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mehmeh

hem hem

so I thought this can't be.

messed up my

I was on track for

[SilverSpook's]

Nice reads guys.  My votes are pretty skewed, but know that I appreciated both stories.

Character: I simply must go with SilverSpook's Gem.  Yeah, she was kind of a faker and not really likeable at all, but in being those two things she really seamed real and even captivating, in a kinda post-post-modern pastiche kind of way.  More than her character I think I most liked how she exuded a cultural stereotype to the max, and whether you're a Liker or a Hater you gotta respect her commit level.

Plot: Silverspook -There was build-up and suspense, climax, plot-twist, and even genuine character development: we don't see enough of that in short stories, so kudos for that.  I gotta say I liked Ibispi's concept for this category as well, but some of the plot-advancing actions left me scratching my head (Why did Charlie think the note wouldn't summon Cupid?  Why was Cupid initially uninterested in Detective Smith, but then got him anyway at their later meeting?)

Atmosphere: The roller coaster of emotional intensity in SilverSpook's piece easily deserves to win this category.  Ibispi's piece seemed to veer from serious crime drama to awkward humour (why was Detective Smith smirking all the time?), which made it hard to get emotionally into.

Background World:  This has to be, has to be SilverSpook for a distopian vision of a very likely future for our society.  Again ('cause I was a big fan of his last submission as well), he has described an incredible world in such minute detail that you can almost taste the cake.

Word Choice/Style: SilverSpook for easily a dozen zingers.  My personal favourites were her briefly trending "behind #CatPoopingOnRabbit and in front of #USNukesSyria...", which is both hilarious and in a few words encapsulates the collective insanity that is progressively gripping society; when Princess Cindercat got tetanus; and "the feeling was pure cake!"

I realise my votes are more one-sided that usual, but I strongly believe SilverSpook's was the best piece in the competition.  It was cleverly written, imaginative, heart-wrenching at times (in a self-absorbed pity kind of way anyway), and dripped with insightful social commentary.  Excellent work!

The Unbowed

   A mug of coffee sat half-drunk on the lab bench next to the open dossier.  Sweat beaded on Dr. Williams' brow as he squinted raptly into the microscope.  The specimen writhed in and out of focus, struggling to escape his ruthless evaluation, but he was used to such petty nuisances by now.  With one hand he delicately wielded a pair of surgical pincers to restrain the specimen, while with the other he expertly turned the focal dial.  A drop of perspiration splashed thunderously close to the specimen, but Dr. Williams would not be deterred from his work.  Again, he squinted intently.

   The heat and humidity of the lab were oppressive but necessary for the breeding program; the dry atmosphere of a typically air-conditioned lab was not the ideal habitat of the musca genus.  And so through dedication to his work Dr. Williams had reconciled himself to labouring in the heavy air.  He no longer noticed the smell, either: the rank stench of putridity with just enough of a hint of sweetness to make an unaccustomed human gag.  Even the constant hum of air being beaten to a submissive pulp by a hundred-thousand pairs of wings barely registered any more.  An insect might need a hundred generations to adapt to a newly harsh environment, but a higher order organism such as himself could achieve the same feat in but one through sheer force of mind.

   Suddenly there was a tickle on the back of the doctor's neck.  His first impulse was to smack at it, but he restrained himself.  Through force of mind, he reminded himself.  It was probably just sweat, and the less evolved part of his brainstem playing tricks on him.  He gently turned the focal dial a barely perceptible amount.  Almost got it.....

   The specimen squirmed, and suddenly the tickle was up on his hair.  The good doctor could feel his face twitch involuntarily.  Through sheer force of mind.  Then there was a second tickle.  If there was one thing he couldn't stand it was the feeling of flies walking over him, the microscopic hairs of their legs dragging untold filth and noxious micro-organisms all over his body.  There was a spasm in his gut now, and the focus was gone.  The specimen was gone, soaring to a false freedom within the confines of the lab.  The force of mind was gone, evaporated like a drop of sweat in a frying pan.  The pincers fell to the floor with a clatter as the doctor swatted his hands violently over his head.  Now the microscope tipped over, and the dossier of papers was scattered.  He screamed and drew his lab-coat up over his head, crouched low on the floor, and rocked himself soothingly back and forth, back and forth.  Snap.

   It was an interesting thing, snapping, if one had the good fortune to observe it impartially from a higher plane of mind quite distinct from the monster of instinct that was seizing control of one's body.  It was as if his very being had split into a binary system like a single-cell amoeba.  The rationality and pensiveness of the old executive wing of the mind was now in one half, while control slipped to some new wild and feral creature in the other.  The one could see and think; the other only act.  Or rather react, for acting would require some higher purpose that was beyond the capacity of the crazed neanderthal.  The doctor felt his body contort into a crooked approximation of a baser hominid, and a malicious glint now came so easily to his eye that it shocked his voyeuristic hostage-ego.  He had assumed the wild ape that was himself would instinctively flee the buzzing madness; instead, its impulse was to fight.  To destroy.  To hunt.

   Like a foraging beast the caveman began pawing through the debris of the lab, looking for a club or cudgel with which to smash his attackers to death.  Almost immediately he seized upon the microscope, which he swung about with all the aggressive precision of a drunken baboon.  His tormentors buzzed easily around the blunt implement, careening with measured impunity off his face.  He screamed in primal rage, then threw the instrument against the wall where it smashed into a thousand pieces.  Back to foraging again.  Shards of coffee mug: too light.  Wet papers: too delicate.  Paperclip: too puny.  Rubber bands: too.....  The monster stretched a rubber band in his hand, dredging up muscle memory from some distant and forgotten past.  The dossier had been bound shut with several rubber bands, great long ones that could snap with terrific force.  He grabbed half a dozen, and stretched one taught between the thumb of one hand and the fore-finger of the other.  Now the hunt could begin in earnest.

   Reflexively the creature that he had become rolled under the lab bench, covering himself in cold coffee and fly-droppings like a predator disguising his scent from his prey.  Then he sprung up again into a ready crouch, eyes barely peering over the edge of the counter, rubber-band cocked to the side of his face, watching.  They were all around him, buzzing malevolently.  In the air they were invulnerable, like F-35s swirling around some second-hand Russian ground-kit.  He rolled again, this time taking up a defensive position with his back to the corner.  Even stealth fighters ran out of fuel, and when they were on the ground they became vulnerable to precision attacks of an unexpected nature.

   Another fly buzzed by his head, teasing him with its speed and manoeuvrability.  He scratched his primitive, oversized jaw, rubber-band still cocked, struggling to formulate a degree of forethought necessary to make a plan.  His ego would have shaken his head, had he control of any motor functions at all, but instead he was left to suffer in silence as his dull-witted captor stumbled from calamity to defeat without the benefit of reason.  If only the caveman would listen: if only his tiny walnut-sized brain could learn!  He shouted in his mind's ear with all the ethereal volume he could imagine.

   The brow of the beast became furrowed, straining at the effort of flexing some undiscovered muscle in his head.  He tried to harness some primal memories of hunting technique: the blind, the bait, the flanking manoeuvre.  Slowly the pieces fell together as his eye fell upon the hulking mass of the molecular fusion spectrometer.  Without entirely understanding the sophisticated theories behind the idea, he nevertheless knew what he had to do.

   Another quick roll through the debris of the lab floor and he was pawing through drawers, pulling out papers and implements and bottles and -aha!  The half-eaten chocolate bar had melted into a scat-like puddle of goo, but that was all the better for smearing up and down the counter-top.  Then he dove again, rolled through a gap beneath the work benches to throw off his pursuers, then doubled back when the coast was clear.  He was a raptor on the wing.  He was death!

   Now the labcoat was left dangling on a hook, the last remnants of chocolate wiped over the human-pheromones that seemed to attract his attackers like beer bugs to hard liquor.  He was in the raw now, a celtic warrior painted only with the dirt of the floor and the rubber weapons that adorned his wrists like golden trophies of war.  He was wedged in the tight space between the ceiling and the top plate of the molecular fusion spectrometer, a bundled haz-mat suit camouflaging his location.  A rubber-band was again stretched from his ear to his fore-thumb, his breath steady, his gaze intent.  Let the infernal insects spend their strength on turning circles in the void.  Sooner or later temptation would get the better of them, and when it did he would be waiting.

   Zzzzzzzp!  There it was, a fly pitched on the counter, curious about the chocolate smear.  The cave creature in the lab equivalent of the lonely bell-tower took aim.  The surroundings of the lab melted away, and all that was left was his tiny adversary, about fifteen paces away, pitter-pattering up and down the edge of the counter.  It was oblivious to the danger lurking above, like a field mouse unaware of the haunting shadow of the falcon gliding menacingly over the meadow.

   SNAP!   A streak of carnage stretched across the counter-top like the next rubber-band already at his ear.  I am wrath!  I am murder!  He scanned the lab coldly for his next victim.

   Zzzzzzp!  There it was, investigating the remains of the first fly.  But in a moment it was airborne again, instinctively sensing the peril it was now in.  Of course, the conditioning!  His ego laughed at the irony.  All these long months spent meticulously enhancing the fly's nervous system, trying to adapt it to monitoring computer systems that were otherwise prone to drone-like naivety when it came to potential security breaches; what he had really done was create a super-adversary of unfathomable cunning.  He was a fool!  He thought he could play god without the-

   Zzzzzzp!  No sooner had the fly had alighted upon the decoy lab jacket then a 5 gram band of tensile death went hurtling towards it.  In a fraction of an instant it was leaping again into the air, but to late to avoid the vector of destruction that splattered it into a thousand droplets of liquid Darwinian failure.

   Suddenly there was a change in the tone of the infernal droning, as if the captive specimens had collectively all come to the same conclusion.  Could it be?  Could they really coordinate themselves at this early stage in the genetic engineering process?  Impossible!  The wild hominid had another rubber-band drawn, his breath held, listening for a clue.  His nakedness slipped imperceptibly on a film of sweat along the smooth metal casing of his perch.  There was a screech of metal, like rusty hinges protesting at being force-marched into usefulness.  The rational thing to do was to wait and observe.  To watch like the hawk hidden in the glare of the sun, only to strike when his victim was at his most vulnerable and oblivious.  But the crazed  wild-man knew no such art.  In a trice he was over the edge to confront this new and heinous enemy, come what may, rubber-bands blazing, to death or glory!

   Unfortunately the film of sweat on the metal casing caused him to slip awkwardly, so he rolled more than pounced to the floor ten feet below.  But he still had his rubber-band primed -that was the important thing.  There, towering above him now, massed the silhouette of a great agglomeration of writhing evil.  But somewhere in that swarming riot there had to be a centre of control, a general, a queen.  A lord of the flies.  It had to be high up for the maximum vantage, near the apex of the hateful multitude.  He had nothing but faith in the trueness of his rubber bolt to guide him, but that would suffice for the untamed primitive hunter.  If he was going down, he was going down shooting.

   â€œWilliams?  What the f -ouch!”

Nice one Stupot! (And I'm not talking about the victory )

I'm about half done.  Should be able to finish before the end of Oct 2 my time.  Stand by.

No, not not?

Solution: number of adverbs?

not

Shenaniga!

That should do it, thanks.   Any other takers out there?

I'm getting no inspiration so I'm just going to try to brute force it:

basilisk
bigfoot
brownie
centaur
cerberus
charybdis
chimera
cockatrice
cyclops
cynocephalus
demon
dragon
echidna
elf
ent
fairy
frankenstein
ghost
godzilla
golem
gorgon
griffin
grim reaper
hydra
imp
king kong
kraken
ladon
manticore
medusa
mermaid
minotaur
mothra
ogre
orthos
pegasus
phoenix
pixie
rodents of unusual size
sarlacc
sasquatch
satyr
scylla
sea goat
T-1000

Which shell shall the churlish chandler whisk thoughtfully through the graph?

Finally got an idea, but things are reeeeeally busy right now.  Any chance of a small extension?

Hm, shall shall we go the mastermind approach and replace single words to see what affects points and what not?

Uhm. How do you determine 2 lines? How many characters are there exactly?

I must be on to something; your silence is incriminating!