Doug

Thanks again midnight for passing the torch on to the “monster man”. But am I really? Marius would say so and is “scared” of what I’ve come up with for a word list. I have written quite a variety of stories, poems and other mediums. I do love “scary”, but I also enjoy many different moods.

The word list is as follows:

Balance
Phobia (any variety or as is)
Collusion
Fibrous
Serious
Candle
Jink
Obtuse
Easy
Words

The word count is 368, as I would like a little more development in this edition.
The next torchbearer will be chosen on February 22.

Please keep the discussion up that we have elevated to a new level I believe. I’ll be chiming in and writing myself of course. Good Luck!

You may use any form of the above word list.

marius

Gee willikers, Doug!

What on earth is a jink? (smiling with a playfully evil glint at Doug.)

Read the list and had no fear
until the fatal word appeared.
Then got a kink
when reading jink
and mind went out of gear.

marius

Here's some examples of using jink in a sentence. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jink

marius has a full week, but will get a story mulling sometime I'm sure. congrats again Doug and off we go ......

Qsilv

...musing on the fact that each word starts with a capital letter
..and yeah that singular jink

giraffe

Doug, allow me to be your first. I obviously have too much free time these days. I think this is 368 w/o title

WHOSE FEARS ?

When Ross lit the candle, I turned off the flashlight. No need to waste batteries. We may have ourselves in too deep this time. Here we are in this cave waiting for Paul so as to scare the life out of him. This is our game of 'high jinks'. Our goal was to choose one person and pull a prank on them. This was always more serious than a practical joke.

In collusion, we would each get to know this guy without him knowing we had a plot or even knew each other. Ross would find out about their daily routine and I would find out their biggest phobia. We worked in perfect balance. Our target never suspected anything.

In this case it was Paul, a guy Ross knew from work. So he knew Paul's schedule and I became his drinking buddy at the place Ross knew he always went after work. I told Paul that I had this terrible fear of heights and he opened easy as a book. He explained his fear of enclosed places and even fear of the dark.

Such an easy mark. Ross took Paul out hiking on their common day off and said "Wait a minute. I see a light in there. Wait here. He came and joined me in the cave and he yelled the words "Help me! I'm stuck."

Paul was perplexed. He saw the light from my flashlight so he knew it wasn't dark in there. In some obtuse way, his mind overcame his fears long enough to rescue his friend. Once he was in, there was no turning back. He found me and Ross and sighed "You're OK".

I yelled "But you're not!" Ross lit the candle and handed it to Paul. I turned off the flashlight and we ran out fast. Paul started running after us, but his candle went out and he fell down and rolled up in a ball. "Welcome to your worst nightmare," Ross said.

"Welcome to yours!" Paul cried. The rocks and trees became some fibrous gunk and we were slipping downhill. We were living in our own fears (and Paul's) and our prank seemed awfully regrettable.

Never do that, guys. This sucks.

Doug

marius: Thanks for the link to the "jink" hoodwink. I perused the Webster's Dictionary this a.m. to make my word list and it "popped" out at me. Funny though the "word" program I use doesn't recognize it as a word. Q....no malice or forthought on the caps or uncapped, that's just the way it turned out when I typed my message in word first. As one of the Scooby Doo gang would say...."jinkies!" although I don't think that was a proper use of the word. Have fun! I'll get back to reading stories soon.

giraffe

M. That's the same page I was on when I found "high jinks" - pranks. You can also look up high jinks and there are definitions there. I assume that using the plural is OK.

Qsilv

re 'jink' -- plural's pretty much the only use of it you'll see nowadays, but it seems to have grown out of a singular term for a sudden jerky turn, sort of yanked.

re capped -- I was just paralyzed there for a moment thinking you were going to request one of those mega-structured devices, along the evil wicked ways of a sextain or somesuch...

Doug

giraffe: Cute story. Lured into a cave to face his worst nightmare. Good use of jink.

Doug

Thanks for starting us out giraffe! Here's my first tall tale for this titilating ThinkWrite...


Fairy Tale?

Balanced on the berm of the boulevard a vulture vexes on his vitreous victim. Fibrous tissues torn like twigs and others twisted into tortuous tongue tasties. It jinks at the jump of an armadillo arduously ambling towards the center of the highway judging distance, direction and how much disturbance one flap of its flabby wing would cause.

Easily spying its prey, the vulture vaults from its perch and trapezes onto the armadillo aimlessly.

Words could never describe the carnage that took place next with scaly plates buried beneath and blood spurts emanating from the soft fibrous underbelly of the poor animal.

WAIT!.....

Since when does a vulture attack a “live” animal Mr. High Falootin’ literary lunatic?

Well, maybe it was a carnivorous coyote carrying out its instinctual genetic instructions to destroy and then delight in its daily dinner.

No……too graphic Oh Wordy One!

What will make you people happy??!!

A gnome sits at his kitchen window with a candle nestled in a polished brass holder casting a soft glow onto the window shade. He spies a soft bunny hopping happily through the meadow sniffing the cinnamon scent of the gnomes candle as he goes. The bunny bounded towards a small toad looking bewildered. He stops and tells a stoic story to the toad of butterflies blazing a blissful trail through the thicket. The toad hops onto the bunny’s downy fur.

Together they travel beyond the meadow to a wooded area bordered by large rocks obtusely strewn about. There they meet an owl who greets them with a goofy guttural noise instead of a “HOOT!”

Before the owl could let out another belly busting noise, a hook shaped claw captures the toad with one quick snap and leaves a trail of green goop on the shiny coat of the rabbit. The rabbit turns, almost losing his balance, and comes face to face with……..?

There they were!! The vulture and the coyote ready to strike and acting in collusion surely to create a massacre of one soft bunny.

As the rabbit jumped showing his phobia for cagey coyotes and vicious vultures a BEAR snatched the rabbit and promptly popped it into his portly mouth.

Well, what did you EXPECT?!?!

giraffe

And the moral of this story is:
Hippity Hoppity, Hon, hence a hungry hibernator has to hoard your hind end haunches.

That's a fun way to twist a list Doug.

Doug

Thanks giraffe. It was a fun one to write!

giraffe

It reminds me some of Ogden Nash or Robert Benchley. Also, when you get to the paragraph about "A gnome sits at his kitchen window..." the tone suddenly changes. I really like that effect. Maybe because it went from outdoors to indoors. The effect right there is cool.

giraffe

368 w/o title

THE FLAME

"What's the matter with you, Phobia Boy?" I was running from the whole gang again while they bullied me down the street. They thought they were in some secret collusion, but I could tell they were all alike. If there was any serious individuality in any one of them, I knew I'd have a chance but there wasn't. Their pride required a mass mentality and without a common enemy, each one would be nothing. I was the enemy.

"Get off the fuckin' street, Phobia Boy." I was late for my dialysis. They knew I was sickly and it humored them to have someone to persecute with their vile words. Theirs was the easy way out. Mine took strength and I kept telling myself that.

"You don't belong here, Phobia Boy." One of them tripped my heel with his foot and I lost my balance. I had serious scrapes on my elbow and shoulder. I guess the sight of my "road rash" satisfied them and they decided not to kick me around.

"You're a faggot, Phobia Boy, Scaredy Cat." I knew I should get to the hospital for dialysis, but instead I went straight home. I went upstairs and washed my wounds. Then I sat down by my spell candle and lit it. I prayed to put a jinks on all of them. Not a strong curse, but just a lesson.

All of their terrible words rang in my mind as I stared into the flame. All I wanted was for them to have some problems of their own. Then they might understand. I didn't want for their car to go over the cliff and kill them all. But that's what Karma decided for their fate.

The more I put energy into the candle, the weaker I got. My kidneys were failing. The fibrous tissues finally gave out and I died, too. In the afterlife, I awakened with a dreadful feeling. I knew that I had caused damage through my own will. I wished harm to others and it happened.

"Stop running, Phobia Boy." There were the same 4 guys chasing me around. My only option was to reincarnate Black.

mouse

Doug---good one--I felt like I was in one of mt dreams--

Doug

giraffe: Loved the story. But...I must say you lost me a little with the ending. It seemed abrupt or maybe you should have stuck with the last part being where he got even and expanded more in the story body. Love the way you wrote it though. It captured my attention right away.

All right....now where is marius. I know she has a bedtime story to tell you and I. Q or dragon are probably carrying the list around in their pockets and oh sweet midnight. You can stop playing with that whip in the corner and come out and write us all something strange and spectacular....

Doug

midnight: You may write one with 863 words if you like. lol.

giraffe

Doug. Good points. I should either rewrite or expand. My vague point was that this guy couldn't escape persecution. Even in the afterlife, his only escape was to jump into a different persecution. I think I'm getting a concept of the common threads in all my stories. This is a valuable exercise.

midnightpoet

Giraffe...it seems in both your stories, the "victims" turned out to be "bad guys"...it's an interesting concept, and you do it so well.

Mr. Monster Man...how did you know I was playing with this whip? I thought it was dark enough in my corner that you couldn't see me...loved your fairy tale story...nice and twisted. I will write something, but I don't promise 'strange and spectacular'...and I DEFINITELY don't promise 863 words. I'm having quite the writer's block...I'm stuck taking Technical Writing this semester...it's required for my degree, and it's absolutely killing me...I can't write 'technically'...I've got this huge road block in my brain about it, and it's carrying over to my Think Writing. I'm gunna take a cue from Dragon and Q and carry the list around with me.

giraffe

Midnight, Enlightening observation. I guess I see them all as "bad guys" with some potential. I'll work on that.