Tag Archives: tropes

Power Prompts: Episode 5

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The challenge: write a short story in 20 minutes using the following:

Characters: Pretty little devil and Stephen King

Genre: Alternate history

Setting: A boxing ring

Trope: Devil in my ear

POV/tense: Third/present

And the result:

Underground

“You know you want to do this, don’t you, Stevie boy?” she says as she strolls among the tubes and flasks in the workshop.

He wipes the sweat from his eyes. He’s burning up like never before. It must be some kind of fever, he tells himself. “Come on, Carrie, don’t be like this.”

She reaches him and she dances her fingers along the back of his neck. “Like what?”

“Like trying to get me to do something that, I don’t know, maybe I’m not totally sure I want to do.”

Carrie stretches her long legs out and Stephen stares at them, wondering how someone could be so damned beautiful. She catches him looking and she smiles, red ruby lips, black hair parted in the middle that falls past her shoulder. “Yes you do. Now say it after me.” She arches her back. “Say it, Stevie. Yes. I. Do.”

He feels the flush of heat all around him and he says, “If hell was like this I don’t think I’d ever want to leave.”

Her eyes flash. “Then say it.”

“It wasn’t enough that I left my wife and kid for you? It wasn’t enough that I left my career for you.”

She laughs. “What career? A schoolteacher?”

He sputters. “No. I was gonna be a writer. A good one, too.”

She gets on the floor and crawls toward him. She stops at his feet and looks up. “You know you want this. You know this is what you were really called to do, don’t you, Stephen?”

He swallows hard. He wants to look away but he can’t. He’s never felt passion like he does with her. He knows he can’t give that up. He knows he’ll never surrender. He knows it’s worth whatever price he has to pay. “Yeah, I do. I know it all too well, baby.”

Carrie climbs onto his lap. She straddles him and wraps her arms around him. She smells like sweat and sugar. She smells wrong and dirty and amazing and inescapable. “Promise me you will,” she whispers in his ear.

“Yes,” he tells her. “Anything you want me to do, I’ll do it.”

After an hour of heaven on the floor of the workshop, Stephen King, the Weather Underground’s latest recruit, goes to the Las Vegas Convention center where Muhammad Ali fights Ron Lyle and he plants a bomb beside the ring. Thirty four people are killed in the blast. Including Ali. Including King.

Power Prompts: Episode 4

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We’re back for another round. The challenge: write a story in 20 minutes using the following prompts:

Characters: Heart surgeon and Astronaut

Setting: A wine cellar

Genre: Cozy mystery

Trope: A very cheap date

POV/tense: Third person future

And the result:

The Case of the Orange Feather

It will be Betty who first notices the safe. Open, with a single orange feather resting on the bottom.

“That wasn’t like that before,” she’ll tell Alex.

“What do you mean?”

“When you first brought me here, down here to this wine cellar, of all places…”

“Of all places, what do you mean by that?” Alex will say.

“A first date is supposed to be romantic. Dinner, candlelight. Not, mildew and hypothermia.”

He’ll slide up close to her and wrap an arm around her. “How could I ever impress the best heart surgeon in the county by dropping five Benjamins at a steakhouse. I know that a woman like you deserves better. So I figured I’d bring you to a wine cellar—I was on the space shuttle a decade ago with the guy who owns it—and we can explore a little.”

“Explore as crack open a bottle of something pricey?”

He’ll raise his hands in mock surrender. “Hold on now, these bottles go for a grand a pop. I don’t think so.”

She’ll grunt at him, deservedly so, but she won’t be ready to end the date, not quite yet. “What about the safe?”

“What about it?”

“I know for a fact it was locked when we came down here. Did your friend, this mysterious friend, come back in when you were leading me through one of the caverns here?”

Alex will scratch his chin. “No.” He’ll reach in the safe and pick up the feather. “Strange. My friend has a parrot back home. But I don’t think it had orange feathers. Or did it. Hey, do birds have orange feathers?”

“I don’t know.”

Suddenly the lights will turn off. Betty will yelp and Alex will reach for her hand in the dark. She’ll find it and grab it. Then he’ll whip out his phone and shine the flashlight, revealing nothing but dark rows of dusty wine bottles.

Behind them, a crash.

“What was that?”

“I…I don’t know,” Alex will say.

“If this is some kind of practical joke, or scheme to make you fall for me…I know about how adrenaline can affect people, and I’m telling you, I’m not falling for it.”

“This isn’t a game. Trust me.”

Together they’ll walk closer toward the sound of the noise. They’ll turn a corner and see on the floor a busted bottle of 1901 Pinot Noir, the red wine flowing in a rivulet until it reaches a man’s loafer, and attached to the loafer a leg, and a body. While Alex shines the light on the man Betty will reach down and with her trained hands she’ll determine that the man is indeed…

“Dead,” she’ll say.

“I’m guessing he was stealing this prized bottle when he bit it,” Alex will say.

Betty will raise her hand to her mouth. “Who could have done this?”

Alex will hear a rustling from above. He’ll shine his light up and spot the biggest parrot he’s ever seen, the proof of what the parrot did on its claws and beak.

“Guard parrot,” he’ll say. “Who would’ve seen that coming?”

Trope or Choke: Episode 10

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: Australia when it was a penal colony

Genre: True crime + middle grade

Trope: Up shit’s creek without a paddle

Characters: Conspiracy theorist + World’s most annoying superhero

POV: First/Future

The result:

One Last Cigarette

I’ll be on my way to the bodega for what I swear will be my last pack of cigarettes when I’ll hit a brick wall.

Literally.

All of a sudden in the middle of the sidewalk there’ll be this brick wall out of nowhere. What the actual fuck I’ll say to the guy next to me, this white-haired ponytailed dude with a potbelly and dandruff on his cardigan.

“This, my inquisitive friend, is evidence of the illuminati,” he’ll say as he runs his sausage fingers along the bricks.

“Aw, shucks,” a twerpy voice says. “Ain’t no illuminati. It was me.”

I’ll turn to see a kid, twelve max, in a silver cape.

“I am Turbo Boy. It was supposed to be a portal.”

“Listen, son,” the man will say. “I am Donovan Corduroy, foremost expert on conspiracies. “Perhaps you’ve read my wikipedia page.”

We’ll both shake our heads.

“No such things as superheroes. Only conspiracies not yet uncovered.”

“Listen mister, I’m a fourth-generation superhero,” the kid whines. “That’s what my mom said.”

“And where is this so-called mother?”

“Murdered. And I’m using my portal-making powers to catch her killer.”

“Shouldn’t you leave that to the police?”

“They’re useless.” He’ll lift up a blood-stained shirt. “This here’s the killer’s blood, and I intend on using it to create a portal to catch the son of a bitch.”

“Don’t swear,” Corduroy says.

“Piss poop fart butt dick ass!”

“How about you just unmanifest this wall? I need a Marlboro something bad.”

“Smoking’s bad for you mister.”

“I’ve never kidney-punched a superhero,” I’ll say.

Of course I wasn’t planning on punching a kid. But god I needed that nicotine. “Just pull a Gorbachev and tear down this wall.”

“No!” Corduroy will throw his body against it. “This is evidence. I must study it.”

Turbo boy smirks. “Step away from it, dork. I’ve got a murder to solve.”

The kid’ll shoot both arms out. The brick wall trembles like a mother rocking her baby, then like a drunk shaking a toddler.

And the wall will crumble like it’s Berlin 1989.

Then a blinding flash and a sound like an oncoming train. I’ll smell sulfur, which only makes me jones harder for a smoke.

Finally it’ll end.

And my feet’ll be soaked.

“What the heck.”

When I open my eyes it’s not night but light. Blue skies. Scrubby desert. And me ankle deep in a creek.

“What deception is this?” Corduroy will say. “Must be some kind of illuminati mind control. We’ve got to uncover their deception.”

Just then a man’ll ride up on a horse holding the longest rifle ever, aimed at me. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Are you the man who killed my mom?” Turbo Boy will say.

“No, but you,” he points to me, “fit the description of John Wesley Rotheram. The most wanted man in Australia. Escaped in the year of the lord 1804.”

“Time travel, you little bastard?” I’ll hiss. “And all I wanted was one last cigarette.”

Trope or Choke: Episode 8

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: A Saints game

Genre: Underwater exploration + English mystery

Trope: Overcoming a fear of flying

Characters: Brad Pitt’s stunt double + a character dying of cancer

POV: tense: 3rd/future

The result:

Hyperion

Buddy knows this: Gods still walk among men.

“Go deeper,” Brad will tell the captain. Truth is, Buddy hates spending time in this sub. Too tight and gray. Too thin, the steel against the cold sea. Could be worse. He could be flying. Even the thought knots his guts.

Five months earlier Brad got it in his head he could solve the mystery of the Hyperion, the gold-laden galleon the Spanish King sent Elizabeth as a peace offering, which vanished off the Cornwall coast.

“You’re the only one who gets me,” he’ll tell Buddy. Under the fluorescents Brad shines, otherworldly. Buddy doesn’t know what he does to “get” Brad, other than being there, being his body, the one whose taken his bruised and glistening blows ever since Fight Club. “They think I’m a fool,” he’ll say. “But not you.”

A month later Brad surrenders the Hyperion. The documentary won’t even make Sundance. He’ll stay in England. He says he likes the rain.

They’ll sit in a Manchester arena watching the Saints square off against the Bristol Wolves. Brad moves freely; no one imagines ever encountering Brad Pitt in public; their retinas never register him. Rather it’s Buddy who gets the “you know who you look like?” Sometimes Buddy hates his own false face. Brad will sip his lager. “I still think about her,” he’ll say. The galleon or some ex, Buddy asks. Brad doesn’t answer.

When the striker scores, the crowd will rise in a delirious fury. Brad remains languid. “Buddy’s a cool name,” he’ll say. “Bet you were one tough kid.”

“My name’s really Elliott.”

Brad’s eyebrows raise. “Elliott? Seriously?”

“You’re the one who started calling me Buddy.”

Brad will humpf. “Buddy’s better.”

Finally some brave mortal will break her own enchantment. “Are you him?” she’ll ask Brad. He’ll say no, of course not. She’ll deflate.

“Everyone wishes they were Brad Pitt,” Buddy will whisper.

“Me most of all.” Brad frowns. “Hey I was thinking of flying lessons. Like George.”

Clooney. Another aging god in the pantheon. “You know that’s my achilles.”

“You gotta get over that fear, man.”

Buddy will tell him, again, how his father died in a place crash when he was twelve. Twelve. What an awful year for children. “Oh yeah, right,” Brad says. “That’s a shame.” What exactly the shame is, Buddy will never know for sure.

“I always loved Kauai,” Brad will say. “George took me when he filmed the Descendants.”

The Saints will win. Afterwards, Brad snags a pack of smokes. “I never did this,” he’ll confess. “Not much, anyway. Didn’t seem to matter, though. Not in the end.”

Buddy will know. When you surrender your body to someone else, when you take their blows, you know. After the cancer finally claims Brad, Buddy will wonder what he ever truly got from this god. But he’ll take what he can. He’ll rise above his fear, climb into a helicopter and sprinkle what’s left of Brad onto the lush churning green of Kauai.

Trope or Choke: Episode 6

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: A deep freezer

Genre: Horror + ’90s redux

Trope: Wai-Fu (tiny girl who kicks ass)

Characters: Cleopatra + absent-minded professor

POV/tense: 3rd person/present tense

The result:

Mister Pointy Returns

It reads: Do not open.

Professer Wentworth purses her lips.

“What’s that awful odor, Stuart?”

Her assistant sighs. “You left yesterday’s salmon dinner on your desk.”

“It must’ve tasted atrocious,” she says. “Now, about this “do not open” situation. A deep freezer arrives from the estate of a murdered FBI agent. Dana Scully, right? With no other instructions. What do you suppose we should do?”

“Not open it.”

“You pathetic man. Where’s your curiosity?”

“I don’t want to end up being the cat.”

“Well it’s my laboratory,” she huffs. “I say open it.”

He sighs. “Fine. I’ll remove the padlock.”

He cuts the lock off and motions to the door. “Would you like to do the honors?”

She scoffs. “Grunt work? That’s why I have you.”

He tugs the handle. It refuses to give.

She snorts. “What a waste of testosterone.”

He gives it an angry yank. The door releases. Cold mist fills the room. Wentworth holds her nose. “It reeks worse than that blasted salmon.”

“It said do not open.”

She shoves Stuart aside. “Let the professional have a look.” She wipes frost from her bifocals and peers into the mist. “It appears to be two sarcophagi. There are name plates. Hard to read. This one reads B Summers. The other. C something. No other artifacts.”

An alarm sounds on her phone. Wentworth perks up. “I forgot. Tonight is Mister Fuzzykins birthday. We’ll pick this up in the morning.”

On the way out she trips on the freezer’s power cord, curses her clumsy shoe and dashes out the door.

The next morning Stuart notices the cord free of the outlet. As he plugs it in, Wentworth catches him on his knees.

“What now, boy?”

“It thawed out.”

“Providence indeed.” She orders Stuart to pry free the first sarcophagus. Inside is a woman, olive skin, long black hair. He opens the second. Another woman. Petite. Young.

“So this Scully collected women,” Wentworth says. “Odd.”

Stuart leans toward the first woman. “I think she moved.”

“Preposterous.” Wentworth shoves him away. The woman opens her eyes and parts her lips to reveal fangs, which rip the skin of Wentworth’s neck and lock onto an artery. Wentworth screams. Her blood splatters. The woman drains Wentworth and tosses her dead husk aside. “A bitter offering for Egypt’s Queen.” She eyes Stuart. “I trust you will taste better.”

Before he can move the second body sits up. “Bad girl, Cleopatra. Rude much? You’re barely awake and already killing people.”

Cleopatra turns. “The foul slayer.”

“I prefer Buffy. Hey cuddlemonkey,” she tells Stuart. “Throw me that broom-handle.” She catches and breaks it. “Hey, Cleo. Mister Pointy needs some love.”

Buffy roundhouses Cleopatra, pins her down and hovers the broomstick above Cleopatra’s heart. “This is for murdering my friends. And for baiting me to that lame FBI agent. And for getting me iced as a threat to the government.” She smirks. “Nah, I just like killing vamps.” She plunges Mister Pointy into Cleopatra, who turns to dust.

Image: (C) Ash Carli

Trope or Choke: Episode 4

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less following these guidelines:

Setting: In a sleazy casino

Genres: Noir + Paranormal romance

Trope: First alien contact

Characters: A space wizard + King Arthur

POV/tense: 2nd person/future tense

The result:

Merlin’s Delight

You’ll incarnate savagely, a murderous pain as your spirit merges with another discarded body.

You’ll taste burnt almonds. This body was poisoned. Targeted. Your latest incarnation may be brief. Briefer still if that infernal wizard finds you.

You’ll rise like Lazarus and think of her in a tumble of ancient melancholy. You’ve chased Guinivere for eons, your vengeful love tangled by the wizard’s curse. You’ll rub the death from your eyes and sense her near. You’ll assess your face. Not a king’s but it will do. Then you’ll peer into a sky of drifting stars. On a spacefaring craft yet again.

A knock pounds your door. You’ll open it to a lipstick blonde who eyes you suspiciously. “Octavio, hon, you’re looking fresh as a daisy.”

She’s not Guinivere. “I don’t wilt,” you’ll say.

“Apparently not.” She’ll hook your arm. “Come. Brando’s on roulette. You know what that means.”

She clacks her heels down the corridor, nodding at women who stream flirty laughter and men who shrink away.

“You’re armed?” she’ll ask.

Oh, Excalibur, gone so long. “No.”

She’ll bring you to a doorway framed by neon. Merlin’s Delight, it reads. The gall of him.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she’ll say.

“Soon enough, perhaps.”

You’ll pass a surly doorman and enter a room of gaming tables and preening bodies. In the midst of the clamor you’ll feel her essence throbbing in your chest. The blonde will plant a Judas kiss against your cheek. “You shouldn’t have done it.” Before you can ponder her meaning a man ratchets your arm behind your back.

“Brando, I assume,” you’ll say.

“Hard one to kill,” he’ll growl. “Care for a trip to the airlock?”

You’ll smirk. “Flirt.”

“Very funny. Now let’s go.”

This peasant won’t stop you. After a kick to his shin and a fist to his nose, a posse will subdue you both.

“Gentlemen, violence is forbidden in my establishment.”

“Apologies, Mister Wells,” Brando will say.

You’ll stare into familiar black eyes. “When will this game end, Merlin?”

“It’s only half begun.”

Your pounding heart becomes unbearable. “Where is she?”

“Impatience was always your Achilles, Arthur.”

“Mister Wells,” the blonde will say, “this has nothing to do with your operation.”

“He is my operation, child.”

“Don’t cross us,” she’ll say.

“Don’t you challenge me, girl. Your science pales next to my powers.”

The pull of Guinivere will become a fishhook in your flesh. You’ll scan the crowd. That sultry redhead? No. That ebony cocktail waitress? No. The lanky man slouched against the bar? No. Then you’ll spy a fluid form, skin like rusty sunset. A six-fingered hand sweeps tendrilled hair. You’ll gasp. You’ve never seen an alien. Its head turns your way. You lock onto silver eyes. It’s Guinivere! The only woman who ever mattered. You’ll ache for one more night with her, one just like that first in Salisbury among the bonfires.

As your fingertips graze her skin you’ll hear a pop. Pain will sear your chest. Then, blackness.

[Photo by Giancarlo Corti on Unsplash]

Trope or Choke: Episode 3

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less sticking to these guidelines…

Genre: Comedy + Historical

Setting: On Gilligan’s Island

Trope: Possessed by demons

Characters: A star ballerina + a wise old person

POV/tense: 2nd person/past tense

The result:

The Minnow Would Be Lost

The way you settled the Exorcist experiment. A miracle. Was the child selected to play Regan truly possessed? A lesser case worker would have silenced her. Not you. You held her and prayed until she believed the demons fled.

Recreating Mass Formation Psychosis is messy. But how else can we understand the madness of eras like 1780s France, 1930s Germany, 2020s America?

I almost nixed your application. You seemed fragile, but your stint with the Bolshoi turned you to steel, strong enough to master our worst experiment: Gilligan’s Island.

Three months earlier we’d selected the participants for the roles of the castaways, to remain in character until the experiment ended. Our last observer team never returned. You volunteered to accompany me. Together we rowed out to the island. I would be a theater director. You, an actress with our traveling production of Taming of the Shrew.

You wanted to learn everything I knew. You told me someday, you would have my job.

I asked if you knew why we imposed such stress on these brave souls.

To prevent the worst of mankind, you said.

Do you think we really can, though I asked.

No. Still, we have to try.

On the shore we discovered a sign saying NO ENTRY beside a skull with flecks of crusted, bloody flesh around the sockets.

Worst case, you whispered, no fear in your eyes.

The show must go on I said.

We hiked through the foliage to the encampment. The breeze carried a sweet burning. Black smoke billowed from a fire. I heard a scraping. Past the first hut a body hunched. I recognized him: the lonely widower I selected to play Thurston Howell.

I cleared my throat, and said: Good Afternoon. I am Lachlan Mountjoy, director of the Globe Theater, and this is Serena Butterfield, the finest thespian in the world.

Ginger ran out. A director? She screamed. Her tattered sequin dress was streaked maroon. Her red hair a birds nest. I recall how excited the woman portraying her had been to be chosen. Now her eyes terrified me.

Yes, I said, and we would like you to play the lead. My voice cracked, because I knew this experiment had likely failed. Are there others here?

A man stumbled out of a hut. Red shirt. Head bowed. Hands behind his back. Muttering The Minnow Would Be Lost over and over.

Shut the fuck up! Ginger screamed.

Gilligan ran up to you and grinned. The Minnow Would Be Lost, he hissed. You never flinched.

Are there no others? I asked.

They were so tasty, Thurston said. Dead weight becomes good meat. Are you dead weight, too?

Gilligan pulled a machete from behind his back. You silenced him forever with your glock. Before Thurston could pounce you silenced him, too. You saved the tranquilizer gun for Ginger. She would be analyzed, her brain dissected.

My spirit broke with that experiment. That’s why I recommended you for my role. Your unsentimental nature will take you far.

[Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash]

Trope or Choke: Episode 2

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The challenge: write a complete story in 500 words or less sticking to these guidelines…

Setting: An asteroid

Genre: Fantasy + Fable

Trope: A nasty surprise

2 Characters: A dumb jock and Dracula

POV/tense: 3rd person/future tense

The result:

The Lady in the Rock

Not the frog, nor the witch, nor the ball catcher can know who will emerge victorious. That’s for the best. One’s fate should remain a mystery.

It will begin with Taylor.

“Don’t be a wuss,” Taylor will say as she peels off her dress.

“But the water’s so dark,” Jayden will answer. “What if there’s an alligator in it?”

“You’re so dumb. There are no alligators in Arizona. You promised you’d take me skinny dipping.”

“And you promised if I do…”

She’ll suck her finger. “Deal.”

He’ll pull off his clothes and they’ll dive beneath the black water, surfacing not under moonlight but in a cave.

Taylor will graze her lips along his neck. “What’s happening, Jayden? I’m so scared. Hold me.”

“Whoa, babe. Look at the moon. It’s not above us. It’s in front, like on some giant tv screen.”

While the two humans rise from the water in their alien environment, a green amphibian will emerge beside them, clearing its slimy throat before croaking its truth. “I may appear a lowly frog, ignored as I flop through the muck, but l possess the power of speech. Hear my words. Hear me roar. Listen to me! What I have to say is of the utmost value.”

A bellow rising from the depths of the chamber will cut him off. “Silence! I am Morgan Le Fay. Tremble at my name. My nemesis King Arthur banished me to this asteroid, but not before I stole his sword, the only weapon that could slay me.” She’ll point to a stone with a sword embedded in it.

“Wicked,” Jayden will say.

“Foolish witch,” the frog will croak. “Pride will be your downfall.”

The witch will approach the frog. “Are you are the magic holder? The one who followed my call through the lake?” She’ll lick his skin and grimace. “Perhaps not.” She’ll drop him and spike her heel through the heart of the only talking frog in Arizona, and that will end the tale of the frog who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

She’ll turn to Jayden. “And you, my fine muscled one?”

“I’m just a tight end at Arizona state.”

The trapped witch will frown. “Hmm.” Then she’ll pause on the beautiful young Taylor. “You smell…old.”

“Me? No! I’m nubile and nineteen.”

The witch will wrap her hands around a shrieking Taylor’s throat, who will transform into a withered pustule-covered vampire. “Dracula!” The witch will laugh. “I sensed your power. Now I’ll claim it for my own.”

The vampire will lunge for Jayden. “No! He was mine to drink! You’ve ruined it.”

The witch will siphon Dracula’s power, leaving him a shriveled hulk before rising up with a victorious wail. “I can feel his strength inside me. Now I’ll return and conquer the world.”

But Jayden, who outlasted the talking frog and prince of darkness, will free the sword from the stone, and as he beheads the witch with one swift swing, he’ll prove that sometimes brawn is mightier than brains.

[Photo by Rhett Wesley on Unsplash]