My challenge

[The Avatar]

Its time to stop screwing around and get to work. At the end of this month half the year will be over.
I have to have completed a book by then. So I decided to make compilation of short stories that Ive been kicking around in the back of my noggin. Now, Ive had ages to get a start on it, but haven't.
At the end of this month my self imposed deadline will be up, so its time for action. 30 days, ten stories.
That gives me 3 days to do each story.

By the end of friday, my first short story: "The mercenaries plague" must be ready. Can I do it? and by Monday, my second story should be completed: "The first CEL"


PS: Want me to post the stories after completion?

[Timformation]

Any progress? I'd love to read them.

[Arcane1]

Post away.

[Drinking Duck]

go for it

[and3w]

Dunno, I'll tell you after I read each one. Constructive critisicsm and appreciation will be forthcoming. I'm looking forward to them.

[ersatz]

stop posting on Zgeek and start writing!

[The Avatar]

Yeah, its going, but not to well, work Zgames, girlfriend, family all gang up on me and take my time and energy.

I do have at least some stuff, but its on my laptop.

I will do some more and later today I will post a bit from one of the stories. Maybe CEL, I like that story.

[druckfugged]

I look forward to reading them, but I strongly recommend you don't place time constraints on yourself to write them, even as drafts. Some of the best ideas for stories occur weeks after you begin them, sometimes out of the blue.

[The Avatar]

Thats true, but I need to make time constraints as if I don't, it will never get done. You see, years of playing video games has sapped me of my drive in life. I now coast along with no ambition, well thats wrong, as I have ambition, just no drive to make it reality. I must force myself to do it.

[The Avatar]

Okay, been working on some of my stories, but I not happy with them, so to keep you guys happy, I will give you a small story that I wrote to my girlfriend for her birthday.

At the time I read heaps of Douglas Adams, so this short was inspired by that and my own adventures in a stupidmarket. And, no, I didn't mean a supermarket.


Tic-Tac Attack

David Stickyfingers was a shelf packer at the local supermarket. He loved his job, not because he could pack shelves really well (because he didn't) but because it gave him an opportunity to steal stuff. You see David was a kleptomaniac. He would steal anything and everything he could get his grubby little hands on. Few people who worked there knew of his thieving skills.

One special night, while David was packing shelves, a storm was raging in the area. This storm was not a normal storm; it had particles that had been ionised by Venus and Mars in them. These particles by themselves were quite harmless, but when they came into contact with each other became very unstable. They vibrated and glowed an eerie yellow. Everyone outside who happened to glance at the storm would see a very yellow dark cloud. They became frightened and ran off to their homes.

The storm became more and more unstable as the night wore on. After about three hours of brewing the storm began to lash out. Lightning began to hit the ground, this was not ordinary lightning though: it contained the ionised particles in the discharge. Every spot that the lightning struck became alive and strange. A bone that a dog had been chewing on was struck by the weird lightning and became alive. The bone felt that a great injustice had been perpetrated upon him. It had to avenge itself; it tracked down the dog and began to chew on it. The dog eventually escaped and hatched an ingenious plot for revenge, but that’s another story for another day.

The lightning also hit a statue in the local park. This statue became alive and moved off its pedestal. It had been the favoured perch for a pack of evil pigeons for years. Now the statue wanted revenge. The statue walked around for a few hours, thinking of possible revenge plans it could wreck upon the unsuspecting pigeons. In the end, the statue developed the most insidious plan for revenge. It involved a bar of soap, fourteen piano chairs and a bicycle. The statue then proceeded to undergo the most evil revenge plan in the history of humanity, but this too is a story for another day.

This story, however, deals with David Stickyfingers, the shelfpacker. David had been dutifully packing his aisle since the beginning of his shift. He had already stolen quite a few items, just for the fun of it, but he was not satisfied. No, he had to continue stealing until the end of his shift. He wondered if he would ever get caught. But then after a few seconds, he would think of something else. He did this because he was a bit retarded, and had the attention span of a piece of snot that had just been ejected out of its warm nostril habitat.

So, anyway, as the night wore on, the antenna on top of the supermarket, where David was working, got hit by the eerie yellow lightning. The lightning travelled along the wires until it hit the TV that was plugged into the wall. At this point the charge felt like a change of pace and jumped out of the TV, scaring the hell out of an employee who was watching a safety video about the dangers of electrical charges. The electrical charge hissed at the worker and then proceeded to walk down the corridor.

Now, at this point you may be wondering how could a charge of electricity walk down the corridor. Well, that just the thing with eerie yellow charged particle lightning storms, they did strange stuff like that. It was accepted practice in the charged lightning community and this particular piece of charged lightning felt good about his place in the universe and consequently followed his calling without deviation.

When the charge reached the end of the corridor it decided to go left. Which was also an accepted practice in charge particle society. Only troublemakers would go right, it thought to itself merrily, as it continued down the passage.

At the end of this passage the charge encountered a set of stairs. The charge looked at it, wondering what it was and how it got to be there. It thought for a while and eventually descended the stairs in a very electrical manner. And now it continued on its merry way towards the aisle that David was working in.

David meanwhile had been a busy worker, otherwise known to the rest of the world as a thief. He had stolen nearly half of the items he had packed. This was in itself an amazing feat because David had packed around four pallets. That meant that somewhere on his body he had hidden two pallets worth of items. And yet when someone looked at him, all they saw was a normal looking David. David snickered to himself maniacally. He did that quite a bit, with no apparent reason.

David’s last theft had been a packet of M&M's that someone had left on the shelf. He had tore open the packet and swallowed half its contents with many malcontents. A few stray M&M's had fallen to the ground. One particular M&M had fallen right near his feet. It was this M&M that the strange electrical charge caught sight of the moment it had descended the stairs.

The electrical charge stood shock still, almost as though it had been struck by lightning. This was in actual fact the case, because in its electrical society, heaven or nirvana was described as being an M&M. It looked at the M&M while the M&M looked right back at it. It was then that the strangest thing occurred. The M&M actually physically beckoned the electrical charge over to it.

The electrical charge needed no more prompting. With a screech of pure joy it zipped over and into the M&M and fused itself with the M&M making the most powerful entity in the known universe. This entity was so powerful that as yet there was no name for it. So the entity decided to name itself Bob. Bob felt that its name was quite good, but needed a follow up title. So it decided to call itself Bob the Builder from now on.

Unfortunately someone had already put a trademark on that name, so a lengthy court battle ensued. Eventually, a deal was struck, that deal consisted of Bob vaporising everyone in the courtroom and nothing was ever said again about copyright infringement.

David had not witnessed any of these miracles, so when he glanced down all he saw was a shinny little delicious M&M. David could not resist his urge. It was overpowering, and so without hesitation he plucked Bob the Builder, the most powerful entity in the universe up and ate him. The is where the story would have ended, if this was where it ended, but alas its not. You see Bob the Builder who was the most powerful entity in the known universe did not feel happy about being eaten. In fact he felt rather irked about the whole incident. So Bob the Builder decided to get some revenge on David.

Bob the Builder knew David's name; he knew everything about David. This was one of the advantages of being the most powerful entity in the known universe; you know everything. However, this could also be a rather big disadvantage because the second someone became the most powerful entity in the universe, all that knowledge bombarded their brain and usually drove them insane. This was the case with Bob the Builder, well, to be fair this was the case with every entity that was the most powerful in the galaxy.

Anyway, Bob the Builder decided to teach David a rather nasty lesson in eating strange entities of the floor. He rematerialised in the exact same spot on the floor. David did not notice this, but when he looked down he saw the same M&M in the exact same spot where a moment before he had eaten it from. David did not even pause as he picked up the M&M and ate it again. He made sure to chew it extra long.

Bob the Builder was quite angry. His lesson had gone un-noticed! He had gone to the trouble of showing David that he was not bothered by being eaten, that he was above all that petty misunderstandings and stuff. But it seemed that David was rather thick headed. Well, thought Bob the Builder while hiking up his pants, I can be rather thick headed too!

David had kept on packing, he had moved to a new shelf and bent down to pack a box when he noticed that the M&M that he had eaten the last two times was still between his feet, even though he had moved location. He decided to try something new, he kicked the M&M away from him. He snickered maniacally again and kept on packing. But when he reached down for his next box he saw that same M&M between his feet. Now David was beginning to get scared.

When David got scared, he farted. Everyone who knew David would know that he was scared because of the small high-pitched farts that would ensue from his anus when in a state of high anxiety. But the customers did not know of this and so his high pitched "ppfft!" began to agitate the customers. It is a well-known fact in the universe that the most annoying forms of life in the universe are customers. All species in the universe undergo a physiological change when entering a supermarket turning them into a ridiculous form of life known as a customer. The only reason that supermarkets have not been outlawed in all societies is that the change seems to reverse the second a person leaves a supermarket. Now, customers by themselves are quite harmless, but when agitated, they begin to complain. This is how the manager on duty found out that David was farting and therefore scared and had to deal with his most hated employee.

A good five minutes had passed since Bob the builder had first started his vengeance on David, although if you had asked David, he would have said a bad five minutes had passed. The M&M was still reappearing and making David fart in a most amusing manner which in turn was agitating customers which in turn was causing them to burst into spontaneous fits of complaining. The manager walked into David’s aisle and asked the question that he would regret for the rest of his life...

"What the hell is wrong with you David, why aren’t you packing? Why haven’t you done more work? Stop farting and get back to work now!" he screamed at David.

David looked up at him, with eyes beginning to tear. And with that the floodgates opened. He gave a soul wrenching cry and collapsed at the managers feet and then proceeded to blabber for over two hours about how the M&M was after him, had a big vendetta against him, how life was unfair, how he had not had sex with a woman (he spent a good half an hour elaborating this point) and how life had done him wrong. The manager could not say a word in edgewise because he was too stunned to for a coherent response. And yet, each time he mustered up enough electrical activity in his brain to interject, David would scramble his thought process with another hideous truth about his pathetic miserable life.

Oh, and its at this point that I as the teller of this tale should tell you that the M&M was originally a tic-tac. I tell you this not because halfway into the story I realised that it was meant to be a tic-tac and that I stuffed up, but because the tic-tac was bored with life and morphed into an M&M without telling ME!! Now really, I should have been told this long before he went and done it, but I was left out of the loop completely. I am as shocked and insulted as the rest of you readers and refuse to go on. I can’t work in these conditions! I will be in my trailer.

..........
(blink)
..........

Hello, my name is Thomas. I will be your new narrator from this point on as the last guy was fired for being a dickhead. Anyway I look forward to working with you champ, and love your work. So as the last guy was saying previously...

The ambulance people were called by a staff member who wished to remain anonymous (you know who you are). David was hauled away for a physciatric analysis and the manager on duty at the time was fired for driving his staff to insanity. The cat married the dog and everyone lived happily ever after.

Everyone except for David that is. He was found to be quite insane and committed for life in the mental hospital. He sits in his cell rocking back and forth staring at the M&M near his feet that will never ever go away. The worst part is that he had the hottest female nurse in the history of the universe that developed a massive crush on David and consequently would get a special fuzzy feeling down there each time she looked at him. She would have happily screwed his brains out on that very spot if David just looked up at her. But alas, all he ever did, until the day he died was stare at that bloody M&M near his feet.