I can't wait for "Haiku Wednesday" anymore!! I check the blog all day Monday and Tuesday, and think to myself 'Why, oh why, isn't it time for reading/writing Haiku yet?’ So, I am going to try to create a new day for us all..."Finish It Monday".
Every Monday, the winner from the week before will write a portion of a story. The portion can be as short as a sentence, or as long as an entire short story with only the ending missing. Anyone who wishes to participate will contribute his or her own ending to the writing. Funny, serious, long, short, it's a damn free-for-all! As with our beloved Haiku, you can write as many endings as you wish. The original author will pick a winner, who will start the party the following week.
Get it? Easy. So, although my writing skills are probably not up to par with the lot of you, I will start. Below beginning, do with it what you will...
As he lay on the desert floor for the second day, he noticed he was no longer sweating. His water had run out hours before, and the sun continued to bake his prostrate form, unwillingly to relent as it drew the last of his life-giving moisture from him.
Occasionally he would see her in the shimmering waves of the mirage in the distance. He wondered if it was only a figment of his imagination, or if the heat had brought him to the junction of life and death, and she was beckoning him on. He would gladly join her on the other side of the shimmer, when he was done.
He put his eye back to scope of the rifle, looking for the hundredth time at the distant desert it magnified. Soon, he knew, his quarry would fill the lenses, and he could squeeze the trigger, ending his obsession. What happened after that...he didn’t think nor care about.
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He continued to wait, breathing in the baking hot air, concentrating, brow furrowed, unwilling to rest his sore eyes even for a moment. Suddenly he noticed an indication of movement in the middle distance and adjusted the scope to target the movement. What he saw was completely unexpected: a man in black with a rifle aimed his way. He rolled aside, but too late, hearing the crack of the shot and feeling the impact in his chest, no pain at first, just shock.
As the blood seeped out of the wound he tried to think: who was the leak? Who had betrayed him? It didn’t matter. His breathing became more ragged, gasping, stopping a couple of times. His muscles clenched and relaxed; his eyes became unfocused. He had barely enough breath to speak her name this final, imploring time: “Gretchen.”
Wow, that's gonna be hard to beat...
i just realized the man in black should have been wearing desert camo... but i wanted to post first!
thank you miko, though i respectfully disagree, as we have some real writers on the blog. i hope they show up today.
needless to say i love this idea.
Miko this is a fantastic idea. Totally love it.
AC~Hilarious! You really set the bar, I think you're gonna be hard to beat.
P.S. Has anyone figured out who my avatar is yet?
Ah, now I see why miko was berating me on facebook. I will have to think on this as I am trying to get out of work. Plus - did AC just finish it by killing off the main character? ...or was he?
Ummm, Cat, is that Jean Kasem, the tall blonde who was married to Casey Kasem?
And as reigning Haiku Champion, I must wholeheartedly endorse the idea of Finish It Monday. Of course, AC has just blown us all out of the water. I'll have something up today to compete, but man, "Gretchen" is hard to beat.
And thanks to those of you who are supporting me in my little Facebook comment thread war. Hilarious stuff!
Not really Dana. The way I imagined it, everyone would start from the end of the original piece of writing.
(Although I have to admit, I have been thinking of a Hero/Gretchen reunion in heaven, since reading AC's piece.)
That way we don't have to worry about a "serial" story, that is being updated and posted as we are writing...
Wait! Could that be...? No, it was just a passing dewback, an increasingly rare sight this time of year.
The sand was beginning to creep into the crevices in his white armor, and he wondered for the thousandth time why he volunteered for this mission.
Initially, it seemed like a fun idea, to sit on a ledge and assassinate Jawas. He didn't know or care why the order had come down, but it was clear: 'Let no Sandcrawler pass. Slaughter Jawas. Be precise.'
The more the idea turned itself over in his head, the more he realized how much he despised those filthy creatures. Bunch of wreckage-hoarding little bastards. The rumor circulating before he had left was that they had gotten their hands on some very critical piece of government equipment, but he and the rest of the detachment hadn't been fully briefed. No matter, he was here to do a job, plain and simple. Once the job was over he could get back to the ship and see how she was doing. He felt horrible that he had had to stun her in the back, and he hoped that she was resting comfortably in that white dress, and not messing up those two buns on the sides of her head. Man, he had a thing for buns...
There! In the distance - a big dark shape that could only be -
His vision through the scope was suddenly blurred and blocked by a much larger, much closer shape rising up and making horrible yelling and grunting noises. The last thing that went through his head, besides the Sandperson's staff, was the thought that he really should have checked this hill for Bantha fodder...
(funny i thought this was going to be a thread about telling everyone to designate monday as the day they finish writing all their reviews --- i've still got 12 left to write. i almost felt like i had the incentive there, miko.)
catfreeek- i figured out your avatar a while back, but it was by detective work, not geeky knowledge, so i won't ruin it for those who really should be able to guess the answer.
Suddenly, in the distance, he heard a vague sound. Almost like the ringing of the telephone. It pulled him away from his focus - but just for a moment. He couldn't let himself forget his purpose.
But then, more noise. He looked up. She was there - actually coming through the shimmer of the heat until she was standing right above him. She bent down...and smacked him upside the head, "Melvin! One of your geeky friends is on the phone! Stop playing that stupid Desert Storm video game and open a damn window - this place reeks!"
"Okay. Sorry, Mom."
Nice, DCD! Where is the West Coast contingent? ...and Cat?
Miko, this is an awesome idea and I expect great things from people. Whirlygirl is an excellent writer but she keeps it a secret.
Thanks AC for keeping the secret. Is there no one else that recognizes this green beauty? HS you are wrong.
I haven't the slightest idea, and I can't see the image big enough to have an opinion. It's probably something I should know (Land of the Lost?), but I have no idea.
And Cat, this sort of thing is right up your alley. Surely you can offer up something better than my "lonely stormtrooper"!
I'm thinking, I was out. Jeez, I always miss all the good stuff.
He dropped the rifle knowing full well that he lacked the courage to end his own life. At least he hadn't quite reached that point as yet, but he was close. He wanted to spend just one more night with his lovely mirage, tomorrow he would put an end to the suffering for sure.
He could see the buzzards circling above waiting for the tell tale lack of movement that would indicate their meal time. He hated those Godforsaken creatures more than anything. Circling and waiting, staring at him with hungry eyes. He imagined them greedily wrenching out his eyeballs, squawking at each other fighting over the juicy morsels. Those bastards! The more he thought about it the more pissed he got. He grabbed the rifle and with a fury matched only by Stephen Segal he aimed at the vile creatures and began shooting them out of the air one by one. As the birds fell around him, he could hear screaming in the distance, he thought, ‘damn mirage is talking now.’ He stopped shooting and listened, the voice was getting closer. A man’s voice, he could almost make out the words. Something about endangered species. Realization washed over him and instantly he knew he was both saved and screwed at the same time. In a moment of desperation he placed the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger, ‘Click.’ Nothing. Out of bullets, damn it! No time to reload, the shouting accuser was on him and he was too weak to fight. Gretching PETA, they always materialize when you least expect it. He was hauled off screaming and spent the next 6 months wiping oil off penguins in Antarctica. His mind consumed by only one thought, ‘Just one bullet, that’s all I needed, just one.’
Miko, this is a fantastic idea! I'll work on writing an ending when I get a moment at work. I hope I'm not too late. Is there a deadline for this?
Whirly, I'm on business in NYC, so I won't be able to write a cool wrap-up until this evening. Let's say the DL is 6PM tonight...
cool cuz work is keeping me pretty busy today, and I'm hoping other bloggers will be writing too.
I think I wrote too much.
He knew he had to act. It was time to. Over and over it had plagued him until his thoughts were no longer his own, but instead more of a mechanical recording. But it would eventually have to stop. Everything is doomed to eventually break, fall apart, or disintegrate, isn’t it? The voices and the images would have to cease on their own or else he would hinder them himself. That’s why he came to this barren and forlorn place. He came to make it stop.
Again she emerged in the distance. He could see her clearly through the lens. She was crying this time and it was more than he could bear. Though, in her sorrow she reached out for him. He quickly pressed his eyes away as the knots in his stomach compressed, and his body began abruptly heaving trying desperately to expunge the horror that clung inside him. His body, growing faint and pathetic, soon fell like a pile of rubble into the blistering sand. He dreamed of his flesh catching flame, disfiguring and disguising him. He needed to be both marked and forgotten.
What had he done, he repeatedly heard himself say. That night haunted him and consumed his every thought. He was obsessed. He even saw her sometimes - in his room at night, at work, and in the back seat of his car. He tried everything he could think to escape her, but she clung close begging him to look upon her so he could see the blood, so he could see what he had done.
He tried not to see her and drank himself senseless on tequila. Sometimes he would even pretend that she was still alive. He sent emails that never received replies and then eventually bounced back when the account had been canceled. He left messages on her voice mail until that was gone too. Proof of her existence was increasingly diminishing, except for the hauntings that plagued him. He didn’t know what to do or how to make them stop, so he tried to fool himself into believing that she was really there. He cooked dinner, lit candles, played her favorite tunes and asked her to join him, but she never would, instead she just stood there staring at him with blood trickling down her face. If only she could have sat down next to him then maybe he could have survived.
He came out here as one last chance to try and make it stop. He thought if he went somewhere immensely desolate then maybe it would. So he quit his job, cashed in some stocks from his father, sold his car and every belonging in his apartment worth a dime, and left with only a pocket of cash and the clothes on his back. He thought that out here in the middle of nothing he would maybe find peace. He wasn’t entirely sure how. Maybe she wouldn’t follow him here, or maybe she would and then she would finally speak to him and tell him what to do, tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t kill her, but he did. He watched her breathe her last breath in his arms under the brightly lit moon and aroma of tequila.
For a while he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been drunk. It was the other cars fault, he was certain, though the police report spoke differently. At least no one else had been hurt. There was a trial, though in his distress he didn’t entirely know how he got off. He could only conclude that he hadn’t been inebriated that night or that his father’s lawyers had been clever enough to convince others that he hadn’t been. Though, it never really mattered what happened to him. Drunk or not how could he live knowing that he ended someone’s life, and not just anyone but the woman he loved. This is what he thought about day in and day out. It was an obsession that never rested; it couldn’t because it was who he had become. He had transformed into this monster that never slept or ate, but just let the same words and images repeatedly play over and over like a record that doesn’t know how to make itself stop skipping.
He knew why he was here. He was already dead so all he needed to do was pull the trigger and fully extinct himself. She was waiting for him with her arms extended and he was finally ready to join her. He had purchased the rifle prior to entering the desert knowing it was the only way to really make it stop. At least now he wouldn’t have to do it alone because even if just a mirage, she was here beckoning for him.
He picked up the rifle and placed his eye back onto the scope in order to get one last look at the desert’s vastness. He imagined himself trudging in the distance. His finger squeezed the trigger, and he watched in slow motion as the bullet journeyed towards him until ripping between his eyes and sending his body thrashing into the sand. Blood oozed and vultures sprang. They began tearing at his lifeless body, marking and disfiguring him until they picked him clean, and hastened away with his bones. It was exactly what he wanted.
He turned the rifle on himself now and attempted to pinch the trigger, but no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, even mechanical and rotten as he felt, suicide wasn’t easy for him. He tried again and failed. He screamed as loud as his lungs would allow, and threw himself abruptly to the ground. He looked at her sweet image flickering in the distance. There was no other choice. He picked up a handful of sand and poured it down his mouth. His dry throat tried to swallow the coarse grains, but the harder he tried the more they ripped and the more he gasped in agony. He raised the gun once more to his head and squeezed.
Jeez. I can just hear the voice-over now:
"If you enjoyed Daddy Day Care, you're gonna love Whirly's story..."
Well done and well-written, Whirly! I especially like the use of "extinct" as a verb.
Having read many of Whirly's unfinished stories, I'm not too surprised by the dark tone, but damn, Whirly! Good stuff. Good stuff everyone. Stan, awesome Star Wars bit.
Sorry all. I was stuck in a hotel last night with no Internet. It was like being lost on a desert island.
Now I don't want to pick a winner. How am I qualified to judge this? I should have thought this through a little better...
I will post a winner this afternoon. AFTER MY GODDAMN ROOT CANAL! Hopefully the drugs will make the decision easier.
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