Finish The Story Contest - Week #67!
A contest with a pot of 20 STEEM? You're in the right place!
327 @steembasicincome shares awarded till now, plus 22.558 SBD, 350 STEEM, & 12402 SNAX tokens through the contest in 66 weeks!
Welcome, voyagers of the fantastic crypto-powered never-ending-stream-of-amazingness, to our 67th Edition of the Finish The Story Contest! It's your pal, @Oivas, hosting the contest on behalf of @f3nix. All the @bananafish knights and paladins are going head-over-heels to get the contest out. It is a good problem to have. We have the prompt but are quite busy to post it. It may sound simple, but there are a lot of things that go behind the scene to ensure what we promise in the contest is upheld at the end of it. So, it does take time. That said, we are here now and that’s what matters. Hope you all are ready to cut loose to delve into a fantasy world where psionic talents are the norm, and exotic creatures roam free.
What treasures await within the mysterious depths of Drosselmeyer's trunk?
This particular time we are doing it a bit differently. What is different, you ask? Here it is.
1st place: 15 STEEM
Best comment: 5 STEEM (We are looking for an insightful curation comment. It doesn't have to be long or flamboyant.)
Well, in my lingo that is called short-and-sweet and right on time for the holiday season. 😊
This time there would be a jury which will preside over your entries. Does that sound fun or nerve-wracking? Either way, we would be more than one member going through all your fantastic stories; @f3nix and @oivas for sure.
As always, we thank our supporters and well-wishers who help us bring this exciting contest to our followers. In that, we thank @curie, @ocdb, @curangel and all our curators who enjoy and support genuine and quality content.
Map of the Bananafish Realms from a squirrelly perspective!
• Share the love and tell a friend about the contest!
• Join the Bananafish Realms discord chat for fresh updates and other amenities.
• Vote, vote, vote your favorite story in the comments below!
• Use the #finishthestory tag.
• Try to post your story as early possible and not at the last moment (or after the results! argh!) to give people a chance to read yours before they vote
• Respect the dreadful 700 words limit! o_0. We have increased the word count for this time.
• Help our contest & workshop to grow by giving it some visibility and consider linking back to this post in your entry.
With the best intentions
"A double toast! At your brilliant timing, for the second damn time."
The nurse spoke turning his gaze to the parking lot, beyond the window whose bars, swallowed by rust, had lost all their decorative hypocrisy. His cheerful lashing tone clashed with the fixture of his gaze elsewhere.
The lump of words channelled along the patient's Eustachian tubes like a sticky egg liqueur, while the neodymium lamp commented on the phrase with a quick moth’s flicker.
Through the steel bar on the side of the bed, her bleary, half-closed eyes returned to her the image of a lanky shape exiting the bedroom.
She wondered why she had only been noticed now, only now despite the endless carousel of drowsiness in which she had fallen for eons. A never-ending display of Chinese lamps, swarming with the nightmares of a painting by Bosch.
The impetus of thirst coagulated in a guttural moan, insufficient to make the sarcastic human crane turn back towards her.
The sound she emitted reminded her of a documentary with a koala, forced to walk on hot coals during a forest fire. It was something she had seen with Lucian that last night spent together before she left in secret heading to the clinic.
I had to fix it for us, Lucian. For once only, maybe the right one. And instead, look where I fucking got myself.
A sudden laugh tried to make its way. The spasms brought to her mind the horrible awareness of those tubes that, like worms, were violating her body. She had not noticed but two figures were now observing her from the edge of the bed.
"Rise and shine, Ms. White. You had a car accident just a mile away from the clinic. Fortunately, on his way back home after the shift, Valery noticed the wheels of your vehicle in the ditch along the avenue. We had to operate you urgently, a lung had collapsed and we had to contain internal haemorrhage in the abdominal cavity. It was not easy but someone up there decided that your day had not yet arrived. "
As he spoke, the doctor's eyes stared at her in dullness and, at the same time, darting with curiosity.
She would have said that some of her saviour’s facial muscles - not all the necessary ones - were struggling to reproduce a slow smile. The attendant loomed from behind the doctor's silhouette, tilting his head silently to one side.
For God’s sake, tear all this stuff away and just give me a damn glass of water. Then I'll pay you what I owe you and leave.
She would have shouted at them, but the only breath filtering from her broken mouth didn't even sound like a koala moan anymore.
"Yes, I understand the curiosity, Ms. White." The doctor's eyes now reminded her of those of an abyssal fish.
"You have crossed the border and turned to us to participate in the pharmacological trials and, may I add, further to helping medical progress, you have also come because we pay fairly well."
A wet and repeated slap against the floor, in a point her eyes couldn’t reach, seemed to smear those statements along the washed-out walls. Through scarcely oiled winches, the human crane behind the doctor leaned forward in her direction.
"Well, Ms. White, notwithstanding the circumstance, you will be pleased to know that we have decided to still include you in the program. You will earn your fair compensation, after all."
Perhaps because of the narcotics, the doctor's face kept changing as if his features were playing hide and seek in the blind corners of her perception. A sound came from a low point close to the bed, similar to a badly restrained gurgle, while the doctor quietly turned away.
"You will have your money, despite your unfortunate condition or, perhaps, thanks to it," he said in a last laconic murmur.
Let’s grow together!
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Let’s raise a glass to @foffelius, @steelochlaver, @f3nix, @marcoriccardi, @anixio, @gwilberiol, @calluna, @ntowl, @dirge, @seesladen, @theironfelix, @letalis-laetitia, @vdux, @felixgarciap, @tristancarax, @khasa, @stever82, @brisby, @drazeus, @robinsonr810, @michaias who are already in the trail.
Join the fun!
Here is how this contest works:
• An unfinished fiction story or a script is posted.
• You finish it with your own post (use the #finishthestory as your first tag) or comment in the comment section. A limit of 700 words is recommended. We have increased the word count for this time.
• WIN 15 STEEM which goes to the writer with the best ending.
The submission deadline: Thursday - December 12th, 2:00 AM EST (U.S. East Coast time zone). Results will be announced by Friday – December 13th, (Friday, the 13th. Who would have thought? 😊 ) at or before 7:00 AM EST (U.S. East Coast time zone). You may vote your favorite story until the results are out!
A special thanks to @gwilberiol, @dirge, @tristancarax, @theironfelix, @raj808, @brisby, @maverickinvictus, @cyemela, @marcoriccardi, @hidden84, @calluna, @oivas, @ntowl, @f3nix, @felt.buzz, @khasa and @vdux for their precious delegations, making this project a reality! If you like this contest..SPREAD THE GOSPEL! We're grateful for your resteeming and word of mouth. Everything helps to grow together!
GOOD LUCK, BRAVE STORYTELLERS!
And here is my version)
https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@phil-glaz/with-the-best-intentions
First blood for @phil-glaz!
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My Entry: https://steemit.com/finishthestory/@sarez/with-the-best-intentions-my-short-story-for-finishthestory-67
Welcome back @sarez! I wrote this for delivering to you a horror prompt but I realized that I've been softer than what I wanted. Anyway, good luck with your entry!
Happy to add gore to the story- no happy ending.
That's the way, man.
I'm BACK!!!
https://steempeak.com/@tristancarax/with-the-best-intentions
Our Steemnova supreme leader is back!
Oh boy, almost broke my leg reading through this.
But I guess this is the tough part about the assignment - understand what's going on in the prompt. It will all smooth sailing after that. )))
Oh, boy! After all grandiloquent phrases, where it felt like I was inside of a classical Greek tragedy ...All of a sudden...
I almost have torn my rectus abdominis from laughter! That was too funny! @f3nix, you've made my day!
Hello @mgaft1. Hope that your abdomen is alright and, in any case, I decline any responsibility for injuries! In the prompt, I tried to adopt a third person limited perspective. That's why I didn't want to tell too much but just to show what was happening around the protagonist. I took my good time editing and my intent was to let the participants being free in their interpretation without too much conditioning.
Anyway, she wanted to reach a clinic and get paid in exchange to her submission to a private program of pharmaceutical tests (this actually happens in Switzerland and I know they used to pay handsomely). Unfortunately, she had a car incident when approaching the clinic. She's been rescued.. Apparently.
Objection sustained. I am already writing the continuation. So, maintain the condition of red alert )))
Questions:
When you say, "Crane" do you mean the bird or a machine that lifts and lower materials?
What did the nurse look at the parking lot?
Is this guy the same cynical male nurse that looked at the parking lot or a different character?
Why is the nurse man and there are no women in the hospital? Isn't it because the hospital is run by a male chauvinistic pig; the protege of white supremacy and patriarchate?
Oh it's Q&A time.. I like it!
In order to avoid switching to an omniscient narrator, I'll resist the temptation and reply through the mouth, eyes and mind of Ms White.
Crane the machine, being the guy's movements quite mechanic.
I don't know. Peraphs, for the little I can see from this bed, he seemed that he wanted to be elsewhere.
Yup. Same person.
Nice one! No apparent reason but what you suggested could be part of your second half (there's some Freudian blurb I could add on the nurse and doctor's roles but better to not open the Pandora's box).
Hope Ms White clarified the doubts a bit 😉 Ah, thank you for helping @phil-glaz with the translation, that was awesome!
Thank you! I will build on that. @phil-glaz's writing was easy to translate. To translate your super imaginative writing to Russian took some sweating effort. )))
I can see this story going in so many directions. Even the genre is open. There is a suggestion of the sinister, of course (more than a suggestion), but you give the authors great latitude. This should yield varied results, which I think is good for the contest.
I'll try to write something, especially with the extended deadline.
BTW--a rich beginning, well crafted. Bravo!
Glad to see another edition of FTS
Your appreciation means a lot for me. I took my due time to edit (and I still find some points I would change) right to create that malleability. Thanks for your comment and I'm looking forward to your interpretation!
Thanks...we can always edit. At some point we have to walk away and let the reader go to work.
I hope I get a piece out, but will definitely be following the entries as they come in.
I tried. But this isn't going to happen. I hate hospitals so much that it pains me to imagine being there. And when I write, I do imagine vividly the scenes I describe. One story came out, but it's unnatural, dreadful.
So, I can't finish this story. Afraid I live in a Pollyanna consciousness that stubbornly refuses to go dark :))
No worries! Thanks for taking your time and tell us. Darkness can turn into light but if something doesn't click, well it just doesn't. Creativity and its laws 🙂
I do support FTS. That's what's important. So glad to see it up and thriving.
I've been wanting to participate but never got around.
I hope I will one day but for now, you've got my support :)
Thank you @ireenchew, your support means a lot for us ☺️ I don't know If you use discord, but if you want to keep track of our initiatives you can find us here. Cheers!
Thanks so much @bananafish
Actually, I do use discord but I find that if I spend too much time chatting on discord, I have less time to spend on actually reading the post and giving support/upvotes.
So, it's a choice which I prefer for the benefit and interest of everyone :)
Recently I happened to read about a court case Frendak v. United States.
In this case, Paula Frendak shot a coworker. After four competency hearings, the defendant was adjudicated competent, although in the opinion of several experts she was likely insane when she committed the crime.
However, Frendak refused to use the insanity defense as she felt a hospital was worse than any prison. She attempted suicide, went on hunger strikes and refused medication to underscore her protests. However, she was forced by the court to plead insanity. Thus, in this case, a competent defendant was not allowed to reject the use of the insanity defense.
Later on, this court judgment was overturned in the appeal court and she was allowed to refuse the insanity defense.
What was interesting in this case and many other homicide cases, is how much they depend on the opinion of a forensic psychologist, whose opinion serves as a demarcation line between sanity and lunacy, between a prison sentence, a mental institution or a death warrant.
This contest was indicative of how much each of the contest participants trusted the narrator of the prompt.
Ms. White clearly experienced some abnormal hallucinations like visions. The question at this point was – were these hallucinations were “normal” in the scheme of things that a mind can experience post-surgically, or they were uncommon enough to explain them only with fantastic development of events.
As we can observe, the opinions of the local “forensic psychologists” here divided. @ phil-glaz, @sarez and I evaluated Ms. White's internal monologue as hallucinations, while @zeleiracordero and @raj808 felt that they required a fantastic explanation.
Fun contest! Hip Hip hooray to @bananafish!
It's been awhile. I'm mostly focusing on making music at the moment, but here is my entry, because I saw a comment on my blog. Idk if I'm too late but whatevs. Fun practice.
You aren't late @dirge. On time! Welcome! :)
Oh yes, very nice. I was beginning to miss this. Long life to FTS!
I'll take my grog, my pen, my cat and my bananas and start writing.
First blood incoming, I can feel it! Glad that you are with us, Darth!
A nice little write. :)
Thank you @galenkp! We are honored for your presence and appreciation. Feel free to give the contest a try and play with us.
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I may give it a go. Thanks for responding and all the best.
😎👍