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Author Topic: Apocalyptic Taco Mix Finish Line
InarticulateBabbler
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This post is for finished pieces. You may only post your 13 lines when the story is complete. Posting here signifies that you are ready to send it out to be read.

The competitors:

  • BoredCrow
  • Pyre Destiny
  • Wolfe_boy
  • Vanderbleek
  • KayTi
  • halogen
  • darklight
  • dee_boncci
  • wrenbird
  • tigertinite
  • TaleSpinner
  • meg.stout
  • Mauvemuse
  • Yours Truly

Let the games begin!

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited October 01, 2007).]


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KayTi
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I don't know, who is this "Yours Truly" guy and who invited HIM to the party???


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BoredCrow
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I'll be bold and be the first to post my thirteen. It's futuristic fantasy, complete at 3700 words.


I tapped my long scarlet fingernails on my desk. For show, I flicked through the pages on my display screen, though I knew their contents by heart. My employee cowered in his chair.
“So, Mr. Wilson,” I said, resting my chin in my hands. “I have a few very interesting reports here in front of me.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Ms. Williams” Wilson said
I raised my eyebrows. “Did I say you had?”
The man flushed. I tapped a button, and a holograph version of one of the pages sprung up between us. “I’m quite troubled by these reports from your colleagues of sexual harassment.”
“Just because I’m clumsy…”
“Yes, amazing how often you trip and have to steady yourself on someone. Usually in the general area of their ass.”


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halogen
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4300 words... I'd like to keep playing with it but I should just stop

quote:

Paradise Sanitation's sacks are assembled out of recycled nylon. Stitched up the backbone are three thick rubber belts with auto-locking buckles. These bags will hold a three hundred pound corpse ripe in the suffering of rot without splitting.

I was glad to be distanced from the days when we hauled the dead in bedsheets and plastic bags. I remember when the transports overflowed with a chopped salsa of bodies and garbage.

"Johnny, I've made fifteen burritos, what's your status? Over." Diego's voice came over the radio wrapped in a thick layer of white noise.

"Seven. I've got some barricades on ten and need assistance. Over." I reply.



[This message has been edited by halogen (edited October 07, 2007).]


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Vanderbleek
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Just a hare over 1100 words...short, I know, but that way it takes less time to read.

There was a strange old man sittin' on a box on my way back from the bazaar with a crowd gathered around him. I always liked stories and the old people usually had some good ones, sometimes even left over from before the fall. He was startin' and I wormed my way closer so I could hear him, the stuff I'd traded for clinkin' in my backpack. Sounded like he was recitin' some kind of poem.

“Listen here come one come all,
As I relate how came the fall,
Brought on by people in a fix,
And a shortage of Taco mix.

-------
Little less than Thirteen lines, but then it starts into another stanza.


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InarticulateBabbler
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Done. Feel free to email me your finished stories, I'll get to them as I can. Suprisingly, I think this is going to be my next WOTF entry. It's approximately 8800 words and tentatively titled The Third Rule:

As Father and I trekked across the snowy wastes, he was as grim and silent as a fresh snowfall. I shivered and pulled my bearskin cloak tight against the harsh wind. I was tired. Tired of moving constantly, of not having a real home; tired of living with father’s constant paranoid fear that something was hunting us. But Father seemed indefatigable. His composite walking staff rose and fell in a steady rhythm as we trudged into the winding pass that led down into the massive canyon—a remnant of the Great War—on the only path to Crater Town.

It was times like this that I wondered how Mother had ever had time to give birth. But I could never ask Father that. My birth was the death of her, and sometimes it seemed like he blamed me for it.

Edited to change taught to tight. Thanks Corky.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited October 15, 2007).]


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Corky
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quote:
pulled my bearskin cloak taught

I think the word you are intending is spelled "taut," but "tight" or "close" might be better because "taut" is so rarely used any more that people don't know how it's spelled and aren't certain what it means exactly (it connotes "stretched" more than it connotes "close").


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InarticulateBabbler
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Yeah,tight is the better world. When I get back to the PC that has the story, tomorrow, I'll change that. Good call. Thanks.
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TaleSpinner
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Done, at 2400 words and entitled 'Halos, Husbandry and Hallucinogens.'

Doctor Laura Laporte pedalled her bike towards Laughton, enjoying the morning colours of the town's slate greys against yellow hills of rapeseed and green hedgerows.
The University's clock tower rose high above the landscape. It always seemed to Laura like a beacon of learning -- and today, she wished Laughton's new Mayor respected learning. But, pandering to his Creationist voters, he planned to ban research based on the theory of evolution. 'He wants to stop my work,' she said to herself.
Arriving at the University, she strode straight into the office of the Professor of Biology, Dave Dean.
'Mayor Charles Craven's an idiot,' she said.
'Craven? Yes. We've got to stop him.' Dave was sitting

Cheers,
Pat


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darklight
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Well, I got there! A short 1135 words. Not sure if it actually abides by the rules of the exercise, but here goes.


Rabbit Stew


They say it wasn’t my fault, but I don’t believe that. It’s always my fault, according to those that know me. It might have been the fact that I didn’t mend the garage roof, or it might have been the hot water tank. I should have gotten it fixed sooner, I’d had plenty of opportunity, but that’s me. Why do today what I could next week. Only next week never arrives; it’s always today.

Today’s alright, if I don’t think about tomorrow, bury my head in the sand, don’t think about it. Then it’s so plain, it’s in my face and all I do is think about it. By then, it’s too late to do anything, it’s inside my head, can’t stop going around that revolving door.


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KayTi
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Aha! At long last, I've finished. Sadly, I wasn't able to edit it down yet, but that may yet come. It currently stands at 7681 words, but that will change slightly (lower, I believe) with an editing pass I need to do tomorrow, already have the doc all marked up but ran out of day again today.

Then again, this may turn into a novel - I found I had a lot of avenues I didn't have time to adequately explore.

Here are my first 13, titled, inventively enough, Apocalyptic Taco Mix:

"Sis, you're getting worse." Nate said, trying to mask the worry in his voice. His sister, Sylvia, was in the midst of a coughing fit and didn't answer him. When the coughs subsided, she looked up at him with those blue eyes he knew so well, except today they were ringed with red and carried dark circles underneath.

"I'm not letting you leave on some hare-brained scheme to save me, Nate. No way. I couldn't do this without you, and it's too dangerous outside." Sylvia dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a tissue and tried to hide it in her hand, but not before Nate saw the tissue was tinged with blood.

"You're kidding yourself if you think this is going to get better, Sylvia. I'm not going to sit by and watch you die." like I did with mom and dad, he thought to himself.

[This message has been edited by KayTi (edited October 30, 2007).]


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KayTi
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I emailed everyone w/my story and asking for yours (I don't post my email addy here.) If you don't have a message from me - eep, could you check your junk/spam folders? Thanks!
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darklight
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I have read and critiqued all the stories I have recieved, still waiting on Vanderbleek, and any last minuters if there will be any. For those I have read, just want to say thank you for many entertaining and brilliant stories. The voting will not be easy!
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tigertinite
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Hmm. . .I am done and I still have a few hours left. What's wrong with me? Oh well. . .the story is 2,598 words long . . .enjoy.

Some days are great, some days are fine, and some days make you think “what in Heaven’s name was I thinking when I got out of bed this morning?” Today was one of those days. Between four assignments due for my various classes and the two tests that I completely failed; I just wished that the ground would open up and the world would swallow me. On top of that the Mets lost their home game and I managed to split my toe open while rushing to class in flip-flops.
The nightmare of classes finally over and my last test finally finished, I checked my watch, ten fifty. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday night, three bowls of macaroni and salsa, the perfect recipe for a time starved college student like myself. Unfortunately it was also not the most filling and my box of

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited November 10, 2007).]


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meg.stout
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I e-mailed my story out to a bunch of you last night. If you didn't get it, or if you haven't e-mailed me your story, give me a holler at meg.stout at verizon dot net.

_____________________________
Gwen turned on her walkie-talkie. Mom was so cheap. If only she’d pay for cell phones, there’d be no need for this large, squawking device. Gwen made sure it was set it on channel 13, sub-band 5, like Mom insisted. Inevitably a loud, static-filled message would come blaring out of the thing at the most embarrassing moment possible. But it wasn’t worth the lecture she’d get if she failed to show up at the entrance to Wal-Mart within minutes of Mom’s message that it was time to go. Mom hated waiting there at the entrance in her electric scooter, all the folks staring at her. What did she think it was like for Gwen, having to hang out with a sick mom. The worst was when Mom had started cying. Gwen had been so embarrassed that she stopped talking to Mom for a month.


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KayTi
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Just to confirm, I'm copying IB's original list and noting where there seems not to be an entry, plus because I keep getting confused, I'm adding story titles. I count 10 entrants, including myself. Hopefully everyone else has 9 stories to read and critique. If not, holler!

The competitors:

BoredCrow - YES, Tacos of the Apocalypse
Pyre Destiny - No
Wolfe_boy - No
Vanderbleek - YES, Apocalyptic Taco Mix (nice title, LOL)
KayTi - YES, Apocalyptic Taco Mix (filename says v3, if that helps find it.)
halogen - YES, ATM
darklight - YES, Rabbit Stew
dee_boncci - no
wrenbird - no
tigertinite - YES, Taco
TaleSpinner - YES, HHH1
meg.stout - YES, Crying
Mauvemuse - YES, Tacos and Freshman Year
Yours Truly (aka Inarticulate Babbler) - YES, The Third Rule


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darklight
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Oops! I've voted, but it seems I never got a story from Vanderbleek! Would be great if someone would send it to me! I sent my story to him, and to everyone else I think. (Come to think, Vanderbleek, you are a he, right?)
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InarticulateBabbler
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Who reached the dealine? These are they:
  • Bored Crow - Tacos of the Apocalypse
  • Vanderbleek - Apocalyptic Taco Mix
  • KayTi - Apocalyptic Taco Mix v3
  • halogen - Sanitation Blues
  • darklight - Rabbit Stew
  • tigertinite - Taco
  • Tale Spinner - Halos, Husbandry and Hallucinogens
  • meg.stout - Crying
  • Mauvemuse - Tacos and Freshman Year
  • Yours Truly (Yes, this is my special occassion suit) - The Third Rule

Since voting has begun, all other stories are disqualified. (I let meg.stout in a day late, because I'm not sure of time zone differences.)

Pyre Destiny, Wolfe_boy, dee_boncci, and wrenbird, although you haven't completed your stories in time, I hope you'll still finish them. You're welcome to post them in F&F, and I--for one--will read them.

Thanks for everyone's participation. I hope everyone enjoyed the challenge, and will polish their story for submission. To the ten who completed the challenge: CONGRATULATIONS! No matter the turnout of the voting, you're already a winner.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited November 02, 2007).]


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tigertinite
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I was missing Talespinner's tale, but I've got it now.

[This message has been edited by tigertinite (edited November 02, 2007).]


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