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
* Today’s prompt: whatever you want
(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, Tauisha Nicole @shells2003 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.
There’s a small room. It’s a small house. Bigger than all the world.
I’ve always wanted to go there. I’ve lived there all my life. I’ve never been there.
I’ve never been alone but I know no one else. It’s dark and the brightness hurts my eyes.
I was before the founding of the universe. I don’t think I’ll ever be born.
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Aubry got used to having someone speaking in his mind after awhile. He found it comforting, it was like he was never alone now. Loki was happy to have someone that wasn’t going to be putting up a fight for control. This kid was ready and willing to be his scion. It was refreshing, and he was ready for some fun.
The kid did have a lot of questions, about the power, about how to use it. There were some hard lessons, but after a while Aubry was really getting the hang of things. And Loki could see how this was changing the boy, he was becoming stronger in will, he was losing the whole scared broken boy situation. This was going to be a melding that Loki hoped would last a long time.
One day after a long day of practicing his illusions, Aubry layed back in a big field of grass to catch his breath. He mused out loud because he knew he was alone.
“I can do all of these amazing things, but now what do I do?”
And with that one question Loki felt his heart race with excitment, because now he could lay the seed of chaos properly in the boy with one simple answer.
“Whatever you want.”
@adenpenn
Another shove sent me face down into the dirt. I was in serious trouble this time. I needed someone to help me out, but there didn’t seem to be any chance of salvation. These guys were going hurt me, badly.
Someone tore down my pants. “Let’s see how much he likes it!” one of the bigger boys shouted.
I thought I’d been fighting as hard as I could, but now I flailed wildly. They wouldn’t really do that, would they?
“What in the name of God is going on here!” An adult voice roared. “You get out of here before I get my phone out and send your picture to every one of your mothers!”
The boys ran, leaving me sobbing in the dirt. I hastily hiked up my jeans.
“There, there. They’re just jealous. Don’t know what they’re missing.” The man chuckled and helped me to my feet. “You’ll find out, though, won’t you?”
I looked up at the portly gentleman, grateful for his help. “Thank you.”
“I’m Jerry. You ever need a hand, you just let me know. We gays gotta stick together, right?”
“Right.”
@Kimmydonn
Kimberly Gould recently posted..The Word Count Podcast
“You’re all going to hell!” the old man yelled at them.
“What ever you want, Mr. Happy!” Johnathan called back as he tried not to spill the cocktail in his hand. He laughed as he stumbled along.
“Why do these guys have to show up everytime there is a parade?” Mary asked. “They are just so negative.”
“They just want to save your soul,” Billy offered. “That’s all.”
The old man and a couple others held signs saying that the world was going to end and that America’s tolerance for homosexuality and abortions had doomed her to damnation.
“What strikes me as odd is that none of these people ever seem to stop and wonder about that fact that they are obsessed with the same things they profess to condemn. I mean, who the hell talks about homosexuality more, the gay guy or the bizarre evangelical who says he wants to save your soul? You know?”
“Ha!,,” Mary said, “I think you have hit on something there.” She turned back towards the man holding the sign. “I’ll be sure to say a little prayer for you brother,” she called out.
For a split second the man paused in his yelling and his face contorted in horror as he looked at Mary. Just for a second. And then he was back to yelling, if possible, with more vigor.
“Burn in hell! All of you will burn in hell!”
@redshirt6
Whatever you want. That’s the issue. She walked over to the hotdog stand figuring this was a no-brainer. She stared at the vendor.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“What do you have?” she whispered, thinking there was the possibility he could satisfy some want inside her.
“I’ve got long dogs, skinny dogs, fat dogs, dogs with relish, relishing dogs, buns to satisfy the wheat eater, and buns to dabble in.”
What??? “Ummm, I’ll take a relishing dog.” She’d been wanting to relish something for a long time. Hopefully, this would do it.
“There’s one requirement for the relishing dog to be satisfying.”
“what’s that?”
“You must wait 20 minutes before you sense it at all, that’s touch, smell, see, hear, taste it. K?”
Heading over to the library with the bag containing the relishing dog, she wanted to peek. Hmmm. Wonder why there’s a 20-minute waiting period on a hotdog.
She took the elevator and found she needed to pull a book out of her bag to smell so she avoided smelling the relishing dog.
Back on her floor, she decided she had definitely found something she could want. The relishing dog begged for wanting. She did not disappoint.
After 20 minutes had passed and she was alone in her office, she peeled the bag open. Her nostrils were accosted by the fumes. When she looked in, all she could see were the napkins. She stuck her hand in. Hunh?
She wasn’t sure it was the kind of lunch she was used to but she did recognize her desire. At least that was something.
@dailybipolar
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Lemon stared out the windshield. The hazy sky beyond the glass streaked red, orange, and green across the horizon. Even now she thought her house might be just around the corner if she wished hard enough.
“Where to now?” Chelsea asked. The girl drew up her knees, resting her chin on top.
“Whatever you want.” It didn’t matter. No place was safe.
“Maybe Bloomsburg? The college dorms probably have some food left in them. If we look hard enough, there’s bound to be some booze someone left behind.”
The sign on route 11 announced the exit for the town in less than half a mile. Lemon glanced at the gas gauge. They were still good . . . for now. “Yeah, okay. But you know there’s a hoard that’s captured the downtown area, right?”
“I hadn’t heard.” Chelsea sighed. “Our radio died five months ago.”
Lemon had found the girl hiding in a grocery store, holed up in a walk-in freezer and surrounded by cases of Twinkies and Spam. It had taken four days to get the story out of her, and it hadn’t been pretty. The corpses of her brother and mother hadn’t been pretty, either, but that was a story for another day.
“We can still go . . . we just have to be prepared.”
Chelsea nodded and unfolded her body. Lemon kept her eyes on the road, but when she came to the bottom of the off-ramp, she stopped the car and rolled up the window. Her passenger handed her a netted helmet and clutched a smoker. She nodded again. “I’m ready.”
Lemon pursed her lips and eased the car forward. With each block, the buzzing grew louder. Honeycombs wedged into every crevice. Bees the size of mailboxes buffeted the car from every side.
“I really hate bees,” Lemon said through gritted teeth.
“They hate you, too,” Chelsea seethed, smacking Lemon with the smoker and rolling down her window.
@nicolewolverton
Nicole recently posted..Next in Line
Every damn night for three years, the conversation between Rodney and Elizabeth had unfolded in precisely the same way.
“What do you want to do tonight?”
“Whatever you want.”
“No, I want to know what you want to do.”
“Yeah, and I said … whatever you want.”
“You wanna just watch some tv?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
And the night would end with several hours of reality tv and crime drama before they would drag themselves to bed, both bored stiff.
Tonight, finally, Elizabeth was going to say something.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Rodney asked.
“Whatever you want,” Elizabeth replied.
“No, I want to know what you want to do.”
“You know what I really want to do? I want to throw this damn tv out the fucking window. Then I want to get in the car, fill it with junk food and Red Bull and drive all night long. I want to stop wherever we end up, get a new place with a garden littered with gnomes. I want to fill the house with books and paint and music and friends who don’t know when to leave and I want to remember what life is supposed to feel like. I don’t want to see a tv ever again. That’s what I want to do.”
“Hmm. Sounds interesting. How about tomorrow? That way we have time to quit our jobs in person. Tonight I’m tired and I really just want to watch tv. CSI?”
“Yeah, whatever. Sounds good,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She knew tomorrow would never come, but it felt good to get it out. Plus, at least now she had someplace to go in her head during the dreadful commercials.
@alanagarrigues
“Wait a second,” Andrea stared at the computer screen. “I’m confused.”
Her big brother, James, walked up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. The sound of him chomping on potato chips seemed even louder than before since he just shoved a fresh handful in his mouth.
“Why you confused?”
“Today’s prompt says, ‘whatever you want.’ Does this mean I have to start the story off with ‘whatever you want,’ or do I write about whatever I want?”
“Just whatever you want.”
“Just whatever you want?” Andrea’s blue eyes flashed back to the screen. “Where’s the word just?”
“Wherever you want it.”
“Now you see it?” Andrea seemed panicked. Spearing both hands through her chocolate colored hair, she exasperated, “This is too much! I’m confused!”
James rolled his eyes and filled his mouth with more chips. “Andrea! The prompt is letting you write about whatever you want. Why is this confusing?”
“Because, now the possibilities are endless!” Andrea looked up at her now annoyed brother. “If it’s anything I want, it’s anything, right? I could write about papa eating a burned pizza and complaining about it, or the time that you went skateboarding and totally fell when you saw that gorgeous girl, or about Jasmine who-”
“-Who’s Jasmine?”
“See what I mean?” Andrea stood and began to pace. “She could be anybody! She could be anywhere! She could be old, or young, or about to die, or just being born! Jasmine would be friggin anything I want! Why?”
“Because of the prompt?”
“Exactly!” her body quickly turned back to her brother. “James, the possibilities are too endless for me. Why, for the love of all that’s holy, are they telling me to write about anything I want?”
“That’s not what the prompt says.”
At James’ words, Andrea finally stopped walking. She tilted her head slightly to the left and asked, “What do you mean?”
“The prompt doesn’t say, ‘anything I want.’ It says, ‘anything YOU want.'”
She began to shake her head slightly. “I don’t follow.”
“So, you’re not writing for you, but rather someone else. That would be me,” James smiled. “And I don’t want you to write about anything, because you’re driving me crazy!”
Slamming her laptop shut and walking away with it, Andrea stood there confused.
“Don’t write about anything?” she frowned. “What does that even mean?”
Time’s up! See you at 2:00 with the finalists.
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And I posted on the picture instead of the phrase. #fail
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