Hell, no! Get started!Yog-Sothoth wrote:Damn, am i too late to enter?
Temple of Dagon story tournament (Voting closed - JP wins!)
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Jesus Prime
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- Location: Ireland (Moon-Bog country)
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Jesus Prime
- Moderator
- Posts: 3713
- Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 5:38 pm
- Location: Ireland (Moon-Bog country)
i have about 500 words now
A monkey riding a dog is probably the awesomest thing that could ever happen.
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
don't push back the deadline on my account, even though my progress is slow. i'd rather be disqualified than contribute a weak story.
on the other hand, i wouldn't want anyone else to drop out because they ran out of time..
on the other hand, i wouldn't want anyone else to drop out because they ran out of time..
A monkey riding a dog is probably the awesomest thing that could ever happen.
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
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Jesus Prime
- Moderator
- Posts: 3713
- Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 5:38 pm
- Location: Ireland (Moon-Bog country)
Where the Wild Things Are
When I was younger, I used to fancy that a host of whimsical creatures inhabited the unseen corners of my house. Each oddly-shaped shadow or unexplained sound would be chalked up to another of the beings, which my young age and affinity for nursery-rhymes led me to dub with names such as ‘the Findow at the window’, ‘the Yellar in the cellar’, or ‘the Vug under the rug’. I often lay awake at night wondering what these animals were, and from whence they came. However, my childish mind was never able to answer this question satisfactorily, so I accepted what appeared to be the status quo, and contented myself that the snuffling sounds heard at night were the family dog, Sutcliffe, not the vicious Vug; while the flickering shadows playing on the wall were those of tree branches outside, not the tittering, razor-fanged Quimney.
On this went, and for years I barely slept at night, becoming more introverted as time went on, fearing none would believe my tales. If I woke with inexplicable scratches or curious bite-marks, my mother would be quick to tell me that I’d fallen out of bed, or swear she’d seen a large mouse roaming the house. Eventually, however, these things all stopped, each occurrence becoming less frequent, before stopping altogether not long after a nearby house was fumigated for cockroaches - which I remember vividly, for I must have breathed in some of the fumes, as I recall coming down with a terrible cough shortly afterwards, and was confined to my bed for the better part of a week. Normally, this would have terrified me, but as the nights dragged on, and I sat unable to sleep due to my violent, hacking coughing, all I could see or hear were a few crows flying here and there around the window.
To this day, I haven’t heard another sound quite like the nocturnal snuffling and squeaking that haunted my childhood nights, or see upon the fringes of my sight a scurry of movement towards the empty fireplace; and my head and outlook have improved because of it. This tale, however, doesn’t end there, though I just digress to fully explain it. Not long after moving out of the house, towards the end of the War, to attend the Queen’s University, I met and fell in love with a woman named Jayne Parkes, and we were married soon after. Though we were young, it was not long before our first child was born, and little Lauren Patton was born.
Two years hence, I failed my final exams in Medicine, and was prohibited by my once-proud father from re-sitting the test - my lot was cast, as I was told. I did the best I could do with what qualifications I had, and opened a pharmacy in the city, where Jayne and I worked to support our new family.
Lauren soon grew to be a stunning young woman, and followed in my footsteps, studying Medicine at Queen’s. However, history repeated itself, and a whirlwind romance distracted her from her studies towards the end, and her result was the same as mine - disappointment. More lenient than my father, I not only allowed her to retake the examination, but insisted on it, for I wished that at least one of us should succeed in their dreams. On the second attempt she passed marvellously, and soon began work in the psychiatric ward of the Royal Victoria Hospital, the money from which greatly increased the splendour of the wedding which took place the following month, to a young man named Tiarnan McHugh, whom she’d met in her classes.
Perhaps it was her career, or a personal choice, but it was to be a further decade before I became a grandfather, to a wonderful baby girl named Aoife. However, war had broken out at this point, and one tragic April morning, when Lauren, Tiarnan and little Aoife were still asleep, the blitz began, killing dozens - my beautiful daughter included. The whole family was grief-stricken, but Tiarnan took it the hardest, seeming unable to cope with raising the child without Lauren. It was chiefly because of this that we invited him to move in with us, which he eagerly accepted.
However, despite the warmth and love which filled our home, Tiarnan began feeling the burden of pain and grief creeping up on him, and it saddened me greatly to see him descend to madness. It started small, as these things seem wont to do, with him half-imagining that he heard strange noises here and there, usually at night. It became progressively worse, though, and it wasn’t long before he reported seeing flickers of movement around the empty fireplace, or in the darkness of the cellar. On one particularly delirious occasion, he fervently claimed to have seen a large rodent of some description, calling it “a yellow ball of fangs and filth”, scurrying up the hallway, along the skirting board. However, both he and I searched the house, finding no trace of any such vermin.
This wasn’t enough to satisfy Tiarnan, though, and he grew paranoid that this beast was going to harm little Aoife - so much so that he laid traps and rat poison in any and all spots that they were likely to have their effect, and spent most nights keeping a constant vigil over the child’s cot. It was at this stage that he really began to crumble, and it was with a heavy heart that Jayne and I called upon Doctor Bailey to have him committed to the ward in which his loving wife once worked. He didn’t stay long, and after about three months was deemed cured, and released back into our welcoming arms - though this state did not last, and within a week he became the same gibbering wreck we’d sent away, and was thus committed once more. This cycle repeated itself twice more, with his lucidity becoming less pronounced each time, and, although he eventually reached a lasting mindset between psychosis and clarity, it was deemed for the best that Tiarnan be permanently confined.
By the time this decision was reached, young Aoife was growing fast, and was a healthy four-your-old girl when her father was taken away for the last time. As I write this, she doesn’t recall her father ever being at home, she visits him daily, and although he retains his semi-psychotic state, she has shown no signs of distress from seeing him thus. This she has obviously inherited from her mother, who similarly showed no revulsion at the experiences of her profession.
However, I have rambled too much. Upon her father’s internment, Aoife soon began to exhibit much of his behaviour, though not as severely. Often she would talk excitedly about the “lovely little mice-men” and a “big fuzzy dog with ears like a rabbit” that she’d seen prowling the garden in the evening, or darting out of sight whenever she peered into the cellar. In one of her particularly vivid stories, she told me that she’d woken up one night when she thought that the newest dog, Bundy, was lapping at her face, but when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t the golden puppy licking at her, but a creature resembling “a pink squirrel with a big tuft of red hair”. It scurried off when she woke, and though I searched the house and garden, I found no sign of it - and the trees of the garden had long since shed their leaves for winter, leaving nowhere for any squirrels to nest.
It was only after she had turned fifteen that things began to take a darker turn - she stopped recounting stories of her “little friends”, and changed the topic of conversation if they were mentioned. One morning, at breakfast, I noticed a peculiar wound on her wrist, like the bite-mark of two fangs. Questioning her on the matter, she claimed not to know what had caused it, but implored me to consider moving house. The three of us didn’t need such a large home, and all of us had engagements close to the city, which this address on the very outskirts made awkward. I talked it over with Jayne, and within two months we had moved to a smaller, more comfortable house closer to the city centre.
With that, all of the dreams, half-sights, and unexplained bites and noises stopped, and none was thought of on the matter for over a decade. It was twelve years later before the subject would be broached again. By this time, Jayne had passed away; and little Aoife had grown up to follow again in what seemed to be a family tradition - attending Queen’s University, and failing Medicine. Once again, I paid for her redoing the paper, and this time she passed, doing better her mother before her. Perhaps wishing to follow once again her mother’s example, or a desire to spend more time with her ever-devolving father, she too took up a position in the Royal Victoria’s psychiatric ward.
Once in a comfortable in her position, she expressed a desire to purchase the old family house from its current owners. She had by this time married a charming young man, named David Archer, and I assumed that they wished the larger house in order to settle down and start a family, and told her that I would help pay for the cost of buying it back. However, upon telling her this, I was met with an icy glare, which soon melted, and was simply told not to worry myself with monetary matters. The house was bought and the deeds handed over within a surprisingly short span of time, and although it saddened me that I was never invited into their new home, I was glad that my little granddaughter had grown up and was starting her own family.
This illusion, however, would be shattered the next week, when a colossal blasting sound echoed through the neighbourhood, and perhaps the whole city; and a tense telephone call from David told me that the old house had been demolished. He and Aoife arrived upon my doorstep within the hour, and recounted to me their reason for arranging the demolition of the old family house. Tiarnan’s ramblings had grown more and more cogent over the years, and although their subject matter only cemented the reason he was committed, his overall manner and appearance had given Aoife serious doubts as to his ‘lunacy’. He spoke of savage rodents of exotic hues, and frantic yipping and snarling he had heard in the night whilst staying in that house, and of the seeming desire of the creatures to get near the infant girl. He urged to her and David to return the house and rid it of these verminous fiends - something she eventually took to heart. She had confided in him all the wild tales from her childhood she could remember, and the pair hadn’t taken long to convince David that something was truly amiss. Being a civil engineer, he knew the necessary steps to take to arrange for the destruction of the house and its wretched denizens, and once the house had been purchased, they set about immediately. I knew not what to make of this story, and my scepticism must have been etched upon my face, for David, who had been recounting the tale, stood and made to leave, Aoife following close behind. As I wished them goodbye, shaking his hand and embracing my granddaughter, David slipped me a small bundle of brown paper and string, bidding me not to open it until the next morning.
That was yesterday, and as I write this account, I cannot stop casting furtive glances at the item contained within said package. Sitting across from me upon the table, it mockingly leers - the foot-long skull of some sneering rat-like devil, still crowned with a dying halo of pinkish fur.
When I was younger, I used to fancy that a host of whimsical creatures inhabited the unseen corners of my house. Each oddly-shaped shadow or unexplained sound would be chalked up to another of the beings, which my young age and affinity for nursery-rhymes led me to dub with names such as ‘the Findow at the window’, ‘the Yellar in the cellar’, or ‘the Vug under the rug’. I often lay awake at night wondering what these animals were, and from whence they came. However, my childish mind was never able to answer this question satisfactorily, so I accepted what appeared to be the status quo, and contented myself that the snuffling sounds heard at night were the family dog, Sutcliffe, not the vicious Vug; while the flickering shadows playing on the wall were those of tree branches outside, not the tittering, razor-fanged Quimney.
On this went, and for years I barely slept at night, becoming more introverted as time went on, fearing none would believe my tales. If I woke with inexplicable scratches or curious bite-marks, my mother would be quick to tell me that I’d fallen out of bed, or swear she’d seen a large mouse roaming the house. Eventually, however, these things all stopped, each occurrence becoming less frequent, before stopping altogether not long after a nearby house was fumigated for cockroaches - which I remember vividly, for I must have breathed in some of the fumes, as I recall coming down with a terrible cough shortly afterwards, and was confined to my bed for the better part of a week. Normally, this would have terrified me, but as the nights dragged on, and I sat unable to sleep due to my violent, hacking coughing, all I could see or hear were a few crows flying here and there around the window.
To this day, I haven’t heard another sound quite like the nocturnal snuffling and squeaking that haunted my childhood nights, or see upon the fringes of my sight a scurry of movement towards the empty fireplace; and my head and outlook have improved because of it. This tale, however, doesn’t end there, though I just digress to fully explain it. Not long after moving out of the house, towards the end of the War, to attend the Queen’s University, I met and fell in love with a woman named Jayne Parkes, and we were married soon after. Though we were young, it was not long before our first child was born, and little Lauren Patton was born.
Two years hence, I failed my final exams in Medicine, and was prohibited by my once-proud father from re-sitting the test - my lot was cast, as I was told. I did the best I could do with what qualifications I had, and opened a pharmacy in the city, where Jayne and I worked to support our new family.
Lauren soon grew to be a stunning young woman, and followed in my footsteps, studying Medicine at Queen’s. However, history repeated itself, and a whirlwind romance distracted her from her studies towards the end, and her result was the same as mine - disappointment. More lenient than my father, I not only allowed her to retake the examination, but insisted on it, for I wished that at least one of us should succeed in their dreams. On the second attempt she passed marvellously, and soon began work in the psychiatric ward of the Royal Victoria Hospital, the money from which greatly increased the splendour of the wedding which took place the following month, to a young man named Tiarnan McHugh, whom she’d met in her classes.
Perhaps it was her career, or a personal choice, but it was to be a further decade before I became a grandfather, to a wonderful baby girl named Aoife. However, war had broken out at this point, and one tragic April morning, when Lauren, Tiarnan and little Aoife were still asleep, the blitz began, killing dozens - my beautiful daughter included. The whole family was grief-stricken, but Tiarnan took it the hardest, seeming unable to cope with raising the child without Lauren. It was chiefly because of this that we invited him to move in with us, which he eagerly accepted.
However, despite the warmth and love which filled our home, Tiarnan began feeling the burden of pain and grief creeping up on him, and it saddened me greatly to see him descend to madness. It started small, as these things seem wont to do, with him half-imagining that he heard strange noises here and there, usually at night. It became progressively worse, though, and it wasn’t long before he reported seeing flickers of movement around the empty fireplace, or in the darkness of the cellar. On one particularly delirious occasion, he fervently claimed to have seen a large rodent of some description, calling it “a yellow ball of fangs and filth”, scurrying up the hallway, along the skirting board. However, both he and I searched the house, finding no trace of any such vermin.
This wasn’t enough to satisfy Tiarnan, though, and he grew paranoid that this beast was going to harm little Aoife - so much so that he laid traps and rat poison in any and all spots that they were likely to have their effect, and spent most nights keeping a constant vigil over the child’s cot. It was at this stage that he really began to crumble, and it was with a heavy heart that Jayne and I called upon Doctor Bailey to have him committed to the ward in which his loving wife once worked. He didn’t stay long, and after about three months was deemed cured, and released back into our welcoming arms - though this state did not last, and within a week he became the same gibbering wreck we’d sent away, and was thus committed once more. This cycle repeated itself twice more, with his lucidity becoming less pronounced each time, and, although he eventually reached a lasting mindset between psychosis and clarity, it was deemed for the best that Tiarnan be permanently confined.
By the time this decision was reached, young Aoife was growing fast, and was a healthy four-your-old girl when her father was taken away for the last time. As I write this, she doesn’t recall her father ever being at home, she visits him daily, and although he retains his semi-psychotic state, she has shown no signs of distress from seeing him thus. This she has obviously inherited from her mother, who similarly showed no revulsion at the experiences of her profession.
However, I have rambled too much. Upon her father’s internment, Aoife soon began to exhibit much of his behaviour, though not as severely. Often she would talk excitedly about the “lovely little mice-men” and a “big fuzzy dog with ears like a rabbit” that she’d seen prowling the garden in the evening, or darting out of sight whenever she peered into the cellar. In one of her particularly vivid stories, she told me that she’d woken up one night when she thought that the newest dog, Bundy, was lapping at her face, but when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t the golden puppy licking at her, but a creature resembling “a pink squirrel with a big tuft of red hair”. It scurried off when she woke, and though I searched the house and garden, I found no sign of it - and the trees of the garden had long since shed their leaves for winter, leaving nowhere for any squirrels to nest.
It was only after she had turned fifteen that things began to take a darker turn - she stopped recounting stories of her “little friends”, and changed the topic of conversation if they were mentioned. One morning, at breakfast, I noticed a peculiar wound on her wrist, like the bite-mark of two fangs. Questioning her on the matter, she claimed not to know what had caused it, but implored me to consider moving house. The three of us didn’t need such a large home, and all of us had engagements close to the city, which this address on the very outskirts made awkward. I talked it over with Jayne, and within two months we had moved to a smaller, more comfortable house closer to the city centre.
With that, all of the dreams, half-sights, and unexplained bites and noises stopped, and none was thought of on the matter for over a decade. It was twelve years later before the subject would be broached again. By this time, Jayne had passed away; and little Aoife had grown up to follow again in what seemed to be a family tradition - attending Queen’s University, and failing Medicine. Once again, I paid for her redoing the paper, and this time she passed, doing better her mother before her. Perhaps wishing to follow once again her mother’s example, or a desire to spend more time with her ever-devolving father, she too took up a position in the Royal Victoria’s psychiatric ward.
Once in a comfortable in her position, she expressed a desire to purchase the old family house from its current owners. She had by this time married a charming young man, named David Archer, and I assumed that they wished the larger house in order to settle down and start a family, and told her that I would help pay for the cost of buying it back. However, upon telling her this, I was met with an icy glare, which soon melted, and was simply told not to worry myself with monetary matters. The house was bought and the deeds handed over within a surprisingly short span of time, and although it saddened me that I was never invited into their new home, I was glad that my little granddaughter had grown up and was starting her own family.
This illusion, however, would be shattered the next week, when a colossal blasting sound echoed through the neighbourhood, and perhaps the whole city; and a tense telephone call from David told me that the old house had been demolished. He and Aoife arrived upon my doorstep within the hour, and recounted to me their reason for arranging the demolition of the old family house. Tiarnan’s ramblings had grown more and more cogent over the years, and although their subject matter only cemented the reason he was committed, his overall manner and appearance had given Aoife serious doubts as to his ‘lunacy’. He spoke of savage rodents of exotic hues, and frantic yipping and snarling he had heard in the night whilst staying in that house, and of the seeming desire of the creatures to get near the infant girl. He urged to her and David to return the house and rid it of these verminous fiends - something she eventually took to heart. She had confided in him all the wild tales from her childhood she could remember, and the pair hadn’t taken long to convince David that something was truly amiss. Being a civil engineer, he knew the necessary steps to take to arrange for the destruction of the house and its wretched denizens, and once the house had been purchased, they set about immediately. I knew not what to make of this story, and my scepticism must have been etched upon my face, for David, who had been recounting the tale, stood and made to leave, Aoife following close behind. As I wished them goodbye, shaking his hand and embracing my granddaughter, David slipped me a small bundle of brown paper and string, bidding me not to open it until the next morning.
That was yesterday, and as I write this account, I cannot stop casting furtive glances at the item contained within said package. Sitting across from me upon the table, it mockingly leers - the foot-long skull of some sneering rat-like devil, still crowned with a dying halo of pinkish fur.
Adrian wrote:TELL ME YOU ORDERED THE FUCKING GOLF SHOES!
Adrian wrote:I sure love my pudding.
i seem to have hit a wall with my entry.. if i am unable to finish it in the next few hours, i'll just show the incomplete version as evidence of my participation.
this is a little discouraging, considering the next round goes up to 3000 words.. but even if i don't win the contest, it's helping me stay in the writing game more than i probably would otherwise.
if only i could transcend this cumbersome human language! and this cumbersome human lethargy!
this is a little discouraging, considering the next round goes up to 3000 words.. but even if i don't win the contest, it's helping me stay in the writing game more than i probably would otherwise.
if only i could transcend this cumbersome human language! and this cumbersome human lethargy!
A monkey riding a dog is probably the awesomest thing that could ever happen.
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
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EG_Administration
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yes, i too have come into a run in. Though rightly by tomarrow evening I shall have the story to you, i have simply been unable to finish my story as of today. I will have it you, at the latest, by tomarrow evening. If this forfeits my hope in the running, than atleast I can show my effort and interest in the contest, besides.
Woodruff
Woodruff
"Most men dream at night, to wake in the day and find that it was vanity...
But the Dreamers of the Day are dangerous men, for they may act upon their dreams."
But the Dreamers of the Day are dangerous men, for they may act upon their dreams."
The Village of Dreams
By JJ Burke
[WILL POST HERE AT DEADLINE]
By JJ Burke
[WILL POST HERE AT DEADLINE]
Last edited by JJ Burke on Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A monkey riding a dog is probably the awesomest thing that could ever happen.
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination
Contributors wanted! Fantastic Horror — Original Works of Disturbing Imagination