SneakyPie's Grand Writing Extravaganza Spectacular

[Lord_Mountbatten]

With the definition as "nonrational happenings that are without casuality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur", I would say no.

[MKindy]

"Low fantasy is characterised by being set in the real ("Primary") world, or a rational and familiar fictional world, with the inclusion of magical elements. In contrast, high fantasy is set in an alternative, entirely fictional ("Secondary") world with its own, albeit internally-consistent, rules that separate it from the real world."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy

Knowing what we know of humans, humans aren't magical; your policeman would probably need to use fantastic trinkets to be 'magical', or be alien.

Granted, there are degrees of low fantasy.

[SneakyPie]

Don't forget that today is the final day for you to submit.

[Spyboticsguy]

I wrote this as low fantasy; please tell me if this does not qualify.

Spoiler! :

I was having a lively day. There was more traffic in the library than usual, so I was pondering over whether or not to close at the regular time. My thoughts were interrupted by a patron who wished to check out the entire collection of "The History of Animation."
"Excuse me, sir, but we only allow people to check out five books at a time."
"Oh, my bad. I'll go sort through these and return with the ones I'm certain to need. Sorry to bother."
As he left, I decided that he should decide the closing time.
He was the last to leave, leaving 2 hours after normal closing time.
My ritual of reading exactly one book before I went to sleep was a strange one, but I found it to be a fantastic way to keep tabs on the new arrivals and removals of books. Tonight's book happened to be one of those new arrivals, a book graciously donated by the local Board of Education. It went by the title: "The Afterlife: Where Do You Go Now?" If I'm being perfectly honest, I despise all of this "occult" crap the BOE is spouting recently. I swear, it's like they'd been put under a spell themselves!
Oh, dear, there goes my sense of humor. If you ever do meet me, remind me - no jokes. Ever.
Anywho, back on topic.
Tonight's read was going to be awful; I could already feel it in my bones. I grabbed my trusty glass and sat down at my desk. Yawning, I began to read aloud: "Chapter One: So You're Dying. What Happens Now?"
Old habits die hard, and this was no exception.
It was around midnight when I finished the book, so I went directly to bed. Strangely enough, I had trouble sleeping. Something I had read was nagging at my thoughts, trying to escape and remind me of its presence. Being myself, I wisely decided to sleep rather than find out what it was.
The next day was a bit odd - patrons would look at me with concern for no apparent reason, and one even shook me! I closed early, appalled at this behavior. The strangest thing was the feeling I had gotten that morning - an inkling that the library would close earlier than normal.
As the days went by, things slowly returned to normal. The patrons quit looking at me with concern, but that was probably because I had fallen into the habit of staying in my office until someone came to check out some books. I developed a sort of sixth sense that "told" me when people came to the counter. No, things were fairly normal until around a week ago.
It happened while I was walking around the library, restocking shelves. A man walked by me and began browsing across the aisle. As he thumbed over each book, I heard mumbling.
"No..." "I enjoy his works, but..." "Oh, heh heh. This shouldn't be here."
I stopped and talked to him:
"What shouldn't be here?"
He looked confused, and spoke:
"Erm, this book, sir. How did you know I saw that it was out of place?"
"Well, you mumbled quite clearly that it shouldn't be here!"
"I never spoke a word!"
I stood there for a moment, then simply asked for the misplaced book. Surely he had spoken aloud, for how else did I hear him? The only flaw in that logic was his reaction. He had nothing to hide, so why try to pretend like he had not spoken?
I should have heeded the signs.
The following night, I went to the cemetery to pay respects to my sister. She died only months ago at the vicious hands of disease. Cancer discriminates against no man or woman, rich or poor, sinful or pure.
I spent hours kneeling at her grave, quietly moaning along with the dead. I did not mean that figuratively. The dead moaned along with me, as if they could feel my sorrow and pain. I had long since learned to ignore such things; the Board had made sure of that.
It was also the night of my first mediation.
See, the dead become closer to you the more you identify with their thoughts. I mourned a loss, as did they. The last thing I recall that night is staggering out of the graveyard with a shard of stone in my hand.
The following morning, I awoke in my bed with no memory of returning home, a splitting headache, and a bloodied shard of stone in my hand. As I picked up the paper, I noticed the headline: "Man Killed by Unidentifiable Woman." The details of the article went on to describe the victim, a known sex offender; the murderer, a woman with startling resemblance to myself; and the weapon - a stone shard, which could not be collected for evidence.
I almost died on the spot. The physical appearance of the murderer - the time of death coinciding with my memory lapse - the weapon - all pointed to me.
I suppose I should thank whomever possessed me for changing my appearance; it certainly kept me out of jail.
I returned to the graveyard with an agenda: I wanted answers, and I wanted them now.
The dead were happy to oblige - for a price.
They treated me as a plaything - a medium to fulfill wants and needs not treated in their lifetime. In exchange, I gained full understanding of the changes in me and why it happened. The line spoken that damned me and satisfied my hunger for knowledge was simply, "It was the book."
I am but a shell now. I wait for the next spirit to take hold of me and do his bidding. I have killed countless, and blessed hundreds. I'm changed enough not to be myself, yet still be known as "The Medium."
The spirits protect me from harm, despite their abuse of my body. I will never go to jail, nor will I ever die. I have long forgotten my name, but it does not matter, for I have been, I am, and I always will be.
I am nobody and everybody. I am the Medium.

[MKindy]

I'm afraid I'm out, too much real life stuff got in the way this week.

[J4Numbers]

Does the comp close at Server time Midnight or what?

EDIT: no matter, If this isn't low fiction, then it's still a short story of sorts

Spoiler! :

The City That Never Moved

The scientific breakthrough that was the computer... never came to pass, the internet, gaming, electronics; all never happened. Where would you be, if Facebook never became a worldwide phenomenon, if SneakyPie never founded the escapecraft server, if progression simply stopped...?

The world stopped on a Tuesday, in March in the year 1759, and the world simply had no more scientists willing to create a new future. It had no more people willing to move on. And so, the Industrial age lived on for a very long time. The monarchy of Great Britain, the Presidency of the United States, the world leaders, they all fell victim to the Smog, the great smoke cloud that was a constant presence outside of any house, and sometimes inside them. The British Capital of London became a memory, and soon, everyone just called it The City.

There's always a dour mood in the City, it goes with the dour food, the dour jobs, and the dour outlook on life. Outside the heavy oak doors, I could hear the people scurrying from street to street; hear the coughs and splutters of their cars, refusing to start. And while lying there, I began to think about my own life.

I was 16, soon to be 17, and my life hadn't really improved since I'd finished my education last summer. No parents, no money, and no house to shelter me from the elements. You see, my parents had died several years before I took control over my own life. They said that it was another Smog incident; that they had simply suffocated on the thick smoke that hung around the city like a pestilence. But I wasn't fooled; I alone had seen the thin line of red on their necks where they had been strangled.

My inheritance had turned into thin air, just as a street gang stuck the metaphorical and actual gold, they became the richest gang in the City, and my house became the hideout of the very same gang. Coincidence, I seemed to be the only one who doubted that. So I learned to survive. It probably sounds harsh, but that's how it was, survival of the fittest. I became a thief; it seemed like the only way to make any real money without having to enter the Workhouses. People who went into those hell-holes rarely returned at all, and so I became an outcast, an outlaw, an orphan who lived without the workhouse.

Of course, even I had to answer to someone; the city wouldn't be the city without its network of gangs and groups. The group that I'd become a part of was the Greater city Mafia, a particularly vicious group of bloodthirsty vagabonds, rivalled in bloodlust only by the Italian mafia, down to the Bespoke suits and their treatment of traitors. Thankfully, the only run-in I'd had with them so far had been when I'd been press-ganged into their ranks, after I'd successfully stolen a wallet from one of the founders. That was an experience I'd rather forget; but for you, here is what I remember.

It was a rainy day, and I'd been on a trip through the midday market in the middle of The City. He'd looked like a challenge from the first time I'd seen him in the throng of people, all rushing for cover from the rain and the smog. His right hand had a tendency to twitch towards his jacket pocket, as if there was something there which he was very eager to use, coupled with the fact that his eyes seemed to err on the alert side. But I'd had an excellent day so far and I'd managed to make at least £100 from the unwary passers-by, almost unheard of, and so I thought I'd try with Lady Luck for one last time. Trouble was, Lady Luck can drop all good fortune into terrible fortune in one heartbeat.

I managed to pick his pocket quite easily, and was on my way out of the market, when the man noticed me and started towards me, my only thought at the time was that he must have had eyes in the back of his head, I was sure that I hadn't made the slightest pressure on the pocket that could stretch the fabric, or even cause him to pause slightly. All the same, the next thing that I knew was that his hand was closing around my shoulder, preventing me from escaping my captor with that small movement.

As I prepared myself for the worst, he paused, and steered me into an alley right next to us. From there, he turned me so that I could look at him properly. He was dressed in a perfect suit, black as the night, with white stripes down the suit spaced evenly. His shoes were made from the finest leather that money could buy, and his hat; a wide-brimmed Trilby, was perched on his head. His face was forgettable; it seemed like that it was melting into the background, when it was currently at the forefront of my vision. It was easy to see that this man was extraordinary, not only were all his clothes tailor-made, but he had a certain hardness to his eyes that suggested that he'd previously been in a lot of tight scrapes, and some that only he would walk away from.

He leant down towards me and spoke thusly:
"You ought to watch yourself kid" his tone menacing.
"I don't know what you mean mister" My reply came out quick and he obviously didn't believe a word of it, yet, he still refrained from causing any harm on me.
"Usually, it pays to be on good terms with the Greater London Mafia kid."
I didn't believe him then, but, there was that niggling doubt in the back of my mind. He wears a suit that looks as if it was specifically made for the darker side of business. I suspected that he had a gun in his jacket, and his eyes were the real giveaway, they looked like they had seen conflict, and they were hard as the diamonds that must have lined his shiny teeth, as he glared at me. He clicked his tongue, and then spoke directly to me.

"Well kid, you planned to rob the London mafia, which would get you at least kneecapped by anyone else."
"But not me kid, I can see that you have talent with your hands, so I'll strike you a deal. You give me 75% of what you get everyday, and we can forget that this little incident ever happened. Deal?"
He held out his hand, a smirk on his face. Well, what choice did I have, I could guess what he'd do to me if I refused. So wordlessly, I took his hand in my own, and shook it firmly.

He left after that, pocketing most of my days work, leaving me with £25 left. I hoped that he’d just forget about me.
He didn’t, and he came back the next day, at the same place, with the same glint in his eyes, he took his share of my profits again and again. Day after day. In fact, I’ve had it up to high hell with this guy. All of my money is effectively in that guys pocket, and what am I left with? The scraps of course. Needless to say that I’d been entertaining the idea of revenge for a good few years. So what was I to do?

I left my den at 10 minutes to 5 in the afternoon, carrying my daily swag of 38 pounds and 20 pence. Ready and waiting for the debt collector. It took 2 minutes to walk to the alley where we usually met, except, this time, the alley had been changed. I had gone there in the early hours of the morning to lay a trap for him. It was simple, I knew where I'd laid the trap, so I'd just have to wait for him to step into it.

When he arrived to meet at our old back alley, carrying an old sack as he normally did in order to cart my money off to somewhere else to be exchanged into drugs or the finer things in life.
Only one person left that alley alive, and he was grinning.

So what do you do after killing one of the founders of the largest mafia in the City? I sure as hell didn't know. I couldn't exactly go bragging of my success to anyone, which would get me noticed by the mafia even quicker than letting them find the body. So at the moment, my life expectancy could be measured in hours.

When I got back to my little den, I found that the door was ajar, and my carefully laid traps were disabled. Despite my survival instincts telling me to leg it the moment that I saw the door, I stayed on track and carefully opened the door expecting to find a scene of destruction… It was untouched, everything bar the traps was as I’d left them, and even they had been placed carefully onto a table. Their bare machinery, children’s toys on my furniture.

And inside the room, I quickly saw the exception to the untouched room, on the same table where the traps were laid out, there was a piece of paper. On it was written the word ‘Congratulations’ in big curly writing. I flipped over the sheet and read:

‘Congratulations on your promotion into the Greater City Business, your new post in this organisation is as a founder, we will contact you shortly to give you more information regarding your new career.
Yours Sincerely
Mr Brown
(Head of Operations)’

And there followed some time, where I re-read the script again and again, not daring to believe my eyes. But after what could have been an hour, or a matter of minutes, I was that entranced, there was a knock on the door. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and took my future into my own hands.

[697134002]

Does the comp close at Server time Midnight or what?

EDIT: no matter, If this isn't low fiction, then it's still a short story of sorts

It's supposed to be low fantasy.

[J4Numbers]

It is fanatical in the way that things kinda halted, maybe

[SneakyPie]

Poll is up! Get to voting.

[Lord_Mountbatten]

Technically Spy would win by default, since what m477 wrote isn't low fantasy.

[Pinmissile]

Oh, I should participate in this. I'm not given enough reasons to write fiction these days.

[MKindy]

How long til voting's up?

[SneakyPie]

How long til voting's up?

Today.

Congrats, Spyboticsguy, you are the winner!

Please go ahead and name the genre for the next week.

[Spyboticsguy]

The genre is...
Dystopian Fiction!
Have fun.

[SneakyPie]

Great, these are due April 10!

[SneakyPie]

Remember everyone has one more day until the due date.

[MrJKapowey]

1,000 words, centered on a trio of the standard 'oppressive police' from Dystopian Fiction. I've taken inspiration from Brazil in this story. (OTT bureaucracy, two names, the crime and the uniform of the Enforcers)

Spoiler! :

*tap-tap-tap*

“Wakey, wakey matey.”

Tuttle shook himself awake, throwing off the shackles of slumber as he looked around: the outside of the car was black with night on top of the soot-stained architecture. They had been driving for a long time.

“We there Spoor?”
“Yup, let’s go.”

The car slid to a stop outside of an apartment block, as it did so the three men within stepped out, straightening their silver helmets and running hands over their grey uniforms to try and look presentable. Spoor stepped to the back of the vehicle and drew three heavy shotguns, passing one to the others and keeping one for himself. The men, joking as they walked, proceeded to the doorway and entered the building, carefully avoiding one of the steps which was stained red with dried blood. When they entered the atrium, one of the officers stepped over to the post pigeon holes.

“Okay, Markus Joaquin, unlicensed plumbing, apartment… Let’s see. Ah, Apartment 233.”
“Tsk, unlicensed plumbing eh?”
“I know man, haven’t these criminals got anything better to do. I mean, I heard a full Tier One team was sent out to deal with littering on a public byway yesterday.”
“Yeah… Wait, a full team?”
“Yup, 40 men, command and control vehicle, medical support, airborne marksmen, the works.”
“Pshaw… To think the Times accused the Ministry of misapplication of resources… What happened to the editor by the way?”
“Oh, took him to the 15th floor, I heard he was quite the screamer. The missus said the look on his face when they told him what they’d done to his family nearly moved her to sympathy…”

The trio laughed, before looking around themselves to check no one had seen the crack in their authoritarian and imposing demeanour. After again consulting the board they began to climb the steps, after a few flights they passed a beggar on the floor, curled up on a roll mat next to a hat filled with small-change and a piece of card reading ‘I live at #54 and my key is lost. Need money to get another recut.’ As soon as they saw him, the three men exchanged glances, and Tuttle drew out a book, flicking through it until he reached ‘V’:

Vagrancy: not living inside a dwelling prior determined as a dwelling by the Ministry. Punishable by $30 fine first offence, Internment on the 15th floor second offence. To provide proof of lack of vagrancy, the person must provide proof of being able to enter their determined dwelling through the possession of a working key.

With that, the trio immediately began to lay into the prone man, kicking him savagely a few times before dragging him to his feet and delivering another blow to the stomach.

"You do know that Vagrancy is a crime, right?"
"What, I'm not a vagrant! I live right here!"
"Oh yeah, prove it."
"How?"
"Well, it says to prove you are not a vagrant you must be able to unlock and enter your apartment. So go on then..."
"What? What? I have broken my key, but the Ministry won't give me a new one because I have a spare, in my apartment. When I inform them my spare key is locked in my apartment, they direct me to the department of re-procurement who tell me to use my 1st key, directing me back to the Repairment department when I inform them this one is broke..."
"So, you can't get into your apartment?"
"Well obviously not you imbe..."
"Right, first offence. We'll be taking that!"

With that, the officers delivered another punch, emptied the hat into their pockets and left the man to continue their journey. A few minutes later they reached the floor of apartment 233, thumping on the door and calling out loudly 'Ministry Enforcement. Open up!" Moments later the door opened and a frail woman stood there:

"Yes, constable. C-can I hep you?"
"Is the person known as Markus Joaquin in the premises?"
"Errr... No, officer, he's not."
"Ma'am, can I remind you that it is punishable by death-on-the-spot to lie to an Enforcement officer?"

As Tuttle said that, Spoor racked the action of his shotgun.

"Would you like to reconsider your statement?"
"He's in the bathroom, fixing the shower, please don't hurt me or Janet!"
"Right, c'mon lads! Let's get this bastard! Spoor, stay here and deal with her!”

Tuttle and the other officer unslung their shotguns and stormed into the apartment as Spoor could be heard talking to the wife: “So, you did lie to us, and then changed your mind? That’s death-on-the-spot, that is!” They quickly smashed down the unlocked door into the bathroom and raised their weapons, to point at the trembling civilians, the father clutching his daughter to his chest: “Markus Joaquin, you are sentenced to death by the Ministry for the crime of unlicensed plumbing, to be enacted as soon as you are identified by the Enforcers. Are you Markus Joaquin?”

The man stood up, his daughter holding his hand and crying, before holding his head high and opening his mouth: “Yes, I am Markus Joaquin, and I care not for yo…”

The first slug tore through his chest and scythed his heart out, Tuttle, meanwhile, had loaded buckshot, and the pellets smashed into his body, with some hurling the offender’s daughter to the ground.

“He dead?”
“Yeah, what’d the orders say?”
“Kill Markus Joaquin.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah, let’s go.”

The men trooped out into the stairwell, stepping over the body of Mrs Joaquin as they made their way down stairs, the only word said until they reached the car was “Oi, you again? That’s the second time you’ve been found a-vagrantin’ around here! You’re coming to the 15th floor matey!” Minutes later they entered the car and slowly pulled away to drive back to the obsidian fronted ministry.
“Shame about the girl though.”
“Yeah, but it said kill as soon as identified, and she was in the way.”
“Yeah. We were only following orders.”

[MKindy]

I wonder who the winner is :3

[J4Numbers]

Right
This is mainly just an idea still, that can be continued, just to make things annoying for MrJ

Spoiler! :

Thinking Tax

Picture this. The year 2401, life it reaching a peak of another technological stage. The information age came and went, and so did the space age. But people still wanted evolution, hence brought forth the Technological breakthroughs, including: the Hovercar, the Jetpack, the laser pistols, everything you ever dreamed about existing was now possible. All due to the work of a single business.



Except, this business was greedy; It thought that only they should get the profits, no-one else. So they thought up an invention, sold it to the masses as the next big thing, and when everyone had one, they activated it. Upon which the devices transformed into Thought transmitters, that automatically latched onto the nearest higher thinking organism, which was, for the most part, humans. From there, static was transmitted 24/7 to everyone on Earth, cancelling out every thought, every feeling, every option for competition, and giving the business access to a rapt audience of nearly 7 billion people.

It worked for a while, people were like cattle, and the business became a worldwide phenomenon, and profits soared.

But the lack of competition was a very dull prospect indeed. So around 50 people around the globe were released from the devices. This is the story of but one of them.
Well, how do you describe waking up compared with whatever this was. I had a pretty good idea that waking up wasn’t this painful, that’s for certain. I had no sense of any time passing, so, from when I’d been admiring the new product that the absteve business had churned out, to now, where I was lying on the cold floor of an unfamiliar room with a splitting headache. I sat up groggily, looking at my watch as I did so. Strange, the time had stopped.

There was a newspaper on the table in the middle of the room. I had no idea when it had got there, nor how. But as I looked at the date on the front, I had a good idea that I’d been like this for a while.

The date on the paper read the 3rd April 2411, almost 10 years since I was last conscious. So, after 3479 days out of my own mind, my first conscious thought was: that the stomach was very much empty

everything in my cupboards and cool room was in evidence, One final thing that I noticed. There was no noise, no banging from next door, no cats yowling, or dogs barking. Just complete silence

[MrJKapowey]

I'm not annoyed. I was pissed off that I wrote the story, with no one to compete against!

[J4Numbers]

shouldn't me much of a competition if it's any measure of how much time I had to spend on that, pity too.

[SneakyPie]

Poll is up. Get to voting.

[MrJKapowey]

As I've won, may I post a genre?

[MKindy]

Things have calmed down this side, I intend to participate in the next. :3 Pick a good one, MrJ.

[Skunk_Giant]

I shall be taking part too!

[MrJKapowey]

I'm gonna have to be a little boring and choose War. (Defined as a genre by The Guardian.)

Defining war as any story which features armed combat between two nations, city-states or w/ever as a primary focus. The story can be about soldiers in WW2, or street kids hiding from the evil aliens as Earth is subjugated. It's up to you.

[Skunk_Giant]

What about Sci-fi war? :O

I shall begin writing soon...

[SneakyPie]

The genre is fine. I'll get around to updating the OP soon.

[Skunk_Giant]

Wow, this week went quickly...
Almost done. What better day to finish writing my war story than tomorrow, Anzac Day?

[Lord_Mountbatten]

Bow out ladies.

Spoiler! :

War

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Finis.