For the last stream’s exercise, we went back to a classic exercise: the Japanese poop book.
We’ve done this exercise a couple times before. What we do is open up a Japanese kanji book to a random page, translate the poop-related example sentences for that kanji, and then chat picks one of them and we start a story with it.
This time, we opened up to the kanji for “meet,” and this is the sentence chat voted for: “At the exercise meet, I participated in the poop-carrying relay race.”
As always, hilarity ensued. Here’s what we came up with:
At the exercise meet, I participated in the “poop-carrying relay race.” It was a county fair tradition, and I was proud to uphold it. My grandfather had been the champ at the tri-county cow chip hunt, my father had been the winner of the state cow chip toss, and now it was my turn to carry on the family name in a new competition.
I stood in a line with my five competitors. All six of us were lined up in the church parking lot that had been cleared out especially for this event. Bales of hay were lined up to create a long oval that spanned from one end to the asphalt to the other, making a track for us to run around inside. Gathered outside of the hay bales were hundreds of spectators, basically the entire population of Corn County. They were cheering, holding signs, and even some of the farmers brought their proud cows who had supplied today’s “batons.”
I stared down at the cow chip in my hands. It was the size and shape of a frisbee and a deep, rich brown. Hard as a rock, but mostly hollow on the inside. Just the right amount of crust, with minimum grass poking out for excellent air resistance. Hand-to-smear ratio quite low. All in all, it was the perfect chip.
“Go get ’em, Poopmaster Flash!” came a voice from the crowd. I looked over for who was calling me by my competition name, and sure enough it was Anna Lisa, the prettiest woman in the county. She’d worked her way to the front of the crowd and was leaning right over the hay bales, looking at me with her big cow-pie-brown eyes and gave me a wink and a blowed kiss for luck.
The mayor stepped forward. He struggled to climb on top of a hay bale with his massive girth, but when he finally pulled himself on top, he adjusted his porkpie hat and immaculate suit and beamed at me and my competitors.
“Cow pie carrying contestants!” he bellowed. “Time to get your sheeyat together!”
Amid laughs from the crowd, the six of us crouched down to the ground, cow pies in hand. I closed my eyes. The crowd went silent in my head. All I could hear was my determined heart pounding in my chest. All I could feel was the hand of my grandpa on my left shoulder and my pa on my right, cheering me on from beyond.
“On your marks!” the mayor said.
I opened my eyes. I saw the track before me. It was time.
“Get ready….” The mayor removed the ceremonial cowbell from his pocket and held it up in the air.
I felt a tap from my grandfather’s spirit on my shoulder. He was trying to tell me something. But it could wait. I had work to do!
“Go!” The mayor jangled the cowbell, signaling the start of the race.
I pushed forward with everything I had. I was going to win for my family. I was going to win for Anna Lisa. I was going to…
…trip over my shoelace because I’d forgotten to tie my shoes.
Two steps into the race, I fell to the hard ground. My hands slipped forward, and my face slammed into the cow pie, smooshing its crusty exterior and releasing its squishy interior all over me. The smell was overwhelming, as if I’d stuck my nose right inside of a cow itself.
But I wasn’t going to let something small like that deter me! With the cow pie still plastered to my face, I leaped to my feet and ran around the track. Not having to carry the load in front of me boosted my speed, and I quickly overtook the others. My partner in the race refused to smear our “baton” all over his face too, so I just ran for him instead. And my partner after him. And the one after him too.
In the end, I won the race with a new record. I even got a photo of me holding the trophy, and getting a kiss on the cheek from Anna Lisa, published in the Corn County Courier the next day. I cut it out and hung it proudly above the fireplace next to pa and grandpa’s winning photos.
And now, ten years later, Anna Lisa and I are sitting in the living room with little Billy on my lap. I hold the photo in my hands and Billy stares at it in awe.
“Did you really win, dad?” he asks.
“Yep,” I say. “And you can too, son. If you push really hard… you can get through any crap in life.”
Billy lets out a sigh of realization and joy. “Wow. When can I start practicing?”
I couldn’t have been prouder of him. “The earlier the better,” I say. “After all, you have a reputation to uphold, Billy. In this county, the name ‘Schitts’ means something.”
I like how our story starts out fairly grounded in reality, then gets more and more absurd as it goes along. And for those who don’t think cow-pie-throwing contests are realistic, then you should check Google, my friend.
After that we did a writing prompt and chat voted for this one submitted by Boxsteam1279: “You are an immortal who was born during the Roman Empire times. You spend your life with a SO but everytime they die from old age, you are on the hunt to find the reincarnation of your SO and start over again in new love, which still continues to this day.”
I really like how our story ended up for this one. It’s a bit shorter than what we usually write, but it says everything it needs to. And it takes the prompt in an interesting, unexpected direction.
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-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, 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.
Featured image: Pakutaso