Week 17 wrap-up

Oops! Very late...but hey, that seems to be becoming a habit for most of us running this Experiment thing. ;)

I'm cheating & backdating it!

So, the prompt for Week 17 was:

"This might not be the best time for getting philosophical..."

And we wrote these things:

1. Jes wrote about a wereguy whose vegan ways fly out the window as he realises how many nice meaty things there are in the world waiting to be eaten (Sunday pick)
   
2. Virginia told us all about what happens when dumb boys get mixed up with science chicks. hehe (Saturday pick)
   
3. Madeline painted a desperate future for a bunch of kids who get through life on whatever drugs they can acquire through stealing (and murdering and mayheming)
4. Michael wrote about mums with super powers whose kids are getting babysat by evil Charity. Thankfully Screaming Banshee Woman is a mum too! :D
5. Brooke wrote an adorable story about a 9-year-old's plan for getting to the stars (it reminded me of a song called "Rocket" by the Smashing Pumpkins, which I will show you in a moment)
6. Michelle's story felt like the beginning of a bank robbery story with a difference! And I really don't get where that Mavis chick's head is at :P
   
7. and I wrote about a troubled girl in an asylum who doesn't really belong there.

Now, in closing: kids and their rockets. And the version YouTube lets me embed!

Trisha's story pick, Week 17

As I told her lady herself, this week Jes had me at her story's title ;) See below. I'm seeing a lot of creepy stories from Chrysalis participants lately, but they're creepy in a fun way! :D And I guess I'm not sure we haven't had the creep factor from the very start.

Anyway, here is Jes's story!

Peach Cobbler Gone Meaty

If Credence Peaman had even the slightest bit of imagination, he would have stopped flat in his tracks, caught a taxi, and went straight to Lambert International to fly himself back home where he was safe and sound. But, as per usual in stories such as these, poor Cree had only one smidgen—a very tiny smidgen, at that—of imagination, and it was currently employed in the replay of Molina’s fine, fine hit during the game that afternoon, thus pretty much ensuring a twist of fate at which we readers can only shake our heads.

But yes, Cree’s imagination. What a beautiful hit, he thought to himself as a taxi drove past. Looking up and down the cobblestone street—you see, he rather liked that all of St. Louis’s downtown was cobblestone—he wondered which of the shmoozy looking lounges would have vegan-friendly meals. A thick dirt-colored Shetland eyed him nervously, dancing his forelegs and whinnying when Cree crossed in front of the sleek carriages in which tourists liked to take rides. But Cree paid no attention. Horse just doesn’t sound good tonight, but maybe I’m wrong, he thought to himself. Then he wondered why exactly he thought that … and warned himself that days reserved for baseball should not be used for philosophizing. Cree continued, as we say, along his merry way, whistling the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Soon, but not quite soon enough for Cree, he was seated before a nice meal of supposedly vegan-friendly rice and such, in a fairly small, hokey sort of bar with lots of garish neons and loud live music in the adjacent room. The music was loud almost to the point of being obnoxious —in fact, the late-afternoon, early-evening crowd seemed to him a great deal of loud, almost obnoxious types of people, though obviously loyal to their little local joint. This meal, however, was seriously lacking, and did not inspire any grand feelings of loyalty in Mr. Cree Peaman. He looked around for his waitress. Ahh, there she was, talking to the tiny old lady with the brown-gray hair cut in a bowl shape at the end of the booths by the doorway.

“But I swear it, I do, I tell you,” she was saying insistently, her hands laid square beside her untouched food as she spoke to the waitress, “me and my cats, you know, we’re all each other has, I tell you, and they just, well, I tell you, they just aren’t acting right. I tell you, they just aren’t acting right!” And the poor waitress nodded patiently, smacking some gum.

Jennifer's Story Pick, Week 17

Welcome back, Virginia.  I thought your story was going to turn out to be some kind of Philip Zimbardo experiment.  The first part reminded me so much of the old social psychology experiments done in the 1960's (because you didn't need informed consent back then which made the whole field sort of like the television show Punk'd) that I was sure that a man would step out of a box and debrief them at the end.  Like this:

(Picture of Dr. Zimbardo courtesy of fabbs.org)

Here's Virginia's Story:

The sun broke through the clouds, beaming directly into James’ skull. He groaned, attempting to roll over, only to find that he was buried to the waist in sand on the edge of some body of water or another. He managed to throw a hand over his face to block out the evil light, and craned his head about with the infinitesimal slowness that comes with a hangover. His efforts were rewarded with spotting his friend Tommy facedown, his normally light brown hair hanging in dark, damp hanks around his shoulders.

Squeezing his eyes shut, James braced himself against the sand and tried to kick his legs free. The sand was nearly dry on the outside, but the middle of that piled around him was an altogether different story. After what felt like hours, he managed to wiggle free.

“Do you have to be quite so loud, Jim?” Tommy whined into the sand; he had apparently burrowed in deeper as if to avoid the noise and the light.

“Sorry. Next time I get buried, I’ll make sure to muzzle myself first.” He shot a dirty look at his friend, and then winced. “Moving hurts… what happened? And where are we?” He tried to raise his head, but decided against it for the moment.

Tommy mumbled something, before laboriously levering himself out of the sand. “There was… were… um.” His brow furrowed, and he blinked, “There wasn’t a beach. Pretty sure we weren’t anywhere near a beach.” He managed to get his legs under him enough to be sitting on himself, and bracing himself against the ground, Tommy lifted his head higher. “I definitely don’t remember any smoky mountain things…” He trailed off, as if trying to process what he had said.

“Smo… what?” James flopped from back to front, and then attempted to emulate his friend’s position. His eyes followed the line of Tommy’s finger. His light brown eyes bulged slightly as they moved upward to take in the aforementioned smoke. And the sudden but slight shaking of the earth threw him back onto his face as the entire world seemed to growl quietly.

They looked at each other, faces painted with pain and concern as they scrambled to their feet. A stray ray of light seemed to obliterate everything in their view for a moment before the world resolved itself back to ‘normal’. “Science party…” Tommy muttered, rubbing his head?
“Science party?” James eyed his friend quizzically before remembrance struck, “OH… um… yes. It was that mixer with the Science department at the university. We were…”

“We were talking to those girls,” Tommy supplied.

“Yes, those pretty girls from… um… somewhere in the Science department. They kept giving us drinks and calling us their little lab rats.” James bit his lip, “I wonder what they meant by that.” He shook his head, and suddenly was thrown against his friend as the earth shook a bit harder. “Where do you think…”

He cut off as the amount of smoke coming out of the mountain suddenly increased, followed by another tremor that sent him and Tommy dancing and staggering together. A gentle breeze drifted down from the direction of the mountain, carrying a whiff of sulphur and flakes of ash. Two pairs of saucer-sized eyes turned to each other, and they clinged on tighter to each other for a second before gathering themselves. After a moment, James spoke, “I… I’m pretty sure there aren’t any volcanoes near the uni.. or the state of Arizona. Sure, there’s sand and rocks, but not…”

A sudden rustling caused the men to cling onto each other even tighter, before pretending they had been doing no such thing as the source of the rustling became apparent. A short, shapely and very naked young woman stood up, yawning widely and stretching. “Morning boys!” she said cheerfully, peering around, “Any chance you’ve seen my clothing?”

“Who… wha… where…” James started, staring and blushing.

Tommy’s response was even less fitting – he leaned over and vomited, groaning loudly.
The woman rolled her eyes, pale arms flashing into the air as they fished something out of a tree above. She tugged a pair of pants free, falling over as another rumble in the earth sent more ash into the sky, obscuring the sun. A delighted cry rose up as a shirt was located and put on, and momentarily, the woman returned clothed. “You break a girl’s heart, not remembering her.” She made a moue, raking fingers through shoulder-length chestnut hair. “I guess if you two are so rude as to forget a girl’s name, then perhaps it’s a good thing you were too drunk to put out last night.” Her expression changed to one of pure wickedness, brown eyes twinkling above a leering smile.

“We’re terribly sorry, um… ah… what’s your name, anyways?” James ventured, scratching his head through short blonde thatch.

“It’s Dawn, my boys, it’s Dawn. Now, let’s get your poor babies something for your heads.” Dawn patted them both on the bottom, nudging them inland.

“But there’s a fucking volcano over there!” Tommy cried, legs not making with the forward motion, “I don’t want to get fried alive! If anything, shouldn’t we be going into the water where we’re less likely to die?!”

Dawn rolled her eyes as a loud explosive noise issued above them. What looked like small fragments of rock were blown off the peak, appearing to drift downwards. She smiled faintly as the first fingers of red started to creep down the summit, cutting a bright path through an otherwise gray and confusing environment. “This isn’t real,” she said, fiddling with the hemline of her shirt before sticking her hands in her pockets, “None of this really exists.”

“This might not be the best time for getting philosophical,” James muttered, taking a step back, never mind the mountain… volcano… was probably a few miles off.

Dawn rolled her eyes, and pulled something out of her pocket. It looked like a mobile phone, and tuning the boys out, she started to fiddle with it.

“Yes, call for help, call 911, get us the hell out of here!” Tommy yelled, mincing back and forth, “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna… huh?” His feet slowed as he peered around what appeared to be a large metal box.

“I told you boys – it wasn’t real.” Dawn snorted, finding and opening a door in the metal frame. She held it open in a mockery of chivalry, waiting for the young men to pass through. “We camped out in the VR simulator… you two were so drunk you forgot that? Eesh, you English department folk sure are dull.” She took both of them by the arm as they sputtered and tried to speak over each other, and dragged them out into the hallway. “Come back when you can hold your liquor kids, and maybe we’ll have some real fun. Until then, stick to your side of the campus.” She rolled her eyes again, and slammed the door shut behind her.

James eyed the door before eying his friend. Tommy shrugged, trying to not look as shaken as he had been acting only a moment before. “Waffle House?” he queried, starting up the stairs to find the way out.

Tommy followed, “Sure, why not.” He shuffled along, patting himself down to see if his sunglasses had chosen to materialize on his person; they had not. “Remind me not to drink that much again, okay?”

“Sure thing, friend.”

In Which I Am Sucked Into A Vortex

Hope you like the title. Unfortunately, the story's not quite finished. I started it (gulp) tonight, yeah. BUT, I like where it's headed! It'll be finished probably in a matter of 12 hours or so, provided my alarm wakes me up on time. So I'm putting in a portion of it until I'm done with it. Heh... it's not proofread yet. Have fun with raw snippet #1...

Also, 8 million thanks to Jenn for covering my lazy butt while I'm tackling the AP monster.

Here's le preview:

(oh, yeah. language warning, a little.)

“Alex, what do you think happens after we die?”

“Yo. Not the time, Ten,” I grunted, my biceps aching as I yanked the ship to the left. “Just focus.”

“Fine.” My little brother Tennyson pouted. His dark skin was lit blue by the luminous, meteor-sized chunks of ice flying past us. They looked alive with light, beacons in the blackness of deep space, reflecting the planets and stars around us. In the ranks, we called them icerocks, but no one really knew what they were for sure. Just that they were a pain in the ass when you were trying to get from Alister Cluster to Gamma Solar. “Hard to starboard,” my brother muttered.

I gritted my teeth and threw us to the right. We flipped over a few times, our pod coming uncomfortably close to the top of one of the icerocks. “Are we almost out?” I managed, squinting ahead.

An icerock larger than the pod loomed out of the darkness. I took us into a nosedive, my palms sweating almost too bad to keep a hold on the spanner.

My fingers slipped right off the rubber grips on the right, and we spiraled, lurching. My stomach curled up, and I kicked down on the gears, grasped around for the spanner again, to stabilize us. Goddamn goddamn goddamnit

As we righted, Ten stopped hugging the radarscope and peered through it like he was supposed to. “Hey, damn,” he said. “Whatever the hell you just did, looks like it got us out of the field.”

“Thank God.” My senses finally normalizing, I kicked the gear into neutral and wiped my bald head. Its crown was slick all over with sweat.

I started to unlock myself from the apparatus. Flying a pod was a dynamic activity. Because pods were shaped like bullets, turning them required hydraulic action. And that was the pilot’s job. The faster I pulled one of these spring-loaded weights toward myself, the faster we got out the way of lethal flying shit. Thing was, the weights were damn heavy. My weedy little brother had it easy, looking through the radarscope all day while I grunted and sweated myself to pieces in this metal frame.

It would’ve been easier if they’d invented some sort of pulling apparatus to do the job for us, but the inside of the pod wasn’t nearly big enough for that not to be dangerous. The interior was twice my armspan at the most.

As Ten worked on my leg straps, I happened to glance up through the windshield, the foot-thick-glass half of the bullet.

A gleam of light heading for us. “SHIT—” I grabbed Ten’s arm on instinct.

I managed one breath before the baseball-sized icerock smashed through the glass with a noise like the whole world was splintering. Even as the world roared into a vacuum, two halves of a metal sheath snapped shut over the broken windshield.

Well, there went the Space Force’s perfect crash-free record.

The emergency oxygen light glowed red. I heard a hiss of gas and let out my breath. Safe.

Maybe not safe, per se. Without the windshield, we only had the radar to see where we were flying. Technically fine for navigation, but frustrating and scary. Increased risk factor.

“You okay, Ten?”

“Fine.”

I glanced around. The windshield had put up a nice fight. The icerock sat innocently on the floor amidst thick chunks of glass, still looking like it was reflecting the light of—

Okay, that was weird. Was it glowing?

I peered more closely at it. “Uh. Ten, am I imagining this?”

“Whoa.” Tennyson scrambled to get the icerock. As he picked it up, his eyes widened. “Holy shit, Alex!”

“Give it here.”

He tossed it to me, and I was so surprised to feel it I almost dropped it. It definitely wasn’t ice—the name ‘icerock’ was way more appropriate than I’d realized. It felt like a huge polished crystal, and buried right in the heart of it, a tiny light glowed.

PROMPT NUMBER SEVENTEEN

Wow, 17 already?! It's pretty weird to think we've been writing stories for 16 weeks now, and are into our 17th!

Anyway, this week's prompt is as follows. Write a short story of 1,000-10,000 words, based on the following:

This might not be the best time for getting philosophical

And indeed, it might not!

See you Thursday!