For the last stream, we were joined by special guest Abbey, so we decided to try a new exercise: Abbey and chat wrote the beginning to a story, and then I had to complete it.
I left the room as they concocted the beginning, and when I was allowed to come back… I immediately regretted the idea.
I had no idea how to make sense of Abbey/chat’s story. Much less knowing where to take it, I barely understood it!
But then something clicked, inspiration hit me, and I knew what I had to do. Thanks to a few fun other suggestions, we ended up with something pretty beautiful: (bolded section is what Abbey/chat wrote that I had to finish)
The big ol’ bird came down from the sky and landed on the street in front of me. It scared me. It dropped a rolled slip of parchment at my feet. A knife clattered to the ground beside it.
I reached down for the parchment, before quickly grabbing the knife. In a flash, the bird changed shape into my archnemesis Badguybird II from (insert superhero high school name here).
“Let’s do this,” he shouted. “but read the message first!”
He had such a way with words. I opened up the letter. It read:
“Do you like me? Peck one please. Yes/No.”
I looked over the parchment and Badguybird II was holding his hands together, tapping the toe of one shoe on the ground, looking up at the sky with googly eyes.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yesh,” Badguybird II said in a sweet tone. “I know I put on a tough guy attitude at (insert superhero high school name here), but honestly, ever since the first day you showed up, and you showed off your super secret power… I was in love.”
I blushed. “Really?”
“Yes,” Badguybird II said. His dreamy look disappeared and he gazed at me with his wide, beautiful bird-eyes. It was as if he was looking straight past my disgusting exterior and saw the beautiful bird house that resided within my heart, waiting for him to come and make a nest. Together.
“You really don’t mind that… that I look like this?” I asked, showing off my multicolored, globulous body with shame.
“Of course not,” Badguybird II said, the most serious tone ever spoken on Earth permeating every syllable of his beautiful bird-voice. “I’d be the luckiest bird in the world if I got to peck you every day. So please, make your choice and peck your decision.”
It was the easiest bird-related decision of my life. I brought the parchment up to my nose and pecked “Yes” ferociously, letting the lust power my peck so powerfully, it burst through the parchment on the other side, crumbs spilling off of my face to the ground. Badguybird II moaned with cathartic pleasure as he watched.
“Oh, I’m so happy,” he said. “Now, we can truly be together. And you can come inside of me.”
We embraced and Badguybird II reeled back his bird-head, and thrust his beak into my doughnut body. Again. And again. And again, devouring my shoulders, then my neck, then my arms. And yet, as he devoured me, I grew back just as fast.
Was there ever a couple more made for each other than a bird and a self-regenerating doughnut-girl?
Honestly… I kind of like this story. Yes, it barely makes sense. Yes, it’s a bit weird (okay, very weird) until you know what’s going on. Yes, even when you do find out what’s going on, it’s still weird. But still, there’s something there that’s kind of cute, and I like it.
After that we moved on to today’s prompt, and chat voted for this one submitted by EnigmaticMemes: “Huh, the trees don’t scream in this dimension.” “I know this world is… wait, what?”
This one took a little while to figure out. Are there two interdimensional travelers? If so, why is one familiar with screaming-dimensions and the other isn’t? And if not, then who is the other one?
But eventually, and with help from chat as always, we figured something out. I actually really like where this ended up, giving a great, fun twist at the end.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-9:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns until Twitch deletes them.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon, forthcoming November 2018.