Winter 2014 Writing Competition - Long voting thread
Here are the submissions for the Long category. Please vote for your favourite one.
This competition is based on anonymity so the authors of the entries posted here may not declare which entry is theirs, they may not encourage people to vote for a specific entry and/or give any hints which will ruin their or other competitors' anonymity. The same rules apply to everyone else as well.
Rule-breaking will be noticed and punished.
Authors may vote for their entry if they so desire. Entries are numbered following the order in which they were received.
This thread is for discussion of the articles at hand and voting. NOTHING ELSE.
In the Snow - 1
The Fall - 2
Chapter 1
There was a tingling sensation in his legs. The chilly...air, in want of a better word, made it hard to breath, if breath was what he did. He often wondered how he survived, with seemingly no oxygen around. Now he was wondering about falling though. How was he falling? There was nothing to fall towards. He had often experienced floating, even flying, but falling was something utterly new, something that suggested gravity, suggested mass. He pondered on this for a while, but stopped due to increased speed. That was another new experience, speed. Ever since the time Before he had always just...been. He looked with interest at the direction towards which he was falling. There was a light there, far away in the otherwise dark place. ‘Curious.’ thought the man as he slowly fell towards it, but soon he realized he was picking up speed. Somehow he was accelerating, and soon he had picked up terrifying speed. ‘Surely I won’t survive the crash. If there is anything to crash into.’ he told himself while trying to figure out what might be doing this to him. ‘Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is some sort of purgatory.’ He doubted it though. He would have remembered dying.
Soon the falling became Adam’s main activity and he stopped thinking about it. There were more important matters at hand, like where he was and how on earth he had gotten wherever here was. He considered magic but magic isn’t real. Surely it can’t be real. On the other hand, how was he breathing? And what? Maybe all those scientists were wrong all along and the world really worked because of magic and not atoms and particles and laws. Maybe it all was just a mad place where mad things happened and you never knew what caused them. Then he thought about god, even gods, tried to remember all religions he had ever heard of and if any of them mentioned continued falling. He had never liked the religion lessons at school though and soon decided to think about something else. What was the light? As long as he remembered from his existence in the...place there had been darkness and darkness only. The darkest darkness you could imagine, darkness so thick you couldn’t see your hands in front of you. This took him back to the creeping suspicion of being dead. But everything around him had started changing colour in the nearing light, he could see his hands and arms again and his feet and legs. ‘Hello legs. Long time no see.’ he mumbled to himself as he became acquainted with seemingly long lost body parts. For once he actually felt the warm feeling inside that hinted at hope or even happiness. He recollected the last time he had been this happy, back Before.
With light came heat, beautiful warmth. He felt how breathing became easier with every second he fell, even though the steadily growing pressure of falling did slow his breath down a bit. He looked downwards, if that was indeed the direction in which he was falling, and noticed a darker spot in the middle of the burning brightness. He was heading directly for it and he was close now, within minutes of crashing. Once again he wondered what would happen when he hit it. ‘I reckon I’ll be splashed to soup.’ his pessimistic side said, but the optimist part of him wasn’t so sure. This clearly wasn’t his world as he knew it, anything might happen. Suddenly something huge appeared just in front of him. It was a number, the number 20. ‘What in the name of-’ he begun, but was interrupted by the loudest, largest voice he had ever heard. It reminded him of his uncle, a huge man who always shouted at everything, whether he was happy or angry. ‘20 SECONDS TO IMPACT’ the voice said. ‘15, 14, 13, 12...’ it continued counting downwards. He realised it was referring to his imminent relationship with the ground. ‘7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...TOUCHDOWN.’
Suddenly he stopped. He wasn’t transformed into soup, he just stopped falling. It was as if he had never fallen at all, now he was standing on his very own legs instead, legs that hadn’t touched bare ground for...eons. They gave in under him and he fell onto the ground. On it was grass, just like he remembered it. It hadn’t been cut for at least a few weeks and it was still wet after a recent rain. He kissed it and laughed to himself in the joy. Then he tried standing again, just to fall down when his legs protested. Instead he decided to sit for a while, sitting wasn’t as difficult. He realized the light came from somewhere underneath whatever it was he sat on, which was a small, circular piece of earth covered in grass.
At first he dared not go near the edges, where the brightness shot past the grassy piece of land and up into the skies, but soon curiosity took the better of him. He went on his knees and slowly crept towards the edge. Once there he wanted to see what was under him and reached for the very edge to steady himself in order to look down. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You might burn your hands.’ a voice said behind him. He was so startled he almost lost his grip to the grass and was about to fall over when -- when a hand, a strong hand took hold of his trembling arm and pulled him back to the centre of the circle. ‘Who are you?!’ he gasped as the hand let go of him. He was lay on his back, in apparent safety again. ‘Where did you come from?’ he then added suspiciously. ‘I am no one and came from nowhere. But that is of little importance right now. We have to get out of here before the our breathing room completely collapses into nothingness.’ the strange man, if indeed it was a man, told him. ‘Our...breathing room? What do you mean? And what’s that light?’ he replied and more questions were on their way, but the stranger put his finger to his mouth, and it suddenly shut. ‘We are at the end of a world, or the birth of one, depending on your point of view. Under us is the very center of the universe, because it is all that is left of it. An inferno, destroying all and everything in it’s way. Frankly I’m surprised you’re not down there being atomised, but you’re not so you might as well survive a bit longer.’ Adam looked at the edges of their safe place and noticed the grass furthest away had caught fire, and it was no longer wet as if after a rain. It had gone from garden to desert in a matter of moments. ‘I’m okay with surviving...’ he said slowly and as the words left his tongue they had gone.
Chapter 2
They were in a dark place, but not as dark as the space he had been in before the light. He could just about make out walls and pillars, huge and magnificent. And then there was light, as if through some sort of magic the whole place lightened up. He looked at the stranger. It a tall man, with a long beard and long hair. He was clad all in bright grey, a colour that matched his hair. Even his skin was grey, but his eyes were a crystal clear blue. They were the king of eyes that drilled into your soul, stole your secrets and went right through the other end. They were lively eyes, but not eyes you could trust. He was an optician. ‘How did you do that? We were there! With the light and the grass!’ the almost shouted at the end. ‘Yes. We were there. I took us here. And now we are here. What’s your point?’ the grey man replied with an annoyed tone of voice. ‘Mortals, always asking their lives away. What’s the point I tell you! In any case, you can’t remain here for too long, but I better not put you between the universes, it is going to take a while before anything interesting happens.’ By now the man spoke mostly to himself, in a low voice. Adam realised they were walking, had been walking for a while too. His legs felt numb from the exercise, he had not used them in ages. But soon they came to a doorway and on the other side of it were chairs in plenty. He threw himself in one of them and breathed out in relief.
They were in a kitchen. At least it looked like a kitchen, only with some small changes here and there. There was a sink and an oven, some pots and a number of forks, knives and spoons. The grey man was looking for something, and he seemed to become angry when he couldn’t find it. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Adam and came up from the chair again. The grey man ignored him and kept looking through the drawers and shelves. Suddenly he cried out in relief. ‘Ha, here it is! Finally. Earl Gray? It’s named after me you know.’ the grey man said with a teapot in his hand. ‘No wait, don’t tell me. You’re one of those people who like green tea? I knew it, I just knew it. Should’ve left you falling where you were I should’ve!’ he added in that annoyed tone of voice he seemed to love so much. Adam was quick to respond, ‘No, no I’m fine with Earl Gray. Um, where are we? And what and who are you? And what did you mean with “between universes”? Can you take me home?’
The grey man filled the teapot with water and put it on a stove before replying. ‘I am what you would call the Creator.’ When he saw Adam’s expression he quickly added ‘Not some god or supernatural being, just the Creator. The universes make themselves, but I fill them with the important things like Earl Gray and grass in the sun after a recent rain. We are in my home on the other side of reality. On your side what is currently happening is the birth of a new universe from the remains of the old. It was an unexpected death I grant you, so you are right to be surprised.’
Adam was quiet for a moment. Somehow a cup of tea had found it’s way to his hand and he found himself sipping on it. It was just the right temperature, just the right amount of tea leaves. ‘But what happened to me? Why wasn’t I blown up or whatever?’ he took another sip of tea and added ‘And how could the universe just...die?’
The Creator was putting marmalade on some biscuits, and pushed one right into Adam’s mouth. ‘Taste it. I grow the berries myself, grow like thistles they do here. To answer your question though I really have no idea. Maybe it was time for it to die. Maybe it forgot about you. Maybe someone or something gave it a push. In any case I think I better drop you off somewhere soon or you’ll become fat from the burden of my berry farmers. Do you have any preferences?’ He was already on his fourth biscuit, and Adam was showered in crumbles. As he tried to get them off him he answered, ‘What do you mean “preferences”? I hardly have a choice do I, if the universe is dead. Just drop me off on an asteroid somewhere and let me die with the rest of my people.’
He came up from the chair he had sat in again and closed his eyes in nervousness. He took a deep breath. Nothing happened and he opened one eye again. They were still in the Creator’s kitchen and his host was busy making another pot of tea. ‘I’ve always said you should pack food when you go travelling. I’m not a murderer you know, I’m not leaving you between universes. I’m thinking I throw you a couple million years forward in the newborn universe instead and see where you land! That could be fun couldn’t it? Anyway, somehow humanity always tends to survive, so you’re not the last nor are you the first.’ he stopped to give a plate of biscuits to Adam. ‘Hold these.’ he said and they were off.
{I cook weird stuff}-{Patronised by the fearsome Chloe} „[...] ţví ađ međ lögum skal land vort byggja en eigi međ ólögum eyđa.“
(The Frosta-thing law, 1260)
Is acher in gaíth innocht,
fu-fuasna fairggae findfolt:
ní ágor réimm mora minn
dond láechraid lainn ua Lothlind.
Re: Winter 2014 Writing Competition - Long voting thread
Forever Lost - 3
Alberto had lost track of time already. It had been a while since he had an approximate estimation of the time of the year based on star and sun movements. The half eaten shark lay beside him as he held a drowsy stare into distance – the smell was repugnant, but to Alberto, repugnance had lost its meaning a while ago. Moises’ fisherman’s hat was a life saver; Alberto let out a deep sigh to himself thinking of what he had done to Moises. His process of rationalizing the murder of Moises had kept him quite busy the past few weeks. It had given his mind a good meal – something that he really needed to keep some form of sanity – at least to be sane enough as not to kill himself or let his guard down. He hadn’t touched “La Biblia” ever since that day. It lay there under a wooden plank in the corner of the small boat, in order not to get wet. The pages were well worn out, however, the blue cover with its golden letters “La Biblia – Versión Salvadoreńa” remained intact, Alberto loved how the cover felt, he ran his fingers over those golden letters embedded on the cover every day, smelling the pages, but certainly not as often reading the actual text of the Holy Book.
Alberto remembered when during the first days of his ordeal, he saw himself as a holy man, that his situation, stranded in the sea, hungry, eating whatever sea animal came by his way, seemed so Christian to him. He would discuss his favorite verses with young Moises on a daily routine; he felt that he was some sort of prophet in those days. Now his Machiavellian action against Moises had caught up to him and he was the guilt of opening that book was too much to bear. He took a bite out of the raw shark meat that he had by his side subconsciously hoping that the mercury would be enough to just kill him – suicide by knife was too messy and he just didn’t have the guts. Furthermore, he thought that the murder of Moises was a sin enough, let alone killing himself. How much of a hypocrite could he be? Alberto’s boat was small but sturdy. It had been able to endure the strong waves and storms that had hit him in the past several months. A strong overhead cover was a lifesaver from the sun’s strong rays and the torrential downpours that came about often. His fishing instruments and tools were also another life line that had given Alberto the chance to create a life in this God-forsaken remoteness.
The day that he first saw the edge of Mexico’s southern shore line, Alberto, while happy to be alive physically, was still lost how to rationally justify his thoughts and his deed against Moises. Of course, his physical body threw himself in the water and made the strenuous swim towards the shore line. His body wanted food, water, and a sturdy ground to stand on. It wanted to be back in human society. His mental state, however, was at a timid and uneasy juncture. After the hot meal and fresh water, how would he justify all of this? How could he live a normal life and what would he say to the people that knew who he was before? Part of his body did not want to reach that shore, but the physical need was just too much to overcome. There was no match.
The first meal that Alberto devoured at the police station was indescribable; the fresh water going down his through was a purification of his body – and a great improvement from the times where he was left to drink his urine or rainwater. It took a while to convince the police at that small station along the road, right across from the beach that Alberto was the fisherman who had disappeared more than a year ago. It gave him the opportunity to eat a few more delicious meals and forget about the pains that he would have to somehow live with after these pleasures had worn off and a fresh, hot meal was just fuel for his body – a secondary part of the daily life. It was only a matter of time, when the news got out. The police took him to the central hospital in the nearby city, where the doctors, upon learning who he really was, received him like some exotic creature. They did their tests, their routine questions, Alberto was fine with all this, it was the news reporters, his superiors, his family, and friends that he was reluctant to see. They stuck a bunch of tubes into Alberto as he was quickly reeled into a private room, where he was told to rest. He told the nurses that he didn’t feel good and he wanted to rest. He could not take visitors.
As he spent the night, alone, in the hospital, he knew that word was getting out. He was hearing the reporters outside and important sounding people walking though the hallways and discussing his situation. He even heard one person that was looking to buy rights for a book and movie based on Alberto’s situation. Alberto just laid there – one thing he knew he would miss was the nights in the boat at sea – the stars – the steady rocking – and of course the gentle sound and smell of the sea around him. He missed the blue bible, those pages, that soft cover, and now as he left that bible behind, he had to explain himself to human society.
It was only a matter of time when some young girls, were fixing his hair and powdering his face a bit to prepare him for his first official interview. The interview would be with Mexico’s leading news channel in the southern region. The questions would be routine and they promised not to take much of his time. Alberto was ready to take the stand.
“Alberto, how do you feel about the fact that you were able to survive after such a treacherous time at sea?” asked the news reporter with excellently combed black hair, a toasted face with deep brown eyes, and of course a respectable blue suit.
“I am still shocked that I have been lucky enough with God’s grace to make it to shore. I have been given a second chance, I am eternally grateful,” Alberto said diligently.
“From your friends and family, we know you to be a religious man, how much did your faith and religion influence your endurance in this ordeal?” retorted the reporter.
“My belief in God and my Christian faith were what kept me alive. It was that which gave me the inspiration to keep moving forward. There was little hope of course in that boat in the middle of the sea, but it is faith that keeps the will in you alive,” grudgingly said Alberto.
“That is very inspiring to hear Alberto - that the faith of one person can drive him to survive like that. And what happened to Moises, your younger companion?”
Alberto paused for a moment, looked down at the reporter’s shoes, collected himself, and opened his mouth:
“Moises was a fine companion to have at sea. He had a strong spirit, but as you know, not everyone can survive such conditions. His family should know that Moises passed away in peace, with much love for this family, and unbound faith for God,” replied Alberto.
The second deed had been done. The interview went on of course but Alberto had already submitted to body’s desire. He had closed the door to the fact that the dedicated Christian had cut Moises’s neck with his fisherman knife and thrown him into the rough sea water because he didn’t want to share his limited food with him and the young guy’s suffering was annoying him greatly. Furthermore, he hadn’t opened the bible and used the soft cover to feel some lost sentimental connection and cursed God and the texts in those pages more so than he espoused his faith in Him. The interviews and book deals would go on and on. The praise and the amazement would devour Alberto’s outside body for a time to come. He would be talked about in sermons across the world’s churches.
As Alberto was transported to a prominent television interview a few weeks later with his expensive suit and well cut hair, he gazed at his hands which still held the marks of the many cuts he had received in his ordeal. He look out the car, the sea was visible, in clear view. Of course, Alberto knew very well at that point – what had survived was not the Alberto that had left El Salvador 18 months ago – he was not him anymore. In that car, in that fancy suit and well combed hair, the carcass of Alberto was being driven off to tell something that was not and add to a façade of hypocrisy that at this point could not be torn down. Alberto accepted all of that. The being that this carcass had covered before had died along with Moises – it would forever remain part of the sea.
A Blade of Grass in the Killing Fields - 4
{I cook weird stuff}-{Patronised by the fearsome Chloe} „[...] ţví ađ međ lögum skal land vort byggja en eigi međ ólögum eyđa.“
(The Frosta-thing law, 1260)
Is acher in gaíth innocht,
fu-fuasna fairggae findfolt:
ní ágor réimm mora minn
dond láechraid lainn ua Lothlind.
Re: Winter 2014 Writing Competition - Long voting thread
Story - 5
I still know not why I could not sleep that fateful night. It was late, and as I said I was unable to sleep, so I paced back and forth through my dark house for a few hours. Then, somewhere around three AM, I determined to go get a sack of sliders from my local Burger Shack. Being mid January, it was very cold outside. However, for whatever reason, I decided to walk rather than drive to the restaurant. The fastest way was through a park, and so I set off down my street towards the park. It is a very large, rather confusing park, with tall hills full of trees on each side of the road through it. It was very snowy that night, though, and the park is located in the middle of suburbia, so I had no fear as I trudged through the snow next to the road. After a couple minutes of my trek, I spied a dark bundle on the ground, on the same side of the road as me. It looked like a bum covered in a light grey or white, I couldn't quite tell, blanket, with some grey hair sticking out of the end of the blanket. I thought to myself how awful it must be to have to live out here in this, but as I had no way to get him someplace warm, and he had probably been walking all day and wanted to sleep anyway, I kept walking. A few feet away, though, I stopped. Why had I even come out here? I was a fool not to drive. Though I felt somewhat silly, I felt bad about leaving the poor man there with nothing, so I walked back over to him and placed a $20 bill under a corner of the blanket. I was too far gone to just go home at that point, so I moved on toward the Burger Shack on the other side of the park.
Several minutes went by, and then I spied another figure on the road, approaching me rather quickly. Through the gloom, I was soon able to make out another several figures accompanying the first. My mind raced. Were these people just out for a run? Or was there something more sinister afoot? No, not in this town. I hoped. Anyway, I thought, it's too late to hide, all I can do is ignore them and hope for the best. I kept walking on, but the figures continued coming straight at me. When the first, a large man wearing primarily black winter clothing, stopped a few feet short of me and withdrew an object from the back of his waistband, I knew something was about to go down.
He pointed the gun right at me and yelled, somewhat nervously, “Put yer hands up and gimme yer cash, I want yer money not yer life.” His companions were not far behind him, many also pulling out guns or brandishing some kind of long weapon I couldn't identify in the dim light of the moon. I put my hands up, trying to figure out how exactly I was supposed to get my wallet out of my pocket with my hands up. The man, with more than a little anxiety in his voice, demanded I hurry up and get out the money. I started lowering my left arm to reach into my pocket, but was ordered again to keep my hands up. This man was clearly an idiot. My mental questioning about how I was to grow a third arm and remove my wallet from my pocket was cut short, however, by the booming voice of another man. He berated the first, took the gun, and told me to grab the wallet and make it snappy. This man was clearly the leader. I tossed him my wallet, and he caught it. Then the group turned to leave.
As they were leaving, the leader muttered something to the first man. The first man then turned around, trained the gun he must have been given back on my head, and pulled the trigger.
At least, it looked like he pulled the trigger, and sounded like it. But when I opened my eyes, which I hadn't even realized were closed in anticipation of the shot, the man was writhing on the ground. The rest of his gang began looking around for whoever shot the mugger, and I took the opportunity to jump into a snowbank and hide from the group. My curiosity, however, drove me to peek over the snow at the events unfolding before my eyes.
The muggers were gathered in a tight little group, pointing guns every which way. It was clear they had no idea where the shot came from. Then, another shot, and another mugger fell. I saw a flash of white on the hill across the road, and then another mugger was down. The three remaining muggers apparently saw or thought they saw one of the vigilantes apparently protecting me, for they all began shooting into the woods on the hill behind me. Then a tree branch flew out of the snowbank on the other side of the road and hit a mugger in the head. One of the muggers, upon realizing what had happened, then began shooting into the snowbank. However, that mugger was also dispatched, seemingly by a rock falling from the sky. I thought for sure that any second now the leader would be no more, and I was thrilled that I was saved. My elation soon ended, though, when I realized that in my excitement I had stood up out of the snowbank, and, recognized by the lead mugger, I was now once again staring down the barrel of a gun. Just as the leader fired the gun, however, a flurry of white with a flash of a brilliant shine flew in front of me and, with a single motion, knocked the gun away from the leader and ended the fight. Then the flurry, now clearly a man holding a sword of some kind, stood up.
The man who approached me immediately struck me as a strange fellow. Wearing camouflage trousers, a black coat, a white-ish light grey-ish cloak, and a grey furry hat, with a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, he looked rather terrifying – yet somehow some expression in the man's eyes seemed to exude an aura of hospitality. The man was simultaneously terrifying and inviting, and it was extremely easy to imagine a jovial smile beneath the scarf. In his right hand he held a sabre of an old style, looking similar to what I vaguely recalled being carried by Eastern European cavalry long ago. He put the sword in its scabbard, walked up to me, and put out a black gloved hand. I shook it.
“Come, sliders are on you,” the mysterious vigilante said to me, waving a $20 bill in the air. It struck me then – this man had saved me because I had shown that bum kindness. Furthermore, that bum was in fact this man. He hadn't been sleeping, he was waiting. That grey hair wasn't hair at all, but the fur of his cap. Then I wondered – how had this man known what would happen? At the moment, though, there was a slightly more pressing question at hand.
“Sir, who are you? What should we do about the muggers?” I asked, then realized I had said we, meaning I had subconsciously aligned myself with this stranger already.
“Who I am is of no importance. These men will be fine – tranquilizer darts. They're in a small coma at the moment, but will recover by morning. Now, come, there will be time for explanation later.” The man began trudging on toward the Burger Shack, obviously knowing that I would follow. I began looking for the man who took my wallet to get it back, but the stranger told me not to bother, and withdrew it from his pocket. How he managed to get ahold it of when he was seemingly never near the thief I have still not learned.
Over burgers, we discussed what happened. At least, I attempted to discuss what happened. To my many questions on why he was there and whether he knew what would happen, he simply shook his head. The only pertinent question I could, in fact, get an answer on was whether he was looking for me specifically. His answer was yes. He would not say why. We finished the rest of our meal in silence, and then left. This time I decided to call a taxi, despite the expense. It was worth it, after that.
I offered the man a ride to wherever he wanted to go, on me. At first he refused, but I insisted on it. So we both got into the cab. He told the cabbie to take him to a place I'd never heard of, but remember vividly: Monty's Museum of Marvelous Machines, across town. I looked at him, puzzled by his destination, but the look in his eyes (he had never removed his scarf or his hat, and so besides being white and having bright blue eyes, I knew nothing of his appearance) forced me to drop the issue. Halfway across town, while making a left, the cabbie lost control on the ice and began spinning out. In the suburbs of Detroit, this is hardly a rare problem, and therefore the driver was able to recover fairly quickly, though not before being temporarily stopped with one of the front wheels in a snow bank. I looked out the left window just as a truck flew by the cab rather too close and fast.
“Well, that jerk's in a hurry,” I said, turning to my companion, as the cabbie got the vehicle moving.
But my companion was not in the cab.
The cabbie was as confused as I was, and stopped the car. Forgetting my hat and gloves, I jumped out of the cab and onto the street looking for my companion. But between the blizzard and the darkness, I could see nothing.
I shouted out, “Sir! Sir! I don't know your name, but dude in the furry hat! Where did you go?”
But there was no response. I got back into the cab. The cabbie, understanding my plight (though perhaps assuming my companion and I to be rather more intimate than was the case), told me that the ride back home was free, and shut off the meter. I thanked the cabbie, told him my address, and slouched in my seat as thoughts raced through my head. “Had the man even been there? Had the entire mugging scene been real? Of course the man was real. The cabbie just turned off the meter because he disappeared. But what if he never existed, and the cabbie was turning off the meter as a kindness for an obviously crazy person? That's possible. But there's less money in my wallet than I started with, and I gave away that 20. How else would the 20 be gone? But what if the bum was real, and everything that happened since I passed the bum was fake? I know, the muggers! If they're there, it was real.”
I asked the cabbie to take me through the park on the way to my place. He obliged, though with a questioning tone in his voice. “The last time I saw those muggers,” I thought, “they were right in the middle of the road. We can't miss them.”
The cab drove slowly on the snow-covered park road. I strained my eyes in the darkness, though I knew I shouldn't have had to, looking for the muggers. I searched and searched for the muggers, feeling that at any moment we should be coming up on them. Then, we turned left. The cab, having driven through the entirety of the park, was rounding the last corner before my house. “Where are the muggers? They have to be there! I'm not crazy! Wait, was the bum there?” I thought, and racked my mind for a memory of passing the bum. I couldn't remember seeing the bum on the way back through! Then I realized that I hadn't been paying any attention to the bum, and the windows were so foggy there was no chance I could have seen him anyway.
I slouched even more in my seat. The cab pulled into the driveway. I pushed the door away from me and rolled out dejectedly. I saw the cabbie smile at me in a friendly manner out of the corner of my eye, but was too deep in thought to respond. Instead, I shuffled inside my house and closed the door. I then took off my boots, took two steps onto the carpeted living room floor, and passed out on the floor.
-Untitled- - 6
Afternoon GMT was always miserable. In these hours of intrusive sunlight and busy activity, the Americans would be asleep and most of the rest of us were at work. Just like with daytime TV, there was never anything actually worth seeing on the forum in afternoon GMT. Maybe one's own life trickling away before him if he squinted. Afternoon possessed a singular capacity to turn us into bulbous-eyed scavengers, roaming the forums in search of something - anything - that could distract us from that ominous, dreaded silence. It was always far more of a push than a pull factor. Indeed, most of us were intensely suspicious of the rest of the site and reluctant to leave our selected floor of the building. A man could stand there, alone among the sterile, uncaring, unbolded threads of his forum for eons, the only sign that he was still alive being the feeble bleep of his F5 key tapping monotonously away into the void of the internet. The legion of featureless guests standing around him would become oppressive in their silence, immobile and untouchable sentries of the forum world, their empty faces pointed in some non-direction until they disappeared or morphed into a member. Others were mobile lurkers, stalking between the threads like ninja mannequins guided by some unknown, but doubtlessly malign purpose. Those ones were the creepiest by far.
Eventually the thread-composed walls of our forum would seem to close in around us, and after another half-hour of our lives had seeped away, the predictable chaos of the Mudpit would suddenly become more appealing, or we'd abruptly find the willpower to read that really, really interesting-looking but awfully long article in the Helios, or maybe even abandon ourselves to the Coliseum. As such we would amble on, scouring the wilderness for a while in search of some other form of sieve to pour hours into. Usually our selection was pretty limited because we tended to think of most other subforums' populations as either screeching orang-utans or dithering bores. Sometimes, once having found a half-decent substitute, we would actually lose ourselves and become immersed in what we were reading, but eventually the thirst always won.Even the most single-minded of us would soon start to feel that pressing need buzzing in our head like a whistling kettle, until we would cave-in and sweatily refresh our home-floor. That's when we would see it. A bolded thread would greet us in the darkness. Instantly our higher-functions would fall apart like skittles, our hearts would beat faster, our hands would tremble and as vultures we would swoop down upon our prey, desperate for that next informational fix we all logged-on for day by day.
Sometimes it would be worthwhile. We would oafishly chuckle upon discovery of a tasteful quip and rep the man for his work, or we would shift our weight and stroke our chins pensively as we contemplated some valuable crumbs of insight. Most of the time though, there was nothing to be seen. Indeed, the depressing majority of what we said was mere tripe that didn't risk interesting anyone, not even the person who bothered to dribble it out. We would all sigh disappointedly and vanish once more, but without blaming the individual for that matter. At the end of the day, we had the perspective to understand our fellow posting kinsman's limitations in being able to provide meaningful discussion. It was easier said than done, and all of us had been there, in that moment in which we realized that what we had said made no sense at all and scrambled to edit our comment into something dignified. At least the architect of this babble had made a stalwart and respectable effort to break the dreaded silence, and for that he could almost be forgiven the sin of giving us a disappointing fix. And at least it wasn't one of those posts. They were an entire league apart from the boring ones. You could smell their stink from the moment you noticed whohad been the last poster. Obviously it would scarcely slow us in our degenerate rush to quench the thirst, but those of us with experience knew that when we entered the room, we would almost certainly find some form of waste with the culprit's name stuck to it, rather than actual words. In the cases that it was bad enough to make us forget the rabbit-droppings typically left around the place, we would retch in disgust, and the more self-preserving of us would quickly vacate the premises lest it infect us.
But even when we did, returning to our prior hotspots in the hopes of getting a better fix, we admired and respected those of us who stayed behind. The veterans among us who had endured so much that they were barely affected by the ripe aroma any longer. These were those who cared more than the rest of us about belittling people, who were always ready to avenge the thread when it had been soiled or simply wanted to restore some form of intellectual decency to the place. They were our instant champions. Most of the time, when we were still crowded around the crime-scene, we already knew which of those among us would be staying behind to man the thread. Sometimes it was even worth lingering just out of range in order to witness the impending chaos. In fact, even those of us who scurried away would soon be returning once the stench had abated in order to find out what happened and get our fill of fresh gossip, or simply to silently dispense judgement upon some of us for being such miserable s. However those of us who lingered would be privy to the full show, as those select heroes would concoct their retorts and leave them one at a time. These might be cold authoritative put-downs, a cautious expression of dismay at the culprit's seeming lack of a brain, or a simple point-and-laugh routine. We would gasp and chuckle, nudging each other in crass, voyeuristic delight as we wondered what the target of such abuse must be feeling and what their reply would be. But more than a few times this budding skirmish would soon be interrupted by a howl of terror, as one of us would discover a grim sight: In some tucked away corner among us, there would be someone – often degenerated into a guest – still constructing a post. This is when we had an interest to either buckle up or get the hell out of Dodge. Some of us would continue chatting in the meanwhile and pretending to ourselves that things were normal, but the more observant of us would remain aware of its grim presence, the blank-faced mannequin flailing and clinking wildly in the background as it constructed its inevitable torrent of hate. Suddenly we would all be sent sprawling as the guest transformed back to a member and spewed out its terrible content.
Bombs were always decisive. If they were airtight and accurate, the trouble-maker would either be forced to consume his own foetid waste, tears streaming down his cheeks as he did, to craft his own missile and fire it back at his aggressor, or to change the subject. The latter was an utterly reprehensible act of the kind that would not be forgotten for minutes. More often, however, the bomber would have used too much fecal matter to hold his creation together. This would typically result in a particularly nasty explosion in our midst, and that's when all hell would break loose. For rather than destroying the designated imbecile it merely proliferated the shite and exposed the launcher to virulent reprimand. The more timid or meek of us would dive for cover, slinking into ignominious lurkdom, while those of us who felt concerned or decided to feel so rolled up our sleeves, marching into the chaos and shooting eloquent tirades of pure, unadulterated vehemence at one-another. There was nothing that could be done to stop this, in fact most of us secretly relished it. It shook the foundations of the thread, made us forget the mundane of our e-lives and imbued us with the delusion that maybe it was actually worth it to spend time here. Typically a crowd would form around the heated exchange as more and more people realized there was a fight to watch, our eyes gazing in wonder as the participants postured and bellowed in the slurry. Those of us unwittingly caught in the middle of it would scramble out of our cover indignantly, wiping ourselves off and pompously lecturing everyone else on how it's just a forum and that we should get something better to do than argue on it. Then we would wander off to check if that other idiot had replied to us in the EMM. The spammers among us would scarcely be able to contain ourselves, excitedly inserting a couple of choice one-liners among the blocks and snickering perversely, delighted with how witty and cool we looked next to all of the chest-thumping mongoloids. But then it would get boring, the voyeurs would disperse and suddenly we'd hate the two clowns still yelling for not getting it. The typical solution to this situation would either be to tell them to shut the hell up, or just start talking over them about cake. Much like accepted dictatorship following a bloody revolution, ennui always won through in the end.
Last edited by Vađarholmr; March 06, 2014 at 02:26 AM.
{I cook weird stuff}-{Patronised by the fearsome Chloe} „[...] ţví ađ međ lögum skal land vort byggja en eigi međ ólögum eyđa.“
(The Frosta-thing law, 1260)
Is acher in gaíth innocht,
fu-fuasna fairggae findfolt:
ní ágor réimm mora minn
dond láechraid lainn ua Lothlind.
Winter 2014 Writing Competition - Long voting thread
s. However those of us who lingered would be privy to the full show, as those select heroes would concoct their retorts and leave them one at a time. These might be cold authoritative put-downs, a cautious expression of dismay at the culprit's seeming lack of a brain, or a simple point-and-laugh routine. We would gasp and chuckle, nudging each other in crass, voyeuristic delight as we wondered what the target of such abuse must be feeling and what their reply would be. But more than a few times this budding skirmish would soon be interrupted by a howl of terror, as one of us would discover a grim sight: In some tucked away corner among us, there would be someone – often degenerated into a guest – still constructing a post. This is when we had an interest to either buckle up or get the hell out of Dodge. Some of us would continue chatting in the meanwhile and pretending to ourselves that things were normal, but the more observant of us would remain aware of its grim presence, the blank-faced mannequin flailing and clinking wildly in the background as it constructed its inevitable torrent of hate. Suddenly we would all be sent sprawling as the guest transformed back to a member and spewed out its terrible content. 
