Round 1: The Dolphins of Despair

[boundbooks]

It's time for the first round of Government Controlled Cats!

The Prompts:

Griefing: Gatherings of more than six unrelated people have been banned and the government controls houseplants.

Spin: Keychains have been banned and the government controls bowling.

Survive: Crock pots have been banned and the government controls words of more than two syllables.

Swell: Glitter has been banned and the government controls platform shoes.

Snow: Brainstorms have been banned and the government controls con badges.

The Format: An excerpt from selected prompt's novel.
The Format's Length: 1-500 words of original fiction. Please note that entries are not required to use the words from their prompt's title and summary.

A Quick Reminder of How to Enter and Entry Rules: Five comments, containing one prompt each, will be added to this prompt post. In order to submit an entry, REPLY with a comment to your selected prompt comment. Each entry must be in the specified format and be submitted as a REPLY comment to the prompt comment. Do not comment with your entry as a reply to other entries; only comment with your entry as a reply to the original prompt comment.

Participants can submit up to three entries per round to the prompt(s) of their choice. If participants are not signed into Dreamwidth, Livejournal or openID, please include a preferred name/handle at the top of the entry comment, otherwise the entry will be considered to be written by 'anonymous.'

Submissions are due by 11:59PM United States East Coast Time on June 8th, 2011. If you're not on United States East Coast Time, you may find the World Clock to be handy. Refer to 'New York' for current United States East Coast Time.

Have fun!

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Comments

Re: Prompt 1

[jerico_cacaw]

"One wonders what they'll come up with next," Beatty says, the diminutive tree barely taking space in his gloved hand. That these people freely choose to endanger their fellow citizen for a fancy is something he can't understand. "Search them," he orders, tossing the offensive item in the portable burner. "Every pocket, every crevice, their lungs' air even, I don't care."

The last bag is being closed, its occupant the only one still fighting, when Montag returns with a stack of statements and his face disfigured by disgust.

"Eight adults, tree of them with first-degree genetic ties," he sums up. "They knew exactly what they were doing."

Beatty shakes his head. The life long sentence these men and women are going to receive would have been, were he to be in their place, even more devastating that the capital verdict they've barely avoided by complying with the half a dozen ban.

"How many hours are we going to lose?" he asks, looking at the swarm of officers flooding the crime scene.

"Twelve each on personal decontamination for the immediate response team, thirty-six for the cleaning squad additionally to the up to seventy-two hours it'll take them to vacuum seal the place. As for the neighbors on a three block radius, eight hours on relocation, a week on quarantine and an estimate drop of one point two months on both their current and newly assigned job's efficiency. The detour will add from three to twelve minutes on the public transportation system, depending on the route. Do you really want the numbers?"

Beatty shakes his head, no. He's going to read and sign Montag's final report; he can live without knowing the total figures until then. His counter blips, twelve more minutes before his air reserves are depleted.

"Have the B team search their assigned living locations. We still don't know where the hell they are bringing the damn pocket trees from."

"You don't think it is from beyond the borders." Anymore, Montag doesn't add, something Beatty is thankful for. If it turns out his assistant was right from the start and there's a domestic vivarium, life is going to become infinitely more difficult for them all.

[boundbooks]

That image is just the right spooky touch for this story. It's a tiiiiiny secret tree. :3

[jerico_cacaw]

And the spookiest thing is that They Do Exist (and are called pet trees) :O

[boundbooks]

Holy cow, I thought that was photoshopped! I am now tempted to start carrying one around as a symbol of The Revolution. XD

[jerico_cacaw]

I actually googled "how to make your own pet tree". No useful link was found, though :(

(I think the suspicious-looking comments are indeed spam; they all have exactly 1 (one) mistake in exactly 1 (one) word. Suspicious! I don't know why they might want to do it, though. I thought the purpose of spam was to try to trick you into buying something? But there's no link ... *is mystified*)

[boundbooks]

I was quite mystified as well! The only think I could think was that perhaps they were trying to either set up some kind of key code in the titles for Google purposes (the comment titles were all a mix of random letters) or get enough comments on DW that weren't reported as spam in order to make the IP look legit or something.

*shrug*

We shall never know the truth! Although, I am amused that a community devoted to dystopias got trolled by a random, bot-like anonymous commentator with mysterious intentions. It was very fitting! :P

[boundbooks]

Your comment looks odd and spammy, and it appears that you left three similar comments, so I am erring on the side of caution and deleting it. If it's not spam, feel free to correct me.