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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 9, 2011 23:32:06 GMT 1
All right, they eat horses (don't they). I am sold xD
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 11, 2011 5:20:17 GMT 1
The basis for this story idea came from one of my many nightmares. It might be usable for a short story, but it will likely be a festering pile of horse shit like everything else I write.
Edit: I should probably point out that the "missing entries" prior to this were just nonfic.
10 June 2011
The Groundskeeper got me up early this morning. "Hey there, Tom," Julie said as she poked her head in the door. "You ready to go?"
I had been packed up for the last two weeks, and knew I was leaving months before that. It was late spring, after all. Time to move on. I looked at my backpack and my canteen over in the corner where the couch had been. The previous tenant had left it for me when I took over the apartment complex two years ago. I tried not to think too much about her. My former wife.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 11, 2011 5:30:42 GMT 1
11 June 2011
I handed Julie the keys and left everything else behind except for my gun. I wasn't sure why. Habit, maybe. I certainly wouldn't be needing it for much longer though. I didn't look her in the eye when I shrugged and moved towards the door. "That's it?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "That's all you're bringing?"
"Leave it for the next lucky bastard," I said as I fumbled with my ID. "Who knows, they might be able to keep the job longer than me."
She shook her head sadly. "They wouldn't do a better job than you."
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 13, 2011 2:37:54 GMT 1
12 June 2011
I didn't agree with what Julie said, mostly because I knew that being the Landlord of this place just meant you got more attention at feeding time. There weren't any so-called "perks" to go along with this job. You just made sure the other tenants followed the rules and stayed the hell indoors after sundown. At least, that's what I told myself that was all that the job involved. The ghost that stood in the corner of the stairwell that watched me walk past was little more than a shadow now, but she reminded me what I really did.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 16, 2011 20:37:55 GMT 1
15 June 2011
Julie and I set foot on the front step of the apartment building, and I looked out at the weeds poking through old concrete and burned out cars. The night before last, I had dreamed about snow and ice when I had been taken down past the Hunting Ground. I used to think it would be better to leave my post at that time of year, until I saw Marla leave hers over two years ago. Her face, frozen in a scream, stared out at passersby for three months until spring finally came back around. The stench lasted far longer.
16 June 2011
We turned left towards the town green without another sound. Those who were being Evicted were to do all of their talking behind closed doors before being escorted from their buildings. People used to line up and watch the procession, but now they hid their kids and themselves away on Moving Day. Better for the younger ones not to see or to know, they would tell themselves, but there was always one kid or two who always seemed to know, to have it figured out better than the adults. Those were the ones who disappeared at night during hunting season.
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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 18, 2011 1:12:14 GMT 1
I love the 'ghost' bit on the entry for the 12th. That was a very vivid image, striking and nicely done.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 19, 2011 3:48:25 GMT 1
Thank you, Buch.
17 June 2011
I knew that we were being watched as we walked towards the old parking lot, then to the abandoned playground. Old swings and picnic benches had been torn down and reassembled to mark uneven rows of graves for our pets. The local officials told us that hastily burying or burning the bodies as soon as they died would be the best way to prevent the disease (and that was all they ever called it) from spreading. There were a lot of tears shed in those days. Some of those in the woods may have even joined us in our grief.
18 June 2011
I thought back to when I walked into those woods alone for the last time. The news outlets were all parading various experts around who all said the same thing: the disease wasn't affecting humans, just the animals. That was small consolation for people who thought of their animals as more than mere housepets like Marla and I. We had just buried our old dog Charlie when I set out on the old footpath near our apartment when I listened to the birds. Those that survived still chirped and squawked, yet there was something not quite right about the noises.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 20, 2011 2:43:30 GMT 1
19 June 2011
I had taken maybe fifty steps on the leaf-laden trail when I finally listened to the birdsong around me. The pitch of a crow changed as I walked closer. I thought it was merely annoyed at my presence, until saw what it was warning in a clearing to my right. In that moment, I began to understand why our pets were buried and so many wild animals seemed to have escaped unscathed. It would be years before I knew the full truth, but I knew enough to back up slowly and begin to imitate the crow's shouts: "'Ware! 'Ware!"
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 24, 2011 4:03:25 GMT 1
23 June 2011
I wonder how it is that somebody who does not shop for clothes more than once a year still has an entire closet full of clothes and shoes? They're almost like oversized lint bunnies that multiply and take over when you shut the lights off at night. I had to wrangle three bags' full of shoes and clothes to the local donation station this afternoon. There were a couple of dresses and shirts that I don't even remember owning, much less buying. Maybe it's a ploy of the Tribe of Lost Socks, replacing socks with old shirts and torn jeans.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 26, 2011 3:20:16 GMT 1
I have no idea what the hell the Shadow Foundry is. I heard a character say the first line in the entry for the 24th when I was making dinner and... here we are. I do wish that the Muse would give me a chance to figure out a backstory in more conventional locations- or at least show up when I have a pen and paper in hand.
24 June 2011
"Turn left at the Shadow Foundry," a voice hisses in my ear.
"The wha?" I want to ask, but I see a member of the city guard and have to pretend to be sober for a moment. I don't remember how I met the woman walking behind me. I don't even fully recall the message on the tavern wall that I read aloud that drew her immediate attention- something about "breathing earth, walk on water"? But she's shoving me onward around the main thoroughfares and over to the old Smithy Corner. I try to shrug off her guiding hand when
25 June 2011
I suddenly find myself in impenetrable darkness, and I find it difficult to breathe. I try to move my left leg, but it feels stuck. Frozen. I am losing my ability to think straight fast and just when I feel myself start to fall forward, the darkness recedes just enough to appear as thick smoke. My nose and lungs burn, as though I am breathing in sulfur. I fight my body's urge to inhale anything resembling normal air when I hear a loud slapping noise in my right ear. It takes me a moment before I realize that I landed
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 27, 2011 3:40:34 GMT 1
I don't normally write stories like this (leaving half-finished sentences), but that seems to be the only way that this story idea keeps moving.
26 June 2011
in another part of town with what feels like wet cobbestones. I'm too stunned to realize that this is impossible; it hasn't rained here in years. My hands feel as though they've been slapped, so it takes me a moment to pull my head off of the stone. I blink a few times until I stop seeing double and look around. There's no dust here, no encroaching red sand taking over the city. I don't understand. Where am I?
"Welcome, Tassaden, to your future." A cloaked figure emerges from behind a torn orange tent flap and approaches with a limp.
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 28, 2011 4:10:28 GMT 1
I'm sedated. listening to Pink Floyd and watching pictures of deep sea creatures float and shimmer across the screen. Hell even the board background is waving like ribbons left in the wind. I tried to follow the story of Tassaden, but I was distracted by the waves on the screen, lost my train of thought and then hit the limit way too fast.
"Sex is life's acceptance of the death penalty" Darwin supposedly wrote that. The distraction from the synesthesia means I lost track of the patterns I scramble and erase that were making sense moved to fast to relate. I guess I'm better served putting that over there.
27 June 2011 I am pulled to my feet and get a better look around me as my eyes adjusts to the dim light. There are several merchant tents around us, at least four of them, but they don't appear to be selling anything. "Who are you? How did I get here?" I try to get the words out, but the sight of this water takes my breath away.
"Do you not yet recognize your handiwork in the return of water to your people?" a frail man in a dingy yellow robe asked, a finger pointing to the metalwork I squinted at
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 28, 2011 22:48:24 GMT 1
I love when I can't remember what the $*%& I wrote the next day. I admit to having quite a bit of trepidation when I boot up the machine in the morning....
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Post by Battlechantress on Jun 29, 2011 3:32:33 GMT 1
Well son of a... it's a good thing that I put yesterday's entry here, since 100words ate what I had written there. Here's today's.
28 June 2011
None of what I see around me makes any sense. I am the son of a merchant with no mechanical skill, much less magical. I can't even claim to have seen any of this in my dreams. The pipes are plain metal, hinged in some places. I shake my head slowly. They must have me confused with somebody else. "It can't be..." I say slowly. "It can't be me."
"Oh, it is," the woman I met at the tavern says from behind. "You built this, all of it."
I think a future descendant must have done this. But when?
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Post by Battlechantress on Jul 1, 2011 0:47:31 GMT 1
Listening to Johnny Cash's "Ain't No Grave" along with revisiting the Clash's "London Calling" while thinking over personal stuff caused the final two entries for the month. The female character speaking is from a story idea I had last year entitled "The Glitch in My Mind" (which I am apparently working on again. Or trying to).
29 June 2011
"I have hours, days maybe, before I lose little control that I have left over my own body. I don't want to be inside my own head the day that I am no longer... whatever it was I used to be. Con-woman. Anarchist. A failed mother..." Her voice trailed off. So many failures. The only thing that she ever got right was bringing down the regime that helped make her what she was, and now the government that was taking over seemed even worse than its predecessor.
'What is success anyway?' she would have asked herself, but no time.
30 June 2011
Her middle knuckle throbbed as a reminder of her body's frailty. She tried not to think about what else was hurting. Maybe it was better this way, losing control once again to the program that was rebuilding in her circuitry. She could have sworn that she heard a snicker in the back of her mind then. The half- burned memory... all those people... pieces... the images sprinted across her optic nerves. Could she wake up a second time and live with those memories again, plus whatever new ones were created before that day?
She scowled. It had to end somehow.
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