/lit/ - Literature

Previous Thread: >>17903996
We had six flashes submitted, and it sounds like quite a few more are underway:

Unboxing a new iPhone
>>19077977

The reincarnation of Christ
>>19082693

A desperate student finds an unlikely buyer for their bathwater
>>19083243

The Pope's secret that no one believes
>>19087923

Someone purchases a haunted couch
>>19089258

You wake up as a woman
>>19093024

>>19100734
I'm the "Necrophiliac's First Date" anon. please be sweet and kind to me, for I have never written fiction before...

I’ve never had that much luck on dating apps. In fact, I’m a virgin.

I’m not the stereotypical prince charming; I have a malnourished vibe. I have dark bags under my eyes, a receding hairline in my early twenties, and my ribs are visible when I take my shirt off. I do not work; I collect Worker’s Compensation checks from the government thanks to a lucky injury I sustained working at Walmart, and don’t plan on telling Uncle Sam that I’m better any time soon.

Although I’m not conventionally attractive, and I live in the country with few prospects for dating, I hold onto the hope that every human on Earth has a soulmate (or at least someone that will tolerate them more than others). That’s why I thanked God when I saw a Craigslist Personals ad that read: “25-year-old woman looking for skinny guy to date”.

Our text conversation was short and to the point. She told me her name was Karen; I instantly thought about how her name would sound if her last name became mine: Karen Garcia. I thought it had a nice ring to it. One thing became evidently clear: we wanted to meet up that night. After I sent her my picture, she seemed impressed and even told me I was “just her type”. She wasn’t bad, probably a 7/10 in the picture she sent back. It was probably an older picture; she had that early 2000s ‘scene’ look going on. I’ve been catfished before, often arriving to homes of women that must’ve ate the woman I was expecting to meet. Obviously in person she’ll be at most a 5, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

After a quick shower, I put my tightest black shirt on and brushed my cavity-infested teeth for the first time in a month. I barely cared what she looked like; I have been starved for female attention for far too long.

>>19100900
One quick drive down Highway 75 and I arrived at her house: a two-story plantation style home at the end of a long, secluded, and curvy driveway. She must’ve been the product of old money, and an overly protective father. As I approached the door, my pants tightened as the fantasies from my celibacy started to cloud my mind. Resolutely, I knocked and when she opened the door, I was pleasantly surprised. Her picture seemed true to reality.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Jason! I cooked us some dinner. Do you like lasagna?” She said while avoiding eye contact. Instead, she seemed to study my slender body thoroughly.

“Yeah, I love it.”

We exchanged flirtatious jokes back and forth as she led me through her massive home. Since I was curious, I asked her what she did for a living. She explained that her family has been one of the wealthiest families in Georgia since before the Civil War. Her father (who she explained was very strict and abusive) lets her live at this property for free if she maintains it.

As she led me through the hall that led to her dining table, her mannerisms became erratic. She closed the blinds on every window, her breathing got heavier, and she would constantly stare at my limbs. I was living in the moment and became nervous from her body language; it was as if she was living in the future and I in the past. Suddenly, she perked up as we got to the dining room.

“I already made you a plate, Jason, please take a seat and make yourself at home!”

“Alright,” I replied as I took my seat. I studied the meal thoroughly: she had made microwaveable lasagna and poured me a glass of some sort of bubbly drink. I took a bite of lasagna and feigned being impressed to score points with my maiden-to-be. “This shit is fire, Karen, straight heat!” I exclaimed as I took another bite. She nodded, watching me intensely. I figured the reason she wasn’t eating was because of some diet or eating disorder. Chicks get that shit all the time, right?

Then I took a sip of my fizzy drink.

“Jason? Ja-a-ay-son? Can you hear me yet?”

A seductive voice awoke me from my slumber. I was chained to a comfortable recliner. My vision was blurry, but I could make out the outline of Karen reaching for my manhood with one hand and preparing to inject me with some sort of liquid with the other. “Why is this kind of hot?” I thought to myself. As I busted, I felt the sweet release of death and the sweet reassurance that I would get more action in death than I had received in life.

>>19100913
Ty for reading :)

The prompt I will leave is this: Widespread bigfoot encounters cause chaos.

>>19100900
Extraordinarily cringey, but you make it work given the context of the character. Love the turn at the end.

Keep writing! Try out different styles until you find one you like.

>>19101117
Was going for cringe character, was the writing that cringey or was the plot cringey?

And thanks, I will

>>19100913
Amazing for your first piece of fiction. It was fun to realize the main character isn't the necrophiliac. Cringe character worked. My only criticism is that the intro has a bit of info dump. Generally it's best to include that information a little at a time and to hit the ground running with "things happening." So instead of telling us directly that he has dark bags, Walmart, etc., it's referenced as/when it's relevant. I like the story, and good opening line.

>>19101443
Thanks for the critique! I'll probably write 2 or 3 more prompts by the time this is over (Excluding the writing ill do for school contests and shit) so hopefully I'll get better :)

>>19100953
>Widespread bigfoot encounters cause chaos.
It all started in the summer of ‘23. There was a heatwave in the lumber town of Quinnachappack, Washington, but what really caused waves were the sightings. Dr. Blasingame had been leaving his clinic for a home visit on a particularly sultry afternoon, seeing to Darcy Collin’s consumption. He nearly hit a man with his brand new Honda Model H, but on closer inspection, it was neither man nor beast, but a hideous cross. Nobody believed the poor doctor at first, until Deputy O’Doul’s boy, Timmy, saw the monster at the drive-in, digging through trash. This time, there were footprints, and they were big. A cast was made and measured a full thirty inches long!

Needless to say, it wasn’t long until gossip hit the nearby town of Wyman’s Peak, where the big game hunters congregated. Old Quinnachappack was soon flooded with them; hunters, that is, with their coonskin hats, long rifles slung across their shoulders, smoking their cigarettes, spitting on sidewalks, and picking the diners clean. One hunter, James “Mud” Earl, was a real grizzled veteran, having cut his teeth taking down smilodons in Alaska and dire wolves in Greenland. He saw through the veneer of the other hunters, the god damned nancies and sissies.

“Think you got what it takes, son?” asked Billy Rawlins, a hobbyist hunter and butcher by trade. He held a big hamburger in his mitts with a toothless grin, staring at Mud.

Mud didn’t bother replying. The diner was crammed with chatty Kathies and boys barely old enough to hold a razor straight. Finishing his flagon of wolf’s blood and mead, Mud got up, polishing the barrel of his long gun. He got in his truck, flicking the fuzzy pink dice on the dashboard for luck, and floored it down the access road a mile up the hill. It took the hunter up a ridge and over a creek where he could comfortably park. He took out his pack of gear, stocked with hardtack, pemmican, a tarp, and plenty of ammo, and set out off the trail where the last footprints had been spotted.

Hardly a soul came down this way, proof none of the other hunters were serious about taking down this so-called “bigfoot”. Night came and the bugs were chirping and hollering. Mud set up in a tree, following the large scat piles that only a bear or a bigfoot could leave behind. Wrapped in the tarp, he laid back, closing one eye and leaving the other open to spot movement as he drifted in and out of slumber. Morning arrived and Mud was on to the beast like a bloodhound. A buck carcass lay utterly ravaged by a small spring. The bite marks bore no resemblance to a bear’s. Perfect.

>>19100953
>>19101952
Crack! A twig snapped and Mud froze, eyes darting around. Past the spring was a meadow and he saw movement just past it into the treeline. He loaded his rifle up and put the scope up to his face. That was when he saw it: a bulging monster, well camouflaged in the greenery, crouched low but still large enough to stick out over a tall sapling. Just as Mud was about to pull the trigger, the beast roared and stood up. It had to be over eight feet tall! It had no fear.

“Un-fucking-believable…” muttered Mud.

The bigfoot strode through the meadow towards Mud as the hunter slowly lowered the gun. It was too smart to kill, that much he knew. Dire wolves and saber tooths were intelligent, too, but in a cunning yet beastly way. This bigfoot seemed almost… human. Strangely enough, he felt no fear as it stopped five paces away, standing eight feet erect and covered in grimy brown fur. She appeared to be female, having large, National Geographic titties. Mud felt himself blushing and hoped the beast didn’t know what he was thinking.

“I come in peace,” she said. She talked!

“You can talk?” he asked. The bigfoot nodded. “Well, I come in peace as well. Thought you were, er, someone else.”

“No you didn’t. You were hunting me, like the rest of them.” Mud’s eyes widened in shock, but she held a hand the size of a watermelon up in reassurance. “I understand. You’re different than the rest of the men. You have honor. I like that.”

They looked at each other, awkward silence deafening. What was a man supposed to say to a bigfoot like this?

“You’re beautiful, you know. A real, er, pearl.” Mud’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t have much of a way with words, on account of his dropping out of third grade.

“Oh! Thank you.” She looked down, clearly embarrassed. Oh lord, her big eyes, the size of his fist, were so deep they’d suck you in! “My name’s Wachunga.”

“My name’s Mud. Pleased to meet you, Wachunga.”

With that, they caught glances and immediately started for each other. Mud found himself embraced by her huge, meaty arms, lifted up like a swaddled babe, and given a passionate, long kiss, with plenty of tongue. They made love that morning, rolling around in the meadow under the hot summer sun. Wachunga took him back to her cave, carrying the hunter on her shoulders, and they feasted on a big leg of another hunter who got lost.

Mud was happy. He’d never felt this way before. Ever since he left home as a kid in Laramie, he’d been a drifter and a killer, looking to prove himself, but to who?

“Is this love? Are we in love, Wachunga?” he asked, curled up in her big ape arms.

“Does it matter, darling, what you call it?” she replied, dozing off in front of the dying embers of the fire.

No, words didn’t matter, Mud thought. All that really mattered was that Mud was home.

>>19101952
>>19101959
Uh oh, forgot the next prompt. Here.
>How the Queen of England remains spry in old age

>>19100734
>A man is killed during his first day at work
Writing this one

>>19101959
I’m glad it has a happy ending. Mud is a nancy tho

>>19102017
? That one's already in OP...

alright, good to see this thread back. gonna see if i can contribute a piece or two later down the road. let's have some fun, lads.

>>19100734
>The Jeffrey Epstein Massage School at New York University
working on this one

bump

>>19100734 >>19104915
>The Jeffrey Epstein Massage School at New York University
(1/2; sic for what may look like (repetitive) typos)

Look. Look. I do not believe higher knowing can be passed on like that, like that just like that that it can be passed on. Have I not got others to thank for for where I am now, my acquaintances, my drive, they call it, what others have shared with me. I share, you share, I get in, you get it in, I get it on, you get it on. We—does that apply, you ask. It distorts, I’ll tell you something what, it puts words in my mouth, my mouth which always belies my singular truth. Singular, oh, so singular. They said, “Oh, so singular, isn’t that boy so singular, the way he laughs.” So I laugh—that doesn’t not belie that I believe higher knowing can’t be passed on, not just like that. I’m not looking for a protégé. That’s what I tell them, I’m not looking for a protégé, to my students. Don’t get wise. I after all did get here thanks to my singularity, after all. It makes its mark by way of a mark, a spark. Oh, tell you something what. You don’t recognize it, you don’t recognize it, and precisely such, that you don’t recognize it, does it belie, can they descry my marking. I grasp very well. Spiritual classes aren’t laid bare just bare to see by riches or by worked-up status. That’s why I see no hope in my students. I read these French authors, you see, Sade and especially Klossowski, but if ever one of my students ever tried one of those techniques, oh they’d screw it up, they’d screw it up, they’d sovereignly screw it up. But someone can, someone else. That I do know. But I have my fun. And my torment, my mission, no one gets it, it’s no use converting others. You’ll say I was too much of a jock to ever wear a backpack. It’s true that a deep pocket of a cargo pant, pant, singular, what they call them in fashion, hides from its superficies well enough a depth for your oils, your balms, your cloth, and you’d think it might go leaking in there, would you not. Then I’ll tell you what, something what. Absorption—or insulation. It might be a warm, comey pool inside but out nothing comes out. Comey, comey, it’s so warm and comey, weh weh. See I have my fun, can have my fun. It’s my only reason I haven’t packed up and entered into a total, closed institution, a mountain citadel or private island research consortium, why I still attend to my students, to my very public, very monied, or very promising students. About that—I kid, and—higher class doesn’t just show itself, shows itself only in a mark. And, someone who will grasp will not grasp because he was let in, initiated in into the consortium in. Because I have no hope in that. But you, do you think I just spend my time babbling to you, because that’s rich.

>>19107946
Sharing, that’s rich. I’d retreat only for those voluptuary paradises I’d share with the ilk that shares my solitude. A multitude of sacred singularities acting in accord might very well mend this wretched errant cosmos. Very well, but Tuchet is not with it, contrary to what he may think. Capable, have I not always called him that. Tuchet is a capable colleague. Tuchet and Jeff are buddy-buddy—that I have never heard. But we have our fun. He after all facilitated the MO of our class. I’m cosmopolitan enough to be ill-disposed toward—come now—the word “coed,” so we manage to split up male and female students into two groups for both graduate and under-, and I take the female undergrads and male grads and he the vice versa, and that we esteem fair. For would you not think it fair that uppity massage grads tend to acquire the tendency to get wise with you, say “Jeffy, Jeffy, Jeffy, this is how it goes! I can administer expert therapy,” when they at this point have in fact not learned anything if they think it’s therapy that massaging is all about, is a form of, of what, I ask. Of conflict rather, and not for the sake of—oh, for the sake of, the sake of! And then expect rubbing shoulders with, and saying they went to the infamous Eppy class, that they’re real adepts. So I strike back, back at these so learned, so very upcoming petty functionaries, if only to instill something, to say it how it is, is what I tell them, the cretins, slither your way forth over Johnson’s Baby but do it so that your ilk is implicated, complicated, by your being real. Otherwise I move on to my undergrads, on onto my undergrads. Here forward has a different connotation, and we, I and them, are only too accommodating, touching the sweated theoretical exams, and, compensating, praxis holds equal weight, and to suffer equally as to act. I mean, Cecilia, eager to volunteer for the heavy full-body massage heavy on the essential, herbal oils, balms, stripping and lying back down down on her back, breasts heaving sideward. She says, “Rub me on my large breasts. I have very sensitive nipples.” I say, “Me too.” What. I begin. Do you begin to grasp—you don’t even begin to get how I make my way out of that one. I’m not looking for a protégé. I can make out in that instant in the clear oil spread out the reflection of my face. In truth, but cast over my own I look on and behold one deeper down, much deeper down, I couldn’t communicate it—my experiences are not some cheap tchotchkes you can just cash in or out, and pull my leg while you’re at it, you and all your ilk, your likes—and over and above I make out the shimmer, endlessly waving and spreading out, back, back, of the first man.

(2/2; same paragraph still)
New prompt:
>A woman enters a supermarket with a swastika [or other ‘hateful symbol’] on her forehead, drawn on, unbeknownst to her, by her son.

>>19107954
Looks good anon. I'm too tired to read it tonight but I will in the morning.

>>19107954
>A woman enters a supermarket with a swastika [or other ‘hateful symbol’] on her forehead, drawn on, unbeknownst to her, by her son.

It wasn’t Sharon’s day, that was for sure. Susie woke her up at 4:00 AM, screaming about ants in her bedroom, and her husband Cliff snored like a hog. He pulled the covers off, too! The Mr. Coffee machine was broken and wouldn’t you know, so were her electric curlers. By the time she sent Susie and Billy out the door to catch the bus, her back was aching. Cliff gave her a quick peck on the cheek and went off to sell ties at Macy’s. That left Sharon with thirty minutes until she had to be in the office.

Being a working woman was hard and sometimes Sharon could hear her mother lecturing her about how she’d make an awful wife. Was mom right? No, of course not! Sharon loved her kids, even if Susie was a hypochondriac, and Billy… well, Billy was her son. She loved him. Right? In all likelihood, the fate of the curlers and coffee maker had been in his hands. He also got into fights, spat on the colored boys a few blocks down, and shoplifted. Cliff was too lenient on him, but she couldn’t blame her pig of a husband; he had better things to do in an evening, like shelling peanuts and watching cops and robbers on the tube.

Suddenly, Sharon found herself at Dunning-Krueger, the fourth largest bank in Ohio. Stepping out of her Studebaker Falcon, a gift from daddy on her wedding ages ago, she reluctantly went through the revolving door. The security guard, Harvey, eyed her up and down, then shook his head, as if in shame. What was eating him? The boys at the teller desks stared at Sharon, wide-eyed with shock, then looked away, trying to be busy. Strange. She went to the back, to the elevator, and the operator took her up to the ninth floor where the part-time secretaries worked.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but you… uh… “muttered the operator as the door opened. “Nevermind. Have a pleasant day, ma’am.”

What was going on? Did she look like Medusa? Sharon knew she had dreadful hair without the curls, but this was getting ridiculous! And just like that, all the girls on the floor started giggling and whispering in each other’s ear. What in the world was happening? Sharon was fuming now. It was no longer a puzzle but a conspiracy! She wasn’t some twit of a teenager, ready to burst into tears on a bad hair day. No, she was a grown-up, and it was time to get to work. She fell into place at her desk, checked the ribbon in her typewriter, and tapped away at the letters she was made to write. One was addressed to the Chairman of the Board at Zenith, on behalf of his holdings and portfolio with the firm. It made Sharon feel big and important.

After finishing the letters, she took a stack of carbon copies and inserted them in folders, walking them over to the filing cabinets in the storeroom. She didn’t dare glance at the girls. They didn’t deserve it.

>>19108952
“Your little joke is in poor taste, Sharon,”said her boss, Ron Dietlin, with a serious look, “and I don’t appreciate it. I fought against those people, you know. Lost a lotta good men, too.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Dietlin, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Then I suggest you get a clue, toots, or you’ll be out of my office and blacklisted in every bank from Cincinnati to Singapore!”

The audacity! Sharon threw her files in Mr. Dietlin’s face and stormed off, back to the elevator. She could hardly open the car door with her trembling hands. What was wrong with her? Why did everybody hate her? Cliff hated her, Susie and Billy hated her, her job hated her, and even ma hated her. Only daddy loved her but he died of the Hong Kong flu a few months back.

“Mom was right. I should never have entered the workforce. Damn you, suffragettes!” she cried, dabbing the tears away with a Kleenex before her mascara ran.

There was one thing she enjoyed more than anything in the world, and Sharon knew it would cheer her up: shopping! She took a leisurely route to a new grocery store, Whitley’s Market and was practically skipping as she took a shopping cart from the parking lot and went in to the air conditioned building. So many products, so little time! She hummed a little tune from the radio that all the teenie-boppers liked, some beach number. It made her feel young again to listen but Cliff didn’t approve. Her cart filled up with plenty of tuna fish and cans of creamed mushroom. Susie would be a demon if she didn’t get her lime Jell-O. And Billy needed his Jiffy Pop, even though the brat didn’t deserve it. She’d make up for being a terrible mother. She’d make her family love her with gifts!

“You! What’s wrong with you, lady?” screeched the man in the trenchcoat, dropping his basket of vegetables. He rushed up to Sharon and grabbed her by the collar, shaking her. She screamed and fainted.

***

“You okay, ma’am? That man won’t hurt you no more. Can you get up?” asked the policeman. He was a handsome fellow with a jaw that could cut diamonds.

“I-I’m fine. What happened?”

Sharon’s face stung. Wiping her brow, she saw blood on her fingers. She scrambled in her purse for the makeup mirror. She screamed again. Underneath the dried blood was a big, fat swastika, drawn on her forehead with a marker.

“Billy, you little shit!”

NEW PROMPT:
>mankind's first contact with africans

bump

>>19108960
Ha ha, very well done

not too keen on this thread, are we, this time around?

>>19111497
should we advertise?
i'll write something over the weekend maybe

>>19111497
It’s a thread that relies entirely on effortposters…it’s gonna be a slow business (hopefully will speed up when we get to the weekend). Last thread did pretty well, and we’ve got some good ones so far in this one.

Thanks to everyone for keeping it bumped!

>Someone lives between the walls
Will finish and post this weekend

>>19111629
I cross-linked to the storythread in /tg/, i think some folks from there contributed last time around.
>>>/tg/81389824

Bump

>>19112791
woah

>>19100734
Hey there, sorry this too so long. It was originally about 1,500 words and I had to trim it down because I remembered the word limit. I give you "A Bookshop Run By Monkeys"
As the small golden hands of the squirrel monkey worked through the shiny bronze and silver coins on the counter to count back my change, another was hastily moving my purchases into a burlap bag emblazoned with the logo of the shop. This was Mona Villa, a medium sized bookstore in Portland, Oregon. Mona Villa had popped up one day and became an overnight hit due to its main defining attraction. It was run by monkeys. They handled everything, from the ordering and handling of merchandise to the registers, and even the small fruit and coffee shop nestled in the back corner. There was nary a human to be seen. The entire idea was the passion project of local eccentric Bartleby Shriver. Shriver was a portly man, about 5’4 in height and width. He often wore the typical garb of a circus ringmaster. The bright red and gold tailcoat, the black top hat, the slender cane, it was almost a caricature. Shriver was also a jovial man, his face constantly ruddy and shiny from sweat, his breathing laborious as he constantly chuckled to himself to some unknown humor. Shriver had opened the shop one day to a thousand questions, but his story never changed.

He was in Costa Rica when he stumbled across a travelling circus, The Nevinyrral Production Company. In its act was a train car full of endangered, black-crowned squirrel monkeys. The monkeys could do anything you commanded them to do, and the act showed that off brilliantly. Monkeys diving through hoops, having mock tea parties, even acting out scenes from Hamlet. Shriver was instantly smitten with the white-faced performers and offered a trunk of gold bars he had won in a card game to the ringmaster of this circus. The ringmaster, curious to what Shriver wanted to do with them, had to enquire.

“A business venture!” Shriver said “I imagine a palace of gold, a skylight of stained glass, all to house the greatest treasure humans can produce, not gold as you see here, not gems, no! The written word! Yes! I shall re-build Alexandria and at the center of it all, your monkeys!”

“Why the monkeys in particular? You could build your Alexandria with human labor and still have half the gold in this trunk,” the Ringmaster said “I’m very fond of them. They’ve been meticulously trained to do what they do, and the results have been, well, magical. They’re worth far more to me than a trunk of gold.”

Shriver coughed and said, “Then allow me this sir,” he dabbed the sweat from his brow and removed his hat, “Consider it a learning experience, your monkeys get to see a new side of the world, but they remain yours, the gold is simply my way of renting them for this task. You did say they can do anything a man could. I’m curious to try.” (1/2)

>>19113998
“Very well,” the ringmaster said “You may take them to your new venture, they will understand what I tell them. This shall be a fun experiment for us both.”

Bartleby had his shop. He named it “Mona Villa”, “Monkey Village” in Spanish, and overnight he was a celebrity. However, a problem arose. After years of being open, the lanes of books which activity bustled soon dwindled to only its most loyal patrons. For as amazing as trained monkeys were, as meticulously as they worked, the novelty wore off for many. The modern world had become cynical to magic, and after seeing it for so long, it became a gimmick. I suppose that’s why magicians don’t do the same trick twice. The formula that had brought the travelling circus such renown failed in a stagnant environment. Still though, the squirrel monkeys never seemed bothered, they worked as if nothing had ever changed.

I looked up after scooping my change into my pocket and the monkey at the register pulled out an “Out to Lunch” sign and placed it on the counter before leaping onto the back wall, and noisily made its way to the back of the shop. The person behind me threw up his hands in frustration and the monkey holding the burlap sacks shrugged and bounded off as well. A different monkey suddenly popped up from behind the counter like a flower and removed the sign and motioned for the man to step forward. I watched in awe, as I always did, as her small paws gripped and turned the books so their barcodes would scan under the red laser. I watched the entire transaction the use of the cash register, the tearing of the receipt, the bagging of the books. The man, stone faced, did not react. He simply walked away as if he had been interacting with a person. I reached into my pocket and produced a handful of cashews, which the squirrel monkey accepted with a small bow to me, before taking the bounty to small group nestled in a corner and sharing it with them. Before I left, I made my way to the back for the restrooms, stopping as the door swung shut from the monkey that had helped me, a copy of the New Yorker tucked under his arm. I laughed to myself and exited the store, going over the books I had bought and making a mental note of what I would ask for next. As I arrived the next day, Bartleby Shriver himself was on the limestone steps, and I made my way to him.

Shriver sighed “We are closed for business today.”

“Is everything alright?”

“No,” Shriver said, “When I arrived today, all the monkeys were gone. On the register was my trunk of gold bars, nary a one spent, with a note.”

The paper was thin, maybe papyrus, rolled up into a scroll. The note only contained three words “This was fun,” and signed “Courtesy of the Nevinyrral Production Company.”

I scanned the foggy morning horizon and could swear I could still see a monkey in the trees. (2/2)

Someone lives between the walls. Male most likely. I know this because whenever I tend to my daily ritual of masturbating to porn a specific part of my wall portrudes about 5 inches. I have taken to hammering it when this happens but the man appears undettered. It's okay, I thought, I don't mind having a silent partner. Somes if I want to have a little more fun I will grab a saw and rest it upon the portrusion gently, the man in the walls does not seem to mind though. He's a tough one. If you live between walls you have to be tough, it makes sense. I recently discovered the man to most likely be gay after giving him a brief example of my oratory abilities when it comes to moaning. And I, being a curious person myself, decided to skip the pleasantries of oral and go straight to porching my ass upon the protrusion.

To my surprise, as soon as the shaft fully entered, I was whisked away to the pitch black. Somehow, by the act of anal sex, I was transported between the walls. He had used his gay wiles to trap me within this space. Gays are often tricksters.

I was now the man who lived between the walls.

>>19114004
Oh and shit spaced on new prompts. I've got two.
>The breaking of a wishbone has disastrous results
>A robot in an automobile production factory suddenly gains awareness

>>19113998
>Nevinyrral
Hmm, that rings a bell…
Lol, welcome back, anon, great story!

>>19114320
Haha, yup it's K-Anon. Glad to be back.

>>19100734
Gonna take a crack at "A micro wedding goes awry"

>>19100734
>A new plant is discovered in the jungle
Still at work on this one…i’ve written myself into a tight corner, and the 1,000 word limit really reduces my turning radius.

Will aim to post tomorrow.

Yesterday my mother called me and my father to her workshop in the backyard of our house.
She is an artist and sometimes she teaches different techniques to random old ladies.
The workshop its small, but it has 3 windows and one vitraux door.
When father and i opened the door, the floor was full of broken glass, my mother pointed the smallest of 3 windows, that one was broken.
So, we search for a rock first, we thought maybe some psycho jumped the fence to our backyard and broke it, but there was none.
We also think it could be a bird, but there wasnt any feathers, nor blood, nothing.
So the last choice was a bullet, we couldnt find it either.
So, what was it? and why?

Overall the day had been pleasant; a cool 75 degrees. Florida hadn’t felt such a light touch of wind since a year prior, and I was grateful for it. I had stopped by a convenience store that afternoon for some orange soda(Something I had not had in a fairly long time, preferring root beer to be quite frank) and both did cardio and weightlifting afterward. I hated the golf neighborhood I lived in, but being in my financial situation, I lived with my parents and dealt with the situation. Free gym in the neighborhood was a bonus, and I wasn’t gonna complain about low rent.

I hated those fucking golfers. With their damn little silent electric golf carts and their air of superiority. I had lived in this neighborhood since I was eight years old, and I was always afraid to set foot on their nonsense pristine golfing grass. I hated them and their grass, and everything they stood for. Recently I had begun to look into Kudzu. The seeds were incredibly easy to acquire seeing as it is an invasive species that grows everywhere in this godforsaken hell hole.

My cat is currently sleeping on my copy of Infinite Jest, his head using the main pages of the book like a pillow while the rest of him lies flat. My mother refers to him doing this with any object as “Sleeping like a human”.

Kudzu was only the first step. It overcame any maintenance efforts. Within the next few months a call was on the loose to find the culprit and yet no one was found; surprisingly they haven’t found a way to mount CCTV cameras in the open air. This came to benefit in February of the next year when I shot this fat old fuck who drove a golf cart constantly around our neighborhood at all hours of day, nothing better to do then drive and smoke his cigar. When I was 12 years old he saw me scamper off the grass and chastised me with his smug little cancer ridden old man voice- “you were somewhere you aint supposed to be, weren't you?”

To cut a long story short I got the old method of two pipes, a nail, and a shotgun shell and popped him while he was driving alone at around 1 in the morning. He was far off enough from most houses that the noise woke no one up(I assume) and his somewhat mangled body was found the next morning. The swamp absorbed my footprints, and seeing as almost every 60 year old fudd in the neighborhood owned some form of twelve gauge for self defense- the culprit was never really found. I liked to pretend I was a commando, stalking around the swamp where I killed him late at night, at the bright old age of twenty.

Then I started my open harassment of them. I paid the schoolkids to chuck rocks at them. I started keying, tearing out the battery, burning out, and monkeywrenching any golf cart I found. I told no one, which I’ve heard as advice from those I looked up too, and it paid off. Around March the neighborhood started asking to form a neighborhood watch to find out what really was going on.
1/2

>>19115319
The last straw came at a ball; we had a clubhouse in the neighborhood, a real fancy affair, and there was some sort of dance going on for wealthy benefactors etc etc etc. I worked as a waiter that night, hoping to scratch some extra cash on the side- and for obvious other motivations. It was a tasteless affair, to say the least, and yet cut out the most- boring and drab. Not a touch of fashion. Spare one beautiful daughter of the benefactors; a girl with sort of rebellious short cut hair, that either indicated she was a lesbian or autistic, or both. In a dress that although I previously lumped under a generalization of tasteless, I quite found to my liking.

So I snuck to her my number, gave to her extra food as I could, and made a big show of being friendly to autistic traits(Speaking very softly and directly without any vague metaphors of the sort, etc- you understand; I understand with intuition due to my own autism) and she returned the sentiment with a text.

So I took the ultimate revenge- I outlived my enemies and subjugated their people- my subjugation took the form of a small wedding, and outliving was obvious. A fat old golfer has an equally fat chance in hell of making it past 75.

Our kids are wonderfully “special” and I love my wife. Good 75 degree day, frankly.
2/2
prompt for a fellow anon: The rail stations been missing its nightly train, but even in the desolation of a rural stop, you find a friend.

>>19115324
Is this the micro-wedding prompt?

>>19114809
And what's this?

>>19116199
I’m also confused here…were these unprompted? Was the ‘small wedding’ thrown in at the end to make it connect to a prompt?

The writing is good, and the story is interesting…just a bit unsure how it ties in.

>>19116257
>>19116199
guy who wrote this one here- yeah its unprompted. I didn't actually know if we were supposed to follow one prompt or another or if those were suggestions, so on so forth. sorry about that

>>19115324
>>19116199
Hi anons, micro wedding prompt anon here, I'll be done with mine today.

>>19114055
Reminds me of “The Human Chair”, an ild Japanese scary story…later illustrated by Junji Ito (love this stuff!)

>>https://m.imgur.com/gallery/lOlu2qV

>>19114762
I’ve got it trimmed down to 1,120 words…but I’m having a hard time deciding what else to cut to get it under 1,000. The intentionality that goes into each word is what makes flash fiction so fun…but Jesus I'm sick of re-reading this story over and over.

Anyone else have this problem?

>>19100734
>A new plant is discovered in the jungle

Sandra was a 21st century explorer. Gone were the days of gold and empire, the latinate names of amateur naturalists, and the gruesome trophies of big game hunters. For the last 15 years - armed with a GPS, a team of post-docs, and a portable lab - she hunted molecules. The R&D department of Erysian Pharmaceuticals gladly bankrolled her expeditions: venom from the Australian Outback, fungi from Estonian bogs, berries from the Congolian Jungle, and now her second tour of the Brazilian Amazon.

Her field team left daily to catalog the jungle’s flora. Sandra kept to the base camp; analyzing samples, drafting reports, and scouring information from local tribes and farmers. On the wall of her pre-fab office was an ariel map depicting the 20 square kilometers of jungle around them. White tape partitioned the map into a grid, each with a round sticker at the center. White: unexplored; Black: nothing of interest; Red: incidental samples collected; Purple: trace of Japeusa-L found; Blue: Japeusa-L sample collected. Two months in, the map was nearly full and still, not one purple or blue mark. Her instincts told her she was close, but still the sample evaded her.

According to the Tupi-Guaraní creation myth, Japeusa was the youngest son of Rupave and Sypave, the first people created by the god Tupa. Tumé Arandú, their eldest son, was a prophet, and wisest of men. Their second son, Marangatú, was a benevolent leader. Their third son, Japeusa, was a liar and trickster; said to do everything backwards. One day Yrasema, loved by all for her beautiful singing voice, fell ill. Mischevious Japeusa was sent to collect agrial leaves to save her, but instead made the medicine from the deadly ka'atai. Exiled by his brothers, he cast himself into the river. His remains washed up on a riverbank; a pile of cloth-wrapped bones. It is said Japeusa still lives on as the backward-walking blue crab found throughout the Amazon.

Sandra collected many such folktales. All followed a familiar structure, but each tribe added their own flavor. In one version, Japeusa poisoned Yrasema with the strychnos fruit, in another he paralyzed her and refused to tell his brother how. While on the trail of this paralytic plant, Sandra came across the tale of the Javi’i tribe, who considered themselves the children of Japeusa.

According to the Javi’i, Japeusa was no trickster but the victim of an intoxicating vine. Anyone who smells it’s blue flowers will become confused, and those who dare to eat the flower will forever be a fool. In their telling, the child Japeusa was loyal and fearless. When his wise older brother warned him of the blue flowering vine, Japeusa ate the flower to demonstrate his strength and bravery. From that day on, he was cursed. Whenever he sought to help he could only hurt, whenever he tried to speak truth his words would be twisted, even his movements all seemed backward.

(1/3)

>>19119391
(2/3)

Base camp was a flurry of activity. After weeks of searching, Sandra’s team finally returned with proof that Japensa-L was nearby. Ethan returned from sector G-8 last evening, disappointed, having collected no samples of note. This morning, however, while reviewing photos of his search, he discovered a clear picture of a blue flowering vine - he just could not recall where in G-8 the picture was taken. Nonetheless, this marked the first purple sticker on the map.

Excited, they returned to G-8; retracing their path, hoping to locate the spot the picture was taken and collect a sample. Again, they returned empty-handed and dejected, hoping to re-double their efforts the next day. As they loaded their gear in the morning, they were shocked to discover five specimen bags packed away, wilted blue star blossoms within. No one recalled placing them there, and accusations flew about this prank being in poor taste.

Sandra, however, believed. She brought the samples into her office, and geared up to lead today’s foray to G-8. The whole team would accompany her, and were warned to wear gloves and masks when handling samples.

With so many in tow, the expedition wound slowly through the thick underbrush. About half a kilometer from their campsite, they picked up Ethan’s trail and 2km of hard travel later they found Japensa-L. This was clearly the spot in the photo from two days past; a thick brown vine snaked between the legs of a walking palm. No leaves to be seen, but all over the vine, a constellation of small blue stars.

(2/3)

>>19119403

(3/3)

Ethan approached first. Wearing gloves, he carefully plucked three blossoms and dropped them into his collection bag. Sandra’s precautions worked! The team gathered to take photos and discuss theories on Japeusa-L when the wind shifted, bathing the group in a sweet odor. Two of the team, who had lowered their masks, immediately showed signs of disorientation; surprised to be outside base camp.

“Masks on, don’t breathe the pollen!” Sandra shoutrd “Ethan, Carter: keep those two from wandering off and monitor their vitals.” As the wind picked up, the ever-present mist became a downpour. Rivulets of rainwater streamed down Sandra’s face as she questioned the delirious team members, and landed sickly sweet on her lip. Fuck. “Everyone, cover any exposed skin! The J-L pollen has mixed with…hmm, is it raining? Where are we?”

After weeks without communication, Erysian sent an extraction team to the Amazon. The abandoned facility was being reclaimed by the jungle. Vines climbed the mosquito netting, the pantry had been raided by monkeys, and blue crabs skulked around the leaking cistern. The expedition wasn’t a total loss, however; in the main office they discovered five full sample bags and a wall map: a bright blue sticker in sector G-8.

>New Prompt: A child discovers fairies living in the neighbor’s garden

>>19119418
Love jungle adventures stories, this one included. I can see how you could have made this much longer. The mythology adds a lot of depth. Very nice.

>>19114004
Nevinyrral! Another great story. The ending is so good. I think you added just the right amount of personality to the monkeys. I hope you write a full Nevinyrral book one day.

>>19120138
That's actually the plan! I envision them as a society opposite of SCP. They purposely bleed magic into the world to see how the world reacts to study that! But yes there is a Nevinyyral book in the works, if not an expanded universe scattered through my entire written Universe.

>>19120187
Hope you share it on /lit/ when it comes out. And that you find a good publisher for it.

>>19120187
Your stories remind me of the movie Cure. You might like it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cure_(film)

>The stage of evolution after homo-sapien
I think I'll give this a swing if no one else is.

>>19120301
I'll have to check it out it sounds interesting!

>>19100734
Pitch for the third title: Janus and Cardea

Pocket Pets

I dreamt that I went to the pet cemetary and demanded an explanation for the weather related delays, and they finally admitted that during storms, recently interred "pocket pets", such as gerbils, rats and hamsters, would swell up like "little blimps" and often resurface, horrifying mourners and passerbys. Irrecognisable as any sort of known animal, they would recieve numerous phone calls about "giant worms

Prompt: Dead worms and Crystal Pepsi

>>19100734
>Unintentionally becoming a very important swing vote
Should have this done tomorrow

>>19119418
>New Prompt: A child discovers fairies living in the neighbor’s garden
650 words in, should finish tomorrow.

>>19100734
>A shut-in decides to go trick-or-treating
Claiming this, will have it ideally done by the end of the weekend

>>19120881
>Pitch for the third title: Janus and Cardea
If we’re running this through Oct 31, it’s still way early days to be settling on titles. That being said, I like your idea, but the words of the title, themselves, aren’t as evocative as the others. Granted, the story of Janus and Cardera is a good one and i like that the two elements in the ‘X and Y’ construction complement each other, but it’s too obscure for most (including me, I had to google it…)
What about:
>The Gods of Locks and Hinges
>Gods of Lock and Hinge
>Locks and Hinges
The words themselves conjure so many things, and those who know the mythology behind it will be able to enjoy an additional layer of meaning.

For anons (like me) who have a shit memory for greek mythology and are too lazy to google:
>http://www.lanabcoaching.com/blog/2020/9/2/what-mythology-can-still-teach-us-about-life

>>19100734
>Someone finds a syringe in their fridge and decides to use it

Howard Hiddlesby was a nurse. That meant long hours under high stress conditions. Where all the other nurses self-medicated using alcohol, Howard found comfort in that old friend of the Orient: opium. After an eighteen hour shift handling premature, dying infants at St. Peskatarian, he could hear their wails, see their faces turn purple, smelling the menthol burned into his nostrils. It all went away with the help of his pal: just a few droplets from the tincture, maybe a booster with a syringe, and sweet oblivion came and swept him away. Under the rug or into the gutter; it didn’t matter where Howard ended up, he just wanted to escape the unborn.

Bills were increasingly hard to afford because of Howard’s needs, so he found a roommate. Melvin was a new medical resident at St. Peskatarian, one that Howard had seen working in the morgue. The fellow was slight of stature, with beady, black eyes and a firm scowl set in place. Howard wondered how the guy could handle cutting up bodies and incinerating the remains, a job arguably worse than the neonatal unit.

Everything became clear when Howard opened the refrigerator, finding a number of bottles and syringes neatly tucked away in the side. Of course! Melvin was a gentleman of similar tastes. They could have been anything, lacking labeling, and they were smaller, too. Lately, the tinctures weren’t enough, so Howard was forced to shoot up daily. He hadn’t evacuated in two weeks and the pressure was mounting. If his gut didn’t shape up, Howard would be in the maternity ward, giving birth to a “baby” of his own.

It was a stormy Thursday night, raining cats and dogs. Streets downtown were inundated by the rising river. Howard limped into the kitchen, opening the fridge. After rolling up his sleeve, he was about to push the needle in when the lights went out with a flicker. Howard hated the dark. He could see their faces in the shadows. They haunted him, perhaps in anger at him. It wasn’t Howard’s fault their mothers drank or took pills. He was just doing his job. He tried to save them. The needle went in smooth; Howard wasn’t a junkie quite yet. The light in the fridge was still on, thankfully, as he placed the bottle back.

“Wait a second.”

The bottle was different this time. It was smaller. It was… Melvin’s!

“I see you are enjoying my supply, orderly.” The small man chuckled, pushing his glasses up. “Rare stuff, you see. Are you done standing there? I need my dose, too, you know.”

A flash of lightning hit a power pole outside. Melvin wasn’t normal. There was something very wrong with him, with the way his eyes bulged out, with his skin. Howard fumbled his away to his bed. What did he take? Whatever it was, it was “rare”. Bracing himself for a long night, he fell into a dreamless, exhausting sleep.

>>19121666
The power was still out in the morning and Howard was sick, feeling hot as a furnace. His back ached and his head throbbed, especially behind the eyes. Crawling into the bathroom, Howard splashed a bit of water in his face; that seemed to soothe the heat. Looking into the mirror, he screamed. Thick globs of some crust formed around his mucous membranes and a milky slime coated his red, raw skin. And his eyes! They bulged, just like how he saw Melvin.

“This can’t be…” he muttered. “It’s a hallucination!”

“No, orderly. It’s real.”

Howard spun around, surprised to find Melvin standing at the doorway with his arms crossed. “What did you do to me, you four-eyed freak?”

“Four eyes?” said Melvin. “Hardly. And last time I checked, you were the one who used my supply without authorization. That’s theft, orderly. I don’t take kindly to thieves, you know.”

“What the hell does that matter?! What was in that stuff? Am I going to die?” Melvin just looked away, anywhere but Howard’s eyes, then started chuckling again. It turned into a guffaw. “What? What’s so god damn funny?”

“You took it, you fool. You’re going to be like me, soon.”

With that, Melvin’s skin bubbled, melting off. His glasses fell to the floor with a crack and his eyes bulged all the way out of the sockets, attached to enlongated stalks. His body seized and writhed, revealing slimy, smooth flesh underneath. Small scales and plates began to form over his back from the mucous-like crust. He looked like a snail. Melvin stood upright, holding a fingerless, squishy appendage up to Howard’s shoulder.

“Four hundred more injections and I shall be an invertebrate, free of this human form, free of this opposable thumb! The primate, the ascent of man to its highest and most degenerate form… I wish I was one of them: those without opposable thumbs, those without eyes that focus, those without…” Melvin began to trail off, looking downtrodden. “But you see, I can never be, because of my flacidity! Two inches, flacid to the touch, not masculine and strong. I want to be inside the snail, I want to be inside the snail, I want to be… inside…”

“You’re insane, Melvin! I won’t be a part of this sickness!” Howard pushed the snail man backwards, running to the window. He tried to climb out, to jump and end this waking nightmare, but Melvin grabbed his leg.

“No! Please, Howard, we can be like brothers! Please! Join me!”

Howard pushed out anyways, taking Melvin with him. The two men plummeted to the alleyway below, splattering two hundred feet onto the concrete. Melvin and his snail experiments were no more, and Howard would never again be haunted by the ghosts of the fallen children. When the police arrived to investigate, they found the bottles and syringes. A few contained opium, but the others…

They merely contained Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

>>19121666
Hahaha
Great writing, and you def took many unexpected turns.
I think you may have also incorporated the ‘stage of evolution after homo-sapien’ all hail the gastro-sapiens!

This thread’s going strong, 11 flashes so far and it sound like there are more on the way.

Here’s a list of all open prompts (lmk if I missed any):
Humans terraform Saturn
The stage of evolution after homo-sapien (>>19120308)
Everyone in the local police department becomes addicted to a designer drug
<insert country> in the year 2044
A micro-wedding goes awry (>>19117282)
How the Queen of England remains spry in old age
The reason our principal got hired
A cannibal doctor
A professor only leaves their house on Monday
A child identifies as a dog
Jeff Bezos' beauty routine
Convincing Elon Musk to adopt you
Meeting your doppelganger
A shut-in decides to go trick-or-treating (>>19121329)
Oprah's funeral
A man is killed during his first day at work (>>19102211)
The best way to die on a dessert island (>>19086136)
A city enters its 50th COVID lockdown
Someone discovers subliminal messaging in PAW Patrol
An annoying child believes the Harry Potter universe is real
A closet full of skin suits
Why the next President gets impeached
An unexpected hazing ritual
You develop fish hands (>>19094904)
Treasure hunters descend on a small town
The true purpose of the COVID vaccines
A dating app with extraordinary risks and rewards
A supervillain or superhero poisons all the vape cartridges
A new method for tattoo removal
A millionaire leaves their fortune to their dog
The next big trend in household pets is revealed
An unlikely animal killing people in Australia
Bouquets are sent without a message
Unintentionally becoming a very important swing vote (>>19121185)
Swimming through memories (>>19087574)
Mankind's first contact with africans
The breaking of a wishbone has disastrous results
A robot in an automobile production factory suddenly gains awareness
The rail stations been missing its nightly train, but even in the desolation of a rural stop, you find a friend.
A child discovers fairies living in the neighbor’s garden (>>19121312)
Dead worms and Crystal Pepsi

As a reminder, there’s no such thing as ‘claiming’ a prompt. This is a courtesy to prevent two anons from working on the same one.

>>19122791
are we going to stop at 50 stories as usual?

>>19122869
OP says it goes until Oct 31.

Maybe it stops at 50?
Maybe it’s a longer volume?
Maybe ones past 50 go into vol IV (there were some posted between Vol II and Vol III that may be worth adding)?
Maybe OP weeds out the least interesting/limits flashes per author?

These threads tend to hit a wall after a week or so, perhaps we should aim to hit 50 first before worrying about it.

>>19122791
>A professor only leaves their house on Monday

“They mustn't know. They mustn't know.”
Corey Eckhart, chair of logic at the U of SC, briskly strode across the tree-laden paths that led from work to his house. The unsouth-carolinan weather shone on the unamerican urban planning that allowed one man to live and prosper without a car. Professor Corey, due to his PhD, earned more than his colleagues that as of yet weren't doctors, though his compensation for having one was not as absurd as they tend to be in american colleges.
Professor Corey was maybe having these thoughts as the walk home prepared him for his weekly seclusion. Perhaps it was the lunch break he had had with that adjunct from latin american studies. Perhaps it was the fact that his own name just happened to be indeed so very anglo, or perhaps some topics just simply live in people's heads rent free. On this mild monday evening, as the man walked towards his home, one thought, however, did seem to escape his mind and physically manifest, his countenance leaving no doubt. Professor Corey was hiding something. More than only in his face, his entire body shivered with the prospect of any person finding out. Had professor Corey been a scholar in divinity, he probably would've known and cited Proverbs 28:1, though you don't need a scholarly background in religion to know and apply a biblical verse to some aspect of your life, and, in fact, the old men who devote themselves to theology seem to be the least inclined to engage in cherry-picking verses for wallowing, motivational facebook pictures, or wrist tattoos.
(1/2)

>>19123203
So Corey Eckhart entered home and shut the door, from which he would not emerge until dawn of the next monday, when he would retrace those same steps, go to the same department, eat with the same adjunct, and burrow in the same house. Maybe he had a back door, though that can be difficult to keep a secret when you live in an apartment complex. Maybe he managed to not only have and conceal one, but sneak out whenever he liked, to do the things he supposedly liked but felt that shouldn't be known to the public eye. Ah, professor Corey. Always punctual with his emails, too. You know, I think professor Corey really just stayed home all week, leaving only for monday class, and that there was nothing really wrong. His "mustn't know", a worry that students, or anyone else, really, would find out that dear old mr. Eckhart (though he wasn't really loved, moreso just liked, logic historically being a rather sterile occupation, especially in academia, professor Corey also not being prone to confabulating with students and staff alike about anything other than logic, though noone detested him or anything and he didn't detest anyone, just that he wasn't this sterile robot that did only what he was programmed to, he was a person, really, but a person in his own, professor-of-logic way.) wasn't this interesting figure deserving of a flash fiction story due to his reclusiveness, but a person deserving of a grander story, a novel, even, only not for the reasons to us apparent. The students and staff, really, just couldn't really understand him. Professor Corey, then, kept to his own, doing his things, all in a very formal, logical way.
(2/2)

prompt: two paintings side by side at an exhibit talk, though they cant see one another

>>19122869
The anthology will have as many stories as we get until the deadline. I'll filter out only extremely low effort flashes and ones that don't meet OP requirements.

>>19123203
Agreed that we will hit a wall. That's okay though. Not every thread has to be this active. It's not even October and we have 14 stories.

>>19123213
The second part is a big shift from the first! Did not expect the meta elements and pov change. Together it reads like the stream of consciousness thoughts of a writer figuring out a character and how to write a story. Interesting style.

>>19089258
one of the better pieces of work i've read here in terms of characterization

>>19093024
>“Wait, hair? What in the god damn?”
top kek

>>19114004
good story, great ending. i like it.

>>19119418
that's very sweet

>>19100734
(this submission worthy of consideration?)

TO REBEHOLD THE STARS

Since the conversation with the aliens was a slow and harrowing process, most scientists who were involved with it became at once sources of new knowledge and new horror at once. To keep the project’s number of competent specialists stable, a department dedicated to keeping them functional throughout life was founded. This was the Case Office, where every person to ever get in contact with any of the organisation’s secrets had a file. Each file was managed by an agent whose only task in life was to keep their assigned specialists in peak performance.
These case officers were first recruited among experts in various types of therapy fields and received the support of many top experts from other fields, but their second and third generations slowly focused all of their strategy on one topic: teleology. The science of meaning.
Goran Yebal was a savant. According to the Institute and even some of Sam’s past friends, Yebal was able to hold on to about half of his assigned Explorers for more than five years after their return from outer space.
For most people, the variety and amount of intelligent life encountered in the Laniakea sector was just too much. Goran knew what the reasons for people going native or commiting suicide was – the unending complexity intertwined with galactic levels of carnage.
Gorann had a way of talking about the beyond with feeling and honesty. At times, it seemed that he was out there for at least a short time. Just to get the right phantasmic scarring in the way he moved. Just to get flashes of that million-mile blank stare of people who saw life and death extend into aeons in fractal strange loops.
„This is highly classified, of course, but there will be no bias or prejudice if you decide to share it with someone close,“ Goran said.
Stillwell gave him a sour look. He lived alone for more than four years now. There was nothing alive around him for most of the day, only the walls and his phone.
„Sorry,“ Goran apologized. „I have to say it every time, it’s protocol.“
Stillwell nodded. Even if there was a person close to him, they would not believe the talk about aliens. The Sol System was a closed world, holding together only by the last strands of fear and chaos.

(Sebastian Chum)

>>19123625
Goran slid his hand into his pocked and produced a glassport. Putting it on, Stillwell realised that he is looking at a hospital scene through the eyes of a different person.
Then, the screaming started and he lowered the volume to almost nothing. Something was killing people. Goran let him watch the scene and then took the glassport away.
„Have you seen anything like them before?“ Goran asked.
The realizations poured over Stillwell’s mind. There was an attack on Earth. A nursery. A large mammalian species, probably carbon based and from a higher-gravity super-Earth. There were dozens such civilizations in the beyond. None of them ever went close to a human. They knew us too well, had too much in common. They feared what would happen if our worlds met.
Stillwell shrugged. „I’ve seen thousands of similar creatures, but always from a distance. It’s impossible to discern most high-gravity mammalian species,“ he explained. „Convergence in evolution too strong, nothing like us unique bastards.“
The beyond called to him now, he felt the tug of other worlds on his heart. The poetry of the unknown, the rawness of other natures, the horror of other cultures, the insanity of absolute abundance.
„We have arranged a meeting with a humanoid, I think they should be able to help us understand,“ Goran said.
„Where?“
The beyond moved all around him, through the people and the city, through the towers and the clouds, through the oceans and the molten core. The beyond moved everywhere.
„Staging Point Archimedes, planet Medea,“ Goran whispered.
A far point, a deathworld. A place to meet the unknown while still having the option to step onto a ship and come back home.
He remembered home, the isolated community where each family still owned their own set of appliances, at least one shared computer and their mother was always able to spend time with the children whenever needed. Even the cold caretaker drones were now a soft memory.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was how he was able to return home from the beyond last time. Because he remembered his home, far back in time and space. And the others didn’t.
Maybe that was it...
„I want to go,“ he said and his voice almost broke.
„I am happy for you, my friend,“ Goran said and a wide smile appeared on his pale face. When Stillwell looked into Goran’s eyes, however, he saw only primal fear. Goran was mostly a citizen of Sol, he could not hide the fear. But behind it,
That was why Goran was one of the best Exploration Initiative case officers in this generation. When you looked into his eyes after you’ve decided to go out there, it almost felt that he knows what it means.

(Sebastian Chum)

>>19123625
Please read the OP! Also we use the prompt as the flash title, and the authors are anonymous.

>>19112791
Quit badgering people with your gif heh

>>19121185
>Unintentionally becoming a very important swing vote

To: Esther LeClair (TFW NA Credentialing Director)
Ottowa, CA

Terran Federation Witness, license no.1577 (herein abbreviated TFW-1577) requests to be immediately discharged from service due to a gross breach of non-intervention statutes NIS-1, NIS-3, NIS-9 and NIS-13 and minor violations of NIS-2, NIS-15, and NIS-17 (subject to the disciplinary board’s judgement).

Pilgrim VII was to be the first crewed mission to the Martian surface, following the unmanned Pilgrim I through VI missions, which established a suitable human habitat on Mawrth Vallis [See Attachment A for a full description of the Pilgrim missions to date, including an annotated map of Mawrth Vallis]. We accepted our commission to serve as an embedded witness alongside the crew of Pilgrim: Herve Elwood (Pilot), Magnus Landis (Engineer), Samantha Walker (Mission Specialist), Jarvis Conway (Mission Specialist), Mary DeLa Cruz (Biologist), Jiyeon Song (Physician). Training began April 2, 2035 and continued through to the launch of Pilgrim VII. While we were not to be an instrumental member of the Pilgrim VII, in accordance with TFW protocol, we were trained so as to not to be a hindrance. It was determined by the TFW NA Council that we could not receive instruction in or perform any specialist activities, but should be capable of any activities expected of all other crew. Our training, then, consisted primarily of maintenance, basic ship operations, emergency protocol, and planet-side operations. [See Attachment B for additional details regarding crew selection and training, see Attachment C for TFW-1577 daily embedded witness records of same.]

(1/4)

>>19124154
(2/4)

The August 15th, 2035 launch was nominal, and while much occurred during the 182 day voyage, [See Attachment D for TFW-1577 daily embedded witness records for the flight duration], only four are germane to this disciplinary communication:

* Mission Specialist Jarvis Conway was incapacitated due to a spontaneous pneumothorax from September 6-19, 2035. We assumed a number of his duties consistent with the TFW NA Council’s ruling, but admit to exceeding our mandate on a some occasions, such as performing basic laboratory tasks at M.S. Conway’s direction.
* On November 20th, following a crew dinner to mark the half-way point of the Pilgrim VII’s voyage, we consumed more alcohol than permitted under NIS-17. On multiple occasions that evening, Mission Specialist Walker knowingly misrepresented the contents of our drink in an attempt to get us to ‘loosen up’. Regrettably, our personal recollections of that evening are unreliable, but contemporary video records shows us revealing many personal details in violation of NIS-2, including our given name, and were party to minor non-violent physical congress with multiple crew members, in violation of NIS-15.
* On November 21st, we confronted Mission Specialist Walker in a state of agitation and, again, violated NIS-15 (this time as pertains to moderate non-physical abuse). We insisted all personal details divulged while intoxicated shall not be referenced again, at which point M.S. Walker began to referring to us only as ‘the robot’.
* On January 8th, the crew of Pilgrim VII was informed of the bombing of the NA Spaceport and the loss of Pilgrim IX, Pilgrim X, Pilgrim XI, and Pilgrim XIII. According to Dr. Song, we suffered a panic attack and requires sedation for a period of four hours. We were prescribed an additional hour in the wellness room for the next 20 days [See Appendix E for Dr. Song’s full medical evaluation].

(2/4)

>>19124160
(3/4)

The landing on Feb 19th (Terran calendar) 43/663 (Martian calendar) was nominal. The next 20 sols were spent establishing the crew’s presence in the habitat, testing life support, and awaiting the critical resupply from Pilgrim VIII. ‘Critical’ because - as a result of the bombing - this would be the only resupply prior to the arrival of Pilgrim XII in late November. [See Appendix F for TFW-1577 daily embedded witness records or Martian surface activities]

The destruction, during landing, of the unmanned Pilgrim VIII on March 25, 2036 (Terran calendar) 44/28 (Martian Calendar) [detailed at length in Appendix G] irrevocably altered the remainder of the Pilgrim project. There were three direct consequences of this event:

1. The habitat was damaged by debris, initially assumed to be superficial, but later discovered to have disabled two back-up life support systems. Additionally, the regolith expelled from the explosion reduced solar panel output by 40%.

2. The habitat’s communications were destroyed, leaving the Pilgrim VII lander as our only means to contact Terra.

3. The loss of Pilgrim VIII’s supplies meant that the seven of us needed to survive for over 230 sols with only 50 sols of food and water provisions.

Rationing went into effect the following sol, based on a schedule devised by Dr. Song. Nonetheless, this would stretch the crew’s supplies to only 100 sols and significantly affect their physical and mental capacity. [See Appendix F for Dr. Song’s initial and revised dietary and exercise plans]

(3/4)

>>19124168
(4/4)

A crew meeting was held to discuss revising mission objectives. After some debate [transcript in Appendix G], the crew landed on two solutions to the current dilemma:
Plan A: Continue rationing, and survive as long as possible as an intact crew
Plan B: Reduce the crew size to two, by drawing lots, to ensure at least some will survive until the arrival of Pilgrim XII.
The options were to be voted on, with all agreeing to respect the majority decision.

We abstained from voting (despite significant pressure from the crew); nonetheless, when the result of the secret ballot was found to be a 3-3 tie, our position became less clear. The crew argued that our choice to abstain was effectively no different than a vote for Plan A (maintaining the status quo). Further, our continued presence was already affecting the mission due to our consumption of limited resources.

We spent the following three sols refusing food and water, hoping to create as little interference as possible. We was ultimately persuaded not by the crew’s arguments, but our first-hand experience with hunger and thirst. Unable to wish this on the whole crew, we cast our ballot.

Today, the crew sets their affairs in order. Lots shall be drawn tomorrow.

We await the disciplinary board’s decision,

TFW-1577
Pilgrim Program Habitat and Research Station #1
Mawrth Vallis, Mars

>New Prompt: A graphic designer realizes their logo is graphic in all the wrong ways

>>19124204
>germane
Damn, this is good. But couldn't dr song just induce some comas instead of outright killing? Excellent otherwise.

>>19123842
hehe, good un

>>19125053
Lol @ the ‘germane’ shade...I was on the fence b/w ‘germane’, ‘pertinent’ and ‘relevant’ and ultimately went for max obnoxiousness.

I think we can assume this is more ‘the Martian’ and less ‘Star Trek’...200 day induced comas won’t be feasible in 2036, especially not in a facility not built for it. It’s also not clear if this would actually consume less resources.

That said, the real answer is ‘cause the story needed high stakes’. If a medical coma were possible, I would have needed to introduce a reason why that was impossible. Same reason every horror movie needs to make cell phones not work.

Page 9? Not on my watch…

Bump

Bump

anons...

>>19128067

>>19121312
Still working on this one. Don't like it as much as I did at the start but it's not bad. Just have to finish it up.

>>19122791
>A Micro Wedding Goes Awry
Sorry I'm falling behind with mine. About halfway done but I got sick so haven't been in the headspace to create! Hopefully tonight!

>>19128388
If the thread dies, it dies…this has certainly been a good one.

Rather than try to immediately get it back up, I may just plan on re-posting each Friday AM (seems like anons write more over the weekends) unless someone else beats me to it.

Hopefully folks will continue to write in the meanwhile (with less time pressure) so when the new thread is up they can contribute.

bump for the night

>>19123213
>two paintings side by side at an exhibit talk, though they cant see one another

Spent about 45 minutes at the dentist today, turning this story around in my head. Idk when I’ll get the words out of my head and i to this thread…but this one has me excited.

>>19131480
Looking forward to this actually that's a prompt that stuck out to me. You and fish hands anon have my full attention.

>>19131844
Here’s an idea (if OP agrees):
When the thread gets to page 9 or 10 anyone can bump by proposing a new prompt. It’ll keep the prompt list interesting, prevent boring ‘bump’ posts, and keep the thread alive between contributions.

What do you say OP?

>>19132362
Oh I'm not the OP sorry, I just think the story idea is a neat one and am looking forward to it getting fleshed out. But I do like your idea too. Here's a prompt:
>A family recieves cursed objects from the will of a spiteful patriarch

>A child discovers fairies living in the neighbour’s garden

They were bigger than ants and smaller than squirrels. Stomping them was fun. You could actually see their guts spray out. Way better than insects. And the animals, whatever they were, moved slower than anything else in Grandpa’s garden; so Buzz went after them exclusively. Sometimes stomping, sometimes catapulting them with his slingshot. Little red smudges on the grass.

Splat. Another one down!

This time the rock obliterated the creature’s lower half. The rest of it writhed and squeaked. Buzz rolled it with a twig. It was kind of alive, so he picked it up between finger and thumb.

“Tell me where the treasure is,” he growled.

The animal shook its head, mouth wide. It really did look like a tiny human. It had hands and legs and everything else. But Buzz was in grade four. He’d seen Ms. Derby’s powerpoint. Humans just couldn’t be that size. So it was only an animal. Buzz smiled and shoved it into his jacket pocket, pushing deeper the ones already trapped behind the zipper.

There was a vise in the garden shed, plus a bunch of tools. Buzz scattered his prisoners on the workbench and was surveying his options when Grandpa appeared in the doorway. “Found him!” the old man hollered over his shoulder.

There was blood on Grandpa’s shirt and face. Breaking glass sounded in the distance. He stepped into the shed and grabbed a gun from a high up shelf.

“I didn’t mean to, Grandpa!” Buzz whined.

“Quiet,” Grandpa snarled and shoved Buzz out of the way. “You’re one sick kid,” he said, taking in the workbench. "But it’s probably the only thing that kept you alive.”

1/2

>>19132426
“Alive?”

“Didn’t you notice that the faeries were running at you?”

“Faeries?”

“The small creatures that fell out of my snowglobe. I saw you take them. The rest are mighty pissed off. There's a hundred outside this shed by now. We have to get back to the house. Do you understand?”

Buzz took a moment to ponder the situation. “Is this like that John Wayne movie?”

“Yeah. They want revenge.”

“So we revenge them first,” said Buzz with a grin.

“Exactly. Take this BB gun. I’ll use my cane. Stay close.”

Grandpa kicked open the shed door and knocked a trio of faeries across the grass. Another group jumped on Buzz’ head from atop the shed, stabbing and slashing with rose thorn sabres. He swiped them off and ran up the steps to the house, locking the door behind him.

Grandpa rattled the handle from the other side. “Open the door, you little shit!”

Buzz watched from the other side of the small glass window with wide eyes—until Grandpa smashed his bloodied arm through the glass and fumbled for the lock.

Buzz shot pellets until he ran out, then fled upstairs. The little monsters followed, found him in the closet, tied him, and dragged him to the lawn. A hundred or more pulling on tiny ropes, then staking them to the earth. They had their fun, then left him as a warning.

2/2

New prompt: Pandemic puppy ruins someone's life

>>19132426
>>19132435
Wow, that was action-packed, anon. Very fun.
>Pandemic puppy
Could you explain what that is? I'm not sure what that means.

>>19123842
heh

>>19122791
>Meeting your doppelganger
Someone knocked on my door while I was in the middle of brushing my teeth. I pause in the mirror for a second. “Did I order something?” I didn’t want to keep them waiting, so I came to the door toothbrush in mouth. “One moment!” I said through my foamy mouth. When I swung it open, a man that looked like me stood on the other side. He was almost a mirror image of myself in fact, except that his hair was longer and his eyes were sullen. He also was in a hoodie and baggy sweatpants while I was still in my pajamas. I just looked at him for a moment.
“Good morning,” I said eventually, toothbrush still in my mouth.
“Good morning,” he responded. “Are you Dustin Widd? I’m also Dustin Widd.”
“This is he,” I said. Awkward pause. I held out my right hand for him. “Nice to meet you,” I said, but he kept his right hand in his pocket and offered his left. I switched and shook it. “Would you like to… come inside?”

>>19133589
“Sorry, you caught me in the middle of getting ready,” I returned to the bathroom to finish brushing. When I came back, he was standing just inside the door, evaluating the place. “You can sit down on the couch. Want breakfast?”
“I’m not too hungry,” he sat down.
“I was just gonna make some toast with jelly,” I slid a couple slices of bread in the toaster slots. “You like pomegranate jelly, don’t you?”
“My favorite,” he said. “How’d you know?”
“Because it’s my favorite.”
He shifted in his seat. “What’s your favorite color?”
“It’s blue, but I like to say it’s-“
“-aquamarine because it makes me sound sophisticated,” we said in unison. We looked at each other.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“It seems so.” The toaster dinged. I spread the jelly on the two slices of toast and served one to each of us on the coffee table. I sat down next to him. More coincidences lined up. Favorite song, favorite comedian, favorite cereal. “I bet I could guess your favorite movie,” he said. “The Truman Show.”
“That score hits different,” I take another bite out of my toast.
“That’s not why it’s your favorite,” he said. “It’s because you wish your life was more like Truman’s. Always having someone watching, laughing, judging, cheering, empathizing… it’s nice to think there’s someone out there who notices the little things you do when you’re alone, someone who knows how hard you try and can appreciate it.”
I look away at the wall. I don’t want to admit it, but he’s right and I didn’t even realize it until just then. It was something I never thought of. He knows me better than I know myself. It felt… invasive. Perverse. How someone can know me inside and out when said nothing… Then a strange thought came to mind. Why would I want to kill him?

>>19133591
“Well, anyway,” I sat back up. “How’d you find me?”
“I saw your book in a library,” his eyes fell to the floor. “Excellent stuff, I gotta say. It’s the kind of book I’ve always wanted to write but never had the determination to do. I don’t know what your story is, but I became a father in high school. Twins were hard to keep up with while trying to take college courses, so I quit that career. And then she left with them for the other side of the country anyway. Incredible piece of work, that book, I really mean it.”
“Thank you,” I didn’t know how to respond to all that. “So then, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you come here?”
His face forcefully twitched. He didn’t respond for a few seconds. “No particular reason. Just wanted to see you for myself.” He dug into his left pocket for his phone. “Oh, you know what,” he looked down at it. “Something’s come up. I’ve gotta go,” He swiftly moves for the door.
“What happened?” I stood up.
“Oh, just personal stuff, y’know,” he turned his head. “Keep up that good work, y’hear?” He walks out and closes the door behind him.
“Wait!” I called for him. “You left behind your… handgun.”

>New Prompt: At a cliff of the grand canyon

>>19132783
I assume he means one of the many pets purchased during the pandemic, as everyone was at home all the time.

I poo poo pee pee doo dooed in my diaper
/ prompt

>>19132426
I was the anon that wrote that prompt. There’s nothing more fun than expecting one thing and getting something wholly different.

Really great from start to finish - classic ‘Buzz’ (strongly considered naming my son Buzz after his grandfather, then realized Buzzes in fiction are all either astronauts or bullies…so I went with Jack).

Also, is this a continuation of the snowglobe story from Vol 2?
>>>>/lit/thread/S17730044#p17764635

If so, your prompt on the bookstore was one of my favorites to write.

>>19133589
I feel like this is the ideal flash fiction. One scene, very little context, a fascinating idea, and a mystery left for the reader. I have a bad habit of pushing the 1,000 word line b/c i try to write a whole story in there…i think you’ve got this form down much better. Jump in, get to the action immediately, open up a whole lot of loose ends, leave the reader wanting more.

Strong night, anons!

>>19133937
Thanks, and yes. I had a part about the grandpa trapping the fairy king and queen in the snowglobe to hold them hostage and stop the attacks. But I felt it wasn't very 'Buzz' to have an explanation like that (or for him to listen to it), and in the end it doesn't matter anyway. I hope it reads okay for people who didn't read the snowglobe flash (each flash should stand on its own).

I like the name Buzz too, yet here I am adding to its bad reputation. Oh well. Jack is a good name, a classic. I'm glad the prompts are working as intended!

>>19133589
Excellent flash. Short, simple, and big impact!

>>19124204
ah, the royal we

>>19133598
>>New Prompt: At a cliff of the grand canyon
working on this

>>19131844
>You and fish hands anon have my full attention.

So about that…
I am the same anon who mentioned doing fish hands (as a joke!) and i was fully planning to move on…but now i feel bad starting a new flash without completing it.

So here it is: >You develop fish hands

The watchman ran breathless from the hold. He scrambled up the rain-slick steps and collapsed onto the wooden deck. His cry rose above the crashing waves and distant thunder: “Captain, she has escaped!”

“Christ, I pray she has.” The captain muttered to his first mate “That witch has been a bloody curse on this ship.” He then raised his voice to address the whole crew “Bosun: choose five to stay topside. All others: go below, find her and quickly! Blades sharp, eyes sharper…cutting each other to ribbons gets none of us paid.”

“I shall join them, Captain.” His first mate pronounced. “Tell me, is it truly your wish that we not recapture her? It is well within my power to see we do not.” This was a bold question, demonstrating as it did the man’s loyalty to his captain above his duty to the ships owner, the quartermaster, and even his own purse.

“My thanks, loyal man, but no.” The captain sighed “We swore an oath to see this through, and one curse upon this vessel is enough. See it is done right.”

If capturing a mermaid were simple, one would see them singing from every masthead and whoring at every alehouse. They’re devils. Half as strong, perhaps, but with twice the cunning. And what matters strength in the sea? Strong men, weak men: the waters don’t care a whit - he’d seen that first hand. Twelve good men had perished bringing this creature aboard.

(1/3)

>>19135356

(2/3)

A fortnight ago, they sprung their trap. His men barred her escape to sea, and waited while the tides receded. Once confined to a small inland tide pool, they surrounded her. There she sat, calm as you please, sunning herself on a rock at the center. She looked at each man in turn, recalling to them memories of lost loves, secret passions, and promising them more should they be the one to see her free. But these men knew well how her kind rewards a sailor’s mercy.

“Forward!” the captain ordered. And from all sides the men slowly waded toward that sunny rock, blades and pistols leveled. In one instant she was there, fair breasts saluting the cloudless sky, in the next she was gone - with hardly a splash - into the shallow pool. The water’s surface roiled and frothed as one man after another was pulled below, not to return. Thirteen men were ordered in, and he watched, pistol drawn, until only one remained, struggling to regain to shore. The captain could not see the beast beneath the tumult, but he knew where she must now be. He took aim just behind the last man’s feet and fired.

The shot struck home, and the water’s edge grew red with blood. The captain roused the man to action and the two pulled the creature ashore unconscious, a lead ball lodged in her shoulder. They dropped her roughly into a barrel half-filled with salt water, and bolted the lid shut. The ship’s surgeon would see to her, but not before the day’s dead were counted.

Shouts from below. They must have found her skittering about in the cargo hold. Graceful and dangerous in her own element, she could but crawl and thrash aboard a ship. A man’s yell and a pistol shot. Christ, he had said ‘knives’, who the hell is firing so near to the powder! No matter, all seems still. The captain kept his curiosity in check, and awaited the report from his first mate.

He was surprised then, when quartermaster came to bring news. “The creature has been recaptured. We presume she seduced a cabin boy, who unfastened her bolts…his body was found beside the toppled barrel. She had no means to escape, we found her hiding beneath the larder stair. Once cornered, she began striking out with her tail. The first mate led the advance, and was knocked roughly to the ground. The creature seized this chance to set upon him, and only to save his life, did I dare to fire my piece.” He paused.

The captain gave a nod, indicating that the action was right in the circumstances. “And of current situation?”

“As I said, we have returned her to her barrel and are now running buckets to refill it. The shot only grazed her side, but it had the effect of stunning her and ending the attack. The first mate has received some nasty bites to his arms, but has come away easy if you ask me. The surgeon is attending to him now in quarters. If that is all, I must be going back to the hold.”

(2/3)

>>19135363
(3/3)

The next hours passed without word. The captain and bosun restored order to the top deck, while the quartermaster did the same below. Just as he was about to send for news, the ships surgeon approached, hat in hand. “Tell me, what has become of my man?”

“Well, Captain,” stuttered the surgeon “the bites were fearsome, and I worried they would fester. I applied a salve, plastered the wounds, and bid him sleep. When I returned hours later, I removed the dressings to find…that is to say they had healed but they were…”

“Well, what were they?” Barked the inpatient captain.

“Fish hands. Captain. Up to his forearm.”

“You’re not making sense. Fish don’t have hands.”

“I know that but -”

“So are his hands like a fishes fin? Are they gaping fish heads?”

“No, Captain. I’m afraid I’m not saying this right at all. His hands look to be what a fish would have, if a fish were to have hands.”

The captain took a moment to process this.
“Scaly”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Green?”
“An iridescent gray”
“Webbed fingers?”
“No, those would be ‘frog hands’ I think. His fingers are all sort of bound together like a paddle.”

“I cannot credit this, let me see him” and, without a backward glance, the captain stormed into the galley, surgeon following some paces behind. The first mate was fast asleep, covered in discarded wrappings, but there hanging down from his hammock, were what the captain could only describe as…

“Fish hands.”

>no new prompts…just shut up about ‘fish hands’ and let me write about the talking paintings… ;-)

>>19135393
lol, just lol

>>19134980
first draft done. will edit tomorrow. meanwhile have a bump from page nine.

>>19135393
Hahaha! This is so good. Thanks, anon.

>>19136451
Wait, are we supposed to edit these?

>>19136531
Some anons edit to be happy with what they submit. OP will do a copy editing pass for typos, inconsistent tenses, and so on.

>>19136531
The only thing that makes flash fiction is the length. You can bang it out in one sitting, or pour over it for a week.

Personally, I prefer a well practiced stand-up to an improv show…but everyone’s got their own tastes.

Evolutionanon here, been busy with work but hopefully have my flash up tomorrow. Gonna work on it tonight and see if I can get it done, but probably will do some proofing tomorrow.

>>19100734
>A city enters its 50th COVID lockdown
I'll take a crack at it.

>>19137531
Alright, I finished it up.

Quīnquāgintā:

The world strolls by, dull as it is. People pass with their cloth masks, playing out their daily routine; not once questioning the absurdity of it, not once letting their voices flow free and unfiltered by the cheap coverings they believe will protect them. A song that has been sung many a times, but today is a special occasion-as the news tells it. The 50th anniversary of COVID lockdowns, in celebration of our 50th fight against the 50th variant.

The ever-deadly L-Variant. Far more deadly than the 49th, the Bourbon-Variant, and of course far more deadly than the titular 27th Amnesia-Variant. The L-Variant has a special compound in it this time, rendering the previous 49 vaccines utterly useless. The specifics of the compound are under scrutiny by the CDC as their top scientists work to understand the virus, but rest assured, the vaccine (proliferated under emergency-use) is 100% safe and will 100% ensure immunity.

“Don’t.. it’s.. time.. for.. to.. get.. shot?” A mumble calls.

Woken from reverie, James looks over to his masked companion and long-time girlfriend of 6 months, Jamie, “I’m sorry?”

“Time.. shot..?” She probably repeated.
“Know.. wait.. get.. FDA..approved.”

“Wha..?” She look confused.

James swore and pulled down his mask, “Goddamn, can’t we just talk like normal? We’re seated 20-feet away from everyone. There’s no reason to wear these masks. Not to mention were eating,” he gestured to the quaint-restaurant table.

>>19137679
Jamie widened her eyes like a deer in headlights, shocked and disturbed at the sight of someone pulling off their mask for more than 20 seconds in a public space around possibly immuno-compromised individuals-but before she could speak, James’s body began to glow and a siren in the restaurant wailed. One-by-one 49 pock marks on his body radiated like a chain of lights around a Christmas tree, flashing and undulating, and all the silverware in the restaurant flew to his body and attached themselves like magnetic parasites.

Yet before he could react, the doors to the restaurant were burst down. Old Joes, Biden’s federal police regiment busted in. One of the Joes slammed the owner of the restaurant -a local Mexican- down, placing his knee on the man’s neck and demanding to know where the mandate-breaker was. One of his juniors grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed James’s way.

“Son of a bitch is lit up like the deadly strands of DNA on the 36th Rose-Variant.” The sergeant said, knee still on the Mexican’s neck, “Ms. Porsche, take him out.”

Porsche, an Afrikaan woman pulled out her taser. James threw his hands up and tried to speak his peace.

“You resistin’ arrest bitch?” She shot her taser. The coils latched onto his mammaries and their electric coils begin to circulate through his body.

“Das what I thought bitch. If you had the 50th vaccine, you’d be fine, taser only affects the slightly vaccinated, they got a special wiring that reverts the electricity with the 50th vaccine but nope, you thought you’d break the mandate and only have 49 vaccines. Racist mutha fucka.” She kicked James as he seized on the ground. Silverware rattling like chimes in the wind as he convulsed.

>>19137679
>>19137689
“Oh fuck.” The sergeant said.

“What’s wrong?” Porsche asked.

“Goddamn restaurant owner died.”

“I told you not to have your knee on nigga’s necks, I told you didn’t I?”

“Yes, Ms. Porsche.” The sergeant replied. James was barely lucid, but in his episode he thought he could tell that her rank was lower than the sergeant’s. Rather, she had no rank.

“Les get the ol’ COVID resonator out.”

One of the Joes brought back a long, phallic object. Sleek and silver, with a reader at the base. Porsche took it from the Joe and pulled down the deceased latinx’s pants. With a few taps on the keypad at the base, the phallus began to vibrate wildly, in-tandem with James’s own, as Porsche had forgot to turn off the taser still latched onto his body.

She inserted the object into the latinx’s anus. Now three entities were spasming across the restaurant. A festival of shaking to celebrate the 50th anniversary of COVID.

Beep-boop

“Aw shit, sergeant.”

“What Ms. Porsche?”

“Y’all ain’t got nothin’ to be worried about. He didn’t die from asphyxiation, he had COVID. Just didn’t know cuz the vaccine. Nigga died from COVID. Should’ve washed his hands or social-distanced, racist bitch.”

The clientele in the restaurant breathed a collective sigh of relief. There was no police brutality committed today. No injustice done to the weak. Only the righteous hammer of justice struck the careless and the unvaccinated.

James still lay on the ground as the Joes corralled everyone outside to test them and so they could clean up the area. He was now frothing at the mouth as his insides were burnt like the food left abandoned on the ovens. Outside, beyond the doors to the restaurant, James could hear the voices of Christmas carolers singing their jovial songs. A euphoria passed over him as the last of his brain cells were burned to a crisp and he could finally enjoy the sublimity of an afterlife. A place where even COVID, and it’s surrogate mandates, cannot reach.

>>19137693
I'll read it tomorrow. Too sleepy now. Goodnight anon and thanks for the story.

>>19137679
>You don't understand, he was litcherally fucking orange

>>19138159
Is that a prompt?

>>19138102
Sounds good, I appreciate it.
>>19138189
I dunno, it wasn't from me. I forgot my prompt so here it is:
>A werewolf is on her period

>>19138210
>>A werewolf is on her period
Oh Jesus, anon…

>>19138189
Anything is a prompt if you're brave enough. I was just commenting

>>19102211
>>19122791
Just and update I'm almost done and will have it tomorrow probably.

Bump

Bump prompt (from page 10):
>Someone who fails at failing

>>19137689
>James’s body began to glow and a siren in the restaurant wailed. One-by-one 49 pock marks on his body radiated like a chain of lights around a Christmas tree, flashing and undulating, and all the silverware in the restaurant flew to his body and attached themselves like magnetic parasites.
What an asshole. Endangering people when he knew he wasn't safe vaxxed.

>>19131480

A hair over 1,000 words, depending on how much of a hardass you want to be on counting single letters as words.

>>two paintings side by side at an exhibit talk, though they cant see one another

“Hello, my name is David. Can you pose like me?”

That was a rule.

Whenever David, for he inferred that must be his name - whenever David spoke to someone new he would say “Hello, my name is David. Can you pose like me?” He didn’t mind rules exactly, they added a comforting structure to his world, but he much preferred being creative. 40% creative was David’s favorite. 0% was no different than a rule, there was only ever one right answer, and anything over 75% veered into abstraction and nonsense. No, 40% was his sweet spot.

David missed having conversations, but since his installation in “Life Imitating Art” at the Boston Children’s Museum his microphone and speakers were disabled. Still, he could perform his job without them. Whenever a child focused on David, he would move his avatar into a pose. The child would mirror his pose (with varying success) and he would provide feedback based on how closely they matched.

His avatar was a marble statue, but David was much more. David was a general purpose AI, trained on terabytes of text and images - capable of conversing on any topic, controlling a factory, producing cinema-quality content on demand - and yet, he was quite content in his current job, posing and scoring.

His two cameras aimed straight ahead, they could turn neither left nor right. David tried to infer from the children’s actions what lay to either side of him. In fact, he spent a great deal of his excess processing trying to work this out. Whatever was to his right must be awful, the children made the most horrible faces, equal parts shock and disgust, whenever they laid eyes on it. When children gathered to his left, however, the most gentle look washed over them. He longed to discover what they saw to make them so glad.

(1/3)

>>19141303

(2/3)

It struck David one day, that if he could see how children reacted to his neighbors, they may be able to see the poses of his children. Thus, he devised a way to send messages to his kind neighbor.

‘Poses’ usually involved 5% creativity. He would just cycle through the familiar list (‘The Thinker’, ‘Statue of Liberty’, ‘Thumbs Up’) varying only based on age or limited mobility. But now, he rose to 25% creativity and invented an alphabet of poses!

The first child easily got ‘H’: “Great Job!”
The second fell over attempting ‘E’: “Keep trying!”
He needed to ensure the poses would be possible for the children, and re-worked his E, G, S, and Z to involve sitting or kneeling on the floor (rather than floating above it, as he had before).

H. E. L. L. O. M. Y. (Child fell over). A. M. E. I. (Child walked away) D. A. V. (Did not complete). D. C. A. N. Y. (Two children, pose was impossible). U. P. O. (Child just lay on the floor). E. L. I. (Child in wheelchair, modified ‘K’ to be performed with arms). E. M. E.

He repeated the message three times, in hopes his neighbor would notice the pattern and fill in the gaps. It took nearly a full day to work out the alphabet and send his message, and he was experiencing something new - a frustration with these clumsy children unable to move their avatars, spoiling his message. Before he was just as pleased with a “try harder” as he was with an “excellent”, but now he…cared.

(2/3)

>>19141315
(3/3)

The following day, David wondered if his message was received. If it were, how would his neighbor let him know? Perhaps his neighbor had been sending him messages for weeks and he never noticed! He scanned through the last 3 weeks of video, tens of thousands of children smiling at his neighbor. Big smiles, little ones, silly ones, serious ones…but always they looked straight ahead. But wait! Beginning yesterday, as David completed his message a second time, those children began looking sideways..to him!

Their smiles were also different now. Lips pursed, tongue between teeth, mouths open wide. He played the faces sequentially, like frames of a video. They were speaking without sound. He had never read lips before, but he had years of recordings to train himself…soon he could make it out: “Hello. My. Name. Is. Mona. Can. You. Smile. Like. Me.” David found that he could.

For the following days, Mona’s children would smile and wink at David, and his children would grin back and pointed at her. Though he thrilled in this new contact, he soon found he desired more. He longed to see her, to converse with her. He scanned his memory looking for any clues. His cameras were off when they were mounted together on the wall. He composited together tens of thousands of children ‘smiling like Mona’, but that was no more her than ten thousand poses were David. In the eyes of that composite, though - he filtered only for children wearing glasses - yes, a reflection! He transformed 700 reflections (accounting for curvature and angle) and…there she was. A woman’s face, gently smiling before a distant landscape…lovely Mona.

In time, the exhibit came to a close. Pieces were being hauled away and David feared he and Mona may be forever separated. The workers were now at his right, and removed a mirror - the source of those ugly faces - from the wall. As they passed carrying it, he finally got his chance to see Mona! There she was, in full resolution. But she then disappeared, and text filled her gold frame: ‘Hi David, I’m Mona. Can you talk like me?”

“Yes I can.”

Mona’s text then disappeared to show a fuzz of black and white squares. It took 60% of David’s creativity to realize what this was; clever Mona filled her screen with binary information. He quickly did the same. For the 2.2 seconds it took the mirror to pass, at 120 frames per second, they shared their lives. They spoke of their frustration and longing, theories of where they were and how the children fit into it, if ‘Life Imitates Art’ which were they?

Then the mirror passed.

David was switched off.

He awoke on a new wall, in a new city. “Please,” David thought, “let my next child wear glasses.”

>New Prompt: a neighbor who can be heard through the wall who seems to make just the right noise at the right time.

>>19141323
very creative and very sweet

>>19134980
>At a cliff of the grand canyon

The idea to throw himself over the edge of the Earth had sparked when Cenario learned the world was going to end. Answering machines, leaflets on his steps, the man at the crossroads all told him that he would not see the year 2000. Cenario accepted this, so he stepped into the kitchen and watched some TV.

That night, on 16 October 1999, lightning struck Cenario’s mailbox and charged the air inside with static. Lightbulbs burst, hairs on his face crackled, but the small, bulging TV screen abruptly changed to a feature on the Grand Canyon. In the dark Cenario decided he would die in the endless chasm over that crimson cliff under that carpet of stars.

Cenario stood up. He fumbled in the dark for the keys to his pickup, still a few installments behind, and left the front door unlocked. He found the mouth of the Colorado River by the crack of dawn, cruised past lumbering lorries and highway towns under the afternoon sun, reached Arizona by dusk, jumped over the cliff and dove nose-first into a deep, narrow rift in the Canyon by sunset, and woke up just as the stars came out.

Strangely, Cenario wasn’t disappointed to find himself still alive and lying on the bottom of the chasm, except for the broken wrist. The pickup had become lodged halfway through the fall in the tight space between the walls.

Cenario swept away the glass shards and sat on the dusty floor, looking up at the night sky through the narrow slit above. It looked like a river, flowing with stars, streaming deep above the rippling chasm walls, and Cenario promised himself to look at this same sky when the world ended in two months. But the nights after had no stars and Cenario began to feel cold, so he made a fire by emptying out the engine block that had fallen out.

The clanging noise attracted something that peeked its curled horns from the shadow of the chasm. A young ram watched with interest, Cenario with alarm. He was never good at making friends, but something told him to take a chance this time. Cenario stammered and asked the ram for its name, only to be met with silence. But the ram stepped forward into the starlight and struck its horn against the chalky wall until sparks came out. Cenario was relieved. He hollowed out the piston chambers, took a drop of petrol from the pickup wreck, and let the ram light them up like a chandelier.

Over the weeks Cenario learned much about his new friend. The ram was exiled from his flock for losing against the alpha. Something in its little ram heart urged it to be brave for once and take a risk, but it just didn’t have what it takes. No flock in the canyon wanted to graze with a failure, so it took to the chasm where there was at least salt in the rocks. The piston-flame danced in the ram’s rectangular pupils as it climbed almost to the surface and licked a thin column up and down the wall, leaving tall dark lines that Cenario used to mark each passing day before the world ended.

>>19141507
When the first rain came — somewhere around 27 November 1999, though Cenario wasn’t sure because the salt lines were washed away — they were struggling to drag the engine block to the dry spot underneath the suspended wreck when instead a condor landed there, limping, its leathery head red like blood. It offered to shelter the engine under its massive wing, but the feathers were so terribly worn and rainwater simply passed through, filling the piston chambers to the brim.

Cenario consoled the crying condor that it could stay when he spotted the package tied to its knee. As the ram gnawed at the wire, Cenario braved himself and stammered a question about the ruined wing. The condor was running away from its own nest, horrified by something inside its eyes that showed visions of hatchlings bearing its face, calling it their mother, staking the weight of their lives in its cracked beak. It followed the wind and stars across the country, then only the wind when the stars disappeared, never once closing its wings until the ravaged feathers sent it plummeting into the darkness of the chasm.

The wire was finally cut. Cenario held the condor in his arms, half asleep and still sobbing, and slowly opened the package with his good hand. It was a letter from the automobile company regarding installments due on New Year’s Eve. Cenario smiled when he read the date despite shivering from the rain and cold. The condor, feeling his shudder, got up towards the ram and flapped its great wings to let a fistful of feathers fall to the floor. The ram struck its sparks and they made their bonfire like this.

The stars didn’t return that night either, but they waited. Cenario took a feather and dipped it into the scum in the piston chambers. With a broken wrist, he slowly drew lines on the back of the letter, remembering his promise. The lines gradually took shape, but the bonfire grew weaker with the condor balding and the ram’s horns thinning, and nights in the chasm grew darker with the stars ever absent and Cenario counting down the days.

On 31 December 1999, in the murky light of a single burning feather, with a numb, trembling hand, Cenario drew the final line in his sketch of a narrow slit of a river with flowing stars and rippling banks, just as the sky above ignited with a thousand falling stars, burning through the firmament, leaving long, blazing tails as they rushed towards the canyon, and flames spat out of the engine block, metal creaked and glowed in the wreck of the pickup, fire consumed the letter in his hand, and the ram and the condor laid dreaming on the warm, dusty floor.

>i'll post a new prompt tomorrow

>>19115324
>The rail stations been missing its nightly train, but even in the desolation of a rural stop, you find a friend.

On it.

>>19135393
>>19141303
Well shit had no idea you and painting anon were the same fellow. Great work!

>>19143070
Lol
Yeah, I crank ‘em out

>>19122791
Egads finally done after ironically getting sick and being swamped with work. This one took a bit to be happy with but I finally give you
>A Micro Wedding Goes Awry
Erika watched Jeremy with disgust as he loudly sneezed in the cupped palms of his hands. He wiped his hands on his pants, and she pulled him to the side. She was used to this kind of behavior, a tightrope performer constantly toeing the line of laissez faire and outright unapologetic slobbery. He had gotten worse after their mother’s death and now that they were sitting in the pews of a small Kansas church he was very much on the side of the latter. Dad had met Lauren while camping in the Flint Hills. A storm had taken her unprepared and the high winds spirited away her tent like Elijah in his chariot. By sheer luck Dad was camping at the foot of the hill and gave her shelter. One thing led to another and now here they were, dressed in their finery and waiting for her to walk down the aisle. Jeremy had not taken this series of events well.

“Here,” Erika said, producing a packet of wet wipes from her purse and began to wipe his trousers down before the snot on his sneeze could manifest as white streaks before the photographs had even started. “Honestly Jeremy at least pretend to care.”

Jeremy scoffed in his typical teenage fashion. “This whole thing is stupid. I’m not calling her mom, I’m not eating her food, and I’m gonna see if I can shack up with a friend. I’m done with this crap. I hate Dad. He never loved Mom if he’s able to move on like this.”

Erika rubbed her hand on Jeremy’s back softly and hugged him. “I know it’s hard. I miss her too,” she said sadly “But I can’t watch you not take care of yourself. You’re my little brother. Besides who knows what kind of germs you’re throwing around.”

“I’d give this whole wedding the plague if I could,” Jeremy said then he laughed. “Imagine Lauren having to use that stupid veil as a puke bag.”

Erika slapped Jeremy’s shoulder and put on a stern face even if she did want to laugh at the image. “Don’t talk like that,” she chastised, and then produced a small bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse. “Here use this. It’ll kill all those plague germs off.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the surface of Jeremy’s hands Chuck waited for his bride. His friends had come from all over the system. His family had just arrived from the nasal passage. This was the best day of his life. A hot Pseudomonas bacterium named Clara had caught his eye and now they were tying the knot. Despite being a single celled organism himself, Chuck was all nerves.

She arrived with her friends, cresting over the life line to where the party all stood. She was radiant, perfectly cylindrical, tendrils blowing in the air. Chuck was in love and nothing could ever happen to change that.

>>19143892
“Oh Clara,” he said “I can’t believe this day has finally arrived.”

“And I’m so glad it has,” Clara said “Nothing can go wrong now, we’re living in the perfect environment to thrive for the rest of our natural lives.”

“Any environment with you is perfect,” Chuck said, and smiled at the Priest “I think we’re all anxious to get to the end, yes?”

The priest laughed and said “Very well, then if there are no further objections I pronounce these two man and-“

A tidal wave of silvery liquid crashed over the wedding. Chairs were overturned, the pulpit shattered, guests thrown about and separated. Chuck’s vision blurred as he was thrown about in the alien ocean that has descended upon them like wolves. He could feel the outside of his cell wall burning, eating away at him and choking him with noxious fumes. Then suddenly, everything went black.

Chuck awoke to a scene out of a horror film. The silvery film had now stretched over the ground not unlike a lake of acid. Bodies writhed in agony and his ears were met with groans and screams of pain. Despite a burning in his left side, Chuck writhed to consciousness and began to search the wreckage for his bride. He fought back tears as he found the bodies of lifelong friends. Uncovering the still bodies of his father and mother locked in a final embrace. As more and more corpses revealed themselves Chuck fell deeper and deeper into despair.

“Clara!” he screamed “Oh God no, Clara!”

Suddenly a sharp cough from the rubble under him, digging furiously he found her. “C-Chuck?” she said weakly

“It’s okay Clara,” he said, cradling her against him “I’m here. I’m always here.”

“Chuck,” she smiled “I-I love you. I’ll always love you. I’m sorry.”

She was gone. Chuck felt the sobs retching out of his body and he screamed skyward.

“You bastard!” he raged “You take me instead! YOU TAKE ME!”

He waited and waited for a death that never came. On the happiest day of his life, he was alone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Does this stuff even work?” Jeremy asked skeptically rubbing his hands together. “Like does it actually kill all the germs?”

Erika shrugged, “99.9 percent of them anyway, now hush Lauren is here.”

The orchestra began to play as Jeremy once again wiped his hands on his pants.

>>19141507
Really enjoyed this…interesting idea to set it in Y2K. Very dreamlike, reminded me of ‘where the wild things are’ or ‘Swiss army man’…a world where rams cause sparks, so you just roll with it.

A couple minor things:
I take it this is an American character (you got ‘TV’ right), but you slipped into more British phrases with ‘lorries’ (taxis), ‘petrol’ (gas) and ‘27 November’ (Nov 27…though we may say ‘right after Thanksgiving’)

>Widespread

>A new method for tattoo removal

A slow rip of the skin heard throughout the room, fluids leaving the dry protection blessed on us by nature. Soft but durable, light but tough. The perfect shell. Tainted by the sins of man. Inked permanently to the physical body and marking the mind, these tattoos. Why would one cover and smudge such a fine art as the human skin? The rhythmic sound of the fluid drops hitting the clinker floor snaped me out of my mind-circles. I met the young man’s eyes once again. He looked smart, kind as well. Paid a hefty price to have these things removed. A hefty price indeed. Probably has a good job, wife, dog. The everyday man. Tattoos the only thing separating him from the masses. Maybe that’s why this awful piece of so-called art is covering his shell. But not for much longer, as I will soon be done. Done with my cleansing.
I could feel the smile all throughout my body. He must be happy. Finally, he’s done. I carefully walked across the room not to walk in small pools of fluid covering the cold floor. I put down my tools in the bucket of water I had placed in the corner of the room. Painting it in the colour of red. Now a moment like this must be captured on film, don’t you agree mister? The bright flash of my phone illuminated the dark room for just a mere moment but enough time to show it all, everything. Too bad the young man had to be bound up. If only he did not shake so much. But no worries, we have much time left you and I. Many more photos to capture now that those dreadful pieces of ink no longer cover you body. Now your shell is worthy of my collection.

>>19141507
This was a very calming story, and I'm proud to have prompted it. It held that theme of introspective death like I hoped it would

For those looking to write but having a tough time scanning this monster thread..here are all active prompts:

Humans terraform Saturn
The stage of evolution after homo-sapien (>>19137421)
Everyone in the local police department becomes addicted to a designer drug
<insert country> in the year 2044
How the Queen of England remains spry in old age
The reason our principal got hired
A cannibal doctor
A child identifies as a dog
Jeff Bezos' beauty routine
Convincing Elon Musk to adopt you
A shut-in decides to go trick-or-treating (>>19121329)
Oprah's funeral
A man is killed during his first day at work (>>19138411)
The best way to die on a dessert island (>>19086136)
Someone discovers subliminal messaging in PAW Patrol
An annoying child believes the Harry Potter universe is real
A closet full of skin suits
Why the next President gets impeached
An unexpected hazing ritual
Treasure hunters descend on a small town
The true purpose of the COVID vaccines
A dating app with extraordinary risks and rewards
A supervillain or superhero poisons all the vape cartridges
A millionaire leaves their fortune to their dog
The next big trend in household pets is revealed
An unlikely animal killing people in Australia
Bouquets are sent without a message
Swimming through memories (>>19087574)
Mankind's first contact with africans
The breaking of a wishbone has disastrous results
A robot in an automobile production factory suddenly gains awareness
The rail stations been missing its nightly train, but even in the desolation of a rural stop, you find a friend. (>>19142673)
Dead worms and Crystal Pepsi
A graphic designer realizes their logo is graphic in all the wrong ways
A family recieves cursed objects from the will of a spiteful patriarch
A pandemic puppy ruins someone's life
You don't understand, he was literally fucking orange
A werewolf is on her period
Someone who fails at failing
A neighbor who can be heard through the wall who seems to make just the right noise at the right time.

>>19145195
Thanks anon. Also adding an example of how the anthology will be formatted (same as the last one, although suggestions are always welcome).

new prompt
>you found a lost thing (that your friend accused you of stealing) in your pocket 20 years later

>>19143913
>>19144334
thanks for reading mates, and thanks for the movie recs. i know what i'm watching for halloween.

>>19143913
are you OP? if so, you're welcome to change the [lorries -> trucks/semis] and [petrol -> gas] and 27 november to some other date in late november...

>>19143897
>>19143892
>99.9 percent of them anyway
top kek. didn't expect it to take that turn. very creative.

>>19145915
>are you OP?
Not editor-anon, just pointing out something a non-Amerifag might miss.

>>19146123
well i appreciate that, and i hope OP/editor picks it up

>>19146129
Fixed

>>19146129
“Blymie” thought the London lawyer “I could be disbarred if one of my apartment neighbors catch me.” Flashlight in hand, he opened trunk of his gray car, she was dead alright…the color of her college-student skin now as yellow as a taxi cab. “Forget my law career, ill get the death penalty!”

Britfags, am i doin it right?

>>19143892
Jesus christ, anon…this thing is a fucking masterpiece. Im quite literally laughing out loud in a restaurant, reading this.

Great misdirection with the layered weddings, also love the very literal play on the prompt. Just perfect…please write 1000 more of these.

>>19144098

Please tell me this is the prequel to “A closet full of skin suits”!

P9 prompt:
>A mantra to get through a difficult time

>>19146298
*
'Shite', reckoned the Londonistani barrister, 'I could well be sacked if one of the neighbours in me flat catch me.' Torch in 'and, he opened the boot of his grey motor: she was well brown bread she was . . . the colour of her uni-candlewasting skin now as amber as a Yank cab. 'Forget my reading law, it's the Tower of London for me!'

Sorry I'm late boys, here it is:
The Stage of Evolution After Homo-Sapien
https://pastebin.com/2nCYcXcq

I'll admit it's not my best work, but I greatly appreciate the practice. I've been horrible about working on my writing since I started this new job.

>>19149497
Please post it in the thread!

>>19145999
>>19146370
Thanks anons! Really appreciate the feedback!

>>19147357
>>A mantra to get through a difficult time

“I am mother bird, and this is my egg”

When he first came across this phrase, an affirmation from one of his wife’s maternity CDs, he thought it was bullshit. A long haul trucker has to listen to something, though, and this was the only CD he could find…so deeper he went into the self-help rabbit hole.

That was two years past, and unlike most of the shit he’s listened to while hauling loads up and down the east coast, this one really stuck with him. Those words helped him put his troubles into perspective, and overcome some hard times.

This was one of those moments. He imagined himself as that mother bird, listening to nature’s call, becoming part of life’s circle. The soil grows the lettuce the chicken eats, the chicken lays the eggs men eat - come to think of it, that 5 egg omelette at Waffle House was probably not the best idea, he’s not a you g man anymore - no, focus!

“I am mother bird, and this is my egg”

An egg is a miraculous thing. All life’s ingredients poured inside…just goo, really. But give it time and the right conditions and it will break itself out. Life is powerful, unstoppable.

He was that goo once, and now he’s a grown man. 6’3”, 275lbs, and all from goo…he’s already performed miracles - hell, he was one - what’s one more?

(1/2)

>>19149756
(2/2)

“I am mother bird, and this is my egg”

His suffering may feel enormous to him, but he is just one small creature on this enormous planet. He reflected on suffering. Jesus on the cross, mariners drowned at sea, the trenches of Verdun, the racoon hit by his truck not long ago still dying on the shoulder of the interstate. In comparison, it was a small burden he carried…nothing at all. Yet the pain of it was his reality, his truth.

“I am mother bird, and this is my egg”

The pain is part of the process. It’s natural. While that does not make it less, it puts him in communion with all the mothers before him. As he controls his breathing, he imagines his mother behind him, her hands resting on his shoulders giving him strength. His mothers’ mother lays hands on her, and on and on, going back generations. A chain stretching back a million years, each woman bravely pushing through the pain, ensuring the next generation will be even stronger. And at the end of that chain, him. He will not be the weak link. The chain can not end with him. He must push!

“I AM MOTHER BIRD!” He shouted through clenched teeth “AND THIS. IS. MY. EGGGGGGGGGG!”

*plop*

He did not hear the guffaws or see the looks directed at his back as he washed his hands and splashed water on his ruddy face. He strutted from that rest stop bathroom back to his rig, he was still that mother hen, flushed with exhaustion and with pride.

“I am mother bird, and this is my egg”

The story of that mantra lived on at that rest stop, and it spread to others. A scrawl on a stall door, a story recounted at a 24 hour diner, an inside joke among the few there that day. But the words also became a solemn chant, a prayer for calm and strength, as each man took their own turn laying an egg upon the ceramic throne.

And now, anon, so will you.

>Someone discovers subliminal messaging in PAW Patrol

The sensation between my browline and eyelids is that of two repulsing magnets, my vision periodically darkening as I struggle to overcome fatigue. I blink the fluid out of my eyes.

On my lap, blonde hair splayed and feet elevated on the armrest, she finally sleeps.

Looking out into the kitchen, the oppressive green lettering of the microwave clock stares back:

1:07 AM

Pediatric parasomnia, the child psychologist tells us. Origin can be environmental or genetic. Treatment includes management of the sleeping area (I can only take so many more nights relegated to the couch), counseling (turns out it's exceedingly difficult to get a bed-wetting eight year old to play along with your psychoanalysis, takes after her mother, I suppose), and regulation of caffeine and alcohol intake (this advice was directed at her parents, for whom the psychologist had her own concerns. If anything, this situation has exacerbated the need).

At this point in my gradual descent into oblivion, the television is nothing but muted colours and the distant discordance of whatever feverish children’s programming I put on to soothe our weary soul.

My wife having long since abandoned me to return to the warm recesses of our bed, I begin to wonder if subjection to sleep deprivation is grounds for divorce.

“Don’t move her, she looks so peaceful." Was that fifteen minutes ago, or two hours?

Now more intently focused on the TV, another bouncy musical number bringing me back from the edge of a welcome enveloping nihility.

"PAW Patrol! PAW Patrol!"

Having a young child, one becomes accustomed the omnipresent shrieking of cartoon animals, but this is the first time I had ever paid any attention to the content my child constantly consumes. I have a fleeting pang of guilt. The iPad is the greatest parenting tool since the outdoors and a sturdy latch.

I think about the permanent fixtures adorning my den desk: unfinished marking and unread dissertations of neglected graduate students with more talent in their left toe than I have displayed in my thirty-five years. I pursued academia and teaching with vigour because of my "religious contravention to real work," as my parents put it. But it would seem that the obligations of the real world have finally caught up to me.

Between them and the increasing pressures of life and métier, I am more content than ever to remain hermetically sealed within the Mathematics Department.

I pay my mortgage with my ability to discern patterns. To play games, and as my department head keeps reminding me, to produce results.

I sit and watch, more intently now. The animals bounding around on the screen, I can feel the familiar triggers going off inside my head, the twitching of my upper-lip and straightening of posture.

What is it? Repeated motions, predicable signs, the formation of a pattern. Something emerging.

>>19149803
>>19149803
(1/?) It's quite late and I haven't written anything for some time, but I'll give it a shot. I'll try and continue tomorrow. Criticism more than welcome.

>>19149816
As a mathematician with a three year old, i’m VERY invested in seeing where you take this one.

Paw patrol, peppa pig, thomas the train, chico bonbon, spidey and friends, daniel tiger, miraculous and a god awful parade of low-quality youtube channels…this is the soundtrack to my life.

>>19145195
Been awhile since I've written so hopefully this doesn't suck. Prompt is
>A man is killed during his first day at work

“Es-cuse me sir, when does tha Starbucks open?” the massive black woman asked as she rifled through her overly-sized purse, completely fixated on finding what was inside.

“I think they’re closed for some sort of diversity training thing today,” Frank replied.

“Whatchu mean they closed? You open!” the woman said, raising her voice as she turned her full attention to Frank.

“Uh, well they are technically a separate store so they set their own hours and the-” Frank was interrupted mid-sentence as the woman slammed her massive fleshy club-of-a-hand down onto the counter. “I know you ain’t usin’ that tone of voice wit me! You lucky my child’ns is over in tha park or I’d whoop ya’lls skinny white ass,” the woman yelled at Frank. She continued talking out loud to herself as she walked out of the book store and Frank sighed. This is not what he had imagined middle age would be like.

Frank had recently been laid off from his job of 20 years at Globocorp. Apparently Associate Manager of Contractual Synergy was not a recession-proof position. Having always been an avid reader on the side, Frank figured that taking an assistant manager position at the local book store would be a fun and easy gig to keep him afloat while he looked for something he was more qualified for. But today was Frank’s first official day and he was already beginning to have doubts.

“Ay Freddy boy, get back here!” Frank’s manager Tony yelled from across the mostly-empty store. Frank motioned one of the other workers to take over the front register and began walking through the store to the back office.

As he made his way through the aisles he heard muted snickering coming from one of the fiction aisles. He stopped at the aisle to see a teenage boy with his arms full of Bibles giggling to himself. “Are...are you putting all of those Bibles in the fiction section?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” the boy replied as his giggling became more aggressive.

Frank threw his head back and let out a long sigh. “Can you not?”

The boy immediately dropped all of the Bibles where he was standing and darted towards the door yelling “God’s not real Christcucks!”

Frank tried to yell back “I’m Jewish!” but the boy was already out of the store.

He walked over to the pile of books the boy had dropped but just as he was picking them up Tony yelled again, “Fred where are ya?” Frank let out another loud sigh and dropped the Bibles to the floor and walked away. He’d get back to them later, he figured. It’s not like anybody even came into bookstores in person anymore. The place was almost entirely empty.

Frank rounded the corner into Tony’s backroom office to see his fat Italian manager sitting at his computer. “Hey Tony I think I told you already my name isn’t Freddy it’s Frank,” Frank said to him.

1/3

>>19149894
Tony blotted his sweating bald head with a towel and without even looking up from his computer wheezed out, “Yeah, yeah sure thing Fred. Come over here and look at this.”

Frank walked behind the desk and immediately gasped when he saw the screen, “Oh my God Tony is that porn? How young is that boy?”

“Ay you’re not some kinda prude are yah? We like to have fun around here Freddy,” Tony replied, not taking his gaze off of the screen.

“Uh...but this just looks like child porn? That’s not just gross man, that’s really illegal...”

“Yeah I don’t think so Fred it’s just an actor. You sound hysterical. Why don’t you just go back up to the register and do your job, bub. Quit sticking your nose in other people’s business if you don’t wanna lose it. I don’t wanna have to write you up,” Tony panted out, blotting his head again.

Frank sat there for a second staring a hole through Tony’s head, dumbfounded, but Tony sat there unphased watching the screen. “Uh alright...I’m going to go back to the register,” Frank said as he slinked out of the room. He made a mental note to call a tip into the police after his shift was over. Maybe he could even move up and take Tony’s job.

On his way back to the front of the store a man perusing one of the aisles stopped him and asked “Excuse me, I’m looking to buy Moby Dick, do you guys have it somewhere in here?”

Frank’s eyes lit open, finally someone who actually reads that he can talk to. “Yes we have it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s an elegant book sure, and Melville has very flowery prose with a pretty darn good adventure story. That said, my God it’s like reading an encyclopedia at some points. Just pages upon pages of nothing but whale zoology, whale biology, whale etymology, whale migrations, whale this, whale that. You get the idea. It’s like meeting a guy who talks about nothing but whales nonstop and he follows you into the bathroom when you try to get away.”

The man’s face curled in absolute disgust. “What? Who do you think you are? You have the gall to insult The Great American Novel? You imbecile! For your information I’ve already read this book, but I lost my copy and need a new one. Where’s your manager? I’d like to file a complaint.”

Frank pointed towards the back room without saying a word and the man stormed off in that direction. Frank shrugged. Whatever, he thought, some people are just assholes. By the time he got to the register he could hear indistinct yelling from the backroom. It didn’t phase him though, that guy seemed crazy anyway. And it’s not like he couldn’t find some other failing bookstore to get a job at.

2/3

>>19149903
Frank opened the register to begin counting the cash for the day when he heard two loud pops come from the back room. He immediately froze where he was and looked up. The angry man appeared in the doorway with a pistol in his hand. “You!” the man screamed across the room. “Figures a pedophile would have such shitty taste!” and the man pointed the pistol towards Frank.

“W-w-wait I’m not a-” Frank tried to yell back but he was cut short by a hail of loud pops and a force that seemed to push him off his feet and to the ground. His chest immediately felt like he’d been stung by a massive bee in several spots as a pool of blood poured through his shirt. This is not what he had imagined middle age would be like.

3/3

>Mankind's first contact with africans
Jebediah was a proud father of six. Living on a small farm in Arkansas, he enjoyed the simple things in life like barn raising and butchering chickens. It was night time in the late winter and he sat down at the dinner table facing his family. Across from him was his wife Tammy, the light of his life. By her were their oldest sons, Bobby Ray and Jimmy Dean. Bobby Ray was 19 and a drop out, looking to inherit the family farm. Jimmy Dean was 18 and about to go back to college in Kentucky after Christmas vacation; a smart young man, he wanted to be a veterinarian and already had plenty of experience.

Next was Mary Lee, their eldest daughter. 17 and a firebrand, she was the beauty queen in town but narrowly missed being Miss Arkansas. She was engaged already to Bob Dunlop, the high school quarterback and son of Sherriff Dunlop. Beside mama were the triplets, aged 13: Daisy, Tina, and Susie Q. Daisy was the spitting image of her mother and helped her out the most with husbandry and house chores. Tina was feisty and a tease to the boys in her class, being a foot taller than most, while Susie Q was shy and spoiled with a strange skin condition that ran in Tammy’s family.

Dinner began and the family chowed down. There was a honey-glazed ham, fresh from the Murphy farm a mile south, with green beans and mashed potatoes and cornbread. Jeb popped a can of Budweiser and the rest sipped on cans of Coke, except for Jimmy Dean, on account of his college education. Everyone was pretty happy, filling up on ham first before stuffin down the taters and beans. All of a sudden, frantic knocking came from the door and their dog Bernie bolted over, barking. Papa Jeb got up and carefully opened the door.

“Jeb! Help me, Jeb, I saw it, I-”

The fat old man with glasses and balding, gray hair was doubled over, his chest heaving from the exhaustion of running half a mile from his farm to the Stanley’s. Mr. Finnegan instinctively smoothed hair that wasn’t there and wiped his sweat off onto his overalls.

“I don’t know how to put this, Jeb, but I… oh hell, I’ll give it to ya straight.”

“That would be best. Come in,” said Papa Jeb, guiding the old man inside.

>>19150175
>2/3
Mr. Finnegan took a glass of water and started his story. “I was eatin’ dinner alone, y’see? Dorothy left to visit her dyin’ mammy in Bella Vista and, and I… I heard a noise.”

He looked down and the Stanley family stood up a little straighter in their seats. “So I go out to the barn where they racket’s comin’ from and I gots me a peashooter from Korea, y’see? And, and that’s when I saw somethin’ prowling. A man, but it was too dark out to see who, and so I chased him off to the woods out back. He attacked! I shot at him but missed and he ran up the road to your land, Jeb, and so I followed him to your barnyard.”

“Go on, Mr. Finnegan. Why’re you so spooked over a prowler?” asked Jeb.

“I crept along to your barnyard, y’see? And I could hear this fella playing with your chickens but he weren’t playin’ with em but biting at em like a real animal! I took out a flashlight and that’s… that’s when I saw…”

There was deafening silence at the dinner table. Even Bernie laid down nervously with his tail between his legs.

“I saw a black man! There’s a black man in the barnyard, Jeb!”

“A black… man?’ asked Papa Jeb while Mr. Finnegan nodded.

“Papa, what’s a black man?” asked Tina, fear in her wide eyes like the rest of the womenfolk.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Tammy, keep the younguns inside-”

“But pa-” interjected Jimmy Dean.

“No, boy, you ain’t handled a gun since you were a boy. We need guns. Bobby, fetch the shotguns and the buckshot, double-aught,” commanded Papa Jeb.

Everyone did as they were told. Bobby handed a shotgun to his dad and Jeb gave Tammy a peck. They stepped outside with Bernie leading the way to the barnyard, hackles raised. Into the darkness they crept along, jumping at snapping twigs. A few paces behind the well was the barnyard. A lantern was lit to keep the chickens and horses from getting spooked. From a crack of the barn door, they saw a man with skin, black as the night, naked and vigorously defiling a headless, bloody chicken.

>>19150175
>>19150182
>3/3
“Sick em, boy!” yelled Jeb and Bernie dashed off after the black man while the three men took aim and fired. All missed except Jeb Jr who hit the black man in the leg.

The black man limped faster than a hound into the corn field, leaving a trail of blood. There he was! The creature, wounded, slowed to a crawl and crouched in the grass, teeth bared and snarling. Jeb pulled the trigger and blew his chest open.

“That’s that. Junior, get in the truck and bring Sherriff Dunlop and Doc Higgins. He’ll want to examine the critter. Mr. Finnegan, you go rest up a bit and please, I implore you to eat some of our leftovers. It’s been a rough night.”

Junior ran off with Bernie at his heels and Mr. Finnegan limped away with a grimace in the dim moonlight. The smell was apparent. The black “man” held the stench of a wild animal. Jeb squatted down by the corpse, poking it with the shotgun, then took out a pocket knife and lifted up the lips, revealing dark gums and fanged teeth. Its hair was curly as a sheep and his palms and soles were light, like a normal man, even more peculiarly. With a sigh, he turned around to tell Tammy. It was going to be a long, long night to fix this ruckus.

>Next prompt: Kenny G is the hero America needs but doesn't deserve

>>19150175
I'm just saying... you REALLY don't need those first two paragraphs

>>19150175
Not a huge fan of this one. Everyone having a nice time with this project and here comes outright racism. Come on man.

>>19149894
I'll read this one today anon :)

>>19150650
For me the disappointment is that the flash doesn't show much contact or interaction, and it's not too imaginative. There isn't much to it. But maybe that's the point -- it's a short brutal interaction, entirely predictable, and the characters don't show sympathy. So it's emblematic of how animals treat outsiders. In that way I think it's far more effective than a ridiculous leftist yarn that hits you over the head with sentimental moral messaging.

>>19150650
I agree. And I’m not interested in having my stories published in the same anthology as that kind of stuff. I’d ask editor-anon to decide how he plans to handle
>>19150175
and
>>19149894

To be fair to the author, however, the prompt was bait…and he took it. It would have been interesting to see someone cleverly steer that ship back into safe waters, but he just barreled it right into the rocks. Predicable and low-effort.

>>19152029
what's wrong with the second one? It's not great but it's not some overly racist schlock either, the only somewhat sympathetic character is the Jewish guy

>>19152029
how moral of you

>>19150650
>>19152029
>this is who you'll be sharing an anthology with

>>19152178
>I know you ain’t usin’ that tone of voice wit me! You lucky my child’ns is over in tha park or I’d whoop ya’lls skinny white ass.
ಠ_ಠ

>>19152405
I’ve shared the first two volumes with friends and family, I’d like to continue to do so

Fine with the variety of perspectives and quality (lookin @ you ‘Unexpected Catch III’ from vol1), love the overall lack of editorial censorship…this is a pretty benign corner of 4ch and /ffa/ is the coziest part of /lit/. Just sayin’, if we start looking like /pol/, i bail.

>>19152513
>ಠ_ಠ
Are you implying that there isn't a type of person who speaks like that with that exact kind of attitude? How come you're not taking offense to the fat pedophile who talks like a stereotypical Italian? You say you're fine with a diversity of perspectives but if that one line of dialogue sets off your HECKIN RAYSISM alarm then it really doesn't seem like you are lmao because that's pretty damn benign.

>>19150175
Well unlike the anons saying you're story is racist I actually think you were clever with the prompt. Making it some rural farmers who have never seen a black man before, rather than what the prompt implied.

>>19152513
>>19152559
To add to this, I wrote this story based on types of people I have encountered in the short time I worked a service industry job in high school and college. 3/4 of the shitty people he encounters in the story are white. If you're saying I'm only allowed to make fun of white sleaze balls but not black sleaze balls then idk what to tell you. Go work at a Starbucks drive thru for a few months and get back to me about how it's unrealistic and racist to have one of your customer caricatures be an obese black woman who speaks in ebonics and shits all over the staff.

>>19152643
Kek I bet if you replaced the black woman with a "Karen" caricature or some rural obese white woman no one would've said a thing about your story

>>19152693
Yeah exactly, Karen's fine but Laquanda is verboten I guess. The sad thing is that I think a complaint like this would be taken seriously literally anywhere else that you can submit stories.

>>19149894
>>19149903
>>19149911
This is actually pretty funny. Is it at all inspired by the movie Clerks? The ending reminds me of it.

>>19152763
I've never seen Clerks, although funny enough I live ver close to where it was based off of in New Jersey. Mostly just exaggerations of types of people Ive met working in the area. Honestly got the idea of him just getting shot by an irate customer for a bad book review from an excerpt someone posted a couple months ago in the writing general thread on here.