/lit/ - Literature

>>5923015
What the fuck that is the worst shit I have ever read

>>5923015
Damn, that story really makes you think

200 dollars per word. Nice.

2profound4u

>>5923015
It's an interesting scene, but is totally ruined by the moralizing. Am I the only one who rolls their eyes when a story is directly trying to teach you a lesson?

>>5923015

Is this supposed to be a commentary on Trayvon Martin? If so, it's lame.

If it's just a dark comedy, then it's already I guess.

If it had ended when the kid fell over it would be decent but that muh profundity at the end is just cringeworthy

a triumph

>>5923093
A tour de force

>>5923064
>lesson
Do tell, what do you think the lesson is?

>>5923093
>>5923102
New Yorker pls

>>5923117
Probably some sort of anti-gun jab at the US

>>5923152
writer is from argentina. Nigger.

>>5923015

Then I said "neither was I you little shit"

What a dumb story.

This is way better than that other story called The Sniper.

> and pulled the trigger as a rite his imaginary gun
Am I the only one who finds that incomprehensible?

The Sniper

It was the fifth day waiting for my prey.
He was a high-ranking member of the Vietkong Army.
My task was his murder.
The wait was growing long.
I ran out of water two days ago.
I could hear the trickling of a stream nearby.
As my thirst grew, it started to torment me.
But not nearly as much as it might've.
On my first day, a mantis landed on my scope.
He stayed with me for six hours.
He, too, was waiting for his prey, probably.
However, he had a reason to kill.
Survival.
But I had no such reason.
The politicians said that we killed to stop the Communist threat.
It seemed odd to me, but I knew little of politics.
They also said we fought for our loved ones back at home.
I thought back to Sarah.
I doubted my prey's death would affect her at all.
In fact, I was certain she would've been happier had I stayed home.
No, I do not kill for her.
In fact, I have trouble now remembering the features of her face.
No problem though, I had a picture of her back at camp.
My prey's face, however, I knew perfectly.
Many Vietkong walked beneath the gaze of my lens.
None important enough to die today, though.
But my prey would die soon, though I had no reason to kill him.
Kant said the motive of an action determines its morality more than its effect.
What would he say about a man with no motive whatsoever?
Last night, two scouts came within ten feet of me.
My heart rate didn't even rise.
Nor did it rise the last time I sent a bullet through a man's chest.
Can a man's morality be measured by his heart rate?
The only thing I can think of that resembles myself is a machine.
Machines perform actions with no moral value.
Morality is the plague of mankind alone.
A machine is not good or evil, only effective or ineffective.
I was very effective.
Of course, in some sense I was a machine:
My choices were nothing more than the result of mechanical processes in my brain.
My free and unfettered will was an illusion.
Like a magician's trick which gives the appearance of something wonderful.
But only as long as we're too blind to see how the trick works.
Maybe life itself was such an illusion.
My being was just a series of unrelated events, only seemingly tied together by my memory of the past.
And like a magician's trick, it only works from one point of view.
It is like a railroad track, viewed from the train.
It is clearly a single unified entity, with our view of it growing as the train progresses.
The nearest tracks are clearly seen, the furthest dims into the horizon.
We know the track had a definite beginning, and would indeed have an end.
Each part of the track is unique, but also part of the whole.
And yet if we step outside the track and view it for what it is, it would be nothing but wood and steel.
Only in our minds are there such things as “tracks”.

>>5923015
I feel like there is suppose to be a message to this, but I have no idea what the hell that's supposed to be. Guns are bad? Violence is bad? It doesn't make any fucking sense.

>>5923220
cont.
If a creature from the wild came upon it with no concept of tracks, it would think of each part as isolated, no more connected to the other planks as the rocks beside it or the dust beneath.
If there were a creature that knew nothing of memory and lives, would it not see each moment as a thing by itself?
Our past and future moments as wholly unrelated to each other or the present?
That any connection we see is only due to convention, not actuality?
Would it not laugh at us for thinking they were anything more than adjacent, no more inherently connected than a railway track?
Would it not mock our belief in an unbroken stream of consciousness?
What would death mean to such a creature?
Would it even think of death as such?
“I think, therefore I am,” as Descartes said, but what “I” does he possibl-

BANG
BANG

I fire two shots.
First one kills him.
Second one makes sure.
And I leave.

OP here, you guys are being really gay and ignorant.

You're not even trying to project meaning on to the story (cus you're all likely cunts).

Lemme give it a try.

I think the whole point of the story is to bring to light the fact that kids these days are way more intelligent and know way more than ever.

Back in simpler times, shooting a kid with your finger would illicit a simple reaction. The fact that a child knows what "shooting to kill" means at his age, means that children lose their innocence earlier than ever before.

See, that's how you pontificate you dumb faggots.

>>5923216

It is incomprehensible. It seems to be missing a word but no matter what word I inject I can't make it work.

The whole thing reeks of ESL.

>>5923230
The poem is translated from spanish nigbutt.

>>5923231
So it's translated by someone incompetent?

>>5923227

>I think the whole point of the story is to bring to light the fact that kids these days are way more intelligent and know way more than ever.

Actually it's just the author speaking through a child to make his message more poignant.

Total women's magazine move.

>>5923236
Precisely.

>>5923239
Hmmmmm

What is the child's message?

>>5923231
>>5923236
So it's more like SSL amiright

>>5923249

The child's message is "why didnt the cops just fire a warning shot or aim for the legs they didnt need to kill that black kid he didnt do nothing"

>>5923257
The story comes from argentina.

Try again nigger lips.

>>5923264
>The story comes from argentina.

That explains why it's so shite

>>5923264
Well that explains it.

>>5923269
or that you're a fucken moron--maybe both?

>>5923264

>argentina
>white

it's basically a green text directed at your mom

>>5923276

Why are you so upset? The story is fucking pathetic. I can't imagine how low the standard must be to be awarded such a large sum for so little.

so, what makes the kid think HE was shooting to kill?

Read the runner-ups, they all suck. No discernible talent.

>>5923264
>argentina

>>5923293

Note the conspicuous Hebrew category. I guess we know who's behind the generic anti-violence message of the winner. #handsupdontshoot

>>5923293

>I had searched the world asking a question: what is freedom, I asked, yet I received no answer.
I left my home and went for a sail. I asked the fishes of the sea what is freedom, but mere silence was heard.
I crossed continents and waded through thick forests, trying to find intelligent creatures, but the dwellers of the forests to this task were unequal.
I wandered inside caves in the desert. I asked mammals, fowls and insects, I questioned large reptiles and lizards. They claimed it was too difficult question to answer.
I turned to magnificent and desolate kingdoms. I asked kings and commoners; wealthy and indigent; plunderers and restorers – no one gave me an answer.
Only when I went back home then I realized: freedom lies in the quest for it, and ends where people have stopped asking about it.

being made2think so hard right now

>>5923306

Paulo Coelho would shed a tear.

Oh boy, another day of cultural capitalist e/pol/a infected /lit/, and I was afraid there might be one day when they wouldn't be here.

>>5923319

You aren't really above anyone by cryposting.

Every day in winter, while waiting for the bus, a child collected snow from a balcony with his hands and formed a snowball, then throwing it at me, nearly missing. One day, just to keep the routine play, I also formed a snowball with my hands yelling "get shit on” while throwing it at him. The child fell to the street as the half frozen snowball hit him square in the face. I ran to him, and saw that he half opened his eyes and looked at me stunned. I said "thats how you throw a fucking snowball, kid". He responded then sorrowful: "Yes Sir, but I was not trying to hit you". "Yes you were, you lying little shit" I calmly reply, using my foot to shove some more snow in his face as he is tearing up.

Did you know that it's not racism when minorities do it? It's only racism if it comes from a position of power.

>>5923328

top fucking kek

>>5923015
>Every day, while waiting for the bus, a child pointed at me from a balcony with his finger, and pulled the trigger as a rite his imaginary gun, screaming at me “bang, bang!” One day, just to keep the routine play, I also pointed at him with my finger, yelling "bang, bang!” The child fell to the street like struck down. I ran to him, and saw that he half opened his eyes and looked at me stunned. Desperate I said "No scope"

>>5923092
>at the end is just cringeworthy
it is what sells, and as far as I know, people enter in a contest to win it

>>5923337
>>5923328
Kek'd hard

>>5923328
i would like to pay you $20,000, how do we make this happen

>>5923220
>>5923225
edgy

>Every day, while waiting for the bus, a child pointed at me from a balcony with his finger, and pulled the trigger as a rite his imaginary gun, screaming at me “bang, bang!” Wondering why he was waiting for the bus on a balcony, and if buses were ever capable of vertical movement, or what kind of church used rites involving imaginary guns, I felt I had lost track of where the world was headed.

Please tell me this competition was for school children or something.

>>5923015
I actually kinda like it even if its a bit banal

The Sniper

Every day, while waiting for the bus, a child pointed at me from a balcony with his finger, and pulled the trigger as a rite his imaginary gun, screaming at me “bang, bang!” One day, just to keep the routine play, I also pointed at him with my .38, yelling "bang, bang!” The child fell to the street like one struck down. I ran to him, and saw that he half opened his eyes and looked at me stunned. Calmly I finished him off with a double-tap, saying, "Don't bring a finger to a gun fight, punk."

>>5923015
Shits on the level of something like Phonebooth..

>>5923015

Annie was walkin 2 skewl wit her bf Amumu
n they were crossin da rode
she sed “bbz will u luv me 4evr?”
he sed “NO”
da gurl cryed n ran across da rode
b4 green man came on the sine
boy was cryin and went to pic up her body
she was ded
he whispered to her corpse
“i ment 2 sey i will luv u…”
“…FIVE-ever”
(dat mean he luv her moar den 4evr)
like dis if u cry evry time

>>5923227
I think that it's absolutely not about child's innocence.

It could be interpreted as a defense of black thugs(niggers), or the opposite, satire on how absurd of an excuse blacks can contrive. You can almost sense the confusion of the next day's responder, desperately and inquiringly exclaiming and justifying his actions, logically, and then we sense the real desperation, the following silence of this absurd response "I was not shooting to kill", when we have a prior knowledge that he pointed directly at him the day before.

Yes, that's not a defense of blacks, that's a satire of their attitude. Indeed, we read that the little niglet was stunned when responded to, he couldn't believe that actions have consequences.

>>5923221
I think... it's trying to say something about intent, like the kid doing it out of his imagination is somehow "purer" than doing it as a direct "I'm gonna do it too!" unimaginative response. Probably not but I'm just trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt. those bogus descriptions make me doubt that though

i don't get it.
>tfw 2deep4me

Hardly "Baby shoes, for sale, never worn" innit?

I entered that competition this year. Can't wait to see you all roll your eyes at my winning entry.

>>5925353
Where do you learn about these? Is there a newsletter or something?

is this the birth of an epic new meme

>>5923092
Agreed. I think it has a very interesting premise but it's too explicit.

One day, while I was grazing my cattle out on the open plain, a red indian in the distance raised his arms at me, pretending to shoot me with a colt rifle, his high "WOOP WOOPs" echoing off the plains as he retreated out of sight. One day, as he raised his sights, I mimed stringing my bow and firing an arrow at him. A strangled scream escaped his mouth as he fell to the ground. I rode my horse up beside him- the Indian was lying there dead. I knelt beside him and felt his hand...it was cold. At that moment a cruel breeze whipped across the prairie, and I felt an odd biting chill over my forehead, I reached up, and touched bone where my scalp should have been. My horse, with his hair on end, shied from my touch.

>>5923015
Every day, at bus stop, child pointed at me. "Bang bang." Pointed at him. "Bang bang." Plop. Safety's off.

>>5923117
>Do tell,

10/10

i cry everytime

no more ded cawps

>>5923293
Gotta agree with this guy. I mean they aren't horrible but they're not nearly as good. The winning story is snappy and has a great punchline whereas the others are trying way too hard and too obvious with the "muh depth" messages.

>>5923482
Murakami/10

>>5925270
>the story isn't about a child's innocence it's about NIGGERS NIGGERS NIGGERS

Moot pls fix /pol/ so they'll stop shitting up the rest of our boards, these retards will turn anything into a racial debate.

>>5926759
What the hell do the English and Arab runner-ups even mean? At least the Arab one can be put down to bad translation; the English one makes absolutely no goddamn sense at all.

>>5923015
You're only ever supposed to shoot to kill...

Isn't that one of the main rules about owning and operating a firearm?

>>5926779
>What the hell do the English and Arab runner-ups even mean?

"Runner up Prize with $2,000, in English language category, granted to Mr. Daniel Moreau, from Chicago, United States, for the story "The Old Patient"."

"Runner up Prize with $2,000, in Arabic language, granted to Mr. Tarek Emam, from Cairo, Egypt, for the story "One eye"."

>the English one makes absolutely no goddamn sense at all.

What about it doesn't make sense? I mean the story's not great but it works.

>>5926790
No, american soldiers in the middle east aim for the shoulder.

>>5923269
I hope you're just being sarcastic. You could not say anything like this being familiar with all the writers, that found asylum in Argentina in the sixties.

>>5926800
So there's this nurse. And he takes care of this old patient. The old patient tells him not to open the closet because there's a tiger in there. The nurse obliges. The patient dies and the nurse still doesn't open the closet.

Is that it? What was that all about? Is the closet supposed to represent homosexuality? Was the old man actually the nurse? Did the nurse murder the old man and throw him into the closet where he hungered for revenge? What?

>>5923292

He was black.

>>5926810
The nurse doesn't open the closet because he buys into the patient's delusion and/or because he's trying to honor the patient's memory. What about this is hard to understand?

>>5926818
So there is no point to this story?

Imagine, if you will, being an astronaut on the moon. You land successfully, and carry out your experiments, but as you get ready to leave--something is wrong. Some unforseen problem, some error in mathematics. A series of tiny cracks in a perfect plan all leading to this one point in time: you, alone, stranded on the moon. The radio still works. You explain your situation to ground control, and the Earthmen scurry for a solution. Hours pass. The response comes plainly: there is nothing that can be done.
You spend most of your time by the radio. With careful rationing of oxygen, you have a couple days. Enough time for the government to fly your family down to the base in a private jet. To reminisce and say your goodbyes. To have a chat with a head of state--or two. They say you're gonna get a medal for this. Funny. A reporter wants to get a live interview for the 5 o'clock news, but you think that's a little tasteless. After some last few hours of chatting with your family and friends down at the base, you check your oxygen supply, and tell them that you're going out for a walk.
It's funny--you think under the glow of Earthlight--the way you move in this suit, it's a little like skipping. A little like dancing.

>>5926810
>So there's this nurse
>And he takes care of this old patient.
>nurse
>he
lmao what a faggot

>>5926824
Idk man, it's flash fiction. If you can't interpret a point to a 100 word story then trying reading Hemmingway or something.

>>5923015
I can't stand the moralizing, like someone else said. Also, just the bit you posted has comma overload. Get rid of them, and its mediocre. Get rid of the moralizing, its above average. My face is that of Harold Bloom taking a massive shit.

Guys, this whole story is an allegory to the Falkland Wars.

Your mind=blown.

>>5926442
Google... And I got the link because a friend posted it on my facebook wall

Anyway, google, browser bookmarks, and a year calendar are your friends. Get organised. Might have just missed on a comp this year, but that means 12 months to get ready for next year. I have already written about 4 stories for this 100 word comp for next year.

>>5926442
If I told you I'd have to kill you.

>>5923015

This is so reddit it literally hurts

>>5923206
Is that the one where it was his brother all along?

The sniper:

It's a grey morning; that orange emerging through heavy mist, and a breeze, I felt before even thinking.
Before even thinking I felt a breeze, and the warm blowing away the ghosts of a cold night that stood lingering.
Soon the sun will come through those ghostly banks; I felt this, so human, the bad must leave with the lights coming. I wish to be in the warm sun.
And I turned to the light and stood out of the cold just to see t. . .

>written on DA spot on mobile 3 min

>>5923015

Everyday I rang the phone.
One day the phone rang me.
"What is not?"
"Yes"
I still cry sometimes

>>5926891
Where do you see moralizing? Explain to me what is the story, in your opinion, trying to teach us. Everyone behaves like we had some stupid lesson of "be a good man" sort here, but where exactly do you see it? Maybe you were just excepting something like this so hard, that you blindly believed it's there, without even trying to do a simple interpretation?

>>5927039
uh

>>5927039
lmao this is trash
ur trash

>>5927078
I don't get it? who was phone

>>5927078
>>5927353

>>5927039
Pretentious garbage, you're a cunt.

>>5927039
Blake BUTLERcore (kill yourself)

>>5926769
I am not making it to be a racial debate. My turn on the story is far more valid than believing it having something to do with child's innocence, especially in the light of past events.

>>5927446
>.gif

Nice try.

>>5927508
I can acknowledge I am at fault stating that it might have been nignogs that done it, because like said, I am still angered about their behavior in the past few months or so. It can be about any thug culture or about any group of violent people, irrelevant of their ethnicity, that have a skewed view on laws and what to do with having the power to hold guns.

>>5927078
>>5927353

Soviet Russia was phone, clearly.

>>5926810
are you serious?

>>5927554
Yes, I don't understand the message the author is trying to bring across at all.

>>5927521
>Being this afraid of screamers

Waldo got you good huh?

I don't get it.

>>5927554
>>5927563
Guy's I think it harkens back to the Ancient Greek notion of never vilifying the dead. The closet has not a skeleton in it, but a TIGER--which means the sins of his life were really bad.

I suspect the old man that dead is an old nazi war criminal, and he drove a tiger tank in WW2. His closet likely contains old memorabilia from WW2 of his nazi days. I'm completely projecting now, but still, the whole point is to leave the "skeletons" or "tigers" in the closet, even after death.

The problem with these stories is that they rely heavily on their reader to project meaning, meaning that is likely not intended to be there.

Very gross and post-modern.

>>5927600
Interesting interpretation, although probably not what the author was going for.

Someone please explain

>>5927610
This is 2014, there are no wrong literary interpretations.

This wasn't originally in English right? Maybe there's some idiom we aren't understanding.

Every day, while waiting for the bus, a child gave me the finger, so one day I tool my colt .45 and shot him as a rite.

>>5927623
*tips Derridora*

>>5927638
The winner is from Argentina, this is a terrible translation from Spanish.

The beginning of the Spanish text can be seen here: http://www.museodelapalabra.com/en/short-tales-contest/3-edition/item/610-iii-edition-of-the-flash-fiction-competition-museum-of-words-finalists
It's entry 13906, El Francotirador. Can't find the full thing in Spanish.

>be me
>waiting for bus
>everyday
>child pointing his finger at me
>pull trigger as if shooting an imaginary gun
>"bang, bang!" he says
>he did it again another day
>pointed my finger at him returned fire
>he fell
>ran to him, looked at me stunned
>told him I just repeated what you did
>he says he wasn't shooting to kill
>huh okay
>that gave me an idea for a story
>go home
>wrote it
>submit it for competition
>mfw I just won $20,000

>>5927725

pretty... pretty good, anon.

>>5926766
Advanced. Capitalist. Society.

How did the kid know that he was shooting to kill?

>>5927808
He hadn't shot all the other times, you see, so when he finally did shoot, what reason could he have but wanting the kid to stop shooting?

>>5923015
*$20,000
Fuck you.

>>5927673
Kek

>>5927812
That's pretty retarded logic

>>5927808
I mulled this over in my mind, and I came to a conclusion.

A lot of the games we play on kids is to project an incorrect assumption on them.

For example, taking their nose or pulling a quarter from their ear.

The child is doing it in reverse, except in a way well beyond his years.

The child is able to project the intents and motives of the man in their imaginary scenarios, despite his true or actual intent.

We do this to children all the time, it's only fair that children get to do it to us.

And it amuses the child to play in the this highly cognizant way.

My main problem with this story is that I'm a little baffled by the point. Why are there so many layers of complication? A misunderstanding in a game? Is the child saying something about bravado and false machoism?

What are the child's intents and motives to concern the adult in the way he did it?

For amusement? I mean, that is why we pull coins out of kids ears, to simply amuse them. Is adult amusement complex? Is that why the child devised this little amusing game for adults? Is this a meta commentary on the amusement adults get from complex little puzzles such as literary criticism?

Once again, this shit story reeks of postmodern wankery.

>>5923015
It's like Alanis' Ironic. No actual examples of irony make it ironic that she fucked up a whole generation's understanding of irony with one song.

>write didactic, shitty prose/poem.

>get paid a fuckton "ironically"

>epic based troll

>>5927725
This should have been the story submitted.

SHOES NEVER: SALE BABY WORN FOR

>>5923328
Better than OP's story.
10/10

>>5926769
> stop trying to make valid interpretations of poems if it hurts my feelings

>>5927834
Must be pretty patrician in that case >>5927849
We don't do that shit for 'amusement', there are actually complex psychological processes behind it

>>5923328
I'M A BIG FAN OF YOU RIGHT NOW

>>5923328

Look, it's Bret the faggot!

>>5923015
Every day, while waiting for the bus, a child would point at me from a balcony with his finger, pulling the trigger of his imaginary gun, ritually screaming at me “bang, bang!” One day, just to keep the routine play, I also pointed at him with my finger, yelling "bang, bang!” The child fell to the street as if struck down. I ran to him, and saw him half-opening his eyes and looking at me, stunned. Desperate, I said "but I just repeated the same as you did to me". He responded, sorrowful: "No, you imbecile, I was merely firing my imaginary rifle, whereas you randomly decided to psychically rape me out of the blue." Horrified, I put my finger to my head. Bang, bang. I felt my virgin anus stretch. Bang. Bang. Tighter, now. I said the words with confidence and grace: "Bang, bang!" Immediately my posterior was rammed with such force I fell on top of the child. In ecstasy, I cried out: "Bang! Bang!" even as the child tried to push me off him. "BANG. BANG." The flesh on my buttocks quivered as I was penetrated deeper. "BANG! BANG!" Feeling like my rectum was going to burst, I decided it was finally time to go out with a "BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG". Stretched to breaking point, my anus erupted in immaterial man-seed. Bits and pieces of my ruptured body were blasted into the air, and passerbys looked up with wonder as scraps of my skin drifted away with the wind.

"Jesus fucking Christ," said the child.