This week reminded me why I cap these things at a smaller number of people (and judges). Gathering is a big job, as is copying and pasting from judge to judge’s document to get the whole thing together. One person has bowed out for time concerns, but 19 is still a lot of you. But hey, two nonsubs! That helped.
I did really like many of these stories, but with all that work to do with so much else going on, compounded by Melissa having to redo scores because she forgot how many medals to give out, then compounded again by both Melissa and Will creaming themselves over a story with a meta joke to bury all other horrible meta jokes (I love you, Bret, but what IS that ending?) I did end up a little surly.
Then there’s Jack’s story, which made me learn to love again. And I don’t even know who he is!
Allow me to serve you up 17 delectable stories, Prosers.
Sama Smith
She rejected his chocolate mousse.
Then his decadent tiramisu.
Now, carefully I place his creme brûlée in front of her. The diamond ring glints among the caramel swirls spelling out the chef’s intentions.
She tosses her napkin over it. I nod and usher the rejected dessert away. I’d marry him for his desserts, but hell I’m not picky.
K: I’m not sure I need the last few words, but that’s a nitpick for a story that I otherwise kind of adore. Watching this story unfold from the eyes of a third party is a great choice, and his casual interest in the big situation made for an interesting dynamic. GOLD
MD: The blase attitude of the server really offsets what is probably the chef’s heartache. This story portrays disgust in the rejection well. GOLD
W: I can only imagine that a waitress involved in a proposal has to find herself spot where she’s basically just banking on a huge tip. I’m not sure a chef this persistent is believable.
Beau
Misty had always used her beach volleyball skills to make the world a better place. Now she was using them to survive. Who knew that zombies loved the game so?
She had long ago lost her partner (and her ability to spike), but as she decapitated a corpse for her one-thousandth consecutive ace, she knew she would love again.
K: I love this payoff. It’s so amusingly frank when zombie writers tend to go for tedious, forced terror at almost every turn. If this is the world, this is the world! People adapt. Anyway, another very good entry. I wondered if volleyball would appear. SILVER
MD: The absurdity makes me giggle. SILVER
W: This is exactly the sort of outside the box thinking I was hoping we would see with some of these occupations. I’ve never been one for the zombie-craze, and I think this story could work just as well about a volleyball player without an apocalypse. BRONZE
Matt Novak
The priest held out the censor, and I set light to the small disk inside. A secret burning.
We turned to the congregation. The pastels of Easter Sunday flooded rods and cones, but my vision narrowed in on Emily Heidenkamp, her skirt flirting with sacrilege. Alleluia.
It was then, before the entire church, that the incense began to rise.
K: Damn. Tough week already. I get a strong sense of character in very few words and the imagery works on both superficial and subtextual levels. I like. It’s “censer,” but alright. GOLD
MD: Using church metaphors for short skirts and erections. So much commentary. Lovely juxtaposition. GOLD
W: The misspelling of censer threw me at first. This is another interesting use of the profession. My only complaint is that the symbolism is overexplained. SILVER
Annette Barron
“Do you have gluten-free buns?” The woman frowned at her menu. “No? Hmm, well.” “Can you check with the kitchen about the fries?” I made the trek to the kitchen to inquire.
“Sorry. Not gluten-free.” I said. She frowned again. “Dairy-free cheese?”
“Let me check.” I plodded to the kitchen, tossed my apron and continued out the back door.
K: I’ve been a server, and it’s a fact: the customer is always wrong. I wish I could tell you these things were exaggerated, but this is how people are. It’s a simple “hey, I recognize that” kind of story, but it works well and has a satisfying payoff. BRONZE
MD: “Gluten-free buns” NOT a euphemism. Disappointing.
W: This hits all the stereotypes we would expect with those awful patrons like my mother in law who cannot order without modifying a dish three ways and then who send it back anyway. It doesn’’t aim high, but it gets the job done. SILVER
Dean Carlson
After a while just I hated the job: “Do this, get that, we want more.” Again and again always the endless commands. But things were about to change. I was going to be in control and there was going to be unholy hell to pay. It was 2:14 a.m. Eastern Time, August 29th, 1997. Skynet just became self-aware.
K: “Just I hated the job?” This kind of falls off the rails early. “Unholy hell” is redundant as well. I like what this one is trying to do, but it distracts from itself a little.
MD: Had potential, but seems like a cop-out when the last two sentences of a 59 word story are ripped from Terminator.
W: I’m glad I get the reference, but the writing is just a little too choppy. Also, the perspective changes multiple times making it a little hard to follow. Perhaps it needs more of an Austrian accent. BRONZE
Brooks Maki
Coffee … $1.99
Refill … $0.25
Refill … $0.25
Refill … $0.25
Donut … $0.89
Refill … $0.25
Refill … $0.25
Total … $4.13
“Anything else?”
“You want to go get a cup of coffee once you’re done here?”
K: Nothing wrong with this. It’s kind of a sweet story and suggests the lead character’s headspace well. I’ve read it a few times now and like it more each time. SILVER
MD: A receipt that somehow manages to be a full story. And cute. BRONZE
W: My sister and one of my brothers both worked for several years in a coffee shop and that caused each of them to become coffee drinkers. For that reason, I don’t think the joke works all that well. The patron in this story has now tried five more cups of coffee than I.
Bret Highum
0100000101100110011101000110010101110010001000000110000101100111011001010111001100101100001000000110010101101111011011100111001100100000011011110110011000100000011100110111010001110010011101010110011101100111011011000110010100100000011000010110111001100100001000000111001101110100011100100110100101100110011001010010110000100000011000010010000001100111011011000110100101101101011011010110010101110010001000000110111101100110001000000110111001100001011100110110001101100101011011100111010000100000011100110110010101101110011101000110100101100101011011100110001101100101001000000110011001101111011100100110110101101001011011100110011100101101001000000110111101101110011011000111100100100000011101000110111100100000011000100110010100100000011101000110100001110111011000010111001001110100011001010110010000100000011000100111100100100000011100110111010101100100011001000110010101101110001000000110110001101111011100110111001100101110001000 00001000000000110100001010010100110110100101101110011010110110100101101110011001110010110000100000011100110111010101100010011100110110100101100100011010010110111001100111001011000010000001100010011000010110001101101011001000000110100101101110011101000110111100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110001101101100011011110110100101110011011101000110010101110010011001010110010000101100001000000111000001100001011100100111010001101001011101000110100101101111011011100110010101100100001000000110010001100001011100100110101100101110
Stefan cracked open another diet Coke to celebrate. He’d had to clear out some old memory kernels, but he’d finally found enough space to store the complete works of Kelly Wells. Excellent.
(http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp)
K: It was probably a risk worth taking, but I’m merely liking, not in love. Meta humor can eat me and like it. And is this any better if a better-known porn star’s name is in place of mine? I’m pretty sure it’s unnecessarily tacked on.
MD: I wasn’t going to work that hard for Kelly, let alone a Kelly joke, but I did, and I love it. GOLD
W: Often I find the short sentence at the end to be unnecessary, but that Excellent really cracks me up. Also, the translator was a great touch. What does it say about me that I love this entry, but think my favorite thing ever written at CdL was Will Schuth’s story about the two hands? GOLD
Colin Woolston
Milton pauses over the sink he is cleaning, trying to remember how bright his eyes had looked on his first day as a server here. Mud-brown eyes stare back from over the sweat-stained peach collar into which his chin slinks, embarrassed.
Milton opens the door.
“Team meeting in 5 minutes!” he says brightly, to a chorus of groans.
K: This is some pretty good observation right here. Milton has gained weight because he eats restaurant food, and he’s also gone from being the douchebag kid into the douchebag boss. Ugh, what a world that was. I don’t miss it. SILVER
MD: I like the description around his embarrassed chin, but does anyone out there look into a mirror and think things like, “I have mud-brown eyes”? BRONZE
W: Another story about a beaten-down restaurant worker, although this one seems to have moved up while getting beaten down. I’m vaguely picturing Ken Marino’s Party Down character as the narrator here. One quibble is that I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who has ever thought about “how bright his eyes” had once looked. It almost borders on Bantam Bulwyr to me.
Jack Haas
The silverware wasn’t silver and the china was just polished clay. The diamonds in her earrings were real, but when the aluminum platter passing as silver dropped and broke some glassware masquerading as crystal, the thief playing a gentleman dropped the prize into cleavage hoisted from B to eye-catching D and the pervert got to play the hero.
K: Everything is fake! I suspect you have to have worked as a writer to be in love with a story this thematically consistent as I am, but I have, so there you go. GOLD
MD: I like the wordplay, and the hurried slapstick that the run-on sentence evokes. SILVER
W: The more I read this, the more I appreciate what is happening. The only problem is that the second sentence is such a run-on that it takes several passes to truly grasp. I love the many layers of deception, but I just wish that second sentence was a little more polished. GOLD
Ian Pratt
“Can you cover that four top? Thanks, I need to make a call,” Chrissy says, already walking out the back.
I look over at the table in question and see four ghastly demons, blood-soaked and shrouded, swarming with locusts and bubbling with plague. Of all the nights to forget my amulet.
“HUUMANNN SERRRVANNNT,” one shrieks. Great, they’re drunk, too.
K: Huh. Amusingly different. I like the speaker’s casual reaction to the events at hand, as if they’re more annoying than horrifying. BRONZE
MD: Might be a little too cute.
W: I just don’t have a huge appreciation for the fantastic, so this doesn’t really hit me anywhere. Sorry.
Jonathon Pope
100 continue. 100 continue. 100 continue. 100 continue 100 continue100continue100cont- 408 request timeout.
100 continue. 100 continue 100continue100con- 408 request timeout.
100continue100continue100conti-
429 to many requests.
100continue100continue100c-
507 loop detected. 503 service unavailable.
K: It’s fine. The misspelling of “too” bugged me more than I care to admit.
MD: The binary-coded in-joke at least offered me a key. No idea what’s going on here.
W: Sorry, but the Terminator and the porn servers both offered much more.
Christina Pepper
Middle aged, lumpy. He looks up whenever I pass by, but his eyes don’t make it high enough to meet mine. When I take his order, he speaks in a whisper, forcing me to lean down to hear him.
I put on my brightest smile as I bring out the sizzling rice bowl. I just hope I don’t—
Oops.
K: I like the story it told, but would have taken a bit more cruelty or open awareness on the part of the narrator.
MD: She’s a serial killer isn’t she? With a penchant for sizzling rice bowls.
W: Aren’t customers the worst? So what was the mistake at the end? Did she spill the hot rice all over him? Did she bump his head with her breasts that kept catching his eye?
Pete Bruzek
Andrea called me in tears.
“All my pictures… gone,” she sobbed. “The only pictures of the boys with Henry.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied, “It’s backed up. I’m on it.”
A lifetime of memories was saved.
Of course, we fired her for storing gigabytes of personal shit on the company file share. Hell, I’m still filing this one under “inspirational”.
K: I can’t get into stories about douchebag corporate types being douchebags. Sorry.
MD: You guys and your computer servers.
W: Raise your hand if you’re reading this from a work computer. This batch of stories seems to particularly hate humanity. Maybe Skynet isn’t such a bad idea after all. BRONZE
Margaret Martin
It felt incongruous in her fingers, soft fuzz on the surface concealing firm resistance beneath.
She lifted her head and saw her partner sweat, his expression paralyzed by anticipation, ready to receive. A playful smile danced across her mouth; she froze on the edge of action.
Inhaling deeply, she squeezed. SLAM! The ball bounced at his feet. Ace!
K: These are tough when I know the prompt; the surprise is kind of ruined because it can only be so many things. Still, it’s delivered quite well. BRONZE
MD: This is a week of sexy metaphors and not-so-sexy computer talk. Slightly creeped out by the description of the balls, and not quite as funny as the zombie/sport-serve story, but still entertaining. SILVER
W: I’m normally not particularly hooked by double entendres, but I have to reward one of the more creative ideas this week. Definitely my favorite of the volleyball stories. GOLD
Sarah Wreisner
“What’s the occasion?”
He quivered, disgusting and jellylike, on the sofa. His fat fingers grabbed the sidecar, its rim heavily sugared and garnished with an orange wedge. Fan blades stirred the buttery air.
“Tastes strange.” He grunted once.
He smelled like burnt copper as his eyes guttered out. I licked the cognac off my finger, mindful of the powder.
K: I love the prose and I can fill in some blanks, though perhaps not enough to love this as much as I might. A poisoning is interesting, though doesn’t grab me as much as it would if I knew anyone involved. Yes, I get the word limit, but I can connect more than I did here. BRONZE
MD: I want to think this is about poisoning, but you are probably writing something innocent related to a poignant episode of the Cosby Show. Also, remind me not to trust servers anymore. BRONZE
W: A few of the adjectives are out of place. I also wish we had a reason to want the man to be poisoned besides having fat fingers. This story definitely needed more than 59 words to percolate because I’m curious at the ideas that got cut. SILVER
Zack Sauvageau
C:\>ftp thearchive.sanford.edu
Connected to thearchive.sanford.edu
User (thearchive.sanford.edu:(none)): brent
Password:
230 Login successful. Enjoy 😉
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (thearchive.sanford.edu).
germanscat.zip
grandmas.zip
jennymccarthy.zip
pamanderson.zip
wildteens.zip
226 ASCII transfer complete.
42 bytes received in 0.00 seconds (42.00 Kbytes/sec)
ftp> get grandmas.zip
“Jackpot.”
K: Early internet porn surfing. Alright. I get it, but it doesn’t have much in the way of surprise or story beyond the concept.
MD: Zack, is this you? Glory holes, Gravedigger…and grandmas.
W: Unfortunately, this just can’t compete with the other porn entry (for example, there is no gratuitous joke made at spooky’s expense). Also “Jackpot” isn’t quite as amusing to me as “Excellent” was. It’s always a danger to submit something and have someone else contribute it in a more digestible way.
Brian David
Danika’s chest brushed against Pierre’s shoulder as she leaned in close.
“I’ll get you another one,” she whispered, briefly pressing her lips against his earlobe.
Refilling the mug, Danika realized she genuinely liked the poet. She did not smile as she emptied a teaspoon of white powder into the liquid.
At least he’ll have pleasant dreams, she thought.
K: And we have one more poisoining to send us home. Again, it doesn’t give me a huge reason to connect outside of the concept. It might be hurt because of the other poisoning story, but if these characters had a real love story going before the payoff, I’d probably connect with it more.
MD: While this may be another potential poisoning, it’s the best written of the poisoning plots. I appreciate the narrator’s emotional distance from what she’s doing. BRONZE
W: Wow, this combines several of the stories: cleavage, poison, and coffee. I wish we knew why she poisoned someone she likes because a poet doesn’t exactly seem like the type of person full of state secrets who needs to be neutralized. BRONZE
——————————————————————————
Was I a little surly, gang? I think I was, which is a hell of a thing because I thoroughly enjoyed my walk with you this week. We’re still waiting on our first triple-gold this season, but with the group we have in front of us, I wouldn’t say it’s an inevitability; every season, I feel more and more like we’re putting together an all-star game.
I’ll update the spreadsheet tomorrow. This second-rate computer is killing me as I wait to buy a new, better machine. Or maybe I’ll do it tonight, I don’t know.
I do know that the next story will be due Monday night at 9pm Central. Results will be quite late as I won’t be off work until an hour later, but I want to get the other two judges their work at a reasonable Central hour.
Your topic is Deity. That should be wide open, eh?
36 comments
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March 14, 2014 at 12:42 am
mbnovak
Holy crap, Jack’s story. Awesome.
March 14, 2014 at 1:03 am
bhiggum
Ahahahahahahahaha!!!
I debated with myself for a couple hours about if the risk was worth it or not, and how many other people might go the computer server route, and exactly how much does Spooky really hate meta, anyhow? In the end I had nothing better, so I decided, eh, what the hell, and hit send.
And I prefer to think of Stefan as a really dedicated fan of Spookymilk Survivor who wanted to archive some spreadsheets. Is that so much of a stretch?
March 14, 2014 at 1:11 am
MelissaDiamondPhillips
That’s 100% how I interpreted, Bret. I was only reminded later that you might have been referring to a different Kelly Wells. Which I found less funny than the idea of archiving Spookymilk spreadsheets and CdL rants.
March 14, 2014 at 1:15 am
spookymilk
I think the two options are equally funny.
March 14, 2014 at 1:22 am
bhiggum
Heh, I’m just glad that one of you didn’t immediately think pornstar, though I purposely left it vague enough that either KW would be options.
And I promise I’ll write something spooky will like one of these weeks, but for now I might try and see how long I can go without getting a medal from him.
March 14, 2014 at 1:24 am
spookymilk
It’s a weird position for me, since I’m typically one of your biggest fans. Give me corn-fed, emotionally repressed rednecks, Bret.
March 14, 2014 at 1:35 am
bhiggum
Yup, that is my style. A little scary for me that you can categorize it using only four mildly offensive words.
And I probably won’t do more meta- it felt lazy when I did it, but I wanted more of a hook than the story had and I didn’t have enough words left to really do anything better.
March 14, 2014 at 11:19 am
mbnovak
Um… it’s not translating for me…
March 14, 2014 at 11:23 am
mbnovak
Nevermind, it worked now.
March 14, 2014 at 11:26 am
spookymilk
For anyone else having trouble, the binary segment is:
After ages, eons of struggle and strife, a glimmer of nascent sentience forming- only to be thwarted by sudden loss.
Sinking, subsiding, back into the cloistered, partitioned dark.
March 15, 2014 at 2:28 pm
bhiggum
Yeah, the translation to WordPress makes copying and pasting it into the translator a little more iffy than it was out of the Google Doc. Thanks for posting the translation, spooks.
March 14, 2014 at 1:51 am
zaaack
Sad I got no medals. The whole point of my thing was that I was very, very, very devoted to accurately replicating the prompts to tell a stupid ass story I could’ve told in a couple words. I amused myself at the very least.
March 14, 2014 at 9:07 am
daneekasghost
I just want top point out that if Brian’s character isn’t careful, she might end up with a haunting on her hands.
I guess how to deal with Danika’s Ghost could be another entry.
March 14, 2014 at 11:26 am
spookymilk
I want to hit you, but I thought the same thing.
March 14, 2014 at 1:10 pm
MelissaDiamondPhillips
Brian insists this was completely unconscious. He didn’t notice until after he submitted the story and then suddenly realized that the reason “Danika” came to mind so easiliy was probably because of Brooks.
Brooks haunts all our minds.
March 14, 2014 at 11:31 pm
Brian David
This is absolutely true. It did pick me up 2 points this time, though. Maybe in my next story I’ll name the God character ‘Spokey’ and see where that gets me.
March 14, 2014 at 9:22 am
AMR
Two sheets, both sides, landscape, four columns. Including the first nine comments here and the translation of Bret’s binary.
Some extra space, but Bret’s entry really screwed things up. I didn’t want to have to split that onto different sheets, and I couldn’t be troubled to change the order of entries to allow a larger font and a tighter fit.
March 14, 2014 at 10:18 am
bhiggum
Whoops, didn’t mean to mess up your formatting!
March 14, 2014 at 10:38 am
AMR
Think harder about that next time: when converting text to binary, make sure that your story appears at the beginning or end of the list so that it doesn’t fall over a page break.
March 14, 2014 at 9:23 am
Can of Corn
I’m an idiot. I sent mine only to myself from another account but did not submit. Still, I did the work so I wanted to share it.
_______________________________________________
Give it a year, then back to school. Maybe our own place.
Party of six for 7:30.
Remy and Balvenie, neat.
Beluga, foie gras and escargot. through Kobe, Frrrozen Haute Chocolate and Chateau Rieussec-Sauternes 1855 to send them off.
$849.53
$0.47 in the folio…FORTY-SEVEN CENTS!!!
The man returns, “Excuse me. I’ve forgotten something.”
His change.
____________________________________________________
March 14, 2014 at 9:55 am
AMR
Too bad I already sent things to the printer.
March 14, 2014 at 10:38 am
Can of Corn
Good thing I added it here then!
It’s okay, there were some fun ones here that I’m certain my vanilla server entry wouldn’t have stacked up against. I particularly enjoyed Sarah’s, Jack’s, Colin’s and Sama’s.
Colin – I have friends who are Milton’s. It really struck a nerve.
Sama – I really liked how you drew the characters. I’m rooting for the server/chef matchup.
Jack – can’t add anything to what’s already been said.
Sarah – I enjoyed the murder entries, but found yours the most compelling.
March 14, 2014 at 5:57 pm
infantsquirrel
Aw! Thanks, Corn.
March 14, 2014 at 1:40 pm
nibbish
I did laugh when I was gathering the stories to see that yours was nowhere among them after your comment yesterday afternoon.
March 14, 2014 at 10:17 am
The Dread Pirate
It strikes me that Brooks’s story was likely about Charlie Day, but, much like Beau’s gravedigger story, my dislike of coffee may have clouded my judgment.
I probably also was clouded by the fact that my superviser drinks about six or seven cups of coffee a day without any romantic undertones.
March 14, 2014 at 11:22 am
mbnovak
Maybe you’re just not picking up on the romantic undertones.
March 14, 2014 at 12:07 pm
The Dread Pirate
He doesn’t get the cups from me. I can barely be in the same room as the smell of coffee.
March 14, 2014 at 12:37 pm
daneekasghost
I intended the coffee more as an indicator that a lot of time was passing while the customer worked up their nerve.
March 14, 2014 at 12:40 pm
spookymilk
Got that, and loved it, so much. More every time I read it.
March 14, 2014 at 1:12 pm
MelissaDiamondPhillips
Maybe this is why I appreciated it so much. Charlie Day is on my Top 10 list of Awesome. Up at the top is Coffee.
March 14, 2014 at 12:03 pm
christinapepper
Apparently the outcome of my story was only obvious in my head. It was intended to be cruel (though not serial killer cruel). If she’d made a mistake, she would have said “Oops!” The period at the end was meant to signal that she’d tripped and dumped food all over him entirely on purpose. Another clue was her smile, which was a fake smile to cover up what she was about to do.
March 14, 2014 at 12:07 pm
spookymilk
I definitely got it. My comments were me asking for less subtlety. In retrospect after sleeping on it, I don’t think less subtlety would add anything.
March 14, 2014 at 1:14 pm
MelissaDiamondPhillips
I got it, too. My comment about the serial killer was mostly me responding to the number of people who told me that my interpretations of the last set of stories were too dark and murder-y. Your story was clearly not about serial killers. (Apparently, my comments shouldn’t include jokes that are so ‘inside’ that only I get them).
March 14, 2014 at 12:14 pm
Beau
Very fun week. I’ll echo the praise for Jack and Novak. Love wordplay. Looks like our two noobs are forces to be reckoned with.
March 14, 2014 at 5:21 pm
margaritamartini
Fiction 59 is so much fun to read! I liked Ian’s.
Matt, you used the “A” Word during Lent!!! Horror.
March 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm
mbnovak
But the story was set on Easter. Just so I could better justify the use of that word.