal while the rest of the world fought. While the rest of the world drove away the aliens, who we now called invaders.

They looked like us. They smiled and laughed. They wrote poetry.

Sometimes I wonder what their poetry was like. Would it have held some of the answers we pushed them for? Would it have been like our poetry? Would it have been delicate and sparkling, having touched the souls of the stars?

I'll never know. We'll never know. Now and ever after, we watch the skies. Watch for them or others like them. Suspicious. Angry.

Fearful.
 
oxrock

oxrock

Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
I checked the last thread and just now this one, but in neither place do I see a deadline outlined. Am I correct in assuming I've missed the boat yet again?
 
C

Chainsawkitten

Member
"I'll love you forever", she said, but I knew those were empty words. Despite our constant reassurances, we had stopped loving each other a long time ago. So when the day came that I was set to venture into the world, finding traces of what once was, I did it merely out of obligation, hiding all my true feelings deep inside. This is hardly how a great relationship is started. She gave me a mixtape of all the Twine games she'd ever done. "Video games are for losers", I said. "Well, your stuff doesn't even work on my Mac", she said. "What happened to all those ideals? Crush capitalism? Freedom of information? How can you proclaim to love the concept of Open Source when what you make is Windows-exclusive?"

But at least there was a song that didn't fit in. It worked anywhere. Perhaps there was some irony in that the rejected was the only thing everyone was allowed to approach. Or maybe that's just life.
 
T

Tangent

Member
Man this is hard. I scaled down my ideas to three overarching themes but struggle to pick between them. And they're all just ideas, not plots. And I need to go to a fundraiser pretty soon. Maybe I can pull a "plan it out in your head" trick while I'm at it. (Yeah right.)
 
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