The door opened with the lady on the other side. She wasn’t cute, but she had smiled at him when he slid his pack of spearmint gum across the counter to be rung up and paid for with a crumpled dollar. Gerald felt guilty for judging her looks, he’d been on the short end of that enough times to know better.

“Back for more gum?” It was the fourth time in two days he’d been in the store, and she had noticed him. A thrill in his gut rendered him unable to decide whether a fourth identical purchase would be worse than obviously changing his mind and picking some other random thing. He sheepishly handed over another dollar and added another pack of gum (wintergreen this time) to his pocket. “Have a good day!” she called after him. He couldn’t bring himself to turn and respond.

Namir was waiting for him around the corner. “Did she notice you?” He didn’t want to share that moment just yet, so Gerald just gave him the information he really wanted. “The bathroom is in the back, to the right as you face the beer fridge. In the hallway that leads to the back exit.” The two of them walked back toward the entrance.

The door opened and Namir was the first one through, shouting and swearing. She ducked behind the counter, more frightened of the sudden noise than his threats. Gerald stood frozen in the door. In an instant, Namir was behind the counter, emptying the cash register. Gerald backed out of the doorway and stood behind the pay phone. If she looked out from behind the counter, she wouldn’t be able to see him.

From that vantage point he had a clear view of the police car turning onto the street about two blocks away and driving toward the convenience store.

DK: It feels a little more clinical than some of the others; the buildup is there but it’s a little more distant, so I don’t find myself as immediately invested. But otherwise, it’s a strong situation and setup.

4 points out of 5

K: Ah, I like Gerald. He’s ripped straight from The Wire – this story doesn’t make it easy to understand whether you should be rooting for or against him. A convenience store robbery isn’t a great cliffhanger on its own, but with this added layer it becomes far more interesting.

4 points out of 5

I have never seen a single minute of The Wire, but to hear other descriptions of it, if my characters sound like they are coming out of that show, I must be doing something right.  Spooky mentioned the added layer of ambiguity about Gerald, but I thought I would point out one more layer that could easily be missed.  The door opens twice in the story, once to reveal the lady, and once to admit Namir (Namir is a common arab name, but also the Arabic word for ‘tiger’).  So when Gerald sees the police coming he has to decide who he’s going to help, the Lady or the Tiger.  A little homage from me to perhaps the definitive example of a cliffhanger short story.
(NOTE: to be clear, I’m not complaining that the judges missed something. They read the story as I wanted it.  I just toyed around with the little homage, and so wanted to have somewhere where it was pointed out)

As I take the office of President I am reminded of my grandmother. She didn’t realize it, but she was the one who set me on the path to this day. We were playing miniature golf in my basement in rural South Dakota where I grew up. I was about 8 or 9 at the time and I had built a makeshift course. It was my turn, and, for the third time, my shot failed to make it up the ramp and over the obstacle. “Jeez…” I started, and even as the words came out of my mouth I was thinking of earlier in the day when my cousin had gotten in trouble with my grandmother for taking the Lord’s name in vain. However, instead of letting that stop me, I forged ahead. “Jesus Christ!” I cursed, with the ball rolling back toward me off the ramp. My grandmother quickly gave me a sharp look and warned me to watch my mouth.

That was exactly what I was going for. I had realized in the moment between when I started my exclamation and when I had decided to follow through, that I could manipulate her into giving me the reaction that I wanted. Halfway between Jesus and Christ, I got a thrill that I didn’t recognize then, but that I realize now was the thrill of control. I’ve been seeking that out ever since. Now today, I have pulled off the manipulation of an entire country. You, the people, have no idea what you are in for, but let me tell you, that thrill of control? The Presidential Oath gives a huge one, and it hasn’t worn off yet.

K: This actually felt like it was going somewhere much more shocking; I would have loved to see the candidate specifically say religious manipulation was his gimmick. The ending feels a little too obvious, but the setup was still presidential and fun.

3 points of 5

DK: Imagining this kid driven by such a singular, psychological purpose all the way to the highest office in the land is something I’m getting a good kick out of.

4 points of 5

I think there’s a good idea in this.  I don’t think that I got the best out of it though.  It was missing that extra wrinkle that make the best Survivor entries.  I really wanted to work in a reference to The Mule from Asimov’s Foundation series, and his ability to manipulate people’s emotions.  Maybe I should have included that, but I couldn’t work it in without a whole extra paragraph that would have been extraneous.

The screaming started just after 2 A.M. I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. I reached the living room to find Adam standing over a prone body, bloody baseball bat raised over his head ready for his next blow.

“Stop! What are you doing?”

Adam mumbled something about an intruder, but I was already on the floor, checking the eyes of the man on the floor. Seeing no twinkles, I checked his other vital signs. His dimples were no longer merry, and his droll little mouth lay slackly open, a trickle of blood staining the carpet.

“You killed Saint Nick.” I breathed. Adam dropped the bat and backed away in horror.

My first thought was for the children. I’m not sure if that makes me a monster or a candidate for mother of the year, but what were they going to do when Santa didn’t show? Sure, this year we could just plunder his bag of toys and they would be none the wiser, but what about next year?

“What happened here?” a new voice asked. I whipped around. I hadn’t even heard my mother-in-law come in. I explained the situation, concluding with my worries about the children. She was cold, calculating, and heartless as always. I’m not sure she even looked twice at the body on her carpet. “Here’s what we do. We become Santa. The kids will never know the difference, once they’re older, they will figure it out, but they’ll just assume it was one more lie that we told them, just like the puppy that got sent to the farm and all that.”

—-

The teenage department store employee gaped at me, rendered completely speechless. “And that,” I concluded, “is why you need to march yourself back into the storeroom and find me a Transformers Dark of the Moon Ultimate Optimus Prime.”

What is wrong with me?

K: Oh, Jeez, I was convinced I didn’t care about scoring this week, but you people are MAKING me care. This is about the fifth one that deserves the top spot, but I only have one five to give. It’s an unconventional choice, presented unconventionally, with shock humor that actually shocks and is well-written throughout leading to a punchline that’s hilarious and specific while remaining pitch black. Alright, you convinced me.

5 points on a forced curve (5 point max.)

DK: I laughed at this one a fair bit, too. I thought this idea was pretty clever and the author made it make a lot of sense.

4 points on a forced curve (5 point max.)

I almost overthought this one and spent way too much time on world-building and stuff that really didn’t matter.  Thank goodness for the word limit.

Harrison Bergeron Challenge

The problem with most stories is that one character always seems to have the upper hand.  The story you write in this challenge will attempt to rectify that.

Inspired by the handicaps of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic short story, every 250 words* the characters in your story must forget all the events that happened in that prior section.  The ending of the story can be expanded a bit beyond the 250-word section limit (within reason) and need not conclude with a forgetting (although it certainly may).  Events that occurred prior to the beginning of the story can be recalled after each forgetting (e.g., characters will remember their names).

The cause of the forgettings is up to the author, but the memory loss must be total and complete.  The overall word limit for your story is 2,500.* Of course, the longer the story, the more forgettings you have to include (two of them is the minimum requirement).

Scoring*:

Forced Curve – in order that no contestant feels inferior, the curve will consist of every submission (including any non-subs) getting a 1 from both judges.

*word limits and scoring method can be modified at the judges discretion.

K: I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that crack about the forced curve, so this is a pretty great idea. It’s only the first one, but it’ll be a tall order for three entries to beat this one.

Immunity!

DK: I like this idea a lot; I like challenges that leave a lot of room for creativity in the story with some limitations on how that story unfolds. It seems like the particular handicaps could create a lot of “Memento: The Short Story” results (I wonder if Memento was “inspired” by Harrison Bergeron at all…) but I think there’s a lot of room to work with anyway.

Once again, I used an existing story as my inspiration (in previous seasons it was Ray Bradbury or Clint Eastwood), this strategy seemed to pay off in previous seasons (two high scores in those two weeks), so I went back to the well one more time.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  That immunity will be used the next time our team votes someone out.

The desert behaves drunkenly, the sun acting as its liver as it dehydrates the dry climate, only the sun uses solar heat instead of alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes.

K: This doesn’t seem like a story opener, which actually doesn’t help; I’d rather detect a horrible story here than not detect one at all. I’m not sure what to hate about it, and the ridiculous turn in this sentence made me laugh in a good way.

1 point of 5 (forced curve)

DK: I don’t even know if there’s a story here at all, but I know I don’t want to read any more of it.

4 points of 5 (forced curve

At least one of the judges liked it (or didn’t like it).  I thought there were less hilarious entries this year than in previous years (my entry included).  Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, with my scores keeping me under the radar for a bit.  I’m guessing that won’t be the case, but you never know until you have to vote to eliminate someone, and our team hasn’t had to do that yet.

I should have known that’s what “Louie Louie” was about.

I never knew of Mr. Berry’s obsession with Duck Tales.

Winner! (2 of 2 judges picked it)

Well, that’s one way to survive a nuclear blast.

He’s taking his Kafka fanhood too far, isn’t he?

Winner! (1 of 2 judges picked it)

I guess that’s the one good thing about visiting a KKK complex.

We haven’t lost a basketball game there in 12 years!

Winner! (2 of 2 judges picked it)

Of the nineteen answers provided, the team picked three of mine (I got there a little late, but added a few good lines).  The team dominated, picking up 20 of a possible 38 points.  Another good challenge result for us.

A: You missed a call.
B: Are you kidding? Six weeks at this hospital, and I haven’t yet actually called a death. No one else is here, can I do it now?
A: Yeah. There’s no reason not to.
B: OK, time of death is 5:26 PM. Did the nurse ever find the next of kin?
A: No. She never did. Neither did I, for that matter.
B: That’s awful, Can you think of a worst place to die than alone in a hospital surrounded by strangers?
A: At the Fall Festival?
B: Is this about that homeless guy again? I told you before that he was dead when I got there. I bought you a nice dinner to thank you for your help. You understand what it would have looked like if I was found in that situation?
A: Yeah, that would have been a disaster.
B: So why do you keep needling me about this? You even got those ghouls in the morgue to mess with me at lunch yesterday, that prank was incredibly disgusting.
A: It wasn’t personal. They don’t see things the same way you do.
B: I still don’t like them.
A: You’re not the only one.
B: They are evil. You should stop hanging out with them.
A: Absolutely not.
B: Fine. then I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands.
A: So what are you going to do about it?
B: The same thing I did to that homeless guy. They have it coming.

K: This one is so…quick. Yes, it’s light on words, but it also just moves along nicely. This one, too, peaked a bit early, but had some nice gags along the way.

3 points out of 5

DK: Real talk time: I’m learning that one of my hangups as a judge is balancing my expectations and desire of where something is going to go against where it actually does go. I thought this was going to go in a more interesting direction than it did, and it’s hard not to mark it down because I didn’t agree with the choice made.

3 points out of 5

Others weaved an actual narrative instead of just creating a conversation.  I did not do that, and the scores are pretty much what the entry deserved.  A non-submitter decided the elimination, so our team remains complete after this.

Thomas felt that familiar foreboding that accompanied another missed ride. He pictured himself insubstantial, the gravel spit up by the tires of this truck passing straight through him without leaving a mark. If he acknowledged them, even these small impacts would be enough to fell him.
The driver’s eyes shifted between the dashboard clock and his side mirror that showed the unmoving hitcher receding behind him. In the time it took Roger to calculate just how far behind schedule he was, whatever strings had been holding the hitcher upright were snapped and he collapsed forward, splaying his ragged legs over the white line bordering the highway.

K: Some great touches here, like the strings holding the hitcher upright. This whole story has been a feast for a lover of language.

4 points out of 5

DK: Pretty powerful image of Thomas here for me. Sends the tension back upwards well.

4 points out of 5

Very satisfied with how this turned out.  Our team is crazy talented, so this was actually below the average score for the eight of us.  Plot-wise I had to give Roger a reason to turn around in future sections, and tone-wise I wanted to include in the descriptions of Thomas the ideas of being tethered and of being transparent or incorporeal.

The plot sprang from my initial idea that got bandied about and improved by the team, so I was happy to see that the overall story also got a 4 out of 5 from both judges, making our team the high scorer of the week (and also the only team that had everyone submit something).

I stopped to lean against this wall.
My wall.
Instantly, I felt trembling upon my touch.
My wall will fall.
I’m compelled to stay, lend my supportive hands.
My wall.
Breaking contact condemns it to destruction.
My wall will fall.
My hands bleed as the wall fights to come down.
My wall.
I let go.
My wall will fall.

K: This is high concept, and I’m sorry to say after a few reads it hasn’t given me that moment of A-HA yet. I get that the wall is actually weakened by our lead character, but I don’t know why. Are we in a bad relationship here? I’m going to be annoyed when I find out what I missed, I hope.

3 points out of 5

DK: I’m kind of teetering on the balance between 4 and 5 with this one; it doesn’t quite hit a perfect emotional response for me, but I want to generally reward out of the box/original thinking on these standard Spookymilk challenges that achieve as much success as this one does with a different approach.

5 points out of 5

I love this new judge! With regards to the entry iteslf, the poem-like repetitive structure was the interesting part to me.  I’m glad that neither judge thought it detracted from the story.  But what was it all about?  The original idea was about obsession, and how you can grab hold onto something and refuse to be distracted from it.  I couldn’t get the impact that I wanted out in 59 words though (also, there was no good ending to that – the narrator would just keep leaning on the wall).  So then the ending that works is what?  He has to let the wall fall, he doesn’t want to let go of this idea, doesn’t want it to fall down, but in the end it’s the only way to make it work. It kind of ended up being a story about itself.

So, there is about 100 words to explain a 59-word story.   Hopefully future entries won’t require proportional explanation.

Follow along, and I’ll ramble on about the new coach and the upcoming draft.

MIKE YEO IS YOUR NEW WILD HEAD COACH

I freely admit that almost all of my Wild news comes through Russo, so if you’ve read his thoughts on the hiring of Houston Aeros head coach Mike Yeo as the third head coach in Minnesota Wild franchise history, there may be some overlap here.  One thing that Russo really captured was my initial reaction to the announcement.  “Wow.  Really?” I thought.  I don’t follow the Aeros much, so I don’t have a good sense of what his strategic inclinations are (from all reports, he prefers a defensive style), but he took the Wild’s minor league team, which has never been particularly well-regarded talent-wise, and took them all the way to the Calder Cup finals.

So I read Russo’s breakdown, in which he points out how GM Chuck Fletcher has surprised people by choosing a coach that is, at least superficially, to his previous hire that lasted two years and garnered zero playoff seasons.  Both Richards and Yeo, at the time of their hiring, were young guys with no NHL head coaching experience.  They both came out of the Pittsburgh minor league system.  They are not the same coach, everyone points out that they have different styles, but those surface similarities are going to make for some easy pickings for the “Fletcher’s an idiot” crowd.

Then I read Wyshynski’s column on Puck Daddy, and looked at some of the other takes from various local columnists.  And I found myself liking the decision.  The Wild should get younger this year and next.  They probably aren’t a serious playoff contender next year (although it could happen).  I am not sure that any coaching hire, no matter their pedigree, would convince me that their prospects in the 2011-12 season just got better.  So, the Wild go with a guy who had success within their organization, with the players that will be (should be) a part of the team over the next couple of years.

Maybe it’s the thrill of the unknown, watching Ken Hitchcock grind out a 8th-10th place finish with a team that just isn’t talented enough to do better doesn’t excite me.  I think that’s because we know what Hitchcock (or MacTavish, or whoever) can do, and if that’s what they produce, well, there it is, that’s the ceiling for both the team and the coach.  I’m sure there are those who disagree that the same finish under Yeo will be more satisfying, more promising somehow.  I’m not even sure that I believe it at this point.  But that’s the closest I can come to expressing my feelings at this point, so it’ll have to do.

NHL DRAFT AT THE EXCEL CENTER

The draft is Friday, and I can’t tell you anything about any of the players that the Wild may pick.  For that there are lots and lots of mock drafts out there.

Almost all of them that I’ve seen have the Wild taking a wing or a center.  Hard to argue with that.  The Wild have a pretty deep blue line right now, with lots of younger guys who are ready to step in.  They have been short-handed at center forever (maybe it just seems that way), and they could always use more scoring everywhere in their organization.

Last year, the Wild took Mikael Granlund, the first player from Europe off the board, with the ninth pick.  Granlund has really impressed in the Finnish Elite League, playing against much older competition, and helping his team to the Elite League title last season, while averaging a point per game.  He probably won’t be in a Wild sweater this coming season, but whenever he comes over, it’s going to be really exciting.

The Wild pick tenth this year, and it’s going to be impossible for them to find anyone who will be able to contribute in the NHL immediately.  However, if they can find someone to complement Granlund (and 2nd round pick Jason Zucker, who won the WCHA Rookie of the Year playing for Denver) upon his arrival in a season or two, that would go a long way toward increasing optimism about this franchise.

The Wild do not have a second round pick (having traded it for Chuck Kobasew), but will have one pick in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th rounds.