This year I decided to give myself a bit of a challenge in writing and took part in this contest. I did not make it to the final round, which is about what I expected. BUT: I got farther than I had thought I would, so I figured I would share the stories I did for each round. While I quite enjoyed the process, I will probably (probably? maybe?) not enter again this year, as there is an entrance fee to consider as well. However, I am planning to enter again come 2021.
As a bit of explanation: The NYC Flash Fiction Challenge gives you 48 hours to write a piece not exceeding 1000 words and fitting within an assigned genre, location, and item. The story has to remain within the constraints of the genre, mostly take place at the location in question, and have the item appear at least once. In my defense, the stories I will post are fairly raw – I am posting what I submitted for the contest without any additional edits to improve the narrative, and afterwards I will post the judge’s comments.
In the first round, which occurred the weekend of July 12th, the assignment I ended up with was a thriller set on a commuter train, and an ethernet cable had to make an appearance. Thrillers are not really a genre I work with much, so I was a bit concerned over whether I was doing it right. I did spend the most time working on this story, but I liked it the least, and I don’t imagine that I will be revisiting it to add any further editing or additions. This was also the only story that got a read through from a friend who offered some advice and critiques, so it has a bit more “polish” compared to the other stories. I do remember that when I initially received the assignment, I considered a techno thriller that hinged on the use of an ethernet cable, but couldn’t figure out how I would make that work beyond the bare idea of it.
So instead I went the easy route and decided to murder people, because that’s what quitters do. So below is “Broken Code.”
West’s scalp crawled and his heart beat in his throat as he listened to the details of the planned event. Raking his hair back with his fingers was a telltale nervous habit that his ex-girlfriend had always teased him about, and he fought the urge to make the sudden movement now. He committed to fiddling with his phone with his earbuds in, but the sound was off and he could hear the bone-chilling conversation of the man and the woman in front of him quite easily. He had been listening to them for over a week now – in fact, he had started immediately after his break up. That very next morning he had chosen a seat near theirs, mistaking them for a couple. He’d wanted some proof in the world that relationships still worked and had hoped their conversation would inspire him. Instead, he had been completely baffled.
He had puzzled over it that morning and finally figured that they were talking in a code. He had spent the next week sitting near them attempting to decipher this code. He wrote down repeated phrases as soon as he sat at his desk and puzzled over their meanings throughout the day, a more interesting task than unjamming the printer or restoring accidentally deleted files. He could remember the excited thrill of being “in” on something when he finally cracked the code– to understanding a thing he wasn’t meant to understand.
But now that he could understand, he wished he didn’t. He knew instantly why they would choose to speak in code. What they were planning was… monstrous. Horrible. How many lives would be destroyed? He couldn’t allow it to happen.
West followed them off the train. They parted ways at the station, taking different bus routes. After a moment’s hesitation, he followed the woman. He settled into the back of the bus, watching her blonde hair sway with the motion of the vehicle. He shifted his bag on his shoulder and wondered what he had that he could use as a weapon.
He got off the bus at the same time she did and followed her into a tall building. He felt a surge of panic, wondering if he would be stopped if he continued to follow her, but she veered down a side hall to enter a restroom. West, seeing the hall was relatively deserted, hesitantly pushed the door open and called in, “Hello?” and after a moment’s inspiration added, “It’s the janitor!”
“There’s someone in here!” the woman’s voice called back.
“Just the one?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be quick,” she promised. He echoed the thought mentally as he pulled an ethernet cord out of his bag and pushed into the restroom. She looked at his reflection in the mirror as he entered. Her mouth opened, but before she could let out a sound, he dropped his bag and looped the cord around her neck, tightening it. She stared at him with bulging eyes and pushed back against him with a strength that almost surprised him. The world went red around the edges of his vision – he hated hurting anyone, it felt especially wrong to push all of his strength into strangling a woman, but he knew – he knew something had to be done about this particular woman. Before she could ruin everything.
“I’m sorry,” he said, staring straight into her large brown eyes.
When he finished and she lay limp on the floor, he stumbled into one of the stalls and puked. But he knew he couldn’t stay long – it was a miracle no one had entered yet. He flushed the toilet, grabbed his bag, and found a different exit from the building as quick as he could. As he started jogging down the sidewalk, he heard sirens in the distance. He didn’t go to work that day.
The next morning, the man was on the train as usual, a frown creasing his features as he glanced around, looking for his partner. West settled into the chair behind him, but didn’t bother with his usual faked distractions. He felt like a bundle of tensed nerves. As the train started pulling forward, the man pulled his cellphone out and made a call. West waited and listened. “Hi, it’s Jim. Is Sara….” he paused as though he had been cut off mid-sentence. Whoever was on the other end was telling him what had happened. West listened in suspense, almost as though he expected the man to turn around and stare straight into his eyes in accusation. Instead, the man said, “Oh my god… why didn’t anyone call me?” There was some defense made by the person on the other side, which Jim cut off angrily with, “We were trying to work it out, so I damn well consider it my business!”
West closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. He pulled the ethernet cord out of his bag and wrapped each end around a fist – it was time to finish the job.
“He says he overheard them plotting a terrorist act. He won’t even say what they were planning or why,” the detective sighed in frustration and took a quick sip of his coffee before pulling a face – it was cold. He hated cold coffee.
“Anything unusual about the couple at all?”
“No. They were in the middle of a divorce, from what I understand. The male victim had been trying to talk the female victim out of it for the past few months.”
“Wonder what made the guy target them in particular?”
The detective shrugged and glanced down at the evidence bag on his desk. It contained the notebook with the deciphered code the suspect had willingly provided – his proof. “This isn’t going to work,” repeated itself on the first page, ending with, “Who gets the kids?”
“I don’t know what this world is coming to,” the detective sighed, and went to dump the cold coffee down the sink.
The judges comments were as follows:
WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY – {1941} The writing was clear, precise, and engaging. I especially loved the scene in the bathroom where he killed the woman. It was very vivid. {1903} I was drawn in and invested in what was going to happen. Engaging read. {1739} The intrigue carried very nicely. WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK – {1941} I thought the ending was a bit predictable. It seemed obvious that West’s version of reality was distorted. Is there a way to further convince readers that West is in fact committing a courageous act? {1903} I think a different ending would have more payoff. I was hoping the “code” he’d heard was the couple planning their huge wedding. {1739} Oddly, the payoff with the police was a bit off somehow. If he deciphered a code that didn’t actually exist, then it almost becomes necessary to know what he thinks he has discovered. It would also help to know what pushed him so far over the edge. His breakup isn’t characterized as being particularly traumatic.
The ending was especially rough – I didn’t want to quite end it at the last murder and thought something needed to tie things up or contextualize things, but obviously did a kind of ham-fisted half-hearted attempt at that, and it was quite easy to see that that payoff did not work well with the judges either. But I was happy that even with a genre I wasn’t comfortable with, the readers still found my writing engaging.
mehryment 