Previous: >>25215100https://warosu.org/lit/thread/25215100You have until Monday May 18th, 11:59 PM GMT to fill one /lit/-sized textbox (3,000 characters) with writing inspired by this piece of art from the public domain.Poetry, prose, greentext, etc. are all fair play as long as your submission—and that’s “your submission” (no plagiarism; no AI)—fits inside a single textbox posted in this thread.Once the deadline has passed, I will simply choose the best 3 submissions.An open vote will take place afterwards as well, so that everybody can have a say on who the winners should be.>[Countdown to submission deadline]https://countingdownto.com/?c=7115748Art: “After the Hurricane, Bahamas” by Winslow Homer, 1899https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winslow_Homer_-_After_the_Hurricane,_Bahamas_(1899).jpg
Seventeen sea nymphs tripped lightly across the sands.Behold, said Zoladinia, there lies a castaway youth, unconscious behind that splintered boat.So beautiful, said Glokolia, with the wispy green hair.Jophrasta with the ancient eyes reminded the sea nymphs of the cyclone of the night before. They murmured and speculated. It had been weeks since a cyclone so majestically violent.Uëfo, hanging back from the rest, touched softly the arm of Lokrys, who shivered and whispered: Not now.At a gesture of Zoladinia's they raised his body and bore him to the large flat rocks of the western bay. A fire was smouldering there, and the nymphs brought more driftwood and piled it on.When they had gutted him, and cooked and consumed his flesh, Zoladinia raised an amphora of coconut water to the sky, shrieking in pious gratitude. All shrieked in response. Then they lay back, basking, well-fed. The air was heavy with heat, electrically charged, perfumed with guava, incense, scorched meat.Glokolia closed her eyes and heard, crackling on the faint breezes, the radio transmissions of a thousand ships.Two sea nymphs, attentive and adoring, rubbed sunscreen into the calves of Zoladinia.Jophrasta and Lokrys tossed bones into the air. Falling, the bones scattered, and the configurations they made contained omens about global tuna markets, though neither were aware of this interesting phenomenon.Uëfo, looking up at the gathering clouds, thought: I hate Lokrys, I hate her. Then she turned over, and pressed her face to the rock, and cried pure and saltless tears.
bump
Don't let me be the only entry, you lazy mfs
>>25279205The stench of sea foam was pervasive as a solitary man quivered in pain. Broken by the tides that still lapped up the splinters of a sailboat, he laid waiting. Regret added salt and a crust of seaweed to the wound; what was he thinking? Alone, without the knowledge of how to sail or swim, it wasn’t forgiving weather for an amateur to reach an uneasy impasse with the outdoors – it simply spat him out, half-chewed on a sand bar ruddy with his vanishing glee. He hadn’t been thinking. There was only flinching away from grimy, undignified routine, following the rush of finding a dock with some tourist’s unattended vessel. For a moment, he was rich and self-ordained, human. How it ached in his head that he was back on the same shores, he stubbornly wished to at least set himself adrift towards a paradise, no matter the condition. What might he have seen, touched, been? He began to half-dream it in the throes of his wake, glistening like a smooth stone settling into centuries of place and being. “My boat,” a sunburned man moaned, souring the visions of sweet fruit, playful smiles. “Is that my boat?” A fistful of sand lashed out, and the embers went quiet.
>>25279399What a home run of a starting sentence. “Seventeen” may be an arbitrary amount of sea nymphs, but it is the pefect set of syllables to compliment what follows.I love the rhymthic match between “tripped lightly” and “touched softly”—what makes great writing is writing that is uniformly permeated by theme.It’s in this way that the cyclone’s designation as “majestically violent” can also apply, unwrittenly, to the nymphs’ natures.All the nymphs’ natures except Uëfo, maybe…or maybe not?And that’s what I like so much about this piece: It’s enigmatic.Perhaps my biggest question: Why does a sea nymph (Zoladinia) need sunscreen?The narration is explicit that they’re nymphs, and that they do have praeternatural abilities (bone divination), but maybe they don’t know they’re sea nymphs?I mean, you wrote “though neither were aware of this interesting phenomenon,” and, yeah, they could be so magical that they don’t even realize what they’re doing, but it’s still something they are unaware of.Glokia hears “radio transmissions of a thousand ships,” but maybe she doesn’t know that that’s what she’s hearing?Plus I wouldn’t know if my own tears were saltless, and anyone can dye their hair green.Though the antique diction of Zoladinia, along with the banoodles names of her coterie, probably put this interpretation to rest, but the sunscreen detail is too bizarre for me not keep wondering.Could they know they’re nymphs but are now striving to be more human, more empathetic, by at first refraining from castaway à la mode, if that’s what Uëfo was sleeve-tugging Lokrys about?Or not, and that beat was just Uëfo’s interpersonal stufff we’ll never know.Maybe some nymphs need sunscreen.And her attendants weren’t even necessarily squeezing it out of plastic bottle because it’s pretty ancient stuff.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#HistoryAny story that makes me think so much about it did a great job in my book.I don’t think I could have restrained myself from depicting or at least referencing the actual death of the “unconscious” castaway, but your elision of it will be something I’ll carry with me.It’s a great lesson on how the only thing more brutal than life-taking is the inconsequence of life-taking, how we just skip that part where he dies and they’re already cooking him.Imagining his screams in this way is more unsettling, especially when the main focus is the sea nymphs. Bravo.I also wanted to mention how enjoyable rereading this was as I traced each character’s actions.>Z spots him, gestures, raises amphora & shrieks, gets applied sunscreen by 2 randos>G says he’s beautiful, closes eyes & hears radio waves>J ancient eyes, yesterday’s meteorology, bone divination w/ L>U hangs back, sees gathering clouds, hates L & cries>L “not now” to U, bone divination w/ JLast month, WouldBird had 3 named characters, but you got to 5.
>>25285453>The stench of sea foam was pervasive as a solitary man quivered in pain.“Pervasive” to whom? When you used “as” to seperate the clauses, you left a phantom POV.Plus “sea foam” is able to pervade in every way that its stench can and more, so reframe “sea foam” as the subject, having its smell be just one of its dimensions.For a second dimension, the most interesting thing about sea foam is how the air can just carry it away, as if escaping the sea.Your MC’s seeking freedom, so that’s a bit thematic.Speaking of thematic, “solitary” isn’t doing much work. This isn’t a piece about being alone; it’s about failing, with solitude as a byproduct, so choose a more crestfallen descriptor.Finally, the first sentence is always your most important. Ditch your dull linking verb construction “was [adjective]” for something sharper by having the MC be the direct object.(And by doing this, you unlock the participle “quivering.’ This is still a past-tense story, but seeing anything ending in ‘-ing’ brings immediacy.)Together:‘Sea foam, with all its flight and stench, pervaded the man quivering face-down in pain.’>the splinters of a sailboat,With how much you focus on the question of his possession of this vessel—“Is that my boat?”—you are subtly taking a side here when you use “a” instead of “his.”Just noun-adjunct it to keep things murky:‘the sailboat splinters’https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_adjunct>Regret added salt and a crust of seaweed to the wound; what was he thinking?Nix the semicolon.Since we’re already in the past, and now he’s thinking back to a further past: “What had he been thinking?”I like the ambiguity of “the wound” either being pysical or spiritual, but “Regret added salt and a crust of seaweed” is the worst version of both.Simply: ‘Salt in the wound: Regret.’>it wasn’t forgiving weather for an amateur to reach an uneasy impasse with the outdoorsTerribly clunky, with all the wrong words for what you’re describing.“It wasn’t forgiving” and “uneasy” both sound like PR-style deescalations—where is the brutality?But the worst is “the outdoors,” an terrestrial expression incongruous to marining.>it simply spat him out, half-chewed on a sand barComma after “half-chewed.”>He hadn’t been thinking.Put this right after the question that he asked above.>There was only flinching away from grimy, undignified routine, following the rush of finding a dock with some tourist’s unattended vessel.I dig this and everything after very much. Maybe just pair a possesive “his” with “routine,” and swap “with” for “harboring.”>He began to half-dream it in the throes of his wake, glistening like a smooth stone settling into centuries of place and being.“Wake” has such a great double meaning.Going from “human” to an inert “stone” is truly heartbreaking.Thanks for writing!
~My Best 3~1st >>252793992nd >>25285453~Readers’ Choice~Do you all agree with me, or not?~Next /lwc/~>[countdown to /lwc/ June 2026]https://countingdownto.com/?c=7124332
>>25287722Thanks for the 1st and your extremely perceptive notes, Esteemed Judge.>>25285453Enjoyed this. I agree with the other guy that 'flinching' is where it really begins to open up.
>"my best three">only two entries>just like last time
