Oh it was completely unintentional. :lol
I set out to write a mystery not a horror story.
My guess is that it must have triggered something personal in my sister;

Aaron said:

Basically what Cyan already said. Your dialogue is great, but you really need to beef up the other parts of your story, in the narration to give visual description, and also actions and moods of the characters so not everything needs to be expressed in dialogue.

Click to expand...

Right. I'll try to keep that in mind as I write and especially as I edit. Thanks.

Cyan said:

Do you mean you have no ideas period, or no ideas you think are any good? If it's the latter, just write whatever's coming to mind anyway. I've had stretches where I've done that, and then decent ideas would start surfacing again. Priming the pump.

Click to expand...

My ideas tend to be a setting more than anything. Nothing that really lends itself to expansion or gets the creative juices flowing. I just have that feeling of running dry, you know. But, you're right, If worst comes to worst, I'll just force something and hope for the best. Regardless, the critiques will be worthwhile.

Cyan said:

You don't necessarily need to rein it in, as long as you aren't ignoring other aspects of your stories.

Click to expand...

And I fear I am. Conversation interests me terribly, always has, and I think I've allowed my abilities to craft exposition to weaken a bit.

crowphoenix said:

If worst comes to worst, I'll just force something and hope for the best. Regardless, the critiques will be worthwhile.

Click to expand...

That's what I've ended up doing. I've reverted to my middle-school level writing skills (which weren't much worse than my already bad ones) and started writing up a very basic story. If I can create something out of that, great, if not, oh well.

At least you have a strength you can fall back on if necessary.

Zephyr's entry:


In Her Good Graces



Facemask, secrecy underneath a blanket

Spotted on the dance floor, hips shaking, reverberating

Moving in sync with the bass, lost in ecstasy

I was told to go after her

By friends on their fifth rum and coke

The ukelele woman playing their song



They didn’t have the eyes, the moves, the swagger

Couldn’t nab a woman like I could, couldn’t take her in…

I dive through the crowd of ants

Carve a tunnel, a path, a sojourn

She’s the center of the dance floor and I’m her knight

Catching my gaze, swift flick of the wrist, undulating finger begging

Come closer.



Right wrist kiss, soft stroking

She melts under my ministrations

And pulls me in closer

I feel her breath hot mint on my cheek

Our bodies meet: solid encounter.

Eeeelloooonngated thrust

Moans.



Grinding, moving, together.

Whispers. --- Want more?

Gasps. --- Always.

Questions. --- Why’d you choose me?

Responses. --- You pulled me in.

Coy jokes. --- I have a leash on you, don’t I?



Lights shut off, atmosphere thick

Sweat, people, lust, intense.

We danced in the dark and

Made our own light.

Hot, sick, twisted heat that irradiated

--- You know I’m not going home with you tonight, right?



Confusion. Disarray.

--- What?

--- Your friends… they’re laughing and pointing at you.

A few more solid blinks, still unsure.

--- I have a boyfriend; they saw me all over him.

I look at her and devour her instead, kissing her neck, forgetting what she said

She pulls away, slap, drink in the face

Covered in sticky, smelly vodka



I stumble back, my drunk acquaintances giggling

Their ukelele song keeps playing, only this time it plays for me

And so I down that rum as if it were aqua



--- What a woman.

Alternative ending #1:




Alternative ending #2:

Leviathan Hunt
word count: 1,952

His pearly white smile was the first known the world over.

Even with alarms blaring and lights flashing, old Greg practices it in a hand mirror while his personal makeup lady and stylist both work frantically to erase the twenty years he's packed on since. It's my first time working with the legendary newscaster; a week from the war where his last cameraman bought it, and put his own bony arm in a sling. Someone must have tipped him that I was producing a nature documentary here far from the front lines, because he burst into my hotel room, and shoved this camera in my hand before dragging me along on this mad venture.

"What the hell are we doing?" I grumbled, struggling to get dressed and fumbling with the gear before I heard the alert.

Under those pulsing lights, Greg just flashed me one of his award-winning smiles. "Following the heralds of disaster."

Now Greg strides across the weed-covered streets, passing under the crumbling skyline of Likan. In the Golden Era, this country of Konak was the jewel of the Herisan Peninsula, a center of culture and knowledge, but now ancient spires of bronze and marble are giving ground to the angular and ugly works of concrete. Paranoid conservatives condemn the new tech, while draconian laws dictate when and how much people can access the Wyrd.

The Detangler Guild complex is a mix of new and old, where flowing frescos are half covered over in plain plaster, and steel clamps are driven into old towers to support modern antenna arrays. Greg sheds most of his crew with a wave of his free hand, leaving just the two of us to pass under the cavernous archway with its pearlescent sheen. Burly guards attempt to intercede us, but Greg is still spry for his age, dodging and slipping under their outstretched hands with a newsman's experience. No one ever pays attention to the cameraman, so it's not hard to follow.

The vast open air pavilion beyond is something out of one of his war reports. About a thousand men in drab green uniforms are calling out orders and hauling equipment with haste and efficiency. Cannons, crates of ammunition, and other hunks of machinery I don't really recognize. Nothing self-driven though. All is rolled along by human muscle, onto a raised platform that dominates the courtyard where these men are gathering.

Old Greg signals me with an obscene gesture before boldly stepping onto that platform in the midst of this activity, seeking out the most self-important of these square-jawed detanglers. I catch my breath and rub my eyes until the complex lines of the Wyrd come into focus. My neck itches, but I ignore it as I reach out to this weave that connects all things, gently twisting it from muscle memory while the bulb on the camera flickers erratically until it's finally lit with a steady glow. We are live.

The detangler with the close cropped white hair turns red-faced when he finally spots old Greg in his immaculate high-collared suit marching up to him. This official looks roughly carved from stone, daring to wear a low collar that exposes the red-purple splotch on her neck as the mark of his wyrdite. "You sir--!"

Old Greg cuts him off by pointing back to me and the camera with its steady broadcast light. The detangler officer sweats and swallows his words, while the newsman grins a bit wider. He draws his microphone with a flourish, and addresses the camera in his golden tones, "Greets, folks! It's your old buddy Greg here from the Detangler Guild in lovely downtown Likan. I received a deluge of concern over the abrupt end of my last broadcast, back on the Socerian front. So let me assure you I'm A OK!"

Greg is gesturing me to come closer below frame, so I reluctantly step onto the platform as I keep the camera steady. Around us, the efficient preparations have finished, and the men on the periphery of this raised dais are rubbing their eyes before looking up to the steady blink of the flashing alarms to synchronize their efforts. I cringe, knowing what's about to happen.

"Look who we have here! It's Commander Kenta, leader of the world renowned Task Force Six, though you probably know them better as the ominous 'Leviathan Killers,'" Greg pitches his voice down at the end, no longer having to shout above the din. His skin must be crawling like mine to feel all the wyrding happening around us, but his smile doesn't falter. "And that cheery alarm means we have a live leviathan sighting on our hands. Let's see how these brave boys perform under pressure."

That's when everything goes black.

Thin stalks of yellow grass wobble before the unsteady lens. My stomach feels like it's been ripped out as I wipe my mouth and do my best to regain my balance. We're far from Likan now; in an open field that has all the marks of former farmlands, surrounded by a few hundred extra men in uniform. Old Greg is already waiting with a stern look and stomping foot, so I rub my eyes and stare confused at the mess of these local wyrd lines. Takes me a bit to reestablish connection to the network, while the go light flickers as a sign of a less than quality connection.

I do a slow pan of the area, and find the reason for the interference resting just behind me in the form of the shifting and wavering ruins of an abandoned city. Even the air above it is a restless haze, twisting and bending the light passing through it. A Tangle. Too many people play with the Wyrd in one spot too much, and this is the result. The distorted land around it is uninhabitable, corrupted and poisonous, but inside would be much worse.

It's a health risk being this close, but it's clear this old newsman doesn't care. Greg gives the commander a few moments to shout out orders in his native tongue before he presses him again with his cheerful tone, "There have been only a few, brief sightings of leviathans ever caught on film. So what can the folks at home expect from this freak when he finally shows?"

"They can be as small as a city block," Kenta informs him gravely as he straightens out his uniform before the camera. "They have no central core like the machine soldiers your viewers are used to seeing now. We have to break them down bit by bit."

"Sounds like thirsty work. I know when I need refreshment after a long day in the field, I think only Gork's Full Lager. Ask for it by name." Greg makes his old fashioned pitch, even though I'm sure the network is breaking into the feed right now to insert their own commercial.

Then view wavers as the ground shakes with a great thump. Steadying the shot, I do another pan in time to see something enormous emerge from the Tangle. 'City block' would be selling it short. It's a restless mass formed from the former city that this red zone had become, with a half dozen legs made of concrete and steel beams up front, and a massive drum used as a wheel in the back, whose windows suggest it was once the trunk of a sky scraper. This shambling and shifting mass lurches itself forward with no clear head, but a bulky body like a turtle shell made of trash, and arms by the thousands. Some are fat and slow, others are quick and skeletal, but all are focused in building and rebuilding this shambling mass as it slowly falls apart.

It isn't all inorganic and dead. There are twisted trees that serve as more flexible bones in some places, while clumps of grasses resemble patches of fur with spots of color from flowers. Worse are the animals fused with this lumbering monstrosity, still alive even if their entrails had been strung out as fan belts. There are people too, distorted and incomplete, with torsos jutting from a former office space, twitching as they mime answering phones and writing reports with part of their faces gone. Though I feel sick at the sight of them, I zoom and focus on every detail I can take in, wondering how much the network will have to blur.

The cannons roar as several dozen shells all smash into this slow-moving colossus, causing great chunks to break away and shatter against the arid ground. The detanglers mostly target the legs, but even these are as thick as towers, and the damage is no more than shedding a thin layer of skin. Still they fire and reload with the calm precision of machines as this leviathan draws ever closer.

"There is it, folks! The big bad horror of the last age!" Greg yells to be heard over the stomping and cannon fire, forcing me to swing the camera back around to his too wide smile. Kenta is still at his side, calmly gauging the carnage with his hands behind his back, even if it seems to me there's no way they can stop the monster before it reaches our position. I rush off, making the mental excuse of wanting to get this slow battle in a single shot.

I turn back to a cluster of detanglers, still firing and reloading their archaic weapons, with one lanky dark-suited newsman in their midst. Like calm ants before the protrusion of the leviathan as it strides into shot, capable of crushing them all with a single pounce. But the beast stumbles as its weakened front legs shatter from its enormous weight, leaving it sliding towards the ground as a slow moving avalanche. Everyone just stands frozen in place, until the ripple of impact knocks every last one of us on our asses.

Except Greg. He's standing there with specs of dirt covering his face when I get the camera up again, staring up at the mountainous freak of wyrding still twitching and flailing as it struggles vainly to get back onto its remaining feet. When Greg finally turns to the camera, his smile is gone. His eyes are solemn.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for the past twenty years it's been my privilege to bring into your homes the very best and worst this fragile globe has to offer." For the first time on camera, the classically trained Gregory Hamilton speaks without his usual folksy facade. "And for that I apologize. Because this image, with it's crackling sound and muted colors, is a lie. It tricks you into believing you're here with me on this field before this fallen monster, but the truth is... you have no idea. You can't hear it breathing from ten thousand mouths as these men systematically tear it apart. You can't feel the trickle of warmth when a soldier dies in the cold mud, or the urine stink of fear that I...."

That's when the flickering bulb on the camera burst. Someone back at the network pulled the big switch to end this live broadcast. I'm not the least bit surprised. "Looks like they cut us off."

"That's alright, Bill. I've said my peace," Gregory says as he flashes a smile with well practiced ease. He heads off on foot towards the spires of the nearest city, tossing aside his dirty coat to leave the detanglers and their catch behind. "Right now I could use a beer or two. I wonder if they have any Glock's on tap."

"Ask for it by name," I reply and follow, leaving behind the broken camera there on the poisoned ground.

Received my first rejection letter today. University of Iowa. Oddly enough, it wasn't that bad. Here's hoping I can fuel that into my writing this evening.

Fuckin hell, I got nothing. Maybe i'll get some inspiration though.

Sweet Summer Sunset: (word count : 1615)

"No such thing as a perfect beginning," says Clara. She's digging again into the hard frozen soil. "We all have to start somewhere."

My gloves are all torn up, and through the network of fraying threads, I can see patches of my skin all red and blistered.

"No such thing as a perfect beginning," repeats Clara. Her voice is weary, each word muttered or gasped out. It's become a mantra for her.

"Yeah," I say, and I start digging again. It takes quite a bit of effort to just get started. The ground is hard, and the wooden handle of the shovel as I work it into the ground is absolute murder on my palms. I can feel the sores starting to tear again, and I'm wondering if they'll start bleeding only for the blood to freeze and film up against my skin. Then I would have to spent some time peeling them off, inch by painful inch--

It's certainly not a perfect beginning. We didn't expect there to be such resistance. At least, I think as I dig, it's so cold that nothing seems to rot. It would be too miserable if, even inside the not-as-cold hut, it stunk of rotting flesh.



Clara is standing still now, her hole dug. The soil she's churned up is a mound at least waist-high, and it's all soft dirt, none of that hard shit we're digging into every morning. Her breath is coming out all hot and steamy, she looks like a kettle boiling over from being heated too long. She turns to me, her nose red and her eyes squinting against the setting sun.

"No such thing as a perfect beginning," I say to her.

She's peering at the pile of dirt at my feet. It's not even half the size of what she's dug up and my hole is nowhere near complete. We're behind schedule now, but the shovel, it's such a pain to hold and my hands hurt so much, I want to cry. But if Clara isn't crying, what can I do? I shut up and start digging again. The soil gets softer as you dig in and I even get used to the pace, the clockwork pace of dig-in-dig-out letting me slip into a rhythm.

Then she lays a hand on my shoulder. I turn to her, and she says to me, "no such thing as a perfect beginning."

"We all have to start somewhere," I say to her. She smiles and I notice that her lips are bleeding. Must've been a painful smile.

We go inside the hut, to where our parents lie.



As I try to sleep, it occurs to me that there rarely is a perfect ending, either. No beginning, no ending, is even close to perfection. There's always something going wrong at the most inappropriate time, like a wheel falling off a car while its driving on the highway, or maybe a child getting lost in a riot. The mob falling over the kid as he's ripped loose from his parents, a giant blob swallowing whole another human being.

They don't smell too much, dad and mom. The air smells of the ice outside and the people within, sleeping or dying or dead, maybe a combination of all three. It's hopeless. No perfect beginning. We all have to start somewhere. But start to where? What do we aim for? It's like a brick wall and we're slamming right into it. There's no perfect beginning because the ending is so hopeless that we shouldn't have started at all.



Clara always wakes up before me. I'm opening my eyes and the chill is set into the wood of hut. Like the air was frozen and we were breathing solid chunks of oxygen, grating and cutting its way down our throats. It hurts. It's so cold and only the sight of Clara staggering up to turn on the stove tells me that there's something worth getting up for. She looks over to me and sees me getting up, she smiles, I'm thinking that it must hurt like hell for her to smile like that.

"Hey," she says.

"No such thing as a perfect beginning," I say to her. My mouth tastes like spit and snow. My joints are aching, in a way I would never have understood just a month ago.

She's boiling water and the heat from the stove is slowly working through the hut. We'd started a fire before going to sleep, but it had died down as we slept. I'm sure that if we'd laid in more wood or just gotten a tree trunk or something the fire would have burned steadily through the night, but we're still afraid to die. I'm not sure if you can get poisoned from woodsmoke, but it's something I'm not keen to find out.

"We're running out of food," she says.

"Figured."

"We have peas and oatmeal. I'll heat some up and you can mix them, shouldn't be too bad."



Hunger is always there. I think, if it ever became or took on the form of a human being, it would look like Steven Seagal. It'll stalk over to me and speak in monotone before snapping my neck. Or maybe it's just a hopeless wish, that hunger would kill you fast, because I think it'll take a long time killing you, watch you slowly waste away, eating snow then bark, chew on leather, seek out insects to munch on.

We're not quite there yet. We still have peas and oatmeal.



"Hey, Clara?"

No response. I look over to where she's digging. She's digging, mindlessly, digging a hole big enough to bury her. I could probably tip her over and just shovel in the dirt and she'd lie there, peacefully, letting the cold soil wash over her. She's tired. I know she's been eating less.

"We all have to start somewhere," I cry to her. There's no response.

I start digging again. My hole's half the size of Clara's.

Then she yells back to me, "No such thing as a perfect beginning!"



We got robbed. That's all there is to it. They took everything in the hut, and the only thing left is the cache dad buried on our land. Clara had intended to find it.



"We should bury them," she says to me one morning.

We're out of oatmeal, too, and we have five cans of peas left. I'm staring at them, five cans, peas all of them. I'm wondering just why it is that, in the end, I'll be dead while chewing on peas. I hate peas. But I can't stop thinking of peas, green squishy things, so juicy in my mouth.

"Yeah," I say. "We have enough holes, at least."

"First thing we do, then, after we eat."

"Sure."



I grab mom and she grabs dad, and we drag them both out of the hut. They're not wearing anything because we stripped them of their clothes a week after they died. The hole that the bullet made in mother's head is now purple and frozen, and as we move them there's a sick stench coming out from where their skin is ripping.

I dump her in the hole closest to the door. I'm too tired to shovel in the dirt. The snow will fill it and freeze it, I'm thinking. It occurs to me that this hole was dug by Clara, because I never did dig in too deeply.

She finishes with dad and we stand there for a while, watching the wind pick up, swirling flurries of snowflakes.



"There's no such thing as a perfect beginning," she says.

We stopped digging after we buried mom and dad. Originally, we'd planned on finding the supplies dad had left buried, before moving on with their bodies to Chevak. Burying them was Clara's way to telling me to give up.

I'm eating the last can. She gave it to me. I'm eating the can and I'm realizing that she wanted us to bury them before we finally ran out of food for a reason. For the first time in a long time, I want to cry, but if Clara isn't crying, I'm not crying.

"We all have to start somewhere," I say to her.




She walks out that night. She slips out of the sleeping bag and doesn't bother putting the jacket on. She takes the shovel with her, she opens the door and she's outside, she's digging again.



I close my eyes. I can still hear her. Digging a good ending for herself. It's like a movie that's about to end, which you don't want to end. I close my eyes and keep them closed and try to sleep. I'm not going to dig a hole for myself. I'll just use one of her holes. It sounds obscene in my mind. She's my sister, use her holes? But, I think with a tired grin, it's a hole and it sure is better than mine. Tomorrow, I'll find a hole with her in it, and I'll finish the job for her, then I'll find one of her holes for my own. Oddly enough, that sounds like the perfect beginning we never found.

No, I think. I open my eyes because I can't hear anything outside. She's alone, and she's dying, and I slip out of my bag and walk out the door. The air is bitingly cold, and the ground, ice-hard and ice-cold, numbs my toes. I see her lying in a shallow grave. There's no point in trying to bury her, the elements will do the work for free. I lie down beside her. She's still breathing; I breathe with her.

Alternate Ending #1:


Alternate Ending #2:

One more day, gents!

Water and Life. Water is Life. Both were abundant in this land before. People around here raised either a crop or livestock. I had a couple dozen heads of cattle myself. The forest of hills in and around our settlement played home to all of the greenery. The constant rain we received allowed it all to occur.

A few years ago, however, the rain just stopped falling. We knew something was wrong once we went three weeks without a single drop of moisture. The large lake that once lay in the middle of my land seemed to have been stolen away during the night. Luckily, the wells didn't seem to dry up as quickly. Even now, a few years after the incident, water remains in them. Of course, there's not nearly enough to bathe with anymore. Then again, that's not much of a problem considering everyone's skin is so dry that even the tiniest flecks of dust refuse to stick to 'em. In a few months, I'm certain there won't be even be enough left to drink.

Once the water disappeared, the life started to as well. The plants were the first to go and the animals followed shortly thereafter. There was nothing to eat, so my cows grew leaner every day until the last one was nothing but skin draped over fragile bone. When the drought first started, I sold of half my cattle and bought a couple of wells. The rest were either eaten or wasted away in the sun. I've never seen such waste.

I think I may die soon. Hell, we all probably will. Food supplies are pretty much nonexistent. No crops, livestock, or even any wildlife can be found for miles upon miles from here. A month or two is all that's left for me. For the community.

Until I take my last breath, I will continue to walk along the perimeter of my once lively property. My wooden fence still stands even though it has been bleached the hue of bone by the ever present sun. One vertical pole crossed by two horizontal boards in almost never-ending pattern. My leathery hands run along its dried-out frame in the mating dance of two preserved figures from the past. I need to brace myself against it to stand because I'm nothing more than a mummy with working organs. Without me, I believe the fence would fall as well. A rancher with no cattle to tend to and a fence with nothing to prevent from escaping; a pair made in heaven.

Seconds have melted into days into hours into moments, but the view has never changed. The hills once burdened with living green are now a blank canvas of cracked earth. A long, sloping ravine serves as a tombstone for the glittering body of water that once stood there. Rows of branchless obelisks stand in what was once a fruitful orchard. It seems like the only green that remains in this world can be found in the tattered clothing draped across my back.

Soon, my steps begin to falter and I'm forced to carry an old spade as a walking stick. The water has vanished from my well. Today will be the last day I walk around the place I once called home. I'm walking to the furthest reaches of my property- an area I haven't visited since the rain stopped falling. I hope to make it back, but I'm not willing to make any guarantees. If I don't make it, my guarantees wouldn't have mattered anyway.

As I expected, this place holds the same images as the rest of my homestead, only from a different angle. I trudge onwards through the familiarity and am rewarded with a site not seen for many a moon. Another person. Female. Her name is Filla to be exact. She's wrapped in several yards of blue and white checkered fabric. Life in a dead world. Still, she is like me. Barely living organs encased in a leather shell. She turns and sees me then, a weathered fortress of teeth fills her smile. The smile means nothing to me for I have seen something far greater to her rear. Green, fleshy leaves.

Two things stand between me and that lovely life: my old fence and Filla. A smile crosses my face as a new spring comes to my step. I crawl through the middle of the fence, spade still in hand. With one violent swing of my arms, I crack through Filla's fragile skull. Red mist erupts from her head, spattering my face and leaving bright spots all along her checkered wrap. Deed done, I drop the spade and wade into the luscious garden, filling my face with every vegetable I find. This is... ugh... agh... umph... Can't... Breathe...

Drop! Plunk! Bipp!

It's... Raini...........


______________________________________________________________________________

Alternate ending #1


Alternate ending #2



Sorry for such a crappy entry guys. I just couldn't find an idea for the theme that could fill out a decent length short.

your negativity is getting a little....
I completely forgot about my entry... :lol
I can't even find it now..
No worries, I'll look for it later. Still time enough left... It is done... I think.... :/

I got nothing done last night, and today's going to be a busy day. And on top of that, I still don't have an idea that I want to write (The one I have had is a bit too personal still). I'm going to try to bang something out, but it'll probably be short.

Irish said:

Sorry for such a crappy entry guys. I just couldn't find an idea for the theme that could fill out a decent length short.

Click to expand...

You are not that bad, man.

Sorry for being a Debbie Downer / Negative Nancy. It's just in my blood.

Title: Hey Brosef, We’re retelling it for 1997

Words: 1,846 + alternates

The Call (~1500 words)

Ken always found himself nostalgic walking into a bar. It wasn't simply a yearning for a neo-kitsch version of Hammett. He only wished for the self-consciousness to fade.

A bunch of college kids tried to walk and talk drunk at the bar. Slurring asides and quips at each other in an escalating game of frivolous one-upmanship. Despite their efforts, they still had trouble eclipsing the natural rumble of the place. One of the girls in the group began to lose interest, though.

"Hey, Jack, how are we getting home? Randy's had too much."

"Don't worry, babe, Randy'll drive."

"Are you sure?" The girl looked doubtfully at a chubby guy leaning heavily on a bar stool, laughing uproariously at a joke no-one had seemed to make, while doing a double-shot of something dark, at once part of and apart from the rest of the group. He was probably the only real drunk amongst them. "Maybe we should get a taxi home."

"Hey, we just got started. Besides, Randy's the best drunk driver in the state." Jack threw his arm over the guy's shoulder, his smile as false as the camaraderie he intended to impart. "Aren't you, Randy?"

Ken walked past, trying to make out his boss in the crowded, buzzing room. It was full for a Thursday night, but Luke's wasn't an unknown DC night-spot. He'd been here before with fellow congressional staffers, when they'd just arrived, losing their shit like kids over how lucky they were. Well, that didn't last long. Nothing like a few months of being an all-purpose gopher to teach you how stupid majoring in pol-sci was.

The phone call which dragged him there had been terse. "You like women, right? Yes? Older women? Good. Get your ass down here." No explanations as to why he was working at night or in a downtown bar. Sometimes he couldn't believe that his friends at Georgetown had been jealous when he got the job. The joys of naivete.

"Ken! Hey, kid, over here!"

He could just make out the voice and its origin. It was Jerry, sitting at a table in the nearest corner of the place. Several meters of packed human flesh separated them. Dodging in and out of traffic, he moved through the crowd of the nervous and the starved and the lonely and the prowling. When he reached the table, he noticed that a woman was sitting next to his boss; he would have suspected her to be an escort if her distaste of Jerry had not been so visible. Even sitting down, it was obvious that she was tall and lithe, with a body that would look at home in a Victoria's Secret catalog. She was also pretty, but not crazy pretty; she had a caramel-shaded face with long, dark hair.

Jerry broke his mini-spell of reverie. "Ken, please sit, I'd like you to meet Amanda. She's a mutual friend of our Congressman and another Congressman."

Amanda - understandably - gave him something of a relieved smile as she shook his hand. "Charmed."

"Nice to meet you, Amanda," he said, trying to stop his eyes from lingering at the neckline of her dress, before sitting.

A small awkward moment stretched as polite puzzlement reigned. Amanda and him looked at each other and then at Jerry. He waited, seeming to prepare his words with care.

"As I've said, Ken, Amanda is a special friend to us, and the relationship transcends petty politics." Jerry decided to smile. A mistake - it marred any hope of anything he said being taken sincerely. He looked directly at Ken. "And when Amanda mentioned how she was single and looking, I immediately thought of you, Ken." He turned to Amanda. "He's the brightest youngster we've had in years, Amanda, believe me. And he's more than his age too. The kid's got more sense than he ought to."

Amanda looked slightly amused. It kind of annoyed him.

"So, Ken is an old soul?" she asked.

"Don't take my word for it," Jerry said. "I'll get out of your hair. Trust me, you two will have a great time."

"I'll trust you this time," Amanda said.

Jerry tried another smile that fooled nobody and got up to leave, and, after nodding vaguely in their direction, walked away from the table, but not before bending to whisper something in his ear: "Rope her in, pretty boy. God will thank you."

Ken felt himself sinking. Jerry only had one God: The Congressman. It all made sense. When he got the job, he'd been in shock - in fucking awe. He never thought it would be anywhere near possible for him to get the position he did. It was always a long shot. After awhile, though, when the reality of the job settled in, he thought it had just been a natural thing. People often didn't think themselves worthy of their deserved achievements. It was natural. Or so he thought. It seemed his first reaction was right. He wasn't an idiot or anything. He was a solid candidate, but nothing special. It was clear-cut: They hired him for his looks first.

He was shocked. Again. He knew he shouldn't be. These were the intangibles they had been warned about as kids, before and during college. The world is a harsh place. It's dog eat dog. It's unfair. The wolves rule and the meek don't inherit squat. And he was expected to have sex with a beautiful woman to gain political advantage for his boss.

Ken laughed. "It could be worse."

"I could be even uglier?" Amanda asked, her eyebrows raised mock-dramatically.

"Don't be coy," he said. "You're gorgeous. You know that."

"Perhaps." She grinned. It was the first smile of hers that he'd created. "So, were you always a congressional errand boy?"

"I did have an internship in Hong Kong for an investment bank." He swallowed. He was actually nervous. "A friend of mine set it up. Probably took pity on me."

"Was it interesting?"

"My supervisor there, the first day I walk in, he tells me he'll be watching me. He warns me that he knows about the lackadaisical - yeah, he used that word - American work ethic, says that arrogance won't be tolerated, all-but-comes-out-and-says that I'm rotten for getting the job through connections, and finishes it off by lecturing about how his society is being ruined by the sexual perversion of the West."

Amanda laughed. "Sadly, his laundry list of complaints don't sound too outrageous."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you? But the next day, I catch him and some trailing sycophants walking slowly behind these schoolgirls, trying to sneak a peak under their uniformed skirts as they go up some stairs. Got to love a hypocrite."

Her laugh was irresistible. Ken joined in, even though it was the hundredth time he'd recounted the somewhat embellished tale.

"I think that sort of thing might have more to do with youth than perversion," she said.

He was lost. She could have been arguing for colonies on Pluto and he would have answered back encouragingly. "Yeah?"

"It's this warped obsession we have with youth!" Amanda said. "Our fear of death is worse than ever before. We've grown into these beings who don't have to struggle everyday for a morsel of food, we're without fear of rampant disease and indiscriminate warfare, we benefit from overwhelming but nervous and unrefined political stability, and, because of that, we have more time to worry about our slowly approaching collective demise. It breeds this social fixation on youth, wherever you are, even if it shines through more clearly in the East."

"You say the most wonderful things."

"Stop it."



***


They were outside the bar, walking to somewhere. All he had to do was keep having a great time with a smart, beautiful woman. But - damn it all - he couldn't go through with it. He glanced at Amanda, walking calmly by his side, on their trip to who-knows-where.

He touched her shoulder. "You do know Jerry wants something... if we do this?"

"I do. And I'm not giving him anything." She was smiling again. "I'm going to have my cake and eat it too."

"But -"

"You thought I'd roll over for him? Men like Jerry are small fries who think they're big dicks." She glared at him. "Now, tell me you don't want to spend the night with all of this." Amanda did a slow turn, strutting in the cold moonlight, upturned chin and lips and forehead glinting, as her face grew smug with calculating knowledge. He was ensnared and she knew it. He tried to say that he couldn't, but his tongue was hot and clumsy - just the alcohol, of course - and the physical evidence below his waistline steadily betrayed his resolve.

"That's what I thought," she whispered into his ear, palms suddenly pressed up against his chest. "Take me home."

I have finally got an idea. It's about half written. I have two and a half hours. I'm pulling a DND!

Yeah, I'll likely duck in just under the deadline myself. Hope we get an actual DND entry this time as well, though.

A little over an hour left!

Deleted due to TOS changes.

Watching as Prince Oliver slept soundly under old Silenus’ dome, the King’s face caught in the moon’s silver– unsightly and far from home. A gladness whispered, seductive and soft, of fingers tight around the boy’s air. That voice was of the dark and though he was strong and steadfast, here was despair. Sighing, the boy stirred and opened his eyes– and sighing, he smiled upon his father’s face. The King’s hand turned a caress instead and he swore, there was still chance for grace.

“Wake, Oliver! We shall hunt, you and I. A good day rises.”

The Prince knotted his brows, groaning under his breath, of vices. “It’s night still, the sky’s yet dark and too early for ventures quixotic.”

“Nonsense!” the King barked, irritation manifested as facial tic, he bellowed mightily. “Good hunters set off before the sun’s mark, for the woods are far and the horses are not winged.”

Oliver threw his blankets grumpily, “Oh, Father, your age’s better suited for a walk at the park. The woods are nothing but gloom and drear and only good for one thing.”

“Secrets.” Oliver finished, with more of a sigh than a grin.

Here now was the King’s opportunity to spring the sin, but he was weak with denial and pride. “Up with you, son, and let’s ride.”

Maybe a few more years of quiet civility could have been purchased here, but the airs was stale for too long already and fears for quaint humility were given chase to the rear. So the Prince made no movement save for a defiant burn in his eyes.

“No, father, let’s not. I want to talk. Here and now, let us break the ice.”

The King’s back was to his son’s face, and he could find no courage to turn. “I’ll get my old mace, and for you, your page can furn-“

“Father, I am not like you. I will never be like you. Why do you insist on this errand? Can’t you see it’s nothing but a foolish quest?”

Oliver pulled at the curtains, revealing feminine clothes and fineries strewn about everywhere– on the floor, and on the chairs and tables, on every chest.

“Draw the light down, for Heaven’s sake! Have you no shame?!”

“Ah, my father carries that abundantly for me and my name,” Oliver replied, mournfully.

The King paused momentarily, and then he spun on his heels and strode his way out of the chamber.

“We will make a man out of you yet, or off with you to Hell’s embers.”

Oliver stared dumbly, standing amidst the beautiful dresses and satin shoes and delicate laces. Then minutely, he started to move towards the window’s edge and away he flew without braces.

''A Tale Macabre: The disappearance of Baby Elizabeth McCook'' OR ''Suffer The Little One''
Word count: 1998




James Cranbury looked at his wife Emma. She sat opposite him, asleep, aboard the Caledonian Sleeper train from London to Edinburgh. The English countryside went fleetingly past his window. She looked beautiful under the faint moonlight. Every few minutes he would take a break from the novel he was reading and look out at her, before returning to gaze at his wife. Emma woke up to find him looking at her. He returned his glance immediately to the countryside- hoping that he hadn’t been caught. She smiled knowingly.




“Ah, you’re here finally,” said a puffy gentleman. He stood inside the wicker basket of a hot air balloon. It was fashioned in the colours of the sun setting across the Serengeti.
“What’s all this?” Emma asked bemused.
“It’s faster this way Miss; to get to Abbeyforth village. You’d have to wade through marshland and a stretch of water otherwise. Where are your suitcases, detective equipment etc?”
Emma smiled. “We pack lightly. It’s only our rucksacks, laptops and us.”




The pre-dawn air was cool yet brisk enough to flutter their hair gently. James looked at the lakes whilst Emma admired the distant mountains. They turned the side of a humongous hill to face the rising sun. They saw Abbeyforth village half covered in shadow half baked in new morning light. It was a quaint little village with half a dozen houses. At the North End was a single road which led directly to McCook Manor. James felt Emma tug at his shirt. Emma pointed out a flock of cameras and cable news vans just inside the eastern gate. The media were here already and had been provided with luxurious parking space.




After landing in the park of a garden, James and his wife walked the ten minutes to the Main House. And what a sight to behold it was. It was a four storey Victorian Mansion, picturesque behind the lake.
“They say the Queen was a chief guest there and lived at the McCook Manor when she vacated near here...” Emma informed.




“It has now been 16 hours since Little Elizabeth McCook disappeared. Fears are growing that the one year old...”


James switched off the television. He was sitting on the floor with the other child in the McCook family. He looked out at the estate through the huge windows. The morning had transposed into a bleak winter one.
Emma sat on the couch with the distraught mother. Mrs Mary McCook had tea bags under her eyes. Her eye makeup had smudged and was running down her face. She assured that every resource would be available to them; she only wanted her baby back. She broke down into tears and wishing to hide her tears from her nine year old daughter, she left the room.
“George and Tom think that it might be karma you know,” Jane McCook said looking up from her toy tea set. “Karma is when you do something bad and then something bad happens to you. It’s a magical force or something.”
“Are George and Tom your friends?” James asked.
Jane nodded.
“And did you do anything bad to them?”
“I didn’t. Daddy accidentally ran over Molly, their dog, though.”
“Aah I see. So they want it to be Karma then. That’s why they believe in it I suppose.”
“Do you believe in God, or Karma or something?”
“No. I don’t believe in fairy tales. My wife does but-”
“James,” Emma said sternly.
“I think the chances of something bad happening to George and Tom’s family is similar to the chance of it happening to your family. That’s how Karma probably works. People just fill in the details.”




Owls shooed in the darkness. Whilst Emma listened to her ipod, James could hear faint thuds made by a herd of deer let loose in some far corner of the vast grounds. They were sitting on a bench after a long hard day of interviews. They watched the police slowly drain the lake. Bells on a clock tower rang in ten o’clock.
“They have a church on estate?” James asked.
“Yes. Mary McCook had it built; which reminds me-”
“Yes.”
“Mary thinks that this is Satan’s handiwork. She thinks Satan took her baby away. Literally.”
“Literally literally?”
“What other way is there?”
James scoffed.
“Don’t scoff. She’s just lost her child. That gives anybody a good cause to be a little mentally unbalanced... To be honest, I'm more nervous of the secret gun, she keeps on herself.”
“A gun! And you haven’t told the police because?”
“I feel sorry for her. Don’t you? It’s not like she’s going to use it.”
“I hope for your sake she doesn’t!”




“I think the fact that nobody is quite sure whether baby Elizabeth has been kidnapped or killed accidentally or otherwise is telling in its own way. I don’t think anyone in the village had anything do with this.”
“It has to be someone in the village though,” Emma interjected. “What are the chances of a stranger arriving unnoticed in this little village?”
“Very low, but not impossible.”
Their laptop was connected to a projector. On screen was the name of every person in the village. Ninety percent of whom had their names crossed out.
“Re-review,” said James. “Baby Elizabeth was in her cot in her own room.”
“Her mother and father were in the East dining room sitting down to lunch. They had a baby monitor on the table. We’ve already crossed out the servants, who were on their lunch break in the village. Where was the other child, Jane McCook?”
“She was with her friends, the doctor’s children, playing hide and seek.”
“But where was she exactly?” Emma asked.
“By the botanic gardens. Why?”
“Well that rules out the eastern gate. It isn’t guarded but nobody could walk in through the Eastern gate without her or her friends seeing.”
“Yes. But that leaves a vast amount of territory out back. Frankly, for people so rich, you would expect more security.”
“Well considering that this is just some house for the winter, it makes sense.” Emma slumped on the sofa. “God this is grim.”
The clock struck three.
“Emma, do you think the child is dead or alive?”
“Alive. Mother is a bit unstable, but she was with her husband when they went up to check on the baby. You?”
“Dead. Manslaughter most likely.”
The couple sprung out the sofa bed and settled under the covers.
Emma held on to James tightly. “I know we don’t keep score. But I hope I’m right this time.”
“You normally are.”




“Bloody Hell...” said Emma.
Under the cover of darkness, Mary McCook was walking across the emptied lake with a candle in hand. She was dressed in a white nightie over which she wore a knee length coat; its hood draped over her head.
The cold night air cut into all them.
James took off his black blazer and placed it over his wife’s shoulders. They tip toed behind the ghostly figure through a patch of grass and into the forest. Mary’s candle swayed in the wind. Deeper into the forest they went.
Mary appeared to pause for a second. Whilst Emma tried to figure out why, James saw the pool of blood. Mary followed the trail of blood. She knelt down beside a fallen deer. Hunters. She took her gun out and looked left and right.
James saw her put her gun away before she continued her walk. They walked through a garden fashioned like a maze with seven foot tall hedges. Owls hooted in the distance. An owl had just caught its prey.
They crossed a small hill and continued onto a church. James halted by the door. Emma looked up at him. “Go in Emma... That’s no murderess in there. Make sure to tell her that the vigil she keeps is a fool’s errand.”
“I’ll do no such thing. Why you cannot see her pain, is beyond me...”
From the doorway, James saw Emma offer his blazer and comfort Mary McCook with an arm round her shoulder. He watched spiders walk across the dirty floor. He heard the sounds of a grave being freshly dug. He walked round the church to see a gentleman overlooking his gardener digging an empty grave. A grave small enough for a baby. The husband at least was strong enough to face both possibilities.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “All the wealth in the world... and I can’t sleep...”





Emma and James sat down to tea at the village doctor’s home. In the garden, a news reporter was interviewing the children, one an eleven year old and the other twelve. Emma looked behind them at Molly the Dog’s grave. The head stone was a simple stick.
“Well.... We know how they feel... our dog’s been run over like...” the younger child Tom said.
The reporter smiled as the older brother chided Tom for ‘being stupid’ and made him apologise.
“If she’s alive, how do you keep a baby quiet anyhow?” James asked the village doctor. “Would sedatives work? Tranquilisers?”
“A sedative? For a baby? Tranquilisers? You’re not medically trained are you?” Doctor Samuel jeered. “I wouldn’t give that to grown adults. To an adult, worst case scenario, soporific drugs perhaps...still isn’t real sleep. But babies... I’d have to ask for advice to be honest...” He then said in a whisper: “If she’s alive... that is... I heard the old man up at the manor has dug up a fresh grave. But then again we can never be sure and I suppose for Mary’s sake we have to keep hopes alive...”
“You slipped,” Emma who was lost in her thoughts suddenly said.
“Pardon?” Doctor Samuel said.
“James, a word. And Doctor Samuel please don’t skip town with the family!”
“I don’t intend to. What’s going on here?”



Ending



Once everyone was settled, Emma began. “No theatrics. The facts presented themselves finally as a circumstantial truth. We think we know who the child napper is. Key evidence however is missing.
“The child had to have been taken, sedated, and hidden. Therefore the people involved needed access to medicine that could sedate the victim.”
An officer held onto Doctor Samuel. His children struggled to free him claiming his innocence.
Doctor Samuel’s hands shook. As did Mary McCook’s. Doctor Samuels said finally, “I was at the pub. Ask the pub landlord!”
James continued. “We know. These people needed to be on the grounds but at the same time be able to run around unnoticed. Cases like these... You need -sometimes- people to slip. Do something small that nobody else does.”
“It wasn't you who slipped. It was your children.” Emma added.
Murmurs and whispers took hold of the crowd.
Emma continued. “They were too sure of her death. They were playing hide and seek in the grounds. They had access to your medicine cupboards.... And in their eyes Molly had been murdered. Revenge...”
James took over. “Karma was it?”
Doctor Samuel looked at his children. He knew their guilty faces too well. “Where is the baby George? I know you can’t have meant to... cause harm... Just teach them rich folks a lesson...”
George stayed silent. It was Tom who pointed to a grave marked with a simple stick...




Mary McCook screamed. She got her gun out. Words like ‘murder’ and ‘justice’ merged into her sobs. She fired her gun into the floor and broke down into her husband's arms...




“Mr McCook didn’t want anything do with the car...” James said sitting inside a quarter of a million pound car. Emma nodded and got in beside him. They sat in silence.
“We can always buy a new car if...”
“Yes,” Emma said, getting out of the car hurriedly.




On a train back to London, James sat looking at his wife. “You’re with child...pregnant!”
Emma was writing her monthly column for The Times. She looked up and smiled. “Took you long enough... and you call yourself a leading detective... huh!”



The End.





Alternative Ending: 1


Alternative Ending: 2

Sorry to hijack the thread briefly (especially after not being around writing GAF for a spell), but are we going to do a Script Frenzy event thread here in the same vein as NaNoWriMo? Reading everyone else's progress really pushed me on to do my own, even if I didn't finish, I got a lot more done than I normally would.

The Four Impossible Tasks of Aristophanes (1700)

"Maybe Aristophanes was right," Reg muttered. He stared at the smooth glass surface in front of him, and frowned. No cracks, no rough patches, no holes; nothing that a man might use to climb. He’d been round the entire tower, and it was all the same--smooth, flat, slippery glass.

"Sir?" came Sparrow’s rumbling voice from behind him. "Shall I set up camp?"

"Yes, yes." Reg waved a hand at Sparrow, not really listening. Sparrow knew what to do; he always knew what to do. He only asked for form’s sake, Reg was sure.

Reg looked up. And up. He had to lean back to see to the top. The Glass Tower dominated the sky; an enormous needle jabbing into the clouds. The locals he’d spoken to on the way had sworn it was a thousand feet tall--that couldn’t be right, but it damn well seemed to go on forever, shoving its way inexorably towards the firmament. It was translucent, and he fancied he could make out the late afternoon sun through it if he squinted. It seemed to grow narrower as it climbed. Perhaps that was the effect of distance.

He strode over to where Sparrow was setting up camp. Sparrow had already cleared a pit and lit a fire for their supper. Reg took a seat on a log, and looked back at the tower. "Bloody tall."

"Of course, sir." Sparrow opened a saddlebag and began rummaging around for something--Reg could hear the clattering of tin pots.

"Don’t see how I’m supposed to climb the damned thing."

"Of course not, sir."

"Doesn’t seem possible." Reg leaned forward and held his hands over the flames.

"That’s why they're the impossible tasks of Aristophanes, sir."

"Point." Reg nodded. "Other three weren’t this bad, though."

Sparrow walked back to the fire and began tossing ingredients into a large pot. "Indeed, sir."

"Wasn’t even the first with the Golden Bull. And two other chaps did the Swordsman right after me."

"Things often happen so, sir."

"I suppose, I suppose." Reg looked at the tower again. If he did scale the damned thing, would others follow in his wake? Did that glory hound Lord Forsythe hover nearby even now, watching and waiting to see what he did?

Sparrow plunked his pot atop the fire and began stirring. "Sir, surely completing three of the four tasks shall see your name in the ballads."

"Yes, yes. But I don’t do this for my name."

Sparrow looked up, surprised. "Why then, sir?"

Reg smiled.

*

Morning sunlight glinted off the tower, and Reg shaded his eyes as he looked up.

One man, said Aristophanes in his treatise On The Boundaries of the Mortal, could excel in a limited number of things in his lifetime. Strength, speed, skill, intelligence, persistence; a man could not cultivate more than two or three such qualities over the course of his life.

Thence the four impossible tasks: outrun the Golden Bull, defeat the Silver Swordsman, discover and outwit the Genie of the Sealed Temple, and climb the Glass Tower of Northmark. Each would require a full measure of one of Aristophanes’ qualities to complete. Some men, through inborn qualities, or through those acquired over a lifetime, might complete one or even two of the tasks. But, Aristophanes averred, the man who could accomplish all four in one lifetime did not and could not exist. Such a man was himself impossible.

Reg was not having it.

Staring at the Glass Tower wouldn't get him to the top. "Any likely spots, Sparrow?"

Sparrow eyed the smooth, unvarying surface of the tower. "One spot is as likely as another, sir."

"Quite." Reg chuckled. "Mallet and pitons, if you would."

Sparrow rummaged through the saddlebag he had slung over his shoulder, and produced the mallet and bag of pitons.

Reg held a piton to the glass surface, and gave it a gentle tap with the mallet. There was a sharp ringing, and a vibration came up the mallet and into his wrist.

He dropped the mallet. "Damn it."

"Something wrong, sir?" Sparrow picked up the mallet and handed it to him.

Reg rubbed at his wrist and shook his head. "Wasn't expecting that." Reg looked for the spot he'd just nicked, but could find no mark on the glass surface. Odd. He frowned.

"Sir?"

Reg shook his head. He held the piton to the glass surface again, and gave it a harder tap, this time tensing his arm in anticipation of the vibration. There was another sharp ring, and he lifted the piton to see his handiwork.

A small groove was chiseled into the glass, less than an inch deep at the point.

Surely he had hit harder than that. But even as he looked, the groove grew shallower. In fact--he started in surprise--he had been mistaken, there was no groove at all. The glass surface was smooth and unmarked.

Unless--he lifted the mallet and piton once more, angled the piton, and put all of his not-inconsiderable strength into the blow. The tower rang like a gong, and his arm vibrated to the shoulder and back, but a sizeable chunk of glass fell to the ground.

Reg smiled and ran his fingers around the hole he had created. This would do very well for a handhold. He reached down to examine the fallen chunk of glass, but stopped short. It was getting smaller. This time there was no mistaking it--the glass shrank before his eyes, until it vanished into nothingness.

Decidedly odd.

Reg looked back up at the handhold he had created, but the glass surface was smooth and unmarked once more. "Hmm."

"Sir?"

He turned to look at Sparrow. "It seems the Tower does not take kindly to being nicked."

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"It repairs itself." He shook his head. "I suppose it makes sense--a tower of glass wouldn't stay up long otherwise."

"Quite, sir. Shall I bring out one of the other tools?"

Reg thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No good. The rope trick won't work; the tower's too big around. Can't use a climbing hook without some protrusion to catch on. And the others--I think not."

Which left only the mallet and pitons. Not perfect, but then no tool was. He frowned, eyes narrowing, and lifted the mallet again.

"Sir, are you--"

Gong! A chunk of glass fell to the ground. Gong! Another, slightly higher up. Gong! A third.

Reg tucked the mallet through his belt, held the piton between his teeth, and reached up for the third hole with both hands. He hauled himself upward and placed his feet into the first two holes he'd made.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so impossible after all. He grinned down at Sparrow, then pulled the mallet from his belt.

Gong! Gong! He nearly overbalanced as he knocked out another two chunks of glass. He recovered himself, then climbed into the new set of footholds and repeated the process.

After a few minutes, the climb slowed. Sweat was beading on Reg's forehead, and his arms felt as though they were vibrating from the bones outward. He rubbed at his wrist.

Something pressed against the front of his left foot, pushing it away, forcing it from its makeshift foothold. The glass was still repairing itself--he couldn't afford to slow down. He wiped sweat from his eyes, and raised the mallet.

Gong! He could ignore the soreness. Gong! He'd done the same when he raced the Golden Bull. Gong! An even pace and a clear head, that was all he needed. He hauled himself into the new set of hand and footholds, and looked down.

He immediately wished he hadn't. He was at least forty feet up, and the ground looked very far away. Sparrow's face gazed up at him, wide-eyed. Reg took a deep breath.

The piton fell from his mouth and skittered down the surface of the tower.

Reg froze. He had to think quickly. The other pitons were in the saddlebags below. Did he have anything else he could use to chisel out a hand or foothold? Perhaps the mallet itself would be able to--

Oh dear. He could feel the glass beginning to press on his toes, pushing his feet outward. He pushed back as hard as he could, gripped the sides of the footholds with his boots, but the glass was relentless.

He looked upward, lifted the mallet.

His left foot popped free of its hold, and swung alarmingly in space. Then his right foot popped free, and he scrabbled desperately for purchase, dropping the mallet and clinging to the remaining handhold with both hands.

Bloody wonderful.

Slowly, slowly, his hands were pushed out. He clutched the hold with his palms. With his fingers. With his fingertips.

And then he was falling.

*

Breathing should not hurt so much.

Reg opened his eyes, and saw nothing. "Sparrow?" Even talking hurt. "I'd bloody well better not be blind."

A shuffling of feet. "Of course not, sir. It’s night. Though you are injured--might I suggest that you rest?"

"You might, but I'll ignore it." Though perhaps Sparrow had the right of it; he could almost feel his lungs pressing on his poor tender ribs as he spoke.

"Of course, sir."

"How high did I get, Sparrow?"

"Perhaps forty feet, sir."

"Out of a thousand. Damn it."

"If I may say so, sir, it's fortunate you weren't any higher. Perhaps this will convince you to--"

"Oh, no. Not a chance, Sparrow." Reg winced. "Not a chance," he repeated more quietly. "I mean to see it through."

Sparrow hesitated. "Sir, perhaps Aristophanes had good reason to call the tasks impossible."

Reg snorted. "Aristophanes only called them impossible because he thought no one could cultivate all his damned qualities." He could ignore the pain in his ribs; he’d ignored pain before.

"But you have cultivated them, sir?"

"Certainly not." Reg chuckled, and immediately regretted it. He resolved to breathe shallowly for the nonce. "Certainly not. But Aristophanes was wrong--you don’t need all those qualities. You only need one, and I’ve bloody well got it in spades."

"And what’s that, sir?"

Reg smiled. "Sheer bloody bullheadedness."

Both alternate endings would have required some restructuring of the rest of the story, so I can’t really write out the whole thing for either.

Alternate Ending #1

Alternate Ending #2

Just wondering aloud, bakemono, but weren't you tempted to write that story in epic verse instead? (I think it could be polished into an excellent poem if you so desired.) Also, the use of "quixotic" could be deemed anachronistic - a bit too postmodern for the setting.

The Entries:

kid ness - "Superman's Dilemma"
John Dunbar - "Fool's Gold" (Alternate endings)
ZephyrFate - "In Her Good Graces" (Alternate endings)
Aaron - "Leviathan Hunt"
Dresden - "Sweet Summer Sunset" (Alternate endings)
Irish - "Waste"
Ward - "Hey Brosef, We’re retelling it for 1997"
Tim the Wiz - "The Call"
crowphoenix - "A Rare Luck"
bakemono - "Under Old Silenus' Dome"
Ashes1396 - ''A Tale Macabre: The disappearance of Baby Elizabeth McCook'' OR ''Suffer The Little One''
Cyan - "The Four Impossible Tasks of Aristophanes" (Alternate endings)

Tim, that piece is full with derp. I had to rush it cuz Mass Effect 2 is eating up all of my waking hours. Yeah, agree with the quixotic bit, but that's where the whole thing sprung out from, actually.

AND NOW BACK TO MASS EFFECT.

Suairyu said:

Sorry to hijack the thread briefly (especially after not being around writing GAF for a spell), but are we going to do a Script Frenzy event thread here in the same vein as NaNoWriMo? Reading everyone else's progress really pushed me on to do my own, even if I didn't finish, I got a lot more done than I normally would.

Click to expand...

I am not planning to participate, so I won't be making a thread for it.

If you're interested in getting something going, maybe you should make the thread yourself. Feel free to model it after the NaNoWriMo thread.

I think the thread would get some good participation. I know of several Gaffers that are interested in script writing.

crowphoenix said:

I think the thread would get some good participation. I know of several Gaffers that are interested in script writing.

Click to expand...

If you build it, they will come. Suairyu, you can PM me if you have questions on running the thread.

Alrighty. I'll draft something up tonight and post it within the next few days. It'd probably be best to make something similar to the NaNoWriMo thread as you suggested, as that seems to be a format that works well.

EDIT - Thanks to Cyan's advice it's ready already. Hit up http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=20235239&posted=1.

Forgot to mention earlier, but a nod to Aaron and ronito. My story came in well under the word limit at 1900, but I decided to aim for a final count of 1700. The story was much better for it, and it probably could've been cut even further.

I didn't even look at the word count till the very last second. No excuses, just plain forgot about it. :lol
Edited the piece as and when I thought it needed it. Had a look at word count on Word, just before pasting.

Word counts are different on different software for reasons I cant explain. I use the Microsoft Office Word one as it was the most accurate.

Read up to the leviathan hunt. Uncomfortable read on a personal level. (ps, I've been allergic to 'whole swathes of text being written in present tense' before. It messes with my head). I will read it again though, give it a fair shake; I generally liked your writing style before this.

Apart from that the rest were alright...
I liked Kidnesse's entry, I read it as a slam poetry entry for some reason. Works better as a rap I suppose.
Zephyrfate's effort was another okay one. It was much better after the first stanza. I prefer one of the alternative endings, but I've decided that I'm not going to hold that against anyone's stories...
I thought John Dunbar was another decent story. Ending was a bit... pants.. I suppose that means, I liked one of the alternatives. The grim one had more promise but it was still so and so. I don't know how I'd end it tbh, so I kind of know where your coming from...

I really wish I could edit in my second draft, but that's what I get for rushing my entries! However, I do like that I can write a first draft so quickly from conception to end product these days. A year ago and I would have balked at the idea of producing something like this in a matter of hours.

Hopefully, an improvement in quality follows just as surely.

1) Ashes
2) Tim
3) Cyan

kid ness: Took me a little bit to get into the actual flow of the piece, but the pay off was so worth it.

John Dunbar: You repeated some of your ideas in the opening paragraph a couple of times, and the story as a whole could have been made much smoother by fleshing it out more. That said, I really liked the Jester's motivation and scheme.

Zephyr: Never been very good at critiquing poetry, but I liked the mingling of dance and sex. The opening stanza was a bit hard for me to figure out how the piece should be read, but by the time we'd moved to the dancing, I had it.

Aaron: I had a bit of trouble putting the world together. Mostly because I didn't fully understand what the Wyrd was.

Dresden: Well written and powerful, but I think it would have been better had you adressed what happened to the parents and why the kids didn't just try to go elsewhere.

Irish: Same as with Dresden's entry, I feel like the community would have banded together in order to do something about their situation, rather than simply continue to exist.

Bakemono: The story was written in such a way that it felt more like a poem. The prose was a bit too flowery for my taste, but the relationship between Oliver and his father was interesting. I'd like to see it fleshed out more sometime.

Tim: The beginning was fairly weak, and I think the college kids could be dropped all together. But, otherwise, it was a great piece.

Ashes: The fragmented nature of the story made it a bit difficult to grasp the characters, but other than that, it was a great story.

Cyan: I love heroes that are just too stubborn to give up.

crowphoenix said:

John Dunbar: You repeated some of your ideas in the opening paragraph a couple of times, and the story as a whole could have been made much smoother by fleshing it out more. That said, I really liked the Jester's motivation and scheme.

Click to expand...

The repetition was actually intentional, but if it stood out negatively, my execution must have failed.

Anyway:

1. Ward - Hey Brosef, We’re retelling it for 1997

2. crowphoenix - A Rare Luck

3. Ashes1396 - ''A Tale Macabre: The disappearance of Baby Elizabeth McCook'' OR ''Suffer The Little One''

Votes:
1 - Cyan
2 - Ashes1396
3 - Dresden

Comments:

kid ness - I'm not an expert, but this doesn't feel like Superman to me. If you're going to make your own character anyway, why not something more original?

John Dunbar - I think it's a bad and unneeded habit to explain what the story will be essentially before it actually starts. Let the reader discover this instead. I think the story would have been better served linking it to a character's POV, even if it was a nameless observer, to make these details feel less abstract and more personal.

Zephyr - I really don't know what to say about poetry.

Dresden - Nice somber story, though the repetition gets to be too much and oddly enough the ending feels a little too easy to me. Wanting to die is one thing, going through that experience is another. Could have used an emotional fire in the end.

Irish - Please don't explain the story before the story. Don't start in the abstract, start with something concrete and real the reader can get a hold of. Your story does get there in the end, and when it does it's good, but there's too much summary before then.

Tim the Wiz - The story doesn't say enough about itself for me to say anything about it. I don't really get to know the characters, and there isn't anything to their situation.

crowphoenix - This time I really did feel that it was too much dialogue up front without some action happening, and saying it was boring just stings. The ending feels weak when I don't know these characters nearly at all.

bakemono - I understand the style you're going for, but I think you just miss the mark, enough that it does more harm than good. I feel the end is where you should have overloaded the thing with detail to give it the proper impact.

Ashes1396 - The only problems with this story is the formatting and the length restrictions. Given more room to breathe, it would be an excellent little mystery. It's pretty darn good as it is right now.

Cyan - The only problem I had with this one was a little too much of the 'cheerio' if you know what I mean. I like that it's there, but you lay it on a bit thick. I didn't like either of the alternate endings. I felt they cheapened the main character, who I really enjoyed.

Aaron said:

crowphoenix - This time I really did feel that it was too much dialogue up front without some action happening, and saying it was boring just stings. The ending feels weak when I don't know these characters nearly at all.

Click to expand...

I did keep that in mind as I wrote, but I must have missed what you meant. I think I'm getting it now. Thanks.

Only brief notes this time.

kid ness - "Superman's Dilemma" - Short and amusing. Not really feeling the rhythm of the rap.
John Dunbar - "Fool's Gold" - Interesting plan, but too much explanation up front and at the end, which could've been spread over the middle.
ZephyrFate - "In Her Good Graces" - Nice. You do a good job of capturing the emotions of the scene, rather than getting stuck on description.
Aaron - "Leviathan Hunt" - Rough beginning, with a few too many names thrown in, but it finds its feet once the leviathan appears
Dresden - "Sweet Summer Sunset" - A bit repetitive, with the phrases they keep saying to each other. Downer ending, but it felt appropriate for the piece. Steven Seagal reference is out of place and ties down the piece in a way that doesn't fit.
Irish - "Waste" - Wow, where'd the violence come from? Seemed a bit out of nowhere.
Ward - "Hey Brosef, We’re retelling it for 1997" - Did the brothers really not recognize him, even with the same name?
Tim the Wiz - "The Call" - Keep it simple. You don't need the opening bit with the college kids.
crowphoenix - "A Rare Luck" - Ha! I like the ending. Ending sentence could've been cut after the trot down the hill.
bakemono - "Under Old Silenus' Dome" - This was a bit over my head. Not quite sure what was going on.
Ashes1396 -''A Tale Macabre: The disappearance of Baby Elizabeth McCook'' OR ''Suffer The Little One'' - The frequent scene changes left me feeling a bit at sea through this one. Would've preferred fewer, more complete scenes.


Votes:
1. Tim the Wiz - "The Call"
2. Aaron - "Leviathan Hunt"
3. Dresden - "Sweet Summer Sunset"

HM: Zephyr

Don't forget to vote, folks!

Remember that not voting will disqualify you from winning, and we don't want that to happen!

I apologize, I'm kind of in a rush and don't have time to comment each one tonight. Here are my three votes:
(1) crowphoenix "A Rare Luck": I really like it when I can intently imagine the characters and the scene they're a part of. I like how you mixed in the details of the boys relationship to each other, as well as their age, and Hiram's purpose of the task later into the story, as opposed to giving it away in the first few sentences. Well done.
(2) Tim the Wiz "The Call": The portrait of the bar was exceptional. I think this entry had the most grappling effect, getting my attention the quickest and keeping it for the longest.
(3) John Dunbar "Fool's Gold": Very well written, and an interesting idea. My sympathies to the jester for his unhappiness, as well as his victims.

Thank you all for your criticisms of my entry, I appreciate it. Looking forward to the next one!
Edit:
Honorable Mention: Ashes3186. Entertaining!

I have to say I liked the rest of the entrys this week. I've tried to gage a lot of what all your effort's intentions were.
Dresdan: you have a wonderfully natural way with prose. The plot was duller then it should have been though. I think the repetition is to show the monotony of the passing time, and repetition of life in general. If it had any other purpose, I didn't quite get it.
Irish: I think I enjoyed it more then you did. It was alright... really it was...
ward: Another story that was just okay. I'll say more cause there are more than few things wrong with it. Right ending picked of the three though. A lot of the dialogue is bad. Sounds like a script for a bad actor. And the dialogue at the end is a little anachronistic. Cliché after cliché after cliché, was where it all went wrong.
Tim the wiz: Had to read it a couple of times. I'd decided for some reason that it wasn't my cup of tea. But the second readthrough was much better. Perhaps, experiment with a few ways to start the story. Though I grew to like it, I wonder whether so much scenary at the start is needed for a flash fiction piece. The conflict of interest went away pretty quickly I thought... It's a good effort I think...
crowphonix: What I got out of the story, and liked about it, was the childhood innocence... Good for the younger audience I reckon.. I enjoyed it...
Cyan: loved it til the end part... ending was lopsided for me. It was the right choice of the three endings, just wasn't funny or witty enough for me.
Bakemono: For a while I thought it was written for a piture book... I really tried with this one... But... I just don't get it....

agh, i read through everything in one go. my head's swimmingly now.

Votes:
1. Crow - I liked that ending very much.
2. Ward - Very cool idea. Really enjoyable.
3. Cyan - I like the ending that you stuck with the story.
HM. Aaron - I really disliked Greg at the beginning, but man, you know how to turn people around. Very nice. LOVE the leviathan description. Only the ending was a bit anticlimactic. Wished he had not been cut off by the studio.

1) Tim the Wiz
2)Cyan
3) Ashes

I'm pretty terrible at criticism, so apologies for not offering much in the way of advice. I enjoyed much of what I read though. Tim's entry just stuck out at me.

Votes:

1. Crow Phoenix
2. Cyan
3. dresdan

edit: I thought I wrote down.

hm:
John Dunbar (the perfect ending and this was a winner)
Tim the Wiz
Zephyrfate

Edit: n/m, no problem.


ZephyrFate's votes:
1. Ashes
2. Ward
3. Cyan

Just did a running total... is it seriously a 4-way tie at the top? Daaaaamn.

Ninja edit:
Wait, no. One person on top by one vote, 3-way tie for 2nd. Still pretty crazy!

WOW! I had probably some of the best comments I've ever written (as well as the most informative) and then I accidentally deleted them all. Well, I guess I have to remember what I wrote.

It also looks like everyone else kept it rather short and I went mega commenter. It's like a role reversal.

I hope I'm not to late to submit my votes though. Time changing randomly and all.
kid ness - "Superman's Dilemma" : The rhythm falters in some places. That wouldn't bother me normally, but it seems like it was essential for this piece. Decent imagery, but I think you could have done better. Creative and pretty interesting to read through.

John Dunbar - "Fool's Gold" : I like that you took the theme literally (something I was contemplating). I think certain parts of the story could have received a little more attention, like what exactly the Jester is doing when he's not in the spotlight. I'm not sure that the ending you went with was the best choice considering the Jester's actions seem like they'd result in death. Then again, it appeared to me that the Jester merely laced the wine with something that only caused drowsiness. For all I know, the entire room could have just been put to death. I definitely think you should have been a little more clear with what exactly the effects were. I'm also pretty sure that the Jester couldn't have poisoned the entire barrel of wine unless he managed to have his whole outfit as a container for whatever he put into it. Pretty nice overall.

ZephyrFate - "In Her Good Graces" : You always seem to put a lot of personality into your MCs with very few words and that doesn't change here. It's actually a quality I plan on nabbing from you so I can get better. The female character, on the other hand, actually threw me off at first. She actually seemed like two different people at times. After thinking on it for a while, I realized that the women in my life are very similar. I guess it ended up being a better characterization than I thought. I also think I would have preferred if your ending was a mixture between the current one and the second alternate ending. As it is now, it seems a little too abrupt and makes the story a little shorter than it needs to be. I mean, everything "feels" right, but I think a little added length could make the story killer. Then again, your entry is a perfectly detailed "scene", so a little added length might also hurt the story if not done correctly. Of course, I think you'd be able to handle it.

Aaron - "Leviathan Hunt" : I like how all of the little details in the story draw you in and are there for no reason other than scene setting. That would have been great if it wasn't for all of the confusion that follows after you're already drawn in. You throw out tons of names for places, things, ideas, and events and then never really explain any of it. Basically, they only serve to confuse the reader. I'm also not entirely sure what the story is actually about. Is it a story of an aging image trying to find his peace or is it a piece about the dangers of over-dependence and all of it's ill effects. Just a tad confusing. I do, however, like the basic setting. It's an interesting mixture of both traditional culture and technological advancement. Not only did it show up in the general environment, but it also reared its head in the personalities of your characters. There were a few very minor grammatical errors that actually made me have to stop and reread a few lines, but it wasn't something that really detracted from the story too much. Nice job. You always manage to create wonderful settings for your pieces and that's something I plan on learning from you as I move forward and try to become a better writer.

Dresden - "Sweet Summer Sunset" : Wow, I knew I should have looked over the other entries before I submitted my own. I ended up with a story eerily similar to yours, but with only half the cast and a third of the quality. We had very different settings though. Anyway, on to the meat of the story. I really liked the use of repeating dialogue. It definitely seemed to strengthen the bond between reader and characters as well as between brother and sister (?). I think you did a great job of developing the story throughout the piece instead of lumping it into one paragraph somewhere in the middle or at the beginning. The detailing you put into even the most basic of actions really helped to connect me to your characters. I mean, I enjoy digging, but I also know of all the pain and discomfort that can come from digging for too long on any given day or even over a certain span of time. I think you managed to bring that pain forward in your piece and I appreciate that. The repetition of the digging combined with the repetition of the dialogue really managed to desperation of the situation through. Repetition is often a sign of distress and desperation and it really made the story that much more believable. Nice. However, there were a few things that really took me out of the moment. The Steven Seagal line is a perfect example of this. It really didn't fit the setting at all. Nice job overall. I'm a sucker for first-person viewpoints in short stories.

Ward - "Hey Brosef, We’re retelling it for 1997" : I think it's a nice adaptation of the story of Joseph, but that was immediately brought to my mind within the first couple of paragraphs. I think a little more could have been done to differentiate it from the source material. Really, it only seems like the names and setting have been changed. I think you could have used this adaptation to put more character into the other brothers instead of having them just be a bunch of thugs. As they stand, they really come off as a bunch of caricatures. I believe that a little more time spent with the family before Cutter was given the jersey would have helped the story out exponentially. It's really kind of bland as it is now. I even think a turn away from the source material near the ending and a bit of additional content could have turned this from just another retelling of an old tale into a new tale of its own. The dialogue also felt a little clunky. I've heard that reading it out loud can really help to improve it. Well, at least that's what I'm told almost any time I include dialogue in my piece.

Tim the Wiz - "The Call" : An interesting tale that sorta caught me off guard. The idea seems like it would be pretty common, but I'm not really sure I've heard anything like it. Of course, after a while I realized you flipped what is typically a female role into a male one; the pretty face is used to ensnare business partners. I was sorta surprised that both roles seemed to have been delegated to a proxy. Interesting. I liked a lot of the imagery used to get a sense of the bar he was in. A lot of great analogies in there. While the first part with the young "troublemakers" was funny and added to the scene, I thought it was made more important than it needed to be. Too many names were thrown out into the mix. Probably should have kept the whole shebang a little more low key. I was surprised you managed to add so much to your character in so little time. I can picture him and his exploits perfectly in my mind. On the other hand, I think the random rant about the hunt for youth in both Western and Eastern cultures really didn't fit into the story. It seemed pretty heavy in what I would consider to be a more casual setting. (Wow, my comments are really starting to come off as a little sexist. Damn.)

crowphoenix - "A Rare Luck" : Dialogue really is your strong suit. Sure, that could be pretty annoying if that was all you had, but you have great characterization skills and are pretty darn good at creating a setting. I know you wanted to move away from that, but I don't think it's a bad thing at all. That being said, I think you put a little too much focus on it in this piece. Some more detail could have been put into each of the characters, but their basic skeletons were still far more interesting than anything I've ever come up with. Still, everything felt natural and like I've known these characters my entire life. That wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for the easy conversation going on throughout the search.

bakemono - "Under Old Silenus' Dome" : Terrible wording brought down what would otherwise be a great piece. When I have to reread the first paragraph multiple times to understand what's going, something is most definitely wrong. Of course, you managed to bring it back to an understandable level midway through the entry. It really does take a couple of rereads, but what you have really is interesting. The King obviously loves his offspring, but feels as though he personally failed somewhere along the line. Here's something that I'm not entirely sure about though: Is Oliver merely a feminine, possibly gay boy or is "he" actually female. Now, the reason I ask this is because of the position of the family, being royalty and all. There have been many Princes that have been far more than flamboyant and still been alright in their father's eyes, but often times, when only a daughter is born, the King would be seen as having no heir, a massive disappointment and end to the royal "family". The King would always see that daughter as being a failure of his and may even treat her as if she were a son. If she refused to be molded into her father's version of what she was supposed to be, he would view her as an opponent to his rule and a liability, something he doesn't wish to have.

Ashes1396 - ''A Tale Macabre: The disappearance of Baby Elizabeth McCook'' OR ''Suffer The Little One'' :

I apologize for the harshness that's about to come.

Your story was really dull, but I think it may just be the way it was written. Every segment seemed so random and isolated that I just couldn't stay focused on the story at hand. I would say it was the spacing that threw me off, but in truth, even without it, I think each of the segments would have felt a little too standalone. I also think you had way too much going on. There seemed to be a dozen and half characters and only the most minor ones seemed to have any personality. It also didn't help that there were random time jumps in seemingly important scenes. I think you should try working on having a more cohesive whole. Of course, I may just be missing the point entirely. At least you ran with the best ending.

Cyan - "The Four Impossible Tasks of Aristophanes" : An ancient comedian, huh? Anyway, everything about this story seemed pretty damn good to me. Likable characters, setting that allowed the story to unfold without interrupting it, an obstacle to overcome, and a great moral to the story. One I actually agree with. Persistence, motivation, ambition, whatever you wish to call it, is far more important than having any underlying talent. A person who is intent on completing something is far more likely to do so than one who may have the ability to do something, but no desire. Of course, having both ambition and skill will you get you a hell of a lot further than either one alone. It also sucks when you have neither, like myself.

__________________________________________________________________________

VOTES:


1) Dresden - "Sweet Summer Sunset"
2) Cyan - "The Four Impossible Tasks of Aristophanes"
3) crowphoenix - "A Rare Luck"

HM) Tim the Wiz - "The Call"

__________________________________________________________________________

Is there anything in particular I should try to work on for my next entry?

I came to these challenges to try to improve my writing skills, but I've slowly lost the ambition for that over time. Now, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.