It’s 5MinuteFiction in 2011! Are you excited? WOOHOO!! Let’s get this baby started!
And we call it 5MinuteFiction because you write a nice little piece of fiction in five minutes. Crazy people that we are. Are you new? Get in there and start scrapping!
The Rules
* You get five minutes to write a piece of prose in any style or genre
* You must directly reference today’s prompt: attach
photo by user massdistraction on Flickr
* Post your entry as a comment to this post.
I’ll close the contest at 1:45. That gives you 5 minutes to write and ten to accommodate the vagaries of relative time, technology, and the fickle internets. If you are confused or just want to whine, feel free to email me.
At the close of the contest, this week’s guest judge, Jeff Pfaller, @pfallerj , will nominate five finalists. I’ll put the nominees in the poll on the side of the page, and at 9:30 PM EDT I’ll close the poll and declare the winner.
For updates, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed, or follow me on twitter.
What’s the prize? Well, nothing, obviously. But we’ll all agree to tweet and/or blog about the winner of today’s contest so their fame and fortune will be assured.
A Few Notes:
* In the interest of time and formatting, it’s best to type straight into the comment box. It’s also smart to do a quick highlight and copy before you hit “post” just in case the internets decide to eat your entry. If your entry doesn’t appear right away, email me sometimes comments go into the suspected spam folder and I have to dig them out.
* I reserve the right to remove hate speech or similar but I’m not too picky about the other stuff.
* This is all for fun and self-promotion. So be sure to put your twitter handle at the end of your post and a link to your blog if you have one.
Attached to the pure-black vase was a tiny figurine, held by a thin wire, wrapped about the neck of the figure and the vessel. The likeness was horrifying. It was the face of her father as she had seen it in pictures–and it was contorted into an expression of abject terror.
Sella shivered, wrapping her arms tight around herself, blinking back tears. Was all her searching for him for this?
She’d felt compelled, always pulled toward him, toward the mystery of his disappearance, toward a father she’d never known. She found accounts of his bravery, his goodness to the people he ruled, a life of peace and comfort amidst family he loved. Until he disappeared.
Now this. A sick horror bubbled in her stomach. Because she knew. She knew somehow this was what she’d been seeking all along. That she’d always known that the things she heard, read, found, were incomplete; there was a truth hidden that no one else seemed to want to know.
There was a door, behind the table that held the vase, the only other thing in the room. She reached for the knob with a trembling hand. It turned. It wasn’t locked; she’d known it wouldn’t be. She pulled slowly and before her the door opened, the room behind was revealed. Sella looked inside… and screamed.
Letting Go
“You knew this day would come, Vi.” My brother’s voice did nothing to stem the steady trickle of tears down my niece’s cheeks. “I told you not to get too attached.”
I sighed and waved him away, ignoring his scowl as I ushered Leah along with me. “You can come visit any time you want,” I promised, heart breaking as her shoulders hitched in a sob. “Trey will only be a few miles away.”
“You promise?” Hope filled her voice and I heard Matt choke back a qualifier behind me.
“Yes.” There was no doubt in my mind my niece would be over often. There just seemed to be a special bond between a girl and her first horse; even if Trey was mine, and had only stayed at their place while I built his barn.
I still remembered my first, a little pony owned by our neighbor I’d feed carrots through the rail. And my broken heart when they moved away.
“Do you want to come help Trey settle in?” The gelding nickered through the trailer window and I laughed as Leah ran ahead of me.
“I’m coming home with you, Trey!”
Tears forgotten, angst delayed, heartbreak avoided.
@AislingWeaver
@noellepierce
The child stared at the small blanket in his hand, then back at the social worker. It was for the best, she said. His older sister came out of her room and grasped his small shoulders to reassure him, a grim smile plastered on her face.
“It’s going to be better this way,” she whispered to him. “We won’t hear mama cry anymore.”
He couldn’t see how it would be better. He wasn’t even sure what was happening. All he knew was that things were changing and he didn’t like change.
His fingers tightened around the clump of fabric that was once his prized blankie. The edges were frayed and there were patches of dried juice and drool across the surface. Everywhere he went, it went–his mom used to say he needed something to attach to. Whatever the reason, it gave him some comfort now.
“Are you bringing that with us?” his sister asked.
He nodded.
She turned to the social worker. “We’re ready.” Her voice was strong, confident. Not scared at all, like him.
Risking a last glance toward the chalk drawing on the living room floor, he linked his free hand with his sister’s, then they proceeded forward to the sedan parked outside.
“All fifty states and every continent, including Antarctica.”
“Wow.” I didn’t really care that much, but I felt I should say something. “How did he get to Antarctica? I thought that was just scientists and military guys.”
“He took a cruise. It sailed from New Zealand and made a stop on the continent. Dad said it was the coldest February he’d ever known, even though it was the height of summer down there. He set old Jerry down on the glacier and took his picture.” She smiled, thinking about the absurdity of a plastic giraffe on ten thousand year old ice. The smile lasted a moment, then faded.
“It was his last big tour. Dad died seven months later in a boating accident. He carried Jerry with him on all his road trips,” she said, “the Grand Canyon, Denali, the Parthenon. Everywhere.”
“Sounds cool,” he said. “You must have had some childhood.”
“Yeah, well. He sent us lots of postcards.”
Tony Noland, @tonynoland
Several minutes pass by before I realized the spore could attach itself to my ship. I though of so many reasons justify the abandonment of my mission, but the truth was clear. My life was forfeit and what my fellow travelers didn’t know was fine. the layout of the console was so familiar to me that I managed to disable each hull breach alert nanoseconds before they became audible to the rest of the crew.
A low rumbling began. This sound quickly became a ripping, tearing grind that could no longer be ignored or explained. The questions came at me like bullets and I playacted each one of them. Then the crashing sound of a hull breach.
“This is how we die?”
However, the controls became smooth and no more noise was heard. After a quick system scan I saw the create was still there attached on the side. It wasn’t our death note, but rather out life line. Oxygen was the byproduct and carbon dioxide was his food.
“Had it truly come to this?” Rodney contemplated to himself as he rolled the ice cream scoop around in his fingers. “Have I reached my limit?”
For 200 years Rodney had pursued a dream, or whatever the closest equivalent a robot can have to a dream. That robot-dream was to become the most perfect thing in existence. He would become the robot to end all other robots, capable of every function, capable of any task set before him.
It started off slowly at first. An eggbeater attachement here. A grasping clawed-hand there. He kept finding new things to add on to his frame. Eventually it had become an obsession. Things that he could truly do without had to be attached because what if someone needed their nose hairs trimmed, or their glass chess board set buffed, and they asked Rodney? How could he tell them that he was imperfect? How could he?
As he stared at the ice cream scoop in his hand he finally understood the futility in it all. He would never be perfect. The urge was still to strong though, and he attached the scoop to one of his many arms knowing full well it would never be needed.
@briefconceits
I could not attach a higher importance to brevity, speed and succinctness. I tired. I failed. The assignments were late, they were overlong, and yet lacked both content and any significant meaning.
I stamped on each one: “F – Try again next week.”
Students. Sometimes you just have to lay the hammer down.
@_Monocle_
Amy slept with her phone under her pillow on vibrate. It was a sure fire way to wake her up whenever necessary. You know…should she get any text or facebook notifications. She’d wake up right away for them.
Little did she realize she’d be waking up at three in the morning to a phone call. With heavy eye lids, hair standing on end and a heavy sigh, she lifted her BlackBerry and looked at it. After pressing the send button, she plopped back down on her pillow. “Hello.”
“Amy? Oh, I’m glad I got you. On my way over.”
Her brows furrowed down deep. “Now? As in right now?”
“Yeah,” the man sighed. “I really need to talk to someone. And all I could think of was you.”
Amy huffed, stretching and yawning as she said. “It’s three in the morning.”
“Sorry, but drama doesn’t care about time. And right now, I just really need someone. I need you, Amy.”
She sighed and sat up. “How long before you get here?”
Her doorbell rang.
“Is this too soon?”
Amy huffed again. “Give me a second. I’ll be there in like five.”
After hanging up the phone, she looked down at the phone that she should just attach to her hand as much as she uses it. Maybe this could have been one night that she didn’t bother answering it. After all, Amy does have work at ten in the morning. She doesn’t do well when she doesn’t get her sleep.
She slid into her black silk robe, and simply ran her fingers through her thick, red tresses. Finally, she was ready to let Patrick in. After opening the door, he jumped right in and grabbed her, holding her close.
She sighed and pat his back halfheartedly. What more could he expect at three a.m?
“What is it?”
“Sandra. What else?”
Amy shook her head. “Told you that broad was crazy. Why are you with her, anyway?”
“She wasn’t crazy when we met.”
She pried herself away from Patrick and lead him to the sofa to sit. “I told you she was crazy. Have I ever lead you wrong?”
“No.”
Amy shrugged. “Then that’s all you needed.”
He stopped Amy when she tried walking to the other side of the coffee table to sit in her overstuffed chair. “Don’t leave my side, Amy. I really need to be comforted right now.”
She lifted a brow. “Why?”
Patrick paused. “Sandra thinks I’m cheating. She yelled at me for hours about some girl I’ve been seeing behind her back. She threatened to come by my house and beat the truth out of me. There’s no way my apartment is safe.”
“So, what? Come over here and put me in danger?” Amy rolled her eyes. “It’s way too late for this mess. I’m going to be-”
Before Amy could finish her statement and head back to bed, Patrick’s phone started ringing again. He rolled his eyes. “What?”
Amy could hear the screaching pouring through his reciever, as well as…
“Oh, no,” Amy looked at the door as it vibrated from heavy knocking. “Is she seriously at my door right now?”
She could hear a crying woman on the other side. “I know you’re in there with her. I know it! I can’t believe you! How could you do this to me?”
Yeah…speaking of attachments…
She turned and looked at Patrick. “Well, I’m going to bed. Have fun dealing with that.”
She turned to walk off just as Patrick called after her.
“Lock up when you leave.”
“Attach this to your collar and you will always remeber me.” Those were the last tearful words she said to me, as she pinned a feather to my jacket. She was crying I was crying. My heart was been ripped in two and I could not understand why.
“Why are you doing this?” I whimpered, pathetically.
“We can never be together, we are too different.” I held her close cheek to cheek, I could taste her salty tears, feel the dampness on my face.
“Fuck them!” I said. “Fuck their rules and their feud and their bitterness. Let’s runaway, we can go somewhere no one will know us. We can live together just the two of us.”
“I can’t do that,” she said, pulling away from me. “I love you,” she mouthed. She ran from me then. I wanted to follow her, to hold her fast and never let her go, to make her understand we could change things, we could break with tradition. But I didn’t, I couldn’t, because she was right. We could never be together, we were like night and day.
I watched her spread her wings then, her glorious off-white wings as she took to the air, so graceful, so beautiful.
“You coming them? If we don’t have fifty souls in the bag by morning there’ll be hell to pay.” He cackled at his own joke.
I nodded my assent. Behind him a smoking pit opened in the ground, with a smile he leapt in, his fiery red tale the last thing to enter.
“I’m coming brother, I’m coming.”
From @matthewschulz
Just over one attachment. One.
I’ve worked my ass off for 20 years. Twenty damn years. I’ve practically never taken a day off. I’ve worked insane hours — like medical student-type hours — when they’ve needed me to work on game plans. Snow. Sleet. Hail. Blazing heat. Major injuries. I’m always there.
I’ve even been what everyone calls a “team player” — whatever that means. I’ve helped bring new guys along, showing them how things work around here. Everything from making sure their money gets handled properly to which fork to use when you’re at a nice restaurant to where to buy a house in town.
So I send one attachment, and then this. This. For me. Unbelievable.
I’ve never asked to be treated any differently from anyone else, though Lord knows, I could have. (I mean, really.) I’ve never tried to be anything other than one of the guys. Playing Madden. Grilling brats. Downing a few beers — or maybe trotting out the Crown once in a while.
And the bosses treat me like this. Taking me away from my job, my livelihood, the only thing I really know how to do. They’ve taken it all away, and now I look like an idiot.
All over one attachment on an email.
Don’t these people know who I am?
And the worst thing: She didn’t even respond.
Doesn’t she know who I am?
She will soon. I promise you that.
“Hurry up!”
“I’m going as fast as I can!”
I look around. I know they’ll be here soon. We set off enough alarms to wake up a neighborhood.
“Dude, I’m about to jet,” I say. “You’re going to get us both killed!”
Sam is still trying to attach the box to the base of the gate. “Now, how is that any way to talk to your best friend,” he says with a smirk.
I can hear the dogs in the background getting closer. The spastic shaking lights over the hill aren’t as faint as they were five minutes ago.
“Okay, I’m gone. This is too much,” I say. My heart is beating out of my chest.
“Don’t be such a baby,” says Sam. He stands up slowly. “There. All finished. Are you ready to go, Nancy?”
“You’re a real…GET DOWN!”
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Gunshots are flying everywhere.
“GO! GO! GO!” I say. Sam is still dodging the gunfire. I grab his arm. “We don’t have all night!” He’s dead weight. Nothing. No movement. This can’t be happening! I look around. I’m surrounded. I fall to my knees. I look at my friend. His lifeless body.
A man in a suit walks out. “Give me what you stole and I’ll make it quick.”
I pull a remote out of Sam’s hand. I slowly raise my head. “Sure, we’ve already armed it for you…Dad.” I push the button.
BOOM!
Jason Wallis
http://twitter.com/timjasonwallis
@shanearthur
This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever wrote. (fun though)
“Break the latch, grab the stash, then light the match and dispatch.”
“Cops approaching fast. How much cash is this stash we took from the safe with the latch that was attached before we broke it, lit the match, and dispatched?”
“Relax, you can’t attach a value happiness or to this cash. Money won’t last. You have to enjoy the dash, cause life’s a blast, unless you own a safe with a broken latch, with no cash, and your home burned from a match lit by two burglars who dispatched, painted the cat, and took a shit in your hat and laughed.”
Feh. I opened 5minfic at 1:41. I’m surprised I only had as few typos as I did.
That’ll do, donkey. That’ll do.
Random Shrek quote there, but there you go.
So, how was the first 5MinuteFiction of 2011 for you? Still too hungover to write anything comprehensible? 😉
Our judge will be picking the finalists now so come back at 3:00 for the nominees.
(stupidest thing I’ve ever WRITTEN that is)