@huntleychris suggested it and, truly, I can deny him nothing. Not to mention, I love doing this ;-)
Oh and, while I don’t normally do this, I decided I’d make this a little more interesting and toss in some Entertainment Earth shopping cash as a possible prize for your entry. (Amounts to be revealed later)
Yep, it’s the GGD Writing Challenge! (cue theme music)
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: Experiment
Phrase:”Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision”
Image: A full moon in a cloudless sky.
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. ;*
“Goddamnit Gloria Pt. 3”
His mind kicked him back to reality. He shuttered as he looked at the window at the night sky. It was a full moon in a cloudless sky. He felt like he was stuck in some old horror movie. Except he knew what was coming. He knew not to open the door or go chasing after that weird sound or bump in the night. For all his trouble the company had given him a week to get his life in order. To say his goodbyes without making them sound too direct. The only thing he wanted to do was pretend he hadn’t gone into work last night & watch the bright moon move over the sky.
*Note – sorry it was so damn long. I got a bit excited & carried away
“Goddamnit Gloria Pt. 2”
He glanced towards the row of cages. “Holy…fuck…” he stammered out. No drunken Pi Beta Phi girl to be found in the small little prison. Only Gloria. She had been slumped over running her hand back & forth on the cell bars. The beautiful ring he’d given her last Christmas was clinking slowly across the metal as she let her hand drift. “Gloria? What the hell happened?!” he cried out as he rushed towards the cell to let her out. She didn’t move, didn’t react, until his hand touched the cell door. As soon as he felt the cool metal graze his finger tips she looked up. The previously clinking hand grabbed at his through the steel bars. It was similar to the motion a cat makes trying to snag a mouse. Playful, but on some level it’s all instinct. He pulled back & looked up, totally shocked. “What the fuck Glor…” Her eyes. They stopped him in mid sentence. The milky white gloss of decay had taken them over. The skin on her face had already started to bloat, peel, & turn a very dark color of gray. Without another thought he back slowly to the entrance of the room & turn off the lights. He understood now. As he walked back down the hall to the lab he heard the soft clink start up again…
He rushed a little to get back to Anthony. From the state of him earlier, there couldn’t possibly be that much time left. As soon as Anthony was in his sight his anger boiled over. “Why? Why her? WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU TEST THIS ON ANYONE YET ANTHONY?! Fuck you can’t even call it a test. WE KNEW THE FUCK RESULTS!? WHY WOULD YOU PUT A HUMAN THROUGH THIS GODDAMNIT?!” Anthony, slowly lifted up his head. A huge chunk of the arm he was resting it on was missing. He had maybe 10 minutes left, at best. “She was going to do it Jim. She was going to tell her. And we needed to see if the reaction was the same in humans as it was in the rats. You & I both knew that.” Anthony put his head back down & continued talking quietly “She was perfect for the first human infection. We had a deadline Jim. A fucking deadline. She was a poor fuck anyways and you knew it” Anthony started to sob. Jim’s anger subsided & he gentley reached over & patted his dear friend on the back of the head & sighed. “She was really going to tell Marge huh? Fuck, I knew I hadn’t smoothed things over enough.” Slowly crouching down next to his oldest, dearest, & soon to be deadest friend he gently whispered into his ear “You know what comes next for you right buddy? You know we have to keep this contained?” Anthony lifted his head up again. “I know, I was going to do it myself Jim, I really was. I had it all planned out if this got out of hand. Even brought in my old shotgun, but Jim…I can’t. I just can’t…” Anthony sputtered out as he broke into sobs again. Hushing him like a father would a son with a skinned knee Jim said once again in a hushed voice “Shhh…it’s alright Tony. Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision…”
“Goddamn it Gloria Pt. 1”
Alone in the comfort of his den, Jim Scrib sat facing the big floor length window. Vodka on ice in hand he started to let his mind drift. The soft clinking of ice against the small glass which was in his hand brought him back to the events of last night…
It was a Tuesday evening and his shift had just started. He walked into the lab hearing a soft sound coming from the Test Subject Area. “Probably just Gloria finishing up on the Rat Infection Rate Experiment.” he thought. He started off in the direction of the sound to catch his ever loyal assistant & mistress before she left for the night. Maybe even convince her a little fun time would be good for them after all this mess of her wanting to tell his wife about the two of them. She understood now that could never happen…right?
Lost in his thoughts when he first got into the room he wasn’t sure his eyes were sending his brain the right signal. Anthony, a long time friend & co-worker was the only one in clear sight as soon as he entered the room. The place was a mess. Anthony, apparently drunk was slumped over the desk unconscious. “What the fuck did you do Tony?? Another fucking party to amuse those cheap sorority girl across the street from campus into giving you some snatch?!” Jim began to yell. He stopped before the next harsh sentence of accusation mostly because Tony was obviously too fucking drunk to understand his verbal punishment, but the previous soft sound he had heard upon first entering the lab kept coming back to him. It was louder now. A distinct metal on metal sound like a prisoner running a spoon along his prison cell bars. “Oh god,” he said without thinking “he locked some alcoholic bimbo up in the goddamn cages again”. Sighing he started off at a slow pace, not really sure what to expect. “You have a fucked up sense of humor my dear friend” he said mumbled on his way to the cages. The last thing he needed at the beginning of the night was some poor, stupid Pi Beta Phi girl puking all over his clothes. He had left his last change of work clothes over at Gloria’s last Friday. “I’m going to have to do some serious dodging if this bitch spews” he thought grimly to himself.
Turning the corner he walked to the entrance of the TSA & felt on the cold, concrete brick wall for the light switch. Immediately pulled his hand back in revulsion. “Jesus! One of them already puked on the fucking wall!” & quickly reached back with the tip of his finger & flipped on the light. After pulling his hand back he realized the cool, slimy liquid he had touched probably wasn’t just puke. “Puke usually isn’t this pink without an internal cause…” he thought. “Poor, drunken little thing probably has an ulcer from all the binging. Kids today…”
He didn’t answer.
“Okay,” she said, “is that too general? Let’s get more specific. Let’s say that we have a baby, you and me. And let’s say that you love your little boy more than you love yourself. More than you love me. And you have a warning that one night I’m gonna come home from work and that little shit’s crying is gonna push me over the edge, and I’m gonna walk into that happy little blue nursery and, right under that stupid little Star Wars mobile that you made for him, I’m gonna hold hold a pillow over his face and I’m gonna kill the little parasite that grew inside me for nine months. Do you think you’d kill me to stop that? Do you think that someone who could even consider something like that deserves to live at all?”
“But you wouldn’t…”
“Experiment, Steve. Hypothetical. Did you think before right now that I would ever be holding a knife at your throat? Did you think I’d ever make you bleed?”
She traced the edge of the blade across to the other side of his neck.
“Think about it, Steve. I want an answer, but I want you to think about it first.”
“Okay,” he finally said, “let’s say that I buy this. Let’s say that you could do… that. If I’m warned, I’d find another way to stop you.”
“Uh-uh, nope. That’s not part of the problem set. The rules specifically said that the only way to stop me is to kill me. Don’t try to apply logic to this, Steve. No logic, only feeling. It’s only an experiment, after all. Your son. Or me. One of us is going to die. Him by my hand or me by yours. Which one?”
“How the hell am I supposed to answer this, Robin? Huh? How am I supposed to pick who lives and who dies?”
She took the knife from his throat, herself from atop his body. “It’s just an experiment, Steve. Just a question.”
After a moment, she added, “But I still want an answer.”
He finally opened his eyes. He found her laying back where she had been before. “What’s this really about, Robin?”
“Just an experiment. Answer the question.” She didn’t look at him.
He looked back to the sky. “I’m no killer, Robin. Not even for that. I couldn’t.”
They stared in silence for a time.
“Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision,” she finally said.
No shooting stars fell that night.
Steve and Robin laid on a tattered blue blanked, looking into the Autumn sky and watching for falling stars. They didn’t expect to see much of the meteor shower over the light of the full moon in that cloudless sky, but that was okay. Wasn’t really the point, was it? His right hand held a neglect-warmed beer, his left traced lazy circles on Robin’s palm. She turned her eyes from the heavens and said, “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” he answered, looking back.
“I wanna try an experiment,” she said.
“Oooooh, something kinky?” he asked with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.
She chuckled back. “Dick. No, I’m being serious, here. Well, mostly.”
Steve turned his body toward her. “Okay, what is this mostly serious experiment you have in mind?”
“I want you to close your eyes.”
“You’re sure this isn’t going to get kinky?”
“Not if you keep this up, it’s not. Now hush.”
“Hushing,” he said. He closed his eyes.
“Now lay back down.”
Steve did as he was told. He felt Robin’s leg slide over him. He felt her left hand rest firmly against his right shoulder. He felt her warm breath against his ear.
And then he felt something cold and sharp press against his neck.
“What the hell…” he started. Pressure from the blade shut him down.
“Now. The experiment. What if I told you that I saw a glimpse of the future. What if I told you that, sometime in the next five years, you were going to change. What if I told you that you were going to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and I had the chance to end all of that right here, right now, before any of it began. The old Hitler question with a twist.”
“Robin, this is…”
Pressure from the blade again silenced him.
“Hush. This is an experiment. So, answer me. If this were real, if I knew that this was going to happen, should I kill you?”
“Christ, Robin, what the fuck…”
He felt blood trickle this time.
“Okay, turn it around. Let’s say that it’s you that’s seen the future. And you know that I’m going to kill people. Would you kill me? Could you?”
Thanks for the inspiration – I was supposed to write something today for a writing group I’m in, but had no ideas before reading this post.
My story based on this is on my blog: http://ryanharron.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/friday-flash-staring-at-the-moon/
Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision. I found this phrase constantly running through my head. There was no point in assigning blame as there was only one possible outcome and that was to blame myself for my current predicament.
In order to understand my feelings let me give you a little background. It all started on a Friday, arguably my favorite day of the week when Janet stopped me in the hall and asked why I’d been so quiet lately. What was I to tell my favorite teacher? To be honest there wasn’t a particular reason but she wasn’t going to take that for an answer. My mind raced searching for some plausible answer but there really wasn’t anything there. She apparently knew this and suggested that we go somewhere quiet and have a talk. It wasn’t so much a suggestion as an order and having no particular excuse to say no, I followed along. As we entered the room I looked out the window and noticed that there was a full moon in a cloudless sky. Something about nighttime makes you feel vulnerable, almost without a filter on your emotions. Sitting down at a table she looked me right in the eye and asked me do you like to experiment? I stammered out yes… I think so. She stood up and I was frozen not knowing what would come next. Janet said don’t worry this is perfectly fine to do with your teacher and helped me to my shaking feet. Now raise your hands over your head as high as you can. I immediately followed her order and did exactly that. Next take a very deep breath. I sucked in as much air as I thought my lungs could handle. Ok, now scream as loud as you can. I let out a scream that came from the very of my being. She said wow that was an excellent scream and gave me a little background on primal scream therapy which apparently was all the rage when she was a student. Actually I did feel a bit better after that and headed for home.
Walking outside I noticed a car following me slowly across the parking lot. Then a police car entered the lot. I wondered what this all might be about. As both cars came closer I stopped and realized that I was the center of their attention. Suddenly there were flashing lights and voices screaming at me to get down. I felt the burn of what must have been pepper spray and then the horror of handcuffs. I yelled what the hell is happening and they simply replied welcome to America 2010 where screaming near a is a school is a terrorist act. There was nothing I could do to assure them I wasn’t a terrorist. Yeah I could be bitter and angry that my teacher had me do that but it’s pretty warm here in Guantanamo Bay.
His grey eyes stared up at the full moon in a cloudless sky. “Hey babe? Whattya wanna do about dinner?” he chuckled as he heard her step out onto the porch then down the stairs to the sand beside him.
She settled beside him. “Do you think it’ll be ok?” She leaned back on her elbows, letting her violet eyes follow his gaze toward the sky.
“She will be fine. Kids have been going off to boarding school for generations.” It was a bit of an experiment, though. Not all kids are deaf with professional assassins as parents. “Pizza or Chinese?”
She shook her head. “I dunno. Maybe we should just open the phone book and see what catches our eye?”
He chuckled again and stood, walked over to the porch and grabbed the yellow pages form the side table. “We could just program something into the ‘puter and let it make something up.” He walked back to her and sat back down on the sand.
She shrugged, took the phone book form his hands and grinned. “I’m old fashioned, I like phone books. Especially when they decide what we’re gonna eat.” She opened the book and let her eyes fall on the right hand page. “Thai it is. They even deliver.”
He laid back and folded his arms behind his head. “Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision.”
“I take that means I have to call?” She swatted his side and laughed.
He winced in mock pain then winked. “You know what I like.”
The Account of Thurm Cloudrazor
-OR-
How to Enjoy your Undeath in Three Easy Steps
Thurm looked up at the deep cloudless sky. The twinkling stars seemed to struggle against the bright full moon to maintain their hold on the dark velvet curtain of night. It was the Wolf Moon, and there was a harsh bitter chill to the air. Thurm remember how his breath used to create a wispy cloud that clung desperately to the cold air, but no longer. Much to his chagrin, Thurm was finding that he was thankful that he was undead, for now he was immune to the biting winds of dry canyons he had called home.
It had been too long since he had been back to Highperch, ancestral home of the Cloudrazor Clan. He had hoped that the stories he’d heard since his return weren’t true, but the overrunning of the plateau by a pride of wyverns was unexpected. Thurm nearly didn’t get away with his hide intact after he stumbled into, and onto, a nest of eggs. The mother was none too pleased to see her progeny slopped all over Thurm’s heavy feet. This was the first time he’d been grateful that no blood pumped through his chill veins, for the poisonous sting of the wyvern had little effect as he ran from his own home and into the canyon below.
Directly into the large centaur hunting party, he mused.
The moon called to his soul as he stared up at it longingly. He wondered if the Earth Mother was looking down at him from her lofty perch, or if she had truly forsaken him, as he had her those years ago. Initially they had squabbled about who would get his belongings, but he had been a prisoner of the Centaur for three weeks now. They held great superstitions about death and the undead, and since he was still alive despite the deprivation of food and water, they had begun to fear Thurm beyond measure. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to remind them why.
The ruckus of an approaching group of younger centaur approached the stone slab where Thurm had been tied down, a la Prometheus. Lucky for him, though, it was too cold for buzzards and vultures. He just had to deal with the four-legged variety it seemed. As thrum watched on, a group of younger males approached the guard and began squabbling in the growling whinnies that comprised the bulk of their tongue. They were arguing, presumably about him, and based on body language, the younger group wanted to cut out Thurm’s heart, and the older guards were refusing to let them. Since the younger group outnumbered the guards about 5 to 1, Thurm was certain that if conditions didn’t change soon, he was going to end up cut to pieces and fed to the hyenas.
Just then, in the distance, a lone wolf’s howl could be heard and everyone but Thurm, and one particularly opportunistic Centaur turned to look. Just then, the young male thrust his dagger into the heart of one guard and with a single movement, removed the blade and sliced the throat of the other.
That’s the break Thurm had been waiting for.
The glyph rune he’d had branded into the flesh of his upper arm began to glow bright bluish-white, much like his eyes, illuminating the darkened corner where Thurm’s slab lay. From the nearby bodies of the dead centaur, the bones began to snap free of their bodies, muscle and sinew formed from the dust of the ground, organs and hair planted themselves into place and began rotting immediately; Eyemuncher was again at his Master’s side. Thurm wasn’t sure if Eyemuncher had been part of an experiment in his past life, but he was smarter than most Ghouls. He had thought to have his companion release him first, but after seeing the Ghoul tear into the nearby centaur, he smiled and quipped that it was nice to let someone else make the decisions for a change.
Once again, Thurm was grateful for the undead.
With a glimmer of malevolence in his eye, Doctor Divinorak hefted the magnetic resonance gun to his shoulder and turned to his young, obviously terrified, lab assistant.
“Do you know another name for an experiment gone awry?” Divinorak asked.
“A felony?” the assistant timidly answered.
“No,” Divinorak replied informatively, “a happy accident.” He pulled the trigger, instantly disintegrating the far wall of the lab.
A full moon on a cloudless sky? HA! In Edwin’s dreams. Or memories. Memories of living on a planet with a moon in the sky, with oceans to evaporate to form clouds so that on certain days you can sit and say ‘Hey, there are no clouds today. Huh?’
There is something about water and the moon. Edwin knew logically that somehow the tides were connected to the moon’s gravitational pull, well, on a planet with a moon, with tides. But it was deeper than that. In old times, he would take a detour around the harbour for no reason other than to see the moon shimmering off the waves, and the little boats bobbing up and down.
He would take a deep breath, even though he was sitting in the car, and say to himself, ‘Life is normal. The water is there. No matter what, that never changes.’
Edwin took a drag of his cigarette and huffed to himself. He muttered to himself, “Space adventure she said. The government will pay, she said. Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision, she said. It will all work out, she said.”
He stubbed out his cigarette, and resigned himself to dust and near constant sunlight, and experiments on somehow making plants grow in an abyss of despair.
“OH GOD!” yelled the woman on the operating table, as the scalpel cut her flesh.
“MAKE IT STOP!” she yelled, with screams punctuating each syllable.
A soothing voice then said, “Relax Mary, relax.”
“But it hurts! IT HURTS!!!!” screamed Mary at the top of her lungs, as the doctor reached for the retractor to open her rib cage.
“But Mary, you told me to do this. You told me that it was up to me. YOU told me that you didn’t want to do this. You said that sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the decision … so I am.”
And with that, Mary fainted, resorting to the darkness of her mind. Her last image burned in her brain: An operating lamp that shone a bright white light into her face, like a full moon in a cloudless sky.
“Nurse,” said the Doctor, smiling qith pleasure. “Prepare more tanks. Mary has decided to be just a little accomodating with her organ transplant.”
And, as the nurse walked off, the Doctor kneeled down and whispered into Mary’s ear as he cut deep.
With his raspy voice, he whispered, “I guess we didn;t need consent for a full organ harvest after all.”
“I don’t understand,” David admitted, “Is it… some kind of gender role experiment?”
Samael shrugged. “It’s just with Lilith, sometimes,” he paused to collect his thoughts, “it’s nice to let someone else make the decision.”