Collaborative writing? I'll start.

The Core Media Forum
1

If this doesn’t take off, then it doesn’t. I merely thought it might be interesting/fun if we had a collaborative writing project. Essentially, we’d just take turns writing a story here in the media forum. There would be a couple of rules, but nothing too mindblowing:

  1. You must write at least a paragraph. This is more of a suggestion than a rule.
  2. Do not negate the premise- this is more important than the other rule by FAR. It’s like the improv rule, “Yes, and,” if you’re familiar with that. What this means is that if someone says that Bob can only used magic when immersed in water, then he wouldn’t be casting magic when dry from head to toe. Do not negate someone’s idea- add to it, build from it.

Obviously, this doesn’t have to be super-awesome or anything. This is first-draft style writing all around. The main goal is to have fun, not create something that will cause all of thw world to spontaneously combust in joy.

So, I’ll start off:

Sam drove down the road thinking of her cat, Pisces. Well… Bill’s cat. She hoped that he was going to play with him and play with him, but she didn’t think that was going to happen. Pisces still loved to play even after fifteen years of life, but Bill thought of this as an annoyance. She should have took the little guy. Or maybe not even left.

But she had to leave. She can still see Bill dancing with that woman, whoever she was. What did she have that I didn’t? She looked in the dashboard mirror. She had circles around her eyes. She didn’t wear nearly as much makeup as That Woman. She didn’t wear skirts like that, either. Of course, she didn’t know many people that could wear that little fabric in the middle of winter. If he wanted that kind of woman, why did he go for me? She thought it was plenty feminine to wear jeans and a tee shirt. Makeup, especially lipstick, seemed an unnecessary chore. All she needed was soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. She would go so far as to say that’s all anybody needed.

She lights a cigarette with one hand. She had quit when she met Bill. He had helped her, because he cared about her so much. And so, she smokes to spite Bill, a man she thought two hundred miles away. He was actually about twenty miles away, way over the speed limit trying to catch her, wanting to explain himself. Sam doesn’t know where she is heading, but Bill does. It’s where she always goes when she’s upset.

2

It was a little dive that nobody noticed, the entrance being not so much concealed as ignored. There was no sign on the door, but if you knew where it was, you knew what it was. The Heavenly Hole. It was a place where those who didn’t quite fit in with Society’s definition of normality went to relax. Because sometimes you want to go where nobody knows your name.

Sam had taken Bill with her to the Hole once. He put on a good poker face, but she could tell that the atmosphere made him uncomfortable. She never asked again, and he never mentioned it.

The closest parking spot was about a block away. The air was freezing cold, but she didn’t mind the walk. The cold never bothered her much. She paused outside an alleyway not unlike any other, and quickly sucked down what was left of her cigarette. Why, with everything that goes on in the Hole, she couldn’t smoke there, she would never understand. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, she dropped what was left of the cigarette and crushed it under her heel, then proceed down the alley until she came to a plain wooden door, unadorned save for a sign that said ‘NO SOLICITORS’.

She gave what those paying attention might note was a slightly irregular knock, and the door opened.

3

An obese pre-teen opened the door, breathing heavily. “Heya Sam, you’re here fast.” It was the proprietor’s son, who watched the door to get free chocolate covered ants. The son moved out of the way and Sam stepped in. The Heavenly Hole was your typical condemned ice cream parlour. Broken frost machines, smeared cream on the walls, and that sickening yet subtle stench of rum and raisin that sexed in the air. It had the usual characters Sam came to recognize over the years. Mostly break-outs from the local womens prison.

As Sam scanned the area she saw who she was looking for. A large, big breasted, blonde woman wearing a red leather dress sat at a table. Martha was her name, and she was probably the best friend Sam has ever had the pleasure of knowing. A deep sensual pleasure that was buried deep inside of her once she met Bill.

Suddenly, Martha turned around. “Well well, look what the cat dragged in… an by cat I mean a flea-ridden, low down, sex-crazed maniac of a fiance. Where is he? And what are you doing back here?” Sam blushed. “I’m just here to reminisce. Care for a dance?” spoke Sam, in the most grisly tone she has used in a long time. Martha sat upright and cleared her throat. “Why of course sweetheart, I wouldn’t turn down such an offer any day of the damn old week”. The large red woman got off her seat and began to take off her gloves, revealing scarred flesh and fingernails that should have been cut a long time ago.

4

Sam shivered as she always did at the sight of those hands, those cold, cruel looking claws which had saved her life, dragging her would be attacker from her, tossing him aside as easily as a child. Martha was not a woman to be trifled with and if she seemed callous, if her words seemed scathing it was only because she had no understanding of the weaknesses of others. Fortunately for Sam, she accepted them as facts of humanity and didn’t judge her friends too harshly for them.

After a couple of minutes of silently dancing, feeling the protective circle of those hands around her hips, she eventually voiced what was really troubling her. “The bastard. The goddamn rat bastard.” Her voice was still rough and grim - her prison voice. It was a voice only the patrons of Heavenly Hole knew her pretty mouth could issue anymore. Nobody would believe it of Sammie, not Samantha. How could this small, quiet sweetheart be an ex-con?

Martha just chuckled at it. “Oh Sam. It’s man troubles again with you?”

5

EDIT: Wow, I wasn’t expecting a response for like… a day. Awesome, guys!

And LMFAO, Gila; that’s just bloody great.

==============================
Sam didn’t ask if she could smoke, she just pulled another Camel out and lit it. She sat down on an old freezer, the kind that you put the novelty ice creams in. Martha sat next to her. Silence.

“Listen, Sam. You can tell me, you know that. I won’t snitch.” She patted Sam on the back.

Sam sighed. “He was dancing with another woman.”

“You mean like we was? You’re pissed at him 'cause of dancing?”

“You didn’t see it. He was into it. He looked in her EYES.” Big drag.

Martha tilted her head. “I could think of a lotta worse things he could be looking at, babe. And anyway, couldn’t it be an important client or whatever? Isn’t he like a bigshot lawyer or something?”

“No.” Sam crosses her legs.

“That’s what you told…”

“Listen, I don’t know what he did. He said it wasn’t important. He always said, ‘don’t worry about it, Sammy girl.’ Then I’d tell him not to call me Sammy girl. I hate that shit. But… you know, isn’t that kinda suspicious? So today I followed him. Then I found him dancing with some damned slut.” She spat.

“Wait- so you staked out your boy? Like a fucking cop? Psh. What the fuck happened to you, Sam? You know you coulda got me to do that shit, and I wouldn’t have quit after the dancing. How do you know that the dancing meant what you think it meant?”

“You weren’t there.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t. But this isn’t the first time you’d been jumping to conclusions, eh? The last time, you ended up in the clink. You want to do that again?”

The door opened. Bill walked in, limping.

6

Man, I’ve been in a writing slump since college started pretty much. This is something that might actually get me going again. Collaborative writing is fun!

============================================================

Sam visibly flinched at the sight of him like that, that kind of limp wasn’t the kind a person got by accident. She’d seen enough injuries in her time as a nurse to know an accidental fall from a shove. That and the blood on his trousers really helped give away that this was no fake, no attempt to look pathetic to garner sympathy from his angered would-be wife.

Still, her first reaction wasn’t to rush over to aid her injured lover, instead she stared at him in confusion. How the hell had he found her here? Had he followed her? Had he had her followed and had then followed on after her follower set him on the path he had to follow if he wanted to follow his wife? Or was it more simple, that he’d actually knew her and where she went? All this ran through her mind in a second and added a slight dazed element to her feelings. So she asked the only two questions that stood out to her as important, the one sneeded to clear her mind so she could focus.

“How did you get here? Why did you come here?”

7

Sorry for not responding in a while. We gotta keep this going at least until a season finale.

“I came here because I love you. Not because of your rich lawyer money, nor because of the disability cheques your crippled brother keeps sending us, but because of your eyes. I never met another woman who had eyes as beautiful as you. I know you better than you thought I did… I knew you’d come here… ever since you got jailed for stealing the jaguar and reselling it to pay off your law school loans… I still love ya, honey. Please. I want you to come back with me to the detention centre.”

Bill takes out a flask and takes a long hard swill. Some rum drizzles down his massive beard and drips down to his muddy steel-toed work boots.

Everyone in the ice cream parlour stood still. Silent. No one said a word. Sam was petrified. Did this cold-hearted man truly love her eyes? But what about the other woman… She had to find out.

“Bill, I want to know about the other woman.”

8

“The woman?” Bill scratched his beard with one hand and his back with the other. “Well… all you need to know, little lady, is that it has to do with my job.”

“And what do you DO? By the Lady of Pain, what do you DO?” Sam’s fingers drummed on the side of the refrigerator.

“Well… uh… I… it’s complicated, dear. I mean… sometimes I hafta dress in fancy clothing and then I hafta dress in stuff like this. And sometimes I hafta get beat up and then other times I hafta dance with some lady I don’t even know. It’s just part of the job.”

“Ha. Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you’re a spy for the US or somethin.”

“I can tell you right now, I ain’t working for no government, even of the US. The other part… well… nevermind.”

“What about the other part? The ‘spy’ part? You’re a fucking spy?”

“Aw, hun… you know I can’t tell you a lie. But in this case, I can’t be tellin the truth. So let’s just leave it at that.”

Sam picked up a jar of popsicle sticks laying on the refrigerater and hurled them. They barely missed Bill’s crotch. Glass shattered all over the floor.

Martha scowls, “Now, you’re gonna be cleaning that up, aren’t you? If you ain’t, then get OUT of here. Now shut up.”

Silence.

She spoke again, “Now listen, there’s only ONE way to solve this like civilized people.”.

9

“That’s right” said Martha.

Suddenly everyone in the ice cream parlour began to snap their fingers and move their left leg up and down in a sort of 50’s swing manner. The jukebox, which was broken in appearance, flashed on and began playing Johnny B. Goode. All of the womens prisoners began to shake and twist, and a couple even doo-wop’d.

“Good god, what is this madness?” muttered Bill as his legs began to uncontrollably jive with the tunes.

The proprietor’s son looked up at Bill and muttered the words “cold cream slam”.

“You asked for this Bill, you brought me here and threatened this and now look what happened, it’s all over” shouted Sam as the foundations began to shake. Pictures of previous store managers fell off the wall, ice cream icicles fell off the ceiling, and a dog that seemingly came out of nowhere began to bark violently.

The building began to sink.

10

So it’s just Gila and I, eh? It’s lonely in this here ice cream parlor of love.

Everybody was having a great time, completely oblivious to the sinking of the storefront. Well… almost everybody was completely oblivious. Martha wasn’t. She was smiling.

So throughout the night, the jukebox played. It played rock n’ roll and jazz and heavy metal and ancient musics long lost to time and the music that bees would play if they were in underwater caves. Nobody had any track of time, except for Martha. All she did was sit there on her stool and smile. Sometimes she would spin around, needle-pocked legs flailing through the air- hitting convicts in the faces. Everyone was having a grande olde tyme, but then there was a lurch and a splash.

Sam looked out the window. They were floating in the middle of an underground lake.