Author Note:
For this post and the next few after I will also be including a "Micro Fiction" version of the story that has a word constraint of 100. Just slightly above a tweet (~23-25 words) but still far more compact than the expanded section (500-5000). I hope you enjoy it and let me know how you like this format!
-Old Man Civil
Original Tweet: (source)
What would you give to live out your dreams? $100? $1000? Your Life? Oh, but don't worry. They don't want all of it. That'd be such a waste.
Micro Fiction: (100 words)
"Come one, come all! Gather 'round and listen up for the chance of a lifetime!" The tall man in the black and white suit called out to those milling about.
"What're you willing to give up to live your dreams? Money? Possessions? Worry not. We don't desire either. We ask for one simple thing. Your life. Not all of it of course, don't be silly. With only the littlest bit we can help you live out your wildest dreams."The man opened his arms to the crowd with a grin across his painted face.
"Who's ready to make a deal?"
Expanded:
"Come one, come all!" The almost absurdly tall man called out to the crowd milling about in front of him with a booming voice that could spread for miles. His suit striped black and white, patched up and threadbare from years of use and abuse.
"Come and listen for the chance of a lifetime!" He shouted, a small crowd finally beginning to form around his makeshift platform in the subway station. The man bent his unusually long legs, squatting down to be at eye-level to those who had gathered around.
The man gave the crowd time to settle, smiling at each person who continued to talk until they got quiet. Then once all was ready he began again, but this time in a hushed tone that could not be heard from outside of his little gathering.
"What would you willing to give up to fulfill your wildest dreams? Those dreams you've had since you were a kid or the kind that you couldn't bring yourself to tell even your partner about. Your wealth? Your possessions? That seems like a reasonable price for such a thing, does it not?"
The man eyed each individual carefully, painted turning emotionless as a stone, as he said this. Their guilty and wanting souls his to be read like an open book set out just for him.
After a few uncomfortable moments, he sprang back up to his full height, towering over everyone around, with a showman's smile returned to his face.
"Worry not, my dear friends! For we desire none of those things. What we are looking for is far more important than something that can be bought." The man continued, a wide grin spreading across his face that was painted to match his suit.
"What we ask for, my friends, is your life." A silence spread across the group. Some unsure if they heard what he said correctly, others starting to wonder why they bothered stopping in the first place, but none of them moved. After letting the silence really sink in, letting the crowd fall deeper into thought as they tried to process his meaning, the man in the black and white suit laughed.
"Not all of your life, of course! Don't give me such concerned looks! That would just be silly. After all, how could you live out your dreams if you are dead?" The man laughed again and this time some in the crowd laughed with him, although with a bit of some of the skepticism and nervousness remained.
"With only the smallest, tiniest fraction of your life, we can help you. Yes, even you," the man said as he pointed out someone in the crowd who looked as though they were about to leave, but once the man had him in his gaze, they stopped and continued to listen.
"Even you can live out your wildest dreams. No matter how absurd, fantastical, or twisted." For a split second the man's demeanor changed, and several in the crowd flinched as though they had just been caught doing something they knew they shouldn't be. Then in a blink he was back as he was before, perhaps as he always was.
"Not a bad price if you ask me. You likely won't even notice it's missing! So what do we say, who wants to make a deal? I can see in your eyes that you're tempted, that if you say no now you'll regret it for as long as you can remember it." The man clapped his hands together, snapping the crowd out of their passive state, as if they had all be stuck in their own daydreams and fantasies.
"So who wants to make a deal with me? How about you?"
No comments:
Post a Comment