giraffe

And to begin with, I had to edit out who "we" were. You have to cut some things to get your point across and stay in the word limit. Now you're criticizing me for editing. Geesh. Sorry you didn't get it.

giraffe

I'm offering to lay down the gauntlet. Accept the olive branch. I'm not here to make enemies. Will you stop your incessant bullying?

Dragon

Oh my God, can we please leave the drama out of this thread. Ron we know you hate giraffe, giraffe we know you can't stand Ron. Enough said. I don't want to speak for Morshy but I'm sure he or she did not really want a flame war on their first turn as TB. Get over yourselves. Clearly giraffe is not interested in your input Ron and clearly you are not interested in giraffe's stories so is it too much to ask that you just ignore them and let us write on in peace?

Dragon

419 words not including title.

Reversal of fortune.

An unremitting sound woke me, echoing through not only the air but through the very rock I’d dug my cradle-like hollow out of and forcing me to shake off my torpor. I banished the last traces of slumber, trying to extrapolate where the noise was coming from. It wasn’t loud, it was rather surreptitious, it occurred to me that it could only be made by something trying to sneak silently through my tunnels attempting to catch me unawares. But I was never unaware.

Opening my senses the rotten stench of humanity hit me even over the vapours rising from the molton lake below me. Anger suffused me, running through me like hot blood in my veins. Another wyrm I could tolerate, but a man entering my sanctuary was unthinkable. I pushed back the red haze that had descended upon me.

Calm, I thought, calm is always the key. No simple human should be able to find his way unerringly through the warren I had dug and this one seemed he knew where he was going. I would need to find out how or face this threat again.

Calm, I thought again as I left my lair.

--

Henrick had never felt such incredible heat in his life, it only seemed to increase as he continued. Sweat rolled off him, he’d deposited everything but his breeches, tunic and sword at the entrance. In truth, the sword itself was so hot he was unsure he’d be able to use it but without the blade he’d have no way to vanquish the beast when he finally reached it. He’d stopped feeling sanguine about this enterprise quite a while ago.

Suddenly, as he rounded a jink in the tunnel, he found himself face-to-face with a bedraggled but enchanting young woman.

“Oh thank God, I thought I’d never see a human again,” she sighed, “How on earth did you find your way here?”

Not expecting a maiden in distress he puffed up his chest and in his most noble voice said, “I got a map of the tunnel system from the Gypsies, my Lady, and of course I had to slay the terrible beast that lives here,” he left out the argument he’d had with the Gypsies and the fact that he’d stolen the map, no need burden her with that.

It was then that she somehow changed, he didn’t see it fully before she tore him to pieces but he thought he heard her utter a curse against stinking Gypsies before he died.

giraffe

Dragon. I didn't totally get it, but it's a very colorful read. I'm very glad he found her though.

marius

Tee hee Dragon, guess those stinking gypsies didn't tell Henrick about the shape-shifting dragon. (Assume it was a dragon.) ; )

giraffe

PIZZA BOY (418 w/o title)

The vapor of sulphur is worse than stinky feet. It's more like rotten eggs. He remembered smelling it as a child - out of the cradle, but not yet adolescent. His parents were having an argument and it's hard for kids that age to extrapolate which side to take when Mom and Dad are at each other's throats.

The sulphur smell comes from deposits of untreated sewage. It really sucked for him to watch his dad hold a blade to threaten the woman whose breasts he had suckled for survival as an infant and also have to smell this terrible odor.

The arguments were unremitting. He wanted to be the sanguine child who pleased them both. That was also impossible. He always ended up in a state of torpor. This pattern was reflected through the rest of his life. Even after his parents died, he was always seeking an answer to their argument in others.

The sulphur vapor just made things worse. It drummed in how disgusting this whole thing was. So he begged and begged for music lessons. At least then he could spend some alone time and play loud to drown out the nonsense. He didn't realize that this would all lead him to eventually tattooing his whole face and piercing every imaginable part of his body.

'This is cool' he thought, 'This is like being the sulphur smell to everyone who sees me. I only like the smell of pot and cocaine anymore.'

His wife was even creepier than he was. She worked in the tattoo / piercing parlor where he had his work done. He was their best customer. She smelled like sulfur because there's something in the paint and he's grown to like that.

Margie was so much like his mother, he was attracted immediately. The needles, the infliction of pain. Her boobs were covered by tattoos of monkeys and elephants. It looked just like a bathing suit top his mom used to wear except for the earrings on the animals.

'Damn that smell. I think I might be getting more like my dad.' He thought. No. He decided again to not kill her.

"Honey, if you want to go to dinner, you have to put on some pants. The Levi's tattoos only work in low light."

"Then you have to put on a blouse too" he screamed. "God, I'm becoming just like my father. Let's just stay in, order a pizza and show the pizza boy a good time."

"You're right, Sugar. Will you play the piano?"

Chinky

419 exactly :] (if you wonder why I only censored the F word, it's cause that's about the only word I consider as a profanity )

"(Gasp!) Shit, oh God, not again. F***..."
It was another night. Another nightmare. I sat up on my bed, hand to my face brushing the mass deposit of sweat off my skin. Ever since That day, these unremitting dreams have been clouding my mind every night. I leaned back onto the headboard, closed my eyes and gave a deep sigh. It was always the same dream... Sitting on that rusty, contorted swing unable to move surrounded by nothing, but rotten debris of what once seemed to be a school playground. With my senses obscured I could only see through my peripherals, my hearing almost reaching a state of torpor, and my sense of touch greatly heightened. It was always That same voice too; that unbearable, screeching voice able to get a baby jumping out of his cradle despite my near deafness. I could feel him... those slow-paced steps vibrating the surface below my feet as he circled around me. I shift my eyes left and right frantically trying to extrapolate who it was before me, but it was all just a blur. All I could make out were those sanguine stains all over his body and that crooked posture of his. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster as he crept closer and closer. A sharp pain ran across my face as the vapor from his breathe lightly grazed my cheek. It felt as if a sharp blade had pierce my skin and was slowly cutting me open. I let out an agonizing scream, but I could hear nothing now. My senses completely blocked off. I could no longer see Anything, hear Anything, smell Anything, but I could still Feel Everything. The swing started shaking. What was he doing? I kept screaming, crying for help, but I knew it was pointless. No one could hear me. I couldn't hear me. Boiling water soon became molten lava. The chains got even tighter shortening my breath at every second. I tried screaming louder, hoping to wake myself from this nightmare, but it wasn't working. Wait. I'm back in my dream again? No. No. What the hell? Shit. Why is this happening again? This isn't supposed to happen! F*** f*** f*** f*** F***! Why am I having this argument?? Ahh! I can't take this pain anymore! Why aren't I waking up?? I'm supposed to wake up by now! Shit! I can't breathe! This isn't supposed to be happening! This isn't supposed to be real! Wake up! Wake up!! WAKE UH--

giraffe

Hi, Chinky. Your story moved me. I wished you had used more paragraphs, but you made your point. It's like either a death or near death experience.

As far as profanity, I think those words are only explatives. When someone says 'Shit' they aren't thinking about excrement. When they say 'Fuck you' they're not thinking about intercourse. When they call someone an asshole, they're not thinking about sphincters. Those words are explatives. For releasing frustration. I don't care that my cat has an asshole and shits. He's also got a prick that he pees out of.

All of the "obscene" words are only explatives. That's how people think. Maybe you should have said "Heavens to Betsy" or "Lordy me".

marius

Not coming up with anything to submit right now ... but was reading through my favorite quotes (collect them) and came across this one from Shakespeare's "As You Like It." In this part of the play, the Duke has been banished from court. He's lost his home, lands, (and if I recall correctly) also his title and/or rank. There are several others with him. They are living in the woods. The Duke sums up how he sees his situation so beautifully. Enjoy.

"Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it." — II, i

Dragon

My favorite Shakespeare quote is:
"First kill all the lawyers."

I'm not sure which play it was from though.

giraffe

Very entertaining, marius.

Dragon, It's Henry VI

Nylecoj

419 words, no title. A very challenging list!



Black, blacker than midnight, with a single white star upon her brow, she ran, a queen among horses, master of field and valley. She ran on, even though the sun was unremitting. Still she ran, through the wet blades of grass beneath the hills, over the dry dirt where the sun had worn all else away. Nothing could stop her, nor throw torpor over her. She ran until the world seemed to turn beneath her and still she ran on.

Many things tried to stop her, and while they may have stopped a lesser horse, to extrapolate was foolish, for she could not be stopped. Mists and vapors rose in the heat from stagnant pools where rot had begun to form in the escapeless deposits of water, but she did not pause as she leapt past them, running into the wind, tail and mane streaming behind her like banners. She ran silently over the plains, the sun sinking into the east until all that remained was a sanguine ball, cradled between two hills, that shot the sky blood-red. Then she stopped. Suddenly and without warning from a full gallop faster than a bird can fly, to dead still, not even her tail moving as she looked into the setting sun, her ears forward, head high, neck arched, like a statue upon a green hill. Then lifting her front feet, she reared, neighing to the fading light, her call filling the air, echoing off the hills, and fading even as the first star glinted in the darkening sky.

As her feet landed lightly, an answering call drifted by on the wind. She had run with the sun, now she would race the moon! She called once more, and then sprang away as the silver moon rose to bathe the grass in a pale light. Though she ran her hardest, the moon slowly caught up, and even as it passed her, she knew she could not win. For a while she still held on, forcing herself to run faster, until utterly exhausted, she slowed to a trot, then a walk, finally stopping beside a stream, a silver thread on a black sea of grass. She drank deep from the cool water, and then settled down to sleep. In the morning she would run again, but this time she would run faster than the wind, faster than the earth could turn, faster than the sun! She whickered softly as sleep stole over her, the moon smiling gently down on her black form.

Doug

Hi everybody! Second night back to work so I can steal away a little time to say hello. Still no internet at home. Didn't even have a phone till Saturday. When we bought this house I said it would be 20 years before we move again (retirement), now I am saying 30 or 40 or.... So tired and sore. Good thing I "hump" boxes once a week here. It came in handy with a tractor trailor (2 full 24ft U-haul truck) packed to the gills. Can't find a thing especially my sanity.

Morshy: Looking great so far. You've had some great submissions. Here's a little one of my own. Kind of just crept out so be kind. Didn't have a lot of time to spit shine it.

Repose

Rocket science was never my strong point. I’ve spent my life falling through the cracks of society picking up the few crumbs thrown my way. Some would say it is by choice that I live this way, but I portend that fate has turned my life from sublime to surreal and misfortune inarguably has muddled my existence. I sit in a small square tomb deposited there by life’s precious rotten angels who appear in a vapor mixed with the most cursed rainbow of darkness imaginable. My brain stem was severed by the blade of a machete in the jungles of Borneo, my heart fed to the oxen and my limbs turned into cow fodder after rotting for six days. What scraps that were left were picked up by the indigenous Hopi’s and used in a mystical ceremony and the ashes were interred here to be revered and reviled. But they did not destroy my thoughts. So far I have extrapolated the existence of a multitude of functions that can be brought about by the use of my mind. I see without eyes, I hear without having ears, and I feel…I feel…pain, sorrow and sometimes happiness. Clear, as crystal washed by the caresses of a thousand sea waves my mind is sharper than it was when I had use of my body. Maybe I just float here watching my rotting flesh, what’s left of it, as my mind swirls around a million thoughts trapped in a dank cradle this tomb has become. Without argument, rancor or interference from the outside my mind is free to wander…unhindered, unchaste and perhaps unhinged. If it were not for the torpor of torture my twisted frame had endured I would possess power more potent and forceful than God himself. But no, I am sanguine…lost…. constantly reposed to reposition myself…. change my circumstances that can’t be changed. In an unremitting guttural scream I lash out at my captors unheard, unable to change my lot in life…. or death…or in between. I am unknown, unwanted and alone.

giraffe

Nyle, I saw a couple of wild mustangs once in New Mexico. They are stunning.

Doug, At first I thought there are no Hopis in Borneo, but goggled it and found out there are numerous similarities in their ancient traditions and beliefs. Cool. Adds another twist to your story.

Qsilv

“It was a dark and stormy night…” He held his composition out to read it, like a pompous Victorian with a pince-nez, but broke the spell by looking up at her through shaggy golden hair – his mother really needed to get that cut a bit -- and grinning. His front teeth were almost all the way down now, just shy enough that his eyeteeth still had that fang-like effect, so appropriate to an 8 year old.

“Wicked child”, she said.

“But there COULD be one. Why NOT start a story that way?”
“Because it’s redundant and cliché.”
“What’s…”
“Redundant means it’s been done before and now you’re re-doing it …for the way-too-many-ith time. In this case, if it’s night, it’s already understood it’d be dark.”
“Oookaaay… what’s cli…”
“—shay. That one means it’s been done by so many people over the years that there’s nothing new about it. Boring.”
“But if it WAS stormy?”
“Then you’d take a quick moment to say something about the light or thunder or the feel of the air… not just sum it up in one label, ‘stormy’.”
“But what if I WANTED it to feel boring?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Wicked and way too clever. I thought little kids got past the incessant ‘why’ and the endless ‘what if’ when they passed 3 or so. You really are a throwback to my side of the family. I suppose I shouldn’t accuse your mother of… anything...”. She trailed off, and handed him another box of domed and dimpled brass upholstery tacks. .

“Mom says you can buy a little strip of those with no nails to hit in the middle, just a real tack at each end.”
“Can you see the difference?”
“Um… well… not very much, not easy.”
“Easily.”
There was a palpable silence while they each digested the probability that “easily” was both a grammatical correction and a casting of aspersion on his mother’s taste.

His little hands weren’t strong enough yet to help pull heavy damask, but he could lay braid and position each tack, holding it steady, trusting her absolutely as she struck it deep with the little tack hammer. She didn’t mind hitting every head a couple of perfect blows. It was real. It was craftsmanship. Nothing shoddy, nothing flimsy. Not a one was redundant.

As a process, it was still faster by herself but that would change. Everything changed, yet, like the chair, its core structure was set, no matter new fabric, new stuffing, even new webbing.

His mother came an hour early, yanking them both out of the pleasant torpor of hypnotically thudding hammer and sliding satin, yanking him toward the car by one fragile arm, creating an argument out of thin air.

Hair flying, dark glasses pushed defiantly up into the tangle, she was cursing an unremitting blue stream at him, at her, at the car itself, spitting words that strung together like the fake tack strips with only the thinnest metal connections, slicing deep as any long blades of upholsters’ shears, something about “cutting loose from the cradle” and “like a serpent’s fangs” and “diabolical deposits in faith” from which one could extrapolate… anything. Well, almost.

A century earlier people would have termed it, rather sanguinely, ‘an attack of the vapours’. Now it was just called bloody rotten attitude. Or drunk. Hard to say which made the better excuse. As if excuses would do anything useful.

“Shall I build a fire for you this evening, Madam?”
“No… well, just a small one… not to compete with the lightning show outside. And William, open the draperies wide for me, please? Thank you.”
No soft silver moon tonight, just blackness with bright flashes of brass tearing it all apart at odd, unpredictable moments. It really was a dark night… and a stormy one.

five

Title: Rain

The morning was bright and calm, vapor rose from the kettle and the cradle was in pieces under the table.

Marcus sliced an apple with a sharp blade while his wife read aloud. “Light rain, it says, and storms tonight.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m telling you what it says.” She sighed. “Why start an argument?”

“Who’s arguing?”

“Jerk,” she muttered.

“Look,” he said. He walked to the table with the apple slices in one hand and a jar of peanut butter in the other. “If you want to start the day expecting rotten --”

“I’m not expecting anything,” she said. “I’m reading the forecast.”

“You want it to rain.” He sat, knocking the cradle.

“Watch where you step!” She knocked his hand. The apple slices flew and landed on the table and floor.

“Here we go.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re unremitting,” he said. She glared. He twisted the lid of the jar. It would not budge. He twisted. Huffed. She glared. He smashed the jar against the table. Glass pieces flew up.

She leapt up, sending her chair backward against the hard tile. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m trying to have breakfast.” Peanut butter seeped into newsprint, blocking out the weather.

“You’ve made another mess.” She stared at the table. “Are you going to clean this one up?”

The newsprint was turning red. “You’re bleeding,” she said. He turned his palm up. A small glass shard, no bigger than a fingernail, stuck out of his flesh. He shrugged, then laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Me, you, the lovely sanguine tempers we fell in love with.”

The kettle on the stove whistled.

“Are you going to get that?” she asked.

He sighed, stood, plucked the glass from his palm and wiped his hand across his shirt. “Why I bother,” he said, “we’ll never know.” He walked to the stove and turned off the burner while she sat and sagged in his chair, drained.

“Remember when he cried so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And laughed so loud you didn’t want to think?”

“Yes.”

“I hate the rain,” she said.

“It was an accident.”

“You shouldn’t have fought with me,” she said. “If we hadn’t been fighting, I wouldn’t have left in the car with him when the weather was like that. If I hadn’t been driving .. ”

As she started to extrapolate, he sagged. “Passion one minute, torpor the next,” he whispered, pouring boiling water into two cups and deposited a tea bag in each.

giraffe

(419 w/o title)

MR. TRIMBULL'S CHOICE

Josh Trimbull knew he was dying. At 84, he could barely remember his sanguine youth. He even had that rotten smell of a decaying old man. The vapor permeated his small studio appartment.

He had his choice. Should he lather his beloved children with love and affection? Or should he become crochety and argumentative in his final months? He chose the latter. He felt an obligation to do that.

How does one extrapolate that as a final life decision? Well Melissa was the gem of his existence. He'd rocked her cradle, wiped her tears and her ass. Josh couldn't stand the thought of her grieving over his death. The two sons would probably just say in torpor "Oh well, Pop died." but Melissa would go to pieces. He had to do something to prevent that for her sake.

"Daddy, I brought you some soup and some vitamins."

"Stick 'em in the fridge and get out a here."

"Don't you want me to stick around and clean your place up for you?"

"No. I like it this way. Now go."

Josh cried when she left, but decided to go outside and yell at the neighbor kids. He had to stay in character. And hopefully Melissa would see him doing that as she drove off.

'Geesh', she thought looking there. 'Daddy's a nut case. I don't even like him anymore.'

Mission accomplished. There will be very few tears at his funeral. He would just have to be unremitting in his attitude. He'd been under the doctor's blade too many times and his time was running out.

At the funeral, he hovered over the small group and saw that Melissa was feigning a few tears as they deposited him in his grave, He tried to tell her telepathically "That's good. Don't mourn. I'm gonna be your next granddaughter. You can't believe how much fun we'll have. You'll teach me how to live and enjoy.'

giraffe

Qsilv, What a schizoid sory about a schizo woman. Well done.

And 5, I liked it very much. Sick indiduals having tea. The cradle and what happened.

morshy

Well, it's Friday, and time to announce the winner of TW XLV.

I was perhaps a little disappointed by the number of submissions, but only allowing a week for responses might have been the reason for that.

I also think Anotherronism's verbal jousting might have put people off. I just wanted to mention something about one of his comments. "What would be the effect of consuming one tenth of his blood? You don't know, so the reader doesn't know." Actually, this reader does know. The average human body has AROUND 8 pints of blood. One pint = 568 mls. 8 pints = 4,544 mls. One tenth of this total is 454.4ml. Which is less han one pint. If you are a blood donor, every time you donate blood, the blood transfusion service extracts one pint of blood. So, if a vampire were to suck "about one tenth" of your blood, the impact would be minimal. You may feel a little light-headed or run-down, but other than that, you'd be fine.

Anyway, onto the stories themselves. A mixed bag, some good, some not so good, some thought-provoking. I like to see little snippets from each story considered by the TB for the passing on of the flame, but as there were so few to choose from, I'm not going to do that.

What I will say is that I enjoyed reading the stories, if not all the posts. Thank you for taking the time to submit. Your new Torchbearer is...<drum-roll please>

Marius.

Congratulations. Loved the imagery from "More than a Rock Garden"

As a post script, I'd just like to say that since Anotherronism has come back, the submissions in general have been reducing. Not the quality, but the actual number. I'm not sure if it was his(?) intention to try and kill off TW, but if it was, he seems to be going the right way about doing it. I don't want to see a post that goes on about how stupid someone is, or how lame their submissions are. Especially when that individual uniformly refuses to post a story of their own for others to critique.

That being said, I think it unlikely that I will be posting anything on this site for a while now. What started out as a bit of fun has denegrated into childing slanging matches which do nothing to encourage writers or foster new ideas. I know this is a drawing forum, first and foremost, and that someone stuck their neck out to have writing included on it deserves much kudos. But to then try and close it, using the attitude "It's my ball and I'm keeping it" is lamentable.

Thanks for what was, for a brief time, fun. Take care all, and Marius, good luck with the torch.

síochána