There will be a prompt in 3
2:
The last, most dramatic scene of an epic story.
Word limit: 200. Ish.
MtG related: If you want.
We'll do 2 weeks for submissions then a week to vote. You can't vote for yourself if you entered but you don't have to enter to vote.
*Tumble weeds. Everywhere.*
I suppose that makes me first.
Hearing the aproaching enemy John turned and said, "One last thing."
"What's that?" asked Newman, stopping in his tracks.
"When they're making my statue, make sure I look like a badass."
"I'll have them give you a rocket launcher."
"Perfect."
The pill felt heavy in my hand, though it was but the weight of a feather. The moon was out, and the shade of white it shone on my balcony did wonders for my complexion, my bedsheet wrapped around me to preserve whatever decency I had left.
I saw people running towards me, from afar, running towards the balcony, trying to say something, do something. All so far away now.
I placed the pill on my lips with a grin that turned just this shade of sadistic, and took a step ... but then a voice behind me yelled. "Stop!"
I closed my eyes. "You're too late."
"... why?" he said. Hopefully Alex would tell him, but there was no time. There was never any time.
"Call it ... a Juliet complex."
I placed my foot past the railing, letting the weight of my body draw itself inexorably forwards until it was unstoppable,
and then I swallowed -
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
And then he was dead. His trachea crushed (just like I was taught; grab the handle and press the button), his face no longer imposing- robbed of its charisma and menace. Death has a funny way of doing that, huh? Squared jaws are softened by fear and his eyes no longer fierce. There's something in me, deep down, that feels a pang of remorse over that. Not the killing- he deserved it and for all my old neolib posturing about how death is never justice, he ******* deserved it. But his eyes used to be kinda beautiful, in a majestic, predatorial way- they never bowed or averted or glanced, they always stared, and I wish I could say they were steely to the end. But they weren't. I had dreamed of the moment almost exactly as it happened; I would track him down and lay my trap. I baited him and fell on him like a hyena on a wounded lion, my hands around his roided out neck and my eyes locked on the eyes of a killer. The eyes of evil. The eyes of a monster. The steely blue eyes of an invincible man squelching and gurgling in a futile call for help. The blood I expected, sure, the movies show the sputter and trickle from the throat and nose. But the snot- the spit and the slime! I dunno if my hands will ever not feel gross. But he's dead. And I'm alive and he's dead and I'm alive and he's dead and I'm alive and he's dead and I'm alive and he's dead and I'm alive and he wore a cross till the day he died and I'm alive and he had a kid and I'm alive and he muttered "I'm sorry," before his calculations ended.
After Sloan kicked me out and left me at the bus station, I felt there was nothing I could really go back to. I felt like the lower portion of my abdomen would just bottom out and I would see my intestines fall to the ground. My feet were numb and I could feel my legs shake a bit. My mind just seemed to be somewhere else that night.
“There’s a train here that goes from LA to Baltimore,” Sloan had said, “you’ve got enough money to get you there. Go call Alex and get out of my car. I don’t want to talk to you again.”
I looked at my phone, thinking of those parting words, and remembered when I first met Sloan back in the college dorms at Maryland. I knew that if I said sorry he would just call me an ********. There was nothing I could do to remedy that rift. I decided to call Alex but then stopped when I pulled up my list of contacts and saw Leesy’s name.
Annalice Shura,—the girl I crushed on since elementary school who moved over to San Diego right after the end of seventh grade—after all these years, she was still on my mind.
I remembered when I had called her on New Year’s day, right after midnight when I just dropped my sister off at the airport. “Hello” and “Who was this” were her first words to me after a decade we last spoke. “I’m sorry, but you might not remember me,” were mine.
I knew this was sort of weird, but since graduating from college, I still didn’t know what to do with my life. When walking off with my diploma, I felt nothing had changed. I was still the same old me—lost, financially inept, and jobless. But I thought of Leesy. Oddly, we shared mutual friends. I’ve seen her tweets and statuses, and knew she was making her way with her life. And though I looked at her affectionately, I also knew the feelings were not of love.
She may not have known it, but I had objectified her as a milestone of my life ever since we met in elementary school. I saw her as a kindred spirit. She was everything I wanted to be back then—a child with supportive parents, the cool kid who learned martial arts, and the gorgeous girl who was a nerd at heart, playing video games and reading comics. Back when I thought my life was a super hero’s story in the making, I thought she was an angel—a being I unconsciously called upon from some celestial plane to be my hidden guardian.
I saw it now that seeing her was less about seeing the real Leesy Shura, but rather meeting the invisible creature I had made in my mind—in person. In a sense, it was a resolution. I took the train, not from LA to Baltimore, but from LA to San Diego. It was only about an hour or so when I had arrived, and realized then I didn’t know where she lived. And San Diego was pretty big.
What I had wanted the most though was not to speak to her, but to find her. I think it would have been too much of me to enter into her life when by now I was a complete stranger to her. My plan was that I would see her, and by some kind of magic, feel like something had changed within me, and then leave without her ever realizing someone who knew her had passed by. It was that simple.
I felt like a stalker (or rather, I was being a stalker), snooping around trying to figure out what neighborhood she lived in. I looked through articles I found of her online and entries she, her friends, or our mutual friends left on their social networks to figure it out. I asked a few people around about her family’s house, pretending I was a good friend from the east coast who intended to make a surprise visit. And when the sun started to set, I ended up standing right before the doorway of her house.
I could see through their living room window. They’re having dinner. It seemed that Leesy wasn’t there. Good. I figured I would make my presence known to her parents as some stranger and then leave on that note. It felt like a solid end to a long trip across the country and a long chapter of my life could close.
I rang the bell. The father came. I asked him if this was the “Shura” residence, and he said “no.” It appeared I did my research wrong.
It was getting late at that point and I figured now was the time to go home. I would take the next train out to Baltimore, thinking, “it was probably never meant to be.” It seemed the will of Annalice Shura, the actual person, had said, “no. Get the **** away from my life you creep.” And that was understandable. We all suffer alone.
I took a cab to the train station, but when I got there, I realized I was several dollars short. Sloan was right. I did have enough money to go from LA to Baltimore. I just didn’t have enough to make a trip to San Diego as well. It seemed I was really broke. I figured I could have asked anyone from my family, but felt it would be too embarrassing right after I had severed my ties with them. I then thought of Sloan’s brother who hitchhiked all over the east coast. I smiled. “Oh, Eric,” I thought, and began to put my thumb out while walking along the road. I suppose this was where I really began the life of a ghost.
Not too long, a car drove up and stopped next to me with two guys sitting in the front seats. “Hey where are you going?” the driver said.
“Baltimore,” I replied.
“Hey, cool,” the guy on the passenger side said.
“That’s where we’re going,” said the driver. “You can drive?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Great,” he said, “get in the back seat. If you’ve got no money, that’s okay; you’re just going to have to drive most of the time.”
I smirked. “Yeah I can do that.”
I placed my backpack in their trunk and as I got to the back seat, the guy from the passenger side told me how awesome it was to run into a hitchhiker. Apparently, “picking up a hitchhiker” was on their “road trip checklist.” I chuckled a bit and reminisced how not long ago, Sloan and I had such a checklist when we left Baltimore.
“Oh,” the driver said, “mind the girl sleeping in the car. She’s our third driver and you can take the wheel after her. I’m Ronnie by the way.”
“I’m Dave,” the passenger side guy said, “and that’s Leesy.”
Oh, we were just supposed to post our votes? I was waiting on like a separate voting thread or something, PRC style. I'll Vote for Ilvaldi, because I thought it had the ghost of greatness in it. Not an excellent standalone piece, but I can appreciate both that it was written in relation to a larger work and that it's a good end to a broader piece. The last line was good, for sure.
My only problem with Ilvaldi's is that it is definitely not 200ish words. My word count tool says over 1000 actually. x.x
... But I guess I'd vote for it anyways, it was my favorite of the entries ...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
I'll vote for EmperorErvinmar as its context can be divorced from death, which I think is too overplayed in "dramatic scenes" or climaxes in general. But that's just my opinion. Runner up would have to be Echoe as I have a feeling that the narrator didn't swallow a suicide pill but probably some kind of med that gives him/her super powers or something like that.
So sorry I fell off the earth there for a while, here now though right as rain. Very late rain.
Zeldrex,1
Ilvaldi, 2
Emperorervinmar, 1
ILVALDI WINS. You are Gran High Chancellor of Everything Forever. Until the next contest, which will start as soon as I can think of a thing.
Maybe exactly 50 words sroties, that was fun.
Rather than something dramatic like last time, how about a scene that's slice-of-life? I.E. the LEAST dramatic scene. I.E. the MOST everyday scene you could think of. That said, make it interesting--something worth reading. Maximum length would be approximately 1200 words (that's 3 pages in Times New Roman font).
Rather than something dramatic like last time, how about a scene that's slice-of-life? I.E. the LEAST dramatic scene. I.E. the MOST everyday scene you could think of. That said, make it interesting--something worth reading. Maximum length would be approximately 1200 words (that's 3 pages in Times New Roman font).
Ilvaldi's thing it is.
Slice-of-Life: An ordinary, non-dramatic scene in the life of one or more characters.
Word-Count- Max 1200, which I'm told is 3 pages worth of TNR.
No vote for self, 2 week submissions, radda radda radda.
I highly suggest everyone posts their submissions as an attachment. That way, none of us will have to sift through walls of text and bad forum formattings.
So I was keeping my submission in an open tab here and copied it so I could refresh the page. Then copied something else. It barely qualified anyway. I doubt I'll make it in but I'll still administrate.
2:
The last, most dramatic scene of an epic story.
Word limit: 200. Ish.
MtG related: If you want.
We'll do 2 weeks for submissions then a week to vote. You can't vote for yourself if you entered but you don't have to enter to vote.
Alrighty, let's see how this goes.
I suppose that makes me first.
Hearing the aproaching enemy John turned and said, "One last thing."
"What's that?" asked Newman, stopping in his tracks.
"When they're making my statue, make sure I look like a badass."
"I'll have them give you a rocket launcher."
"Perfect."
I saw people running towards me, from afar, running towards the balcony, trying to say something, do something. All so far away now.
I placed the pill on my lips with a grin that turned just this shade of sadistic, and took a step ... but then a voice behind me yelled. "Stop!"
I closed my eyes. "You're too late."
"... why?" he said. Hopefully Alex would tell him, but there was no time. There was never any time.
"Call it ... a Juliet complex."
I placed my foot past the railing, letting the weight of my body draw itself inexorably forwards until it was unstoppable,
and then I swallowed -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
But he's dead.
And I'm alive.
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
We Can Be Ghosts Now
After Sloan kicked me out and left me at the bus station, I felt there was nothing I could really go back to. I felt like the lower portion of my abdomen would just bottom out and I would see my intestines fall to the ground. My feet were numb and I could feel my legs shake a bit. My mind just seemed to be somewhere else that night.
“There’s a train here that goes from LA to Baltimore,” Sloan had said, “you’ve got enough money to get you there. Go call Alex and get out of my car. I don’t want to talk to you again.”
I looked at my phone, thinking of those parting words, and remembered when I first met Sloan back in the college dorms at Maryland. I knew that if I said sorry he would just call me an ********. There was nothing I could do to remedy that rift. I decided to call Alex but then stopped when I pulled up my list of contacts and saw Leesy’s name.
Annalice Shura,—the girl I crushed on since elementary school who moved over to San Diego right after the end of seventh grade—after all these years, she was still on my mind.
I remembered when I had called her on New Year’s day, right after midnight when I just dropped my sister off at the airport. “Hello” and “Who was this” were her first words to me after a decade we last spoke. “I’m sorry, but you might not remember me,” were mine.
I knew this was sort of weird, but since graduating from college, I still didn’t know what to do with my life. When walking off with my diploma, I felt nothing had changed. I was still the same old me—lost, financially inept, and jobless. But I thought of Leesy. Oddly, we shared mutual friends. I’ve seen her tweets and statuses, and knew she was making her way with her life. And though I looked at her affectionately, I also knew the feelings were not of love.
She may not have known it, but I had objectified her as a milestone of my life ever since we met in elementary school. I saw her as a kindred spirit. She was everything I wanted to be back then—a child with supportive parents, the cool kid who learned martial arts, and the gorgeous girl who was a nerd at heart, playing video games and reading comics. Back when I thought my life was a super hero’s story in the making, I thought she was an angel—a being I unconsciously called upon from some celestial plane to be my hidden guardian.
I saw it now that seeing her was less about seeing the real Leesy Shura, but rather meeting the invisible creature I had made in my mind—in person. In a sense, it was a resolution. I took the train, not from LA to Baltimore, but from LA to San Diego. It was only about an hour or so when I had arrived, and realized then I didn’t know where she lived. And San Diego was pretty big.
What I had wanted the most though was not to speak to her, but to find her. I think it would have been too much of me to enter into her life when by now I was a complete stranger to her. My plan was that I would see her, and by some kind of magic, feel like something had changed within me, and then leave without her ever realizing someone who knew her had passed by. It was that simple.
I felt like a stalker (or rather, I was being a stalker), snooping around trying to figure out what neighborhood she lived in. I looked through articles I found of her online and entries she, her friends, or our mutual friends left on their social networks to figure it out. I asked a few people around about her family’s house, pretending I was a good friend from the east coast who intended to make a surprise visit. And when the sun started to set, I ended up standing right before the doorway of her house.
I could see through their living room window. They’re having dinner. It seemed that Leesy wasn’t there. Good. I figured I would make my presence known to her parents as some stranger and then leave on that note. It felt like a solid end to a long trip across the country and a long chapter of my life could close.
I rang the bell. The father came. I asked him if this was the “Shura” residence, and he said “no.” It appeared I did my research wrong.
It was getting late at that point and I figured now was the time to go home. I would take the next train out to Baltimore, thinking, “it was probably never meant to be.” It seemed the will of Annalice Shura, the actual person, had said, “no. Get the **** away from my life you creep.” And that was understandable. We all suffer alone.
I took a cab to the train station, but when I got there, I realized I was several dollars short. Sloan was right. I did have enough money to go from LA to Baltimore. I just didn’t have enough to make a trip to San Diego as well. It seemed I was really broke. I figured I could have asked anyone from my family, but felt it would be too embarrassing right after I had severed my ties with them. I then thought of Sloan’s brother who hitchhiked all over the east coast. I smiled. “Oh, Eric,” I thought, and began to put my thumb out while walking along the road. I suppose this was where I really began the life of a ghost.
Not too long, a car drove up and stopped next to me with two guys sitting in the front seats. “Hey where are you going?” the driver said.
“Baltimore,” I replied.
“Hey, cool,” the guy on the passenger side said.
“That’s where we’re going,” said the driver. “You can drive?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Great,” he said, “get in the back seat. If you’ve got no money, that’s okay; you’re just going to have to drive most of the time.”
I smirked. “Yeah I can do that.”
I placed my backpack in their trunk and as I got to the back seat, the guy from the passenger side told me how awesome it was to run into a hitchhiker. Apparently, “picking up a hitchhiker” was on their “road trip checklist.” I chuckled a bit and reminisced how not long ago, Sloan and I had such a checklist when we left Baltimore.
“Oh,” the driver said, “mind the girl sleeping in the car. She’s our third driver and you can take the wheel after her. I’m Ronnie by the way.”
“I’m Dave,” the passenger side guy said, “and that’s Leesy.”
“I’m Sloan,” I lied.
Tomorrow last day for submissions, then votes for a week or so, then results.
Ablblblblblblblblblble
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
... But I guess I'd vote for it anyways, it was my favorite of the entries ...
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
I'll vote for EmperorErvinmar as its context can be divorced from death, which I think is too overplayed in "dramatic scenes" or climaxes in general. But that's just my opinion. Runner up would have to be Echoe as I have a feeling that the narrator didn't swallow a suicide pill but probably some kind of med that gives him/her super powers or something like that.
Zeldrex,1
Ilvaldi, 2
Emperorervinmar, 1
ILVALDI WINS. You are Gran High Chancellor of Everything Forever. Until the next contest, which will start as soon as I can think of a thing.
Maybe exactly 50 words sroties, that was fun.
I'd write for that
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
We have 2 votes for Ilvaldi's thing, anyone strongly object?
Slice-of-Life: An ordinary, non-dramatic scene in the life of one or more characters.
Word-Count- Max 1200, which I'm told is 3 pages worth of TNR.
No vote for self, 2 week submissions, radda radda radda.
http://boomslank.com/blogs/blog/14332993-slice-of-life-my-new-anime-indulgence