Audience Participation! You Know You Wanna.....

6/25/2014

So now that this has become a thing, it is my turn to host a prompt contest. The rules are as follows:

Rule No. 1: You don't talk about Fight Club.

Rule No. 2: Write an original story about the picture posted in this blog post. It is my picture, by the way. Isn't it pretty?

Rule No. 3: There is a 1500 word limit. Don't stress if you go outside the limit. Seriously. I've done two of these and have been well over the limit both times.

Rule No. 4: Post the stories in the comments.

Rule No. 5: The winner will get a handy dandy coffee mug filled with edible goodies and a super secret prize.

“Secret, secret! I gotta secret! Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.....domo domo....”

The deadline is August 11, so grab those pens! Okay, let's be honest, you are grabbing those computers.

p.s. how many of you are singing that song now? You are welcome.

6 Comments

Nicole

7/10/2014 03:46:48 pm

Cannon Love

He could not recall the day he was made. He could not recall the day he had been pulled out onto the battlefield. However, he could recall the day the battle began, in the sweltering heat, almost 150 years ago.
It was horrible.
First, a dirty semi-wet sponge would be used to clean his throat, though all it did was spread grime around. Next, a powder of some sort, along with a large heavy ball, would be shoved all the ways down his esophagus. Finally, a man with a stick on fire would come down by his behind, and BOOM! The ball would explode from his mouth, along with powder, ashes, and a most distinguishable smell. People would scream, the people behind him would bellow “Fire again!” and the process would start all over. He wished he could be anywhere else. He wished he could be anything else!
But that was before he met her.
Around the 12th time he spewed out one of those heavy balls, another cannon was pulled up beside him. He didn’t take much notice at first, until something shiny caught his attention. The morning sun’s rays were reflecting off of her smooth black surface, making the dust in the air around them seem to sparkle. She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. She didn’t mind the powder or smoke, she just kept throwing up those balls, as if that was what she was made to do.
She gave him hope. She gave him strength. He could do this. He could shoot balls faster and farther than she, and he could hit more targets!
The competition was on!
They spent the next couple of hours that day shooting and blasting, black smoke all over the place, surrounded by excited screams and shouts. The wonderful aroma of her gunpowder filled the air. He knew she was happy. She was having fun with him.
When the sun was almost at the highest point in the sky, the men who had been forcing them to work finally retreated. His love was dragged away from the battlefield. And he sat there. On the battlefield. Alone.
Though the physical torture had ended, he felt completely brokenhearted. Where did she go? By the end of the day, all that remained was wreckage and bodies.
Over time, the bodies were buried. The wreckage was cleaned up, and life returned to the field. He sat and waited, knowing that she was still out there. One day, he was going to find her again.
Years passed. He experienced the wetness of rain and the warmth of sunshine. He experienced horrible hurricanes and treacherous winters. His wheels began to rust with age, and thick weeds kept him implanted to the ground. How he longed to move!
As he sat helplessly, he learned that he enjoyed watching the humans that would pass him by. Some were old. They would walk around him from time to time, and then they would disappear, never to be seen again. Some were young. He watched them grow and turn into adults. Over time, they also disappeared, never to be seen again.
It puzzled him, but watching the humans was the only way he could put aside his despair.
Then one day, a human sprayed something on the weeds that had trapped him for so long. It was amazing how quickly those weeds died, and his wheels were free again!
He decided he was going to learn how to move on his own. He was going to find his love again. He just knew she was out there!
The following night, when there were no humans around, he wiggled himself and pushed his wheels gently. It was painful at first, but with practice he was able to move just a little bit off from his original spot. The next night he tried again, and he was able to move a little further. The night after that, he moved even further.
By the dawn of the next day, he could move completely on his own. Checking to make sure there were no humans around, he began to roll, searching for his one true love.
He started to grow hopeless that first day when he was unable to find her, and the presence of humans forced him to stop his search.
He tried again that night. Even though it was too dark to see, he wouldn’t give up.
The sun was creeping up in the sky as his squeaky wheels rolled to a stop by a cluster of trees. Maybe she really was gone, and his wait of 150 years had been worthless. He had no use. No one cared about an old cannon. He was very sad.
Then he saw something glittering in the distance. The early morning sun’s rays were reflecting off of a shiny black surface just up ahead. Not trying to get his hopes up, he rolled up the hill and saw a cannon, sitting all alone, watching the sunrise.
He rolled up next to the cannon. The cannon turned to face him. He could not believe it. It was her, at long last! She lifted up her neck and rolled over to him, resting her neck on his. It was the most glorious and magical feeling he had ever experienced in his life.
He finally found his one and only true love.
And together they lived the rest of their lives in pure cannon bliss.

Ash

7/10/2014 08:39:28 pm

Oh....my...gosh.....I want to go to the Battlefield and give every freaking cannon a hug right now.

Kate link

8/11/2014 12:20:26 pm

Sweat trickled down Jesse's back. His wool uniform clung to him - hot and heavy like a blanket. He could hear only a permanent buzz in his left ear these days. The right, though, the right heard signal drums, yelling, and the whining buzz of bullets.

He'd become so accustomed to the smell of gunpowder, blood, and sweat that he no longer noticed it. He could see his prize sitting unguarded at the top of the hill. It was bathed in the golden afternoon sunlight. He'd seen the men abandon her to pick up rifles and bayonets. They thought their cannon was silenced. They had no balls to feed her. Jesse knew different.

There was a ball nestled in a hallow. It shone dully in the setting sun. Jesse crawled up - the tall grass stung at his face and caught on the wool of his trousers. He hefted the small ball to his chest. It was smooth and lightly greasy. It was a welcome weight in his hands.

If he could just make it to the cannon, he could scatter the line of men on the field below. Maybe, he'd even catch an officer - knock him off his horse and to the ground below where he'd be in the middle of the mud and blood and sweat.

Jesse crested the hill and he could smell the oil on the metal of hte cannon. A cloud rolled over the sun.

Sweat trickled down Jesse's back. His wool uniform clung to him - hot and heavy like a blanket. He could hear only a permanent buzz in his left ear these days.

Jules link

8/11/2014 12:32:39 pm

"You can't sit there."
She didn't look at him. John didn't generally expect people to look at him. He wasn't there, and he hadn't been for...
The girl sitting on the cannon looked back over the golden fields, balanced on the barrel with her arms wrapped around her knees.
She'd been before. It had started more than a month ago, her showing up more days than not and haunting the top of the hill, sitting on the split-rail bench back against the trees or looking out over the field.
Today was the first day she'd sat on the cannon.
"I'm serious. Do you realize how old that is?"
She sighed, and shifted slightly.
He huffed. "And also you can't haunt here."
"This is yours?" she asked.
John walked around the uneven ground before the cannon, arms crossed over his immaculate gray uniform. Never mind what it'd looked like by the time he died, it was perfect now. "That. And also, I fail to see how you haunt something when you're not dead."
She blinked sadly. "I'm dead inside."
He glowered, turning away. "You are a horrendous liar."
"Wait." She laughed, jumping off the cannon. "I'm sorry. Don't go."
He thought about disappearing. He didn't talk to the tourists.
"What's your name?"
"John." He turned back to her. "My name is John. And yourself?"
"Mattie." She grinned exuberantly. "So when did you die John?"

Mike

8/11/2014 12:50:32 pm

James stood in the field that had soaked up the blood of Union and Confederate soldiers nearly 20 years prior. The broken cannon had been abandoned and the physical presence of it helped James recall the memories of his father.

"I'll be there for him enough for the both of us," he muttered to the cannon before returning home to his pregnant wife.

Tamela link

8/16/2014 07:30:13 pm

JUST UNDER THE WIRE FTW!

[DISCLAIMER: I didn't realize there was a canon in this picture until I'd already started writing the story... oooops. I just saw the peaceful field, the trees and the silhouette and thought to mysself, "Well, that's a cool place to bury a body..." and that's all I needed.

Also, spoiler: has no real point... or title. :)

In the end, they knew it would be just the two of them. Just Bobby and Jimmy—though they went by Robert and James now— standing in the field over the casket of their best childhood friend, Stevie, saying their words for no one and doing their last ‘favor’ for the first friend either of them had ever made.

He could have had a proper funeral, a military funeral. Hell, he could have had an American hero’s funeral, if Robert and James had fought for it. If anyone had fought for it.

The thing was, Stevie, though a vet, though a soldier who saved more lives than he took, though a recipient of more medals than his chest could carry, was also an incredibly horrific human being. Everyone who ever met him agreed, the man was an asshole.

Even James and Robert knew it. In fact, they knew it better than most. But, at 6 they didn’t care, at 12 they thought it was cool, and at 16 they’d gone too far, seen too much and they just hoped that when he unleashed his immense, visceral and increasingly hostile hi-jinks, he’d included them instead of targeting them. Then at 19, they both ran as far and as fast as they could. But it’s too late by then, they were bonded for life.

They were the only ones to send him off when he joined the Army and was shipped out and they were the only ones from their home town who actually knew him to be there when he came back a hero. The veteran groups, the high school’s ROTC, marching band and of course, the media were there, but Stevie’s parents, any old girlfriends, teammates from the school days stayed away.

Just as well, war had not improved Stevie’s personality, not given him a sense of morality or a sense of feelings for people who weren’t him. War did give him a reason though, an excuse. Just like his parent’s divorce and his father’s abandonment had been before. People could overlook that he was a piece of shit, for a time.

They didn’t know him before the war and would assume that he had been traumatized into being an asshole. It was the PTSD or the things he had seen, had endured and survived. James and Robert knew that wasn’t the case, so they used this time to sink back into the life they had while he was gone and let all the new people take their turn. Of course though, those other people didn’t last. The excuses only last so long and asshole can only be forgiven and looked passed so many times.

Unless you grew up with him and seen that sometimes, some small times he could be different, not kind really, not caring really, but he could get hurt, he could feel. This made their relationship with him special, that they knew this about him when no one else did, and that made it worth keeping. So they tolerated him and also, a bit, knew how to handle him.

Still, they kept their distance as much as possible. He’d call them from time to time, when he needed something, a favor, a ride, some money. When he got sick, he stopped calling, but they’d call him, they’d visit the VA hospital where he was getting treatments. Without telling him, they’d tried to get his parents, his teammates, even any of his surviving platoon members to come visit. The parents flat out refused, the teammates and people they all knew from school hmm and hawed until it was too late. Stevie’s platoon, the few they got in touch with, said they would, but they didn’t. No one did.

And then he died.

It was horrific. Weak and pathetic he clutched and grasped at them, not letting them go, not letting them run. They listened to his confessions like priests, listened to his fears and worries like therapists and tried to remind him of the life he had once like the childhood friends they were.

At least six times a day they would question why they were there, why they were putting up with his anger, his sorrow and watching him go through the pain, spitting vile hateful slurs at the both of them. What kept them there, besides the understanding that it was almost over, that they just had to endure these few days, weeks and then they’d be free of him, was that at least seven times a day they were reminded why all those years ago they had bonded with him to start.

“You… remember… that place… the one…” he gasped through the mask he wore to help him breath.

“Yeah, I know the place,” Jimmy said so that Stevie wouldn’t have to finish his pained talking. There was only one place, one place that they were all safe from their families, their enemies, all the things that brought

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Audience Participation! You Know You Wanna.....

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