Compound Fracture's Stories

Coming from left, right and center. [Cliche challenge]

2008-02-21T04:01:55Z

I was down in the dumps with time on my hands. It was hotter than the hinges on the doors to hell, and I’d just been given the third degree by my young man’s fancy.

It was a gas until she caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. I’d be dead as dead can be, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I exited stage right as she threw me an icy stare that could have frozen the balls off a brass monkey.

I was back at square one when a girl as pretty as pudding pie walked by with her high-beams on and let her hair down. Not to gild the lily like a silver tongued orator, but she made me grin like a possum. We got along like a house on fire. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

So there I am, as happy as a hog in slop when my ball and chain asks to get back in on the action. Well, two’s company and three’s a crowd, but I’m not as dumb as a sack of hammers. I like to act in haste and repent in leisure, so I was all over that like a fat kid on a Smartie.

Every man has his price.

Six Word Memoirs - WINNER (?)

2008-02-21T02:41:03Z

People are sending me notes wondering when I’m going to pick a winner. I was going to wait until the challenge fell off the front page, but it shows no sign of doing that any time soon.

I’ve read through these honestly trying to pick a winner. They’re amazing. I’m left thinking, “the winner is the person that takes the time to read through all of these”. It sounds corny, but anyone who has done just that must agree with me.

It really shows the power of six small words. There are examples of every writing style. Comedy, mystery, tragedy, romance…

I would be doing everyone a real disservice choosing one of them as a winner. The best I can do is offer one of my favorites:

The very first entry by Kimball Kinnison.

It encapsulated hope, despair, loss and growth. Those six words held volumes.

Don’t call it the winner, though. Do yourself a favour. Choose your own. Reading them all may seem a daunting task, but they’re only six words each.

And please keep submitting them! They reward writer and reader.

Fracture's Prequel Challenge [Winner]

2008-02-09T04:05:21Z

The challenge was to start with a picture for inspiration, but then only extend the Ficlet using prequels (no sequels).

http://ficlets.com/stories/19841

And the winner is:

Uselessness with “Death and Road Trips”

http://ficlets.com/stories/19864

I selected this story because it took us in a melancholy and thought-provoking direction while keeping to the spirit of Nouvelle Bardot’s excellent introduction.

Feel free to continue adding prequels to the Ficlet, of course.

Six Word Memoirs CHALLENGE

2008-02-08T16:28:43Z

Six-word-memoirs Challenge

37signals (http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/846-six-sells) is running a story about “six word memoirs”, and I thought it might make a good challenge.

RULES

1. Write a memoir (story about a significant event in your life, or something encompassing your entire life as a whole).

2. It must be exactly SIX WORDS LONG

3. If your memoir is under the minimum 64 character limit (good job!), hit return a few times then fill up to 64 characters with periods….......

EXAMPLE

“My niece dances, I grow younger.”

In an Instant [True Story Challenge]

2008-02-03T21:37:33Z

It is cold. Ice crystals hang in the air. The car heater struggles to keep the windows clear.

We are already late for our first class, and the turkey in front of us decides to stop for the flashing lights. The train is a good 45 seconds away, moron. If you hadn’t slowed down, we’d both have made it across with plenty of time to spare. I’m glad it wasn’t my turn to drive, or I’d be honking and swearing right now. It’s not like this crossing has barriers or anything.

Oh, wait. I know that turkey. He’s in some of my classes. We’re not friends, but we’ve exchanged pleasantries a few times. He seems like a nice enough guy.

Here comes the train, and it looks like a long one. It’s flying, though. Must be doing at least 70.

Slow motion. Frame by frame. Tunnel vision. The guy in the car ahead leans over for some reason. The coarse growl of tires on ice and gravel. The car leaps ahead. Train and car meet. No sound. Car is gone. Sparks hang in the air. Freeze frame.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

The Fifth Delivery [Fracture's Prequel Challenge]

2008-02-02T02:43:48Z

Everything seemed so surreal. He had to hold himself together. If only the lawyer didn’t drone on about Deb’s objection.

”...to you the wishes of the decedent and intend to insure those wishes are respected. Clause 7 of paragraph 4 clearly states the risk of forfeiture… I see that has your attention, Debbie. Allow me to continue.”

The lawyer took a breath.

“The location for the distribution of the fifth bag is to be an area she only refers to as ‘Picnic Hill’. Presumably one of…”

Picnic Hill. The room faded away, and he was seven years old. He had been given the task of carrying the bag of oranges up to the big tree. It was important. Never mind that the bag was half as high as he, but he refused the offer of help from mum.

He was nearly to the top of the hill when the bag flopped over. The oranges saw freedom and hopped and jumped through the grass and down the hill.

He felt tears coming, but then Granmum sent a laugh up the hill to hug him.

They played race the oranges every visit from then on…

Fracture's Prequel Challenge

2008-02-01T03:51:17Z

Buoyed by getting one of my Ficlets featured, I’ve decided to try and pose a simple Ficlet challenge:

The first person must write a Ficlet using the image attached to this one.

From that point onwards, each new Ficlet must be a PREQUEL . No sequels for this one!

Make Me Jump Into the Air

2008-01-31T02:40:10Z

“Sometimes,” Gregor mused, “all a guy needs is a little hope, right?”

“Sure,” replied Matti as he tapped the side of his glass in hopes of a refill.

“And friends. A little hope, and friends.” He added a couple of fingers to Matti’s glass.

“Absolutely,” agreed Matti, “particularly if several are female.”

Gregor added a little to his own glass and raised it in a toast. “To friends. Several of which need to be female.”

“It’s going to get harder and harder to find them here, you know,” said Matti.

“Hope, friends or girls?”

“All three,” laughed Matti. “So, have you convinced yourself yet?”

“Yeah. Before you arrived, really. I’ve been watching rockets leave all day. Did you really mean it? What you said about being a cook?”

Matti just smiled. “Let’s go line up. They stopped requiring tickets weeks ago.”

“I’m right behind you. Who knew they were going to take all the hope with them too.”

Interruptions (Daniel Gate)

2008-01-26T06:32:22Z

“You do deserve to know,” started Daniel, but was interrupted as a passing car swerved to a stop in front of them. The driver stepped out and pointed a gun at Lucas.

Daniel released his own seatbelt and slid to the floor as he pulled Lucas down to the seat. Through gritted teeth, he growled, “do not move.”

Daniel reached up and adjusted the rear-view mirror. A bullet pierced the windshield with a surprisingly quiet thunk and carved a gash along the back of his wrist.

“What the hell?!” yelled Lucas, as Daniel slammed the car in to reverse and floored the gas pedal with one hand. Looking at the mirror and steering with the other hand, he accelerated down the road. As soon as he saw a wide area, he pushed the brake, flipped the wheel and spun the car around.

“This would work better,” said Daniel as he climbed back up, “if we swapped seats”.

Without missing a beat, he slammed the car into drive and floored it again. A bullet burst the rear window as he made a hard right.

“What the hell?!” yelled Lucas.

Unsettled (Daniel Gate)

2008-01-19T06:57:35Z

“Damn!”, cursed Daniel under his breath. He wasn’t even sure he trusted Nobutoshi any more. He closed the locker and rested his forehead on its door. With a deep breath he decided he had no choice but to risk the truth.

“I was trying to leave unseen with the sword in my possession, Nobutoshi-san. It’s seems our opponent is a far better player than I. An important stone has been captured, and this is the only liberty that remains.”

Nobutoshi was silent for a time, causing Daniel to look up. He was simply standing there calmly, looking back. Finally, he spoke.

“Go is a complex game. The victor is often not clear until the last stone is placed,” then, as he turned and walked from the room, he added, “the sword was always yours to take.”

Riddles on top of riddles, but Daniel could not stop to ponder their significance. He opened the locker and took the case.

Walking back the way he came, he flipped open his phone.

“It’s all right, Lucas, come pick me up at the front door.”

Plotting (Daniel Gate)

2007-12-29T08:29:42Z

“Leave your phone on. Expect a message,” and with that, the caller was gone.

This was not as planned. The call was clearly from the Kokuryū-kai, but they should not know of him or his connection to the sword. How did they find him, and why did the Inagawa kai fail to claim responsibility? And Éponine! Damn. Éponine. They knew exactly where to strike.

There was a leak. There had to be. And close to the top. Who did that leave to trust?

He looked across the table at Lucas, who was busily freeing another slice of pizza from a web of mozzarella.

His phone beeped. The text message read simply “49.221,-68.154”. Co-ordinates.

“Lucas, you’ve got your pilot’s license. How well did you do with cartography?” he asked, as he held his phone up for him to see.

“Uh. That’d be… north east of here. Up near Rimouski someplace. What’s across the river from there?”

Daniel tried to picture the area. “Not much. Forestville? Baie-Comeau?”

“Mmm! That’d be the place. Why? Who the heck is sending you GPS coordinates?”

Sign Here (Daniel Gate)

2007-12-24T00:02:02Z

Daniel slid the box over his shoulder into a long pouch on his back and pulled a cinch-cord to hold it tight.

A pocket on his sleeve held a baseball-sized clump of putty. He pressed it onto the trunk latch and then pushed the trunk down. The sticky blob held it closed without having to slam it.

Éponine started retracting the ladder. He looked back to the truck. Nate held up two fingers with the back of his hand facing Daniel. Twenty seconds. Not enough time.

He unclipped the safety line, and worked his way back down the ladder. He was over the hood when the tunnel started getting brighter. Out of time. He made a jump for it and landed on top of Éponine.

Nate pulled a hard right the instant he cleared the tunnel, and drove down the steep embankment. They were being thrown around something awful. The truck bottomed out with a bang and shower of sparks as they roared onto the lower road.

“Someone here order a sword?” he asked.

Éponine had a huge smile on her face as she leaned in for a kiss.

Station Break

2007-12-13T05:05:12Z

Another damn commercial. Damn it. Pay-per-view was the answer, but the bitching he’d get from his skank-of-a-wife wouldn’t… what the hell.

The image on the screen froze, then distorted… stretched.

He blinked hard. Maybe his blood pressure again? He tried to calm down.

A bright flash! The image leapt from the TV screen and engulfed him.

Something… strange. He felt… different. Had he moved? What happened? He was standing in a different spot. He was suddenly much closer to the TV. The anger was building; it seemed odd. Alive. Consuming.

He was staggered. He could feel his mind slipping away.

A stroke?

He turn around and tried to step towards the stairs. He needed help. He needed… what was her name?

The rage was winning. He could feel it. But where was it coming from?

Then he saw it. A body on the floor. It almost didn’t register. He was looking himself… torn. Torn in half.

That can’t be me!

That was his last thought. The rage had won.

It was you. There are more to come.

Out on a Limb (Daniel Gate)

2007-12-04T23:08:10Z

With two days of intense planning a blur; Daniel was sitting in a contractor truck next to Éponine. Nate was at the wheel. They were behind the target car waiting to be let into a traffic tunnel undergoing some repairs.

”...it’s mud and water. Just keep moving and keep your wipers on,” they heard the flag man say before he waved them through with a splinted hand.

Part way in, near a scaffold, a torrent of thick mud coated the car like a chocolate fountain. The mud stopped abruptly as their truck approached.

Daniel crawled through the back window into the bed of the pickup. Éponine, beside him in seconds, started working with a winch. The ladder strapped to the roof began to telescope forward.

Daniel climbed up and clipped on. Within moments he was extended a good distance out in front of the truck. Nate eased him forward until he was rumbling along directly over the car trunk.

With the mud completely obscuring their rear window, the car occupants were oblivious to the acrobatics occurring behind them.

Daniel Gate Character Guide

2007-11-30T22:52:19Z

To help you follow along with the Daniel Gate series.
Story starts at – http://ficlets.com/stories/12620

MAIN CHARACTERS
Daniel Gate – To his friends: a bike messenger. Our hero.

Nobutoshi Tohru – Daniel’s ‘client’. A man with a mysterious past and ties to the Yakuza.

Hideki Inagawa – Head of the Inagawa Kai

SUB -CHARACTERS
Nate: the cab-driver.
Lucas: Daniel’s as-yet-unseen friend.
Éponine and Cosette: two beautiful girls working for Nobutoshi.

MAFIA
Yakuza – The “Japanese Mafia”

Kokuryū-kai – A Yakuza family (gang). Nobutoshi owes them his loyalty. Also known as “The Black Dragon Society”, or simply “The Dragons”.

Inagawa kai – A Yakuza family. In a feud with the Kokuryū-kai.

The Yakuza and the families are real. You can read about them on wikipedia.com!