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Comfort Zone
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Dori was surprised and a bit scared when she couldn't get herself out of bed the next evening. After getting a ride home from the hospital from a frantic Aunt Andrea and sleeping like a baby all night (and some of the day) she'd felt fine. When Smile called that afternoon and left a message that he had sent a mechanic over to fix her Oldsmobile so she would have transportation, she had felt fine, had even told Smile thank you and asked again how he was. He was distant, and seemed to be annoyed with her.
When the mechanic got the car running (it took him about ten minutes of poking about), that was fine too. But when she woke up from her afternoon nap, she couldn't move. Dori's eyes opened, and she stared at the ceiling and couldn't move. It was as though one arm was held down by her wrecked Neon, and the other by the fact that she had to move out, and one of her legs was trapped under the shit with stupid Chris Sinclair and his fans who seemed determined to make her life miserable through pranks and occasional threats. Her other leg was stuck under the whole Smile situation, even though that was technically resolved. And she couldn't get up.
She could hear the television in the other room; Aunt Andrea was watching the news. And she knew she had to work at seven, so it was time to get up. But the order was issued to her legs, and they just ignored her. A message came back from her feet. Who gives a shit? it said. Everything sucks. And her feet didn't move.
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Comfort Zone
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The negotiation had been brief. The EMT had appeared, with his box, at the side door of the van that Dori had been taken to, and asked her a few general how-are-you-doing questions. Once he had made sure she was lucid, he asked if she wanted to go to the hospital, to be checked. Dori had told him, "Not really," since she mostly felt like going home and lying down and figuring out what to do now that she had two cars that didn't work. "I don't really like hospitals," she told the guy. "All they ever do is look for bigger and bigger things to impale me with."
"You were in a serious accident," the EMT said with a tone that suggested he had had this conversation many times before.
"I'll be okay. I always am."
"You know," he replied casually, running a hand through his sparse hair, "sometimes, you can be in an accident like this and break your neck or your back, and not even know about it for several hours. Then, without warning, you turn your head or bend over to get something and bam," he snapped his fingers loudly, "your spinal column is severed."
Dori blinked at him, eyes huge. "Um, okay, I'll go."
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Latest News
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Based on the sentence below, write a story of anywhere between 500-5000 words. As before, genre, etc. are wide open. This time I'll choose the five best stories to post--though I reserve the right to add to that number for thoroughly awesome entries--and I will link to whatever blogs, etc. the author would like me to as well. Stories remain the property of the contributor. (These challenges are becoming more and more popular, so in the event that I ever decide to publish a collection of said stories, I will contact contributors for permission and discuss compensation at that time.) Using the sentence in the story itself is a plus, but not necessary. Meaningless bonus points are added if it's the first sentence:
It was several seconds before Thomas realized that the baby in the sky was headed straight for him.
Submissions should be emailed to me via emmy (izzat) elepent.com. Format doesn't matter; I can accept email enclosures or attached Word documents. The deadline for entries is March 1, 2010.
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Race to the Sun
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Molly had never realized it before, but there was a place beyond carsickness. The first few moment in the Allard had been nausea-inducing. Then she'd almost fallen out of the car, and the need to throw up vanished. It didn't come back, either; not during the roaring, police siren-drenched drive down the mountainside, during which Glen seemed to be driving sideways most of the time, not during the even louder blast up the freeway through Hamilton. Molly's toes had curled involuntarily, as if they were trying to grip the car's floorboards through her shoes. She was very aware of not being strapped in.
Now they were most of the way across the land bridge separating two of Ile du Solieil's islands, and the police had apparently just given up. The closest pursuit car had dropped far back, then disappeared entirely, apparently demoralized. Glen kept his foot down, and the Allard roared along, chilly wind rushing over the cowl and fighting with the engine's heat that was beginning to roast her feet. There were no other cars in sight, except for a lone semi truck going the other way.
Above them, the clouds broke, and the sight of the gibbous moon low in the sky reflected in the ocean took her breath away. Without buildings to echo the sound back at them, the Allard's V8 roar was merely deafening, instead of ear-shattering, and she was getting used to the car's tendency to occasionally dart to one side or the other. She wanted to try to talk to Glen, but he was working hard. She could feel happiness pouring off of him, but the Allard seemed to her to be like a partially-broken horse that was constantly testing its master to see what it could get away with. She closed her eyes (the wind was making them water terribly anyway), leaned back in the seat, and tried to get her toes to uncurl.
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16 Ways to Hock a Cat
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What do you want? If you’re expecting the witty and loopy and highly entertaining me that you’ve been told to expect, you’re going to be very disappointed. You’ve caught me at a strange and uncomfortable moment, and I’m not feeling particularly witty or loopy or special right now. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.
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Race to the Sun
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Alone at the wheel of the 911, Dick didn't even bother going into downtown Hamilton. Emerging from the cave in the shadow of the Suburban's crash, he'd gone down the mountain, past a few parked police cars, and found himself on L7 with no pursuit whatsoever. The lights scattered across the night sky and roaring engines echoing down the mountain, audible even over the noise that the Porsche was making, suggested that this wouldn't be the case for long, so he put his foot down and let the car go as quickly as it wanted to. He kept his ears and fingers tuned to its mood. Dick had driven hundreds of 911s, new and old, and even another, nicely restored RS once, so he was intimately familiar with the car's quirks. Within ten miles or so he could feel that the right front and left rear tires were losing air, that the steering and rear suspension were badly out of adjustment probably due to rotten bushings, and that the engine was significantly out of tune. Even with all of that, the 911 was capable of cruising at eighty, which he did. He wouldn't have attempted to autocross it in this condition, but it would move itself as far as it needed to.
"We'll go racing later," he said. Lexi had handed him the keys and something in the way she'd done it had suggested to Dick that she meant if he could get this car to the boat, he could have it. It seemed like an amazing, spur-of-the-moment gift, but it also seemed like the kind of off-the-wall thing Lexi would do, knowing her history. And, on some level, Dick had to admit it was only fair. They'd all gone through a lot to get these cars rescued, and though they hadn't done it for a reward, if their only thanks had been Lexi's gratitude they'd have all felt somewhat cheated, on a selfish level. No, Lexi had to have meant that he could keep the car, if he made it back.
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