What is 5MinuteFiction, you say? It’s an adrenaline-fueled, instant-gratification sort of writing contest. Sound fun? Great! Get in there and get dirty!
The Rules
* You get five minutes to write a piece of prose or poetry in any style or genre
* You must BEGIN your entry with: Grab me a beer, will you?
(Note: The prompt is above. The picture is for decoration/inspiration.)
* Post your entry as a comment to this post.
I’ll close the contest at 12:45. 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, Corinne O’Flynn, @CorinneOFlynn will nominate five finalists.
I’ll put the nominees in a poll, and at 9:00 EDT tomorrow I’ll close the poll and declare the winner.
For updates, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed, “like” my Facebook Page, or follow me on twitter. Or follow us on twitter with the #5MinuteFiction hashtag.
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 or notepad. 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.
I plan on participating today if whatever is going on at 12:30ET permits.
Nice!! Hope you make it!
Let’s do this! <3
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
Stan’s voice grated Violet’s nerves, and she fought back the urge to say something nasty. Usually those outbursts were greeted with Stan’s outbursts. His involved being thrown against the wall, and fists in the stomach. It was best at times like this to just nod, smile and move on. But this time was different, this question just came on the tail end of a pretty bad fight. Violet was in the kitchen crying, trying to pull herself together. She was just there, just at that point when his voice drifted in. And everything just got thrown off.
Reaching into the pocket of her dress, Violet felt the smooth glass vial that rested there since this afternoon. Her trip to the store included a side trip. A meeting with a strange short man dressed in black, who smelled like almonds and had a voice that was rough and harsh. Five hundred dollars later, Violet had her answer. Her salvation in an amber glass vial.
Grabbing Stan’s beer from the fridge, she twisted off the top and dumped in the contents of the glass vial. Plastering a smile on her face, she glided to the living room. All too happy to meet her husband’s last request.
@adenpenn
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
The words fall oddly in the dense air, as if it’s too much effort to go very far. Across the way, Dara doesn’t move, and I think she didn’t hear. Jer smirks.
“Nothing like that here, mate.”
I grimace. One more thing to hate about this godforsaken planet. The sky here is red, and the sun filtered through it is purple-blue, bleeding into the blood-red sky.
“How much longer are we on this one?” I ask.
“‘Till the job’s done, as usual.”
“The air here’s like pudding and I swear this is more than 150% earth gravity. It’s going to take twice as long to do anything.”
Jer shrugged. “You get used to it.”
I shook my head, a surprisingly difficult move, and sigh out the soupy atmosphere. Three weeks, they said. Three weeks that probably means three months or more.
“Why do I sign up for these things?”
Jer grins at me. “Same reason we all do. We want adventure, to travel to distant galaxies, see fantastic things.”
“And because we’re broke and need the work.”
“Oh yeah, that too.”
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
Dante gritted his teeth as his father slurred the all too common demand. Never mind that he was sitting -right next- to the refrigerator, and Dante was in the living room. Never the less, he got up and grabbed one of the long necked bottles that filled the fridge and littered the house.
“Hurry up next time, ya waste of oxygen!” The backhand caught him off guard, sending him tumbling backwards. Tears pricked the edges of his vision as Dante picked himself up off the ground and raced out the door, finally breaking down in sobs as he stood in the scraggly backyard. Once again, he wondered why his mother hadn’t taken him with her when shed ran away from the abusive drunk that was his father. Maybe he really wasn’t worth it.
Grab me a beer, will you? Nothing too fancy. Bud is fine.
I saw her again. Yeah, the girl in the park. No, I’m not imagining and I’m not obsessed. It’s just…
look, it’s weird, OK? I get it on Lenin’s birthday, but she’s there every week, and always walking out just when I get there. Always leaving a flower at Strawberry fields.
A black rose. Creepy, huh? That’s what got me. Who leaves a black rose for John Lenin? Every damned week. I just wonder why.
Nah, you’re right. A girl who leaves a black rose for Lenin every week probably wouldn’t drink a Bud. Or stop for a guy who does.
Grab me something else, OK? Something imported? I’ll head out there early tomorrow.
I’ll wait for her.
“Grab me a beer, will you?” her brother said.
“Sure,” Diane said as she checked her shotgun for the umpteenth time to make sure it was loaded. “Honk the horn if you see anything.”
“Duh,” Bobby replied.
Diane made her way into the convenience store. The windows hadn’t been smashed on this one yet which meant it could actually still have beer or food. Ever since the outbreak there had been rioting in the cities but out in the boondocks things had moved much slower.
She cautiously opened the front door listening for movement. Hearing nothing she entered, shotgun first and looked around.
There was no lighting, electricity was one of the first things to fail, but the shelves were still undisturbed. This could mean two things.
First, either the owner or employees had all just run away and no one was minding the store. Second, someone was still here but just in a dormant state.
As she made her way to the back of the store where the coolers were located, she heard movement behind her. It was a distinctive shuffling sound. Without even taking time to think about it she whipped around, shotgun at waist level, and fired.
The zombie didn’t stand a chance. His face exploded sending blood and grey matter down the chip aisle all the way to the front of the store.
Diane froze and listened. No more sound.
She turned back to the coolers.
“Bud or Bud Lite,” she asked herself.
@redshirt6
“Grab me a beer, will you?” The hulking brute said.
I scrambled in the cooler filled with ice, water, and beer and handed him one, holding on to the neck of the bottle.
“Thanks, human”
“No problem,” I managed to croak, my vocal chords nearly crushed by the death collar.
“You know, you creatures got a few things right. Beer, reality television, porn…”
I grunted each time he punctuated a word by pounding on the barcalounger armrest. The vibrations irritated my tortured sensibilities. Each day I was beaten into unconsciousness, drowned and revived.
I anticipated his next request and handed him a bag of BBQ pork rinds.
I didn’t want to be tased again.
“Now come here, puny human, sit at my feet and let me tell you what a real planet is like.”
I sighed inwardly. These lectures were never fun, and always punctuated by clouting my ear.
“On OUR glorious planet, you can have all the slaves you can eat. We have little slave stands. My favorite was Herbie’s Horrible Hash and Humans. Haha, that was a great place!”
I sat silently, waiting to get boxed. Then, it happened…
“Why we were…garg…bularg…grok…” The Behemoth started to choke on a Pork Rind! I couldn’t believe my good fortune!. I got up and kicked him as hard as I could.
then I fell down, sobbing. I’d inadvertantly administered a heimlich and saved the wretched thing.
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
“Heineken, Bud Light, PBR or Root?”
Terry glanced over toward the fridge to see his roommate’s ass sticking up as Mitch dug through the archaeological find that was their refrigerator.
“Root? What kind is that?”
“You know, root beer,” came the muffled reply.
“Seriously? You’re a college senior and you have root beer in the fridge?”
“Mattie likes root beer and if I get the IBC kind, it looks like she’s drinking a real one.”
The sound of glass clinking filtered over the noise of the football game in the living room.
“That’s what you get for dating an underclassman, man,” Terry muttered, shaking his head as his favorite green bottle came into view.
“She’s legal. She just doesn’t like the taste.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Newp.” Mitch handed over the beer and plopped down on the sofa. He pulled out his phone and laughed before pocketing it.
“You are so whipped.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it, my friend.”
The two sat in comfortable silence, taking draws off of their preferred bevvies as their eyes stayed fixated on the playoff game before them.
“She’s got a roommate,” Mitch said with feigned nonchalance.
“Does she.”
Another drink in silence.
“I can give her your digits,” Mitch continued, setting his drink on the ring stained coffee table.
“She drink root beer?”
“Don’t know.”
“Cute?”
“Don’t really know that either.”
“Hmmm…”
“I’ll have her call you.”
“A’right.”
@dejeansmith
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
The voice had come from a tall man standing at the edge of the bar. The easy familiarity with which he spoke made me think I’d served him a hundred times before, but he was a stranger. His haunted cheekbones cast a shadow over the bottom of his face, and the dim overheads did the rest to shield his features, but I would have remembered a guy whose head was even with the top shelf behind me.
“What kind of beer?”
“Oh, any brand,” he said. His mouth quivered, his lips moving in twelve directions at once so fast I wasn’t quite sure what expression he was going for. His skeletal fingers rested on the wood.
“Going to make me work for my money, huh?” I grinned, although something about him made me want to hurl myself behind the ice maker. “Okay, I’ll guess. How about a pint of oatmeal stout? It’ll put some hair on your chest,” I added.
“Hair.” He paused and drummed his thumbs once. It was quiet in the bar — only one table filled, and two of my regulars camped out near the jukebox. “Uh, sure. Oatmeal stout.”
“Have a seat, shorty,” I said, tapping my knuckles in front of him. “Take a load off.”
He cocked his head to the side and folded himself onto the stool.
I busied myself at the taps, pulling a slow pour and trying not to sneak glances at the guy. When I set the glass near his hand, his nose led the way for his glance up.
“This is good. Good bomb making material.”
“What?” I had to have heard that wrong.
“This will blow nicely.”
And that was when things happened all at once — he pulled out a lighter, I dove to the floor, and a dozen guys from the bomb squad spilled through the door.
“Drop it!” they chorused.
“As you wish,” the man said, and dropped the lighter into the beer.
@nicolewolverton
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
The worthless blob of a husband called out to me from the couch at 8:17 a.m., sitting a full two feet away from the beer fridge he installed last July. Apparently his beer gut no longer allowed him to bend and lean 24 inches to open the door and grab himself a beer. So, in the middle of getting our four kids ready for school, brushing teeth and hair and putting on outfits and setting out the oatmeal, and brushing my own hair and teeth and slapping on the blush and lip gloss to get myself to work, he wants me to drop it all to walk right next to him and grab a beer.
“Hey, you hear me? I need a beer, woman. Grab me a beer, will you?”
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. He wasn’t always like this, but then he slipped at work and hurt his back and decided that the world owed him. No more work. When the pills ran out, the couch and beer became his numbing agents of choice, and I became his beer slave.
I looked at our four kids, affected by much more than the normal angst of childhood, always walking silently around an angry, lazy dad, and knew things had to change. I couldn’t get a divorce; I was already the only one working and there was no way I was paying that man to drink and pay rent somewhere else.
“Kids, go get in the car.”
“But. Mom, we still have like four minutes.”
“Kids, go. get. in. the. car.”
As I heard the car door slam and knew all four were in the van, I walked down the stairs, into the basement where the blob sat.
“Finally. My beer?”
“You want your beer, my dear? You want me to serve you?”
I climbed on top of him and gave him a kiss on the cheek as I unplugged the unit.
“Here’s your beer,” I grunted as I stood up and hurtled the unit at his head. Whatever the blunt force of the hit didn’t do, the broken glasses falling down all over his body finished off.
I confirmed the pulse was gone, walked upstairs and out the door, into the van on the way to school, work and a life free of worthless blobs.
@alanagarrigues
Title: Revelations
“Grab me a beer, will you?” David asked as he and Alana poured over the paperwork they copied from the town archives.
As Alana sat down next to him, she twisted the cap off of his beer and one she got for herself. They had been sitting at the table going over stacks of papers for several hours and Alana’s eyes were beginning to cross.
There was so much history in the town, which was remarkable for how small it was. David’s family was involved in just about every aspect of the town’s growth from a simple farm to what it was now. It wouldn’t be classified as a city but they had more than one stoplight.
“Find anything yet?” she asked, as she rubbed her forehead.
The difficult thing was they weren’t sure exactly what they were looking for, but hoped they would recognize it when they saw it, something that dealt with a battle between one of David’s ancestors and some of the same evil forces that were after Alana now.
Their beers were nearly empty when David jumped out of his chair. “Alana, I think I found it! Look!”
“What is it?” she asked, quickly leaning over what he had been reading.
“Here, look at this section here.” He pointed to an obscure paragraph that was nearly illegible due to fading and water-damage.
@MLGammella
226 #WIP500 Words
“Grab me a beer, will you? Guinness if we’ve got any left.” I spoke into the walkie-talkie and then turned back to the reporter. “You want one?”
The young woman, younger than I’d expected from her reputation, and cuter too, shook her head and repeated her question, “Do you have any response to the public criticism?”
“Dearie, you’ve got to understand I’m pretty busy here. The only things I pay attention to on the television are reruns of Looney Tunes and the eleventh Doctor. By which I mean to say, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I smiled and put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Fill me in on the gossip and I’ll tell you why the bastards are wrong about me.”
She shrugged of my arm and gave me a look that communicated I wasn’t going to be able to flirt my way out of the interview. “Ms. Simpkins…”
“Doctor Simpkins, dearie. I appreciate the feminist sentiment, but don’t forget the PhD.” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
“Doctor Simpkins, your critics are saying that you’ve abused your privileges. That the things your doing with the dinosaur cloning and genetic modifications are irresponsible and a waste of time and money.”
The door behind the kitchen opened and my accusers eyes drifted over to see who was joining us. When her eyes locked onto Adam they almost fell out of her head, like a cartoon character.
“I brought an extra just in case your friend wanted one,” Adam handed me a beer carefully, so as not to scrape my skin with his claws.
“Adam here is the oldest of the successful combinations of human and diplodicus DNA. A little taller than I’d intended, but what are you going to do. I think you should ask him yourself if he thinks I was irresponsible by creating him.”
Adam smirked. “Of course you were, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
@olinj
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
That’s the most he’s ever talked to her since she walked in the house.
He sits in that same spot, on that same threadbare sofa, in his Hanes tag less T-shirt and holier than thou sweatpants. He scratches the same spot on his balding head, snorts in rhythm with the same soaps he records on the same TiVo he invested in. Lord knows the man is cheaper than Wal-Mart, but he considers it an investment when it comes to television.
Which explains the great sound system, the flat screen replaced the old boob tube, the 3,000 channels on the satellite he has memorized, and the new La-Z-Boy that’s lazier than he is, if that’s possible. Also explains why he’s never without beer or popcorn or pretzels or whatever highly fattening, empty calorie food he chooses to snuggle with this time. It explains why he hasn’t found a new job, a new hobby, or a living brain cell in that T.V infested head of his.
And Bonnie had enough of it.
Bonnie works two jobs, takes surveys and is known as the lab rat at the medical research facility she’s always going to for extra money. She goes to school online in the sliver of time she has left to get that much needed degree to keep her bomb of a husband living in the slop he’s accustomed to living in. Well, she just got laid off the higher paying of the two jobs she detested, and is worried her second boss is looking for a younger, newer model who already has the degree she’s working hard for.
And that fat, lazy dust bunny taking up room on the La-Z-Boy she’s NEVER gotten a chance to sit in is asking her to get her a beer?
Bonnie smiled sweetly. “Sure,” she forced out smoothly between her gritted teeth.
Walking into the kitchen, she remember the look on her nonchalant boss when he told her she was laid off until further notice, also known as forever. She thought of how embarrassing it was to walk out of that building with a card board box filled with her meager items they may very well need to move into if her life continues in this downward spiral.
She thought of how hard it was to squeeze two seconds into her Bachelor degree program that was moving faster than Road Runner, and even harder to keep up with.
And that sleaze could ask for a beer and get it.
She grabbed one of the cans of beer and turned with an irritated huff back to the living room.
And when she got there, she threw the can right at his sorry face…
Bullseye. Right on the nose. Maybe she should consider getting a job as a pitcher…
“Grab me a beer, will you?” Sheila said to the bartender.
She put her boots up on the rungs of the stool next to her. It was a slow night. Not many women yet. There were a few hanging around the bar who’d probably arrived at opening, on their slow, steady way to getting sloshed.
There was a gaggle of college girls in a booth. Not going *there* again. The bartender pushed the Rolling Rock to Sheila, and Sheila unrolled a five. She took a drag on it. It still tasted like piss, but it was Boston piss. It was home.
A butch/femme couple came in, eyes for nobody but each other. The femme was the only one in the bar wearing a skirt. Sheila wondered if her legs were cold. She couldn’t possibly be warm enough in that little black top and tiny skirt without even any leggings or tights. Then again, who came here to be comfortable? Well, except her.
And now came the regulars, in every respect. Short, gelled, bi-level haircuts. Small, tasteful stud or miniature drop earrings in each ear — enough to flag femininity without actually being alluring. Mock turtlenecks, jeans, ringless fingers with short, trimmed, smooth nails. Sheila was struck with the thought that nobody went *far* enough on “90s nights.” They all thought they were hilarious, dancing to Madonna and C & C Music Factory. But they didn’t have a clue.
She snorted into her beer, starting a coughing fit. A stranger patted her on the back, peering into her face. “You alright?” She shouted over the technopop.
“Yeah, just a little homesick,” Sheila smiled, blinking the tears out of her eyes and turning away.
She put down a five and pointed to her good Samaritan. “A Rolling Rock for my friend,” she mouthed to the bartender.
“Hey, tha–” The stranger said, but Sheila was headed out already.
She flipped up her collar as she headed back to her machine, which would take her back to a time and place where nobody understood these bars, these little uniforms of belonging. The nervousness of fitting in where you never did otherwise. The nods, the knowing smiles, the desperate joy of being with your people. Rolling Rock always did leave a strange aftertaste, she thought as her tongue clicked the roof of her mouth. God, she missed it.
@aftergadget
Time’s up, y’all! See you at 2:00 with the finalists!
I spelled it wrong in my entry, but in case you’re curious this is what a diplodocus looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplodocus
That was fun.
Could you grab me a beer while we wait? 😉
Add this one please:
Emailed entry:
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
Frema glanced around the tiny office. Broken desks, peeling wallpaper, dim lighting, fast-food wrappers strewn about and more dirt than she cared to think about…but no beer in sight, “Umm,…”
“In the Llama,” Horace grunted, his pudgy fingers clicking away at the computer in front of him. The lighting on the screen giving his already pale skin an unhealthy glow.
In an unkempt suit with his tie askew and battered fedora he looked like a hero of some dime-store noir novel. Of course, that would make her the classy dame that leads him into trouble and then betrays him, Frema thought sourly as she poked gingerly at the lifesized wooden statue of a llama that had a ratty feather boa around its neck. Of course, that wasn’t far from the truth.
She winced as one of her long red nails split on a seam. Then there was a click and the entire side of the creature opened up. Inside were several bottles. She pulled one out, “Really?”
“Was a gift from a past client.”
Frema opened it and set it on the desk where a series of ring-shaped stains showed where many beers before had sat. She leaned over Horace eyeing the screen, “Did you find it?”
“Yeah. And more.” He paused, taking his eyes from the screen and for the first time looking at her, “But that’s what you wanted, right? Access to the firm’s account.”
Frema smiled and picking up the bottle took a long swig, “I ain’t takin’ the fall for ‘ole Charlie’s embezzling.” Her polished accent had competely disappeaed, “But you see, I don’t like bein’ poor.”
Horace glanced towards his drawer where he kept his gun. This conversation wasn’tgoing to end well. He could tell.
“And you Horace, a small, cheap private eye. Too much greed and too little sense. You took advantage of me, frightened me and then stole all that money.”
Frema quickly reversed the bottle and like a pro brought it down on Horace’s head. Once, twice and a third time.
“They won’t find the money. And they certainly won’t find the body.” She said her gaze going to the full size carved wooden llama.
@DayAlMohamed
“Grab me a beer, will you?”
“You’ve already had three this afternoon, Moe. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“It’s a hot day. You sweat it all out when it’s hot.”
“Your speech is already slurred. You don’t need any more beer.”
“Don’t tell me what I need. I’ll get it myself.”
“Now look what you’ve done!”
“Sorry.”
“That was my favorite vase! You can clean it up.”
“It’s just a vase.”
“You know, Moe, I think that you’re going to have to make a decision: beer or me.
“Well?”
Phup. “I choose beer.”
I know this is later than you specified, but I was religiously refreshing your page from 12:30 to 12:55 every two minutes, and only after I went to Twitter and clicked the link there did I get the prompt. So, if you could hold the door open for long enough, please consider the above.
Alas too late I think, but thought I’d post anyway. – @DayAlMohamed
Grab me a beer, will you?”
Frema glanced around the tiny office. Broken desks, peeling wallpaper, dim lighting, fast-food wrappers strewn about and more dirt than she cared to think about…but no beer in sight, “Umm,…”
“In the Llama,” Horace grunted, his pudgy fingers clicking away at the computer in front of him. The lighting on the screen giving his already pale skin an unhealthy glow.
In an unkempt suit with his tie askew and battered fedora he looked like a hero of some dime-store noir novel. Of course, that would make her the classy dame that leads him into trouble and then betrays him, Frema thought sourly as she poked gingerly at the lifesized wooden statue of a llama that had a ratty feather boa around its neck. Of course, that wasn’t far from the truth.
She winced as one of her long red nails split on a seam. Then there was a click and the entire side of the creature opened up. Inside were several bottles. She pulled one out, “Really?”
“Was a gift from a past client.”
Frema opened it and set it on the desk where a series of ring-shaped stains showed where many beers before had sat. She leaned over Horace eyeing the screen, “Did you find it?”
“Yeah. And more.” He paused, taking his eyes from the screen and for the first time looking at her, “But that’s what you wanted, right? Access to the firm’s account.”
Frema smiled and picking up the bottle took a long swig, “I ain’t takin’ the fall for ‘ole Charlie’s embezzling.” Her polished accent had competely disappeaed, “But you see, I don’t like bein’ poor.”
Horace glanced towards his drawer where he kept his gun. This conversation wasn’tgoing to end well. He could tell.
“And you Horace, a small, cheap private eye. Too much greed and too little sense. You took advantage of me, frightened me and then stole all that money.”
Frema quickly reversed the bottle and like a pro brought it down on Horace’s head. Once, twice and a third time.
“They won’t find the money. And they certainly won’t find the body.” She said her gaze going to the full size carved wooden llama.