The challenge is to write a short story by Saturday and posting it here. One that starts with that line, and without pulling something like: "The sea was filled with angry monkeys.
Bob was desperately in love with Sue. He had to see her again...etc."
Let's put the length limit at, say, a page in MS Word(Times New Roman, size 12). What say ye?
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Yeah, I oculdn't find a good word count right off. Right, what say 450 word limit?
I think we judge this by general consensus. I suppose it isn't well thought out. Any ideas?
And yes, humor is allowed. Just make it work.
Credit where credit is due: This is the opening line of Rat's novel in yesterday's "Pearls Before Swine" newspaper comic strip.
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Nah, measured it out. With the press-enter-twice rather than tab paragraph breaks we'd have to use here, it's a page.
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The u-boat commander mopped the perspiration from his forehead.
As the depth charges had come increasingly nearer, he had ordered that the seventy Golden Tamarind monkeys be stuffed into the torpedo tubes and jettisoned in a final effort to evade the PT boats circling overhead.
The monkeys were to have been a gift to the emperor on his seventieth birthday during this, the year of the monkey. It had been viewed as a fitting tribute, as the well-groomed mane of the Golden Tamarind much resembled that of their beloved emperor-god.
The u-boat had lain at the mouth of the Amazon for weeks as the animals were collected from the forest and brought downriver. Morale had been low during the wait and the fact that they had long since drunk the last bottle of sake hadn’t helped. Gradually the waiting cages had been filled, and a celebratory atmosphere had overtaken the submariners as the day of departure for the return trip had drawn near.
At first the lonely sailors had enjoyed the company of the furry creatures. They were easily tamed and would greedily snatch bits of banana from the sailors’ fingers. The sailors were delighted by the monkey’s antics, and several were allowed to roam loose on the submarine. They would hang from the overhead conduits and drop suddenly onto the shoulders of unsuspecting sailors.
But the monkeys had quickly become a nuisance. Their droppings were found everywhere, in the sailors’ bunks and in the galley. This had been intolerable to the Japanese, who pride themselves on cleanliness, and the loose monkeys had been rounded up and confined to their cages.
While the Japanese viewed golden monkeys as a symbol of good luck, it had become readily apparent that monkeys were to be nothing but bad luck for the submariners on their return voyage. The overpowering stench of the creatures had forced them to surface almost hourly for fresh air, and it had been impossible to quiet the monkeys when silent running was required.
They had encountered the first patrol boat on the return leg as they entered the Straight of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. The PT boat had pursued the submarine mercilessly as they navigated the narrow channel, but the commander had skillfully eluded the PT boat by hiding among the numerous small islands that dotted the channel. Finally, as they emerged on the Chilean coast, they had encountered the American convoy.
Now, with the loss of the precious monkey cargo the entire voyage would be a waste, were it not for a more precious cargo: the exiled Nazi general.
The u-boat commander bared his chest and impaled himself upon the drawn sword.
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Thanks for those so far. Anyone wanna volunteer for judging? I think we should really limit it to, say, five max(?) judges. Instead of general consensus.
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The sea was filled with angry monkeys. Captian Bly looked down from his ship in dismay. This shipment had been his most difficult ever, and it wasn’t over yet. He was beginning to doubt that it was worth the extremely good pay that he had been offered for asking no questions. The boat slowly turned back to retrieve the monkeys. Bly was wondering if it was worth losing the money and leaving them for the sharks. Fortunately several of the rhesus monkeys had clambered onto the life buoys that had been thrown.
As the crew netted them out of the water, he was tempted to tell them to leave the worst troublemaker that had undone the cage in the drink. He had seriously been thinking of keelhauling where that monkey was concerned. As it was, the monkey went into solitary in his own cage. After a couple of hours of noise neither he, nor his crew of three could take it any longer and they put the lone monkey back in sight of the rest of the monkeys. The sapiens subsided somewhat but still weren’t happy. They took guard shifts to make sure the monkeys didn’t outwit them and try something else.
“Dagnabit, “Bly thought, “I’m developing a conscience.” Truth be told he really didn’t want to see them going to laboratories. Despite their annoyances, the individual personalities of the monkeys were seeping through and getting to him. Only 200 more miles on this run and he was done with them forever.
Two days later he pulled into the harbor. He asked the question, knowing he didn’t want to know the answer. “So where are the monkeys going?” He knew he wasn’t going to get specifics and that he shouldn’t ask, it was breaking all the rules of the trade. He was pleasantly relieved to hear the answer. “Private collector’s zoos.” In the shady world of smuggling Bly was happy to be on the lighter side of grey, if just this once.
I like your idea of bringing buccaneers forward into the 21st century (you've got laboratories and private zoos, which suggested to me a more modern setting). I don't suppose modern pirates would say "aaarrrgh" or "shiver me timbers." They'd be techies with PDAs and GPSs and such.
The sea was filled with angry monkeys. And I mean filled. From where I hung, upside down from the mainmast of the research clipper Oook, all I could see in all directions was a vast writhing sea of angry, vicious monkeys. They ran the gamut from golden rhesus monkeys and Norwegian dipping monkeys to savage baboons and orangutans from the darkest corners of the world, all of them chittering and shrieking in simple simian rage.
A wave of Gibbons rose right in front of me, pushed up from the main mass by simple physics and an overpowering lust for what was stored in the holds of our ship. This wasn’t an ordinary simian research ship out for a six-month cruise on the Mare Simius. The Oook was to be the site for the first experimental testing of the highly volatile red banana. If all had gone as planned I would be hoisting a glass of distilled Howler Monkey (’89 vintage) with my comrades as we celebrated our success.
The wave came closer, and as it approached I could begin to make out individual screaming faces in the wall of monkeys that rushed towards me, towering hundreds of feet from the simian surface. Each face was etched with the same twisted lust and greed that I had come to know so well. Only a few days ago I had tested the bananas on an unsuspecting host, not knowing the terrible power that I had unlocked with my reckless tampering. Move a few genes here, a few more there and hey presto! You’ve got yourself a miracle drug! A drug that will enable humans to go for the first time, where no man has gone before: Into the depths of the Simian Sea! Of course it wasn’t that easy, but that was the plan. Before we found out the terrible power that a sea of monkeys can wield. A sea of monkeys desperate to find the last vestiges of the drug that let them move, think and act as one being.
The vicious wave of monkeys was closer now, and I thought desperately of my family far to the East on the shores of the once peaceful and mysterious sea that had captivated me for years and would soon prove to be my undoing. The monkeys were addicted to the strange red bananas that I had created and intended to use a means of peaceful exploration. So ironic that the very vessel I had intended to use to control and tame this sea provided that very means for my destruction. “Oh well,” I sighed resignedly in the face of my onrushing doom. “They always said never to get between a Monkey and his banana.”
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Watching it, Dr. Rounder felt ice creeping up his spine.
From the top of the lab's observation tower he could see the mass of furious, snarling primates moving in swells and waves, cresting over each other to crash against the rocks below.
And the sight was nothing compared to the horrifying sound of a million throats howling at once. Rounder shuddered.
"Was this what we paid for, doctor?" came a voice from behind him. Even shouting over the simian roar the voice managed to convey scorn and disgust. "You promised me instant soldiers, not an endless supply of chimps! Explain this, before I have you shot!"
Rounder turned from the surging tide of monkeys to face the general. "The pod was only supposed to generate twenty skilled men, not... not this!" he yelled back, embarrassment and horror swirling over his face. "My breakthrough in instant phylogeny, and it... it..." He looked over his shoulder. The sea was rising. "You saw it work in the lab! You saw it, Hammond! We used human DNA, this shouldn't have happened! Maybe the sea water--"
"What I see is my career getting flushed!" The general shoved the scientist roughly against the railing. "What I see is the man who ruined me! What pathetic monkeyboy DNA did you use?"
"Mine," Rounder sobbed, broken.
Hammond sneered at him from an inch away. "No wonder," he said.
And then he pitched Rounder over the side.
The scientist screamed all the way down, but Hammond had stopped thinking about him as soon as he let go. Right now he needed deniability and distance, and fast. He marched towards the door, intent on getting the hell out of there and utterly oblivious to the fact that the howling had stopped.
The labs were empty. Obviously Rounder's people were smarter than he was, Hammond thought, and he set to work. Within minutes all the papers and computers and other evidence of the experiments were aflame.
He hurled himself out the front door as the first explosion hit. That's that, he thought. The monkeys will die or kill each other, and I'll be--
Hammond stopped. The furry sea was calm, like a lake on a windless day. He took a hesitant step forward, and only years of combat survival kept him from crying out when a towering wave of monkeys suddenly surged up, bearing Dr. Rounder aloft like a pudgy, lab-coated Aphrodite. A hundred yellow eyes glared at him, waiting.
"Guess what, general!" Rounder cried. "Turns out I'm their alpha male! And you know, despite the taxonomical contradiction, they make excellent gorilla soldiers after all!"
And the wave broke over the general's screams.
[ March 04, 2004, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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Just to give you an idea of my writing habits, since posting that I've already edited it four times and kept it at 450 words each time. There's always a better phrase, maybe just one more edit...
Five times. But that's all, honest.
[ March 04, 2004, 12:54 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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Am I the only one who thinks it funny, getting a challenge about monkeys from someone named Anthro?
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"The sea was full of angry monkeys." The garbled words flowed along rivulets of drool, winding down his chin before hitching a ride on the sound waves that reached the rest of the room.
The Group fell silent. All heads turned toward the well-worn La-Z-Boy in the corner of the room. Another perplexing phrase was headed their way.
"They fffforgot to make bubbles." Eyes and smiles widened into looks of amused surprise, but no one made a sound.
"I fed them Chiclets, you ninny." This time, perhaps due to the indignance of the statement, the speech was well-articulated, and somehow, The Sleeper remained undisturbed as five simultaneous guffaws ripped through the silence. A grunt from the recliner quickly stifled the laughter. Ten eyes once again focused on the slumbering mass.
The Sleeper opened and closed his mouth as if fending off a bad taste. "There's turpentine in the Jell-O," he said, nonchalantly. There were snorts and snickers in response. One Companion was driven to tears and tremors of silent amusement.
"You'd think a sheep would know better." Palpable scorn laced The Sleeper's rebuke. All the Companions were crying now, the tears narrowly escaping from their tightly shut eyes. Lungs begged for air, vacuuming precious oxygen at every opportunity. Bodies rocked and quaked. Stockinged feet stomped the floor in protest of the hilarity.
Stricken blind with laughter, no one noticed when The Sleeper raised his hand, three fingers touching the thumb, pinky outstretched. "Mmmm. . .tea and crumpets," he said, complete with a terrible British accent. "They really are magnificent, aren't they?"
This time the screams were too loud, even for The Sleeper. He awoke to find the Companions writhing on the floor, faces twisted in anguish. Not knowing the cause of their pain, and being somewhat of a dimwit, he stood stupefied, unconsciously picking at the crusty saliva on his face.
"Uhhh, guys? What's going on?" said The Sleeper. Nothing. "Guys?" A little louder. Rasps and throaty screams were his reply. Finally catching on that something might be wrong, The Sleeper dropped to his knees next to the nearest Companion and laid a squishy hand on the squirming shoulder and shouted "What's happening!"
As a maestro silences his ensemble, the fits were cut off by The Sleeper's bellow. Slowly, the Group sat up, gasping and wiping at watery eyes and damp cheeks. Breathless chuckles rippled through the room like earthquake aftershocks. Minutes passed before the Companion whose bicep was still in the vice-grip of The Sleeper was able to offer an explanation.
"You were talking in your sleep." Giggles from the other Companions.
"What? That's it?" Incredulity overcame The Sleeper. "I thought you guys were dying!"
The Companion shrugged. "I guess you had to be there.
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There's got to be a story behind why this poor fellow doesn't get any privacy when he's trying to rest. Perhaps he has to be monitored around the clock because on rare occasions he mutters something in his sleep that is so profound that it has to be recorded in the society’s canon of scripture. The bigger story could include debates about whether a particular muttering was nonsense or scripture, and there could be examples of nonsensical mutterings that have been incorporated into the society’s customs, and how those customs somehow make the society work.
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(My computer is down at the moment, so if this isn't exactly 450 words, forgive me - the best I could do was measure this against Chris' story copied and pasted into Wordpad).
*Queue soulful and dramatic violin solo*
The sea was filled with angry monkeys, a riot of noise that drilled into my brain like a bullet, tracing the shape of my thoughts. I couldn't see anything for the blood and rainwater in my eyes, but their screams told me enough. It was the end.
***************
But that's only half the story. The dark and twisted path that leads there deserves to be told as well. I had it all: a family, a job. Two-point-two kids, a house. A dog. Two suits. Premium cable and a TIVO. But then, one day:
"Steve, I'm leaving to take the kids out to camp now. I'll spend the night at my mom's on the way back. Have a good weekend, honey. I'll see you on Monday!"
My world collapsed around me like the shattered skeleton of a burning building. My wife and kids were gone - eaten alive by the horrors of long distance travel. I wouldn't see them again, not until Monday. Like Icarus, I had climbed too high, too close to heaven. Blinded by my own dreams, I hadn't seen the sun - the fiery edge of the sword that bit into my soul. Too often, the silver lining is just another sharpened blade, and now my wings were cut; I was falling with no way to stop.
At work the next morning, I sat down at my desk to discover that someone had stolen my favorite pen. It had glided across papers and reports like the silent stalk of death, as black as the ink it spread behind it. Now someone had taken it, leaving me to scratch my reports from the unfeeling tips of half-gnawed pencils. The bastard.
The Lieutenant called me in to his office.
"Decard, I know you've got better things to do, but the chief needs this done and I can't spare anyone else." I picked up the paper and read it. There was a circus coming to town to take part in the St. Patrick's Day parade, and they wanted me on the dock to keep an eye on things.
"Something's going down at the parade and you don't want me to complicate things."
"Think of it as a vacation, Decard. You're way too stressed out, you know that? I don't know how the hell you do it - you're just a traffic cop. Just go out to the docks, listen to the sea against the land and relax for God's sake."
It was good advice, but as I pulled up to the docks, I couldn't get the stink out of my nostrils. Something was fishy. And I was right - the real trouble came that night, in the pouring rain, when the monkeys returned from the parade. I didn't recognize the handler. I approached him as he stacked the monkey cages on top of each other.
"Officer Decard, NYPD. Who're you?" He didn't get a chance to answer me. I was buried under the flow of boxed simian as the cages poured off the dock into the bay. Rolling over, I tried to get a grip on the passing boxes - too late. The sea was filled with angry monkeys, but their anger quickly turned to joy. It was the end - the end of their captivity. Springing the cages, the monkeys swam for freedom.
Pain lanced my skull. The monkeys had broken free with smuggled equipment from a dead drop at the parade, and I had been powerless to stop it. But as my blood mixed with the rain, I vowed whoever had bought off the Lieutenant would pay.
quote:Originally posted by skillery There's got to be a story behind why this poor fellow doesn't get any privacy when he's trying to rest. Perhaps he has to be monitored around the clock because on rare occasions he mutters something in his sleep that is so profound that it has to be recorded in the society’s canon of scripture. The bigger story could include debates about whether a particular muttering was nonsense or scripture, and there could be examples of nonsensical mutterings that have been incorporated into the society’s customs, and how those customs somehow make the society work.
Perhaps a psionically gifted individual that receives random texts and speaks them in his sleep?
"Random texts" is the wrong phrase, but I can't find the right one - I seem to remember a short story that I read a while ago that centered around someone transforming radio noise into randomly generated text that would sometimes produce segments of readable, sensible text. The idea was that eventually this would produce some sort of message from God, or perhaps the text of a book that hasn't been written yet.
But yeah, something like that, perhaps?
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And they were all jetting towards me. I hadn’t meant to shoot Prime Minister Oloowashesi—I was aiming for his daughter, the vastly unlovable, and unloving, Nooloi Oloowashesi. But the Prime Minister had seen me, and in what must have been a rare pang of parental protectionism, leaped in front of bullet.
Stupid simian. Didn’t he know a beneficiary when he saw one?
I kindled the skim’s engines with a flick of my tail, and kicked up a spray of foam into my pursuers’ faces. They screamed at me angrily, though every single one of them knew what it was I HAD been about. Every single one of them was in on the plot to assassinate Nooloi. But no one likes a cat, especially not on New Congo.
Pity that my skim wasn’t nearly as quick as their jetts. They caught me, drowned out five of my six remaining lives, and sent me to Nooloi.
Nooloi wasn’t nearly as gentle, but she didn’t kill me. She did sic her pet Mugo-dawg on me, which was embarrassing. The old wives tales about cats being scared of dawgs is just that—old. I haven’t been afraid of a dawg since I stopped sucking on my mother’s nip. It tore off a good chunk of my leg before I got bored, and cut it open with a swipe of my paw. Then Nooloi got angry and dropped me in a flea pit. Fleas. Ordinary, blood sucking fleas. I had never wanted to die more.
And above me, she stood and gloated. She ranted, she raved, she carried on. And then she slept for a while. A very long while because you should never turn your back on a cat.
This time, no one was around to stop me from killing her. Like the old classic says, ‘Beware the wrath of a crossed cat.’
The fleas ate one half of Nooloi’s body—the rest I gave to her Mugo-dawg.
quote:Lime: My world collapsed around me like the shattered skeleton of a burning building.
I like your first person narrative...sounds like Sam Spade. I imagine lots of smoke, shadows and rain, ala Blade Runner.
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Actually, when I saw the opening sentence as suggested, it reminded me of Max Payne 2 and the incredibly twisted corridors of metaphor they use in that game. I wish that I could say I've been inspired by something a bit more traditional, but I'm a geek.
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Monkeys on Sea Doos? Scott R's New Congo sounds like Waterworld with smart animals replacing the humans. The idea of animals using fleas as a torture mechanism was a nice touch.
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I think we should make this a weekly thing, like the Photoshops. This I might even be able to participate in.
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I'm amazed that no one's done a piece on the Great Flood yet. That was the first thing that occurred to me. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm still struggling with MoonRabbit's story. Those poor monkeys really take a beating. I’m hoping somebody will write a story about monkeys revolting and spanking their owner.
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Silence filled the oak paneled room. Then a snicker killed it.
“Could you repeat that communique Mr. Parks?” asked Senator Paul Roman, Democrat and newest member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Certainly,” smiled the nervous Mr. Parks. “‘The sea was filled with angry monkeys.”
“From this intercepted joke we invaded Iraq?” asked the Senator.
“I am not in a position to know. I am just the analyst that decoded this message.”
Senator Roman was miffed. “What did you decode this message to mean?”
Parks hesitated. He loosened his tie. “Cryptology is not an exact science” The Senator waited. “With a substitution code one word is substitued for another. Simple linguistic techniques will not help. Psychological profiling is used to determine what the words really meant.”
The senator looked confused, mainly because he was confused. “What?”
“Saddam sent this to a man in Kuwait who had connections to a Jordanian Hamas operative who’s brother-in-law may be Al-Quedan. Using psychology we thought we knew what the code words meant. We were mistaken.”
“We, Mr. Parks? The translation was your responsibility.”
“It was mostly my mistake. There were a couple of words that my superiors took as givens. After finding Sadaam’s code books I discovered how wrong we were.”
“For instance?”
“Well, take the word Monkey. I translated that as a compound word of Mon and Key. Key was a map key. Monkey was used often chatter from Saddam’s palaces. We knew he had WMD’s so Mon was assumed to be WMD.”
“Understandable. What have you since learned.”
Mr. Parks paused.
The senator raised an eyebrow. “What did Monkey really translate to.”
Mr. Parks blushed. “Herring.”
Laughter filled the room.
“Herring?” gasped Senator Roman.
“Saddam enjoys herring for breakfast. Keeping him supplied caused a lot of communications chatter.”
“The WMD were Herring?”
“No sir. The word Angry sets this message apart from breakfast chatter.”
“Angry? What does Angry have to do with herring. Are they dangerous little fish when mad?”
“No sir. When people get angry, their faces turn red. In Saddam’s code Angry translates to red.”
“Red Herring? Are you saying this message was a red herring?”
“They wouldn’t send a message saying that the message was a red herring.”
“What did the message say.”
“Yes sir. Sea translates to C. To Saddam, there was only one C-- Vice President Cheney.”
“So the message read…”
“Vice President Cheney is full of the Red Herrings.”
Senator Roman continued. “What did you think it said.”
Mr. Parks looked at his notes. “Angry was assumed to be another A word—Active, so it was ‘C. has the Active WMD Key,’ and the President insisted that C stood for Al Queda.”
This surprised the Senator. “How does C stand for Al Queda?”
“I assumed there was information President Bush held that I did not.”
“Why did the President think that C stood for Al Queda?”
“I’d rather not say sir.”
“You are under oath Mr. Parks.”
“Two months ago President Bush called and asked me for the translation again. When I said “The C has the Active WMD Key’ he said something a bit disturbing.”
“What did he say?” prompted the senator.
“The President said, and I quote, ‘And we all know Queda starts with a C.”
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quote:Anthro: I'm brainstorming on the next phrase.
I'm hoping to see a story from you someday, but it wouldn't be much of a challenge to write a story for your own phrase.
Why not let your winner pick the next phrase as was suggested earlier? If the winner can't come up with a phrase by Monday then be ready with a standby phrase just to keep things going.
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