The Red Hot Pawn Prose Competition

Originally posted by elvendreamgirl
That's Dick.

You didn't like it, eh?

Originally posted by hopscotch
The Red Hot Pawn Prose Competition

[b]500 words, maximum.

Submit your post to me via private message only.

Once I have 5 entrants, I'll post all the prose in this forum, using only YOUR prose's title as a reference. You will remain anonymous. No favouritism.

Everyone else may then read the prose, vote for their favourite, discuss, ...[text shortened]...

I won't be entering, and I won't post your prose anywhere but in this thread.

Good luck![/b]

Oh GEEZE... I read this two days after posted, s I guess it's too late fr me to do it. Afterall, art is not a thing that you can rush. 😳

Originally posted by Nyxie
It's ok freddie thinks everyone is a guy, must be his secret dream world. 🙂

Just further incriminating evidence. I've got some stuff writen on our clan page that I'm sure he wouldn't like me to share. 😉

Originally posted by jimmyb270
Quick question, does fiction count as prose?

Ok, I'm going to be pedantic again...

Written fiction books are usually prose, but fiction just means something that is basically not true, so if I told you I had a million pounds stuck under my mattress it would be fiction, but not prose.

I'll get my coat...

UPDATE!

I've received four entries to date.

Originally posted by mosquitorespect
Ok, I'm going to be pedantic again...

Written fiction books are usually prose, but fiction just means something that is basically not true, so if I told you I had a million pounds stuck under my mattress it would be fiction, but not prose.

I'll get my coat...

*Sigh*

Perhaps a better question then would have been 'Can fiction count as prose?'

EDIT: Plus, of course, you could make that prose by saying something like: "Who wants to be a millionaire? Well, I am in fact a millionaire already. I keep my million not, as one might expect, in a Swiss bank account, or even in a regular high street bank account. Nor is it invested in stocks or bonds or any other such potentially profitable asset. No, my million is stored in the only place I really trust - with me.
I keep it as twenty thousand crisp fifty pound notes, under the mattress on which I sleep every night. It makes me feel better to know my money is right there with me and not in the grubby hands of some bank or corporation out to make profits with my money."

Originally posted by arrakis
Oh GEEZE... I read this two days after posted, s I guess it's too late fr me to do it. Afterall, art is not a thing that you can rush. 😳

Not too late, submit, please, the more interest the better 🙂

THE RULES:

RULE NUMBER ONE: Read all of the entries please
RULE NUMBER TWO: Choose three of your favourite entries and rank them.
e.g:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Keith Richards
3) Nelly the Elephant

This will mean that out of all the pieces, these three are your favourite, and this is the order that they are your favourite.

After this vote Michael Jackson will have 5 points, Keith Richards will have 3 points, and Nelly the Elephant will have 2 points.

Allow me to re-iterate:

1st ranking = 5 points
2nd ranking = 3 points
3rd ranking = 2 points

Writers aren't allowed to vote for their own work, but they are encouraged to vote for others.

Voting closes on 22 April 2005 at 11amGMT, and I shall tally the scores and announce the winner then.

RULE NUMBER 3: DO NOT REC A POST IF YOU LIKE IT. I DID NOT WRITE ANY OF THESE PIECES.

I take no responsibility for grammatrical and spelling errors, without further ado, here follows the entries in the order that I received them (which I think is fair)

FIRE IN THE BELLY

It starts with a swallowing.

Out of work a minute or two early gives you the edge over the competition. Travelcard in hand, fingers twitching like an addict on the edge of cold turkey, you move straight for the nearest gate. The smooth action you've practiced a thousand times allows you entry. You are faster than the others, more deft in your passage, the ninja commuter. You take the left hand side of the escalator, faintly aware that a tourist will block your descent, unfamiliar with London's rules of engagement. Not today though, your path is clear, despite the person in front of you who slows to a stop a good ten steps before the end. He is a lesser species of traveller, he does not know or cannot understand the minutiae of nerve reflex required for a swift transition from escalator to floor.

Applying a small degree of telekinesis you slow the oncoming train to give you time to reach your favourite spot. The place where these other fools will watch the doors open right in front of you, whilst they face the dirty perspex of a carriage window. You reach out with your mind, connecting with the driver, willing him to slow in perfect unison with your positioning. You wait. One minute on the underground can be an eternity. You will be the first to know of its arrival, you will sense it, taste it on the wind, oiled and dry, feel the vibration, hear its rumble and see its light. The other passengers around you will only notice its arrival at the tunnel's edge, they will not know of its life in the dark. You see that they are not aware, they do not know the ways of the tube, they are mindless of the mechanical monsters. You are a true traveller, you understand the lore, the gaps in the aisles, the signs and signals of the life in every lurching rock and braking curve.

You know where seating is most likely, you can pick out those who will alight first and position yourself in the correct area to lay claim to their seat. When there are many seats, you will not suffer the obviousness of human aversion by choosing the middle seat of three, nor opt instantly for the one beside the glass so as to minimise the threat of intimacy. You choose the first seat available, you do not live as the city demands, you do not settle for the persuasive current of it's transport system, the flow of people through it's great veins and arteries. You fight like an alien body for your own direction, seeking to evade the pressing constriction of routine. You will not fall asleep and dream like the other travellers, sleep and flow, sleep and forget. The city is yours! You are a fire in it's belly, so let the lesser mortals survive in any way they can, watch them bicker and push and tut and pretend they are awake. They are the sapiens, you are the superior. While the tube is a way of honing your skills, to them it is just a carriage for the rats, a wheel that turns faster the more they run. The higher they try and climb, the quicker the ground drops away and they become lost in that endless rotation, sleeping and moving becoming one long, slow carousel.

At your destination, you replay the scene in reverse until some smooth sleight of hand lets you free of the circus, vomits you up onto the city's skin. You can see the stars and the endless possibility of distance. People are meteors streaming towards and all around you. Weaving in and out of them on pre-plotted trajectories based on millions of best fit calculations, you move at a speed they can only dream of. You imagine they stop to see your course as you shift, half step, slow to optimize turning or readjust distance to an oncoming obstruction. You are unchained, drunk on your own vertigo, burning like the sun. A million photonic waves and particles racing through the matter of the universe. You are emblazoned as an angel, your passing unnoticed by those blind to the fire of intention, to hope, to freedom. You are Mercury; incandescent and forged by purpose.

Good vibrations

There were twenty people at the meeting, sitting around in a circle, the chairman being distinguished only by his hammer. She sits opposite me and she’s smiling with slightly flushed cheeks.

“It will be a hoot.” I’d said during lunch, before the meeting.
“I don’t know.” She worried as she took a bite of her cheese sandwich.
I shrugged. I distinctly remember thinking: “Do it, you prudish cow.” And I equally distinctly remember saying: “It’s up to you. I bet it’ll be funny though.”

Amazingly enough, me thinking of cows surely had been influenced by her chewing the cheese sandwich.
“Okay.” She’d finally agreed.
“You don’t have any pockets.” I’d pointed out, looking at her light summer dress, “So it’s not like you really have much choice!” We’d smiled at each other.

And there she sits. My mobile phone in my hands, her mobile phone down the front of her knickers. I secretly dialled her number.

“So what sort of knickers are you wearing?” I’d asked after lunch, taking a swig of my diet coke and feeling very suave.

“What’s it to you?” She’d parried, licking her lips and trying to give me a sexy look by passing me a glance from the corners of her eyes.

I shrugged. I distinctly remember thinking: “Go on love, show us yer undies.” And I equally distinctly remember saying: “General interest. I’m interested in all aspects of clothing, both male and female.”

She’d looked around fleetingly, giggled and lifted her dress. She was wearing pink knickers with little frilly edges. I was well impressed.

She gazes at me, smiling, as the chairman grumbles on about the previous week’s minutes. I look around the table to make sure nobody’s paying me any attention. I press the green “call” button and give her a wink.

“That’s very sexy underwear you’ve got on there.” I’d mentioned as we walked towards the conference room.
“Thank you.” She’d agreed, her head nodding in slight anticipation.
I distinctly remember thinking: “Let me put the phone down them you skank!” And I equally distinctly remember saying: “Best put your mobile in your undies before you go in.”

She stopped, put her hand on my arm and whispered: “This is a major turn on.”
I’d wanted to tell her that I thought it was major too, but our secretary walked by and I’d just smiled. She took her mobile out her handbag, quickly lifted her dress and slipped the phone down the front of her knickers. I was well impressed.

As I wink her phone starts vibrating. At least, I think it's vibrating. Maybe the colour of her face has more to do with the Nokia ringtone sounding off from her lap. I think to myself: “I can’t believe it! The bimbo hasn’t turned the sound off!” And much to her credit she stands up, lifts her dress; baring her pink frilly knickers and removes the mobile.

“Sorry,” she appologies to everyone, as she looks around the table, “my dress just doesn’t have any pockets. Please excuse me.” She drops her dress and strolls out of the room.

Disquietude and Deliverance

Charles was ready for a little peace and quiet. He was caught up on all his errands and was looking forward to a restful afternoon which would give him a chance to catch up on his reading. He had his copy of Mikhail Bakunin’s “God and the State” ready at hand, along with a nice pint of Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout. He nestled himself into his favorite chair, took a long sip of his beer, opened the book to the first page, and eagerly began to read. But in what seemed like no time at all there came a rather vicious knocking at the front door.

Charles was inclined to ignore the knock and pretend he wasn’t home, but there soon came a second barrage of insistent pounding, followed by an all too familiar voice, “Open up, Charles, I know you’re in there. You can’t hide from me!” Charles’ heart sank. It was unmistakably the voice of William. Again.

Resignedly Charles set down his book and went to the door. Opening it only partially, and firmly blocking the entrance against unwanted entry, Charles peered outside and testily asked, “What do you want now, William?”

The grim visage of William was always a bit of a shock to Charles’ refined sensibilities, but this time he looked particularly menacing. He was stooped and haggard, with mottled skin, unkempt hair, and eyes that bulged crazily in their sockets. Rubbing his hands feverishly together, William cried out, “Atheism is a belief!”

Charles let out a long sigh. Not this again. “Look, William,” he said patiently, “I’ve told you a million times; atheism is not a belief.”

“Oh yes it is,” William cackled, “it’s a belief all right. A belief, a belief, a belief.” He performed a grotesque little jig on Charles’ doorstep as he sniggered and repeated, “...a belief, a belief, a belief.”

“No it isn’t,” Charles angrily cut in, “atheism is the lack of belief. Why can’t you get that through your deformed skull?”

William was overcome by a fit of violent coughing that cut his little jig short. When he had recovered sufficiently, he looked up and asked, “Oh? And
how do you know that? Do you just take it on faith that it’s not a belief?”
He resumed his jig and repeated in a cracked and unsteady voice, “It’s a belief held on faith, a belief held on faith, a belief held on faith...”

Exasperated, Charles stood in the doorway, shaking his fist and shouting that atheism was not a belief, while William did erratic pirouettes on the doorstep, his hands over his ears, repeating that atheism was a belief. Charles shouting. William prancing. A cacaphony of motion and sound. The mad scene persisted for who knows how long before William suddenly lost his balance and came crashing heavily against Charles, sending him sprawling.

Charles jumped up with a start. His book was splayed out on the floor at his feet. His overturned beer glass lay on the end table, its former contents dripping onto the carpet. There was no sight of William anywhere. “I...I must have fallen asleep,” Charles mused, “it was all a horrible nightmare. William was never here at all.” He picked up his book from the floor, glanced at the empty beer glass and then back again. He thought that perhaps the mixture of Bakunin and oatmeal stout had been a bit much for his system. Perhaps it was time for something a little lighter. He carefully shelved the book and momentarily perused his collection. “Ah, here we go,” he said as he pulled his new selection from the shelf, “An anthology of Garfield comic strips will do just fine.” Charles whistled lightly as he tucked the book under his arm and headed to the kitchen to get himself a diet Coke to go with it.

Odd Codefloss’s Adventures In And Around Clare
Vandenburg’s Tricuspid Valve (extract)

Bright June sunlight filtered through the slightly-open window blinds of Odd Codefloss’s corner office on the ground floor of the bottle-green administration building of the airport. Odd sat at his average-sized pinewood desk, abstracted, with his head slightly to one side and stared at the blank white wall in front of him.

“Fusilli!”, he thought, fussily. “I’ve forgotten to buy fusilli! Oh Odd, you Vandenburg!”. His cry of consternation trenchantly evaporated his thorax.

The minuature scale model of a bauxite mine that rested on the desk to the right of his papers seemed to glare malevolently at him. He got up and looked out of the window, pushing the blinds away so he could see the purple emulsion of the magnificent fake Turkish Delight the size of Arkansas coruscate in the sunlight. The emulsion was studded with glitter all over the north end of the Turkish Delight, making it resemble, at least in Odd’s mind, his fourteen-year old daughter when she got ready to go out to the local 30s disco. Air Marshal McGill had bought the collection of false confectionery from a souvenir stand in Phnom Pen a couple of years ago. On his return to Heathrow, he had changed irrevocably from the cheerful, outgoing piranha he had previously been. He had picked up a habit of twisting his scaly torso anticlockwise through seven hundred and seventeen degrees while muttering, “Jabba Wabba!” and simultaneously excreting a tracer fire-like stream of ammonium hydroxide pellets. “Poor b@stard,” thought Odd, with a shade more truculence than pity, for it was he who had the demoralizing task of rolling up bamboo leaves and snorting up McGill’s rancid droppings for the amusement of the airport staff 6-9 year olds as part of the airport’s ‘Family Morale’ program.

* * *

Suddenly, there was an ear-shattering sound of a grasshopper making a leap from one radar-shielded blade of grass to another while attached to a boom microphone which was coupled via a radio to a speaker the size of Venus under Odd’s computer. He turned away, bored, as his left ear dripped bright red blood into his morning coffee. “Only two more weeks until I go on holiday to Slough!”, he thought, slavering with feverish anticipation. He picked up the phone. It started ringing. “Hello?”, said Odd. “We’ve got a Mikado situation here. Pish-Tush was taxing an elliptical billiard ball when it started resenting him at the apex of an isocoles triangle. Request assistance.” The voice at the other end was female, high pitched and had an agitated edge of rising panic to it. “Clare, why do you keep ringing me at work?”, Odd complained, exasperated. “I’ve told you if you do it again I’ll stop presenting you with free coupons for disembowelling at Dixons’ high street store in Maidenhead.” He sighed to himself. “If I wasn’t travelling through your tricuspid valve bonded to some of your deoxyhaemoglobin that’s exactly what I would do, but I suppose just this once I’ll forgive you. I’ll bring the coupons, but only if you get chloasma.” “Oh thank you Odd!” simpered the Vandenburg girl, the Mikado situation all but forgotten. “And sort your bloody erythrocytes out!”, snapped Odd. "They’re far too square at the moment, and it decreases their surface area for efficient diffusion of oxygen, you clucking witch!” He hung up the phone, which by now was covered in the blood and mucus that by this time was gushing from his ear. His cheek spasmed vigourously. He picked up the scale model of the bauxite mine and flung it through the window pane, smashing it into thousands of jagged pieces. He jumped out the window, narrowly avoiding slicing his lower arm in two, and ran towards the control tower. He hadn’t forgotten the Mikado situation, even if Clare’s memory was plainly defunct.

* * *

Odd burped incongrously. The First World War had been hard for him, and he’d lost many a limb and extremity. It had made him hard though, the relentless cooking of sweet pastries and cakes which was the daily grind of trench warfare had instilled in him a fanatical devotion to the methods of the Blanc school, and this had on more than one occasion pulled him away from mortal danger. As he reached the door of the control tower a vision came upon him of an apple turnover competing in the 76th Chess Olympiad, and losing every game. For a terrible moment his faith in pastry was dimmed, but it burst back to its full brightness a second later as he saw the duty officer playing Risk with a cheese-slicer for a hand. He ran up the stairs, staying one step ahead of his trailing leg. EEEEEEEEEOWWWWWWWWW! EEEEEEEEEEOWWWWWW! came the noise of a Tornado fighter aircraft flying rapturously around the bridge. Sitting down at the operatta screen, he manipulated the control lever skilfully with his left hand while tapping out the rhythm to ‘Chorus of Schoolgirls’ on the vibration pad with his right. The screen blazed into life. His life. As the two halves of his screen-cleaved body fell apart, he couldn’t help thinking, “Did I leave the iron on?”

Untitled

At last, it was finished. As he approached the Time Machine, he pondered where to go. Or rather, when to go. Not wanting to upset time too much on his first trip, he decided to start small, just go back a few hours; there could be no harm in that surely?

He walked slowly around the Machine, admiring the product of all the hard work and dedication he had put into this project in the last few years. He could scarcely believe it was finished. So many times he had considered discarding the whole crazy idea. So often he had sat up all night working on the crucial theory that needed to be perfected before it could be put into practice.

He sat down in the worn leather seat that he had scavenged from his old Jaguar, taking comfort from it’s familiar curves. He took a few deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm the butterflies that were rioting in his stomach. Reaching out with hands clammy from nervous sweat, he began adjusting the Machine’s controls.

He finished setting the Machine up for it’s first test journey and paused, momentarily awed at the enormity of what he was doing. He was about to be the first human to travel against the flow of time, into the past. The implications were enormous, the wrongs he could set right, the money he could make. With visions of grandeur floating through his brain, he reached for the lever that would engage the Machine’s Temporal Drive and, finally, got the Machine started on it’s epic voyage to the past.

As the whir of the Drive powering up became louder, doubts began to assail him. What if it didn’t work? What if the failure was catastrophic? He wasn’t an adventurer, he was an inventor, he should have found someone braver to do the actual testing. His pulse accelerated and he took in great gulps of air to quell those rowdy butterflies. It didn’t work, and he began to shake as all sorts of possible catastrophic scenarios flicked through his mind. And then it was too late. With a brief flash of light, the Machine turned itself about in time and headed back the way it had come. A few moments of it’s own time later, the drive wound
down and the Machine returned it’s temporal velocity to that which we are all more familiar with.

Inside the machine, he began to realise that something had gone wrong. When the machine had arrived in it’s new time, he had found himself greeted by a sudden rush of air and a cold like he had never experienced. The fear reached a new crescendo as he peered out of the window and looked out at the unexpected inky blackness, speckled with millions of pinpricks of light. Then, as the Machine rolled through the void, he saw the Earth, beautifully framed by the window, but horribly distant. His dying thought was the realisation that in his hurry to conquer Time, he’d neglected that other half of the famous continuum – Space.

THE RULES AGAIN:

RULE NUMBER ONE: Read all of the entries please
RULE NUMBER TWO: Choose three of your favourite entries and rank them.
e.g:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Keith Richards
3) Nelly the Elephant

This will mean that out of all the pieces, these three are your favourite, and this is the order that they are your favourite.

After this vote Michael Jackson will have 5 points, Keith Richards will have 3 points, and Nelly the Elephant will have 2 points.

Allow me to re-iterate:

1st ranking = 5 points
2nd ranking = 3 points
3rd ranking = 2 points

Writers aren't allowed to vote for their own work, but they are encouraged to vote for others.

Voting closes on 22 April 2005 at 11amGMT, and I shall tally the scores and announce the winner then.

RULE NUMBER 3: DO NOT REC A POST IF YOU LIKE IT. I DID NOT WRITE ANY OF THESE PIECES.