Thread: Writing Challenge [2/9/2010]: 3 Deaths

Writing Challenge [2/9/2010]: Non/Fiction: 3 Deaths
Writing Challenge [2/9/2010]: Non/Fiction: 3 Deaths
Type: Fiction/Quick Story (300 words or less)
Posted: 08:00am (GMT -6)
Deadline: 11:00pm (GMT -6) 02/13/10

In under 300 words, write a fictitious story, passing itself off as non-fiction (must be believable), that contains exactly 3 deaths. No other constraints or limits.

Batter up (269 words)


Albuquerque-The Isotopes won 4-2 over the Round Rock Express in a game that was more eventful than the score would indicate. Playing at home, the Albuquerque nine had loaded the bases with the score tied and one out, in the bottom of the seventh. Switch-hitting shortstop Miguel Guerra lined a rope to the left of setup man Oscar Herrera. Herrera reached out with his glove hand and deflected the ball to Round Rock shortstop George Calabria, who grabbed it and threw in the direction of first base.

The crowd, sensing an inning-ending double-play, began cheering wildly.

The ball flew toward first base, but hit a passing bat squarely, and both the bat and the ball fell to the ground some yards short of the bag. First baseman Johnny Whitacre blindly grabbed the first thing he could find and threw home, trying to get the runner.
The throw beat the runner, and the catcher applied the tag.

Alert umpire Chris Hume waved the baserunner safe. The other runner also scored on the play.

Catcher Pete Root, hopping mad, argued with the umpire until the umpire pointed to the dead bat in his glove. The ball was still a few feet from first base. Whitacre had thrown the bat instead of the ball.

Root must have said the magic words, because he was thrown out. His manager tried to argue the case that the ball was dead at the time it hit the bat, to no avail.

Round Rock had men on in both the eighth and ninth innings, but closer Abe Voormis killed both rallies via the K, mathematically eliminating Round Rock from playoff contention.

Author's Note:

dead bat, two dead rallies. Averted twin killing

I don't understand why the (home?) crowd cheered for an inning ending double play, in the bottom of the seventh? At the Beavers' games both those old guys who constitute the entire spectating corps, groan when that happens. At least they did until they both croaked when they heard the local aaa franchise had been replaced by professional soccer, effectively killing baseball in Portland.

Doyle Bramhall II was singing the seventh-inning stretch. It's a mostly true story-I just changed some of the names.

Dear James,
This really is the most execrable place, hot wet and days from any sort of civilisation. Of course that is not why we came here, and I must say in terms of the fauna it is well worth the “inconvenience”.
Our most exciting discovery is a small mammal, a little like our native dormouse in appearance, though unrelated of course. These live in tunnels in the river bank and form “packs” led by a dominant “bitch”. She will mate with all the available males in her group, and when she has pups, which are always born in threes, she forces another female to feed them, as part of the dominance we believe.
There is, however, a recessive gene that shows in females making their milk nutritionally inadequate, this leads domination and confrontation from the dominant bitch which, in all the cases we have seen, has lead to the subordinate being driven from the pack when the pups finally die of malnutrition.
Under normal circumstances the gene would die out naturally, however there are two unusual factors at work here, the number of pups in a litter, and, that the pups are not fed by their own parent. On average one in three pups carries the gene, so when pups die then, on average one with the gene dies, plus the bitch carrying the gene is driven out, however, to counter that two healthy pups also die, so the proportion of individuals carrying the gene stays constant. It is fascinating how a behavioural trait can influence the genotype in this way, though we have plenty of research to do yet.
Please pass my regards on to everyone in the department and wishing you and Trudy all the best. Yours truly, David.

ROTFLMAO!!! ^^^

Here is my submission to this challenge:

[blog entry from 09/30/2010]

Weird morning. Got up to check the trap at about 1130 and there was one in it and not quite dead (BLEAGHHH!!!!!) I dispatched it with my stunner. Unfortunately my darling Grozzi [image of pet drooling on stained sofa] who just came to live with us last summer GRABBED the carcasse from me when I was skinning, and DASHED into the road. I know it was just the smell of the blood that excited him!!!

Crap-ass neighbor from down the road > P !!! was coming home from his stupid job and ran over poor little Grozzi [image of pet shredding expensive stuffed pillow]. I rushed him to the vet but HE DIDN'T MAKE IT. -.- RIP Grozzi.

(1445) Watching news after getting home from vet. There's a grisly crash on 275W. Copter films show a car that looks just like Jay's, teal Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible. And they promised him nobody else had ordered that color!! Liars.

Th- th- th- th... tha's all, folks!!!

It was on new years day 1799, that the sailing brig Acorn was driven on to a ragged reef on the South Pacific Halloween Islands. Out of a ships company of over one hundred hands, only three crew and one slave from Papa New Guinea called Mozokko managed to swim ashore. The three surviving crew were amazingly all from Ireland and were in fact the only Irishmen on the Acorn! They were James McClellan 17,Peter O'Sullivan 17 and Patrick McCall just 12 years old.
Mozokko went missing a few days after the men came ashore and despite their best efforts, he could not be found ! The three young men spent six long month's on the island before being rescued by an East India Co Clipper Ship which returned them to Portsmouth England.
When they described their ordeal to the Authorities they were accused of lying ! The British Judiciary tried the youths for mutiny and sabotage of a British registered sailing vessel. The three youths were hung on new years day 1800 ! Two years later Mozokko was rescued, his testimony proved the three boys innocence.
Mozokko became the first ever native of Papua New Guinea to join the Royal Navy. He stood beside Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar.

By R.E.Craig

A Dark and Stormy Night (294 words)

This documents a conversation us kids had with my father one rainy night:

No kids, you can't go out tonight! The weather's horrible! Let me tell you the story of our old neighbors, the McDougal family. The three of them passed away one night, unfortunately, because they did not stay home. Their night started off like many of their nights, which was going to their favorite restaurant Cracker Barrel. On the drive to the restaurant, they saw a tornado in the distance and pretty soon debris was flying across their path. The side view mirror of their Explorer got knocked off by a flying brick! A flying brick! Did that stop the McDougals? No, it didn't, they were hungry, but they should have stayed home! Do you want to get hit by a flying brick? You do? Stop having a smart mouth!

What? You still want to go out and play in the rain eh? Well, I'm not finished! When the monsoon-like rain mixed with the tornado winds, their Explorer was swerving all over the road! Half the time they were pushed by the wind into oncoming traffic! They got into two accidents by the time their battered Explorer rolled by momentum alone into the Cracker Barrel parking lot!

Take your hand off that doorknob! I still haven’t told you how the McDougals died! So they got out of their crumpled SUV and staggered into the Cracker Barrel, sat at the table they always sat at, ordered the same food they always ordered, and ending dying from Cracker Barrel cooking their food with peanut oil, which they had never done before! The McDougals all had severe peanut allergies, you see. Hey! Come back in here! You’ll all die from anaphylaxis playing in the rain!

@moderan - loved the "bat" incident .

Mines a bit dry...

November 4th, 1973: A single father and his two children, both visiting home for the weekend, were caught by surprise when an assaliant broke into their home and shot them dead in their sleep. A neighbor heard the shots and called the police.
They arrived to find the father and son dead. The daughter was pronounced 20 minutes later after arriving at Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center in Tualatin, Oregon. The assailant is in custody and awaiting trial.
The names of the victims have been withheld to protect the family.

Biosphere 2.5 (290 words)

In the middle 90's a team off doctors, biologists, physicists, and engineers
began a decades long project to reconstruct Earth's biosphere in an
encapsulated compound that could flourish in deep space. Biosphere
2.5 was to take on the challenges of prior biosphere missions whom
had lost large amounts of oxygen through natural decomposition processes,
seeping into the concrete. This time, there would be no concrete.

Determination in the hearts and minds of the engineering team would soon clash with the
subjective realities of free thinkers. How simply could disparate organizational standards
reenact and reassemble the work of the mission these teams had come in second to in the
draft. Not simply enough.

While driving to Biosphere 2.5 test facilities, Jane Issbeck, Biology Professor at the University of
Lancastershire, received a call. A frail voice came over the phone advising Jane that her son was c
aught out behind a portable classroom with what appeared to be a small rodent that he and the other
children were squashing. He would have to picked up from school. Jane made a call to team leader
Jack Frosby to notify him that she would have to be late to today's luncheon.

“That's fine Jane, take whatever time you need. The other teams and I are responding to an issue in
tank 4, ocean deck, apparently a lens fish went belly up. We gotta figure this one out if we are ever
gonna survive deep space.”

The project teams needed an extension. They petitioned the government for a bail out but nobody in
Washington could justify life in deep space. “We are in the middle of a recession.” At last the
Biosphere 2.5 team met with the inevitability of closure, the project was dead.