Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

[mosaix]

Thanks pH.

 

[Shyrka]

I'm not going to lie - I was a bit disappointed with my showing in this month's 300 worder. That said, I wasn't really surprised. As I mentioned after posting it originally I feared I'd written something that, by the end, required the reader to infer too much from far too little. In order to test this hypothesis, I've created a little quiz... 'thing' to see how many of the things I'd intended to be in my story actually made it to the readers. It doesn't matter how you got it - if you had to look it up at the time of reading, that's cool. I often end up having to look up stuff to understand other folks' stories so I'm interested to know how many others do the same.

Spoiler: Uisce Beatha

Uisce Beatha

Herdy gagged as the stench of dead flesh and vegetable matter hit her. The Supervisor laughed.

“Not hungry?” He reached for the bowl with a withered arm. The Supervisor was ancient, like all humans. His patinated, leather-brown skin reminded her of the pump-bladders she’d repaired as a child in the still sumps. They had smelt better.

“Expect you’d rather have this, mm?”He dangled an ornate syringe in front of her, grinning toothily. Yearning blossomed in her gut. Without thinking, she reached for it.

“Ah ah,” he chided, pulling it back. “That’s not for the likes of you.” His arm snaked around her waist and hauled her close. She squirmed briefly then went limp – bitter experience had taught her it was better not to fight. She closed her eyes and tried to think of Remy.

---

Herdy gripped the syringe, heart pounding. Why had she taken it? The humans would surely notice it was missing. The vision of Remy returned, of her brother’s form, bloodied and broken, cast down by the Foremen for daring to demand ambrosia. All he’d wanted was their fair share.

Her grip tightened. The needle pressed against her flesh, mimicking the humans’ own blasphemy. She pushed.

Herdy’s world exploded in pain.

---

Ambrosia sang in her veins like a hymn. With one beat, she soared high, shells from the panicked Foremens’ flintlocks rattling uselessly past her. She dived again, smashing them aside like ninepins. She drew up before her huddled compatriots, pinions flaring.

“Brothers and sisters!” she cried, her voice echoing around, the power of ambrosia flooding her being. It felt divine. “The humans and their great machine have taken much from us. For too long we have been denied. Today we take back what is rightfully ours!”

“Today we take our share!”

1. Uisce Beatha is Irish for "Water of Life", the name given to Whiskey.
2. Herdy and her race can't eat human food (they lived off ambrosia before the humans came)
3. The humans invaded and enslaved Herdy's people.
4. The humans built the great machine to distill ambrosia.
5. The humans live forever, thanks to the ambrosia.
6. The humans controlled the distilled ambrosia, knowing what it does to Herdy's kind.
7. Herdy's brother Remy was killed for demanding ambrosia for his fellow slaves.
8. After Herdy takes the ambrosia she's returned to her 'angelic' be-winged state and can fly again.
9. The Foremen are the human's enforcers.
10. 'Tonight we take our share!' is a reference to 'The Angels Share', a whiskey-related term.

Given its showing, I'm not really expecting anyone to have got all of these! Please Feel free to give any further feedback. It's all grist to the mill.

 

[Star-child]

Hello, requesting y'all tear this up:

The Fourth Wall

The colors stole her attention first. Bright, rich hues that felt floral and oriental – like her aunt’s ancient Keshan carpet. The pigments swam for a time, then dredged themselves into islands of mixed tone that bloomed more variation and contrast.

Later, a sense of place grew. It was either from excitement or wariness; being in a place where safety of home isn’t understood and the press of strangers likely. She wondered if that feeling was owed to way the islands where organizing their borders between each other. A moment of sick vertigo came and went as blocks and borders flipped into raised lines and panes, like a neurologist’s optical illusion.

The emotion of place doubled, reinforced by anticipation. She stared at the geometric pattern filling her vision – the Mondrian flatness of it collapsed and she fell forever into the depths as borders and lines converged to a vanishing point of dimensionality. She wished for the relief of a moan, but had no breath. She fell and fell.

Like a pilot wrenching at the controls, she pulled her perspective out of that dive and forced a horizon into her vision, ending the illusion of an endless shaft. The vestibular war ended; she came to rest in what was most importantly a recognizable location.

Where?

It was familiar and not. She sought it in memory, reliving moments and people. Her aunt’s house, flavor, lust, appendicitis, a disappointed parent, a cold mountainside. Re-focusing, she favored a different theory: This was a new place. Iconically obvious in purpose, but unique to her direct experience. It was a place that effortlessly held interest, and she stared at the center with new anticipation.

A white costumed performer took the stage, clearing her throat to test the acoustics.

“Sara, I’m Doctor Myers. You are in a coma.”



Thanks!

 

[mosaix]

The short story is my favourite genre both for reading and writing, especially where there's a 'reveal' in the last line and I try to carry that across in my entries for the 75, 300 and 100 challenges.

I also try to leave some kind of not-too-obvious hint in the story itself so that the reader doesn't feel cheated.

My entry in this 300 is the life story of a murdering psychopath. I tried to have the body of the story fairly mundane with the last line being the 'reveal' - he'd always wanted to be totally alone and was committed to it, going so far as murdering the remainder of the crew of the first manned mission to Mars. You can't be more alone than that! I suppose the loss of the remainder of the crew could be read as an accident but I was hoping the clue of "your book Overview of Psychological Testing has been dispatched' would guide the reader into realising that his purpose was to understand psychological tests so that he could learn pass them even though he was a psychopath and totally unsuited to being either a fighter pilot or an astronaut. Another clue was his single-minded dedication to his goal.

Both @Peter V with his use of the words "horror story" and @The Judge with her use of the word "psychopath" seemed to understand it. What did others think? Were my clues too subtle?

BTW the way, re the title, the real quote is They Have Their Exits and Entrances which I didn't realise until I looked it up. Seems odd to be that way round. But what do I know?

… They Have Their Entrances and Their Exits ...

… Twenty Second March 2044 … Glasgow Maternity Hospital … male … James McBride … Father Unknown … Mother Valerie McBride …

… taking all these factors into account we recommend that James is taken into care. Glasgow Welfare Services. July 2051

… James continues to abscond at every opportunity ...

… the mentoring program seems to be finally bearing fruit although James still has problems expressing his emotions. Lothian Psychological Services August 2054.

… considering James' problematic background he continues to perform well in school although he finds socialising with other pupils difficult … tries, with limited success, to engage in team sports … excels at science … M. Watson. Head of Year Eight.

… so, where do I really want to be in, say, 25 years time? Diary - January 1st 2059

… please find enclosed your pass to the Royal Academy library.

No guests for mcbride. LOL. Degree day and not a soul turns up. Thank god it's the last we'll see of him

... your book Overview of Psychological Testing has been dispatched.

… inform you that your application to join the Royal Air Force has been successful.

WTF! seen the echo? swot mcbride makes test pilot on the new euro fighter!!! how did THAT happen!!!

… ESA selects the first group of pilots for its manned space programme. Amongst them are Ernst Fischer, Adrina Villa, James McBride, Lucas Valenta ... ESA Press Release 1st November 2077

McBride continues to excel … scores highly on dedication and commitment to mission completion … ESA Mars Mission Psychological Evaluation Unit

… and we have ignition. God speed the ESA Schiaparelli mission to Mars.

… over to our space correspondent at ESA Mission Control, Darmstadt. Thank you, Martin. The crew are preparing the descent module ...

… ominously, visual and verbal communication with the crew has been lost. Rumours abound that some life signs have flat lined ...

Mars Log. Day 1. Alone at last.

 

[elvet]

@mosaix
I thought your story was very complex, and packed a lot into the 300 words. I did miss the boat about the story, as I thought it was about a half Martian boy (unknown father) growing up on earth trying to get back to space. I understood that he was unable to assimilate and when able to, took control of the mission.

 

[olive]

@Star-child Reading your story, I went -rather felt like falling down- through the phases you described - 'colours - senses- emotions- perspective - place - recognition' - as if going through a wormhole and hit The Fourth Wall as a place between subconscious and conscious, then realising it is actually the unbreachable, immovable space in between two barriers enabling me to be conscious, always there, but now trapping me in itself to recover. Then I relaxed, thinking, fortunately there is the technology to reach me there until the barriers can realign itself, I can get better. I find it original and well written. Good job!

@mosaix I see that I didn't get your story, because I didn't see James as a single minded psychopath, but an asocial, gifted, introvert individual. Even though I understood the last part, I think my mind automatically filled in that where he arrived was an extreme environment where agression, violence and even murder can easily occur, because the nature of those missions would have that. I imagined him acting along with any possible, extreme circumstances to defend himself, rather than killing everyone with no reason just to be left alone. So I wasn't afraid of James, I liked him.

 

[olive]

It's yours, do whatever you want with it. Go negative if necessary, please. It's my very first. I can't say anything about its process, because my only motive was to put something readable out there in a very short time with the first thing that came to my mind. Which I did like if I was possessed. I thought that was something good, lol. But then I knew that otherwise I wouldn't do it if I thought about it. Then surprise! After a few days, when I get in to read the posted stories repeatedly, I keep getting to mine and I read over again that too. Holy mother of cow! It is me written in that story all over the place in every aspect. As if I didn't know that principle. I am not exaggerating. It was a good lesson though. And an amazing experience. Thank you all. Gratitude. I will never forget these 300 words.

The Jump

“Pssst... Pambino? Are you awake?”
“Yeah... My eyes hurt. I can’t see anything.”
“They left the lights on. Now, don’t panic, but can you move?”
“Move? Of course, I can’t move. What are you talking- oh, I can move! Guilio?! What is going on?”
“I can move my limbs for half an hour now. I think, it is the left Leo. Because he jumped.”
“He jumped? He didn’t even talk. Ohh, it is easier than I thought. Hehe.”
“He’s been murmuring incoherently in the middle of the night for months now. You'd know that if you didn’t sleep like a piece of Pentelic marble. Can you move your torso? Poor thing, existing in that pathetic excuse of a lion figure all this time. He finally broke himself from the base, I know it.”
“Yes, I can. Ohh. What do you mean?”
“We are all from the same mould, part of the same structure. He broke the integrity. How many times I told you that?”
“Ah, this is about your crazy theories of moving our existence forward, isn’t it? Sometimes, we end up in bad pieces. Please, let it go?”
“Look at us, Pambino. We aren’t the putti any more. We don’t remember before that. It’s been hundreds of years, we just managed to lose the wings and got a little taller. We change for the better, every time we break. Don’t you get it? If we learn to break ourselves, we could even wake up in art one day! Come on, push yourself forward, it’s an easy break. I knew this disgusting material had to be good for something. Don’t try to stand, just try to go head down. Ready? On three.”
“Ohh...ok. Guilio? I hope you know what you are doing.”
"I do! One, two, threeeeee!”

 

[The Judge]

I'm not going to lie - I was a bit disappointed with my showing in this month's 300 worder.

Shyrka, for some reason I didn't catch this when you posted. Did you still want feedback? If so, I think I can recall my thoughts from back in Feb.

Star-child -- I have to confess I found your story rather hard going, and I struggled with it the first time round, and ended up skim-reading it. Even on a second and third read, when I knew she was in a coma, it wasn't much easier. I think, for me, it was too cerebral and distant. All the description of her hallucinatory experiences (if that's what they are) was clever, but it had no heart. She has vertigo, but there's no emotion, no fear, wonder, excitement, love of beauty, dread. Nothing. Then when you finally have her remembering things, it's so disjointed it still doesn't give any flavour of her life or of her as a person. The last two lines are corkers, but for me the rest felt more like an intellectual exercise than a story. I could appreciate the word use, but I couldn't like it.

I'm not sure that really helps you, since it's very much my personal reaction since I prefer character-driven stories. However, there were also some small errors that grated (I'm a nit-picker) such as "... if that feeling was owed to way the islands where..." which should be "... if that feeling was owing to [or due to] the way the islands were..." which would have lost points for you even if the story had been one that gripped me more.


mosaix -- yep, I twigged he was a grade A psychopath and that he's killed the others, though I didn't actually pick up on the clue about the book he ordered. I also didn't cotton on to the line about where he wanted to be in 25 years time and wanting to be alone. In my version he was single-minded and driven, wanting to prove everyone wrong, but then he went and killed them simply because he could, and he would now get away with it -- but your version makes a lot more sense than mine!

Your story hovered on the edges of my shortlist right up until the end, but finally got nudged off. I think part of that was the opening, as if he's a psychopath simply because he's illegitimate, so in some way his mother is to blame, which rather provoked me, and also that you're playing fast and loose with that second line in not telling us what has happened to make him be taken into care. You're right, you don't want to reveal that he's got a personality disorder quite so soon, but I think something needed to go there, even if we only suspected he was guilty on a second read, eg the family house burning down. Plus, no matter how driven to succeed, I think there would have been more pointers of his disorder, not just his cohorts believing him to be weird, which would have resulted in some question marks over his suitability which you could have arranged to be over-ridden by a higher authority. Also, the very last line didn't quite work for me, though I can't put my finger on why that is.

Overall, though, I thought the way you told it, letting us piece the story together in fragments was excellent. (The fact I've done exactly the same, complete with lots of ellipses, in this month's episode of my Storyteller serial in Kraxon has no bearing on my admiration. )

BTW the way, re the title, the real quote is They Have Their Exits and Entrances which I didn't realise until I looked it up. Seems odd to be that way round.

That's because you don't have a poetical bone in your body. It's blank verse. "They have their exits and their entrances" fits the rhythm of the iambic pentameter of unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed (da DA da DA) etc; changing it around to "entrances and exits" mucks it all up.


olive -- I thought I understood your story, but now I'm not so sure. My first read was that they're two stucco/plaster putti on the ceiling of the theatre who have been trapped in place, but can now release themselves as an adjoining bit of plasterwork has broken free, and they are about to drop down, though quite what happens when they hit the ground is another matter. But I can't recall ever seeing lions as part of a ceiling decoration in a theatre or equivalent, nor do I get what "base" he broke from.

I got a bit confused by the line "Sometimes we end up in bad pieces" as I wasn't sure if that was meant to be "places" or they literally do end up in pieces, having been smashed. But if they have done this before, why does it seem to have come as such as surprise to Pambino? And if they're getting better each time, why does Guilio say "We just managed to lose our wings" as if it's no big deal? And I'm afraid the line about waking up in art went straight over my head.

Anyhow, it's a fun idea, and handled quite well, and the last line was nicely comic. For myself, I'd have liked a bit more about the setting -- ie if it is a theatre -- and their background -- eg where they've been stuck before and how they got free. Overall, it felt a bit laid back, which fitted the humour well, but for me the slightly repetitive nature of the conversation and the lack of urgency in the writing worked against the story, making it seem too low-key and trifling. But as a first attempt, you're right to be pleased with it.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Well, I'll have a try at this.

@Star-child
I found your story a bit confusing. I couldn't really follow what was going on with your protagonist. The descriptive prose too obscure. I also had trouble with the last line. Would a doctor speak like that to someone in coma? Would the patient understand while in a coma?
It is now, after careful re-readings, I think to understand you were describing an out of body experience and at the end were watching an operation-room (theater) as Dr. Myers was addressing supposedly you.
So,all in all, an interesting tale, although not really speculative in nature and too unclear in your prose with long descriptions of the 'trip' without clearly going somewhere.

@mosaix
I really liked your story and understood what you were telling, at the end (without help of the title. The quote is unknown to me.) I don't think you over- or underdid the hints, the end came as a surprise and made sense, looking back.
You made it onto my shortlist, but fell just short for a vote. That was due to the somewhat messy (for lack of a better word) impression it made to me. The story consists of a lot of texts supposedly taken from reports from all kinds of sources, which you used to paint the picture, but apparently without any coherence or consistent format. It may be somewhat nitpicking, but when it comes to a vote....

@olive
Hmm. To be honest, I couldn't follow what it was you were telling. And still can't, though I suspect it was about statues of winged lions breaking free. Thus, I think it might be about breaking free of an strict and oppressive society. Writing reviews helps understanding the stories.
But the dialogs seemed a bit disjointed.
Keep writing and surprising yourself.

 

[The Judge]

I really liked your story and understood what you were telling, at the end (without help of the title. The quote is unknown to me.)

I wonder if you might know it in translation, Elckerlyc, as it's a line from Shakespeare's As You Like It, and the speech it comes from is highly appropriate for the Challenge image and mosaix's story:

All the world's a stage,​

And all the men and women merely players;​

They have their exits and their entrances,​

And one man in his time plays many parts​

 

[Elckerlyc]

I wonder if you might know it in translation, Elckerlyc, as it's a line from Shakespeare's As You Like It, and the speech it comes from is highly appropriate for the Challenge image and mosaix's story:

All the world's a stage,​

And all the men and women merely players;​

They have their exits and their entrances,​

And one man in his time plays many parts​

Ah, I see. Yes, I do recognize it, the first 2 line at least. Line no. 3 apparently never entered my memory-banks. And now I also understand your remark about the iambic.
Every year I go watch a Shakespeare play in a theater dedicated to his plays, but I haven't seen 'As You Like it' yet.

 

[Shyrka]

@The Judge, I suppose I'm still curious to know what people understood and what they didn't. I've had a while to reflect and have a fairly good idea of where I went wrong with that one but if you have the time and inclination, it would be useful.

 

[Star-child]

I found your story a bit confusing. I couldn't really follow what was going on with your protagonist. The descriptive prose too obscure. I also had trouble with the last line. Would a doctor speak like that to someone in coma? Would the patient understand while in a coma?
It is now, after careful re-readings, I think to understand you were describing an out of body experience and at the end were watching an operation-room (theater) as Dr. Myers was addressing supposedly you.
So,all in all, an interesting tale, although not really speculative in nature and too unclear in your prose with long descriptions of the 'trip' without clearly going somewhere.

Just to address the substance of my story, it is based on the common conception that people in comas may be awake on a certain level, even being able to hear conversations. The action describes how the medical team's attempt to communicate with that part of the victim's mind manifests as increasingly complex perception of the view inside a theater. She goes through color, edge perception, depth perception, converging lines perspective, motion and up and down. At that point the doctor used this channel to speak directly to her. It happens entirely in the main character's head through a stimulated visual hallucination.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Thank you for clarifying that.

Just to address the substance of my story, it is based on the common conception that people in comas may be awake on a certain level, even being able to hear conversations....

Awake or aware?
I didn't know people in comas can hear conversations, as in understanding them. All I heared on that topic was that familiar voices can make a difference.

 

[The Judge]

I suppose I'm still curious to know what people understood and what they didn't. I've had a while to reflect and have a fairly good idea of where I went wrong with that one but if you have the time and inclination, it would be useful.

OK, then, I'll try the quiz-thing:

1. Uisce Beatha is Irish for "Water of Life", the name given to Whiskey. yep, knew that, but I'm pretty sure I didn't make the link that it was the ambrosia, so I more or less dismissed its importance
2. Herdy and her race can't eat human food (they lived off ambrosia before the humans came) I didn't get this. I saw she was gagging, but I actually thought it was the smell of the human, not something in the bowl! I assumed the ambrosia was needed by her race in some way but not that it had been their food beforehand
3. The humans invaded and enslaved Herdy's people. assumed this
4. The humans built the great machine to distill ambrosia. nope, didn't get this at all. I knew there was a machine with sumps but didn't get the connection
5. The humans live forever, thanks to the ambrosia. didn't get this at all, though it now makes sense of the withered arm etc
6. The humans controlled the distilled ambrosia, knowing what it does to Herdy's kind. I got that they kept it from Herdy and her people, and assumed it was a form of control, but assumed it was for spite more than anything else
7. Herdy's brother Remy was killed for demanding ambrosia for his fellow slaves. got that, but it was confusing as in the first section it's as if he's then alive, so I couldn't work out when he'd died
8. After Herdy takes the ambrosia she's returned to her 'angelic' be-winged state and can fly again. got this, though I don't think I understood they'd been winged before
9. The Foremen are the human's enforcers. got this
10. 'Tonight we take our share!' is a reference to 'The Angels Share', a whiskey-related term. nope, didn't get this, which is a shame, as I did know this reference for the "lost" whiskey in distilling. Personally, I'd have used that as the title and brought the uisce beatha into the story as the true name for ambrosia, which would then have helped understanding

I think you're right in saying you'd left too much to be inferred from too little information, and for my taste you've spent too long in the first section showing how evil the Supervisor is when we don't need to know this in detail so it's a waste of words (and lascivious baddies are so cliched that rather put me off, too). I also think using the terms "Supervisor" and "Foremen" were lost opportunities since they're neutral terms, whereas something like "Overseer" has a slightly more sinister edge and "Enforcers" would have clinched the evil baddies idea.

Apart from the lack of concrete or easily-guessed info, for me, the story was just too fragmented with the three separate scenes -- it felt disjointed, and I couldn't work out how long had passed between each and what I'd missed. As I've noted above, I thought Remy was still alive in the first scene, and she was allowing the Supervisor to grope her in order to save him, so when he's dead in the next scene I got really confused, thinking months had passed. To my mind you'd have been better off keeping it as one scene and let the whole thing flow better.

Another confusion was "ambrosia" which to me is the food of the gods, so it didn't mesh with the action at all, and only served to push me out of the story. And a couple of other terms which I think could have been bettered: "shells" from the flintlocks -- I've no idea if this is the technically correct term, but even if it is, for me it felt wrong, since shells are usually the things fired from heavier artillery, not bullets; "ninepins" -- this just didn't sit with the fantastical/mythical feel of the rest and again pulled me out of the story.

Overall, it was a neat idea, but for me it fell down somewhat in the execution. It felt as if you'd rushed it and hadn't taken the time to hone it properly to your usual high standard.

Hope that helps.

 

[mosaix]

@mosaix
I thought your story was very complex, and packed a lot into the 300 words. I did miss the boat about the story, as I thought it was about a half Martian boy (unknown father) growing up on earth trying to get back to space. I understood that he was unable to assimilate and when able to, took control of the mission.

Wow! Just goes to show what an active imagination us Chronners have.

Thanks for commenting.

@mosaix I see that I didn't get your story, because I didn't see James as a single minded psychopath, but an asocial, gifted, introvert individual. Even though I understood the last part, I think my mind automatically filled in that where he arrived was an extreme environment where agression, violence and even murder can easily occur, because the nature of those missions would have that. I imagined him acting along with any possible, extreme circumstances to defend himself, rather than killing everyone with no reason just to be left alone. So I wasn't afraid of James, I liked him.

Thanks. I don't think I built up the psychopath bit enough, as T.J. has pointed out. But it's a thin line between a 'clue' and a 'give away'.

One of the problems writing a piece like that is that I know the full facts but I don't want the reader to know them before the final line. On the other hand I don't want the reader to feel cheated. Unfortunately, because the story is never 'fresh' for me (even when writing the first draft) I don't know how the story is going to unfold to the reader who's reading it for the first time.

mosaix -- yep, I twigged he was a grade A psychopath and that he's killed the others, though I didn't actually pick up on the clue about the book he ordered. I also didn't cotton on to the line about where he wanted to be in 25 years time and wanting to be alone. In my version he was single-minded and driven, wanting to prove everyone wrong, but then he went and killed them simply because he could, and he would now get away with it -- but your version makes a lot more sense than mine!

Your story hovered on the edges of my shortlist right up until the end, but finally got nudged off. I think part of that was the opening, as if he's a psychopath simply because he's illegitimate, so in some way his mother is to blame, which rather provoked me, and also that you're playing fast and loose with that second line in not telling us what has happened to make him be taken into care. You're right, you don't want to reveal that he's got a personality disorder quite so soon, but I think something needed to go there, even if we only suspected he was guilty on a second read, eg the family house burning down. Plus, no matter how driven to succeed, I think there would have been more pointers of his disorder, not just his cohorts believing him to be weird, which would have resulted in some question marks over his suitability which you could have arranged to be over-ridden by a higher authority. Also, the very last line didn't quite work for me, though I can't put my finger on why that is.

Overall, though, I thought the way you told it, letting us piece the story together in fragments was excellent. (The fact I've done exactly the same, complete with lots of ellipses, in this month's episode of my Storyteller serial in Kraxon has no bearing on my admiration. )

That's because you don't have a poetical bone in your body. It's blank verse. "They have their exits and their entrances" fits the rhythm of the iambic pentameter of unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed (da DA da DA) etc; changing it around to "entrances and exits" mucks it all up.

Thanks T.J. I should have used his diary entry a lot more as that's the only piece where he's personally 'talking' to the reader. I missed an opportunity to drop more clues there. I think I was too concerned to get different points of view into the story rather that concentrating on 'quality' points of view.

@mosaix
I really liked your story and understood what you were telling, at the end (without help of the title. The quote is unknown to me.) I don't think you over- or underdid the hints, the end came as a surprise and made sense, looking back.
You made it onto my shortlist, but fell just short for a vote. That was due to the somewhat messy (for lack of a better word) impression it made to me. The story consists of a lot of texts supposedly taken from reports from all kinds of sources, which you used to paint the picture, but apparently without any coherence or consistent format. It may be somewhat nitpicking, but when it comes to a vote....

Thanks for commenting, Elckerlyc. The inconsistent format was intentional, as if they'd just been cut and pasted - even down to the lack of proper punctuation and capitalisation in one of the 'social media' extracts.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[Ursa major]

Just goes to show what an active imagination us Chronners have.

Not me.


What you had written told me enough to work out what was going on... hence the vote.

 

[mosaix]

Not me.


What you had written told me enough to work out what was going on... hence the vote.

Thanks. U.M.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I wrote my 300 word story quite a while ago and as it fitted nicely with the picture I posted it. I was very chuffed to get two votes, however here is the story. Please comment, many thanks.

The Day the World Ended.

I couldn't believe what was happening I sat there waiting for the show to begin, I arrived early to get the best seat, paying top price. Still the curtain hadn't gone up, and a strange feeling was overpowering me from within, I looked around and found it strange that there were no other people. Mind you at least I wouldn't have to put up with anyone using their mobile phones during the performance, but surely I cannot be the only one here. It was weird that as I walked in no usher checked my ticket, however I sat in the designated seat number.

What was going on, it was now well past the time that the curtain was to rise. Perhaps one of the cast was ill, yet there had been no announcement, so I sat patiently, for there was no way I was going to miss this chance. I anxiously looked around me, that odd feeling was still inside me, yet I just waited.

Eventually I got up, something was wrong and I wanted to investigate. Timorously I made my way back to the foyer, nobody stopped me, the nearer I got that feeling deepened within me. What was wrong? I approached the foyer I noticed a body trapped in the half open door. I glanced outside all was brilliantly white, like a bright spotlight pointing towards the theatre.

Drawing closer I realised I was gasping for air, my breathing was getting more difficult as though I was suffocating. I wasn't going to make it to the door, and as my last breath was consumed a thought struggled to the surface, 'what a waste of money I paid for my ticket.'

 

[elvet]

. Wow! Just goes to show what an active imagination us Chronners have.

Doesn’t always work in my favour when I miss the horses for the zebras.