Share your favorite, craziest movie trailers, and then we’ll vote on one to turn into a short story.
How different will our story end up from the real thing?
Let’s find out!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we do a prompt where we write a story about a movie trailer
Watch the highlights here or scroll down to see what we wrote.
Chat suggested a bunch of great trailers, but in the end it was this one that they voted we use for inspiration:
Here’s what we wrote:
Some people are driven by dreams of being a doctor or a parent or a business owner. For me, there’s only ever been one dream whispering in the back of my mind for as long as I can remember: Connecticut.
It was there with me on my first day of school, my first date with Arielle, my first quarter pounder for a quarter Tuesday at McDonald’s. I could never fully enjoy arts and crafts, or Arielle’s lips, or the sweet taste of discount meats on my tongue, because it was always cloaked in a thin haze of Connecticut.
I knew there was more to it than just some strange obsession. More than just some childhood memory that had lodged itself in my brain like an olive pit in my turkey sub. The state I was assigned to research in third grade history class… Connecticut. The answer to five-down in the only crossword puzzle I’ve dared to do… Connecticut. When I asked the boss for the wi-fi password at the break trailer… Connecticut.
It’s all I can do to try to live a normal life, without being drawn to Connecticut like a magnet. Like a mosquito to the bug zapper. Like the water from a bathroom sink flowing down the drain that I stare at, imagining the metal mouth gurgling out the words “Connecticut.”
I’ve kept it to myself. What would other people think? Their heads are full of love and hopes and adventures, and all I have is one little state on the east coast constantly calling out to me. But here in Rhode Island, Connecticut is over 20 miles away. It may as well be on the other side of the world.
So I’ve lived my life as Connecticut-less as I can. I work with Dan at my construction job building piles of stones during the day, then spend time with Arielle at home at night, cuddled up on the couch and pretending that I hear the TV saying something other than “Connecticut, Connecticut, Connecticut” all the time.
Until one day after work, when I was sitting with Dan in the car. Getting ready to drive him home, I saw a car drive by in front of us. Its plates… the blue and white Constitution State of Connecticut. It blew by like a cold winter breeze, sending a shivering shill through me.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something.
“Dan,” I said. “Have you ever… thought about going somewhere else?”
“Like on vacation?” he asked, scrunching his face like a wrinkled walrus.
“Kind of. But like… a vacation you go on for the rest of your life.”
“Like, you go there and die, bro?”
“No, you go there and don’t come back. You leave Rhode Island for somewhere else… forever.”
Dan’s neckbeard plumped up like a tumor as he sucked his face into his head.
“Listen man, where would you even go?” he asked, scoffing. Connecticut?”
His final word echoed in my head, bouncing off my skull walls like a nuclear reaction, as if the universe itself were calling out to me.
“Wake up, bro!” Dan said, punching me in the shoulder. “You’re dreamin’. You belong here with your friends.”
Slowly the echoing faded and I dribbled back to real life. I did my best to smile and nod to Dan.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I grunted, eyes and heart still unfocused. “Let’s get home.”
But even at home, I was still a fly caught in Connecticut’s web. The advertisements on TV were all for Connecticut real estate, the movie playing tonight was the Haunting in Connecticut, and even Arielle brought home Connecticut lobster rolls for dinner.
As we sat down to eat, I couldn’t even hear what she was saying over the Connecticut screams in my head. Until she said something that silenced everything else.
“…a little place called, Connecticut.”
I dropped my spoon and fork and knife and glass of water to the table with a clatter, staring right at Arielle.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“My family is moving,” she said. “And I think I’m going with them.”
“Moving where?” I asked, already tasting the confirmation on my tongue.
“Connecticut,” she repeated. “I know it’s super far away, so I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to—”
“I’ll go with you.” I shot up to my feet and clasped Arielle’s hands in my own. “Let’s go there now. Tonight. To Connecticut!”
Arielle laughed. “Stop dreaming. We can’t go now. We have packing to do, and planning to do.”
“None of that matters,” I said, letting go of her hands. “I’m leaving now. Are you coming with me?”
With that, I stomped away from my moist lobster sandwich, and Arielle yelled after me.
“Bronson!” she cried. “Get out of your head and come back to the real world!”
I ignored her and marched into the car, driving off into the night to where I should have gone years ago.
But after just a few minutes down I-95, a voice came from behind me in the back seat.
“Where do you think you’re going, young man?”
In my rearview mirror, I saw my father, oversized mustache and oversized glasses, slowly peeking up in the back seat.
“Dad!” I yelled. “What are you doing here?”
“Preventing you from making a terrible mistake,” he said. “Son, don’t go to Connecticut. It’s not what you think it is.”
All the memories welled up inside me and came out spilling through my eyes. The times I’d try to bring up Connecticut with Dad as a child and he just yelled at me. The time I’d suggested we take a connecting flight in New Haven and he’d spanked me even though I was fifteen years old.
“Why don’t you ever just talk to me, dad?” I cried, overcome with emotion.
“Because!” he said. “I’m the shell of the man I once was. And I misdirect my anger at you and your stupid dreams.”
I blew a giant snot rocket all over my windshield in anger and sadness. It dripped down the glass like fermented soybeans.
“But they’re my dreams, okay!”
Dad didn’t reply to that. He merely started ducking back down behind the seat again, slowly disappearing.
“That’s exactly the problem,” he whispered, all anger gone from his voice.
“Dad!” I yelled, groping around in the back seat to grab onto him but only finding a stained cushion. “Dad! Dad!”
He was gone. There was no time to mourn. I stepped on the gas, blasting the engine up to a blistering sixty-four miles per hour. I’d never dared to go only one mile per hour below the speed limit before, but if anything ever called for reckless driving, it was this.
Moments later, it emerged on the horizon. The shining city of golden promises and unending pleasures for which my heart had panged for eternity. Connecticut — the city where dreams and reality once kissed, creating paradise on earth.
As I drove toward it, the other cars on the highway disappeared, fading into nothing. My own vehicle, fizzled as it was slowly enveloped by the shining whiteness of Connecticut heaven. With no more wheels to drive me, my legs moved of their own accord, running no longer on pavement, but on all-encompassing brightness toward the galaxy of a million swirling suns before me known as Connecticut. I was so close! I could dip my finger into its wonder!
“Wake up, bro!” came Dan’s voice from all around me.
“You’re dreamin’.” Where was he? I couldn’t see him!
“You belong here with your friends.” The voice disappeared along with everything else.
“Bronson!” came another voice. “Get out of your head and come back to the real world!”
Bam. I slammed into nothing as hard as if I’d run headfirst into a wall. My world went black, then slowly my eyes opened to a hazy scene before me.
Two people stood over me as I lay in bed. I tried to say something to them, ask them how I got here, but my mouth didn’t work. It felt heavy and weak and tubes were spilling out from my lips like Cthulhu tendrils. My arms instinctively wanted to yank them out, but trying to make them move was like trying to pick up a house.
“Hey, relax,” one of the strangers said. He was wearing a white coat and smiling at me. “You’ve been out for a few days. Do you remember anything about the accident?”
Accident? I could see a little more clearly now. The woman was also in a doctor’s coat, holding a clipboard.
“You were on the highway when it happened,” she said. “We didn’t know if you’d ever wake up.”
I didn’t know what they were talking about. I tried to force out words, but nothing could get through the tubes and numbness. Dan. Arielle. Dad. Where were they? Only one word managed to come out even somewhat comprehendibly.
“O-necti-cut!” I said, feeling like a baby learning to talk. “O-necti-cut! O-necti-cut!”
The doctors looked at each other.
“Is he saying ‘Connecticut?’” the man asked.“Maybe,” the woman said. “The accident happened on I-95.”
“He’s lucky,” the man said, shaking his head. “Most accidents there, you’re lucky if you can scrape the bodies from the pavement.”
“Well that’s what happened to the three others with him. Took us forever to identify his friends and father.”
The doctors kept talking, but I couldn’t hear them anymore. All that was running through my head was the screeches and screams from the accident. Dan’s yells. Arielle’s cries. Dad’s body crashing through the windshield. And then blackness.
I remembered what I’d said to Dad earlier.
“But they’re my dreams, okay!”
“That’s exactly the problem,” he’d responded.
When my dream ended, their lives did too. Now I’m back in a world where none of them exist any longer.
“Puth mik ba!” I tried to say through the tubes and weakness. The doctors looked at me weirdly.
“What’s he saying now?” he asked.
“No clue,” she said. “But he’s agitated. Should we sedate him?”
The doctors moved in closer. I kept saying it again and again as hard as I could.
“Puth mik ba! Puth mik ba! Puth mik ba!”
I felt something flow into me, and the world faded away again. Even though no one else could understand my words, I heard them loud and clear in my own mind as I drifted away.
“Put me back! Put me back. Put me back….”
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 join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso