In the comments, use the 10 random words below to create a cohesive, creative short story tying all the words together. And remember: after you finish, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words (if you’ve missed some challenges, go back and try those too).
- If I could turn back time
- Slaughter
- Residue
- Lunacy
- Tyrant
- Luxury
- Foreigner
- Cocaine
- Broken
- Sniper
NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks.
{ 97 comments… read them below or add one }
“If I could turn back time…” James’ falsetto rendition of Cher’s song crackled over the tiny microphone in her ear.
“That’s not really an appropriate anthem for a sniper slaughter,” Kelly hissed, trying not to move her lips. “And be quiet. Someone’ll hear you and they’ll think I’m some poor foreigner struggling with lunacy.”
“It’s a luxury liner,” James’ voice came back to her, thankfully speaking more quietly. “They won’t care. You spot him yet?”
“No.” She’d stepped on the cruise hours ago and as soon as the passengers were allowed to do so, had begun wandering the deck looking for the hit. “You’d think a tyrant like him would be easier to spot.”
“Just follow the cocaine breadcrumbs, baby,” James shot back. He was in position high up where no one could see him and he could quickly move to get a shot in. The rifle in his hands was built for that kind of long-distance precision. “Sniff the wind for the residue.”
Kelly rolled her eyes again. “I’m beginning to wonder if you’re the one that’s been sniffing too much residue lately.” She knew James was just relaxed and enjoying himself, though. “Hang on, I think I… There.” The hit was standing at the bar, laughing, head thrown back while women clung to his rich, fat paunch.
And then she realized the microphone had gone silent. “James? Jamie?” Kelly lifted a hand and tried to tap the bud without anyone noticing where it was clipped to her collar.
But there was no answer. The connection was broken.
Dammit James! So, I’m on the edge of my chair. I have to wait till Thursday?
As always. Great storytelling.
If I could turn back time, I’d do so with a slap to its face, followed by a kick to its ass.
It’s the least I could do as a lamb in its slaughter, its resudue creating lunacy in me on countless occasions.
What better thing to do to a tyrant who twirls around the luxury of our fates on its slippery finger, creating confused souls who look back on their lives like foreigners uncertain of the language.
We take its crazy cocaine because we have no choice.
Its clock is never broken, but like a sniper, it picks us off at random, wounding most, eventually stoping the clocks of us all.
Yet, through it all, I love every second of it. As we say on my block, “It’s all good.”
“““““
Yes!!!!! I finally did a challenge with the words in order!!!! It’s a trip. Give it a try.
Well done, Shane!
Thanks Loran.
I’d like to see you work in “I’ve crossed many rivers” into this one!
I just realized that I butchered like 5 instances of “it’s” Damn! All fixed now.
Shane! That’s great. I just read it for the second time and now see how deep it is. Good write
awesome!!
Holy Guacamole! Tonight’s lineup at the “out of time, not out of tune” karaoke competition has had me wishing I had a side order of earplugs with my mojitos. I will never understand the lunacy that posseses some of these wannabee rockstars. So far tonight we’ve had to listen to “If I could turn back time”, screeched out by an androgynous, anorexic creature in torn black fishnets and a lacy bustier with the shadow of….chest hair?.
Some tyrant in the back of the room, with a few too many in him kept shouting “do it, baby!!” The residue of cigar smoke and cheap perfume lingered in the air like a malodorous rain cloud. Next, the little foreigner with the bad suit and the rag-head tried to do a “Foreigner” song, but was now trying to do a rendition of Eric Clapton”s “cocaine”and was managing to slaughter it with every note. I think I’m about ready to run for the door. The throbbing pain in my head feels as though my brain has been assassinated by a musical sniper.
Right before I decide to call it a day a shy girl, pushed up on stage by giggling girlfriends, opens her mouth and begins to sing a melodious, haunting love song. What is she doing here? This girl does not belong in this dive, she belongs in the lounge of one of those luxury liner cruise ships. Somebody should tell her she could rake in the bucks. I’ll bet this one has left a string of broken hearts.
Well, until next week, I’ve had my fill of people watching and masochistic music appreciation.
Margaret, I never in a million years would have thought that someone would write about karaoke. What a fun read this was…and so true.
I think I was at that karaoke bar! What a great story… well done.
Together with the foreigner they left the Tyrant’s lunacy for the luxury of the fanciful hotel. When the stranger turned out to be the cocaine sniffing sniper bent on slaughter, she felt broken and he muttered “If I could turn back time…” The room reeked with a residue of evil; her gut ached as they once again scrambled for their lives.
Great write Ann. You know, for a while, I thought your characters could have been running from Jame’s assassins. As always, love the short gems.
Geeze, a creativechallenge collaboration?
hey, how do I get my pix to show up here?
That would be something!
Anne, go here: http://en.gravatar.com/
I love how you include words from the previous challenge – awesome!
Cecily was alternating between excitement and dread as she anticipated Sonya’s first visit to the penitentiary.
“If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t contribute to Joe’s slaughter,” started Cecily. ”The residue of my lunacy haunts me every day.”
“The tyrant of guilt is a luxury you can’t afford,” replied Sonya.
“I feel like a foreigner in my own skin.”
“I wanted to bring you cocaine for your broken heart.”
Cecily smiled wryly, “Just hire a sniper to take me out.”
“There are too many rivers to cross,” sighed Sonya.
YES!!!!! You worked it in! Outstanding.
Love these characters.
AND the words are in order no less!
I’m an idiot. I didn’t even see that. Even sweeter now!
Time to wake up and smell the coffee!
Coffee? You’re right. I didn’t get mine yet. Getting now.
Looking around at the trashed apartment, I sighed. The kitchen table held the residue of a cocaine user who frequently answered the call of the tyrant. The broken refuse of the matching chair littered the floor. Trash filled the can and overflowed onto the linoleum. I could see this had never qualified as a luxury residence.
If only I could turn back time, knowing then what I know now. I certainly would find some way to circumvent the lunacy that led the sniper across the street to commit this senseless slaughter. If only the foreigner had never walked through the door. If only…
Love it! More please!
Programming Note:
Going to doctors. Will check back later tonight or tomorrow morning. Just want you to know.
Good luck, Shane!
When I happened upon the sniper, she was a broken woman strung out on cocaine.
“If I could turn back time,” she told me, “I might not again answer the call of Shan Earth Ur.”
Looking back, I may have made the other choice as well. Surely, if I had resigned my thoughts to the confines of my day job, the senseless slaughter of dozens of innocent characters would have been forestalled and my mind would be absent the lunacy let loose there by the Tyrant.
But turning back time was not a luxury afforded me. I was destined evermore to wander this space, a foreigner in this strange land, killing for the sake of writing.
So I knelt next to the sniper. There were feint trances of beauty on her face, but Shan Earth Ur had all be sucked the ink from her veins.
I finished her quickly and swept her residue into the corner of my mind with the others.
Troy, welcome to the CCC. Glad you stopped by. Your story was quite unique. Love the story line you developed.
What is Shan Earth Ur? Is that a place you created before? Awesome stuff.
Okay, thanks to your tweet, I see it now. I’m a dunce!
If I could turn back time the slaughter, the lunacy, the broken residue of the cocaine addicted tyrant and former sniper that I am would never have been. Rather I would have enjoyed the luxury of a moneyed foreigner.
Cleve, you really packed that submission in huh! Great job.
If I could turn back time,
If I could find a way,
I’d take back those words that slaughtered you,
And you’d stay.
I don’t know why I did the things I did,
I’m a tyrant in the luxury of lunacy,
Pride’s like a sniper, it’s all broken inside,
Bags of cocaine are like foreigners,
They wound sometimes.
If I could turn back time,
If I could find find a way,
I’d take back those words that hurt you,
And you’d stay.
If I could reach the stars,
I’d give them all to you,
Then you’d love me, love me,
And all my residue.
If I could turn back time.
Thank you Jaced! This is beautiful!
Had me busting a gut with this one.
It was 6 in the morning, this morning, when I saw a Totally 80’s show on VH1. Cher was singing that song in her see through g-string. Yikes. I knew that had to be my first phrase today.
A timeless visual. Wasn’t that the era with the bagel boyfriend?
I do believe it was. I could be real wrong here, but I’m having a tiny suspicion I remember someone saying he was in the video.
The Homecoming
The lunacy of her dream left Katherine paralyzed. Her designer sofa was a welcomed luxury because the residue of the horrible dream lingered in her mind. “What the hell was that?” said Katherine. She managed to sit up but she felt as if her lower body was broken. Katherine managed to get up. She stretched and stretched until her muscles wouldn’t move anymore. Katherine decided to take a hot shower to wash away the foreigner who screamed at her.
Katherine made her way upstairs, undressed, put her robe on, and walked into her bathroom. She turned on the shower and waited as steam filled the bathroom. She disrobed and stepped into the shower. The hot water felt good against her skin and washed away the toxic energy that somehow made its way into Katherine’s life.
As the water continued to pour over Katherine, her mind began to drift. She thought about the corporate tyrant who was found dead in his home a few days ago. The slaughter took place during the middle of the night. According to news reports, traces of cocaine were found on the coffee table in the living room. The man was a former sniper in the National Guard and had an extensive gun collection in his home. The police are still investigating the murder.
Katherine’s mind began to wander again. She thought about her lover and how perfect they were together. They respected and supported each other. He was an artist by night and lawyer by day. It was an unusual combination because not many lawyers are artistically inclined. People were amazed at his painting ability. He painted abstracts and was often compared to Kandinsky and Matisse. Katherine missed him. “If I could turn back time,” said a voice. “What? Who’s there?” said Katherine. There was no response. Katherine hurried up and finished her shower.
She slipped into her robe and wrapped her hair in a towel. As she lifted her face towards the mirror she saw the following, “if I could turn back time.” Katherine screamed and ran out of the bathroom into her bedroom. She sat on the bed shaking and shivering. “Who are you? What do you want from me?” There was no response.
Ohh. that was good. I’d freak out if something was ever written on my mirror. Think about it. How freaky would that be!!!
love it! What a great visual – and I would be totally freaked out. Can’t wait for the rest
“If I could turn back time, the slaughter would never have happened.” The residue of his lunacy would never have addled his tyrant and luxury obsessed mind. The foreigner snorted his cocaine as he contemplated his broken life. The sniper thought to himself, “I’ve crossed many rivers, I have many crosses to bear.” as he lifted the Bible into his lap, knowing that he was years too late. Neither would ever find the peace they sought.
Cleve. You’re a machine, man. Great 2nd submission.
Stay tuned for the next segment of The Homecoming! Maybe I’ll incorporate the idea of the mirror into one of my short films…Hmm…
I awoke the next morning to bright sun. “If I could turn back time,” resounded in my drowsy thoughts. (Exactly what had I been dreaming about?) In the distance I heard the broken call of some unfamiliar bird species. This forsaken planet had few humanoid inhabitants, but it teemed with wildlife. I shook the residue of sleep out of my eyes and surveyed my surroundings. Today’s mission was to avoid slaughter by representatives of the tyrant government that lorded over the dwindling native population. I knew my family would consider this entire venture to be pure lunacy, but I was determined to succeed. (My family was one of those to whom luxury was addictive, rather like the next cocaine hit for an addict. Me, I was different, more of the outdoorsy adventurous type.) Though I was a foreigner to these neglected people, they had great need for the medicine in my pack.
I finished my morning routine of stretches, breakfast, and answering “nature’s call.” Shouldering my pack, I set off on my journey to the remote village that was my destination. I hiked quickly but steadily, pacing myself for the final leg of my dangerous mission.
“Zing! Thwap!” I dove off the trail and behind a large boulder. What was that, I wondered. Peeking out from behind my rocky shield, I glimpsed the sudden glint of sun on metal. A sniper! Those government goons would stop at nothing! I ducked back behind my rock, my mind churning. What to do now? Surely the sniper was not alone. Could it be a trap?
Karetha, I love this story. Made me think of that movie Medicine Man with Sean Connery for some reason. I’d love to see you carry this one on in the next challenge.
Maybe I will. This was a continuation from what I wrote for Challenge 15. It was fun!
Yeah, I remembered it because of the skinny-dipping part!
There I was, a vengeful father, prone in a sniper position with (Unbeknownst to me) a broken rifle, the cross hairs zeroed in on that whore of a cocaine kingpin. I swore on my son‘s dead body that I would kill this bastard foreigner.
I squeezed the trigger, expecting the bullet to shatter the patio door of the ill gained luxury condo and explode the brain of this soul peddling tyrant.
Instead, my expectations exploded, to say the least, when my rifle just clicked instead of firing. How could this happen?
I suddenly remembered the error of my inept preparedness and for a second, the lunacy of my state of mind.
When last I went hunting, I neglected to clean the sticky residue off the rifle from the deer I shot and slaughtered.
My mind cleared. Maybe, if I could turn back time, I could have done more things with my son, and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have turned to drugs.
Great, powerful write A. Hamilton. Gotta keep your rifles tyrant-clean.
Shane; I tried it with the challaenge words in reverse order. t’was fun
That’s awesome. I didn’t even notice that, but it’s a great development. I’m going to have to try that way, too. Thanks.
Peter couldn’t settle at home that afternoon, he was in one of his “If I could turn back time” kinda moods.
The salty residue at the bottom of his bag of peanuts stung a cut on his bottom lip as he poured it into his mouth.
At that exact moment Peter felt broken and helpless like a lamb to the slaughter. The lunacy of his actions last night were coming back to haunt him.
A cocaine binge with a foreigner who turned out to be a lady of the night, what had he been thinking?
The bill for the luxury hotel room was now on his credit card and that was another $350 he’d have to find from somewhere in the future.
A small part of Peter’s mind felt strangely liberated by what he’d done but there was a dominating evil tyrant poisoning the vast majority of his brain with guilt.
Peter wanted to escape for a while so he flicked through the movie channels and found Sniper with Tom Berenger and Billy Zane. He began to think about who he would shoot if he had a gun…
Enjoyed that one very much, Jamie. Thanks buddy.
From the Diary of a Revolutionary
If I could turn back time, the sniper would not have the luxury of using the cocaine residue after his slaughter of the tyrant, and the lunacy of the foreigner would still be broken, and our rightful ruler reinstated.
Drugs should not influence what needs to be done.
Nice short form here, Steve. I had to go back and count the words to see if you actually used them all. That’s a great thing, when someone weaves the words so tightly, and the piece reads so well, that you don’t think they could possibly have used all the words. As always, thanks.
Thanks Shane.
Was out of town, so didn’t do until this AM during break, so had to be short, quick and tight, as I only had 10 minutes to get it done. Didn’t want to wait until lunch like usual.
If I could turn back time, I might do something about the slaughter.
We could’ve handled the foreigner with a sniper instead of leaving the entire block broken and smothered in the residue of mid-day shoppers.
I wouldn’t change the big picture, though. I reveled in the luxury. I might’ve been mere muscle for a brainy cocaine tyrant, but the lunacy was thick and tasty.
I’m lovin’ your short form Carson. “Thick and tasty” indeed.
Good news from the doctor, Shane? I hope so! I think what keeps this challenge going is your thoughtful reply to every single entry.
I think it’s this: http://parathyroid.com/parathyroid-disease.htm but I have to get another round of blood tests because the first set of test tested everything bout PTH. This doesn’t rule out everything, as I may have other issues simultaneously, but this seems (to me and my own research) to be a prime possibility for some of my ailments.
I have to go Saturday and give more blood, so I’ll let you know when I do. Thank you kindly for asking.
Hopefully you can get it all figured out soon….and still have some blood left to spare.
Craig tried to blame his positive cocaine test on residue he’d picked up from his job counting bills. He’d heard cocaine commonly showed up on money, and he did spend his entire work day dealing with cash. He sat in the back room of the casino counting and recounting, packaging the bills into neat little packages. Some of those bills were bound to be dirty.
His tyrant of a boss stared down at him from her raised desk. Hey, hadn’t she just said yesterday that she suspected that foreigner was money laundering? Hadn’t she just told Craig to check the bills extra carefully to make sure they were legit.
She didn’t buy the money excuse. He was fired, and she was grinning, laughing almost as she fired him.
“If I could turn back time,” the Cher song came over the radio taunting him. If he could turn back time indeed. He wasn’t even sure how it had happened. He’d been hanging out in the casino after work, and some winner had bought everybody a round of drinks. There must have been something in his drink though, because he’d passed out. It was lunacy… who passes out from one drink.
When he woke up he was in a luxury hotel suite, surrounded by bodies. He was sleeping on a table, a piece of broken mirror next to him covered with traces of white powder he suspected were the cocaine found in his system. There were passed out people strewn all around him. It looked like the discard area of a slaughter house, except without all the blood.
He’d made his way home to clean up and get something to eat before heading to work that day, and that’s when she’d surprised them all with an unexpected drug test. It was in his contract, apparently… he hadn’t read it that carefully before signing. The tyrant had timed things perfectly… like a sniper, she only needed to strike once.
Dawn, that was quite an enjoyable read for me. I loved the few times I was in casinos, so I love me some casino related theme stories.
If I could turn back time, I would slaughter my many mistakes and smother the residue of all my previous indiscretion. I would laugh with lunacy, cackling like a tyrant, drunk on his ill gotten luxury. I’m no foreigner to folly, tis the cocaine of a broken man who is beating mistakes with a sniper’s precision. I cannot turn back time, so I know I must gaze ahead and keep moving forward.
Great write, Sean. Smother the residue….love that.
good one, Sean…was wondering what you were doing up at this hour and realized you must be three hours ahead where you are. hope the trip is going well. xoxo mom
Sean threw down the gauntlet by doing them in order. Here’s mine
If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher rattled through the speakers as the old beetle careened down the mountain road. The driver sang along, slaughtering the song, but there was no one else to hear. The residue of a beautiful morning still lingered as she rounded another curve. Her speed was lunacy on this tyrant of a road known as the Dragon’s Tail. Many people have lost limbs and lives on this stretch but she had the luxury of four wheels instead of two and so she was immune to accidents – or so she thought. Foreigner was next on her radio followed by Eric Clapton singing Cocaine. By this time, she was reaching the end of the road when the crack of broken rocks resounded like sniper fire and pounded the pavement right in front of her. Four wheels or two, no one would have survived that crash.
Kool Aid, that was fantastic. Truly entertaining.
Yeah Sean started off something cool. Then A. Hamilton went and did them in reverse order. Then (in CCC12 I believe), Cleve went and did them “1st word, last word, 2nd word, 2nd to last word, 3rd word, third to last word, etc, in that order.
It’s amazing how people have created challenges inside of these challenges.
I’m loving it all.
I just finished reading the other entries and saw several others put them in order – but I didn’t catch that A. Hamilton reversed them or Cleve’s pattern from before. I’ll have to go back and check it out.
This is definitely a creative bunch you have here
These creative entries are “Fleeting moments of life that pass us by, barely there and then gone; you miss them if you aren’t paying attention.”
I missed them, too. Good thing the CCC preserves these moments.
ha HA! Niiiiice
I’m going with alphabetical order next time.
You guys are awesome! I guess I’ll have to pick harder words from now on huh!
That should be fun!
Alphabetical order, 1st word/lastword – 2nd word, 2nd last…. damn, it’s fun keepin’ my little saga going, but to start doing them in an certain order….? That’s a challenge within a challenge. I wonder if Bayou Billy and his kin folk are up to it?
My hats off to all you folks who can do it. There’s some very creative stuff here.
~Kenn
My first shot at one of these…going to try doing them in order.
If I could turn back time, I’d like to slaughter the residue of my past. Living in complete lunacy with my father the tyrant. He always wanted to be in the lap of luxury as a foreigner in this country, which made me sick.
I submitted to addictive cocaine use, which left me a broken, reclusive wreck. I’m now looking to find a sniper who will help me end it all, as I don’t have the courage to do the job myself.
That’s great Eric. It’s tough enough to do these challenges, much less do them in order. Great submission.
You’re the 2nd Eric here.
The Saga of Bayou Billy….
So I’m sitting on the porch eating a big ol’ bowl a gumbo thinkin If I could turn back time, I woulda let them copper’s take my wife’s cousin’s brother’s sister’s second-cousin’s husband and throw’d him in jail. But the wife done put me in the hospital once already this week and I didn’t feel like listenin’ to anymore of her damn lunacy o’er the likes of him. I had enough trouble with them DEA, FBI, CIA and all them utter 3-letter groups poking their noses around the bayou cuz they know’d I gots some contraband growin’. Theys gettin’ mighty pissed too cuz they can’t find it. I don’t know what the big deal is, ain’t like I’m growin’ cocaine or nuttin’, it’s just a little harmless weed.
Well, harmless except for that time the little feller got into it and tried to slaughter a chicken. It was funny watching the little tyrant try to cut its head off with a dull kitchen knife. Dumb lil’ shit done went and throw’d his wheelchair at it and hit a gator right ‘tween the eyeballs cuz the gator done swallered up that chicken licky split. Now livin out in the bayou we ain’t gots the luxury of Kentucky Fried Chicken or none of them fancy gourmet foods; we gots to cook our own and we can’t afford to be feedin’ chickens to the gators so I throw’d the little feller at the gator to distract him long ’nuff to gets the chicken back. Lord a-mighty the wife done went bersek and grabbed that broken broom she hit me with the other day for speakin ill of her kin and she done broke it o’er my head again! I’m just thankful we ain’t got no carpets cuz she’d beat me to death with the vacuum.
Anyways, I had to go down there and pull the little feller outta the gator’s mouth but the gator done spit him out anyways. That gator already done took the little fellar’s legs the other day so I guess he didn’t like the taste of him no more – maybe that gator could still taste the residue of all the times that little feller done crapped his shorts. So I’m puttin’ the littler feller back in his wheel chair when I heard some foreigner comin’ through the woods trying to be as sneaky as a sniper in a Tom Berenger movie. I know’d right away he was a foreigner cuz a local woulda just used the road instead beating around the bush. So I says to myself, “Self,” and I recognized the voice right away cuz it sounded just like me, “Self,” I says, “I wonder if I should be hospitable and offer him a bowl a gumbo?” The wife makes some damn good gumbo so I asked that there foreigner if he would like to have some chicken instead.
He said he’d love to have some chicken so I throw’d him in the bayou and told him if he can get it outta that there gator, he can have all he chicken he wants.
Kenn, as far as comedy continuation submissions go, this is the funniest stuff going. Every time I read that first line, I feel like I’m seeing an old friend again. Bayou Billy is such a cool character. For 3 weeks he’s brightened my days. These 5 submissions are a blessing.
Thanks Shane. Glad you like it. Wasn’t sure if it even got submitted because the website kinda hung when I hit submit. I was coming back to try again and much to my surprise, it went through. Kewl
Yeah, I have to deal with the young-ins, so some times hangups have to stay that way until I return.
I’ve started about ten friends, who are not writers or contributors, reading Bayou Billy. I wonder how many hits this site gets?
Close to 8,000 page views so far in a month’s time. I expect this to exponentially increase. Shows us there are a lot of readers out there reading what everyone is posting. Very cool indeed.
Really? Kewl. So I know I have at least 10 readers plus you and Shane. Bayou Billy done hit the big time with more readers that his wife has teeth
Thanks for the plug and I’m glad folks are enjoying my stories, because I am having so much fun writing them. I know pretty soon Shane and the boys are going to come up with a list of words that will stump me, but so far so good
Thanks again,
Kenn
There’s no way to stump Bayou Billy. Even if I went with a list of words that related to busy city life, Billy would simply go on a road trip into the city with his kin. I could write outer space related words, and Billy would take his kin on one of them there newfangled shallow-space commercial flights. Nothing Billy can’t do or think of doing.
Thanks Shane…..
Geeze, no pressure or anything LOL
Kenn
I am about to submit my first-ever short story and first-ever creative challenge. I hope this follows the correct format and instructions. Please be gentle with me, I’m a newbie….thanks.
People often mistook me for Cher, especially after her hit “If I Could Turn Back Time” came out. Was it perhaps my long dark hair? Or my ability to slaughter any song I tried to sing?
The answer was never clear to me, leaving me to wallow in the residue of my own random thoughts. What kind of lunacy had prompted me to pursue a singing career? It must have been the result of all those voice lessons commandeered by a tyrant of a singing coach that led me down that path.
All along, what I had really wanted was the luxury associated with stardom. What I got was an ongoing struggle through endless auditions like a lost soul, a foreigner
addicted to the cocaine high that was the music industry. After years of rejection and failure, I found myself on the brink of despair, my broken spirit scattered across the landscape, riddled with the sniper fire of too many harsh judges. I realized at last that a singing career was not in my future.
Carolynn, that was super! You write well! No need to qualify your posts from now on. You have the writing chops for the CCC. Welcome aboard.
Just so you know, you can use the word in any order you please. The fact that you used them in order is even cooler. Just in the last 3 challenges or so, we’ve started to challenge ourselves to see if we could do it in order. People are actually doing them in reverse order, too. Now, I hope to see you in CCC20 so everyone can see your work.
Thank you (publicly), Shane…I really appreciate your encouragement.
You’re welcome. I get the sense that you don’t really know how good of a writer you are. That, or you’re like me and full of humble pie!
But, seriously, you write well and should continue to do so.
Walking along the river-walk, the lights over the district dancing like low stars, flickering and blinking the way my flashlight used to on the ceiling when I hid under the blankets to read books and eat cookies, the brighter and closer version of the diamonds in the night sky, both now reflected in hazy, formless, black water below.
As I reached the bridge and stopped to ponder the paint speckles and bits of trash on the churning canvas, I get her text, “We’re going to a party. Meet me.”
I stop and light a cigarette and watch the murky stars dancing on the wind down below, each roll, smooshing and stretching the glitter, creating in segments kaleidoscope like swirls. As the smoke burns my throat, I blow out a ring and watch it float into the night, growing larger and larger and dimmer and dimmer. How many hours have I sat in a cafe, watching smoke rings, throngs of passersby and prostitutes, walking cautiously or boldly through the doors of those types of hotels, going to meet their clients. One can set a clock by their arrival and departures. It was curious, one afternoon, to see a stunning and young red head enter one hotel at fifteen pass three, her hair and dress almost respectable, only it was three in the afternoon, hours before cocktails would be served. I noticed these things, my gaze fixed on Number 17 Rue du Lorile, like a sniper.
Less than 25 minutes later, she leaves through the yellow door, I had expected 35 minutes or even a good hour, even girls who are a tyrant about the clock in these matters, need a few minutes to right their clothes and smooth over their hair. The spell of the daydream behind my eyes had been broken. I had been imagining this girl, coming to my room, in that dress, and enjoying the luxury of pristine white sheets and the bubbles of a passable champagne, all the while the sun begins to tuck behind the velvet comforter, streaks of pink residue of a day truly lived or of time broken like sticks on the side of the road.
Boredom does breed a dependence and an appreciation of lunacy, even fantastically so.
She walks up the street and bleeds into the crowd at the corner, gone from my sight, her emerald green party dress, faded from my view, into a throng of black suits, dark jackets and clouds of exhaust.
Snow begins to fall, small compact flakes, like cocaine, wafting in the air, as a dealer cuts open a key, careless, in front of a buyer, as if to say, this stuff, this stuff is the best, and therefore I am willing to waste some to prove to you I am the man, let others come tomorrow, hungry for the white madness and lick it from the floor.
Her text beeps. It is an address. I feel like a foreigner in my own life tonight only it is my life and yet perhaps it isn’t, even now I am just not that sure, perhaps this is what the song meant, “this is not my beautiful house, not my beautiful wife.” For tonight, as the kaleidoscope moves and morphs like a slow-motion ballerina and the smoke rings widen and dance on the gentle breeze, I get the sense that this is my life, but the house is not beautiful and the woman I am about to meet is most assuredly not my beautiful wife.
As far as I can tell, I am walking into a slaughter, as I get closer to the house, near the river, a short walk from the bridge. The thought occurs to me as I knock on the door and it opens, if I could turn back time, I should go back to the bridge, spend the evening watching the glitter on the murky canvas, until the pack is empty and I am distressingly sober, but only half so.
Instead, just like the woman in the green dress, I enter through the open door, entering a party, the great unknown.
Elisa, you can write your you-know-what off. Great submission and welcome to the addiction we call the CCC.
I’m so glad you stopped by. Please complete CCC20 asap so the others can see you. Tomorrow morning we will post the words for CCC21, so if you can’t do 20, 21 will allow you to interact with the rest of the bunch.
Again, fantastic write. Loved it.
Trying to catch up on my CCC submissions (they are like sleep, I can never get enough but never seem to find enough time!) Please forgive the punctuation where it may be incorrect in this one as well as please forgive the length. It just felt right to tell it this way. (the length, not the punctuation lol)
“If I could turn back time…” My voice hitched in my throat, a painful lever threatening to release the flood dam of tears. If the tears break free now, they will never be controllable again. I can not afford the luxury of self-pity in the remaining two hours of my life. I am a broken woman but am determined to retain a small measure of self-respect.
“I didn’t plan for it to happen this way”, I continue. The prison chaplain gently lays his hand on my arm in comfort. After all, who the hell plans for the concert of life to build up in a staccato of pain and misery, only to end the finale with lethal injections of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The lunacy of it was, part of me is happy that it was going to end this way. Death row seems much simpler than suicide when push came to shove. The state does the work and then even takes care of clean-up. No mess, no fuss. Well, at least not for me anyway. And it was not like I can live and erase the residue of painful memories and guilt.
1 hour and 45 minutes. I had better cut to the chase. “Father, bless me for I have sinned,” yadda, yadda, yadda, I think, like he hasn’t heard this spiel before. Hell, I’m not even catholic but it seems like the right thing to say. “I have committed adultery and several murders.” Yes, it was a hell of a party that weekend in August.
Diamonds, dancing, swinger parties, booze and cocaine; it all seemed harmless enough in the beginning. It was a busy Friday night in the nightclub where I worked, when two well-dressed gentlemen came in and surveyed the crowd. They appeared new to the club and our boss Danny urged my girlfriend Ronnie and I to make them feel welcome. I slipped onto the stool next to the taller of the two and put my hand over his when he tried to pay for his drink. “It’s on the house. Newcomer’s special”, I winked, looking directly into his delicious brown eyes. He had a European look to him and when he responded, I couldn’t place his accent. “Are all the ladies here as beautiful as you… and all foreigners treated like royalty?”, he asked. As we danced, dined and drank, the evening settled into night with great speed. Normally the working girls don’t drink with the patrons, instead secreting non-alcoholic drinks while their partners became intoxicated.That night was an exception for some reason, perhaps it was the intense attraction I felt for the mysterious man. Even Ronnie appeared to be sightly tipsy as we agreed to accompany them onto their yacht for a midnight cruise. Neither of us expected what was ahead.
The good father leans forward in his chair in expectancy as I recant my tale of that night. I guess he hasn’t been told a good raunchy confession in awhile. I glance at the clock. 1 hour 30 minutes.
When the massive yacht powered out of the harbour that humid summer evening, the moon dipped in and out of the clouds casting an ominous glow over the water. There were 8 girls on the boat including Ronnie and I. Some were from our club,and some I recognized as working the corners in the west side. All of the men spoke with that mysterious foreign accent. The boat was absolutely marvellous; complete with jacuzzis, banquets of fine food, bubbling fountains of champagne, beds covered in extravagant duvets and silk sheets and even tables of coke displayed as artistic drawings. I had never even in my wildest dreams believed I would snort Mona Lisa’s smile. And the men, they were all built like greek gods, tanned to perfection and seeming intent on fulfilling our wildest desires… in the beginning.
When it all went horribly wrong, Ronnie and I were lounging on a king size four poster bed, stripped down to our underclothes and trying on a variety of gorgeous diamond jewellery. We never even thought to question who these people were or why we were there, we just concentrated on having the time of our lives. Ronnie held up an exquisite necklace of marquise cut diamonds to her neck. The man who had identified himself as James was behind her stroking her neck playfully and nibbling on her earlobes. The glitter of diamonds disguised the piano wire as he pulled it taut and she began to thrash. I fell backwards off the bed in shock, pulling the sheets down on top of me. The glint in the madman’s eyes told me that this was going to go from bad to worse in a very short time.
I began to scream but instantly the world went black as I was struck in the head from behind. When I regained consciousness, the scene before me was grim. All of the remaining girls including myself were bound by the wrists and lined against the far wall of a dimly lit room. A few were whimpering but most just looked dumbfounded. Ronnie’s body was tossed in the corner as if she were a piece of trash that someone just carelessly threw away. I shook my head trying to comprehend the situation. Men outside the room were yelling in that strange language, maybe it was Russian, I really didn’t know. The tall man I initially believed that I seduced, stood watch by the door. He was indifferently rolling a cigarette though his fingers and rattling ice-cubes in an amber glass.
I wiggled my fingers to see if someone made a neglectful mistake while tying up the unconscious woman. I had to repeatedly bite my tongue to force myself from sliding back into a state of unconsciousness. My head throbbed mercilessly and the edges of my peripheral vision were slightly fuzzy from what I was sure was a concussion. I was in luck, the rope had some slack and with some concentration and effort, I soon found myself freed from my constraints. Looking around but trying to remain inconspicuous, I spied my next bit of good fortune. My former suitor, Philip, had placed his revolver on the table behind him while he calmly drank his drink and blew smoke circles into the darkness of the night. His complacency was my advantage and I would have to pray that my luck held long enough to find out if his gun was loaded.
With a roll and one quick bound (all of those hours dancing on a pole paid out in a flexible and physically resilient body), I had secured the piece and instantly blew a hole between the careless guard’s eyes. I really don’t remember much after that, just the cacophony of gunfire and screaming. I really don’t think these men knew what hit them. I do remember killing the last surviving man of the crew however. He was the tyrant who slaughtered Ronnie before my eyes. I forced him to his knees, pistol-whipped him twice and forced the barrel of his own gun into his throat until he gagged. When he tried to maintain a composure of defiance, I shot him once in his own jewels. I let him live long enough to hear him scream in agony and then silenced him quickly. My head ached too much to enjoy it.
“If fate had played out differently, I may have sailed into heroic status that night for rescuing six innocent women but that’s not how it ended.” The priest nods in what seems to be understanding or maybe even compassion. The minute hand strikes half past the hour. One hour left, so I continue my story. I don’t know why I need to finish this but it becomes more necessary as the time ticks closer to the end. I push the plastic fork around my empty supper plate making comforting circles in the tartar sauce.
One careless word. If not for one careless word, the story could have ended there. We could have all gone on our merry way into therapy and day to day living except for that one damn statement. The Port Authority and the Coast Guard arrived at the same time, bathing the yacht in high beam lights and flooding it with our ‘rescue party’. They boarded the vessel in a flurry of organized chaos and surveyed the scene; a bloodbath of slaughtered men, Ronnie’s body which I had taken the time to cover in silk sheets, six scantily clad, sobbing women and me.
One of the men looked at the shaking women, turned to one of his partners and believing he was out of earshot, whispered “hookers.” I shot him point blank in the back of the head before I could even grasp the thought before the action. Bits of blood and brain rained down between the caviar and brie. I had taken out six of the rescuers before I was brought down by another blow to the back of the head. This time, I wasn’t felled by one of their men, but instead by one of the women who had regained sense enough to comprehend that things were horribly, horribly wrong. At the hearing, my lawyer tried to get me off with an insanity plea claiming PTSD. In the end though, I just plead guilty. I was tired. Tired, broken and living in my own personal hell.
“But where did you learn to kill like that?” the priest inquires. It was the first time he spoke in over two hours. Fifteen minutes left. A prison guard comes in to remove the dishes from my last meal, ignoring us. “Padré, when you grow up in the back woods with a bootlegging drunk of a father, you learn to become a sniper of sorts. My training began with small squirrels and rabbits to sustain myself when Pa would disappear for days.”, I explain, “Eventually, I just shot my father and moved to the city at the age of thirteen. If I was going to have to give myself to strange men, there was no way I was going to continue giving the greasy old bastard that sired me a cut of my earnings.”
I take a deep breath and rub my chest as the clock counts down the final minutes. Heartburn.
“Yes father, if I could turn back time… I would have ordered the chicken instead of the fish.”
Lisa, that was just great! The ending line was flat out bad-ass!
Another fine write. Thank you.
Brett watched the fog roll in to swallow Morro Rock. It was surreal to watch a nearly 600-foot volcanic plug disappear. It was time travel without the machine.
“If I could turn back time,” Brett thought, “I’d get there before the first slaughter.”
That’s how he thought of his last murder case – senseless slaughter. His heart still ached with the residue of hopelessness he felt as he raced against lunacy. Brett would never forget that last day, the day the killer died.
Sobbing like a child as he mistook Brett for the tyrant of his past, he huddled in a corner with his arm wrapped around his latest victim. Brett arrived too late to save her. Like the others, she would never know the simple luxury of a caring touch, the warmth of a San Diego ocean breeze.
He was no foreigner to the macabre, but this killer took it to another level. Her vacant stare of death silently told the story of a madman. Drained of life, they took no relief in the vanishing of the horrific scene. Brett almost envied her loss.
Brett could still hear her scream as he pounded up the stairs. His heart racing like a cocaine hit, he had broken down the door. But he was too late. Her severed hand still held the glass of red wine as blood and wine mixed in a trail of no direction.
“Don’t touch me. Do you hear me? Don’t touch me,” sobbed the hysterical cry of a killer, trapped in the past.
“She made me do it. They always make me do it. Why? Why”
With a shriek of madness, he charged. The bullet of the police sniper spun him around and there he fell – his hand touching one of another – accepting a last glass of wine.
@Cathy: YOU ARE ON FIRE!!!! Outstanding! Damn!
So I am like playing this computer game, yeah?, and I am like on level gazillion, right?, with mega slaughter behind me, yeah? and I am thinking to myself man this is pure luxury, I mean this is really sweet and all of a sudden this tyrant bossman comes along and says like what the and I am like you’ve broken my concentration man, and then I was got by a sniper that like came out of nowhere and before I know what’s happened I’ve been zapped by a sonic sonar gun so all that’s left of me is a pile of residue which is like mush, man, I mean real gross, and I am like back to Level zilch, and I am like if I could turn back time I’d have got a different job where the boss is like yeah, do what you like man, take cocaine for all I care, instead of this lunacy, and he is like I don’t even understand what you’re saying man and I am like I don’t need to listen to this so I plug my ear buds in and start listening to my favourite retro band, Foreigner. I don’t know what he said after that, only that he was like jumping up and down a lot, yeah? Anyway, how was YOUR day?
@Terry: That sounds like someone with lots of experience with our youth. Very accurate, funny write.