Thread: 01/06/2012 - LM - Picture Prompt "Dead Marionette"

LITERARY MANEUVERS
The June Challenge


A reminder of the prizes awarded to the winner of the LM.
Their entry will appear in the WF Newsletter, which is a good chance to get your work widely circulated.
Now we are also offering a Friends of WF (FoWF) subscription free for a month to the first place winner!


So, do your best.

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This time around in the LM Forum we use the picture prompt supplied by Baron, entitled: "Dead Marionette"



In 650 words, write a story where the picture above is either the title, or is included in the story, or is in some way the theme of the story. So there should be many ways to connect to the prompt.


The judges for this round are KyleColorado, Bazz Cargo, AvA and Fin.
(To the judges, send your scores to Potty once the competition has closed. I would like to hope we all wish Like a Fox the best of luck getting through her busy time table and return to us soon in all her glory! If we could aim to have them sent a week after the closing date that would be ideal.)

Now a recap of the rules:
1.The word limit is 650 words not including the title. If you go over - Your story will not be counted.
2.You can no longer edit your entry after posting. There will be a 10-minute grace period, if you want to go in there and edit a typo or something, but you should approach this as if you were submitting your work to be published and paid for. When you submit, that should be your final work, the work you are happy with.
3.And of course, there can only be one entry per member.


As always, there are two ways to post your entry:

You can opt to have your entry posted in the LM Workshop Thread which is a special thread just for LM entries in the Writer's Workshop. You would put your story there if you wish to protect your first rights (in case you want to someday submit the work to a magazine or whatnot). Take note: If you have elected to put your entry there in the Workshop thread you must copy the link into the main competition thread or else it will not be counted.

If you aren't too concerned about your first rights, then you could place your here entry in the LM Challenge thread.

Everyone is welcome to participate. Judges are welcome to participate, too, but their entries will not receive a score.

This competition will close on Friday the 14th of June. To avoid confusion the thread will close at 11:59pm (Friday Night) LOS ANGELES, USA time.

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No comments, please - Only competition entries (and links to) to be posted in this thread.

Also hold off on the likes until the judging's done.

Now that all's set, let the writing begin!

Mike and Bernie

'The whole scene was, like, totally rad', said Mike.


'Stop doing that', said Bernie.


'Stop doing what?'


'Trying to talk like a teen-ager. Half the time your expressions are past their 'best if used by' date and the rest of the time your usage is wrong.'


'When we was kids you was the one used more slang than anybody.'


'It was the correct language for the time and place. Speaking of correct language, yours is not.'

'Not what?'


'Not correct, that's what.'

'So? You gonna flunk me, teach?'


'Act your age, Mike.'


'I'm not so old.'


'You're a year older than me. Your Social Security card was signed by Franklin Roosevelt.'


'Man, the kids must have hated having you for a teacher. I bet you had fun flunkin' 'em.'


'Very few kids ever failed my class. I used to get in trouble for that. Too many A's and B's, not enough D's and F's. I never rang the bell.'


'Rang the bell?'


'You know. Skewed grades so they fit the bell curve.'


'I got no idea what you're talking about.'


'Face it, Mike. You need to get a life.'


'I got a life.'


'Yeah? Is that why you sit on this bench every day, feed stale popcorn to the pigeons, and try to talk like the boarders?'


'I have to get out of the house. My daughter-in-law. She drives me nuts.'


'So take up a hobby.'


'I did. This is it.'


'Pathetic.'


'C'mon Bernie. Give me a break. I took up a hobby last year. My grandson talked me into helping him make a puppet. A marionette. You know, a little wooden person with strings that a big person pulls to make the little person dance however the big person wants him to.'


'You've seen Godfather too many times.'


'Yeah. I guess. So anyways I helped the kid. He's ten. Not the brightest bulb, but he works hard in school so he makes pretty good grades. The puppet thing was for a school project, a play or something.'
'Sounds like a good family project, too.'


'It was fun making the puppet. I carved the pieces. Little feet and legs, arms, a body, and a head. My grandson sanded everything smooth and painted it, and it looked sharp.'

'A real little Pinocchio, huh?'


'Yeah, whatever. We had little rings in each piece of the body, you know, like you tie the fishing line to when you carve a lure. Then the kid made a cross thing out of two pieces of trim and tied on the strings. He picked it up and the puppet stood on its legs and waved its arms. All of a sudden I see myself.'

'So your grandson reminded you of yourself when you were a boy.'

'No. My grandson reminded me of my father. The puppet reminded me of myself.'

'Mike, that's sad. You mean you felt like a puppet when you were a kid?'

'I'll tell you the truth, Bernie. I've been a puppet my whole life. There's always somebody pulling the strings and making me dance. First my father, then my teachers, my boss, my wife, and now my son and his wife. There's always been the strings with the little cross thing that gets passed from one to the next. There's always somebody pulling the strings. You say I should get a life. I've never been able to reach high enough to cut the strings.'

'You don't have to be a puppet. Break the strings. Move out of your son's house. Have Sunday dinner with them but the rest of the time live your own life.'

'How do I cut the strings?'

'You don't. You break them. Get your own place. Get yourself a lady friend.'

'I'm too old.'

'No, you're not. But you're not getting any younger either. Seize the day. Carpe diem.'

'Bernie, you are so last week.'

http://www.writingforums.com/writers...ml#post1528414

The Puppetteer:
A Cop's Tale

It was a damp November night. Detective Captain Rotundo hated the month. Evil lurked. Crimes became a little more brutal. Nuts got a little bit sicker, especially around the full moon, like tonight. He had another problem on his hands as well: a killer on the loose in the city. This one was especially disturbed. The city tabloid dubbed him, ‘the puppeteer.’ The killer tied his female victims to trees in the wooded environs of the city, each had been strangled with hand puppets that were left on the ground at the victims’ feet. All of the women, seven so far, had come from Rotundo’s precinct.

It was quiet, but he had just come on duty. He began some paperwork and the phone rang. Typical, he thought.

“Rotundo here,” he answered.

“Captain, we got a call from the 10^th. Lieutenant Fletcher says he’s got him.” It was his desk sergeant.

“Got who? I don’t read minds, Sergeant Davis.”

“The puppeteer, Captain,” Davis said.

“Where? Who says it’s him?”

“On Dark Horse Highway, Fletcher says he’s pretty damn sure; says he had a victim with him: alive. She was tied with the puppeteer’s usual rope and there were two hand puppets in the vehicle.” Davis spoke fast.

“How’s the woman?” Rotundo asked.

“Fletcher has the ambulance on the way but he says she’s alert and uninjured.”

“I want that bastard in the ‘head-banging’ room.”

“Not possible, Captain; Fletcher says he’s dead.” Rotundo paused. There was no sense screaming. He didn’t know what happened yet. “I’m on my way. I want to see those puppets.” Rotundo slammed down the phone and opened his bottom left hand desk drawer. A half-empty bottle of White Label and a shot glass that hadn’t been rinsed sat there, lonely, waiting for him. He threw one shot down, filled up another and thought better of it. He placed the stubby whiskey glass on his desk and covered it with the newspaper. He got his coat from the rack and left HQ.

The removable red light flashed on his indigo blue, unmarked car. At night, Dark Horse Highway lived up to its name. He drove as fast as he could within the limits of safety. When he saw the red lights, three cruisers and ambulance, he parked.

Rotundo walked to the scene and greeted Fletcher. The lieutenant showed him the vehicle: a smashed up BMW motorcycle with sidecar. The sidecar sustained little damage. That’s how the victim survived unharmed. Fletcher was talking about the woman: how she was bound, her condition. His gloved hands held the puppets. “These were in the sidecar, Captain. She’s in the ambulance and talking.” The lieutenant said.

“Let her stay in the hospital tonight. We’ll bother her tomorrow.” Rotundo looked at the perp. The body was lying with extremities re-arranged gruesomely, sprawled upon the wet, black asphalt. The eyes were dark and blank in death. A pencil moustache lined the top of thin lips on a pasty white face. A cracked, coconut shell helmet revealed a head of bloody, close-cropped hair. The Captain counted five individual cords wrapped around his slender neck. He followed the cords to the ground where they ended on a wooden cross; two square-cut shafts, bolted together. His eyes traced the other lines’ end to a roadside tree.

“Patrolman,” a uniformed cop snapped to attention. “Shine your light up in that tree for me.”

The beam of cold white light landed on another cross. The cruciform grapple was tangled in the branches.

“Clothes-lined, Captain. They were driving along, and the ropes caught him right under the chin. She was sitting lower in the sidecar and didn’t get a scratch. It looks like the apparatus was made for this. The lines are just the right length to cross the road; kids’ prank, Captain?” Fletcher asked.

“Yeah, Kids.” Rotundo agreed out of hand but was thinking of marionettes and poetic justice.

http://www.writingforums.com/writers...ml#post1528414

Marion Etting
by
Bazz Cargo


There is no way someone could forget something like that. The phone call. The excitement of playing in an orchestra, even a small one, for money once again. Okay, so it was Cedric Kiljoy conducting. Not my preferred choice; considering he lived down to his nickname, The Puppet-master. But us violinists go where our stringed instruments are needed.


Our, early evening rehearsal had been at the venue. The end of the pier. Just a fifteen minute walk from the car-park. I remember the weather, freezing, blown sideways rain. I had nipped through arcade which was warm and fuggy, and surprisingly dark considering all the lights on the machines.


Arriving at the theatre I found I knew all the musicians. Amongst them were Ted an Margaret, the other two parts of my regular gigging trio. There were three young girls, without instruments, I did not know. All purple hair, leather and tattoos.


Marion, the organiser, had me down for first violin so I took my seat and started to unpack. Ruby Lampdipper, alto clarinettist, offered me some coffee laced with whiskey from her flask. I declined.


I was warming up with a simple, jazzy version of Summertime when the front door opened letting in a blast of cold, wet air and old man Kiljoy. Marion trotted over to greet him.


There is nothing like the sound of an orchestra getting ready. Due to the sudden changes in temperature and humidity our instruments had just been through most of us would have some tuning issues for the first few minutes.


Cedric came over, with Marion trailing behind. He took his coat off and placed it carefully over the back of a chair. “Good evening,” he said.


“Good evening,” we chorused back.


He placed his sheet music and baton on a music stand the turned to Marion. “Right, who have you managed to round up for me?”


“Everyone you wanted, including the vocal group,” she said. Then handed him the list.


“Vocalists? I never asked for any vocalists.”


Marion leaned over a pointed to part of the list. “Yes you did. See there.”


“That's 'five trumpets.' We need them for the fanfare. There must be a Jubilee fanfare.”


“That's never a five. It's an 'S.'”


There was a horrified moment of silence. Kiljoy looked at Marion with his stony face. “Tell me you got five trumpets and not some strumpets.”


“Err.”


He hit her! A full-on resounding smack across the face. She took a step back in shock. Then she seemed to change. Become taller as she stood on tip toe. Her arms reached up and arched over her head. She pirouetted with astonishing grace, then savagely kicked him in the Nutcracker Suite. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.


There was along moment. Someone started to clap and soon the room reverberated to applause.

http://www.writingforums.com/writers...ml#post1528414

The Hero of Thresh
By Rubisco
647 words

The two brothers stood on top of the ridge that defined the kingdom of Thresh and gazed down at the roaring forest fire in the valley below. Supernatural spires of living fire shot up into the air, trying to singe the brothers’ tunics.

Zeus the invincible, who was a massive mountain of a man, and was blessed from birth with invulnerability and supernatural strength, stared out at the fire and shrugged, "well, dragons will be dragons, I guess."

Sam the feeble, who had the minimum body mass for existence, who was a good-intentioned but often ignored citizen of Thresh, and who often was mistaken for his baby sister (who was ten years old, but she wore her hair short, so it wasn’t all his fault), spat out at the fire. "I hope Airthorn the dragon comes to our kingdom next! You realize this is the twentieth kingdom he has burned down this month! Every army and knight that has tried to kill him has been either smashed or burned! I’m going after him, are you with me?" He glanced up at Zeus, his eyes burning with righteous fury.

Zeus looked off into the distance and shrugged, "but what about Airthorn? What if he has some baby dragons to feed? What if he’s just bored and this is the only way he’s entertained? Who are we to deny him his right to kill us?" A mosquito landed on Zeus, Zeus grimaced as the mosquito had its fill and then flew off.

Sam slapped Zeus as hard as he could, and he fell down from the recoil. "Listen to yourself! You could stop him easily you know. The other kingdoms asked for your help, but you kept on telling them to try to see the situation from Airthorn’s side! Whose side are you on?"

Zeus shrugged again, his favorite pastime, "I don’t want to step on anybody’s beliefs, obviously Airthorn thinks it’s right to kill people. I feel that especially with my abilities, I shouldn’t have my actions be manipulated by some puppet master who claimed he knew without a doubt whose morals were right. So I guess I’m not on anybody’s side."

"Arrgh!" screamed Sam, clutching his hair. "If I had your powers, there would be thousands of people still alive, thousands! Where is the moral question in that?" Sam paused to catch his breath. "Where does it stop? You personally can’t die, but would you stand by passively until you were the last one left? What if our sister got attacked?"

Zeus stared off into the burning forest, silent.

A piercing scream shattered the air, and Airthorn, whose red scales and teeth dripped with liquid fire, and who, with the exception of one person, was considered the scourge of this region, flew up the ridge and slammed onto the ground next to Zeus and Sam.

"Come on!" yelled Sam, pushing Zeus toward Airthorn, "do something!" Zeus stood fast.

"But, who is right?" mumbled Zeus to the ground, his eyes for the first time showing a glint of conviction.

Sam grabbed Zeus’s sword out of its sheath and staggered to the dragon, dragging the sword all the way. "Help me out here!" he yelled back, "we can do this!"

Airthorn snorted a snort of contempt as he saw Sam stumble his way. Airthorn picked up his massive tail and swung it around to smash Sam.

Zeus started to pick up his foot, but he thought of how Airthorn would feel, and he stared as the tail pounded Sam into a crumpled heap.

Airthorn then tried to pound Zeus into a heap as well, but that didn’t work. Airthorn then tried to burn Zeus to ashes, but that didn’t work either. Eventually Airthorn got bored and burned the kingdom of Thresh to the ground.

Zeus continued to stand there, and eventually, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

http://www.writingforums.com/writers-#post1530987

Forgot to link the post, hopefully this is still eligible.


http://www.writingforums.com/writers-workshop/130194-01-06-2012-lm-picture-prompt-dead-marionette-workshop-thread.html#post1531255

This challenge is now closed.