The What Were Challenge Post by kailhofer » April 28, 2016, 10:29:25 AM This challenge was run by Eddie Sullivan The challenge was to write a story where the protagonist is a were creature. Example story: Getting a Webbed Foot in the Door By: Eddie Sullivan Nicholas stared up at the highest tower in the castle. He longed to live the good life so badly. Time after time he told himself someday he would find a way to live there. He was willing to do anything. “Hey boy! You daydreaming again?” His father caught him looking toward his future home when he should’ve been cleaning horseshite. “These stables ain’t gonna clean themselves layabout!” He began to push the shovel around in the muck so the old man would leave. That was the last straw, as soon as the bastard was out of sight he sprang into action. He had been stealing coin from his father’s inn patrons and the till for months. Nothing really noticeable, some here and some there. The result was quite a bit of money. He kept it hidden at the bottom of his shite cart which was always full. No one in their right mind was going dig around in a wheelbarrow of shite. He had no qualms about retrieving it, his life was shite. He looked like shite, smelled like shite, and no matter how well he washed even his food tasted a bit like shite. He stuck his hand down deep into the warm, soft turds till he felt the bag. Pushing down harder he grabbed on and immediately felt the weight of his loot. Venturing a look both ways to ensure no one was looking before he yanked his hand out, he quickly transferred it from wagon to the inside of his tunic. His hand transferred a fair amount of shite to the inside of his clothing too, again he didn’t care. It wasn’t like he could smell worse. It was time to see the witch. Nicholas ran out of the stable and down the street before he saw anyone. Eventually his father would notice him missing and would have every intention of beating him when he returned. Lucky for Nick, he had no intention of returning. He would take this loot to the witch and she’d find a way he could live in the castle. He would pay her to cast a spell that would have him eating at the same castle as the king and the princess that no one had laid eyes on since she was a small child. It was said around the city she was lovely, but she was also notoriously foolish. The king kept her at the castle so she wouldn’t get into trouble which he would then have to handle. It also kept her from foolishly bumping into boys her age and falling in love with the wrong kind. He arrived at the witches house after over an hour of walking after clearing the front gate just as they were closing it for the evening. The city guards men had warned him against going out alone, but didn’t really care all that much what happened to one young peasant who smelled like poop. There was no attempt to stop him, they just locked up behind him. He saw the hut in the clearing, it seemed to be made entirely of sticks which was odd giving it’s large size. He approached. “Oi! I need your help. I am willing to pay.” His voice was extremely loud in an attempt to hide the fear he felt at approaching a witch’s house after the sundown. A voice came from behind him. “Who you yelling at and why do you smell so badly of shite?” He jumped and momentarily smelled even worse of shite if at all possible. He turned quickly and there was a cute little old woman in a dress made of burlap sack cloth with a kerchief over her head. “Are you the witch?” He was expecting something a bit more scary. “Yeah, not that scary I know. Come inside and state your business so I can put these herbs and mushrooms away.” She said this as she hoisted a basket from her left arm onto her right to give it some relief from a heavy load. They went in and she sold him a potion which would give him the power to take on the spirit of the next animal he encountered that got its saliva on him. He was a bit concerned that he would need to get bit by an animal but that didn’t stop him from buying the potion from her with all his money and gulping it right down. He brought his concern up once he had chugged every drop. She assured him that once the animal shared it’s essence with him it would see him as kindred and leave him alone. She told him to leave her house and go to the right as there was a bear’s den and several wolves which frequented the crags in that direction. She felt he would not have much luck to the left as that only lead to a bog. He assured her that was just what he would do. He would become the wolf or even better the bear. He would lead the king’s army and marry his daughter. Unfortunately Nicholas didn’t know his left from his right. He went the wrong direction. Upon entering the swamp he lost his temper and tripped on an exposed root. Laying on the ground he opened his eyes to see a big ugly bull frog looking at him. “Go on get outta here you stupid....” The frog lunged ballistically and bit his tongue inside his mouth. They stayed locked in an embrace before Nick realized what this meant. The frog let go and was removed and thrown to the side. He ran back to the witch and told her of his misfortune hoping she’d help. “Well young man I think I have a plan, but you are going to have to wash the stink of shite off you and learn to walk and talk like a prince to pull it off. We have work to do. How you feel about being married?” The End Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer The What Were Challenge Post by kailhofer » April 28, 2016, 10:30:40 AM A Lesson in Good Manners By: Michele Dutcher The old lady in the red overcoat sat in the park, waiting to feed the squirrels that had gathered around her. Her face was partially hidden by a green and white knitted scarf that had been wrapped twice around her head and throat. The woman unzipped and then reached into a large cloth bag sitting on the bench beside her, bringing out a plastic bag full of peanuts, still in the shell. She smiled as she checked the bag – the nuts were unsalted because she would never feed those she loved salted anything, because it would be bad for their tender little hearts. She looked around at the mass of furry creatures looking at her by now, having come down from the trees to visit with her. From a distance the homeless man could see the red blotch of a woman surrounded by what seemed to be a hundred tiny piles of fur. As he came up behind her, he realized that the piles of fur were actually dozens of squirrels, all of them with their eyes riveted onto the old woman. As the dirty, scraggly, homeless man stepped in front of the old woman’s park bench she threw some unshelled peanuts onto the sidewalk, a few falling onto his ragged low-topped tennis shoes. “Hey, lady – watch out for where you’re throwing them things!” – he said, obviously insulted. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she said in a high squeaky old person voice, one he hated. “I didn’t see you standing there.” “Yeah, okay then. No harm done I guess,” said the young man, pretending to stomp the shells off his shoes. The man looked up and around, checking to be certain no one would be walking past for a while. Actually his timing was perfect because the meager winter sunlight was already fading, although it was only six o’clock. “Gimme a cigarette,” he ordered, sticking out his hand. She looked up at him. “Do you see me smoking?” she asked. “No. But I figured you had just finished smoking one. Do you have a smoke for me or not!” “I have never smoked and I never will. It’s a dirty, filthy habit, and if you can’t afford to pay for your own cigarettes, you certainly shouldn’t be smoking.” “Who do you think you’re talking to old woman?” he demanded. “I asked you nicely for a cigarette! You are so rude!” The old woman threw her pets another handful of shelled peanuts. “It’s rude to ask strangers to give you stuff,” she told the man without looking at him. “Now, if you don’t mind, my pets are hungry.” “Pets?” he said in a huff. “These squirrels aren’t your pets – they’re just pests, tree rats!” He swung his left foot back, trying to kick one of the squirrels around his feet, just missing it. “ If you have money enough to waste feeding them, you must have money enough to buy me a meal.” The old lady threw out another handful of peanuts to the army of squirrels surrounding the Central Park bench. She hadn’t brought many peanuts with her, certainly not enough for the mob of squirrels looking at her with hungry eyes. “Are you listening to me, old woman?” demanded the man, screaming down at her, his fists clenched. “You don’t have any cigarettes, you don’t have any money. What the hell are you good for? Someone should teach you a lesson in manners.” “Someone should teach YOU a lesson in manners,” she said firmly. The homeless man’s hands were almost on her now when she suddenly bent down, touching the backside of her ankle with her finger. Before she could sit up, half-a-dozen small creatures were on the man’s feet, biting his ankles. Before he could scream, four more of them had raced up the man’s muddy coat, their claws tearing at his throat before their tiny teeth tore open his neck. The old woman smiled as she began to get smaller and smaller, watching the man sink to his knees, as the tree rats swarmed over his filthy body until he, if seen from a distance in the darkness, might have appeared to be a giant squirrel himself, down on all fours, with a teeming coat of gray and red fur. By now the old woman would have been hard to differentiate from the other squirrels, but the old lady was now a red squirrel herself, racing to the most delicious part of the man’s body – his eyeballs - which had been left for her by her community of tree rats. After half an hour the old woman in the red cloth coat, the savior of the tree rats of Central Park, their redeemer, sat on the wooden bench again, smiling at her tiny friends. The woman was happy now, as the army of squirrels began to wander back to their nests, contentedly. Tomorrow she would be back, feeding a hundred squirrels with just one small bag of unsalted, shelled peanuts. The End Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer Re: FLASH FICTION INDEX 2: Dec. 2011 - ? Post by kailhofer » April 28, 2016, 10:31:30 AM Wish You Were Hare… By: Sergio Palumbo The other boys’ voice came from outside the bedroom window on his father’s farm. Initially, Howell turned over, as if he wanted the calls to be a dream, then a worried expression appeared on his face when he heard them again. He didn’t want it to happen, but he knew he had no other alternative today: the young boy had already refused to go along with them yesterday, and the day before that, pretending to be sick, but now he had to face them. Howell was 13-years-old, and he knew he had to follow them or his friends would say he didn’t want to help their town. Even worse – those might think he was afraid of jackrabbits, and would make fun of him… The Southern Plains where they lived had been devastated during 1930s, and America had faced its worst drought - people naming it the ‘Dust Bowl’. Many previous dust storms had menaced Plains states, and a massive one - 1800 miles wide - hit on May 11, 1934. The desperate local farmers didn’t know it was a consequence of over-plowing/over-grazing the terrain during the past years, but the wheat market collapsed and the storms turned daylight to darkness most of the times. Once the farms dried up, the land was defenseless against the winds that hit that part of the country. Then, as if they had just been unleashed - though they only came to find some food when most of the wild vegetation had been destroyed - the jackrabbits descended on the Plains, eating whatever meager crops were left. It was during that time that, to combat the hundreds of thousands leporids that did overrun the Dust Bowl states, some towns staged ‘rabbit drives’ in which farmers went hunting jackrabbits, beating them to death with their baseball bat. Desperate men will do desperate things… At first, young boys weren’t involved in the hunts, and they only followed their fathers to have some fun when those went out to kill the jackrabbits. Later, once such dust storms started killing hundreds of people, they eagerly started doing their duty as well. Actually, it was not that Howell was afraid of hares or jackrabbits, but in his heart he’d rather not kill them. Truth be told, he had once owned a young hare named Pipkin, when he was a child. His family had found that animal and he was raised beside their dogs and their cat. Then the dust storms had started, and his family had also begun finding dead chickens on the farm. His father thought it was bad luck to have a hare as a pet, as such an animal wasn’t meant to live that way, or so he thought. He wanted to get rid of the rabbit, but his grandmother had always said they shouldn’t upset the hare, that they’d better treat him with care, but his parents didn’t listen to her. She was part Native American, and his parents thought she put too much stock in old tales, including the Powhatan tradition that the leader of the gods was the Great Hare… Fact is that the killing of chickens on their farm was probably done by foxes, but the adults didn’t think so. Moreover, his older sister said she had seen Pipkin become wild while he was outside one night, and that experience had frightened her. Actually, his sister was always talking about improbable things, but at that moment their parents were eager to believe her. Probably the hare would have been killed the next day if, finally, his father hadn’t followed the last request of their old grandmother. “Do not harm Pipkin, just set him free…” she had said. So the man had let him go away, into the openness of the plains that stretched around their farm. It was true that, from that moment, no more chickens had been killed, but some dead foxes were found around their home… Howell had become very sad because his pet hare had gone. He loved the rabbit. That day, Howell met his friends and all of them went out hunting. The young blonde-haired boy was given a big stick, and soon they reached a place where their ‘rabbit drive’ of the day started. As one of the lads rounded up several leporids, the others surrounded them, so they could deathly beat them - when suddenly something happened! A lone hare appeared on a heap full of shrubs in the distance, and he started looking at the boys with hatred. Of course, no one would ever be scared of a common jack-rabbit, but such eyes and appearance were fierce and frightening, unbelievably. He started growing and growing, soon becoming much taller than a horse, a wild expression in his eyes, and the lads feared for their lives. Then, the creature happened to look at Howell’s face. It smelled the air, and then he stopped. ‘Pipkin, is that you?’ the boy thought, as he was sure he recognized his old hare. In a minute, the jackrabbits all moved towards the huge creature, as if he was their king. Then all the animals went away, never to be seen again. Howell was sure he had stumbled onto his lost Pipkin that day, and he was happy that his pet was still alive. He also supposed that the hare had stopped only when he had recognized him, thus sparing his friends from even worse consequences. Legend has it that such big were-creatures were the result of an animal being bitten by some kind of were-monster on the plains at night, which caused a monstrous transformation. The blonde-haired boy didn’t know if those tales were true, but he liked to think Pipkin would stay free in those lands forever. He also liked to believe that his hare would be watching their farm to make certain nothing bad ever happened to Howell and his family again, if they just let the jackrabbits live freely… The End Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer The What Were Challenge Post by kailhofer » April 28, 2016, 10:32:17 AM - Winner - Fishbowl By: JP Garner What am I doing here? I'm going about this all wrong. This approach would never work to gain her. But alas I am here, in her apartment, and I know that she will be returning from work soon. I should have just asked her out the night that I met her there. Instead, like an idiot, I followed her home to see where she lived, and have reduced myself to the lowness of stalker. To make matters even worse, now I have broken into her apartment. What did I expect to accomplish by coming here, best case scenario I get thrown out, but more likely I'm going to end up in jail. Oh no, I hear her coming up the stairs. Now more than ever I regret having come here. What drove me to this in the first place? I wish I could just shut my eyes and be back at home. Or better yet be back several days ago before this whole stupid obsession of mine began. Now I can hear her unlocking the door and I know that whatever I do has to be done in the next few seconds. I look around in desperation, and see nothing but an unfamiliar apartment. Then a fishless fishbowl catches my eye. Closing my eyes I pray harder than I ever have as I hear the latch from the door unlock. All of my focus leans itself towards the empty fishbowl. The color gold explodes in my mind as I find myself suddenly struggling to breathe. I feel as though I'm choking on water, then realize that in fact I am. But in a moment the water begins to go down easier and it seems that I am breathing it without discomfort. Finally, opening my eyes, I see the world as if through a curved piece of glass. Then it dawns on me that that is exactly what I am doing. I see the door close as though it were curving in space, but I hear nothing except for a muffled thud, nothing like the sound a door usually makes. The world seems to blur and contract with my every movement. I find that only if I remain very still can I get a clear picture of what is happening on the other side of the glass. Despite the difficulty with my vision, swimming does feel quite comfortable, a great contrast to the severe nervousness and panic I had experienced just moments before. The water around me pulses with vibrations. I am getting the sense that she is now headed in my direction. Her figure waves and undulates through the apparently thick air, and only by her footsteps am I really able to tell that she is coming straight for the fishbowl. Her hand dips into the water and the refraction scares me half to death. The displacement of the water causes me to surge in the opposite direction than I am trying to swim. In the next moment I feel myself freed from the water and suffocating once again, this time in the confines of her hand. It was difficult to make out her words, as I was focused on gasping for the air that I would not receive. Though I believe that I made out at least one of her sentences. "Well, well, Sampson, it looks like we do have a feeder fish left after all, you won't have to wait until tomorrow for a snack." Only then did the gravity of my mistake sink in, for I had failed to notice the tank on the other side of the room, the one containing a turtle. The End