Storytime Experiment 1: “Unity Cup”
In an effort to experiment with collaborative storytelling, I asked friend and all-around creative person Keith Boynton to write a story with me over six days. Alternating days, we each got a word limit of 200 words. Each night, we would email our 200 to the other and the other would continue the story. Thanks to Katherine Maughan who provided our word/phrase of inspiration, “Unity Cup.” This is what happened.
## Indicates a change in author. I began.
STORYTIME 1
“This isn’t what I had in mind at all.”
Roman waited for a response. It was a funny thing to say. Not hilarious, but deserving of a chuckle. One, from someone. He adored his own wit but no one laughed. No one moved. The air smelled sweet. He had made the punch too strong.
“Let’s go, let’s go.” He murmured weakly. Not that he’d be able to do anything should his encouragements be heeded. But at least the will was strong. The body can recover but once the will is dead, the body becomes largely meaningless, except to science.
There were bodies everywhere, in various stages of undress. He sat in the corner in his underwear, feeling fat. This is not the position he had pictured his future self being in hours ago. The record had reached its end and the whole lodge filled with a hiss that made him sleepy. The embers nearby whispered their last as the windows reappeared in dull grey.
Roman hated sunrise. He tried to slump over but found himself quite paralyzed. He couldn’t even motivate himself to curl up next to one of these seminude nymphets. The floor was no more appetizing, but closer.
##
Five hours later, there was a knock at the door.
Roman assumed that he still couldn’t get up, which was fine, because he didn’t want to. But then his thighs tensed, he felt a rising sensation, and he realized he was heading for the door.
Amazing how powerful the sense of obligation is, he mused, and immediately felt an immense pride in the coherence of this thought. It confirmed that the punch’s effects were not permanent, which was just what the brochure had promised.
He tripped over four prone lovelies on his way across the room, but – thrillingly – did not fall. Reaching the door, he steadied himself on the doorknob and leaned his throbbing forehead against the wood. The knock came again, jarring his head brutally, and it was in a spirit of irritated defiance that he boldly flung open the door and stepped up to face the invader. The glare of sudden daylight nearly blinded him. He threw an arm across his eyes. A breeze tickled his chest hair. He suddenly felt naked.
“Good morning.”
He shifted his arm and tried to peer into the stabbing light. The voice was female – bright, chipper. It made him want to kill.
##
“Would you like to purchase cookies to benefit the Girls Scouts of America?”
He coughed, squinted. A figure materialized. It was dirty blonde and wore a false grin like his junior prom date. He swallowed his phlegm.
“Yeah. Sure.”
She turned and bent at the knees, rummaging through a box. Her adorable skirt filled him with rage. She popped up in a 180-degree turn with boxes in various primary colors.
“How many you want?”
“How many you got?”
He led the way back into the dark, staggering along the island chain of rug submerged among the bodies. The room reeked of unshowered revelers. Still no movement. The girl was strangely unmoved herself by the whole spectacle.
Shouldn’t these fools be coming to? How curious.
She placed the box on the table. Roman sat.
“That it?”
“I’ve got more in the car.
“Good. I want everything.”
She made six trips in all, the silly girl. Roman sipped stale water from a gallon jug. He handed her two crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“I don’t have change for that,” she panted. Her obscene voice made his eyeballs throb.
“Keep the change.”
She pocketed the cash.
“You must be thirsty. Care for some punch?”
##
The girl gulped the punch down greedily, Roman watching her like a hawk. With his eyes readjusted to the gloom, and the girl thoroughly engrossed in her beverage, he treated himself to a good long look. She was tall for her age – lean, but not bony. Her clothes were a little too small for her, but it was impossible to tell whether she was keen to show herself to advantage, or simply growing very fast. She had freckles and dimples and oddly flat breasts. The fact that he despised her made her somehow more enticing.
Roman popped another cookie. They were sandy and slightly bitter, but he was ravenous. He was already halfway through the box.
“Big party, huh?”
She was standing in the middle of the room, swaying slightly – nervousness, maybe, or else the punch was kicking in. Seated on the couch, Roman smiled. This was going to be easy.
“Mrrrraggh gmbbbb dnnn.”
That was odd. He’d meant to say “You have no idea” or “It’s just getting started,” or something else that was quippy and vaguely ominous. He tried again, but this time all that came out was drool.
Good God, Roman thought. What’s in these cookies?
##
The floor came quickly this time, all at once and at his face, but he felt no pain upon impact. The blow separated his spirit self from its sheath, and he found himself swimming in a pond of purple nothingness below, his body above. He looked up at the surface, the flesh log Roman feet away from the kneeling scout, gagging on her manicured fingers, spilling yesterday’s punch over the polished oak planks. He rather liked this angle. Very cinematic.
A feeling of sorrow seeped into him. Could this be death, these netherwaters, or just a nasty trip? Would he see mother again? He never read The Odyssey. He felt vulnerable and young. He just wanted to be home, away from these people, this mess. Just sober and showered. In bed. At peace.
The eyelids of his body above closed and he was neatly yanked into the black abyss below.
*****
Consciousness returned. He inhaled, exhaled. Alive!a Something smelled like Sun Ripened Raspberry lotion. He opened his eyes.
He had been moved. He was next to the trashcan. In front of him, two sisters were stacked like crushed cars. Somewhere, someone spoke.
“Everyone’s dead. You got that? They’re fucking dead.”
##
The girl scout loomed into his field of vision, looking down at him. Her hair was up, in a smart little bun. She wore a tailored gray pantsuit. Her breasts were bigger. Even her freckles were gone. She was definitely not a girl scout.
“How much did you use?” she said.
Behind her, men in coveralls labeled “Unity, Inc.” were disposing of the bodies. One of them was listening patiently to the near-hysterical lodge owner, who kept pointing out over and over that the bodies were dead. Eventually, while the girl was talking, the man zapped him with a taser and loaded him into a truck.
“How much did you use?” she repeated.
“Whole package,” Roman muttered.
The girl cocked her head and pressed a finger to her ear.
“Everything’s fine, sir,” she said. “The product is flawless. He just used too much.” She turned her attention back to Roman.
“You gonna kill me?” he asked.
The girl smiled. She still had the dimples. “Oh, no,” she said. “We can always use more guinea pigs.”
Roman fumed as the workmen flung him into the truck beside the unconscious lodge owner. This wasn’t what he had had in mind at all.