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GGD Writing Challenge – Back From Hiatus

It’s been ages since the last one I hope you guys still know how this works. ::wink::

Not sure how the challenge works? I’ll just link you to the writing tag and let you get aquainted if you’re not familiar. And check back to read the responses. I’m always blown away.

Ready?

Starting points are provided below.

You can use one or any combination of the three if you like. Whatever works.

Word: Fallacy
Phrase: I don’t think “sorry” is going to work here.
Image: Water trickling out of a drainpipe.

You write whatever you like using that starting point and see what comes. (Note, no rules on length, content, whatever. Just see what happens) And please feel free to RT & invite others. ;*

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14 Comments

  1. The dripping that had been a background noise up to this point now became very noticeable by its sudden absence, and a mist began to rise from the water on the floor.
    “Oh, hell,” said Spitz.
    “Yeah, very likely,” agreed Fisher.
    Two pinpricks of red light appeared in the darkness. Naturally, they were between the investigators and the stairs.
    “Ellen. Troy. Join us,” a voice said.
    As they reached for their guns, Fisher said, “By the way, I’m also not really sorry.”
    Gunshots roared, and then there was silence.

  2. Word: Fallacy
    Phrase: I don’t think “sorry” is going to work here.
    Image: Water trickling out of a drainpipe.

    “I don’t think ‘sorry’ is going to work here,” Spitz said as he swung his flashlight around slowly, making the areas of the dank basement not illuminated by its small circle of light seem that much darker. “I mean, you went down on my sister. You just don’t do that sort of thing.”
    “Well, I don’t know what else you want me to say,” Fisher replied, moving her own light over a book shelf filled with swollen, moldy, leather-bound tomes. “I liked it, she liked it, the only person that seems upset here is you.” She ran a gloved finger down one of the spines; the leather felt almost gooey. “Besides, you don’t even like your sister.”
    Spitz moved across the room, shining his light down to try and avoid the puddles. “That’s not the point. She’s family. It would be like me banging your mother.”
    “There isn’t even enough logic in that statement for me to call it a fallacy. And my mom’s been dead for ten years, Spitz,” she said. “Hardly the same.”
    “Means they have about the same personality,” Spitz muttered, then stopped. He moved the flashlight back. Yeah, he was right. Definitely a reflection. “Hey, I think I’ve got something here.”
    Fisher made her way across the room as Spitz bent down. “Mind the pipe,” he said, nodding his head toward the broken drainpipe above. A thin stream of water trickled from the pipe, adding to the small pool of water Spitz was dipping his hand into. He sloshed about for a moment or two, stirring the muck at the bottom before announcing, “Ah ha!” From the pool he pulled a silver coin about the size of an old silver dollar.
    “Let me see it,” Fisher demanded. Raising an eyebrow, Spitz handed it to her. She wiped the surface as clean as she could and studied it for a moment. “Definitely a Focus. Possibly Candarian, but I can’t be sure without getting a better look at it. Can’t even tell if it’s genuine or a fake under these conditions.”
    The dripping that had been a background noise up to this point now became very noticeable by its sudden absence, and a mist began to rise from the water on the floor.
    “Oh, hell,” said Spitz.
    “Yeah, very likely,” agreed Fisher.
    Two pinpricks of red light appeared in the darkness. Naturally, they were between the investigators and the stairs.
    “Ellen. Troy. Join us,” a voice said.
    As they reached for their guns, Fisher said, “By the way, I’m also not really sorry.”
    Gunshots roared, and then there was silence.

  3. he was invincible now
    florsheim wingtips shined black
    three button checkered coat
    tailor made spanking new
    just over long enough
    to thumb its nose at
    fashionable style
    classics never die

    flush with cash, burning drachma
    won fair
    on the level this time
    those card scam days behind him now
    good with those faces and bullets he was
    but the dice, never his thing
    till now this night
    a gift for his promise to play straight
    was the universe that forgiving

    from his small table
    in the dark corner
    of this noisy lounge
    those spots haunted him
    those lovely bones
    ivory cash machine
    burning felt raking raining bucks
    turning grown degenerates
    into whining sissies
    king of the table
    nothing to do now but
    enjoy the blue label

    that hand on his shoulder now
    stressing the clavicle
    the screech of the scooted stool
    large man sharkskin shine
    and bent nosed
    “I been lookin’ for you”
    sat down and produced
    a spotted cube from the
    shiny green pocket and
    gave it a throw
    came up four
    and again
    and again
    and again
    that paw squeezed tighter

    disbelief wide eyed now
    florsheim choked back a no
    wasn’t him this time
    he left the cheat back in
    Monte Carlo with that
    baccarat incident
    the weeping eyes
    of the old Frenchman
    haunted his nightmares
    these bones weren’t his
    this run was on the level
    the sharkskin bent close
    “You’re gonna come with me now”

    the tiger paw clamped down
    on shirt label and silk tie
    yanked florsheim up
    brisk strides across the lounge
    through the kitchen
    frantic cooks ignoring the pair
    in unfamiliar languages
    a prep chef nodded unaware
    as the sharkskin borrowed two items
    from the outstretched fingers
    of a stainless rack
    a meat hammer
    and
    a four inch pairing knife

    his brain rang in minor dissonant
    bouncing off the dumpster
    leather soled wing tips
    found no purchase no
    rain soaked concrete
    the hammer rained fire
    through his kidney
    up his spine
    the sharkskin nailed down again
    spiky side to mandible
    florsheim crawled away
    spitting teeth
    “Please… I’m sorry… but…”
    the sharkskin laughed death
    at the shambling corpse
    “Your sorry’s no good here, not this time”
    florsheim’s scream bounced off the alley
    standing took will with
    an outstretched hand
    “NOT… MY… DICE”
    the sharkskin stepped in close
    smiling revelation
    “Oh, this isn’t really about the dice”
    he punched florsheim in the gut

    florsheim tasted copper
    felt his legs buckle worthless weak
    his collapse halted by the tiger paw
    choking his brooks brothers silk
    at the formerly perfect knot
    “The old Frenchman says ’Goodbye’”
    again the pairing knife
    found florsheim’s liver
    turning the copper to old batteries
    the sharkskin let go
    let him fall to drown
    in his rain soaked hemorrhage
    footfalls tapping into night
    morris code for
    ‘take a powder, cheat’

    his eyes would not close
    try as he might
    tin rain gutter
    jagged toothed gargoyle
    vulture drooling lusty
    at an eminent meal
    his pain ebbed away
    but still
    his eyes would not close

  4. Some nights, you end up on a curb in the pouring rain. The drainpipe spluttering with the overflow isn’t much more than a reminder of how big a fool you are.

    Logical fallacy: If two people love each other, there’ll be a happy ending. This has never been true, and it never will be. We convince ourselves it’s true because the alternative is unbearable. Happy endings belong in romantic comedies and fairy tales, not the real world.
    In the real world, your life crashes apart and you can’t ever believe you’ve been so blind.
    People say they love you. They just don’t want to love you when it’s inconvenient for them. When there are shinier toys to play with, when their desire outweighs the value of everything they can take from you. Then, they lie. They say they never meant what they said, they say it’s your fault, that you created the circumstances which have allowed them to be *so* very happy – at your expense.
    Some nights, you end up on the curb in the pouring rain, wanting nothing more than to die. There are inconvenient questions running through your head: How can a heart keep beating when it’s been ripped out and burnt to ash? How can a throat keep screaming when it’s been screamed out to a whisper? How can a human body bear this much pain? Why does it *physically* hurt? The drainpipe gushes, a throat stops making any sound by a harsh, high-keening howl, you blow your nose and wipe the tears away from eyes that burn. You vomit into the stream now running along the curb. You understand now, that love is never enough. And it breaks you.
    Logical fallacies are like the fine, hair-splitting sharp stilletto-blade, carving you into pieces before you can feel it.
    Then you go home, because there’s nothing else to do. Is there?

  5. “Do you want to end up with your eyebrow perpetually raised?” Baz mimicked the expression. “You’d always look suspicious.”

    “Fine.” She laid her hands in her lap, defeated. He pulled her chin up, gentle and caring, but the look in his eyes didn’t match how she wanted him to feel about her. The worry in his expression was nothing more than what a doctor felt for a patient. She had to turn her eyes away.

    “Okay, hold still. I promise this won’t hurt,” Baz said. She merely shrugged.

    As he studied the cut, he slowly realized how much he’d hurt her. Split eyebrows often looked worse than they were, but the red around the wound was quickly turning to bright purple bruises. It wasn’t a serious injury, but there was no doubt that it was still incredibly painful. Before he started treating it, he sent a calming spell into her. Once she’d visibly relaxed, he got to work.

    He grasped her cheek as he moved his thumb over her eyebrow. The cut was easy to heal, and the strength of her own aura made it even easier. Baz repaired it quickly, and though there wasn’t much he could do about the bruises, but he cooled the area to help stimulate healing. She squirmed under him. “Sorry. It’s done. You might have a scar, but… the magic should hold it together until it’s done healing. It should help minimize the appearance of a scar…”

    “Thanks,” she said, quietly. He was uncomfortably close, and his face was inches from hers. She looked into his brown eyes as he watched for her reaction, smiling that smile she loved so much.

    “Yeah, no problem. I’m really sorry about what happened.” He let her cheek go and stood. Mil turned away, and laid back down on the bed. She ran a finger over where the wound had been.

    Mil wanted to ask him to sit back down and hold her, but instead she buried her face in a pillow. “…It’s okay.”

  6. It was the third time he’d tricked her in as many days.

    She lay on the bed, mostly sprawled out, with one hand holding a wet cloth to her brow. A corner of the cloth was stained with blood from where she’d wiped what had trickled down her face off. She blotted at her brow a few more times, then looked at the cloth. Still bloody. She sighed and pushed a clean part of it back on the wound.

    Baz sat cross-legged on a corner of the bed, away from where she’d flopped down onto it. No matter how much he wanted to, he wasn’t about to approach her. She was scary when she was angry.

    He opened his mouth to speak, but Mil cut him off. “What were you thinking? I’m trying to teach you how to control your power, not how much of it you can actually use before you start skirting the line between sane and -totally batshit-.”

    He cringed. The throbbing pain behind his eyes and the sting on his chin of where his aura had burned him were more than enough of a reminder of how far he’d actually let himself go. “Mil, I’m sorry – “

    “I don’t think ‘sorry’ is going to work here. What you did was deliberate.”

    “I know, but I didn’t mean to let it get that far.”

    At least admitting his mistake was a step in the right direction. Mil sighed and rolled onto her side, facing away from him. For several long minutes, neither of them made a sound. It would’ve been completely silent, were it not for the eternal sound of water tricking down the drainpipe directly outside their window.

    She closed her eyes in an attempt to calm the anger inside of her. She hated everything about this place. She hated the complete lack of magic and the suffocating emptiness it filled the air with, she hated the mosaic-pattern bedspread on the uncomfortable bed that matched the mosaic-pattern wallpaper covering the lower half of the wall, she hated the crisscrossing bars on the outside of the window, and most of all she hated the crabby innkeeper.

    The only thing that kept her here was him.

    She looked at the wet cloth again, and when she saw that the amount of blood it had soaked up was much smaller than the last time she’d looked, she gave the cut a few more quick dabs and threw the cloth at the wall. It fell to the ground with a plop. Immediately, Mil regretted it. She was about to pull herself up to go pick it up off the ground when she felt Baz move off the bed.

    “I’ll get it.”

    The guilt spread through her quickly. She watched him meekly as he bent to gather it, making sure it didn’t drip any more as he carried it into the annoyingly diminutive bathroom that the otherwise-lavish room housed.

    She listened to the trickle of water outside as she waited for him to come back.The building’s primitive water system had been easy to figure out, but she still couldn’t wrap her mind around why an entire country would want to function without magic.

    “Will you at least let me heal it?”

    Mil jumped. Baz had appeared on the bed next to her out of nowhere. “Damn it, don’t do that.”

    He smiled sheepishly as the blue mist he gave off every time he teleported evaporated. “Sorry. Here…” He reached a hand towards her face, but she pushed him away and sat up.

    “I can do it myself.”

  7. Thanks for reading that exhaustive story :p Anyways, I didn’t want to link to my Google profile in my post so if you want to see more of my stuff you can check out mine and my beautiful fiance’s blog/occasional podcast at http://www.geekspodcast.com. Thanks and have a good one! :)

  8. Frank tried to maintain his composure as the elevator lights slowly alternated…5….6…

    “Well good for you. Hey, now you make sure and tell Marie that me and the Misses will be at the prayer meeting on Tuesday ok?”

    7…

    “Ok! What ya doin?”

    “Just getting some groceries and trying to stay warm, kiddo! Brrrr!”

    Jack giggled and popped the sucker back in his mouth.

    8…Thank God.

    Frank stepped off the elevator a bit more hurriedly than he meant to and waved back at the boy. After fumbling with his keys a moment, the soft glow of the art-deco hallway lights disappeared behind him as he stepped into his apartment, shutting the large wooden door behind him. Frank didn’t waste any time and made a beeline for the kitchen. Home at last.

    He began yelling out to Helen as he went about his work in the kitchen.

    “Hey sweetie! I’m back!”

    There weren’t a lot of groceries but he continued to talk. He opened the pantry and began carefully arranging cans of tuna, bread, coffee. Finally he came to the Glad bag. After carefully lifting it out of the grocer’s bag he placed it in the meat locker with the rest of them and replaced the padlock. Blondie could wait until the morning.

    Finally, he started a fresh pot of coffee and made his way into the living room. One lamp was on in the corner as he walked over to Helen’s wheelchair. He rubbed his palms into his eyes and pushed back the thin strands of gray hair he had left before replacing his glasses.

    “How was Wheel of Fortune, sweetheart?”

    Her silence continued as Frank leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She sat there in that chair, just as unresponsive as she had been for the past 6 years since the stroke left her in a vegetative state. Her mouth agape, Frank wiped a thin string of drool from her mouth. Helen’s skin was pale and wrinkled as she continued staring at the old black and white TV.

    “Well, beautiful, I just want you to know that I talked to Teddy again tonight and I think we’re gettin’ close. As soon as I find him or her or whatever the hell it is he’s gonna make you right as rain! You’ll be outta that chair and dandy in no time, my darling! I’ll tell you the rest after I get some coffee. Would you like some, angel?”

    Frank rose and made his way to the kitchen, yelling back all of the details of his day as he searched for creamer. All the while Helen continued to sit in silence with absolutely nothing to give back to her husband of 40 years save for a single tear forming in her right eye.

  9. “You have to admit, she made a pretty funny sound after that second hit…” Teddy hissed, that horrible grin of his growing wider. That cough of a chuckle escaping it. With that coat pulled up and that ridiculous hat, almost all of Teddy’s face was shrouded. Like he showered in motor oil. Those magnificent pearly whites the only thing showing as he chewed the filter of a Camel Wide. Always grinning. Teddy walked deeper into the twisting alley, his wing-tips leading the way before he seemed to dissipate into the fog. “Go home to your wife, Frank. I’m sure she’s waiting for you. I’ll be in touch…”

    Frank frowned at the thought. He couldn’t honestly recall when he’d met Teddy, he just knew he needed him. To say he looked out for Frank wouldn’t be a fallacy. Every time Frank tried to do his work, the circumstances of the situation would suspiciously line up in his favor. No one was that lucky. Not 13 times lucky. Not even 1 time in most cases. He couldn’t say why, but it felt like Teddy was always with him, just outside his periphery, bridging the gap between his work and the horror.

    Frank struggled with the two paper grocery bags as he sauntered into his apartment building. He punched the 8th floor button with one of those pudgy digits as he entered the elevator. The cables strained under the weight. Frank looked portly to be sure, with his suspenders struggling to hold on around his swaying gut, but his arms were as thick as tree trunks.

    “Wait! Mr. Malone!” a voice cried out.

    Frank cursed his bad luck and held the door open at the last second. In walked Jack.

    “Hey Mr. Malone!” the sandy haired 8-year old proclaimed innocently. He had a big red ring around his mouth from the sucker he’d been eating and his arms were filled with mail he often retrieved for his grandmother up on 10th. Sweet kid, but he had a knack for showing up at the most inconvenient times.

    “Hey there, Jackie Boy!” , Frank responded with equal enthusiasm. “How’s your grandma doin’?”

    He instinctively squeezed the grocery bags tighter in his left arm, feeling his forearm rub against the bulbous, plastic bag within.

    “Good! She took me out to Chuck E. Cheese earlier and I won this with my tickets!”, he shouted, holding up the sucker triumphantly, nearly dropping the mail in the process.

  10. Frank’s Advisor

    “I don’t think, ‘sorry’ is going to work here.”, Frank said, before letting a long breath out through his nose, looking down at the corpse. Fighting back tears, he took the old, red checkered handkerchief out of his back pocket before cleaning the fog off of his thick, horn-rimmed glasses. The sky joined in as well, just as heavy dollops of rain began falling around the three of them.

    At his back the man in the trench coat whispered to him more forcefully. So close to Frank’s ear that he could feel the tiny globules of saliva amidst the raindrops.

    “I mean it, Frankie! This is just how these things go. I swear I had no idea this little gal wasn’t who we were looking for, but why take the chance? You know well as I do it wasn’t ever gonna be a pretty job, but it still gotta get done, don’t it?”, Teddy said putting a comforting hand on his tense shoulder.

    Frank’s pudgy fingers went to work, shaking as he pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. The crowbar on the ground as lifeless as the girl.

    “Goddamit Teddy I know what I gotta do! I just don’t know why the hell you keep telling me this one or that one’s who we’re looking for and it ain’t! If you’re so damned informed on who’s got the evil in ’em how come we ain’t found ‘em yet?!”

    Teddy thought only a moment. “Don’t they all got it, Frank? Don’t they all bring their share of foulness into the world? Besides, you know the old saying- If ya wanna make an omelet ya gotta-”

    “Crack some poor girl’s brain bucket in with a crowbar?!”, Frank huffed as he pulled the machete out of the paper grocery bag.

    Teddy had been with Frank long enough to know when to stop pushing his buttons. You could only lean on a man so much, twist his principles so far until he snapped. The rain was coming down hard now.

    “Sorry brother, that was awfully cold of me I think. You know the score; finish up here and I promise to take care of her…”

    The first hit with the crowbar did her in, but not before the convulsions associated with that kind of blunt force trauma stole away her motor skills. If they’d been intact at all she might’ve shielded her face from the dumpster’s corner. Instead the impacts had left the blood pouring out of both sides of her head. One crimson waterfall through that now matted blond mess, the other gushing from where most of her front teeth used to be, leaking out the gums and over the corner of her mouth like a gnarled drainpipe in a downpour.

    Frank needed to hurry up. He’d be soaked to high heaven if he didn’t get a move on. Wasn’t a problem though. Frank had collected enough skulls for Teddy and found that while it didn’t get emotionally easier, his technique had reached grisly levels of efficiency. Two well placed hacks at the neck was all it took, save for a few strings of muscle tissue. The longer haired ones made it easier, providing a built in handle of sorts to complete the separation. Same principle as picking a pumpkin with a good stem for a jack-o’-lantern.

    Frank quickly and smoothly placed the machete, crowbar, and blondie’s head in a Glad bag and shoved it into the grocery bag, careful not to let any blood get on the broccoli as he pushed it aside.

  11. Derp- I suppose so :p Gimme a sec!

  12. @Joshua

    You can always break it into two posts. People do that ;-)

  13. I actually had a large response to this but the comment section isn’t big enough to hold it :(

  14. Watching as water slowly trickled out of the drainpipe, I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth he could’ve put in there to clog it so badly.

    “Just wait until your father comes home,” I told him. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage this might do to the house?”

    He looked down, sheepishly and mumbled an apology. I looked around for something to pull whatever it was out of the drain.

    I found a large stick and started poking at the obstruction. It started to move but was too big for the stick to get out by itself. I was going to have to remove it by hand.

    I reach in and start to pull. It was so heavy! What was it and how did that little brat get it in here? I keep pulling and pulling and finally, there’s a pop! and it comes out.

    I look at the obstruction in disbelief. Of all the…. “Are you crazy? Why would you do that? I think you have some explaining to do and I don’t think “sorry” is going to work here.”

    -wysefyre

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