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[Musenik]

Low Speed Chase
by Keith Nemitz


Just when I thought I'd found God a dump truck squashed my Honda Civic into scrap and squished me into its flattened crevices. Hell.

"Right this way." The greeter stood my height. His skin was somewhat darker than mine, and he had extra arms. His hair was long and black, perfect for a classic Asian beauty.

Only recently a religious type, I honestly didn't have expectations for the afterlife. Sure, I'd seen The Devil in Miss Jones, Afterlife, Defend Your Life, and Heaven Can Wait. This was more boring.

I stood in an intersection, in the middle of New York. The greeter's green uniform was vertically punctuated by brass buttons polished golden. His short cap fit snugly around the downpour of dense black hair. Trimmings shined as if locks of his hair had been melted into plastic and formed into belt and shoes. His nameplate read, "Yama".

He aimed me down Madison Avenue with a sturdy flashlight sporting an orange filter cone. He eyes never met mine. He simply stood and waved his light. "Right this way."

A one man parade, I strolled towards my final destiny. Not another soul strolled with me. A few cars slipped by graciously. Some parked at the curb. Nobody got out.

The only noises were birds and wind in the occasional sidewalk tree. I suddenly longed to hear the cry of a souvlaki vendor. I wasn't hungry, but the smell issued from my memory like sizzling, spiced steak vigorously stirred. They were good times, ordering souvlaki, eating souvlaki.

I tried to recall more of my life. It had not passed before me earlier. Abusive parents, few friends, none close, repulsive peers, education by tedium, job stress stretched out like the dashed lines behind me. Work. Struggle to find work. Repeat. Die.

Was married, briefly. We had a girl. Wife took her. I paid to raise her. Seemed fair at the time. Still seems fair.

So far, I was really enjoying solitude in the city. People had never been Souvlaki to me. I kept hoping I'd run across an unmanned pushcart steaming with frying meat and onions and peppers.

Then I was worrying. Why didn't I have as strong of desire for Canadian bacon and mushroom pizza, or Mu Shu Vegetables? I liked them even better, sometimes.

There had been bad pizza. I'd burned one of the 'just add a few fixings' frozen kind. Tried to eat it. Yelled at my daughter for not eating it.

Carla told me she wanted a divorce while dining at a high class Chinese restaurant. Damn her! The broccoli had been slightly undercooked so it was perfect by the time you tasted it. She ruined it.

I walked block after block, in contemplation, alone, wondering if my destiny awaited ahead or within. My thoughts still longed for souvlaki. My legs did not tire. My belly did not ache. The buildings grew shorter. I thought I was traveling north but wasn't sure. I had only visited Long Island a couple times.

Perhaps the occasional passing car was my punishment for not investing time with other people. It is the perfect promise of company, the car. None stopped to let anyone out.

It made a Kafka as Solomon kind of sense, punishment to fit the crime. I accepted it. Hours or weeks later I welcomed it. I was merely as alone as usual. This time no one was around to pester me about it. Solitude and loneliness are different directions on the same street.

I got use to the cars with their lack of passengers and pilots. I was just to the point of accepting dreams of souvlaki were all I needed in the afterlife when a siren whispered far behind. Every car obediently pulled over.

I stopped and looked back. The tremulous wailing took its time growing closer and louder! For a second I couldn't decide which side of the street to take, but there was no need to hurry. I stepped to the side sporting a healthy sycamore and leaned against it. This was the most exciting thing to happen since my death. I didn't want to miss it.

Sure enough the police cruiser slowed down and stopped in the middle of the street right before me. It was my Honda Civic in blue and white cop drag. God opened the door and eased out of the driver's seat. He drew His gun and trained It on me.

"Sorry about the confusion. The metaverse dismissed afterlife for humans ages ago." He fired into my skull, through the temple. "Guess there's a hitch in the celestial spheres."

Black.

[Seth]

Hyperlinks, coloured text, oversized text and other foolishness will void your story's qualification and it will not appear in the vote. Formatting such as indentations and alignment are permitted.

Isn't this a little overzealous?  Same with the cautions on italics or whatever.  Some neat things could be done with these sorts of formatting.  If it really is too annoying or whatever, I think we should let the voting decide.

[Alec S.]

Pursuit had ended
But the chaser only found
His tail in his mouth

[William Broom]

OK, this is mine. Bobo, I hope you don't mind me stealing your table-script thingy, it really makes stuff nicer to read.

Dear mum, Just writing to tell you I am safe and sound having met Mr. Waitrose’s troop in town just as expected with no delays. We have set out on the nth. road following rumours brought by tinkers and other vagabonds travelling sth. for winter. Hope to find some good tracks soon. Tell Susie Mitch Jake and all the others I miss them already but not too much!! Love Jimmy --- Dear mum, Good news and bad news, we found some tracks in a forest near the road but they were several months old and marked by other hunters before us. Mr. Waitrose said there would be no proffit in following such old tracks, instead we are continuing north in the hope that the mark has doubled back since then, apparently some rumours say this is so. I am bunked in a tent with a man named Sebastian who is our cartographer and knows a great deal about the World. It is very big much more than I had imagined. Love Jimmy --- Dear mum, We are now in the mountains a place called Vandle, it is beyond all places you or I ever heard of, it is north-east of Tubblewick which you even told me you werent sure if it was real!! The mark has “gone to ground” in these mountains and there are a great many troops of hunters marching all around trying to find it. Mr. Waitrose says the mark wants to find a cave for winter and it is a great chance to catch him off-guard. You know how I always was about hunting so you must know how excited I am. Also Sebastian has turned out to be a rather crude fellow, last night he offered me rum and I dont know what else!! I asked Mr. Waitrose could I move tents but he said I would have to swop with someone else and I was too afraid to ask any of them, you would say they were giving me the Evil Eye. Love Jimmy --- Dear mum, A terrible thing has happened since I last wrote and now three of our troop are dead. It began when we broke bread with another troop coming around the bend of a mountainside and discussed the trade (Mr. Waitrose says when we break bread we must try to learn more than they do from us). Mr. Coulus who is our historian said we had good chances because the mark has not been here in five hundred years and the other troops historian said he was wrong. This was how the fight began and then Sebastian and the others joined in for Mr. Coulus so did I because I wanted Sebastian to be my friend again. Then there was a great fight I do not want to describe since Susie is to read this. In the end we won and drove the enemy troop away and took their supplies but three men are dead including Mr. Coulus and Sebastians arm is in a cast. There is some good news though in that Sebastian has asked me to take notes for him while he is Incapacitated and I hope this means he thinks well of me once more. Love Jimmy --- Dear mum, We are still in these confounded mountains and there are many tracks for us to follow but most of them are old or have something else wrong with them that Mr. Waitrose cannot be bothered to explain. Mr. Waitrose is often angry at present but Sebastian says not to worry about it he always gets that way when we are close to the mark. I am friends with Sebastian now for certain but it didnt come without a price, Im sorry but I did drink rum but it wasnt as bad as you would think. Sebastian said James if you dont drink this now then I cant give you no more chances you got to be a part of the troop like everyone else. I think now most of the troop is my friends as well which is a nice comfort. It is very cold and wet and we do not have much rations left, nor do I know for sure if you will receive this. Love Jimmy --- Dear mum. Cannot write much, got no time anymore. Ambushed an enemy troop by dropping rocks on their heads from above, dont know how many killed but we got their food. Feeling very low. No tracks anywhere. Jimmy --- Dear mum, Im sorry you have to read this please dont let Susie or Jake see it right away if you can help it. I gave up my profession that you sorted for me and I left Mr. Waitroses troop. I hope you will think I did the right thing since you raised me to have proper morals and Mr. Waitrose doesnt have morals at all neither does Sebastian or any of the others. Like I wrote to you last time (which must have alarmed you so much) Mr. Waitroses troop is happy to kill other hunters if it helps them get close to the mark. I didnt dare tell them I was leaving so I sneaked away in the dead of night and now I am all alone in these mountains and have not much food. I dont know how I will send you this letter but I will do it first chance I get. Love Jimmy --- Dear mum, I dont expect you shall read this letter nor the last one neither since I still have it with me. Im in a cave right now it is warm enough but I dont have much food. More importantly there is something else in the cave with me it is very big and breathes like its asleep. I think its the mark. I know this is what I dreamed about my whole life since dad died but now I am here I cant bring myself to kill it. Please tell Susie Mitch and Jake I love them very much. Thisistoaltertablewidthsomethingsomething

[genericuser]

The Pursuit of Happiness

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

> OH MAH GAWD.

S1nth3 and all the other guild members couldn't help but stare. Some might say that they were only staring at some colored spots on their computer screens. However, in the world of QuestLand, they were looking at the mightiest weapon in existence; the Sword of Ultimate Doomslaying.

> OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG-
> W00t guyz, we did it!
> That boss was hard, thx for healing me

There was only one problem; only one player could own the Sword of Ultimate Doomslaying. While the QuestLand designers could easily make the weapon available to everybody, they chose not to; they made sure that there would be an ultimate goal, all the time. A goal they could pursue for almost forever.

S1nth3 and his guild had just reached that goal.

> Congrats.
> Hold on; who's gonna take the sword?
> MEMEMEMEME~

The discussion channel was flooded with "ME!ME!ME!"-messages, until the leader of the guild finally spoke up.

T3K1LL4H> SHUT UP EVERYBODY!
T3K1LL4H> OK, we can do this
T3K1LL4H> Everybody roll the dice
T3K1LL4H> First person to get 13 gets the sword
> Oh shit, the dice?!

The dice were almost never used; the guilds usually had a system in order to deal with conflicts. However, sometimes things just got really bad, and the group leader would have to use the dice. Because of this, "The Dice" became the inofficial way of saying there was a huge disagreement somewhere.

lolz133> !dice
* lolz133 has rolled a 4
slayer95> !dice
* slayer95 has rolled a 12
slayer95> shit, almost
s1nth3> !dice
* s1nth3 has rolled a 13
lolz133> holy shit!

S1nth3 had gotten the sword. The mightiest weapon in the game, that would bring death to everybody and everything in QuestLand. Suddenly, it struck him; what was he supposed to do, now that he had essentially finished QuestLand?

He decided to go to sleep. It was pretty late, after all.

---

The next day, he checked his e-mail.

"[email protected] - 4563 new messages

From:                         Subject:
[email protected]    Failed login attempt
[email protected]    Failed login attempt
[email protected]    Failed login attempt
[email protected]    Failed login attempt
[email protected]    Failed login attempt"

Word had gotten out fast. People were trying to guess his password to get their hands on the Sword. S1nth3 just smirked; with the password he used, that wasn't going to happen. At least, not for the next 54256 years.

At the same time, he checked the QuestLand message board.

"I'M GONNA KILL U S1NHT3"

He saw hundreds of death threats, all directed at him. The other guild members were also being threatened.

That's when he saw him. Outside his house. He was carrying a baseball bat, he was wearing QuestLand clothes, and he was looking for him. "Ah, the wonders of the Internet," S1nth3 thought, "it's so easy to track people down."

A small window popped up on his computer screen.

"Are you sure that you want to delete your character? All your items and equipment will be destroyed, and your character can't be recovered."

He hesitated for a moment, but he knew what he was going to do. What he had to do. He started typing into the discussion channel.

"s1nth3> You ******* HAVE NO LIFE. YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT HAVING A LIFE. YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT FRIENDS. THE ONLY THING YOU CARE ABOUT IS THAT ******** SWORD.

S1nth3 has logged off (Character deleted.)"

He locked the door to his house. His real house. The police arrived soon afterwards, and the man with the QuestLand-shirt quickly ran away.

The next day, S1nth3 was talking on the phone. "A little melodramatic, yeah.  But you've got to keep them playing; and what better way to do that than giving them a new goal?"

He hanged up, and went to work, along with the other QuestLand developers.
------------------

[Blademasterbobo]

OK, this is mine. Bobo, I hope you don't mind me stealing your table-script thingy, it really makes stuff nicer to read.

I think someone in IRC suggested doing that for the Collabotale thing, so it's not really "mine" in the first place. 

[Xion]

Hyperlinks, coloured text, oversized text and other foolishness will void your story's qualification and it will not appear in the vote. Formatting such as indentations and alignment are permitted.

Isn't this a little overzealous?  Same with the cautions on italics or whatever.  Some neat things could be done with these sorts of formatting.  If it really is too annoying or whatever, I think we should let the voting decide.

Hm, I just had it because the first compo had it, which I was sort of using as a template for the guidelines. If anyone really has that much a problem with it though, then I'd be fine with loosening up those details.

On second thought having such things like lots of color and links and size changes might sort of difficultify things for both posting on the forums and if another site is set up with all the entries like in the first one. Formatting inconsistencies and whatnot. I'm actually not sure if this is true but someone tell me if it is. If it's not a problem then like I said, no biggie with the reallowance.



Also, I really like this one.

Pursuit had ended
But the chaser only found
His tail in his mouth

Made me laugh

[GregWS]

Right, here's my short, and very fragmented, entry.  I'm pretty good at non-fiction, but yeah, fiction/creative writing isn't something I'd call a strong point.  Figured I may as well give it a try anyway though. 


Suffering Shouts

The stench is strong, though that's true of most places.
Why?  Why not.  Running is lucrative now.

If you loiter, walk, you shatter.  An eye sees, an ear hears; you don't run anymore.
So I keep running, to free my person from its temporary stain.

My act satiates.
My act allows release.
My act FREES.
Though it has never freed me.

When I run, my cage expands, enveloping the cells of others.
The interstitial becomes infinite, however defined by its bounds.

When I run, suffering shouts...accuses...pleads...
I do not stop, but I am not of pain.

I will not be chained.

[skaldicpoet9]

Man, this is awesome. I really don't know why I didn't participate in the last one. I think I am going to have to brew something up....

[Smithy]

standing dead
smithy
973 words.

   There are places without perspective. Where experience and memory becomes null and void, past life is stolen. Live too long in such a place and you're left a tangled and disoriented pile of nerves. Everything starts to look the same. Every overturned tree, knoll, every kettle, every puddle of muck. When you enter the forest, you enter a world of twilight and shade, you become part of the forest. Surroundings stay the same with every step. You can't move in the forest. Need a point of reference. You're blind in the forest without it. Have to pick a direction and move.

   A short and whispering voice in the back of my mind somewhere told me I was off course, said I should have struck home or a trail a long time ago, but I blocked it out. “Forward!”

   The forest floor had stopped stabbing the sore callouses of my feet as I pressed Forward. Mossy ground is one of the small mercies that people with shoes rarely notice.

   I stopped to rest near a small pocket of water and took a drink. 

I needed to count my resources. There was a handful of berries in my pocket. I thought about them, imagined them bursting as I moved, as I walked and sat down, their juices leaking, staining the inner lining of my pants. The image made me cringe. I pulled them out and consumed them. 

I needed to count my resources. There was nothing in my pocket. Nothing except for little bits of crumbled, dried leaves and hay dust which had collected over the past several months and served no purpose to me, and a few matches buried somewhere. 

I needed to count my resources. There were trees. And potentially beautiful naked women in trees. The broken glimpse of her had evolved in my mind. Became less obscure, more defined, more bare. I glanced around at the canopy above but was disappointed to see nothing of interest. I had four gallons of mixed gas and a poorly maintained chainsaw beneath the trailer. Useless to me now; I had failed to find my trailer in the unyielding woods.

   I continued until a rusty stretch of barbed wire was caught on my loose pant leg. A sign of humanity from many generations ago. Farmers used to set wiring around stretches of forest and released their cows within them. The wolves knew to stay away back then. Cattle could transform the forest; gnarled and thick patches turned into paths, babbling brooks began emerging from swamps. It was all grown in now, though. I had missed the transformation by a few decades. 

I wondered about the wire. It was part of a farm, once, and the story behind all the farms in the region were the same. They all begin with some immigrant full of hopes and dreams a few hundred years ago; a man, probably from Finland named Eino who spoke broken English, came here and took a job in the iron mines. He saved money for years until he could afford to buy farmland and bring the rest of his family to America. 

They put their hearts and backs into the land, cutting down trees and piling all the rocks in the land into piles. Ripped the stumps out with draft horses. For a while everything was peachy for them. They built a new barn, purchased various livestock and state-of-the-art equipment. But time passed, Eino passed, his children passed, their children split off to seek successful lives in cities and the farm becomes a place for them to gather at and pretend they're rustic for the summers. Or maybe one of them remains living at the farmhouse, but he has no kids of his own, wears the same ragged clothes every day, lacks the knowledge to maintain or produce anything, lacks the will to get up in the mornings, and cheats on his taxes. The paint chips, the glass in the windows break, stones crop up in the hayfields, trees start to grow, and eventually the dream is reduced to a thin, broken strand of barbed wire cutting through a forest, as dead as Eino himself. If you asked me what the point of it was, I couldn't tell you. That's entropy.

   Maybe the farm existed and thrived long ago solely so I would have a rusty line of wire to follow back home.



   I was on the fringe of somebody's land. All I had to do was follow the wiring and I'd be at a road by the end of the day at the latest. It was simple. Just couldn't allow myself to become distracted. At points it disappeared beneath the moss but I always found it again a few feet out. Didn't know what I'd do when I got home, but that wasn't the point. Had to work towards one goal at a time; fixing the truck, felling a tree, moving from point A to point B; and right now my goal was to get on the road again.

   The further I went, the more relics of past lives I found. Broken toilets, rusty kettles peppered with bullet holes, antique ovens, sinks, discarded piles of doorknobs; the rusted out shell of an old 1950s buggy with a tree growing through the empty hood.

   I thought might have heard something behind me and turned around to see what it was. 

I dropped and lost track of the wire almost instantly. Looking back over my shoulder I kept walking. One thing at a time. And then I stopped. There she was.

   She froze when I saw her. Her body half obscured behind the trees. She was a dozen yards away but I could see the other half of her clearly. She was young and naked and covered partially in what looked to be mud.

[Bood_War]

God damn it. I've rewritten my story TWICE and it's still too long. 

[Smithy]

God damn it. I've rewritten my story TWICE and it's still too long. 

Cut out your introduction. Your setup is too long.

[Pit]

Light bringing Ianus
by Pit
999 words

For a short moment Rick had to close his eyes when he was leaving the hideout of the local mafia and was blinded by the setting fall sun. He was pursuing his boss, with just one objective, kill him. The streets were filled with people returning home from their work, accompanied by an unbearable noise hammering against his ears. He hated it. He wished they would fall silent when he approached them. As his victims did when he killed them.

It all began a week earlier when he accepted the job to obtain information about an enemy family striving after the market leadership. After getting the name of their boss he couldn't bear any longer the screaming of the woman he tortured. She became silent after a bullet traversed her larynx. But when he walked off he could still hear her baby crying behind his back.

A little boy who sold newspapers was shouting in the street. "Cold blooded murder in the Italian district". Rick thought about buying one to hide. But then considered it to be too classical.

His boss was angry because he got nothing more than the name. Said to him that he got seduced by his might, got heartless, evil, proud. Should look into a mirror and see what a pathetic life form he was. His boss didn't pay him. That was the moment when Rick decided to kill him. He deserved the money.

The darkening of the eve caused his majestic physique to be reflected in the shop windows. He stopped and turned his head. His eyes stared at the catalogs behind the glass. He wanted this money to buy a nice house in the Caribbean. For long enough had he been chasing this dream and stayed far behind it. He continued walking and coming closer to his boss.

After refusing to pay him, his boss talked about a trip he would take with his roadster to his nice weekend home.  He'd need some silence and nature he said. Rick wanted to give him that silence right off. His twin brother was the same. They were best friends, but Rick could never understand his lust for luxury and expensive cars and restaurants and suits. Those boring suits looked all the same in his eyes. Rick was proud to be modest.

He tried to stay as close as possible to his boss, not letting him out of his eyes. A bum was pulling on his clothes, begging for money. He followed him for eight minutes, until Rick spit his chewing gum on the ground. His boss arrived at a restaurant that belonged to their family. It was Rick's merit. He killed the former owners. Just with forks. He was proud about that. His boss didn't care. Rick took a seat between some people drinking a coffee on the terrace.

After hearing about the vacation, he had to act fast. But killing him in this own building was too dangerous. When his boss left the room to make a coffee, Rick followed him shortly after. The noise of the coffee machine drowned his breath while he was pressing his ear against the door. His boss was standing right on the other side, talking to someone on his mobile phone. Arranging a dinner for that evening in his restaurant. A cat approached Rick. He always hated these furry bastards always mewing at the wrong moment. Quickly he broke its neck and put it in the garbage bin.

Rick was sitting with his back towards the door, but he felt his hackles raising when his boss left the restaurant. He continued pursuing him. A mother asked Rick to help her with her broken baby carriage. But he didn't want to listen. Just pushed her by side. Behind his back, he could hear her baby crying. Family life was never an option for him. His career didn't allow it. His twin brother was the only family he had.

When his boss started to talk on the phone about which suit fits the leather seats of his car best, Rick sneaked away. He went to his small room with his mahogany desk, took his weapon and waited. When it was time, he left his room, passed through the corridor, took a short look at the garbage bin, checked if the cat was still there, it was, saw a notepad with a familiar telephone number, didn't have the time to think about it and headed in the direction of the front door, the direction of his boss. He left the building and closed his eyes.

Meanwhile the evening star had replaced the sun and they descended into an underground parking. Rick was right behind his aim, his dream he has been pursuing for so long. His boss got in the car. The gem faced him, approached him, its two headlights becoming brighter and brighter. Until the light of Rick's shot illuminated the whole floor. Slowly he ambled towards the car door, opened it and saw how a face bathed in blood fell out of the red roadster. It was a very familiar face. It was his own face. That of his twin brother. A notepad fell on the ground: dinner, 8:00 PM, restaurant Ianus, borrow car, parking Lucifer
A shadow approached from behind. A deep voice, that of his boss, an unbearable voice hammering against his ears.
"It has always been his dream to drive such a car. I decided to fulfill it. And you? Why? Why did you come? The money? The greed? Pride? The fear when realizing that power is just an illusion? Why didn't you listen to me? I hoped you'd become a better man than I did."
"This has all been a straightforward plan, from the beginning to the end, to attain my fall, right? Is this the end?"
"There is no end. A circle has no end."
When his boss left the underground in his bloodstained suit the echo of his shot was still following him.

[Greender]

A little something while I think in something better.

[Greender]

A dark place

The darkness engulfed him. He sensed that the tick wall off nothingness hid vicious monsters. Scary visions wandered in his mind, the teeth, the claws, … soulless creatures lurked in the dark. He searches as his desperation grows exponentially, there must be a way out, but it isn't in his reach. Slowly he slides his hand across the wall until he feels a bump.
- Oh, here's the fucking light switch.