Fortnightly Writing Contest: Not on Solid Ground (CLOSED)

[Mandle]

Sorry for no pretty pictures etc. Just the basic theme rules:

The story must not take place on any kind of solid ground or floor.

On or under the ocean, up in the air, floating around inside a spaceship, or flying through the astral plane are all viable examples.

But not, for example, sailing on a ship or flying in an airplane.

If a character briefly stands or falls onto something solid, like in the case of a circus trapeze act, that would scrape through as acceptable.

Apart from that, anything goes. Happy typing all! (Yes, you are allowed to write it on a solid keyboard)

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VOTING OPEN UNTIL OCT 18TH.

TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE OF THESE STORIES JUST MENTION ITS NAME WHEN YOU POST IN HERE TO VOTE.

ANY OF THESE:

"TWO BIRDS"

"OH, 'CHUTE"

"THE BOOK OF JIM"

AFTER YOU POST YOUR VOTE THERE IS NO FURTHER OBLIGATION TO DO ANYTHING.

THIS CONTEST HAS BEEN AN AGS CLASSIC FOR OVER A DECADE!

HELP US OUT, PLEASE!

[Baron]

I'd like to give Mandle 10/10 for his voting deadline. 

[Sinitrena]

Wow, that was a difficult topic. It's not that I didn't have ideas, just that I really didn't like them. "A surfer meeting a mermaid" or "A parachute doesn't open" - started both, finished neither.

Well, what you get is:

Two Birds

Two birds once met in the air.
One was rather ruffled, the other looked fair.
Underneath, a town burned in sizzling fire
and outside horses stamped in the mire.

,,Why do you fly with breathtaking speed?
What is it you fear, what is it you need?"
The fair one asked the other with scorn,
while from the town sounded a desperate horn.

,,Do you not see the paper, the note?
I'm carrying a life-changing, life-threatening load."
The ruffled bird hurried and answered the first,
her voice a crow's cawing from exhaustion and thirst.

She had just started her journey from deep below
but it was her hundredth today and she wouldn't go slow.
For the castle below was glowing with heat.
Soon now, soon, they feared, there would be defeat.

,,For them you rush and for them you fight?
Fly, just fly, as it is only your right."
taunted and teased the beautiful swallow
but all his words sounded so empty and hollow.

The carrier pigeon did not listen to him,
but flew with might to the men at the rim.
Help would be there, help could be found
for the men in the city there on the ground.

But as the pigeon hurried further away
an arrow flew from the siege right into her way.
She swerved and she dodged and she tumbled down,
towards the fire, the heat, the beleaguered town.

But as the second arrow rushed past her head
it weren't her wings that hurt and bled.
She spread them wide and soared into the sky
while the swallow fell with a desperate sigh.

[Stupot]

"Shiiiiiiit."
This was Tre's 257th jump but he always screamed like it was his first. The rush of those first few seconds was... No, it wasn't just a rush; it was indistinguishable from panic. It was the realization that you've left the stove on, lost your passport before a flight and crashed your dad's car. All in one go. But he loved it.

Today, though, that panic was tinged with something else, and lingered a few beats longer than usual. He'd been feeling a little uneasy before the jump but couldn't pinpoint why. He brushed it off when he saw Thomp gesturing to his chest, reminding Tre that he was the videographer today and had a job to do. Tre held the camera in front of him and turned his body towards his freefalling friends, Thomp, Chyles, Damon and Baraka. They had already begun grabbing each other's arms and positioning their bodies into a large circle, as a few small fluffy clouds rushed past them. Then, when the circle was complete, they let their hands go and began rolling their bodies rapidly with impressive synchronicity. This was the cue for Tre to turn the camera back towards the plane from which they had just leapt, and from which now jumped a sixth member of the group, their leader and mentor, James "Watchout" Wachowski, who darted rapidly towards the rolling human circle at great speed wearing his signature dark green and black wingsuit. The suit gave him far more control and speed than the others, and before Tre knew it, Watchout had already darted right through the centre of the human circle like an arrow. Tre hoped he had caught that on camera.

The four who made up the circle wasted no time in deploying their parachutes. Tre would wait a second or two more, and film them from underneath them as they appeared to jerk upwards, away from the camera. Happy with the shot, he pulled his own cord.

Nothing happened.

He tried the emergency cord.

Still nothing happened.

He was experienced enough to know he had about 12 seconds to live.

***

"I told you we wouldn't make it," Damon chastised Tre.

"I was sure these trollies would take us across." The two dangled from a zip-line almost 1000 feet above the bottom of the canyon, and they both looked depressed knowing that, due to Tre's fuck up, they were going to have to drag themselves the rest of the way across, instead of letting gravity do the work for them.

"I shoulda trusted my instinct, man. Those piece-a-shit ball bearings have too much friction. We shoulda borrowed Chyles's ones, man." Damon wasn't good at hiding his frustration.

"I asked him and he wouldn't let me." Tre was doing all he could to avoid having to say sorry.

"Who said anything about asking him? We share, remember." Damon had a point; the gang pretty much helped themselves to each other's stuff anyway. No one minded. It was part of their whole philosophy. But Tre was still relatively new and hadn't got used to the whole sharing thing.

Tre and Damon began using their arms to drag themselves along the cable. It was going to take forever.

After a few minutes, and when he had calmed down a bit, Damon broke the awkward silence. "Anyway, how are things with you and Baraka? Didn't you guys have a bust up?"

Tre sighed "Nah, it was nothing. She thought our relationship might not work because she and Wachowski used to have a thing, but..."

Damon brought his legs up and wrapped them around the wire, but couldn't get a grip on it and dropped his legs again and resumed using his gloved hands. "Nah, Watchout's cool," he said.  "Definitely not the jealous type. He's married to the sky, man. Besides, he's more like a dad to her anyway... to all of us."

***
11 seconds
***

"It's not going to be a problem, is it?" Baraka said to Tre.

"Well, it's either this or we sleep on the solid ground."

"I'm not talking about the waterbed. I'm talking about James."

"Wachowski? Why would it be a problem?"

"Well, you DO seem pretty upset."

"Do I?" Tre sighed and tried to face Baraka, but they both bobbed up and down as he moved. It was hard to have a serious conversation on this thing. However, it did help to diffuse the atmosphere a little. They both smiled.

"I'm not upset, Beck. It just feels like something you might have mentioned before we started dating."

"James and I... it's... Yes, we dated a couple of times, and he watches out for me..."

Tre scoffed, "Is that why they call him "Watchout"?"

Baraka's real name was Rebecca. She had gained the nickname in school when someone pointed out the phonological similarity between her name and that of the Mortal Kombat character. Thankfully she didn't share that Baraka's arm blades, otherwise she and Tre would be mopping up water from the downstairs apartment for the rest of the year.

She did, however, share his brutality. "You know, I've slept with Chyles as well."

"Fuck! Why are you telling me this now? Jesus, you guys really DO share everything!"

"It was just a drunken thing. I knew he had a thing for me and I guess I took advantage."

"Well now I AM upset. Are you taking advantage of me too?" Tre, decided to turn his back on Baraka again, but as before the waterbed beneath them bulged and bobbed comically, and he gave up.  Tre couldn't remain upset with her under these conditions. The two of them burst out laughing.

"I'll get rid of it tomorrow," Baraka promised.

***
10 seconds
***

Tre stepped into the wind tunnel and was immediately sucked upwards and joined Thomp. Danny Thompson was his real name, but Chyles had started deliberately pronouncing the "th" of his surname as a joke and it has quickly evolved into "Thomp". Tre thought it was a tactic to distract from Chyles' own name, which appeared to be someone's misspelling of Charles.

Today he was helping Thomp practise the rapid forward spins for the jump they were planning. The key was to spin as fast as possible, while keeping your position relative to the others. Thomp was having trouble keeping his legs tucked in, and he had to get that sorted if he didn't want to kick Watchout in the face mid-air.

After a while, Thomp finally seemed to have got the hang of it.

"You got, it, dude." Tre shouted, to be heard above the noise of the wind tunnel. Now, they were just floating and darting past each other, playing with the time they had remaining before someone else needed to use it.

Thomp looked genuinely happy. "You're a good teacher." He spread his arms out to catch maximum wind and floated up.

"I appreciate you asking for my help." Tre replied. "I know I'm new and all."

Just then, Tre saw someone standing in the doorway. It was Chyles. He quickly darted through the open door and disappeared as if he hadn't expected to be seen.

"Were you expecting Chyles to be here today?"

"Not today. I told him not to worry about it."

"About what?"

"About coming to help me. He's too impatient and just starts moaning about... Never mind... But that's why as I asked you instead."

"Shit man." Tre felt really awkward. "Well, he's here now. I just saw him in the doorway and he didn't look happy."

Thomp pulled his arms in and sunk down to the wind tunnel's entrance saying "Fuck. Fuck. Not again."

"Not again what?"

"Ask, Beck..."

***
9 seconds
***

"CHYLES!" Tre screams his murderer's name into the air. His camera is still rolling and would pick up the sound of his voice. When they watch back the video, they will know who sabotaged Tre's jump.

Just then, Tre is blindsided by the force of someone smacking into him. He knows there is no time to fend off his attacker. Eight seconds. Then he clocks the green and black material of Watchout's wingsuit. He's not being attacked. He's being saved. Seven. In a single fluid motion, the beautiful bastard grabs Tre tight, locking his arms under Tre's and wrapping his legs around him, six, then pulls his own cord. The parachute unfolds and catches just the air. Five. Tre feels the familiar tug of rapid deceleration. But he knows they are already way too close to the dirt and going way too fast. He's already doing the maths. Four seconds to impact...
Three...
Two...
One...


***

"No way," Thomp says to himself. "No fucking way!" He looks to his left. Damon and Baraka are kicking and punching the air in celebration and he realises he's doing the same. He turns to his right. Chyles looks stunned.

One minute, Tre was falling to his death at terminal velocity as Thomp and the gang floated down the old-fashioned way. The next thing he knew, Watchout was literally flying like fucking Superman to his rescue. The versatility and speed afforded him by the wingsuit, as well as his own experience and, frankly, stupidity, had allowed him to catch up with Tre and deploy his chute in what must have been a matter of seconds.

As the four of them drifted towards the landing zone, two members of the ground crew were already there. Another two were running towards the scene. One guy was huddled over Wachowski, shouting at someone down a radio, and the other was standing near Tre, holding Tre's camera.

Before Thomp's feet even touched the ground, he heard the man shouting.

"Chyles! It was Chyles!"


***

"Shiiiiiiit!"

Tre didn't think he'd find himself back in the air so soon. But here he was, freefalling again, with his crew – a crew which no longer included the now incarcerated Chyles. For this dive, though, Tre was fastened tightly to the front of Damon, the only one capable of landing for the both of them without fucking up Tre's spine even more. Tre had got some of his speech back, and had already begun to feel some tingling in his feet, which the doctor had said *could* be a good sign. He had no right being out of hospital, let alone thousands of feet in the air.

But he was alive. And he had one man to thank for that.

Baraka and Thomp drifted either side of Damon and Tre, and grabbed each of Damon's arms, then manoeuvred around to take each other's, forming a circle. Once they had formed a steady circle, they let go of each other's hands and allowed themselves to freefall together silently for a moment. Then Baraka took out a ceramic container, held it in the middle of the circle and shouted "WATCHOUT!"

"WATCHOUT!" the others responded in unison and Baraka unscrewed the vessel and poured the ash into the circle between them.

[Mandle]

Excuse my French

     Jacque Grenouille came home, a brown paper bag of baguettes under one arm. His girlfriend, Magnifique Bonaparte, lay naked, draped across their Louis the 14th settee. She had one arm propped seductively behind her head. Jacque's eyes grew wide, his beret popping off his head in his surprise and deep, deep, French lust for her. The hat bounced off the massive, angled roof windows above at almost exactly the same moment the ripped bag spilled its bread torpedoes out across the bare wooden floor of their Paris loft.
    Jacque sprung across the room, between the passionate couple's vast multitude of art easels and lack of bathing products. He shoved his Pythagorean proboscis into her exposed armpit, screaming, "Oui! Oui! I am lost so up in ze 'air!" 

[Baron]

A bit of a rushed job this fortnight, unfortunately.

The Book of Jim

   This being the book of Jim, a true account of the story of my brother Josh.  There is a lot of disinformation out there, and I want to set the record straight.

   First I'll get into the lineage which is typical of this kind of account.  Josh was the son of Joe, who was the son of Jake, et cetera and so on.  Most accounts gloss over the fact that I was his elder brother, and thus was witness to the entirety of his short and tragic life.

   We weren't well off, with Papa Joe being just a menial carpenter.  The gentile occupiers had dictated that everyone had to return to their hometown to pay taxes and be counted, so I remember as a small child being dragged along on the long road back to Bit-Lahmi and staying in the most menial hovels along the way, all while my poor mom was pregnant with my little brother.

   By the time we got there Papa Joe was so poor we had to lodge in a barn, and that's where mom gave birth to Josh.  It was the funniest thing to observe as a child, for the baby literally floated after birth, giving rise to all kinds of vicious rumours of miracles and witchcraft.  In the end the family had to flee to Egypt for a while, till the buzz died down.

   Well, it turns out Josh was afflicted with some kind of allergy to the surface of this world.  It seemed to repel him, unwillingly, in the opposite direction.  There were a few close calls where we almost lost him to the ether (one time his swaddling cloth was only just snagged by the branch of a high tree). 

     But in time he learned to live with his affliction, hovering just a fraction of an inch above the world.  We moved frequently, so soon no one was the wiser, for who really looks for a tiny space beneath a man's feet?

     Indeed, the affliction was beneficial in some regards.  He could move so silently as a shepherd in his youth that his flock was never bothered with the slightest fear or worry.  Later, in Papa Joe's carpenter shop he could plane a plank to perfect flatness merely by strapping two planers to his feet and skating a hair's breadth over the surface of the wood.

     Josh was, I can attest, a gentle and well-meaning soul.  We formed a kind of social help group, looking after the poor and advocating peaceful resistance to the barbaric ways of our gentile conquerors.  It was fulfilling work, but honestly no one paid any of us much heed until the incident.

     I will remember it until the end of my days.  The young maiden drowning out in the lake, the fear and anguish of those on the shore, for there were no boats at hand and in those dry lands not one of us had learned how to swim.

     And then in a fateful moment there was Josh, walking across the surface of the water to rescue her.  People went nuts about it.  Tongues wagged all over the land about the miracle that had occurred, and soon people started to follow Josh, believing him to be some sort of promised saviour.

     And Josh didn't really see the harm, for it added weight to our cause.  He even began turning miraculous tricks in order to raise money for the poor.  My favourite was when he rode a small dog around the streets of Nazareth, hovering just above the beast's back so that its spine was not crushed.

     Unfortunately his message of peace and service made the authorities suspicious, and they hounded him for his disobedience.  Josh began to make mistakes, the worst being when he shot up two feet into the air in anger at the capitalist usurpation of a temple and tipped over the money changer tables in the process.

     And so Josh was arrested and crucified - they had to nail him down to keep him from floating away.  But this only enhanced his fame among the poor and meek. 

     When at last my brother was laid to rest in a crypt the people were so enamoured with his legend that they rolled open the stone that blocked it, and out my brother's corpse floated, all the way up to heaven.  And of course that only set the tongues wagging further.

     Well, these stories have a way of spinning out of control, so as I said I just wanted to get the truth out there.  Apparently some folk are publishing a compendium of accounts about my brother's life and mine is in the running to be included, so wish me luck!

                                Jim Josephson

[Mandle]

Previous voting rules have been retracted... see new ones below... Just say the name of your favorite story in a post and your vote will be counted.

[Mandle]

VOTING OPEN UNTIL OCT 18TH.

TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE OF THESE STORIES JUST MENTION ITS NAME WHEN YOU POST IN HERE TO VOTE.

ANY OF THESE:

"TWO BIRDS"

"OH, 'CHUTE"

"THE BOOK OF JIM"

AFTER YOU POST YOUR VOTE THERE IS NO FURTHER OBLIGATION TO DO ANYTHING.

THIS CONTEST HAS BEEN AN AGS CLASSIC FOR OVER A DECADE!

HELP US OUT, PLEASE!

[heltenjon]

The Book of Jim

[TheFrighter]

I vote for The book of Jim too!

_

[Tomags]

I'll go with "Two birds"

[Creamy]

I choose Oh, 'Chute

It was a tough call between Sinitrena's stylish fable, Baron's inventive new gospel and Stu's captivating drama.

And I don't excuse your French 

[Mandle]

And I don't excuse your French 

Hahaha!

[Stupot]

I vote for The Book of Jim

Spoiler

Sini's poem was poignant and well told. I feel that this would have worked better as prose; the rhyming scheme didn't quite hit for me. That said, it was good at painting an image in my mind as to what was going on.

Baron's Bible entry made me smile. We don't hear much from the POV of The Lord's siblings so this was an important addition to The Book. I mostly enjoyed how you dealt with the 'No solid ground' rule.

[close]

[Ponch]

Two Birds.

[RootBound]

Oh 'chute!

Spoiler

The book of Jim was a strong second, and very clever. But I think Oh Chute really nailed the theme and did a great job structuring the narrative in a way that both revealed the back story with motivations AND managed to keep all the flashbacks off solid ground. Stupot did it well enough that I don't think I would have realized it if I had read the story without knowing what the prompt was.

[close]

[Danvzare]

Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for rhymes, but my vote goes to Two Birds. 

[Sinitrena]

Oh 'chute.

Spoiler

I mentioned briefly above that I also considered "Parachute doesn't open" for my story and rejected the idea. It would have been very similar to Stupot's story: parachute doesn't open; realisation that it is not an accident; victim survives agains all odds - let's just say that Stupot did a better job than I would have with this premise.

Baron's story, while enjoyable, feels a bit like it doesn't follow the rules. After all, all characters around Josh are still very much on solid ground. It's still a clever and new interpretation of a very old plot, of course.

It was a dificult decision, but in the end, Stupot won by the tiniest bit for me.

[close]

[Baron]

Holy alarmism Batman!     At least our "dying" competition got a lot more votes, although I'm afraid of losing Mandle as a contributor when he gets his forever job as a headline writer.   

I vote Oh 'Chute.

Spoiler

@ Sinitrena:  I liked the poetic approach, and the contrast between the dutiful pigeon and the shallow swallow was satisfyingly reflected in their respective fates.  Some slightly imperfect rhymes (note/load springs to mind) and grammatical lapses ("it weren't her wings" - "wasn't" would be more appropriate, don't ask me why) detract slightly, but honestly my biggest reason for not voting for your work was just the brevity.  What is the pigeon's motivation to risk life and limb?  What is the whimsical sparrow doing fluttering about in such an obviously dangerous milieu when he could be off frolicking anywhere but?  How does this parable of the virtues of loyalty and self-sacrifice affect the outcome of the siege?  In the end this feels like just a fragment of a story.

@ Stupot:  This was a good story.  The hook sucked the reader in like a vacuum, and the twelve second mystery kept the reader guessing until nearly the end.  I thought the ending could use a bit of rework - it becomes so obvious that it was Chyles that it spoils a bit of the build-up, and it's a little unclear (although perhaps it is supposed to be) how Tre improbably survived while Wachowski perished.  A little proofreading is always a good idea ("film them watching them").  Overall it was an exciting read, though, and I really liked the moral of friends watching out for friends trumps petty jealousies.  Well done!

[close]

[Mandle]

Thank you to all. Voting is now closed and the tally is:

Two Birds: 3

Oh, 'Chute: 4

The Book of Jim: 3

Stu wins by a nose! Which ain't all that surprising because, boy, you should see his honker!

Over to you, big nose.