Fortnightly Writing Competition: You Choose (Ends 10/10)

[Atelier]

Everybody loves choices!


1. Write about a scientific or technological breakthrough that would change life as we know it. You've probably heard recently about the developments at Cern.
2. Create a shape poem. To make it easier you could post it as an image, using monowidth fonts, or however else you wish. Any subject. Examples:



3. Write a story with the protagonist as any figure from history. The scenario can be of your choice. Mother Teresa goes on a booze up for example.
4. Write a proper gritty action story. Brawls, guns, rooftop chases, and epic one-liners (avoid clichés; "any last words?" "say your prayers" etc. Exceptions made for any lines uttered by Clint).


If one or more of the above takes your fancy you go do your thang gurlfryend!! Ending Monday 10th October. I'll do trophies if I get time.

[Ponch]

At last! The chance to fulfill my lifelong desire to write a pornographic shape poem has arrived! 

[Anian]

At last! The chance to fulfill my lifelong desire to write a pornographic shape poem has arrived! 

Aye, some days, dreams really come true. 

But to start of, here's a sappy, maybe a bit too sf and bit off topic story, for the theme no1. If it's not right for the themes I like make another entry.

Last of

The soil is almost barren. Sand turned to mud by the dark ooze sipping through the pores. It doesn't stop.

Tide is coming, but I can still pick the last seashell from a slowly filling a pool hidden among the sharp rocks. I clean the seashell with an aerosol decontamination spray, sea water just drops off turning to soft dust and then turns into liquid again as it meet the salty puddle. Though I am not sure if the sea is still salty, long time has passed since anybody even tried to take a sip of it, not to mention taking a swim.

People used to take long walks along the beaches, take swims near the shores, playing and diving and enjoying it's refreshing feel on skin in the ever hotter summers. They stopped though, when coming out of the water started leaving them covered in small specks of black and purple and the dirt turned to stinging burning spots that etched the skin with scars and nights of pain.

The seashell is clean now. I hope the animal inside is not too badly sick. The extra powder I prepared will help. With a gentle touch of the blade of my pocket knife, I open the shell slightly and sprinkle in the powder. There's a reaction and the shell starts to feel cold to the touch, like holding an ice cube, but I am used to it by now. At least it won't sting or bite like some insects and arachnids did, who could blame them though, I know I wanted to byte the doctor when she pumped that  vaccine into my bloodstream.

I pick the container out of my bag, full of light blue, honey type liquid. As the lid slides open, a smell of lavender hits my nostrils. The smells are so intense when isolated, but it doesn't stick for long as a breeze from the offing comes charging with the waves. I better hurry. The seashell slowly sinks into the blue honey, with a few bubbles of air following it's descent. On the lid I write with a thick black marker "A. granosa". It smears a bit before drying, not really important, I will have to put it into the data bank and make an entry in the computer later on anyway and this is the only sample today. The last one on the list.

It is truly impressive and very ironic how human resources and intellect can be productive when faced with extinction. The vaccine, the spacecrafts, the dDNA technology, was so improbable even in my recent youth. Took a lot of power to crush the great global companies and industries to let go of their patents and prototypes from the deep buried science labs and into the hands of everybody, but it was done. From mapping a human genome to fully digitizing any life form on Earth and from last space shuttle mission to a full blown interstellar cruisers, in a blink of an eye. Who knew that it only took the Earth to bleed for us to let go of greed and hate.

Still I remember waking up coughing up black tar and blood and the doctor saying I have only a few months to live, even if I stopped smoking two to three packs a day. I was one of the first testers of the new vaccine, the ID badge of my name was still a three digit number. Painful as the first batches were, feeling of my blood on fire and the strange smell of my skin, like I bathed in tub of camomile tea for a decade, after a year of treatments I couldn't even catch a cold. There were some talks about how it even stopped HIV and Alzheimer's, not that it helped a lot in the grand scheme of things, at the time the news channel just started reporting on new, stronger earthquakes and the cracks that were opening all around the world. Soon the drinking water was filled with black drops of the ooze and epidemic started to affect large cities. Supplies of the vaccine were limited and even then the treatment just took too long and came too late for many.

I close the thick white door and the pneumatics lock it tight. Green light above it turns red and I hear the pilot starting the engines. At first it's a like popping of popcorns in a microwave, but as I climb the ladder to the science lab, the sound changes into a trippy mellatronic melody that apparently comes from the power cells achieving full power.

The bioneural connector slips easily into the socket behind my ear and soon I cannot hear the engines any more nor see through my eyes, just a soft, calming buzz of the processor and a slick animation of lights. It's of course a simulation of the old technology, the new biocomputers are basically silent, it is just sense of comfort put in by some nostalgic programmer.

The data loading screen surfaces as the the seashell and the animal inside is analysed and disassembled into billions of ones and zeros. An icon appears marking the dDNA process is over. Icon shifts into a bigger table of all life on Earth in our data banks. It is not as big as we thought or predicted, but still impressive for such a short time of collecting. Blueprints of everything, so we can rebuild when the time comes, when we find a new and fertile planet.

"A. Granosa" lights up on the view and even though this is the end of my mission, for humanity, it is only a new beginning.

[Atelier]

Woop. Any more entries?

I'll attempt number 2 or 4 if I find the time :

[Ponch]

I've got something I'm working on. I think I'll make the deadline.

Also: Trophies?

[Ponch]

So there I was, sitting on my sofa, eating taco flavored Doritos and sketching out what was surely the greatest erotic shape poem that the AGS forums had ever seen. Suddenly there was a flash of light and a cherry red WWII kubelwagen sat steaming in the middle of my living room floor. The heat rippled out from it in waves, causing the plastic bag of my Doritos to twist and shrink.

"Ponch! There you are!" shouted Jules Verne said from the back seat, clutching an atomic laser rifle, a cosmic ray-proof helmet tilted on his head. He thrust his free hand at me, a rocket belt clutched in his grimy fingers.

"Jules Verne?" I gasped in shock. "I thought you were dead! That's what they told me in history class!"

"Don't be silly, lad! Those lava men were never going to get the best of me! Now here," he said, waggling the rocket belt for emphasis. "Put this on! We have work to do!"

"Tell that damn hippie to get in the car already, Verne!" harumphed Richard Nixon sitting alone in the front seat, his clammy hands clutching the steering wheel. "Time's wasting!"

"Time? Ha! Don't be so small minded, Richard! Time is nothing to men like us... so long as we have this magnificent contraption of yours!"

"Get in the car! And get a haircut, both of you!" Nixon was already shifting into gear as I reached for the door.

"Shotgun!" I called, snugging the belt around my waist.

"Like hell, you bearded granola eating freak!" sneered Tricky Dick as we pulled out of my living room and slipped into the time stream. "Nixon rides up front alone. He likes the leg room!"

[Editor's note: I'll spare you the details of what followed. I'm sure you read all about it in the papers.]

Seconds after we left, we reappeared in my living room. I climbed out of the Kubelwagen, handing my Uranium Recoilless Rifle to Errol Flynn, who we had picked up along the way. He saluted sharply.

"Thank you for all your help, Ponch," said Jules Verne. "Without your help, we could have never defeated the fusion people of Venus."

"Or taught the moon women about love," chuckled Errol, nudging Verne in the ribs.

"Yes, yes. You two were the right men for that job."

"Stupid nudists," groused Nixon. "If I'd known the moon was full of hippies, I would have never let Armstrong land there. LBJ was right. I should have used the sound stage in Nevada."

"I'm glad I was able to help, guys. But now it's too late to finish my entry for the Fortnightly Writing Contest," I said, with just a hint of sadness in my otherwise gruff, manly voice.

"Too late? It's never too late, my boy!" chided Verne.

"But it is," I insisted. "The deadline was days ago. It's much too late to bother with an entry now. They've surely closed the competition and begun to vote."

"I suspected you might want to contribute to that fine endeavor. That's why I had Richard bring us back to now, instead of then. It only appears as though it's October 14th. But as far as the universe (and your perspective of it) is concerned, it's still only October 10th. You have just enough time to dash off some poorly plotted piece of nonsense and post it on that 'internet' of which you seem so fond."

"Gonna be nothing but trouble, that damn internet. Mark my words!" spat Nixon, flossing his teeth in the rear view mirror.

"But it's filled with picture of naked girls... young, naked girls," leered Flynn, in manner that seemed to even rattle Jimmy Hoffa, hiding in the trunk.

"I can still make the deadline with a badly written short story? Really?" I gasped, unbelievingly (which isn't even a proper word -- that's how shocked I was).

"Of course you can, lad. If you only believe in yourself." Verne chuckled. "And in me, of course."

"I do! I do believe in you, Jules!" I enthused. "I... I can call you Jules, right?"

"You may not," he said. And they returned to the time stream while I sat down and posted this story.


THE END

[Atelier]

Ponch is the winner by default I'm upset there wasn't more interest

Here's a trophy I made for the Chain Story a while ago.



New round! Go!

[Ponch]

Ponch is the winner by default I'm upset there wasn't more interest

Here's a trophy I made for the Chain Story a while ago.



New round! Go!

What about Anian's entry? Shouldn't we vote?

---------------------
EDIT: Update. Anian entered first and did so before the deadline expired. I must pass this awesome trophy on to him and declare him the victor.

Congrats, Anian. Woot! Take it away, sir! 

[Anian]

Aaaah, but I vote that you take it Ponch, found your story more interesting anyway. (and thats 2:1) so you free to take it away yourself. 

[Atelier]

Yep, I noticed my mistake last night but my internet went down just before I went to post (thanks Tabata for pointing it out) I'm really sorry Anian!

A vote shall be held!

[Ponch]

So are we voting? Or should I just start the next one?   

[Anian]

So are we voting? Or should I just start the next one?   

Just start.