Messages

@Mandle:

Spoiler

A couple interesting concepts here, maybe too many for such a short piece to give them all proper descriptions and weight. We have: the functionality of the spaceship; the lives or non-lives of the crew; the flight out of the universe; the memories of the main character. All these things, individually, could be very interesting, but they are a bit thrown together randomly and no part manages to really shine.
What isn't there is an actual connection to the topic (unless I missed something). Just calling a space ship "Devil" really doesn't make this a story about the devil (in whatever form), especially considering this note in the first post: "A story about a Tasmanian devil...? Eh, that's a bit of a stretch." This story was far more of a stretch.
Still, there's so much potentially fascinating stuff in here - You posted very early, I wish you had taken a bit more time to expand on several of the ideas present here.

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@Baron:

Spoiler

Brutal. But as it is so often with torture, the mental part might be stronger than the physical part.
It was fairly obvious where the story was going, considering it was made clear fairly early on that Orwell was a prisoner by showing the devil supervising him.
It's interesting that the physical torture Orwell is about to endure is almost a relief for him. And even more so the reason why he stops being a torturer himself: It clearly shows that he has something good in himself. What isn't clear is if the devil intents to destroy this good, if he just uses it to enhance the mental torture of Orwell or if we are even more in a purgatory setting, where showing some goodness leads to something better on the far horizon. - In short, there might be some philosophical concepts that could be explored here.
Also interesting is that ci´hild becomes the new torturer. Does that mean that Orwell was tortured before as well? And that the child will be tortured again as well as soon as he shows any scruple?

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Votes:

Spoiler

Baron - 2 points
Mandle - 1 point

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[On the Corner of Devil's Street and Churchstreet]

On the Corner of Devil's Street and Churchstreet

Spoiler

Clouds hung deep in the sky. He was walking through the streets of the city. Invisible. An invisible force as he always was, looking upon the people rushing past, going to work, drinking coffee, living their lives, fleeing from their life. He watched them without seeing them, as they called him without speaking, as they followed him shrinking back.

A church stood at the corner of two busy streets, one dirtier than the other, one more broken than the other, broken like the steps of the church. It was small, towered over by skyscrapers that had long grown over the once tall and proud steeple. Glass had fallen from the windows, had been crushed under thousands of unconcerned rushing feet, had become dust, as all is fated to become dust. And as the church was fated to cease being a church. It stood empty now. Cold.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." he murmured under his breath and a shudder ran down the spines of the passers-by. They jerked, they halted their steps, but their lives were busy, their days went on and so they did not stop for long, did not look up, did not understand.

Only the man under the lonely park bench, the lonely man under the lonely park bench, did not jerk, did not stir, did not turn around. Did not live.

The bench itself was occupied. Not by a man, not by a woman, nor a dog or a cat, a pigeon or lamb. Though a lamb it was, one could say, or rather the shepherd. He was never quite certain. And so he plopped down on the occupied bench, occupied by the statue of a man, lying obscured by a metal blanket, while a dead man slept forever underneath. He sat on the stiff, cold legs. A smile was on his lips for his own incredulity.

He looked long at the unmoving figure. Naked feet, wounded, peeked out underneath a crumpled blanket that hid face and hands. His long fingers brushed over the cold blanket, his longer nails scratched the metal.

This sound again called attention to him, though no-one saw. They never saw. Not him and not each other, not the man and not the statue. Not even when it sat up now, not even when the blanket slipped from its face. Expressionless, empty, cold. Non-existent. Blank, as the artist had never created it. He had cared more about the feet, about the wounds, distinct wounds on his feet.

The statue did not look, for it had no eyes, it did not speak, for it had no mouth, it did not smile, for the man next to it on the bench was not meant to be smiled at.

"You come?" the statue said without words and without sound. "You visit."

"I thought you could do with some company." He laughed. "Your last companion seems to have abandoned you." He gestured underneath the bench.

"He has joined me in a different realm." the statue said piously.

"Has he, now? I thought he would be one of mine." His voice dripped with sarcasm. Slimy, burning sarcasm.

"You know better." There was a slight smile on a non-existent lip.

"Of course I fucking know better."

The statue sighed. "Do not swear in my presence, if you please."

"As if you care!"

"As if I care, true. Still. There are – traditions."

The invisible visitor shrugged, only to suppress the belly-laugh in his throat.

*

For a while, the statue and its visitor sat silent next to each other, starring at an abandoned church. More people entered and left it now then in the last years of its service. They looked around furtively, they sneaked in and out quickly. They entered with money, they left with temporary relief. High.

"As it was when there was still a god in there." the visitor said, answering both their thoughts.

"My father is in all and everyone." the statue said, wrapping its blanket closer around itself as a cold wind made it shudder.

"Sure is. In all the people walking past, ignoring you, ignoring the dead man under your bench. One of yours, as you noted."

"One who had entered my home more than once, yes." A heavy arm pointed towards the crumpling church.

"Of course. Though the question is when, is it not?" the man teased, pointing himself to just another addict slipping into the deteriorating building.

"Why do you always have to be so cynical?"

He laughed. "Shouldn't the question be: Why aren't you?"

"There is still good in this world. I am still in this world." The words were silent, almost as if the statue didn't believe them.

"Still. Still. Shall we put it to the test? How much good there is still in these people?"

The statue creaked and groaned as it fully turned towards the man next to it. "Are you trying me? Tempting me?"

"Ain't I always? And tempting you is so much fun!" There was almost a childlike excitement in the growling voice of the visitor.

*

A woman was walking the same path the man had taken before. Over dirty streets, past towering skyscrapers, towards a fallen church. Not to enter it, just to walk past, busy. She did not look up, she never looked and never saw, for the phone in her hands spoke more to her than the people or this world. High heels clicked over the pavement, high heels got stuck in a broken tile.

She stumbled, a foot slipped from a shoe. She sighed.

"This woman." The visitor nodded towards the woman cursing the bad maintenance of the city. "One of yours, is she not? Or so you believe? We."

The statue nodded. "As you well know."

One foot only in stockings, the woman hunched down. She pulled on her shoe with one hand. The other was occupied, holding a phone. And she pulled some more. And the shoe was in her hand. But the heel was not. With another sigh, she put the phone away in her purse and with a third one she looked for a place to sit.

"She sees you. - Well, your statue." the man, still invisible on the park bench, said.

"Could you move, please. I need to sit." she said, but not to him.

And the statue did not move.

Dark clouds obscured the sky. Rain pattered down. The wind blew fallen leaves, lost in the city, over the streets.

"Your doing." the statue said, turning its faceless face to the sky. It was not a question and there could not have been an answer, for the man no longer sat next to the statue on the park bench with the dead man underneath.

He had slipped over to the woman. She had her hands on her hips, waiting. And she spoke again, asking the man to move, but he did not. And the other man did not wait for a third time, but whispered in her ear just a single word: "Homeless."

It had been her thought before, but now she was certain.

"Shall I do more?" the visitor asked his companion, now back on the bench. "Need I do more?"

The statue said nothing, but the woman pulled out her phone again.

"Yes, there's a homeless man sleeping on a bench in front of the old church on the corner of Churchstreet and Devil's Street -" she said into her constant companion.

"Benevolent, malevolent?" the visitor whispered in a sing-song tone, his deep growling voice adding a chill to the rain. "Worried? Or vicious?"

"Yes, just – send someone, okay?"

"Yours – or mine?" the whisper continued. Now the belly-laughter he had suppressed before filled his body. It shook the park bench, the street, the old church. The wind rattled the broken windows, blowing glass into the building and dust away. A storm howled in the distance, coming closer, ever closer.

And as it swept through the narrow street, and as the rain soaked her, and as her mobile phone feared for its life, she did not wait. One shoe in her hand instead of the phone, one still at her foot, she hobbled away. Soon her stockings would rip, soon the uneven stones would cut into her flesh, soon she would have wounds on her foot. Not as deep as the wounds of the statue, not as pronounced. But those she would see while these she did not.

"Good or evil?" The whisper carried with the storm. "Just a word, a single word. That was all I had to say to her, just a simple word. Good or evil, bad or pure?" The laughter turned into a cackle.

The statue did not answer.

*

Again they sat in silence, while addicts still slipped in and out of the old church building. And a dead man still lay underneath the park bench. And still the wind howled.

And then sirens howled with it. Coming closer, ever closer. And lightning flashed over the sky and police lights flashed in the streets.

In the church, the sirens echoed through the hall. Furtive looks became quickened steps, temporary relief worry and panic. The addicts, the dealers ran, they scattered and they slithered over the dampened ground as the wheels on the police cruiser slithered to a halt.

He did not notice them, the addicts, he did not care as he pushed open the door of his car, as he stumbled out. His hands on his hips, on his gun, he ordered: "Police, turn around."

Faces turned, people rushed, passers-by and addicts alike. As they noticed that the words were not meant for them, they kept walking. But the statue on the bench did not stir.

"Hands where I can see them!" And the statue did not move.

"I said: Turn around!"

A flash jerked over the sky. Light flashed on the metal. "Don't move!"

"Oh, the irony." the man on the park bench leaned back against the backrest, stretching his arms wide and high. "Turn around. Don't move. Silly."

"There is so much fear in him." the statue said, speaking for the first time in a long while.

At the second flash, the officer drew his gun.

"Fear or anger?" the visitor asked lazily, turning back to his stiff friend.

The statue did not move, it did not stir, it did not jerk, it did not speak. The statue was a statue.

"Get up! Show me your hands!"

A gust of wind brushed over the man's shaking hand. And at the fourth flash, he fired. The homeless man had moved, jerked, stirred, threatening,... something. He was sure.

Did he fire, or did the gun fire? Either might be true and still it would not change the end. A bullet followed the barrel of the gun, followed it further still through the wind, followed its line towards a sleeping statue on a park bench in front of an old church. Followed it, until it touched the metal, until it ricocheted.

But a visitor sat on the park bench next to a statue that afternoon, dangling his legs against the corpse underneath. And in the next flash of the storm, this was the last image the officer saw:

There, two men sat on a bench, neither lay. One homeless, faceless, wounds in his feet. The other a statuesque man, tall and proud. Serpentine horns adorned his bald head, the skin red of burning flesh. And maybe a hoof kicked up from the ground and maybe it kicked the bullet in its flight.

The bullet ricocheted back towards the police car, back to the gun it had come from. It flew past the barrel, past the arm holding the gun. All the way up to his head, his forehead, through the skin and the skull and his brain.

And he fell.

"You influenced the bullet." the statue accused.

"Oh, too bad. So sad." The devil answered with a comfortable shrug. "Now, at least, they might find the body of your lamb." he said as he stood up, pointing underneath the bench again. "Did you know, his name was Jesus? Oh, the irony." The guttural Spanish J disappeared with the wind, as did the devil, invisible, drifting away.

The statue lay down again, still once more.

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Notes:

Spoiler

The statue of a sleeping Jesus on a park bench exists (it's called Homeless Jesus by Timothy Schmalz), though its specific location is made up. The fact that people called the police about a homeless man sleeping in front of a church when first seeing said statue is real, though all further details are completely my own. (In short, the story is inspired by the statue and its reception, but nothing more.) For more information on the statue, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus

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Edit: Typo

Mandle! The topic is only a day old! 

Amazing - 5 entries, and 2 poems (3, if you count the one included in my story), that's a very poetic round!


@Mandle:

Spoiler

A bit purply at times, but not so much so that it gets distracting. The plot is a bit difficult to fully grasp: an attempt by someone to reach a higher plane of existance, but in a very evil manner - and a narrator who did achive it. This makes it difficult to understand the meaning of certain events while thy occure, and they only become understandable later. So this is a story that might need re-reads. My favorite this time around.

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@RootBound:

Spoiler

Poetry is always nice to see arround here. Of course, poems don't need to rhyme or offer a clear rhythm, but this one doesn't seem to have any structure (except for a content based one). There are some rhymes in the first stanza (night-light-bright) but it more breaks the bit of strusture there is then add to it - needing to split up night vision to create the rhyme makes it choppy to read. The plot is a simple comparisson between us humans and the animals of the forest, especially concerning the reaction to darkness. It offers a nice visual for both the animals and the stumbling, fumbling human, though.

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@Stupot:

Spoiler

A second poem in just one round! This one offers a bit more rhythm. And a bit of a mystery: What is so frightening about a forest (except maybe its inherent danger)? It's a nice duality between wanting to avoid the forest and yet being drawn to it. Nicely done.

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@lorenzo:

Spoiler

This is very well written. I copy and pasted it into my writing program, which told me you were 84 words over the limit (might vary by program, of course). Considering how descriptive the whole text is, I think it would have been easy to edit out those few words. But that hardly matters. The plot felt slightly predictable to me - I don't know what gave it away, but I divined the ending after the third paragraph at the latest. Martina is an idiot, even if you fall head over heels for someone so different from yourself and your usual aquaintances, you don't need to marry after just three weeks! At least visit your fiances home first just once. It's not even clear if Alberto needs to sacrifice his wife specifically, or if it could be any woman (or even man). In short, Martina come across as incredibly stupid and whiny, which is not a good look to give the victim. Alberto, on the other hand, comes across as at least slightly caring, while also obviously manipulative. It's a good story, but a bit of tightening wouldn't hurt.

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Votes:

Spoiler

Mandle: 4 points
Stupot: 3 points
lorenzo: 2 points
RootBound: 1 point

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[The Path]

The Path

Spoiler

The Maiden

It was an easy rule. A sensible one. Do not take the path through the forest. The bike path next to the road was perfectly fine, safe, protected from the cars by a line of trees.

It was a sensible rule. And she followed it. For the first year of school, she took the train. For the second, she followed the rule. The third, she got annoyed because the distance was so much longer following the road – rules of diagonals and all that. She actually pulled out a map and showed her parents. They did not budge. Take the path next to the road, do not take the path through the forest.

She was a teenager by now. And she blew up at them. ,,I'm not a child!"she screamed. ,,It's just a fucking forest, dammit!"

They got angry, punished her for her language, for the outburst. They didn't listen to her arguments. They didn't even realize that they treated her like a baby, doubly so by insisting she not take the path and punishing her for speaking up. No TV over the weekend and she wasn't allowed to go to the fair either.

On Monday morning, she took the path through the forest. And nothing fucking happened, as she knew it would. The next day, nothing happened either. Or the next. For a year, she biked through the forest and for a year nothing happened.

She forgot the row with her parents. She forgot the rule.

From time to time, words slipped out of her mouth that told her parents that she took the path through the forest. They looked up worried, they looked at each other, but neither said a word. Quietly, the rule had changed.

And then, one evening, she didn't come home. She had choir practice and it ran late and she didn't come home.

Her parents waited. They called her friends. Then they searched. They drove along the bike path next to the road. They called the police, they drove through the forest. A search party marched through it. And she was not found.

Until three days later, when she was spotted pushing the twisted frame of her bike along the road. Her hair was in disarray, blood glued errant strands together, bruises coloured her skin.


The Prince

There was a prince walking through the forest. A real one. With a white horse and gold at his jacket.

He smiled at her when she biked past. He groomed his horse and he smiled at her and he warned her: ,,A witch lives here in this forest. Avoid her."

For days, for weeks, for a year, the warning to the child was the same. Small additions came over time. ,,I'm stuck here," he said, ,,I'm a prisoner in this forest."

She never stopped. Until she did one evening when she was no longer a child and he didn't groom his horse but was sitting on a log, smiling as he always did but rubbing a swollen ankle.

,,Are you alright?"she asked.

And he just smiled and nodded. And something in her heart jumped.

,,How can you be a prisoner here?"she asked.

,,The witch's spell caught me when I was just riding through. And since then, for centuries I've been imprisoned here." he explained, as if the words had just waited to come out. ,,I am cursed until someone asks for my release."

,,That is all?"

,,That is all."

She did not ask why.

And so she left the path that brought her home and she followed him deeper into the forest. Past fallen branches and over slippery moss, through scrub and over fallen trees, they walked, her bike long forgotten, until the darkness of the forest mixed with the approaching night.

A thick smell engulfed her, from the pine needles and the resin and the sweet perfume she had never noticed on him before.

And she questioned her decision but she did not question him, as it was then that they reached a dark hut in the deepest part of the forest.

It was a hut of gingerbread and candy, of chocolates, of chewing gum, of sprinkles and cake. And it stood skew-whiff and broken, badly maintained and abandoned, alone in the dark. And then, all was dark for her as well.


The Witch

Deep in the forest she waits,
in her hut of sugar and cake,
with them she beckons and baits.
Be careful, hide, stay awake!

A path leads to her hut,
filled with glimmering stones
and with just a single cut,
she lays bare your bones.

All she snares in her forest
from prince to pauper to fool,
Do not dither or rest,
it is such an easy rule.

And once you are in her trap,
her laughter does not mean fun.
One false turn or false step.
Turn around, quickly, run!


The Prince

The girl lay motionless on her side, one arm obscuring her face from view. But even without seeing her face, even when it was impossible to see if her chest still moved, she did not need such outer signs. The girl was dead. And she had seen death before, had spoken with him and visited him multiple times.

But he was not the one to visit her that evening, for he did not come when wickedness and cruelty brought pain to the living, he came when nature brought the same.

There still grew mushrooms where once her hut stood, eating away at the sugar. Now just a ruin of sweets talked of her spell-craft. They had already started to encircle the girl, tentatively reaching for her with their spores. And soon she would be gone and forgotten, impossible to find for the world outside. Or for her.

But still, there was time.

She hoisted her up into her arms and she carried her into the house, she bedded her on a bed of candyfloss and covered her wounds with marshmallows.

She looked through her clothes for a keepsake, and she found a necklace of silver stars on her chest.

Two days and three nights she hunted for the prince, she followed his tracks and his scent and she found him pounding against the barrier that would not let him through, as he so often did.

"Was she the first?" she asked, calmly.

The prince laughed. "You thought keeping me here would save them, when so many of them come wandering through?"

"I had hoped, but hope is futile. I had hoped that you would learn."

"Learn? Learn what?"

"No matter. It is time for you to leave."

"Leave? So you finally found sense, witch? Then lower this barrier at once!" he ordered.

Now it was the witch's turn to laugh and her cackling startled the geese on the fields beyond the forest.

She stepped forward and pressed the star-shaped necklace to his forehead and the memories of the assault filled his mind. Not his, hers. They were dragged through the forest and his life was dragged from him. And through the necklace it was pulled into her.


The Maiden

Without memory, she woke. Without senses, she brushed a sticky mess from her body. Without orientation, she stumbled over leaves and fir needles and cones. Without understanding, she pulled her bike from a ditch.

There was no path to follow, no memory to tell her where she was. She remembered biking through the forest as she always did, as she did every day, and then there was nothing. Something sticky was glued to her body, her clothes, resin most likely, wounds covered her body, she had fallen, most likely, her memory was sporadic and shoddy, so she had hurt her head, so it seemed.

And when she was spotted pushing the twisted frame of her bike along the road, her hair in disarray, errant strands of it glued together by blood, bruises colouring her skin, three days of life were lost to her.

[close]

Now that I've rushed to finish it, now I'm posting it like that! If it feels like it, I wouldn't be surprised.

On second thought, I think I'll be done by the deadline. The story still needs editing and proofreading, but I should be done with this tomorrow.

Nice to see an entry already. As for my own, I had no time to write anything in the last week. And it doesn't look like I'll have much time in the next few days either.
So, I tentatively ask for an extansion to the deadline early on.

Hmmm, I was actually tempted to allow Tottel's story and redo voting as it's such a fringe case and the more the merrier... but I guess it is maybe a bit too late, eh?

(any public or secret thoughts on this?)

Generally speaking, I very much welcome as many entries as possible, but not after voting has started and especially after people have voted. It's always possible that people who already voted don't look in the thread again, and that wouldn't be fair. And even if that is not the case, there's a limit to how long a competition should be dragged out. I mean, technically, we are already past the original voting deadline, even.

But I do hope to read more from Tottel in the next rounds and in all following ones.


P.S.: A new entry right after the end of the writing deadline, before anyone has voted, would be fine, I think.

Welcome, Tottel, to the competition and the forums, it seems. You are indeed a bit late for an entry - what you are not late for is voting, if you feel like it.

Thoughts on your story:

Spoiler

As you posted the story in this thread, I assume it is also meant for this theme: A SECRET HOBBY - which I can't see in your story at all. I don't know what the secret hobby is, or if there even is one. Overall, the whole setting of the story is pretty 'dark' to me. I don't get any sense where or when or even why it is taking place. There's reference to the sun in the beginning (which seems to be a memory, going by the ending), and then a bar with friends. That's very little to paint a picture, everything else is inner thoughts (probably?).
As a matter of fact, I don't even get a sense who Sam is talking to, or is he even talking to anyone other than himself?
What this story does offer is a deep inner perspective, a person trying to find their way, someone who feels alienated from their friends to some degree. But I can't really figure out why. Is there any reference to an actual event that happened prior to his contemplations? I'm not sure.
Overall, this story gives me the impression that you had something in mind, some idea of a scene, some idea of events and reasons that you just never bothered to tell the reader because they were so clear in your head. (It's one of the problems with "show, don't tell", sometimes, a writer has to tell the reader certain things.)

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Anyway, welcome again. I hope to see you here often in the future. 

Edit: Misspelled our new member's name, sorry about that.

Maybe someone is secretly thinking about voting... (One can hope.)

I'd extend the voting deadline by a day or two, and if nobody has voted by then (as is, unfortunately, likely), it's up to you to decide, Mandle.

With only two entries this round...

...But what about all the secret entries? 

There's a secret vote for them.

Well, a (not so) secret vote from them would be amazing. 


Baron:

Spoiler

Okay, this is a great beginning... where's the rest of the story? I really like the main character, the other treasure hunters could be fleshed out a bit more. But the story really needs to continue. We're just getting to the meat of it; the adventure just begins - and you leave us hanging.
I like the hints of all the past these characters have with each other, and all the adventures they had in their past. Actually, adventure is really the name of the game here: The whole story reads a bit like the intro to an adventure game. Now we can go and solve a few riddles with a protagonist who would really make a great adventurer - life experience, street smarts, probably combined with book smarts, and needs to find clever solutions to avoid physical activities.
All right, you probably don't need to write the rest of this story - turn it into a game instead!

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My vote will obviously go to Baron (even though it's not really necessary to say so with just out two entries.

[To the Pole]

Almost naked body, swear words. Gay used as a slur. The opinions of my characters do not represent my own opinions. You have been warned, should you not want to read such.

To the Pole

Spoiler

Andrew turned off the computer, the last lines of code he had stared at for the last hour or so still burned in his retina.

Zander crashed into his chair, letting two heavy hands drop on his shoulders. "We wanted to go for a beer – George, Philip and me. Wanna come along?" Zander asked.

"Oh no, not today." He thought for a second. "I wanted to watch the game."

"What game?"Zander flipped through the TV schedule in his mind. Soccer – no; football – no; basketball, tennis, baseball – no, no and no.

"Uhm,"Andrew said, doing the same, "Uhm, snooker."

"Oh, yeah, of course!" Snooker? Who watches snooker? "Have fun!"Zander said, pushing back from Andrew's chair and his beer belly into his desk.

"You too! See you Monday!"

*

Coming out of the shower and drying his hair, Andrew turned on the TV, switching to the sports channel.

Huh! He laughed, then sighed with relief. There actually was a snooker game on right now. But he didn't pay much attention to it, letting the words of the commentator drone in to one ear and out of the other while he smeared gel into his hair.

It was a slow affair, as his cat, Mimi, constantly tried to lick from the open container. He had tasted the gel once, trying to figure out why the cat liked it so much. He still had no idea.

But Mimi made him late nearly every Friday evening, so much so that he stopped using the tube and opted for a taxi nowadays. It meant he had to walk further, but it was still quicker. There was a subway station right outside his apartment, there was another one opposite the back door of the club, but he never told the taxi driver his exact destination and he never got picked up from his home.

Today, he had the driver stop for a second at a gas station. He jumped out of the car quickly only to return a moment later with a sad looking bouquet of roses and a protein bar because they had no other chocolates. He was bad at remembering birthdays, or rather, bad at remembering to buy birthday presents. Hopefully, Elena would appreciate the thought at least.

*

Hours after they had entered their first bar for the evening, the three work friends had found their way into a noble part of town.

"There's no bar here!" Philip griped, looking around the wide streets and dark villas.

"Not a bar," George laughed, "But one of the best clubs in town!"

"Private?" Zander asked, while Philip wondered: "What kind of club?"

"No, not private, not exclusive, just expensive. And the girls there are exquisite!" George tried to say, the words becoming a jumbled mess for his drunken tongue. But he got his message across and the two other men hollered with excitement, then shushed themselves, looking around the quiet neighborhood one more time.

The club was in one of the smaller villas, surrounded by a small park and a large iron fence, far enough away from the other houses so that the guests didn't attract too much unwelcome attention.

A doorman stood in an old porter's hut near the portal of the fence, rattling down the rules to all newcomers in a cheery tone. "No touching, just looking!" the most important one was said with steely eyes, but as if he was inviting friends to a party.

*

Blowing kisses into the dimly lit auditorium, Elena sashayed out onto the stage. The room had filled since her first of six performances of the night. Three men, probably work friends going by the crinkled shirts and loosened ties and rather drunken state for this early in the night, at least for the club, sat at one of the front row tables. They hollered and cheered before she even really started.

Elena stood in the middle of the stage, one slender leg peeking out from her diagonal skirt, then she nodded to the guitar player at the side. He started to play the song she had composed herself just for her performances, while she added the gentle rhythm with the castanets in her hands. Slowly, her whole body started to sway to the music, her naked feet started to beat the wooden floor, then her hips kicked the skirt from side to side. The faster and faster the music became, the more sensual her dance turned.

The guests in the first row didn't appreciate her art. At first they had hollered, but the longer and longer her dance lasted and no clothes came flying from her body, the more silent they became, then louder again, demanding something Elena did not offer.

But when the dance ended with a final strike of the castanets and the last note from the guitar drifted away, the audience applauded loudly, drowning out the disappointed calls from the one table.

*

"Keep an eye on table four during Andy's set, John." Elena said to the gruff looking man at the stage exit when she strolled away.

"Will do." he answered with a simple nod and no other questions.

"Problem?" Andrew asked, standing there, waiting for Elena in a fluffy white bathrobe, his hands behind his back.

"They're just here to see naked female flesh, that's all."

"So, the usual? Who cares. - Anyway, happy birthday!" and he pulled out the sad flowers and granola bar.

"Thank you, Andy!" she said, genuinely happy and kissed him on the cheek, then moved on to his lips, feeling up his naked body under the fluffy bathrobe.

"Stop!" he murmured into her lips, then pushed her slightly back. "Not the right moment!" He felt too much from her touch, just too much.

"I know." she pouted.

"You still plan to visit your parents this weekend? There's a ballroom tournament..." He trailed off. He knew the answer already.

"They throw me a birthday party. You know I can't simply skip out on this. You could come..." She trailed off. They were not ready yet.

In the background, techno music started to pulse through the old villa, calling them both back to the present.

"Got to go!" Andy said.

"Break a leg!" she called as she gently pushed him towards the stage.

"Better not!" Andrew laughed, the banter between them long turned into routine.

*

A moment later, the techno song rose in volume through the loudspeakers and Andrew breathed in and out quickly, pumping the air through his lungs to the rhythm of the beat. He let his bathrobe slip to the ground, revealing his almost naked body underneath. Only his speedos and his slight beer belly hid his penis from view. Adjusting the fake leather, he stuffed this little bit of unnecessary fat back in, then he was ready.

Andrew walked onto the stage to the cheers of the audience, many regulars who had seen his performance before. Here and there, a few jeers were mixed in with the cheers, taunting his not so perfect body or his gender, which, in context, also revealed a not perfect body.

"Gay!" - "Come on, where are the girls?" - "Buuuh!" - "Naked men? At least get a real one here!" - "Look at this floppy-"

Andy's mind droned out the voices, fully concentrated on his routine.

Slowly, he walked towards the iron pole in the middle of the stage, counting the beats in his head. He put his hands on it, one above the other, bending his body almost unnaturally. Then, at a shrill note, timed perfectly, he jumped. Now his stiff body was horizontal with the floor. For a moment, he held the position, then he swung his legs up, embracing the pole with his feet. Letting go with his hands, he whirled around the pole once, twice, slowly sliding further to the ground, before putting the hands back and stretching his legs so that he almost did a handstand nuzzling the pole. Putting hand above hand, he climbed up the pole in this position until his feet almost touched the high ceiling of the former salon of the villa.

Here, the stage-lights blinded him almost completely, but by this part in his act it didn't matter if they did. It didn't matter any longer if he heard the music. Here, he was one with the pole, his movements, the tension in his muscles almost meditative, the cheers, now almost nothing but cheers, felt like a warm rain on his skin, washing the sweat away.

But becoming one with the pole and the music and the dance, also meant that the voices from down below became clearer once again.

"What is this? Women's night?" George jeered. And it was George. Andrew recognized the voice, heard it clear as day over the music. "Or gay?"

His fingers slipped for a second, dropping him a couple of feet closer to the floor.

Shit. Shit. Shit! The thoughts pumped to the beat. George was here. Zander and Philip, too?

"It's a great performance, though!" Philip, laughter in his voice, called over the loud music to be heard by his friends.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Did they recognize him?

"Wait a sec, doesn't this guy look like Andrew?" Zander.

Shit!

"What, seriously? Our Andy?" Philip.

"Yes!" Zander.

"Wow, didn't know he was into this stuff!" George. "Monday will be fun!"

Monday will be pure horror. It was the first clear thought that broke through the rest of the panic. And it came right as he pushed back from the pole, landing in an almost comic book like three point position in front of the audience. Cheers and applause filled the room, droning out the next words of his colleagues and his next thoughts. He bowed a couple of times, almost in trance, then left the stage with his head low.

*

On Monday morning, Mimi had to paw his head five times before he finally got up. And even then he considered calling in sick. There was no way he could face his colleagues.

There was no way he could skip work.

There was no way he could suffer through their taunts.

There was no way he could leave the project to George, really.

Damn.

*

It was like running a silent gauntlet. The receptionist just nodded as usual. The janitor did not notice him, screwing in a new light-bulb. The HR lady was copying files, not looking up either.

Zander smiled, friendly enough. Philip smiled as well, though forced. George was not in yet.

"How was your weekend?" Zander asked after a while.

"Great."

"And your Friday?" Philip added, his smile becoming weird.

"Great. I met with my girlfriend." Andrew said curtly.

"Sure you did!" George said from the door, just coming in. "But just to get this straight" – He laughed at his own feeble attempt of a joke. - "you like showing all or what?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Andrew said, staring intently at his keyboard, even though he had not turned on the computer yet.

"Oh, come on, Andy, we all saw you." Philip said, "Saw a little too much, to be honest." After a pause, where he seemed to set his head straight, he added, "I think it's pretty courageous. Weird, but courageous."

"It's a hobby. Just a hobby." Andrew said with a sigh.

"Fucking gay, if you ask me." George laughed again.

"Nobody asked you!" Zander stood up and positioned himself in front of Andrew, facing George. "And nobody cares about your opinion. Or yours, for that matter!" He turned to Philip. "Or mine, but I do think it was a fricking fantastic performance, very stylish and artistic, and probably needs a lot of strength. Your arm muscles must be incredible. And if you enjoy it" he looked back at Andy, "who are we to judge? Now lets get the fuck back to work, all of us!"

*

Rumors spread quickly, as they always do. And uncomfortable facts follow fast. At lunch, whispers greeted him in the canteen, at the end of the day, cat-callers ducked quickly behind partition walls.

The next morning, some positive comments found their way to him, a quick pat on the back, an encouraging smile, though all in secret, all when people were alone with him.

Proposals followed soon after. Andrew had no idea how many men actually found him attractive, Zander one among them. He turned them all down, mentioning Elena, his girlfriend. Few believed that she was real.

The taunts never stopped.

Three days later, he turned in his resignation.

[close]

So secret that not even you know what it will be?   

I'm nearly done with mine.

Ah, stories based on real life; skips the whole coming up with an idea of writing.

It's a good story and you shouldn't be surprised to have won.

Congrats, Mandle!

See you next round.

Three interesting stories, but I don't think any really fits the topic, none of them really give me this cozy feeling Baron asked for (including my own, I don't think I did any better here).

Mandle:

Spoiler

A very quick entry, as I already mentioned earlier, and a nice enough story, though slightly sad. We either have a genius scientist here, who's life's work only get to the result he dreams of at the very end of his life - and nobody will ever really get to see it, work with it, admire it. Or a delusional old man who believes to have found great scientific progress but in truth just scribbles nonsense of random pieces of paper. On the other side, we have a care home worker who "plays-along" with these possible dellusions, jokes with him, yes (if he takes it as jokes and isn't truly annoyed with her) but doesn't have any kind of deep or understanding relationship with him. Honestly, this story just reads as sad. Even if we assume we can take his elation at finally solving the scientific mystery at face value, it still feels pointless, because he's so alone in his discovery.
It's a deep story, a sad story and one I quiet liked - but cozy it is not.

[close]

Ponch:

Spoiler

This is a little slice-of-life scene with a couple of cute kids. I'm missing the plot a bit, though. It is just kids talking to each other.
I like how much we get to learn about their home on Mars, and even little snippets of information about other colonized moons, and even a potentially dangerous political situation brewing. - But that's all in the background. It's interesting background information for sure, and I'd be interested in several aspects of this world, but the text as presented here hardly rises to the level of an actual story. It's kids talking, it's an introduction to the world.
Interesting enough, the part that comes closest to being a plot is the probably, maybe sad home-life of Syrette. It's hinted at but never explored, but it certainly seems like she doesn't live in a great situation at home. Throwing this tidbit at the reader towards the end of the story (together with the hint of political tormoil) leads to the impression that the kids overall are in a far less positive situation than they seem to be just from their conversation.

[close]

lorenzo:

Spoiler

Okay, this one is cute. Maybe a bit too cute for my tastes, a little bit too childish, and a little bit too predictable (which intensifies the impression that I'm the wrong reader here and it is meant for kids no older than maybe 10, where the end might still seem like an actual twist).
Some of the plays on language and sayings are well done, some choices a bit weird, considering they are not really explored at all (I'm mostly refering to the crossed out 3 for "chapter" 4).
This story certainly thrives in its dialog. You mention in your note that these characters are meant for a comic book - and yes, it feels like it. With matching cutsie drawings it would work well as a comic - again, for children, mainly, not adults.
This story certainly comes closest to the cozy theme set by Baron, at least in my opinion. It still misses the mark though, because it is just a children's story, a cute one, with nothing else, nothing more that gives a cozy feeling.

[close]

Votes:

Spoiler

SNICK-SNICK by Mandle: 5 points
The Color of Home by Ponch: 2 points
Loopy & Doofy and the Case of the Stolen Cookies by lorenzo: 3 points

[close]

lorenzo, do you happen to have a link to your other story with these characters? I'd like to refresh my memory.

[Her Father's Wish]

Her Father's Wish

Spoiler

Michele sighed when she opened the storage room and jumped aside when an old flower pot tumbled out and clattered on the ground. The room was filled to the brim, old bookshelves leaned haphazardly on a broken refrigerator, a curtain hang down from an opulent chandelier, half hiding a large picture frame that seemed to contain the ugliest painting of a landscape you could think of. It was chaos, pure chaos, just as Michele had expected.

Her dad had been a 'collector'. Which, in truth, only meant that he bought everything and all on the local flee markets, stared at it for a week or two, and then put it away in the storage unit, until you couldn't open the door any longer.

For five minutes, ten, she just stood there and stared at the mess, searching for some, any point of attack, a weakness in the wall of chaos. Maybe, if she took down these antique scales and then climbed over the statue of a seal...

No, that didn't work. Okay, maybe she could wiggle under this desk, lie there and pull out this box of books without the bronze bottle on top of it tumbling down...

Of course it fell. On her head. And it took a layer of dust with it. Michele cursed and coughed and hit her head on the desktop and cursed some more.

"Such language..." a smiling voice came from above and strong hands grabbed her legs and pulled her out from under the desk.

Michele rubbed her burning eyes, only adding more dust particles to the redness, and blinked up at a young, grinning man, who was perching next to her.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking around the empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere where just her red truck stood facing the garage door of the storage unit. She was supposed to be alone here.

"Names! Who needs names?" the young man asked exuberantly, standing up and pulling her on her feet with him. "Names are just so – modern!"

"Modern?" she asked confused, rubbing her pounding head.

"Yes! Yes, indeed!" He let go of her hands and whirled around three or four times, randomly dancing in the afternoon sun. "Modern! Wishes on the other hand, wishes are eternal!" With every syllable, his voice had become louder and he screamed the last word so that it echoed over the parking lot.

Michele flinched and the stranger stopped immediately and steadied her with a gentle touch to her shoulder. "Sorry, sorry," he whispered, "didn't mean to startle you. It's just such a wonderful day, isn't it?"

"Sure," Michele answered, still fairly disorientated.

The young man put his hands on her cheeks and pulled her head up so that he stared right into her eyes. "No, no it is not. I'm sorry, again. I'm a bit rusty on reading people, so sorry, ma'am. It is not a wonderful day, not for you, is it? Your father died. So sorry, ma'am."

Michele shook her head and the man's hands from her cheeks. "No, no it is not," she said slowly, stepping back from the maniac. "I... you should leave." The pepper-spray in her pocket felt really reassuring right now.

"Can't. Sorry." He flopped on the ground and sat there cross-legged, pouting. "You see, my bottle... I'm a genie... You have to tell me a wish." The bronze bottle, that had left a serious bruise on her forehead, now sat in his lap and he petted it gently like a purring cat.

"And then you'll leave?"

"Of course. I really don't want to annoy you or anything. It's just so nice to stroll through this dimension every couple of years. Where I'm from, we don't have sunlight. I mean, crystal-light is amazing and the spectrum of colours in my world is – well, you couldn't see them with your eyes." He talked so fast that he spluttered, his words jumping over each other. "Anyway, it's a great deal for me, coming here every now and then, granting a wish, then spending the next 24 hours dancing in the sun or getting hammered in the next bar – What direction is the next pub, by the way?"

"Over ther- Wait, what? - Oh, whatever. I just tell you a wish and you piss off?" As long as he left, she thought.

"Basically, yes. There are rules, of course. But it's fine. I'll tell you if it doesn't fit. No harm, no foul."

"Fine, whatever. I want to be rich, standard stuff, you know."

The young man laughed. "Standard stuff, indeed. Unfortunately, you already are. There's about a million in gold and diamonds somewhere in this rubble." He pointed with his thumb backwards into the old storage unit.

"Suuure." Michele sighed. "How about world peace?" she asked annoyed.

"You do like the normal asks, don't you? Sorry, again, it has to be something personal. Oh, and before you say it, death is, unfortunately, irreversible, so I can't bring your father back either, sorry."

Exasperated with the whole situation, Michele sighed again and without thinking she said: "Well, then, help me clean out this bloody storage!"

"That I can do!" The genie clapped his hands together excited and jumped on his feet. "Shall we?" He bowed slightly and gestured towards the storage.

Michele hesitated a moment. She wanted to get rid of this guy, not having him work with her. "It was my wish to have this unit cleared out," she said mockingly, "shouldn't it be done now?" Of course she didn't believe it.

The young man grimaced. "I'm so, so sorry," he said, "but you wished for me to help you, not to have it done. And I granted the wish, so I can't change it any longer. It's difficult for my kind to follow the intend of a wish, even if we understand it." He jumped high into the air somersaulting just for the fun of it. "But you have help now, so chop chop," - clap, clap- "let's go!"

Michele was too tired to fight the strange man on this. She just wanted to get it done. And she could use the help, if only so that no other bottle fell on her head.

*

With a helping hand, it was so much easier to clean out the storage unit. Together they easily dragged the heavy desk out and placed it on the far too large parking lot.

"You know," the genie said wistfully with a bright smile on his lips, "your father sat on this desk when he wrote his first love letter to your mother."

"Sure," she said absent-mindedly, wiping sweat and dust from her forehead.

"There's still a spot of ink here, because he tried and failed to write with a feather."

"Sure." she repeated. "Let's not make up stories about my father, shall we? He cared more about this junk than about-" She stopped herself.

"You?" he asked, pulling a little pouch from a drawer and spilling its contents on the tabletop. Diamonds sparkled in the sun. "Of course he didn't. He cared about these things just as much as he cared about you – precisely. But it wasn't his fault, not really."

"Sure. Could we just get this done?"

"Sure." he said in the same tone, "As was your wish, I shall help."

"Then help and shut up."

"Shutting up wasn't part of the deal." the genie pouted, only to replace a frown on his face with a mocking grimace right away. "But I love shutting up! Shutting up his fun!" The exuberant happiness was back in his voice.

"I've never loved anything as much as shutting up!" he shouted as he almost flew over the pile of chaos in the storage unit. Piece after little piece he removed and without prompting or apparent care, he sorted them into three piles while Michele stood still for a moment just watching. "Junk!" he called, pointing to the first pile and spun around himself "Sentimental!" he said to the second, back flipping back to the garage door, "Valuable!" and he spilled an old jewellery box with golden necklaces next to the diamonds.

But suddenly, he stopped. As if he had run against a wall and as if his arms were locked in place.

"What?" she asked exasperated, "What is it now?" She had taken some of the jewellery between her fingertips and inspected it in the setting sun. It sparkled bright where the light fell on the precious stones but was stopped in the tarnished silver that hadn't been polished in many years.

"You're difficult," the genie said, for the first time slightly annoyed himself. "Your wish was for me to help you, not for me to clean it out alone. You have to do something too."

Michele shook her head. He was annoying, but he was also right. It was her father's storage, it was her job to clean it out. Still, she couldn't stop herself from hesitating at the rather large sentimental pile the genie had already created. There were old childhood paintings from when she was a toddler, the candle she had made for the best dad in the world, the veil from her wedding dress, the onesie of the child she lost and the mittens from the one who lived. A blue cup she could not place stood next to a photo from her graduation and a newspaper article from her first exhibition lay underneath.

"He loved you." the young man said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, interrupting her thoughts and slightly leading her forward to the storage unit.

She sighed again. As much as exuberance seemed to be his modus operandi, sighing seemed to be hers today. "He loved this stuff. That he kept things from my life doesn't change the fact."

"No, no it doesn't. It substantiates it. Even when all he treasured he brought here, he brought the memories of you along."

"Suddenly so serious? Who are you anyway, to talk about my father-"

"I am a genie. I told you. And he was a friend."

"Sure."

"When he found my bottle fishing in the ocean, he didn't believe me either. Most people don't. For me it was the best day in two centuries, for him it was Tuesday, the day he would get home to his wife and baby daughter after a week on the sea. - Oh, have you seen a sunset on the sea?" he asked excited, throwing his hands high in the air, "A dolphin's fin breaking the reflection? The silver beams caressing the surface of the water and the white stripes a ship leaves in its wake? Have you heard the seagulls calling to the wind, the whales singing in the depths, the motor howling and pumping and panting? Have you smelled the seagrass on the beach, the salt in the air, the brine on your skin? Have you felt it? Or the wind blowing the hair into your face, your ears flapping in a storm? The rising and falling of a boat in a storm or the heavy raindrops biting into your flesh? Your feet stomping on sun-dried concrete?"

The young man danced around the parking lot, screaming his appreciation of the world into the void. "Oh, it's wonderful, so wondrous, so perfect!" He grabbed her arms and whirled her around with him, first just in random circles, then step by step into a salsa, a cha-cha-cha, just like her dad had done when she was just a teenager, teaching her how to dance in their living room. And for a moment she seemed to hear the music just like back then, playing from the same half-broken boom box that now stood next to a blue cup leaking white crumbly battery acid onto an old desk.

With the last spin, she stumbled and fell onto the ground, laughing. For a moment, she had forgotten why she was here.

"He wished for you to be happy," the genie said, reaching out to grab onto her hand and pulling her up again. "But that, I could not do. It was not personal to him, I could not grant it. What I grant is material, mostly, things to take in your hands, things to love and to cherish. And people are not things."

Slowly, the genie led Michele back to the storage unit. She had hardly noticed how much the had already cleaned out of it. Only a couple of shelves still leaned against the back wall, filled with various boxes of junk. At least it was junk in the genie's opinion, because once they had dragged the boxes into the last remnants of the sun, he threw them unceremoniously onto the junk pile. She couldn't really disagree.

"What did he wish for?" she asked after a while where they worked in silence. "When you couldn't grant him my happiness, what did he wish for?"

The young man sighed. "Something I should not have granted. For something he could treasure. I told him he already had you, Michele, so he asked for things he could treasure just as much as he treasured you, just as valuable as you, something he could love just as much. He thought- he thought he had tricked me. So that he would never love anything more than you. Because nothing would be more valuable to him than you. I don't need tricking, but as I said, it is difficult for my kind to follow the intend of a wish, when it is so easy to grant it literally. So he got stuff. A lot of stuff. All kinds of stuff. And for him it was just as valuable as you."

With the last box dropped onto the last pile, the genie stretched and smiled at the daughter of his old friend. "Well, your wish was granted. Time to get drunk!"

He turned around and started to walk in the direction Michele had indicated several hours earlier. After a few steps he stopped. "Unless you would like some help throwing the junk out and loading the rest in your truck?"

"You grant more than one wish per person?" Michele asked sarcastically but with a slight, mischievous smile on her lips.

"No, normally not. But I did grant a second one to your dad: He asked me to tell you he loved you, which I did. But helping you load your truck? Why shouldn't I help the daughter of an old friend?"

*

When Michele drove away from the empty parking lot and just as empty storage unit, she sighed one last time. Then she smiled.

[close]

MANDLE!!! How dare you, an entry before I have even really read the topic?   

I'll read your story later, once my own is finish. Congrats on probably the earliest entry in the history of the FWC!

The "---" replies felt unsettling in an understated way.

I like this description!


Congrats, Baron!
See you next round.

[Voting!!!]

Yeah, it's a matter of taste. (And I think I have at least ten more theories as to the possible meaning of your story  )


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GUYS: Voting!!! Don't forget to do it!
(And I'm talking to everyone who reads this thread, not just the competitiors.)