September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE -- VICTORY TO ALCHEMIST

[Hex]

Rules:​

Write a story inspired by the chosen theme and genre in no more than 75 words, not including the title.​

One entry per person​

All stories Copyright 2013 by their respective authors,
who grant the Chronicles Network the non-exclusive right to publish them here​

The complete rules can be found at Rules for the Writing Challenges​

Contest ends at 11:59 pm GMT, September 23 2013​

Voting Ends at 11:59 pm GMT, September 28 2013​

You do not have to submit a story in order to vote --
in fact, we encourage all Chrons members to take part in choosing a winner​

The Magnificent Prize:​

The Dignified Congratulations/Grovelling Admiration of Your Peers
and the challenge of choosing the next month's theme and genre​

Theme:​

Listening​

Genre:​

Alternate History​

This thread to be used for entries only. Please keep all comments to the Discussion Thread​

 

[Mith]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

The Boot is on the Little Foot

“Can you hear that My Lord?”

Wind carrying the voices of cheering men.

“Are you listening My Lord?”

Shrill screams mingled among the cheers.

“That My Lord is the sound of my victory. The sound of your defeat.”

Silent tears on a grief ravaged face.

“Waterloo is mine My Lord Duke of Wellington.”

Footsteps in the night.

“Hear my words. My declaration. I Napoleon rule Europe.”

A single shot echoes in the air.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Rocking the Globe

Kit Marlowe and the Fausts blasted out "Run Slowly (Horses of the Night.)" The mosh pit was full of fops and doxies galliarding like lunatics. A balding coxscomb jumped on stage and grabbed Kit's electric lute. He wailed crazy stuff about ghosts and fairies. In the royal box Red Lizzie stood. The groundlings thought she would have his head. Instead she said "It rocks" and sat down. That was the first Willy Shakes concert.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Absolution

"Come now." I held my mother's hand until his breath faltered. I listened to his pain; heard nothing else, and did nothing.

My mother rubbed his brow, his sons watched and I, his only little girl, stayed still and numb.

#

The funeral parlour's chapel is quiet - at peace. I press my lips on his cold flesh. "Daddy, I love you."

It's said, released, listened to, our history changed. I am at peace.

The end.

 

[reiver33]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

On The Field

“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

His voice cuts through the tumult of battle, urgent and commanding. I hold Lord Grey’s charger, near blind in my borrowed helmet. The world is a narrow line of violence and blood.

I stumble towards the voice, press reins into his hand. I receive no thanks. He remounts, and flourishes his sword. “Death! Death and the world’s ending!”

Clouds part. The sun in splendour dazzles me.

 

[Starbeast]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Advanced History Class of 2062​

"Professor, listen to this recording I found."​

"...time machine.....accident.......brought back.......various people in history.....age of dinosaurs.......(screams) RWAROOOOOOARRRRR!" (static)​

"What do you think?"​

"Excellent. A great subject for Monday's assignment. The Dangers of Time Traveling. Wait. Is that blood on that disk?"​

"I think so."​

"My God. I must inform Dean Wormer! Don't say anything about this."​

"Yes Miss Peach." (leaves)​

"This recording, can't be...real.", said the tall reptilian, horned female.​

 

[stormcrow]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

A Star Man Saved The School, Yesterday

The quiet boy, at the back of the classroom,
named one round each for all his co-eds.
Gonna make the headlines; finally make some impact:
unstitch his lips; share the shouting in his head.

Yesterday was different (‘tho Mom and Dad they still ignored him);
a Star Man sat list’ning, at the foot of his bed.
Gonna change the plan now; family and school stay intact:
unloads the clip, counts the living not the dead.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

When the USSR Ruled The World
​

“This is the last warning we send to you, President Kennedy,” Gorbachev said. “If you do not back out of China, we will use our atomic weapons against you like we did against Germany.”

Kennedy’s face went white. He swallowed heavily.

“Sir, we can’t pull out of China,” his chief of staff advised.

“We can’t afford not to,” Kennedy answered. “They have the atomic bomb. We do not. We are pulling out.”

 

[JordanSC5]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Final Thought

He looked into the mirror and tilted the top of his hat. He settled his chin on his hand, and tugged at his beard. A flicker and shadow, half a face with a bushy mustache came into view. The sight was his last, a bullet zipping through his skull. The mustached man walked into the room and looked at the bloody parchment on the desk. It started, "Four score and seven years ago."

 

[mosaix]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Saved By The Bell

“Hullo?”

“Lee? That you, Lee?”

“Oh, hi Mom.”

“Not seen you for ages. What you been doin’ with yourself?”

“Oh, this and that…”

“When you comin’ over?”

“Err…”

“You distracted? You hearin’ me?“

“Sure…”

“How about this afternoon?”

“Got some business downtown…”

“Forget downtown. What’s more important than spending some time with your ma?”

“Well, maybe you’re right…”

“Of course I’m right, or my name isn’t Marguerite Oswald.”

“Okay, Mom. See you later.”

 

[Juliana]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Required Reading​

“Listen.

Wind howls across white wastelands. Hell-spawned fury, cold as hate.

Listen.

Ice-melt drips into silent bunkers, filling rusting metal with the smell of decay.

Listen.

You will hear nothing but wind and water. Nothing else remains. A whole world, wiped clean of men, plants and beasts.

Listen.

And learn.

Lest we follow in the steps of our parent Earth.”

Matthew, Isaiah et al; Introduction to Cosmology, 5th ed. (Universitá Galactica, 4087)

 

[I_Voyager]

The Negative Hertz Bridge

In 1904 CE people first heard the quartz radio. In 5000 BCE, there in the mountain Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

His Lord spoke through the quartz: “Lay not thine hand upon the lad!”

Grathyx lost his signal. “Negative hertz bridges the divide of our space,” he lamented to his assistant, “But our words hardly bridge the barrier of their ignorance.”

 

[Sound_Barber]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Wet with thought, the plasmatic Amnios filled every opening of his mind. All knowledge was heard; all thoughts were seen, all the Past and Future in its stasis within him. From that moment he would never speak again. He was everywhere. He was everything. All at once and for all time creation is consequent.

 

[chrispenycate]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Unsound foundations.​

The giant, curved concrete focusing walls concentrated distant seabirds and the sea's endless susurration, but brought no rumble of cross-channel Heinkels. Not that there remained fighters to stop them, nor ack-ack rounds, with the factories flattened.

The boys, hardly older than the microphones and pen-recorders they manipulated, radiated determination. Even with the Royal family safe in Canada, though next sound trembling their needles be panzers revving off a landing craft…

They would resist.

 

[Luiglin]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

The last ride of Paul Revere

"The British are coming!"

The cry echoed loudly through the town, voiced from a man on horseback as he wildly galloped past.

A door sprung open, light from a fire silhouetting a man.

"Mabel, get my gun!"

Grumbles and mutters under the breath. A short sharp retort of a musket as the shot flew true. On the edge of town the man on the horse fell.

"God dammit, bloody kids won't wake me again!"

 

[ratsy]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Crossing Paths

Judas had betrayed his friend but he had to listen to his heart.

“I am the carpenter; the one you call miracle worker. I am Jesus, the man you are looking for,” the words escaped Judas’ lips before he could stop himself.

Judas could see the pain in Jesus’ eyes but King of the Jews knew better than to speak.

He had more to offer the world still. Salvation would have to wait.

 

[Tywin]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Evolution

“Can you hear it, children?” the curator asked the class as they gazed into the exhibit. “It’s the sound of drums found in ancient human ruins. And here are cave paintings showing how they lived. They were very creative, weren’t they?”

“My daddy says that we evolved from the cave men.”

“Actually, scientists don’t think we evolved from them. They lived side by side with us Neanderthals for thousands of years before becoming extinct.”

 

[alchemist]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Searching


Alone; his room; bedtime. In futile hope, she twists the dial a millihawthorne altwise.

Nothing. Another empty parallel universe, an alternate world of familiar pain.

She twists again, and – Stop!

A voice, her own; light and carefree as she once was. "Good night, love."

She waits, fingers trembling, a lifetime in a heartbeat, and he speaks. "Night, mummy."

She locks the dial and sobs, willing herself to silence as his gentle breaths turn towards sleep.

 

[Glen]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

Lost Time

‘Come and dance!’.

She was wild, hot, laughing, burning with life. I joined her on subversive actions that she hoped would change our corrupt society.

I managed to keep my job with the Academy, travelled back ten years to an English university and prevented a ten year tyranny in a poor African country.

But when I returned I had never met her. An occupational hazard.

I listen each evening for those first words.

 

[Bowler1]

Re: September 2013 -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

All Quiet on the Western Front

Silence tonight as the guns wait for dawn, just me and the stars as I stand watch.
Cold has sunk deep into my bones and my breath frosts in the still air.
Shifting my feet they squelch in the filth of the trench far from empire.
Duty holds me to my post and fear keeps me alert.
I listen for the enemy while fingering my rifle, guarding against the ancient foe of Rome.
The Gauls.