[Kloriel]

Tonight I hope to motivate bored (HAHA) writers to scare the crap out of each other with brief prose. Shelley wrote Frankenstein during a 'who could write the scariest story contest with some friends'. This is like that but very light and amateurish. Go for it if you want.

Rules: Use common sense. This is a public forum for a rock band. Horror I think is fine, but if you're just going to drop shock value pornographic violence, you shouldn't win. Don't bring the CIA or FBI to your (or anyone else's) door.

Don't kill yourself over it either. If you have text you wanted to publish, this probably isn't the best vehicle to get feedback on it.

My plan is to just let the thread go for a while, let's say until Valentine's Day. (Someone please convert that date to Julius? calendar for suchfriends). Then the judge will announce a winner. There should be a prize but I don't have any ideas or idle swiss bank accounts but I bet you lot could put something together if this garners any interest.

No idea what the character limit is for a singular post is, so I'm going to say you can use two regular post fields. Try to get them in seamless sequence. Do not post a novel. If it prints out at 10+ pages, it is too long.

Don't feel limited to horror. comedy and drama can scare just as much as an ivory coast pariah / shaman devouring the remains of a deceased albino african in an attempt to gain praeternatural powers.

I'm going to attach a poll unrelated to the contest, because I like to express myself that way.

For the judge of the event, I nominate a new system. Disregard previous conceptions. NOW. When Valentine's Day rolls around, a poll will be posted in which everyone can vote on all stories entered. You will only vote once. I admit to trying to be complicated with the first attempt.

Post any questions here for the time being. I Still Encourage Sound and Visual entries. While you won't win the contest, you will help make more interest air.

Hope you are all well.

-kloriel
'i got the message and the message stood. One. Two. Three.'

[Kloriel]

I voted Independent Study. the above post was my notion.

[Glice]

Does this have to happen tonight? Only I'm going to bed now.

[Glice]

My plan is to just let the thread go for a while, let's say until Valentine's Day

Course, I could always read the fucking thing.

[Kloriel]

ya, no rush. if there are half a dozen people that wanted to try and participate combined with a willing judge, then it could be more fun than a barrel of drowned martins (assuming one of the dead martin carcasses was filled with emeralds and rubies). And everyone that found the barrel was first shot in a kneecap, given a shimmering metallic wrench, and then told their mam needed the gems to pay for health insurance.

that'd be a story with probably not a lot of external dialogue.

[Kloriel]

Also, if this idea doesn't garner interest and if any regular members of the board have opinions as to why it wouldn't work, don't hesitate to let me know so I can improve upon future endeavors.

[Kloriel]

Thanks very much Nefeli. Now let us see which board writer is brave enough to jump in first!

[acousticrock87]

This is my favorite thread in a long time. Great idea, and expressed with style.

[acousticrock87]

Are we supposed to post it right in this thread? I'll do that for now, and move it if I misunderstood.

Not that I feel the need to disclaim (though clearly, I do), I did write this specifically for the thread, just now. I don't think it's bad, but it's not "important" to me, so no worries if you don't like it. If you do, awesome, but you know. Whatever. I like what Kloriel said about amateur Frankenstein. That's a good way to look at this thread.

And this is super short (800 words) but I'm terrible at lengthy stuff.

Seeing

Closing your eyes is a lot like seeing, in the dark. Your mind wraps its arms around the nothingness—respects it, accepts its terms. Do that, and you can see; keep your eyes open, and the darkness will keep taking…

My mind has been slowly emptying itself for years.

If I signed up for this, I’m sure I thought it would be easy. I can handle hallucinations. I can handle isolation. I don’t need people. The mosquitoes were fine, if they were real, but the spaces between them were tough. I couldn’t figure out where they went, so I ran around the room sweeping the walls and the floor with my hands. I slid my bed around the room so I could reach every inch of the ceiling, jumping and swiping, and trying not to kill them, checking under the toilet and between the sheets. I don’t know how long I spent doing that. But eventually, they would start up again. Just when I’d forgotten about them, I’d hear that intelligent buzzing cloud, feel it on my face, in my lungs. Tiny things that bit and itched. I wouldn’t call it irritating, but you would. Some people are afraid of bugs, and I can’t see that. Maybe I used to, but…

I wasn’t scared until they stopped completely.

I never got scared until I couldn’t remember what they sounded like. Not that I forgot—forgetting is hard—but I couldn’t remember. Would it make more sense if I said that I wasn’t able to think clearly? But that wouldn’t be exactly true. I could think clearly; I just didn’t want to anymore. My mind was shutting down. It still is. I guess that means they were never real in the first place, but what did that matter? They were real enough.

I read that a girl was locked in a nuclear bunker for 48 hours with no light, and near the end she felt like someone was always in the room with her, standing silently at a distance, sliding around the walls when she got too close. She said he had a pointed fedora with no face, and a trench coat. He was the color of darkness, an unnecessary camouflage. Straight out of a detective cartoon. She knew he was all in her head, but he was “real enough,” and she was scared. She panicked, started banging her head on the bunker wall to give herself an option—fear or pain. She gave herself a concussion, but they found her less than two hours later.

They asked her, when she had recovered, what she thinks she would have done if they hadn’t found her. She said she would have killed herself, that she couldn’t have taken it much longer.

I can tell you what really happens.

The panic subsides. That’s when the honeymoon begins; that’s when you start sweeping the walls, looking for the little toy mouse, the symphony orchestra, the cloud of mosquitoes—whatever it is that was driving you crazy—now it’s your lifeline. Stimulation is stimulation, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, because for all you know you could be dead already. Yeah, that thought comes early.

At first I was worried I would forget how to stimulate my mind, but like I said, forgetting is hard. Remembering is harder. The mental energy it takes to create thoughts without new material to occupy them is exponential. The energy it takes to remember how I got here is far out of reach. I’ve lost the will and the concern to find out, to dig that deep into my memory—which is still there, but useless to me.

They feed me with a click, periodically. I don’t know how often I eat, for obvious reasons. There’s a hatch on the wall that opens with a sound—always the same meal arranged in the exact same way, every grain of rice in the same spot. For a while it would change, when the mosquitoes were around. Then, I got feasts through the hatch. Lobster and sushi and sirloin wrapped in bacon. That stopped when the mosquitoes disappeared, and now the tray is never crooked.

You think that I want to leave, but I can’t remember what’s waiting for me out there. I have enough left to know that there’s more than darkness, and the words I use when I can think of something to say came from somewhere, but that thought—the one about being dead—doesn’t scare me so much anymore.

Here, I’m God. In every sense of the word. There is nothing I want, and nothing I cannot do. You think that I want to leave, and you may be right. I can’t remember if I want to leave. I still miss the mosquitoes, sometimes. But even a god must mourn his creations.

[Kloriel]

Great acousticrock,

Yup you got it, just post the entries into the body of the thread.

Thanks for stepping up to the plate and going first.

Also if anyone has any questions feel free to PM me.

Good luck to all and to all a good mutilated potbelly pig corpse (once named Desmond).

[Kloriel]

I'm Changing the Judge Rules due to wise advise. Edit in main topic coming soon. Meanwhile enjoy this image of wild life:

 

[Kloriel]

Also since nobody has stepped up to empty their swiss bank accounts...

I will make a double disc mix for the winner. Sorry, it is the best I can do.

Now scare the fucking shit out of us.

[Kloriel]

you don't need to think so fucking hard about this. i've given you mermaids. what more do you want.

[phoenix]

I only write bad slash

but I love this thread, and wish it success!!!

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Kloriel

I'm Changing the Judge Rules due to wise advise. Edit in main topic coming soon. Meanwhile enjoy this image of wild life:

 

the one on the right is a bit scary, but other than that, sexy mermaids yes.

[pokkeherrie]

I like this idea too, hopefully you'll get some more response eventually.

I won't be participating myself though, because I'm not used to English enough to really write/express myself in a natural way.

[Kloriel]

That's ok, it reads fine. Thank you for posting and great job.

[Kloriel]

Congrats to both of you - thanks for taking the plunge and posting your entries. No poll is required, you both win.

2 entries 2 winners. That's a quarterback rating of 1,000% of literary kick-ass.

[acousticrock87]

Well I have no complaints about that, but I think the thread should remain open to accepting stories in case anyone wants to share in a non-competitive arena before this falls into the Sonic Gossip abyss.

Anyone else? Just for fun?

[Kloriel]

Don’t lose your hair over this. Below this, fine. But not over this. Kris, 43. Hands on his steering wheel. Get away from me, thinking too loudly… it messes up his grip. Now he looks like a grandpa. Grand father. Kris it isn’t over yet. Jesus, how much more of this? Fuck you, fuck the whole line, down we go to fishes. You’re a hero gramps, a flopping gill born truth. Kris thumbed the bumps on the inside of the steering wheel and glanced at the radio station. He moved his right hand over the rubber nob and twisted it, shifting the radio station. The station clicked, it read clear and digitized 102.4 KYUP. There should have been sound, there should always have been sound. Kris shook his head and slammed the heel of his right palm back into the wheel. Why isn’t there more than this? He glanced over to the adolescent Labrador retriever that was dying in the passenger seat. She rolled her eyes towards him despite her caving breaths. Almond eyes. Torn lungs. This. She’s dead. No question. Maybe he could look like a hero in the local paper. Maybe he could fuck the widow that owned the dog. Kris shook his head as the sound broke through bad wires. “…the pentagon remains silent despite the multitude of people claiming that not only has Kabul been struck by nuclear weapons but that there are clouds over Nanjing…” We are clouds over Kabul, over Nanjing. Kris thumbed for another three fries. Ketchup, dip & swirl. Taste.