National Flash Fiction Day

So it turns out that June 22 is National Flash Fiction Day (flash fiction is very short fiction, e.g. Shorter Stories) . Catalyst is a group that organises monthly live poetry events and is organising a flash fiction performance event on the 22nd (the next poetry open mic night should be June 5 at the Pegasus Arms). Details for the upcoming Christchurch event are here.

Also, there is a national competition for flash fiction, which closes very soon! Here are the details:

Competition Rules for 2012

• competition open to all NZ citizens and residents
• open competition; no theme or prompt
• only previously unpublished* work may be submitted
• deadline for submissions: 1 June 2012
• word limit: 300 excluding title
• maximum three stories per person
• electronic submissions only
• submissions must be received  no later than midnight, 1 June 2012
• submissions must be sent as attachments to nationalflash@gmail.com
  
  *Published means anything that has already appeared anywhere in print or online, including personal websites or blogs.
  
  
  More details here
  
  
  
  I have emailed the organisers and confirmed that the deadline is 11.59pm June 1, meaning stories must be in by that time Friday night.
  
  Unfortunately none of the stories already published on this blog can be submitted but I would think that if the original authors wanted to edit them further that would be okay, or you could always just go for three rounds of Shorter Stories to get three sweet submissions. Good luck!

Shorter Stories #3

WHEN: Sunday 27th May
WHO: Damien and Regan
WHAT: Write a short story in under ten minutes that includes these things:

Setting: Bach at New Years (picked by Daaaaamo)
Character: The Strangler (picked by wig)
Object: Beach Ball (picked by Wee-Dey)
Action: Hiding (picked by lizard)

njoy the results:



The world is a large beach ball. People live on the inside of this beach ball. There is a curious reverse gravity effect where all physical matter is drawn towards the outside rather than the middle. It is a really cool place to live!
The people constantly debate on how their world came to be. Just who was the creator of the beach ball? Who gave breath to their world?
Ocean currents can be dangerous. If you get caught in a rip it is better to preserve your energy and let it take you rather than fight it if the rip is too strong. If you always swim between the flags you should theoretically never encounter a rip.
Back in Qozuilda (this is the name of the Beach Ball Planet), it was New Years Eve. The people were ready to welcome in 1424ABU (After Blow Up).
Johnny and Sarah were partying it up at a bach in Pass Arthur. The bach was in the woods and the team was playing spotlight. There were 14 people on the team. When I say “team” I mean high school friends celebrating the end of the year in style.
However, 15 people were playing spotlight; The Strangler had turned up unannounced. He had a face made of mildew and great dental hygiene. He was hiding.
The Strangler had picked an excellent spot, inside a log. He was so happy. His first time playing spotlight, and what success! Torchlights danced over his still body.
After years of marginalisation, The Strangler finally felt that he had a place in the world. That place was constricted within an airtight log.
Johnny and Sarah were “in”. Both “in” love (this was a high school romance after all) and “in” in spotlight. They held the torches and found their 12 friends. The team then retreated back to the bach and started consuming stupid amounts of alcohol. Johnny would later fall into an alcohol-induced coma, nearly dying of alcohol poisoning. If it wasn’t for Sarah’s diligence he probably would have died. Soulmates? Maybe.
Meanwhile, out in the forest, The Strangler waited to be found. He tried to move, only to find he was utterly paralyzed within the log. Four hours later, he was found by Death.
Regan


They were all really good friends. This is the first New Years they were all together and it was going to be perfect. The only thing was Howard. He was Jonny’s friend who had tagged along. Emma, Rachael and Steve didn’t know him very well and he had been a bit awkward to start with. Being at a lovely little bach at this time of the year was perfect: usually nothing would go wrong but Howard could find a way. The thing that started him off badly was the incident with Emma’s beach ball. She only got it out on special occasions and she was very particular about things like this.
The other three were playing a simple game of “keep it off the ground”. Howard had been hiding away all day it seemed and had only come out for the last half hour or so. He got brave enough to join in and began to hit it around. He hit the ball so hard it popped on impact. Flying like an empty sausage skin, it wrapped around Rachael’s neck. She fell to the ground gasping for breath.
Howard was never seen for the rest of the trip. Steve only referred to him as The Strangler from then on.
Damien









Other rounds here!!

Shorter Stories #2

On Saturday the 26th of May, Chris Matt and Myself played Shorter Stories for the first time. It was so invigorating that we immediately had a second round afterwards. These were the conditions:

Matt picked Pie(s), Chris picked The Moon, I picked Swimming.

Here are our stories, again copied straight from the notebooks with only tiny grammar alterations where necessary. NJOY




There was one thing that kept Ryan kicking, and one thing only: pies. The temptation to give up was paralysing. He had completely sapped himself of any strength. The arduous journey back and forth, and back and forth again underwater constricted every muscle in his body.
His enormous, greasy body wobbled with every painful stroke and kick. His ballooning stomach bounced back and forth, smacking against the lane ropes constantly. He wanted to give up and drown, and finally be relieved of the agony. But his mother’s promise of a chicken, cranberry and camembert pie after his swimming lesson somehow overpowered everything else. The pie’s delicious flaky texture and unspeakingly satisfying hot cheese consumed his mind and drove him onwards.
At the end of the hour the coach’s whistle blew and his body exploded like a gigantic moon constructed of camembert. He collapsed against the lane ropes, too tired to even force a smile. Everywhere he looked, his mind convinced him he was seeing the glory of freshly cooked pastry. He could almost smell the billows of steam erupting from the roaring bakery’s ovens.
“Pie time,” he managed to communicate with his numb lips to his mother, waiting with his towel.
Chris




The Moon was anxious. It had not been swimming for a long time. So long in fact, that the mere thought of backstroke sent its core into confused convulsions.
Today, however, was The Moon’s day. It was time to swim.
Swimming is a recreational/survival activity used to achieve fitness or escape from sharks. You should try it!
Gingerly, The Moon slipped on its bathing suit. The pastry glistened.
“I don’t know…” The Moon murmured.
Neptune pushed The Moon roughly.
“Way to go!” shouted Neptune. The Moon carefully removed the swimming pool cover. The pastry was hot, thick and pastry, the mince interior hot and dangerous.
“Should I really be swimming in this?” asked The Moon. “This pie is so big that it could be used for other things, for instance curing hunger on Earth, Mars and Pluto.”
“NO!” screamed Neptune. “You must swim, and swim you will!”
The Moon slipped into the dark substance, gulping loudly. Attempting a rudimentary doggy paddle, The Moon realised its mistake. It could not swim at all, especially in mince which is much harder to swim in than water. As The Moon slipped beneath the waves, drowning slowly, Neptune could be heard laughing.
“At last, I am The Moon, and I will not adhere to my duties at all! There will be no more tidal system for Planet Earth! Surfing begone!”
Regan




Johny McNickle had always been a big fan of pies. He would down one daily. However, this fact is completely irrelevant as these days Johny had turned his life around and was now the one and only transgender astronaut.
The year is 2072 and man/woman is once again on a mission to the moon. The world has come a long way in its acceptance of race, gender and height but hasn’t made it much further into space. Johny or as her friends affectionately call her Johnina is all set for the big day, blast off day. This day to a normal person wouldn’t have been anything special, as space is now such a common destination that people often go to space Macca’s on their lunch breaks. But what makes Johnina even more special is that he is from an Armish family who don’t believe in the use of space as a worldwide fast food destination. Johnina is breaking out, going against her parent’s wish and tomorrow is heading to Moon Macca’s…They say the taste of space in your face no matter what your race is like swimming in a sea of blood pudding but without the pudding.
The future is fucked up.
Matt











Other rounds here!!

Shorter Stories #1

On the evening of Saturday the 26th of May, myself, Matt and Chris pioneered an idea for a new writing game. It involves everyone writing a short story in 8 - 10mins in one of my many 5c notebooks, with each story including a particular character/setting/object/action/line as decided before writing (each person selects one of these things beforehand). 

These were the conditions for the first round:

I picked Fisherman, Chris picked River, Matt picked Kite and Matt and Chris picked the last sentence while I was in the toilet.

Here are the resulting stories. I have copied them onto the computer with no alterations except for a few minor grammatical edits. NJOY!!


The river beckoned. If it was a person it would have been like Santa Claus but without the outfit. Large, warm, inviting. Naked.
Wilson stared. He could not remove his eyes from the rapids. But no! He had so much work to do. Screeds and screeds of work; a tower to the sky of work. However, it was a splendid afternoon so today the work would have to wait. Today, Wilson was determined to fish.
Casting his line out to the water, Wilson stared (again). His line would not arch like it usually did. Instead, gravity seemed to have abandoned the very object. It was soaring into the sky, an absurd hooked kite! Carrying Wilson with it. He had always dreamed to fly. Away from pesky phonecalls and the morning slog. No more work, only the stars and clouds. To fish from a distant galaxy. As he sped towards the sun and an inevitable lack of oxygen, Wilson was content. No more work.
It was a long journey. At last, he closed his eyes and whispered to himself “and so it was and forever will be.”
Regan


It’s not every day that you meet a fisherman and even less that he is a kite fisherman. Ok, so you might be thinking “kite fisherman? That sounds terribly impractical and at best just down right unhelpful” and you my friend would be bang on the money. Kite fishing is outlawed in 13 of 50 of the states as it is just such a huge waste of time.
Now back to the kite fisherman I met. He was 6’12” and had a face like a rack of lamb. You might think there would be something a bit fishy about him, I mean there has to be something not quite right up top to fish with a kite, but there isn’t he’s not fishy at all due to him not catching a single fish. He goes down to this old dried up sewer drain, which I guess you could call a river, attaches a worm to his kite and sets it free to chase after the illusive sky fish. Yep he is after birds. And one day you know what? He got one, the biggest sky fish you or I will have seen and at last he closed his eyes and whispered to himself, “and so it was and forever will be.”
Matt


Henry had a serious knack for finding the perfect spot. His expertise and unparalleled mastery made him a local legend.
He would lick his finger and lift it toward the wind. This was his first step for locating the hot spots. He would paddle his canoe in the direction of the winds with the taste of anticipation seeping into his saliva.
He ensured he was following the wind with his trusty brown and yellow striped kite which he proudly hoisted high above the towering willows, triumphantly reaching toward the heavens.
He knew how to have the fish at his mercy. He licked his lips and plunged the rod beneath the water’s surface.
Suddenly he was paralysed and overbalanced, his elderly frame splashing into the river.
His lungs filled with water and his vision clouded over with darkness. At last, he closed his eyes and whispered to himself, “and so it was and forever will be.”
Chris




Other rounds here!!

perhaps vampires is a bit strong, but...

Today I had my first day of my second teaching section. It went well. As I biked home I went through Hagley Park and saw this poster attached to a bus stop:

I also saw another identical poster on Deans Ave. This impressed me as I had originally thought they were painted. I have just text the number and look forward to a reply.

curse predictive text!

Don't 'Chuck' with Me!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. But, I must admit, I nae thought it would be I who would cause this tragedy.

"A'ight, spit it out."

I've been gracing the nation's capital for nearly two months now, and it's become common practice for my flat to indulge in the glories of dizzy-water and hat-time in the weekend. We have two young families living on either side of the flat and I've been expecting something to come along and rustle their feathers for some time. But surprisingly, we havn't had any complaints from them about our debauchery.

However, this all changed last week.

Following tradition, my flatmates and I indulged in a few cases of delicious dizzy water and the smokey-timbre of hat time. I had been mega-poor (and I mean almost resorting to escorting poor) for about 3 weeks and so thought this an appropriate occasion to drown my sorrows and have some fun, and thus I was taken out by the wily combination. I don't remember much of the night, but I do remember crawling into bed, and then violently chucking several minutes later. Oh, yes, good times. After wiping my jowls, I fell blissfully into the land of nod.

"Does nae sound too bad, y'whiny sod, we've all been there!"

Aye, aye. Any good bastard has chucked decently after a fitting night of debauchery. But the tragic events occur the next morning.

I was awoken at around 9.00am to the sound of the neighbours hosing down their driveway. They were occasionally spraying my window as if to say "Hey, wake up!" I followed their orders and after gathering my thoughts realised their means; I had failed to find a vessel for me to chuck into and instead opted to open my window.

The window leads out onto their driveway.

It couldn't have been pretty.

It soon became all too apparent that the gentle splashings of "Hey, wake up!" were in actuality the violent lashings of "Hey, fuck you!" I pulled the blankets over my face and hid from the hangover and the neighbours.
I awoke properly a few hours later, and the guilt of my act had only manifested into a mega-hangover. I knew I had to apologise, but was far too weak to do so in person. So, created an image of apology in photoshop and hoped that the mild-humour and sincere apology would heal the wounds I had created. I stuck the picture to my window facing out to the neighbours, and awaited their response.

This photo has been reversed for your reading pleasure

"Wow, you're a bit of a twat."

It took until around 6.00pm for their response to materialise. It's something that I hold as a bit of a trophy today.

But how did they find my secret hideout?!

Beaming brightly from the outside of my window was this lovely reply of
"I understand but very hurtful!
Next time I call police.
I know where you live..."
Like I said, I quickly took this from outside of the window as a trophy before it was either gone to the elements or the neighbour's retracted their acceptance of my apology. It puzzles me as to whether the threat is legitimate or nae, but regardless it's still a funny scenario and one that I will proudly look back on as a lesson of how nae to be an utter twat. After having a wee chuckle (with utter respect, of course) at the letter I spent the rest of the night making delicious choc-banana muffins. Mayhaps I'll drop some off to the neighbours as a goodwill gesture next time I get baking.

Don't follow in my footsteps, peeps.

Much love!

- Nick

raegans 21st

tonight is raegans 21st birthday party

will it be a night of trolls?

or does he have birthday immunity?

tune in at 7:30

all will be revealed

Colourful Beetroot and Beautiful Carrot combo

Part of my lunch today involved dipping carrots in beetroot dip.

It was super effective.

I did an MS Paint drawing me eating my carrots with dip as it seems to be the thing to do around here.

It should be noted that I did the Paint drawing before taking the picture and so had to try reenact my picture in real life.

If you have ever experienced beetroot dip you will see that the paint drawing captures how vibrant it is better than the real picture.

You may also note that I used the spray can tool to add the tan to my hand. So it might be fair to say that I gave myself a...

spray tan..

Ok, just a quick explanation of why dipping carrots in beetroot dip is so amazing. You can kind of see from the pictures that beetroot dip is exceptional viscous and so as you can imagine not any food item would be fit to take on the dip. Carrots (if cut correctly) have sufficient flexural rigidity to make the processes of dipping and snacking on beetroot dip an easy breezy tasty treat. The fact that carrot sticks are delicious in themselves is almost just an added bonus. It was no dump luck either that I happen to have carrot sticks and beetroot dip simultaneously. I had been planning this for months, from the moment I planted them in fact and no one can say otherwise.

And let me tell you, it payed off big time. Also that it is no mean feat painting on MS paint with a laptop mouse.

Hey Ragan

I made a post

I even used centered text alignment

Hope it was trivial enough

Cheers                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        and tables

Matt

DAMIEN YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER

This is Brad's room. It is small. 

 

This is Damien's room. It is larger than Brad's room.

 

Brad has placed a trap in Damien's room in an effort to kill Damien so that Brad can have Damien's larger room. 

It is a sneaky trap as it involves Damien stepping on his clothes thinking they're just clothes but actually it's my skateboard which leads to Damien's own cooking knife....Therefore the prime suspects of the inevitable murder investigation would be myself or Damien. So watch out Damien, this post was written with your interests at heart!

P.S. buses

To further my point about buses.
One day when I was getting off the bus, I had a mind blank, and instead of saying 'thanks driver' I said 'thanks bus'. My friends thought this was pretty funny. I think that it was evidence that the bus was somehow sneaking into my consciousness in order to have itself, rather than driver, acknowledged.
Just saying....

I is Lucy

This is the first blog post I have ever done so it is quite exciting
I have a doll named Newa, a cat named Monty and a car named Bluey - these are my children.
I do have four sons also though; Regan, Ronan, Nick and Patrick. They can be naughty but I love them most of the time.
I have come up with concepts called house monkey and wellycat...both need more work at this stage.
Even though lots of people complain about TV, I really like it.
Some people say I'm weird, I say LOL!

Lucy X

myself, yogless

Today I am yogless. All of my yoghurt is gone. This morning I finished off the 1kg tub of Mango Passion that I bought last week by trying a recipe Sophie gave me last night. It is a very easy recipe and very yummy:

Sophie's Yog-Rice

1. Pour Ricies (rice puff breakfast cereal for those not in the know) into a bowl

2. Mix with yoghurt

3. NJOY 

As of around 4pm today I had a second 1kg tub of Bliss yoghurt that Scott had got for me on clearance a few days ago (see here for the full backstory). When Scott presented me with the yoghurt I thought it would be nice to give it away to someone for free since we had got it for so cheap and I didn't want to get sick of the delicious yoghurt from eating it too much.

Today I got home from grad school at around 3.45pm. I wanted to give the yog out asap since today is the 9th and the yog is best before the 14th. So, before I got changed out of my formal grad school clothes I grabbed the yog tub and headed out the door.

My plan was to present the yoghurt to the group of people at the busstop outside Riccarton Mall and announce that I was giving away 1kg of unopened yoghurt for free. In my mind I pictured at least two people approaching me wanting the yog so I decided that if I got more than one person wanting it I would ask "What is the Māori name for Christchurch?" and the first person who said "Ōtautahi" would be the winner.

I started to walk towards the busstop but had just gone past our letterbox when I decided to turn back and grab my skateboard since it was rather cold. It won't matter if I'm skating, I justified to myself, since I was wearing a shirt and tie and wool jersey and dress pants and formal shoes so the public would feel assured in my professional image and disregard the skateboard in my hand and trust that I was presenting them with a genuine offer of kindness rather than something poisoned. Besides, skating is a lot more fun than walking and  it was cold.

o, naivity

So, I hopped on my skateboard with the chipped tail and pushed my way to the busstop across the road from Riccarton Mall. I had been expecting a lot of people there since it was nearly 4pm but when I got there there were only seven. This threw me off a bit; how could reality not match the preconceived image in my head!?!

Approaching the busstop I picked up my skateboard and stood awkwardly at the edge of the abyss, clutching the cold yoghurt. I felt very conspicuous. Next to me was a guy around my age with grey camo pants and headphones. There was also a woman sitting on the metal bench, then three high school aged girls and two women slightly older than me further along.

I collected myself then walked over to headphone camo pant man, greeted him and offered him the free yoghurt. He looked scared out of his mind and declined. I appealed with a gentle explanation but he shook his head again. I had been hoping that the guy would accept as I didn't want to seem like a creepy guy offering high school girls free yoghurt.

My dignity now nestled somewhere between spent bubblegum and concrete, I made my way to the other side of the busstop offering the other people yoghurt, a splash of desperation in my voice. The three high school girls rightfully declined and looked curious/confused. No one else wanted it either. A bus pulled up to the stop and I gestured to the yoghurt to one of the people inside, holding it out to them. Through the glass they shook their head and turned away.

I crossed the busy road to the other, more populated busstop. As I crossed the street I wondered how long it would take for me to offload this yoghurt. It was quickly becoming an embarrassing burden. At the busstop there was at least 20 people. Drawing on my teaching experience I stood in front of everybody and said in a loud voice something to the effect of "Hey everyone, would anyone like some free unopened yoghurt? We had too much so I'm giving it away." Everyone stared silently at me as if I was alien. "We bought it..." I added desperately, keen to articulate that I was not in fact a criminal (perhaps the black jersey wasn't helping). Finally a lady spoke ("No thanks.") I looked around the crowd for a final time to see if anyone was interested. Some people were laughing; no one was keen. 

I continued my quest into the carpark and saw a guy in his 30's walking towards the busstop in a puffer jacket. I offered him the yoghurt and he stopped walking, interested. At last! I explained that my flatmate had bought lots of yoghurt on clearance but I didn't need it and it was unopened. He took it and seemed pretty pleased. I told him that the yoghurt normally retailed for $8 and that it was delicious. I then skated out of the carpark in style (many people at the busstop had been watching the transaction with interest). 

Arriving back home I was happy. I didn't think it would have been so difficult to offload a free tub of yum yog but I guess that just goes to show how generally distrusting a lot of people are these days....Pretty sad really. When I got home I told Scott what I had done and gave him $4. So everyone won!

- Scott got a handsome $0.31 profit (the yoghurt originally cost $3.69)
- Man in puffer jacket got some delishimo yoghurt with "S.A.L. BEST BEFORE 14 MAY 2120" on the top in vivid (I hope he and his family njoy it)
- I get intrinsic reward from destroying my public dignity in the Riccarton area + doing a random act of kindness + not getting sick of yoghurt from eating it too much + my wallet is lighter now without the cumbersome $2, $1 and $1 coins that were in it before.

Compare that with me simply eating all of the yoghurt myself; now 3+ people are happy! People should give more. 

Beware the buses

Kia ora

I'm Regan's friend. He has brought me into this beautiful world of writing and shared opinions and wonderfulness.

My first point is this: at the end of the day, buses also need somewhere to sleep. You've seen/read Thomas the Tank Engine - it's just like that. Except in Wellington, in Kilbirnie, there is a giant shed I like to think of as the Bus Bedroom. This is where the buses go to sleep. Some snore. Others make squeaky, snuffly noises in their sleep. It's marae-style accommodation.

My second point is that: the buses in Christchurch are less content. They are lurking behind the Court Theatre discussing their bad days, and how they are going to rise up. The gate is open, so beware. Have you noticed how the brick building beside the buses is being demolished? That was the buses, not people.