C&F Writing Competition. Can you freaking believe it?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:21 am

Sorry, folks, the judges got unaccountably busy. Results will be up soon.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:57 am

Who are you, again?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:23 am

Nanohedron wrote:Who are you, again?

I wonder myself, actually. I guess I should have started to suspect something when the "Dom" labels turned out to be hand written and affixed to mason jars rather than bottles. The doctor says I probably won't go blind after all, but the headache will take another week at least to go away. The last thing I remember was something about Dale wearing flip-flops and a FedEx truck arriving. It's all blank after that.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:26 am

... and so, Mr. Bloomfield flip-flops again.

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:36 am

In the grand tradition of the Hollywood screenwriting process, it appears external forces may require us to wrap this thing up quickly...it's not gonna make it to novella length, it's still a short-short, but we can probably place it somewhere if we play our cards right (i.e., bribe somebody. Again.). Fortunately, the ending doesn't have to make sense or be the least bit emotionally satisfying, so I'll throw in (up?) two suggested endings:

Ending #1
The ball, or infundibular tesseract, or space/time continuum portal manifestation, or whatever, suddenly imploded upon itself and winked out of its tenuous existence. The green furry fellow mumbled something like "Find swiftly I must one of the Nanohedral aspects; finished with them I am not, hmmmm?", made a complex hand gesture, floated up off the floor and disappeared through the ceiling. The Three Graces shrugged, and shuffled off in their down-at-heel terrycloth slippers through the litter of marzipan crumbs, empty Mason jars, and spittoons, to while away their immortality in tawdry commerce and pickup canasta games. The door sagged on its loosened hinges; there was no one inside, but summer air was pouring through a recently opened window. Outside, the August sun was heating up another ordinary, chiffy day.
[the end]

Ending #2
Then they all woke up.
[the end]

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:47 am

Possible ending #3:

"Suddenly Sylvester Stallone burst in on the scene toting a machine gun the size of a cow and mowed them all down. And they all lived happily ever after. The end."

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:49 am

scottielvr wrote:In the grand tradition of the Hollywood screenwriting process, it appears external forces may require us to wrap this thing up quickly...

The results will be up soon, as in "by tomorrow evening," not as in "within a few hours."

P.S.
Don't send further bribes.

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:13 pm

Bloomfield wrote:P.S. Don't send further bribes.

Not to fret, our sights are set higher ...we're looking to get, like, published here. You know--Atlantic, Vanity Fair, that sort of market. Anyway, even were I that cruel, I'm out of the bribery biz--there's no hooch left in all of Appalachia.

[edited to correct yet another typo, arrggh]

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:32 pm

Possible ending #4:

Several of Nano rushed in from stage right. As Nettie, Bella, and Reenie squirted the floor with a handy oil slick, the Nanos reached out and snagged the ears of the green dude, who was, by now, doing about 30mph across the room.
Nano tugged.
"Ewww gross," said Emmline, "you ripped his head off."
"That's not his head," squealed the Graces, "it's a mask!"
"It's old Mr. Bloomfield!" screamed the whole crew.
"Geez Bloomie," said Nano, "what made you do it?"
"This contest was rightfully mine!" sneered Bloomie. "Mine I tell ya'! And I would've gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

(btw, I vote for ending #1. Or Stallone)

lyrick · Post by **lyrick** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:02 pm

Bloomfield wrote:The results will be up soon, as in "by tomorrow evening," not as in "within a few hours."

The tension is building. In fact...

"The tension was as thick and heavy as the rythm in a now infamous version of the Kesh Jig played by a certain whistler who shall remain nameless so as not to incite further accusations of rudeness and harshness on the one hand and plain-spoken concerns about the tradition being subverted on the other hand. In fact, the tension was thicker than the very admirably thick skin of the aforementioned whistler.

The tension was so thick it could be cut only with a very sharp knife--or with a slightly overblown second octave F# played on a high end whistle tuned to equal temperament and with the tuning slide pushed all the way in.

The tension was palpable. The source, of course, was not the horse, of course, the famous Mr. Ed. No, the source was the palp fiction written by the multi-expressive whistling writers (or writing whistlers) of Chiff & Fipple."

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:25 pm

lyrick wrote: palp fiction

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:25 pm

Meanwhile, Bloomfield and his beclouded varlet, Dale, nursed their hangovers, consoling themselves with a tender, crisp-skinned marjoram-roasted pullet and a nice little Pinot Grigio with just the right bit of crispness to it as a foil for the fowl. The salad would wait. It was more civilised that way.

Bloomfield sucked with regal disinterest on a wing-bone. "Those chumps can keep waiting 'til their fipples fall off," he rumbled complacently. "I cut a deal with Spillane. Wait 'til they find out, and then it'll be too late, because we'll be halfway to Vanua Levu by then."

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 6:16 pm

Emmline and a random assortment of Nanos shuddered, upon hearing the harsh truth. "Finally it's clear," one of the Nanos mused. "All along, the plan was for the prize to be a 'Spillane whistle'... just a metaphor for a mythical beast, like the Loch Ness monster or a gryphon or manticore. We and all the other chumps have been cruelly duped.... "

The phone rang. It was scottie. "All may not yet be lost, brethren, sistren and nanobeings," she chortled (whatever that is). "Perhaps that Pinot Grigio might have been--shall we say, briefly diverted? --before it got to them. The hair of that dog might just bite them before it's all over. And as for Fiji? There's a xaphoon menacing the entire South Pacific--no flights in or out. Those boys are going nowhere."

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:33 pm

The phone went dead. Emmline sat in stunned silence pondering whether scottie could even be trusted.
Maybe the little highlandhoundophile was in league with the rogue judges. Maybe she planned to slip the Spillane into a hidden compartment in her Kaplan GRE vocabulary prep book and abscond with it into the heart of the xaphoon.
And what of the Nanos? Sometimes there were just so many of them. Could they be like the compsagnathi in Jurassic Park 3? Cute enough one at a time, but as a group maybe they'd gang up and eat your face off!
A familiar hiss broke her reverie.
"Voices you hear," said the green gnome. "Dark they are. Tell you they do to mistrust those you most need. Listen to them you must not."

"Whoa bub," said Em. "I thought you were short a head!"

"False that ending was," uttered the wizened one. "Steal plot devices from canids with speech impediments you must not."

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:14 am

At that moment, as though Emm’s thoughts were being broadcast in some mysterious electronic way, the phone rang again. “I don’t need no stinkin’ Kaplan book. I use the refrigerator magnets -- just like everyone else in the thread.” The phone was slammed down.

“Oh, don’t mind her; she’s just pissed ‘cause she tried to get rid of all the ancillary characters --and now they’ve recurred like a fungal infection,” explained a quark of Nanos. "Not us, of course, no one would dare try to get rid of us!" added Nano -- squared? Cubed? Who knew? They sure sounded smug.