Fortnightly Writing Contest: MEN PLAN. GOD LAUGHS. (CLOSED)

[Mandle]

One of my favorite things in any story is when a plan goes wrong. It can be anything as simple as the firehose wheel almost pulling John McClane back out the window just when he thought he was safe, to the obligatory problems during a heist, to a complete domino-effect of disaster like in A Simple Plan.

Tell us a story where a plan goes wrong.

[Stupot]

I've had a fun idea for this. But it is just an idea at the moment, and time is not a luxury I have at the moment, but I'll see if I can bash something out.

[Mandle]

I've had a fun idea for this. But it is just an idea at the moment, and time is not a luxury I have at the moment, but I'll see if I can bash something out.

Oh, awesome!

[Sinitrena]

The Temple under the Sea


,,Remember, remember,
we'll meet in December,
when the land is covered in snow
in one year, as it is now,
with the willow as roof and as shade.
Remember: my love shall not fade."

He followed the river down to the valley
to meet friend or foe, a fiend or an ally.
This spring, the willow was heavy with catkin
and a shudder ran over her skin
when she whispered his promise onto the tree:
"We'll meet here or in the temple under the sea."

She waited a year for him to return
while the army cleared scrub and fern
to better march past her home to the war.
But she did not forget what he swore.
When they felled the willow, she planted a spruce,
waiting for him and awaiting a truce.


"And if I'm not there by then
then wait one more year and again,
we'll meet at the edge of the grove,
I'll kneel and I'll kiss your glove,
between the willow and the stream,
at the edge of the forest of evergreen."

A second year she waited for him,
no matter the news, no matter how grim.
The spruce did not live through the cold,
died young as the forest died old,
but she sat by the river where she knew to be
as otherwise there was only the sea.

This summer the forest turned brown and black.
It offered wood and brought charcoal back.
The trees were shipped down the water
to help with the weapons and slaughter.
An evergreen forest became barren land,
but she promised to wait 'til the end.


"But if I don't come this year,
wait once more and I'll sure be there.
Because even though I followed the river,
with sword in hand and with bow and with quiver,
I'll meet you when summer has passed-by trice
and the land again is covered in ice."

A third time spring became summer and fall
and still she waited for him to call,
even as the river became sluggish and dry
she dared not to despair and to cry,
for loosing all hope does not set you free
it only leaves you with the shadows under the sea.

An enemy's dam took the river away.
The earth in its bed was red as blood from the clay.
He told her to wait and she promised him so,
but after three years, what was left of his vow?
The river was dammed, the forest now coal,
the willow was gone and swallowed whole.


,,And if I cannot return to you,
then I promise you forever anew
that there is a place to meet for us both.
Remember forever my promise and oath:
We'll meet here or in the temple under the sea,
where all pain is forgotten and dreams are free."

Summer had turned into winter once more,
one year was gone, then two, three, four,
and still she waited and still she hoped.
But fate would have it that she then choked.
She was not murdered by the enemy's hands.
Her death was futile, as every life ends.

And that was the winter he did return
only to see her dead body and learn
that she had stayed faithful for all this time.
For this, there is no reason and rhyme
no place without pain where dreams are free,
no temple, just shadows under the sea.

[Mandle]

During a long and deep conversation with a mate, I coincidentally had the inspiration for a story based on this theme. I am gonna have a go at writing it and maybe post it as a non-entry.

[Mandle]

RONALD'S WATCH

This had happened countless times before over countless nights. Ronald Kiln stirred uncomfortably from his sleep, his old joints complaining, and rolled over onto his other side. The sheet on that side of the double bed that he had slept in solo for almost a decade was cool and pleasant. He stretched his old bony legs out onto that side and, while enjoying the sensation, did a calculated check in his mind on the needs of his bladder.

Bladder reported back that it was probably fine for at least the next twenty minutes and would leave him alone for somewhere close to that amount of time. Ronald closed his eyes and was about to fade back down into the world within his pillow when curiosity got the better of him.

What time was it? He wrestled his arm from the tangled covers and thrust his wrist close enough to his eyes to be able to read the face of his longtime friend: the watch he had worn since the 1950s for all the long years since the manufacture of its radium dial had become illegal.

It was 3:41 in the morning.

Ronald's withered wrinkled face was lit by the faint green glow of the watch. He was vaguely planning his four o'clock wakeup and the usual pre-dawn pottering around the house, when the glow from the radium dial suddenly faded to nothing and he was in complete darkness. He grunted in brief surprise, but quickly drifted back down into pillow-world once again.

He ended up sleeping very late for him, until around five-thirty in the morning. He awoke and groaned and cussed his way out of bed. He walked out of his bedroom, his dodgy hip trying to pull him in circles to the left. But he course-corrected and made it to the kitchen with less swearing than the average day. Which usually would have made this a good day but then the bloody toaster wouldn't produce its orange glow on the bread inside it and the electric stove wouldn't light up its orange coils under the cold frypan with the sloppy, slippery raw eggs he had broken into it.

The power was out. Roland, muttering curses through his pursed lips and almost toothless gums, went to the breaker box in the corner of the sparse linoleum-floored kitchen. His trembling hands were raised and at the ready to flip the breaker switches back up, but then he saw that none of them were down. This meant that the power outage extended beyond his humble home.

Roland's rheumy blue eyes crept around to the transistor radio on the counter under the spice rack that Patty had hung on plastic hooks a decade and a half before the cancer had taken her. The radio that ran on batteries.

It took some remembering and tuning to get the radio to speak anything but static. Roland had grown used to cable television and the internet like everyone else and now cursed himself under his breath for that as he fumbled, seeking unfamiliar frequencies with the radio's dial.

A voice crackled through over the tinny speakers stained bronze from the evaporated oil of decades of fish, chips, and chicken fried nearby.

"...outages... Repeat... Nuclear power stations across the world are reporting something seemingly impossible. The fuel rods in their reactors have suddenly stopped reacting in any way. They have become cold and inert. This is resulting in unprecedented power outages... Repeat..."

Roland stayed by the radio as he ate his jam and bread cold and bereft of toasting that morning.

He thought back to his youth. Back to before he had even met Patty or had even hoped that someone as wonderful as she could fall for a nerd like him. Back to when he had spent three quarters of his life in a deep hole in the ground, and the other quarter sleeping.

His constant partner during his time serving in the military deep within that missile silo had been Dave Harland. It had been Dave that had dragged him to the social dance event on the base where he had met his lovely, now-lost-to-him-forever wife. They had married fast and hard, as was the way back then. There was little time to dilly-dally when one half of the marriage lived mostly underground like a troglodyte.

Underground, while on their watch, there was a lot of time for checkers and chatting. Ronald had just jumped three of Dave's red pieces and crowned his own black one as the discussion turned once more to the "What if" scenario their minds were always party occupied with, even in their restless dreams.

Dave had said, "Naw, you're a stupid optimist. The order will come down the pipe one day and we will launch the bastards and then it's all over for everyone."

"Well, I think one day I wanna hear you eat those words," Ronald had replied. "You wanna make a little wager on it?"

Dave, still scowling at the board in obvious annoyance at not having seen the trap, had muttered, "Yeah, whatever."

"A month's wages?" Ronald had said through his smirk.

"Sure. It's not like I'll ever get to collect on that if I'm right, and we would have to wait 'til the end of time for you to prove me wrong," Dave had said. "Seems like a safe enough bet."

Ronald had replied, "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

Sitting and gumming his mush of bread and jam that morning, Ronald wondered why his memories had taken him to that one particular scene from his past, but he would have his answer to that question soon enough.

It wasn't easy for Ronald to keep himself fed and watered over the next few weeks, and news on the situation was sporadic and often contradictory. People could still get around by car, for a while at least, until the fuel in their cars' tanks ran out. And then it was a confusing and often casually violent matter at the gas stand to siphon up gasoline without the electricity needed to run the pumps.

Then, once the cars could no longer be fed, the real violence erupted.

It wasn't easy for Ronald to dodge battles and riots on the streets only to get back home with a bucket of river water and some beets or carrots stolen from a neighbor's garden, but he did manage it. And he even managed one visit to Patty's grave to put some hastily gathered flowering weeds on it in lieu of the store-bought bouquet he would have usually placed.

He kept watch on the situation. His trusty radio still supplied sporadic news on the global crisis. Thank goodness he had always bought brand-name batteries back in the day, and not the crappy ones from the dollar shops.

The jigsaw he pieced together from the radio reports eventually revealed to Ronald the entire picture.

Something had hit Earth. Not a meteor or a comet or anything like that. Something invisible. Some kind of cosmic burst that had instantly rendered every last bit of radioactive material on the planet inert.

By the time, months later, when the coal and oil stations started back up and the power came back on at a reasonable level of reliability, Ronald was able to lay real flowers on Patty's grave. All the walking had somehow either pushed his hip joint back into place or had built up enough muscle around it to compensate.

The very day the landline phone service came back on, Ronald was ready with his old notebook of contact numbers open on the kitchen table he had once eaten meals on across from his lovely wife.

After a half a dozen rings, the old friend on the other end of the call picked up and Ronald said, "Now, about that bet..."

[Baron]

Uh, I thought the deadline was tomorrow....     Imma need a day or two to get something together.

[Sinitrena]

This is not an entry, more a joke and a bit of frustration I needed to get out of me. But it kinda fits the topic too, so I thought I'd post it:


Judgy Paper


Alright, paper, the plan for this round is to write a poem. You're with me so far?

Do you have an idea?

Yes, actually, a great one!

Well, go ahead. Let me hear it.

Yes, well, I had this line in my head ...remember, remember, we'll meet in December...

That seems familiar...

Stupid paper. But well, I mean there's not a whole lot that rhymes with December. I think the Anastasia Animated Movie used this rhyme but other than that... – Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

Good idea. What's the topic?

Well, I thought I'd have twelve stanzas, each referring to one month. The story's basically this guy going to war and the promise he makes his girlfriend, the promise to come back. Four stanzas about his promise, four about their time together before he needs to make his promise and four about reality and the fact that he doesn't return setting in. It ends with one of them dying, but I...

A bit depressing, don't you think? Your competition keeps commenting on...

Yes, yes, I know, but come on, the topic is Men plan, God laughs. This has to be either tragic or humorous.

And you do better with tragedy.

Exactly. Anyway, one stanza per month, that should work out fine. I've already got December, now let's have a look at the other months... Hm, not a lot of words that rhyme with the other months. June – moon, that works. May – stay. March...

march.

Yes, I just said March.

No, I mean March – march. That works, doesn't it?

Well, I guess. It'll have to do, until I find something better. August, April, October, January. Not exactly great. What rhymes with April?

*shrug.

You're particularly helpful today.

I'm not supposed to be helpful. I'm just a piece of paper. But anyway, have you checked rhymezone?

Not yet, let's see: aprill and apryl? Are these even words?

*shrug.

Alright, alright, let's forget about this. It's not like I need to have the names of the months at the end of a verse, do I? Anyway, there's a lot that rhymes with January and February, but the rhythm for these words is just – off.

How so?

Well, it doesn't fit at all with what I have so far.

*shrug.

Stop shrugging!

I can't help it! There's a breeze. Close the window, would you?

...

...

...

Where have you been?

I went and closed the window, as you asked me to... And then I went and made dinner... And I might have played on my phone a bit.

In other words, you were procrastinating?

Who taught you such words? Unbelievable. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

Sure, I was just waiting for you! It might be a good idea to start writing the actual poem. There's a lot of notes on my surface, but not a whole lot of text. And what you do have... Well, it doesn't fit your original plan, does it?

You're fairly judgy today, aren't you, paper? *looks at paper. But not wrong. I guess I have to scrap a lot of this. This line doesn't work, neither does that, how about...

Are you about done? It tickles when you cross out your words.

It does, does it now? Maybe I should start from scratch with a nice, clean sheet... *scrunches up the paper and throws it against the wall.


-------------------------------------------

Anastasia: Once upon a December Lovely Animated Musical
rhymezone.com is a website that helps with finding rhymes. Aprill and Apryl are indeed the only rhymes offered for April. Both seem to only exist as names, and as miss-spellings/alternate spellings of April at that (or, at least I couldn't find any other meaning)

[Baron]

My entry is to be rea in the voice of Professor Frink: 

Heart Crush

   V minus six days, where V equals Valentine's Day.  I calculate that time is now my enemy in my quest for romance, with a probability of at least 90% nineteen times out of twenty.  With each passing moment there is an ever greater chance that some other dashing young fellow here at Terrence S. McQueen High School will ask out my secret crush.  The time to act is upon me!  And yet nothing in Mr. Schwarzenfluger's so-called biology class has prepared me to diagnose the queasy feeling in my intestinal tract every time I contemplate the notion.

   I will spare a few moments to provide adequate background exposition as to my plight.  I am what the high school football team would refer to as a nerd, which is broadly accurate given their predilection for dabbling in unjust stereotypes; and I am what the high school cheerleading squad would refer to as a 3 on an apparent scale of one to ten, although one might quibble with the validity of their assessment criteria.  Certainly I lack the muscular physique and easy social graces of the semi-divinities who occupy the upper echelons of the scale.  Also my glasses are three inches thick and I hitch my pants up under my armpits to keep from slouching.  But I do have some assets that make me a desirable catch, such as a curious intellect and a hard-won immunity to conjunctivitis.

   On the other side of the equation there is my crush, one Jane T. Plebberman.  I have heard her referred to as a 7 by my jocular colleagues in history class, but in my books she is ranked as a 10 at least.  All evidence suggests that she is a gentle soul, with a modest disposition and an admirable work-ethic when it comes to her scholarly endeavours.  Forgive me the crudeness of the term, but she is a brunette bombshell, although my fellow single males unfairly deduct marks for superficial imperfections such as braces and the occasional bit of acne.  Be that as it may, she still most certainly ranks much higher than me on the social food chain, and thus courting her is something of a risky enterprise.

Given my proclivity towards social awkwardness and the scope of my ambition, I have rationally concluded that a finely tuned plan is necessary for my success in the courting of sweet Jane.  After much thought and deliberation I have decided to attempt a George McFly, whereby through some injury in front of Jane I might worm my way into her affections by means of her nurturing instinct.  I have determined that falling out of the tree outside her bedroom window only to be hit by her father's car would be both creepy in today's social context and likely to result in catastrophic injury, and so my idea revolves around some simple fisticuffs with a low-level football goon.  This has the advantage of being both plausible and likely to result in only superficial wounds.  Also, I calculate it will elicit maximum sympathy from Jane, who seems to despise the obnoxious bullying ways of our school's beloved football jocks.

And so I lie in wait, like a tiger in the grass in the cafeteria, except my stripes are pinstripes on my grandfather's hand-me-down dress shirt and my clawed paws are clammy like beached jellyfish.  My stomach feels like it is about to turn inside out, like the graphic portrayal of that baboon in the teleporter in Cronenberg's The Fly.  And yet my heart pumps in euphoric giddiness at the prospect of soon attracting the attentions of Sweet Jane Plebberman and my mind races through the infinite scenarios that my plan might unleash.  So much can go right, and so much can go wrong at the same time.  No amount of chaos theory can predict the outcome once this train of events leaves the metaphorical station, which is both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure.  I slow my breathing to steady my nerves, for the moment of action is almost upon me.

Jane enters the cafeteria amidst an impenetrable phalanx of girl friends, assuming her regular place at a table against the wall with full vantage of the rest of the eating hall.  So far so good.  Moments later, just as predictably, Butch Dunderson enters the cafeteria, joking in an obnoxiously loud voice about the physical inadequacies of his fellow students, which draws raucous laughter from his coterie of primitive hominids.  I time my approach perfectly, so that I intercept Butch right in front of Jane's table.

"I say, dear fellow, I noticed the vectors of your football throws are inefficient," I say, trying to rile up his infamous temper.

"Uh, what?" Butch asks, clearly confounded by the boldness of my observation.

"What is more," I continue, for I am too nervous at this point to deviate from my script, "I find your halitosis to be the mother of all insults."

"Uh, what did you say about my mother?" Butch asked, confused.  This is good, because confusion is the first rung on his very short ladder to violence.  Unfortunately, I have not planned for the contingency of this dialogue branch, and I stumble over my next line like a goose with taffy stuck in its beak.  Fortunately Butch saves me the embarrassment of further mortification by punching me forcefully in the gut before moving on with his day.  I collapse onto the floor, as my lungs apparently no longer function sufficiently to keep my vital organs oxygenated.  My world is a reeling freefall of panic and hysteria.

And then I feel a soothing touch on my shoulder and my lungs slowly draw breath again.  I am not one to indulge in the fanciful notions of angelic miracles, but now before me crouches the saintly Jane, asking me if I am alright.  My plan was a resounding success!  All the words I dared not speak now come bubbling up to see the light of day.  Sweet Jane, won't you be my valentine?  Except I realize in horror at the last moment that these are not in fact words bubbling up within me, but rather the semi-digested remnants of my breakfast.  Jane retreats in disgust from the fountain of my soul, but her reflexes are too slow, far too slow.  In my smitten condition I could gush over Jane for hours, which is exactly how long it felt as I literally poured my guts out to her. 

And then our special moment is over, and a kind of adolescent awkwardness ensues.  We stare at each other, both soaked to the bone by hot steamy vomit, and I realize with heart-crushing certitude that an unspannable chasm will forever exist between us.  She opens her mouth as if to plaster over the pain with some soothing platitude, and that's when I hit her with my second volley of projectile vomit, right in the face.

So goodbye, Sweet Jane. I hope one day through the agencies of industrial stain remover and professional therapy that you might come to forgive me for my rather thoughtless advances.  Let it just be said that what I did I did out of love and a genetic stomach condition.  Perhaps one day you will be able to see past the tsunami of vomit heading implacably towards you and notice me shyly loving you from just the other side.

Yours sincerely in aborted romance,

Clarence B. Finklebert

[Mandle]

Sorry, guys. Had some internet issues and other computer problems to sort out.

The round is now closed.

Voters please PM me with your selection of Sinitrena's or Baron's stories.

[Sinitrena]

You forgot to set a voting deadline and to change the topic title to reflect that voting is now open.

Anyways, I don't have a whole lot to say for either story:

Mandle:

Spoiler

It's not an entry, but otherwise I would have voted for your story. I liked it. There's honestly not a lot else I can add. Usually, I don't like mysteries without explanation or even an attempt by the protagonists to solve them, because in this way it is just a background event and plot device, but the story is so short that I don't really mind. I enjoyed it, overall.

[close]

Baron:

Spoiler

I really don't like the incel vibes I get from your protaganist, so I'm really glad that his plan didn't work out. Poor Jane, though, she really didn't deserve to get vomit all over herself, while Clarence deserves what he got (I don't condone violence, but he did pick a fight he knew he couldn't win, so...) The story does give Clarence what he deserves and I don't get the impression I'm supposed to like him, neither is one supposed to like Butch. But Jane seems nice enough and what does she get out of this story? Vomit. Which leaves an overall sour taste in my mouth.

[close]

Sending my vote in now.

[Baron]

Sorry, stuck on my phone at a hockey tournament with patchy internet, so please forgive awkward autocorrections.

@Mandle

Spoiler

I liked how old Ronald was able to persevere the old fashioned way while the modern world fell apart around him.  I'm a bit confused as to why his radium watch dial still glows when all radioactive material stops working, and I'm a bunch confused about the bet.  Weren't they betting on whether the Order to launch the specific missile would ever come?  Obviously the nuclear tip wouldn't eork any more, but the Order could still come (not to mention that the missile could still be launched, relying as it does on something resembling rocket fuel).  AND since the universe can produce pulses that stop things from being radioactive and there is a lot of radiation in the universe, it stands to reason that the universe can also produce pulses that might one day reactivate radiation (I mention this only given the indefinite timeliness agreed upon at the beginning of the wager).  Basically if I were on the "losing" side of the wager I'd still be playing the let's-see-how-this-plays-out-in-the-long-run card.

[close]

@Sinitrena

Spoiler

  Poor paper!  I was really rooting for her.  I liked how your actual entry (the poem) showed nature paralleling the increased hopelessness of your protagonist (the willow is chopped down, the forest dies, the creek is dammed).  The poetry itself was a bit of a slog, due to meter and rhyme issues that your unhelpful paper helper couldn't resolve.  The tragedy at the end, that the lovers could have actually been together, was all the more poignant for the senselessness of the woman's death.

[close]

As for critiques of my own work, I see Clarence in my mind as ineptitude clueless when it comes to dealing with other people in general, but women specifically.  While this almost certainly implies a degree of superficially objectifying of women (as logically he never interacts with them to know them better), I don't see him as expecting somehow that he deserves love.  He recognizes that he was the weak link in his own plan, and that he will need to re-evaluate his approach to romance moving forward.

[Mandle]

Sorry, stuck on my phone at a hockey tournament with patchy internet, so please forgive awkward autocorrections.

@Mandle

Spoiler

I liked how old Ronald was able to persevere the old fashioned way while the modern world fell apart around him.  I'm a bit confused as to why his radium watch dial still glows when all radioactive material stops working, and I'm a bunch confused about the bet.  Weren't they betting on whether the Order to launch the specific missile would ever come?  Obviously the nuclear tip wouldn't eork any more, but the Order could still come (not to mention that the missile could still be launched, relying as it does on something resembling rocket fuel).  AND since the universe can produce pulses that stop things from being radioactive and there is a lot of radiation in the universe, it stands to reason that the universe can also produce pulses that might one day reactivate radiation (I mention this only given the indefinite timeliness agreed upon at the beginning of the wager).  Basically if I were on the "losing" side of the wager I'd still be playing the let's-see-how-this-plays-out-in-the-long-run card.

[close]

His radium watch fades to black at the start of the story. That was the reveal that something weird was happening:

"Ronald's withered wrinkled face was lit by the faint green glow of the watch. He was vaguely planning his four o'clock wakeup and the usual pre-dawn pottering around the house, when the glow from the radium dial suddenly faded to nothing and he was in complete darkness. He grunted in brief surprise, but quickly drifted back down into pillow-world once again."

The powers that be would soon figure out that since the nuclear power plants no longer worked and that every radioactive thing on Earth was now inert that nuclear warheads were also just useless junk now.

As for playing out the wager, I'd say his friend is just as relieved as he is that humanity is now safe from destroying itself and will gladly pay up.

[Mandle]

Final Score:

Baron: 1

Sinitrena: 2

Over to Sini for the next round!

(Thanks to both Sini and Baron for taking the time to read my non-entry and providing feedback on it as well! I've been setting up my writing office away from my house just a bit to finally knuckle down and write a book or two so haven't been that active here, sorry. Not gone for good though!)

[Sinitrena]

Thanks, guys.

Next round coming right up.