Kevin's Watch

is it still on?

Ask ShadowBinding Shoe. The lone entry won (love the soggy oily socks!!!).

Your up Shoe!!!

ok, I promise to try the next game.

Thank you, thank you, if it is winning by default (the initials of soggy oily socks are significant by the way)

Hmm... OK, I've got something:



Joan looked at her latest therapist and tried to be positive. This one was going to solve all her problems. This one would be the one. It was all going to work itself out. Somehow. She took a deep breath. "You're going to help me to get over my relationship with Thomas Covenant. I want to be in control of my life. I am going to turn a new leaf in my life and start living my life again and be happy." she bit her lip, hard and tried to make the smile real.

"You're not feeling it yet, are you, Joan?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm trying, allright?"

"That's what I'm here for, Joan. To help you try and try and go on trying."

"Ahem." She wasn't sure how she liked where this was going. Was he going to be another disappointment? Still... she tried to believe in him, tried to be the blank canvas, or was it clay, for him like her last therapist told her to be.

"So you want to get over your relationship with your ex-husband Thomas Covenant. Please close your eyes and feel your relationship for me. What do you see?"

"Erm... hoom... a rotting hand, his rotting hand reaching out to grasp me?"

"Excellent! And, what does the hand symbolyze for you?"

"Why, him not letting me go, and infecting me with his disgusting disease?"

"Well, that's not very helpful. How about you imagine pulling sharply away? The hand IS rotting. That surely symbolyzes how frail his hold on you has become. You can break its hold for me, can't you?"

"That's disgusting. I'm not going to imagine his fingers breaking off and falling off on my dress."

"No, of course not, Joan. Of course not. Ahem... are you seeing anything else? Anything symbolic?" he asked her hopefuly.

"Well, he still has his wedding ring on his finger. It's all dirtied up though. Not a white gold ring at all any more" Joan wrinkled her nose in disgust trying to forget the smell of gangrene she remembered oh so well.

"Now that's excellent. This is the lynchpin symbol to this whole conundrum. The ring obviously symbolyzes the ties you still feel for him. Breaking these off will free you to live your life like you wish. Now close your eyes again. I want you to try and imagine the wedding ring falling off and shattering to pieces. Doing this excercise will be just the thing for you. I will teach you how to do this and any time you feel insecure you could go through it and reclaim yourself. Are you feeling up to this?"

"But... but he'll still have our wedding ring! No matter what I imagine."

"But it will symbolically help you. Symbolism is all that's matters! Symbolism is all. Listen to me carefully now..." Joan lost the thread of his conversation. She had to shatter Thomas' ring. The real one, not the bullshit imaginary symbolic one. But how? How would she manage to get her hands on his ring and break it? She was so focused on this thread of thought that she didn't notice falling into a deep trance.

Joan stroked her long white beard uncertainly. "Frodo," she told the little fellow standing at her feet. "You must go with me on an important task. We must destroy the White Ring of White Magic, for if we do not, Thomas Covenant's dark hold on this land will never end! We must break it. We must destroy it utterly! Are you with me?"

"Yes, Gandalfa!" the little pip-squick crowed enthusiastically jumping up and down around her.

Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to finish this tale!

My entry for the previous contest. Better late than Never?






Presenting:
A Space Opera



The Gap Into Darkness
Start Trek

Jerehaim and Thomas Covenant were teleported aboard Angus Thermopyle’s new ship. This was the maiden voyage of the Apalling 13, the ship previously known as Motherlode and Holt Fasner’s last gift to Angus. Taking his new ship for a short cruise, just a quick chance to test out all of the systems, Angus was surprised to find two talking dogs floating in space. Normally he wouldn’t do this sort of thing, rescuing stray dogs, but he had little choice in the matter: Hashi Lebwohl’s pre-written exigencies had planned for this.

Angus Thermopyle sat in his G-seat, staring murder at the unlikely duo of talking dogs. “You mean to tell me,” he rasped, “that two days after I find a floating dog in space, and discover she’s actually a mutated human, two more dogs suddenly pop up, and what do you know, they’re humans too, and they expect me to just hand over my new wife, the Cybrog Anna Shwartzinator. Don’t you mangy dogs know who I am? I am the space pirate that killed Holt Fasner himself!”

Covenant’s mind was reeling, but his four-legged doggy wolf body stood firm. “Hellfire,” he barked, “I can’t believe this! First Linden and now Holt!” Covenant turned to look at his little boxer puppy companion, Jerehaim, and growled, “Don’t you see? Holt Fasner is this universe’s Despiser. The Worm wasn’t the only one who escaped, Foul is here, too!”

Jerehaim looked confused. “How can he be out here, when he is a part of you now?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” snarled Covenant, “but you have to believe me. First comes the Worm, then comes Foul. He is everywhere. He is in you, just like he is in me.”

Covenant turned back to Angus. “Linden is my wife.”

Angus scowled back at Covenant. “The fuck is Joan, then?”

“Joan is my ex-wife. Now what happened to Linden?”

“Shit, Wolf-man,” Angus leered in mockery, “you have more wives than I can count. What do you want with this brain-dead one I found? It cost me a lot to have the Amnion mutate her back into a human. Even more to turn her into a Cyborg, so that she would be worth a fuck around here.”

Covenant raised his shackles in warning. “Hellfire, Angus! She wasn’t brain-dead! She was comatose! In a sort of stasis! Hell and blood, it happens to the two of use all the time. It’s Donaldson’s favorite plot device!”

“So what are you gonna give me for her?”

“You are going to give me a ride to Enablement Station, so that Jerehaim and I can be turned back into humans. Then I am going to dunk Anna—I mean Linden—under water to wake her up. Then we are going to have to go after Holt Fasner and stop him. He is no longer Holt Fasner, he wedded himself to an Amnioni and became a sort of bio-cyborg. A cyborg just like you, but with bio-enhancements instead of mechanical ones. Now he calles himself Kahn the Nightman.”

Angues glared his yellow malice as deep into Covenant’s doggy brow as he could. “Why do you think I am going to help you?”

Covenant puffed his chest out bravely. “Because you have no choice. You must help or your universe is going to end. You and everyone else will cease to exist. You must help.”

Angus hated to admit it, but Covenant was right: he had no choice, he must help. But not because he cared about humanity, but because Hashi Lebwohl’s pre-written exigencies had accounted for this.

“Okay,” he finally answered. “I am going to send a message to the nearest UMCPHQ listening post.” He was leering at them with yellow malice, trying to hide the fact that he hated being compelled by his datacore. From back in the crib, he asked the dogs, “What do you want me to tell them?”

Covenent puffed out his chest and raised his shackles, so that Angus would know how important all this was. “Tell them this,” he wolfed,
“Urgent: Holt Fasner escaped from UMCHO moments before it exploded.
Urgent: Holt Fasner found his way to forbidden space.
Urgent: he came inside an Amnion and an Amnion came inside him. They found each other like two men in the night. Now they have come inside each other in beauty and passion, and now they are Kahn the Nightman. The Passionate Nightman.
Urgent: the Nightman is portrayed by the Amnion who was once known as Benefice Cucumberpatch. Now he is a British actor who has decided to take up the challenge of portraying the ultimate Star Trek villain.”

Angus’ zone implants stifled his surprise reaction to this latest revelation. “Cucumberpatch is going to do what? Play the Borg King?”

Covenant shook his head. Grimacing hard, he growled. “Worse than the Borg. The ultimate villain.”

Again, Angus’ zone implants stifled some of his surprise, but not all of it. “Oh! Q! Wow, that’s a good fit. Benefice Cucumberpatch could totally pull off Q.”

Covenant was about to starve himself to death to try to get Angus to pay proper attention to him. “No! Worse than Q! Hellfire, Angus, they hired him to play Kahn!”

Angus scowled in disbelief. “What? Are you kidding me? Kahn? Why him? Why not Antonio Banderas? That would have been bad ass! Or wait, better yet, Benicio del Toro! Talk about charisma, that guy has charisma for miles! He would be awesome as Kahn!”

Covenant was distraught. Softly, he replied, “No. It’s Cucumberpatch. You don’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes to know that he hasn't got the acting chops to pull off that character.”

“Fine,” Angus conceded, “I will send it. I am also going to plot a course for Enablement Stations, so you two need to get somewhere safe and buckle yourselves down. Now get the hell out of here for a while. I need to think.”

Covenant’s eyes misted over. I need to think. That’s something Linden would have said.

Covenant and Jerehaim turned and left, a receding image of sad tails wagging.




The Gap into Physics
Food Science

Covenant and Jerehaim went to explore the ship. The Appalling 13 was a fine ship and Angus had a crew of twelve, making Angus himself the “appalling” thirteenth.

Angus’ second in command found them wandering the halls, and invited them to join her and her boyfriend for Dinner. Angus’ second was a lady covered head to toe in tattoos of the continents of the world of Earth. She was born with the name Mikka Vascasqc, but aboard this ship, everyone called her “Map” in reference to her cool tattoos.

Map led the dogs to the Mess Hall where she met up with her Boyfriend, a man in a long-brown overcoat. He wore a detective-style brimmed over his weathered and aged face. He was smiling serenely at the dogs, and his lips were pulled back to reveal a mouth full of sparkling gold teeth.

“Dogs, I would like you to meet my boyfriend,” said Map. “This is Robert Stack.”

Dogs wagged dog-tails in happy excitement. “Pleased to meet you!”

The four of them walked to a table and sat down. Map and Robert sat across from each other on two sides, while Covenant and Jerehaim sat across from each other on the other two sides.

A waitress walked up to their table with her dyed blonde hair and smacking her gum in her mouth amidst too much make-up, and asked if she could take the order.

“Kibbles and bits!” crowed Jerehaim.

“Kibbles and bits!” howled Covenant.

“I will have Chickens and Which,” told Map to the waitress.

“And which what?” asked the waitress.

“Whichever,” answered Map.

The waitress wrote down the three orders and turned to Robert Stack. “What will it be, honey?”

“The real answer is not what will it become,” answered Robert, with ominous music playing behind him, “but who placed it here in the first place….And why did the creators leave it to be found? What strange forces are at work in our Universe? Find out, on the next episode of . . . Unsolved Mysteries.”

Robert was staring intently at the waitress.

Holding her gaze rigid, without looking away, Robert pointed to an item in the menu. “What is this?”

The waitress held Robert’s gaze, never flinching, never glancing at the menu where Robert pointed. She answered, “It says ‘Elephant Fries.’ It’s the spiciest thing on the whole menu.”

Robert was the first to look away. He could not believe his ears. “Whoah, whoah, whoah,” said Robert. “Wait. A. Minute. Did you say ‘elephant fries?’ That’s crazy. Now: I’ve seen a French fry. I’ve been to a fish fry. I have eaten some stir fry, and heck! I’ve even seen chicken fry! But I ain’t never seen no Elephant Fry!”

The waitress popped the gum in her mouth. “Well that’s what it is. It’s fried hot peppers seasoned with hot pepper seasoning. It’s the hottest thing on the whole menu.”

“Just how spicy is it? I like it hot!”

“It’s the spiciest on our menu, so hot, you have to sign a waiver.”

“Will you make it extra-spicy? I like it hot!”

“I can ask the Chef if he can notch it up another notch, but no promises.”

“Then consider my order placed!”

Ten minutes later, the waitress brought out the food. She placed a bowl of kibbles in front of Covenant, set a chicken sandwhich down in front of Map, gave a bowl of Kibbles to Jerehaim as well, and then turned to Robert Stack, leaving his plate covered with air-tight rubberware.

“Listen,” she told Robert, “the Chef made ‘em extra spicy. Chef says its illegal to make food this spicy so don’t you go telling no one! And for God’s sake, man, be careful!”

She uncovered Robert’s dish and immediately her dyed blonde hair started to smolder in the heat. Robert grinned with glee and his face turned red.

“Excellent,” he commented as he pulled his own bottle of spice out from the inside jacket pocket of his coat. Turning to the waitress, he held up the bottle for her inspection and informed her, “This is a mixture of the hottest dried peppers in the galaxy!”

Robert tore the lid off the bottle and inverted it over his dish of Elephant Fries. He began shaking vigorously, dowsing the food with spice, vigorously shaking the bottle like he was jerking off a donkey.

“Sir, wait! Sir, please!” shouted the waitress. “You must not! Sir! You must not do this!”

Robert continued piling his spice onto the dish without missing a beat, and shouted at the waitress, “Never mind that now! I like it hot!” He didn’t stop sprinkling the spice till the bottle was spent.

“Now!” proclaimed Robert. “I am ready to eat!”

He picked up his first Elephant Fry, a fried hot-pepper, over-spiced with the hottest peppers ever imagined. He stared at it with saliva dripping off his chin. He put the pepper into his mouth whole, and bit down hard. The sound of its jucies could be heard squirting out into the inside of Robert mouth.

For one infinitesimally short moment, Robert’s eyes glazed over in true and utter ecstasy….

…

But then….

…

Spoiler

His head exploded.

The Gap into Sunshine
The Nightman Cometh.


Robert’s skull flesh was all over the Kibble, so Covenant and Jerehaim left the Mess Hall in disgust.

They wandered the ship some more, exploring the steel metal hallways.

Before long, however, the heard a page over the intercom.

“Dogs! Report to the bridge at once!”

So they high-tailed it over there, and found Linden Avery, the love of Covenant’s life, working in indentured servitude, as a mindless cyborg on the bridge. When the dogs walked onto the bridge, the cyborg turned its head toward the doorway, and announced in a flat, mechanical voice, “Captain Angus has summoned you. He is on his way to the bridge now. I am Anna Schwartzinator, and I am here to serve you.”

“Hell and Blood!” barked Covenant. “You’re name is Linden Avery the Chosen! Don’t you remember?”

Anna’s microprocessor’s calculated for .045 seconds. “Negative,” she replied. “I am the cyborg Anna Schwartzinator. Ship’s Specialties Officer. Excuse me, now. I must attend to our new recruit. Today is his training day.”

Anna turned to a jaunty young man in overalls standing next to the Data Terminal. Bob was a short guy with black hair and a thick black mustache. His black curly hair could be see sticking out from underneath a farmer’s denim ball-cap. He had on blue denim bibs, and a green flannel shirt. He was holding a broom, sort of leaning with it a bit.

“Bob,” instructed Anna, “this is the Data Terminal. This is your new station. You will receive data reports from scanning equipment and sonar pings, data warnings and messages from internal system monitoring, and data requests from Engineering and Medical departments. You are to receive and interpret the data, and instruct crew and equipment to respond accordingly. Manning the Data Terminal is your duty. Now snap to it.”

“Righty-roo,” said Bob. He unslung himself from his broom prop and began sweeping around the terminal. Soon, he was whistling a thin tune through his teeth.

“Crewman!” braked Anna. “What do you think you are doing? You are supposed to be maintaining your station!”

“Righty-roo,” cheered Bob. “Maintainin’ m’station, ma’am. Maintain-a-rooney.”

He continued to sweep, and began whistling a bit more robustly.

“Crewman!” barked Anna. “You are supposed to be maintaining the Data Terminal! Send and receive data from within and without the ship! Inform ship’s crew to ship’s needs! Snap to it!”

Bob stopped his sweeping and stifled his whistling, and spun toward Anna, his brow furled with irritation. “Look, lady. You says to be maintainin’ my station, and its maintainin’ that I’m a doing. The only maint’nance I know is custodial.”

Then Bob turned back around and continued on with his whistlin’ and his sweeping.

While Anna’s internal microprocessors where studying and analyzing Bob’s unaccountable behaviours, Angus stepped onto the bridge.

“Okay shit-ants,” ha called out almost cheerfully, ‘We are underway to Enablement. Now its time to spill the beans. Tell me what you know about this Despiser guy. Is it the same as Kahn the Nightman?”

Covenant laid his ears back and responded to Angus with his tail wagging in supplication. “Foul is the Despiser. Everyone has an inner Despiser. That means Foul is in you, he is in me, hellfire, he is in everybody. I would know, because Foul is literally inside me: I asked him to come inside me, and he filled me up with his sexy, dark passion.”

Angus growled deep in his throat, but didn’t answer.

Covenant howled with frustration as he continued, “Listen. Where we come from, he is called Lord Foul the Despiser. Where I come from, he is a leper. And a leper-hater. Take your pick. Where you come from, he’s called Holt Fasner, and he just sold his soul to the Amnion. Now he has betrayed humankind in your universe, just he like betrayed Kevin in our universe. I let Foul come inside me. Now I am going to let this Amnioni mutant come inside me. Holt Fasner is now known as Kahn the Nightman. I am ready for the Nightman to come and pin me down with his strong, sexy hands. Foul came inside me, so I know Kahn the Nightman will, too.”

Jeremiah’s little tail started wagging its courage up. “It’s true,” he squeaked. “I was there. I saw it. Foul came inside him.”

“Hell and blood!” barked Covenant. “It’s more than that! I asked him to come inside me and he filled me up. We were just two men sharing the night. It seemed wrong, but it felt so right. Now we are two men sharing each other; we are two men who are like loving brothers. One’s on top and one’s on bottom. One is inside, one is out. One is screaming he is so happy, one is screaming a passionate shout. We are the night man: a feeling so wrong, it’s right, man. Feeling so wrong and right, feeling so wrong and right. Living for the night, when he pins me down with his strong arms, and comes inside me. Until Linden finds me....Ah, so exciting.”

“You’re sick,” proclaimed Angus.


Covenant sat grimacing at Angus.

Angus glared yellow malice it Covenant.

Covenant’s icy blue gaze was more than a match for Angus’ yellow hatred. Covenant’s eyes held secrets which scared the crap out of Angus, made him want to flee with terror. Only his zone implants kept him from gibbering like a fool.

Covenant had had enough of Angus’ implied threats. “You’re powerful. I bet you didn’t know that. And not just because you have cyborg abilities. Guilt is power. Only the innocent are impotent. Impotent like me. I am impotent. Except for when I let Foul come inside me.”

Angus smiled emptily back at Covenant. Holding up his hand and spreading his fingers apart, Angus indicated his lasers, promising murder. “Okay,” pronounced Angus. “we do it your way. We go to Enablement, get your human bodies, and then we find the Nightman.”



 
The Gap into Fruition
Hangover Tomorrow

The Appalling 13 rolled on into Enablement later that day. The Amnion fixed Covenant and Jerehaim, turning them back into humans, and thus came the end of the dog days. From that moment forward, the dogs were gone from our story. The Amnion unleashed Anna from her imposed sleep, and Linden awoke within the confines of Anna’s body: a deadly monstrous beauty.

“Am I Anna still? Or am I Linden again!?”

Covenant flexed his stumpy little fingers. They were numb. “They brought me back. But I am still a leper. Leper outcast unclean!....Don’t touch me.”

“Anden? Linna? Who?! Who am I? Am I Anna or Linden?”

Jerehaim coughed to get his Mom’s attention. “Covenant is so great, Mom. He really is. You should be more nice to him.”

Anna erupted in black flame. Wheeling the Staff of Law around and around above her head, Linden activated her Cyborg Powers. Togther, Anna and Linden shouted to the Heavens, “Who am I?”

“Hellfire, Linda! Put out those flames! We re going to call you Linda, now!”

Linda smiled warmly at Covenant. “Thank you.”

Just then, the alarms sounded on the bridge. “Red Alert! Intruder!”

And Kahn the Nightman was standing on the bridge, ready to confront his tormentors.

Linda was shocked. “Benifice Cucumberpatch? What the hell is he doing here?”

“He is Kahn the Nightman,” stated Covenant matter-of-factly.

“Really?” asked Linda. “Why? If they were looking for bulky and shallow, they could have gone with Will Smith or Vin Diesel. If they were looking for British, they could have gone with Tom Hiddleston or Clive Owen. If they wanted both, they could have gone with Daniel Craig. Why Cucumberpatch?”

"Forget it," ordered Covenant. "This is the gap into madness. Chaos and Order. Perfect paradox to match the white gold."

"Can we get a dog?" asked Linda plaintively.

"Hell and Blood, Linda!" shouted Covenant. "We finally got dogs out of this story! Why in the name of all things ending would you bring them up again?"

Blah, blah, blah, some impressive 3-D effects and the end.

Here ends the End of All Things Ending. The story has ended and will continue to be ended even if more stories come after the ending. The End.



The End.
(It really is.)





Wait! I forgot!

"Filibuster."

Boom shaka laka, bitches.
(Your mind is blown, trust me.)


The.
Freaking.
END.


THE END


Here ends the ending of the end of the End of All Things Ending







fin

Hilarious, Shuram!




I duly dub you:

• An Honorary Lifetime Knight of THOOLAH!

u.

bravo

Brilliant.

Thanks guys.

And apologies to shoe for derailing his new game. Excellent set-up and I am looking forward to working on it

I would've chimed in sooner on the previous contest, but I assumed the thread was still sitting idle, as it has been known to do from time to time. See, I used to get notifications when there was activity on threads I have posted to, but they seem to have stopped coming for some reason.

Shuram Gudatetris wrote:See, I used to get notifications when there was activity on threads I have posted to, but they seem to have stopped coming for some reason.

First...that was a pretty damn hysterical piece above. Truly.

On notifications...I have all mine turned off, don't like stuff piling up in my email. But, scroll all the way down to the bottom of a thread page, there should be a blue link that says "Watch this topic for replies." click it.

next up?

Middle Earth Beauty

The camera is positioned way above a city, and it slowly zooms in on the city, zooms in on a particular neighborhood. “Hi,” says a disembodied female voice, “My name is Joan ‘Gandalf’ Covenant. And this is my neighborhood.”

The camera moves from an above shot over the the neighborhood to street-level in front of a house with a red door. “And this is my house.”

Camera zooms onto a lady working in the rose garden. “This is my wife, Aragorn.” Camera cuts to a different shot, and we a see a close-up of her face—that’s no woman working in the garden, it’s Viggo Mortensen!

Camera cuts to a shot inside the house, where a short teenage girl is checking out a breast augmentation website. “This is my daughter, Frodo.” Camera angle changes, and we see that it is indeed Elijah Wood sitting at the computer learning about breast augmentation, not a teenage girl—or, wait a second, maybe….

Camera cuts to a bearded man standing naked in the shower, camera angle reveals the rhythmic undulating motion with the right arm. “And this is me, Joan, jerking off in the shower. This will be the highlight of my day.” Camera sticks with the shot of the elderly fellow enjoying his shower. “Wow! Look at me go! Just look at me, seriously, look at me jerking off in the shower. I am really going at it!”

...

Later in the day, the three of them are sitting at the kitchen table.

Gandalf Joan clears his throat and says, “You won’t believe what happened at work. This fascist guy named Brad gave me a job reviews. What fascism! I should just quit.”

Aragorn set down her fork and said, “Now, honey, we are all here to do, what we are all here to do.”

“Don’t tell me that Matrix sequel bullshit! It’s fascism! They’re all fascists!” Gandalf Joan then turned to Frodo and asked, “So, sweetie, how was your day at school?”

Frodo took a sip of her water, and then replied. “It was okay.”

Gandalf Joan cleared his throat and asked, “Just okay?”

Frodo rolled her eyes at her father and replied, “No, dad. It was bitchin’.”

“Well,” replied Gandalf Joan. “Let me tell you how my day went. This really nice but fascist guy named Brad asked me how work was going. It was a fascist job review! Fascism! You couldn’t care less could you?”

Frodo threw down her napkin and said, “Well, what do you expect? You lied to me, Gandalf! You lied! You’re a filthy, perverted old man, and you lied to me! Liar! You’re a liar!”

“Me?” asked Gandalf Joan. “What’d I lie about?”

“You said you would meet me at the Inn of the Prancing Peony!”

“Peony??? Pony! I said Prancing Pony! I wouldn’t have sent you to the Peony!”

“Liar!”

...

Hours go by and the camera follows Gandalf Joan and Aragorn into a party full of real estate execs.

“Remember honey,” Aragorn whispers to Gandalf, “be on your best behavior! Act like you’re happy!”

Eyebrows Over Here comes up and hugs Aragorn. “Eragon! So good to see you!”

Aragorn frowns and says, “It’s Aragorn, actually.”

Eyebrows Over Here looks sympathetic and replies, “Of course.” Then Eyebrows Over Here turns to Gandalf Joan, “And you must be….?”

Gandalf Joan giggles a bit and says, “Oh, we met last year, the same thing this year but last year. You know. Last year it was this same thing, now this year it’s this thing this year, same as last year. Ah, hell, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t remember me, either. In fact, I don’t even know who I am. It would seem that I am a wizard, but I am actually a woman that was married to a leper.”

Eyebrows Over Here’s eyebrows did a major uptake.

Aragorn elbowed Gandalf Joan in the ribs. “Honey! Don’t be weird!” she said.

“Okay,” said Gandalf Joan, “Honey.” Gandalf Joan reached out and gave Aragorn’s hips a squeeze. “I won’t be weird. I will be whatever you want me to be.” Gandalf Joan kneeled down in front of Aragorn and lifter her skirt up. Then Gandalf Joan gave her a very . . . intimate . . . kiss. Gandalf Joan stood up and turned to Eyebrows Over Here, giving Eyebrows a big, contented smile. “My wife and I have a very healthy relationship.”

Eyebrows Over Here raised his eyebrows. “I see.”

...

Later at the party, Gandalf Joan sits at the bar. Cate Blanchett walks up to him and says, “Hi, my name is Ricky Fitz. I just moved into the house next door to you. Do you party?”

Gandalf Joan looked up blearily at Ricky Fitz. “What?”

Ricky Fitz pinched his fingers together and brought them up to his mouth, pantomiming smoking a joint. “Do you like to do eX-Lax?”

Wait, he wasn’t pantomiming smoking, he was pantomiming taking a tablet!

Gandalf Joan smiled fondly at Ricky Fitz. “I haven’t done that in years!”

Camera cuts to a scene inside the men’s bathroom. Two stall doors are closed, and we can see Gandalf and Ricky’s shoes dangling underneath the doors. A hideous squishy sound erupts from one of their butt-holes while they talk about Frodo and high school stuff. Another hideous squirting sound bubbles, and then they are talking about fathers and rehab and drug sales. Then the restaurant manager walks in.

“Hey Ricky Fitz! I am your boss! And I am not paying you to do….” He trails off, unsure how to describe the scene he has discovered in the bathroom. “….whatever it is that you are doing in here! You’re fired!”

“No,” said Ricky Fitz from behind his stall door. “I quit.”

Squirt, squirt. Ploomp, ploomp.

“You can’t quit! I just fired you!”

“No,” repeated Ricky Fitz. “I quit. I quit, so that means you don’t have to pay me. I quit.”

Squirt, squirt. Glunk, glunk.

The restaurant manager straightended his server’s vest and stated matter-of-factly, “Asshole.”

Squirt, squirt.

Nice job Shuram.

Is anyone else interested in trying this round? Should I make a deadline?

OK. Deadline is until the end of January. Hope someone will pick up the gauntlet.

bumpity bumped

It's 11:10pm in my time zone.

So here is my thoroughly awful entry:

Here is what someone should write for a story. The problem is that Joan has got an idolatry problem, and that kind of parallels Gollum's obsession with ring possession. There's a ring in each of the books, which is an obv. parallel. Anyway, I think the sol'n will be obtained by Joan writing a paper justifying how Frodo or Gollum (who is the anti-hero to compare with Frodo as a hero, I think) destroying her husband's ring will... argh, is Covenant her husband, or does he count as her ex-husband? She treats him like he's already dead, but technically, scratch that... he's plenty alive... wait, which book of the Chrons are we in.

Anyway, Joan will probs write a paper justifying why the ring being destroyed is a real fulfillment of what her shrink was intending her to do. But then she will cringe over whether she should show it to him, or if it's not good enough for him to see, or if he won't understand that she did it all in his honor. So, like I'm saying, Joan's main problem is really idolatry, but I guess that doesn't get really resolved in the story that I am imagining (though I haven't really worked out all the details - I think it's good enough that someone else should do that work to clean it up, but essentially the idea's mine). Because another of her problems is sloth - she doesn't want to put forth her own efforts in a dark and uncertain world with all the messy details and stuff... Anyways, I am getting real tired of this, so in summary I really really hope you like this and think I am awesome, whoever reads this.

So the deadline is over and the prize goes to... Shuram Gudatetris!
Congratulations.

Linna - if you do write that idea please post it here for posterity anyway.

The ball is in your court now, Shuram. May the Fake-White-Gold Power be with you!

Thank you, shoe!
Thank you for hosting, and I really groaned over your introductory piece for this contest.

Shuram- Congratulations.
Bwahaha - Now you need to think up something awesome for us to do. (No pressure.)

Are you going to post a new contest, Shuram? It's been a while.

I didn't know of the existence of this thread until the last one was over, but I'd definitely give it a go!