Fictionwocky
~ Playtime on Substack ~
One Beast to rule them all, one Beast to find them. Thirty-one legs to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In the land of Fictionwocky where the chopped limbs lie.
I’ve decided to join in the 31-day nano/microfiction gauntlet that started this week.
Fictionwocky: A Beast of Thirty-One Legs
Today is day 7 of Fictionwocky. Here is a summary of the week’s prompts! If you’ve seen Legs 1-6 in Notes, you can scroll down to the end for Leg 7.
Leg 1 – The AI Leg: Create a piece of fiction of AI-generated text (yes, on any topic, any model, any LLM)1. Then, process it with a cut-up tool. Then fix that mess so that it acquires minimal (or satisfying for you) meaning, or story. So, feed any prompt to an AI, cut it up randomly (as in Burroughs’s cut-up technique), and then “make it make sense” as a short story. You can change, add or remove words at will. The fun is in taming the randomness just enough to make you happy! This is the ultimate William S. Burroughs exercise.
My Original version
Pompos, where do you take me?
Have you the fare, shade?
Yes, take the coins from my eyes and speak truth.
A psychopomp cannot lie. You will walk the path you spent a lifetime making.
Will I survive the journey?
You needs must, though it is never-ending.
Will you stay with me on the Deathwater Road?
Hark!
I opened my mouth and river-water answered. My tongue remembered mud. My hands rose of their own accord to my face and found the coins untouched resting there, two small moons upon my eyes to shut out thinking.
I asked it to expand to 500 words.
AI version
—Have you the fare, shade?
The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once: behind me, beneath me, inside the cold place where my name had been.
—Yes, I said.
—Take them. But tell me true—where do you lead me?
The figure before me stood at the edge of a road I had not noticed until then. Not a man, not a woman; only the shape of passage itself, wrapped in something darker than cloth. Its face was patient as stone.Will arrived, afraid of whatever went badly once. Everything satisfying is brave and found in someone else instead.
There! Take! A voice in stupidity. Go face your very forgiveness. Behind a forgotten practice, strange wanting eyes shape the waiting shade’s footsteps worn in the mud.
A psychopomp looked at us, and an argument was expected. Coins came, although nothing described seemed
as if it should fare hands first. Her figure, sharply-voiced, a woman whose face said trust must name the journey.
Mother’s wrapped darker head until opened to a threshold-thin listening in the kitchen, where she took moons’ stones’ tongues. Had my stone’s accident mouthing of the road perhaps ended judgment? They occupied shapes before me; my own stood closed. I held the river sound, wind-like built.
—A psychopomp cannot lie.
—Convenient for you.
—Inconvenient for everyone.
It held out its hand. I placed the coins there. They made almost no sound.
—You will walk the path you spent a lifetime making.
I looked down.
The road was strange only in its honesty. Here were the stones I had laid in anger, the soft earth worn thin by kindnesses I had forgotten, the sharp roots of words I should not have spoken, still alive and waiting. It bent and narrowed where I had been afraid. It opened unexpectedly where I had once been brave by accident.
There was no argument to make against it. I knew the shape of my own footsteps.
—Is there judgment?
—You have already practiced it.
—Is there forgiveness?
The guide tilted its head, as if listening for something very far away. He saw the mud in my mouth.
—Sometimes. Rarely from the places expected.
I did not like that answer, which made me trust it more.
—Will I survive the journey?
—You needs must.
—That sounds like a threat.
—It is a description. The road is never-ending.
I thought then of all the endings I had rehearsed in life: dramatic ones, noble ones, endings with speeches and witnesses and the satisfying closure of a final scene. I had expected death to resemble conclusion.
Instead, it appeared to be administration.
A wind moved over the road, though nothing around us stirred. I could smell rain on stones, my mother’s kitchen, blood on my own hands, the perfume of someone I had once loved badly. Everything arrived at once and asked for nothing.
—Will you stay with me on the Deathwater Road? I said more quietly now.
For the first time, the psychopomp seemed almost kind.
It did not answer.
It did not need to.
Its work was the threshold, not the walking.
I understood then that every life trains you for abandonment in small rehearsals: closed doors, cooling beds, the silence after your own name spoken for the last time.
I looked up, but the guide had already retreated into whatever waits behind duty.
I stood alone on the road I had built, two small moons upon the eyes.
For a moment, I wanted to go back—not to youth, not to innocence, only to the familiar stupidity of being unfinished.
But ahead, from somewhere I could not see—or perhaps from within the place fear had occupied—came a voice.
Hark.
I listened.
The dark was not empty. Only vast. And because there was nothing else to do, and because courage is often only the refusal to remain still, I took the first step. My hands rose to my face and found the coins still there, resting on my eyes like two small moons.
This was too long. I asked it to reduce it to 200 words and then I cut that text up:
Cut-up version
Hark to silent from step guide but no Yes voice somewhere within cannot A courage do the having And a survive road the was lie The dead had shade? But will already The with it? or coins and stay Will true a spent from needs the fare Take you never must Have journey courage lifetime walk gone I ending came tell listening eyes first my Will me? awhile the the psychopomp where took lead Then the the ahead me? you you shade you You is Road You dark making me choice shade’s forgiveness to satisfying of a opened face They although stay Her looked at voiced and Had mouthing your A wind instead said footsteps should someone of perhaps it Mother’s found the head she trust occupied ended the psychopomp a woman a wanting Go must until waiting thin took me journey river brave my nothing once figure shape strange Will stood Take where judgment? badly I Coins moons’ A came is darker shapes went first stones’ expected road sound and as hands an the argument like threshold seemed sharply administration closed tongues afraid described Deathwater in arrived listening forgotten else very Behind us in name stupidity worn was whose if eyes Everything There wrapped own face stone’s whatever voice fare the the practice accident the before kitchen held my in mud built in
Final version
A final, narrowed, spoken lie witnesses itself. It spent somewhere in name administration against Deathwater Road. The hand within silence needs work—understood nowhere around, it made itself look at the road's edge, tilted small, beneath rehearsed waiting, and retreating must have stirred that stay-courage. Patience laid ahead on the path where unexpectedly telling guides asked after their own alone-doors. The road knew answers and loved because it had Its coins. The earth never resting, moved not only a lifetime step, but remembered in the lie behind dark, quietly cooling abandonment and empty words that opened:
Hark!
Leg 2 – The Definition Leg:
Write a microfiction in the style of a dictionary definition. For example:
(noun) dream-walker: A largely unknown fella who waltzes through other people’s dreams and devours them. Carries a full belly of stolen, blood-soaked dreamworlds. He often whips a bit of panic into meaning of a dream, (but not for you, oh no, not anymore, for you are awake, my dear). Historically, dream-walkers were the key culprits for the sudden morning loss of consciousness, and the odd feelings of déjà vu.
Sprankswatzer (noun)
What is it? I’m glad you ask! But please, say it--don’t spray it. The consonants are already gossiping. This word contains the miniature backstory of an entire subculture.
From Spranks: having a misshapen or lumpy head + Watz: comparable words in the other Indo-European languages for descriptions of specific qualities, such as “ugly,” “defective,” “weak,” “faithless,” “impudent,” “crooked,” “filthy” (such as Greek kakos, probably from the word for “excrement;” + -er: English agent noun ending, corresponding to Latin -or. In native words it represents Old English -ere (Old Northumbrian also -are) “man who has to do with,” from Proto-Germanic *-ari (cognates: German -er, Swedish -are, Danish -ere), from Proto-Germanic *-arjoz. Some believe this root is identical with, and perhaps a borrowing of, Latin -arius
DEFINITION - pejorative; this is a flashy, unserious fellow, shiny-looking and slippery. You don’t know why, but you don’t want to shake his hand. He’s loud in manner and dress, and lives in the palace of his self-importance. He never really understands anything that’s happening around him, although he thinks he does, which leads to many unfortunate predicaments often involving hapless third parties. As he ages, his pomposity grows, and he becomes utterly ridiculous.
Leg 3 – The Endless Leg: Write a complete microstory in a single sentence with no stopgaps at all (no periods). Just one long breath of text. For example, “He ran and blundered into the dark pool, deserting a man he couldn’t beat up anymore, then (…), and (…)”. So, the entire story must be one–still grammatically intact–sentence without using any sentence-ending punctuation. (You may use commas or conjunctions, or em dashes as needed, but no “.” or “;” to stop.)2
His anger morphed and creased his patience in ways that were hard to repair, and when his will buckled, Mel dared not drink because that would be like throwing oil on a fire, even though the oil was essential, and the fire, the beauty of his intentions, yet he asked himself how long he would have to endure all this, and the horoscope explained the trines, trifectas of misfortune should one lapse into complacency, followed by the Cancer moon that was bound to square with Mercury in Aries, which it said meant trouble, though he took some comfort in the language of potentials rather than certainties, because at home Mel’s wife and three grown daughters hemmed him in and pinned his balls to the kitchen bulletin board beside the chore schedule, not literally but close enough, because even the youngest girl was more assertive than he was, while his wife ruled with an iron fist—no glove, and that was just half the story because at work, he was routinely passed over for whatever people coveted; guys two generations his junior made him feel like a king without a crown, and a man without a plan to recover his due, since Mel had grievances, the kind that sent him out into the street when he needed to walk; contemplating the architecture would pacify his urge to lash out at someone, anyone, but on that particular afternoon fate offered him Oliver Neufield, a member of the government-sponsored spelunking group Mel had led for ten years, and who Mel detested because of the guy's relentless effort to dominate the group in every way possible, a real busybody, a real piece of work, the kind who came to every meeting, no matter how informal, equipped with a computer, where he documented even the smallest details of the proceedings and created PowerPoints no one asked for, detailing the highlights of the group’s existence, to be used at extracurricular meetings where he demanded things from the agency that oversaw the group’s management (Mel’s employers) and, most infuriating, went behind Mel's back to present ideas and lodge complaints about his performance as a moderator, never once coming to him first, which was the reason Mel fumed today about a recent meeting where the man had accused him of being dictatorial and opinionated, regardless of the fact that Mel had a degree in geology and made a point of being fair—so absurd—so that running into Oliver on the street was an added piece of rotten luck, but it was the momentous day Mel finally went to the basement of his house, into the back cabinet, behind the paint thinner and Christmas decorations, and got out "The Kit."
Leg 4 – The Play Leg: Write your piece as a short play. Use dialogue format and character names, e.g.:
MARY: (stirring tea) We’ve always lived here, ever since the Chasm.
JOHN: (glancing out the window) Can you hear it, Mary? Tonight the attic rattles as hell again.
NARRATOR: A night breeze whacks through the empty house.
(Sounds of whacking, at this moment. WHACK, WHACK. Use any device that’s outside of stage, preferably to induce some wind effect onto the actors. )Stage directions (in parentheses or italics) are allowed, but the entire story should unfold through spoken lines, not paragraphs of narration.
NARRATOR: The rain really started to come down. A man is standing under the awning of a pharmacy where another is just coming out with a small package under his arm.
OLIVER: Ah! Hello, Mel. This is perfect! I was about to remind you again that a group of us are getting together to watch the eclipse. You’re coming, aren’t you?
NARRATOR: Mel turns toward the street, as if trying to escape the encounter
MEL: (opening his umbrella) Um, I’ll have to see what my wife has planned
OLIVER: (suspiciously) You always used to come to our outings. Lately, you don’t. I don’t know what happened...
MEL: Listen, Oliver, I’m not obliged to show up to every one of these impromptu things you arrange, am I?
OLIVER: They’re not impromptu, Mel. I schedule them well in advance in our WhatsApp group
NARRATOR: Mel swallows and puts a hand to his chest
MEL: Well, can I tell you later? I’d have to check
OLIVER: I need to know now, Mel. The eclipse is tomorrow
MEL: (turning to go) Then no. Sorry, I’m not available
NARRATOR: Mel is walking away when Oliver calls after him
OLIVER: Your loss, Mel! But you know, this group needs a leader who’s more… with it
NARRATOR: Mel wheels around
MEL: With it? With what, Oliver? WITH WHAT?
OLIVER: (looking affronted) No need to take that tone, Mel
MEL: Well, I thought some freedom wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities
NARRATOR: Then Oliver does something that makes the hair stand up on the back of Mel’s neck
OLIVER: (quietly) You know, Mel, people talk about you when you’re not there
NARRATOR: Mel notices that Oliver is holding the missing fridge magnet in his hand. The one from Florence.
OLIVER: Your wife was easier to...convince.
MEL: (flustered and red in the face) Convince about what, Oliver? What are you insinuating and why the hell were you at my house?
OLIVER: (smugly) Didn’t she tell you?
MEL: No, she didn’t. I don’t require her to report every goddamn visitor who comes over when I’m not around. Answer my question: easier to convince of what?
NARRATOR: Mel has moved close enough to smell Oliver’s bad breath
OLIVER: Oh, I’m joking. I was just passing by and saw her working in the garden. We struck up a conversation and she invited me in for a coffee—very friendly, your wife.
MEL: Give me the magnet.
OLIVER: But she gave it to me!
MEL: Well, she had no right; it’s mine—I was the one who bought it.
NARRATOR: Oliver seems to hands the fridge magnet over, and then freezes mid-action.
OLIVER: I tell you what, I’ll give it back if you come to the eclipse party.
NARRATOR: Mel fingers the package of rat poison
MEL: Oh, you can have it, Oliver. Listen, I’ve gotta go. The wife made plans for tonight, so I’m the babysitter.
Leg 5 – The Recipe Leg: Write your microfiction as a recipe3. It can be for an occult meal, a creature, a curse, a city, a saint, a machine, a feeling, a failed summoning, or anything else that can be prepared badly or maliciously in a bowl.
While the kids watched TV, Mel went to the basement and lay a small package next to “The Kit.”
Eclipse Libation
Prep time
15 min
Cook time
Depends on the guest’s constitution
Total time
As long as necessary
Serves
1 unwanted visitor, the very irritating, Oliver Neufield
Ingredients
1 Eclipse party; Mel goes, but for a different reason.
2 One package of sun-dried tears of rage
3 A small tube of sour looks
4 Two grains of premium-quality rat poison (We’re making him sick, not unalive.)
5 From a dust-covered box known only as “The Kit”: one 12-oz. tin of professional comeuppance
6 Eight years of grievances, finely minced
7 Five laxative pills
8 One 16 oz. bottle of plain mineral water
9 Two small bottles of SunnyD
10 Orange dye: Sunset Yellow FCF
Preparation
After putting the kiddos to bed, Mel gets to work.
Step one – in a glass or ceramic bowl, dissolve the rat poison in two tablespoons of tap water, let sit for fifteen minutes, and stir until creamy or you run out of revenge fantasies
Step two – crush the laxative the way you want to crush Oliver’s ego, in two tablespoons of tap water, and add in the eight years of grievances, stirring continuously to avoid the bitterness from fouling the aftertaste
Step three – when the laxative is thoroughly broken down, fold into the rat poison. Do not over mix, as this will make guilt rise to the surface
Step four – slowly and evenly whisk in 8 oz. of still water, but if you messed up step three, use holy water
Step five – Mix in three pearls of sour looks, incorporating well to prevent lumps, and pour the mixture into one of the emptied SunnyD bottles.
Step six – Mix in the dye gradually, using the real SunnyD to match the color, because betrayal takes cunning, shake and chill until the eclipse party
Step seven – Insist on climbing the highest hill to see the eclipse so that Oliver gets good and thirsty
Step eight – Chug half of the real SunnyD and then apologizing for the rudeness of not offering him any.
Step nine – Offer him the spiked SunnyD, stand back and let his GI tract feel the power of your wrath
Leg 6 – The Painting Leg: Choose any painting and write a microfiction exactly about that image, of the image, in the image, and nothing else. Describe whatever it is, or whatever is happening, the tension of composition, or what’s in that person’s head (if a portrait). Make it alive. Try not to make too much implied stuff from outside of painting, or what the background of the painting doesn’t show (off-scene events).
For this leg, I will choose one of my own paintings, Ratbones, the ghost wolf who lurks in the portico.
The painting is divided into three z-axis planes, in the background there is a building with an open door, from where a clergyman in shadow faces us. He is watching the scene and may even know danger is near, but he will not intervene. The middle ground is a plaza inhabited by two figures, one, a young street artist in the festive clothes of the Quattrocento. He is juggling four apples. The other figure moving stage left to stage right is a Moroccan merchant. Ratbones stands huge in the foreground against the column.
The Juggler is happy and light. He has his skill and it brings him a good life. The merchant, we can assume is well-off as he wears a very large emerald ring on his right pinkie finger. He is the face of stable belonging. Ratbones is a miserable creature. He is watching from the shadows. There’s no telling when he will turn or who he will set upon. He fears being captured, he is envious of the townsfolk and their effortless happiness. He feels he is a victim of his curse, condemned to change into a horrible beast without warning, to kill, and to witness what he can never be a part of.
Leg 7 – The Love Leg: Write your microfiction as a love letter. It can be addressed to a person, creature, object, disease, city, machine, ghost, god, organ, failed idea, or anything else that probably shouldn’t be loved in the slightest. The content is up to you, but it must still read like a letter: intimate, direct, and addressed to someone or something. The weirder and more inventive, the better (or so I say, but who am I to say?)
To anyone interested in joining, full details here: https://thirdeyehorror.substack.com/p/fictionwocky-a-beast-of-thirty-one