Thumbscribes hosted a collaborative fiction titled EXQUISITE SHORTS headed by Aimee Bender of Electric Literature. What ensued was a pleasant albeit confusing romp through one hundred contributions of 300 character limit fiction, starting with Aimee Bender’s “She was startled by what she saw on the bridge; it did not seem to have a shape, and yet it was moving toward her, and she found herself inexplicably compelled to stay put.” These are my contributions:
17- Christ, was that motes of light peeling from it? It existed within an unreality of its own, static. “All my life,” she answered, the words coming without volition.
33- A profound depression sank her and confusion swirled in, washing away her confidence. “Damn you, Aimee Bender!” she cried, without understanding why, punching the air. She wallowed in the Kübler-Ross model before finally determining she was living–ha ha, she sobbed at this–the Bardo Thödol.
43- “Are you to be my Vladimir, Glen? And you,” she gestured to the formless twilight, “my Estragon? Or is it Shaun and Shem?” In a shower of organ donor cards, she sighed. “Be damned if this plurabelle gets out of this by the skin of her teeth. I suspect we’re not even halfway through my story!”
92- She blinked. Her toes were cold. The night had intervened, bringing her senses back to her. The the thing on the bridge. The mirror. It hung before her still. When she was seven she thought she could peer with a telescope far enough into a mirror to find herself reflected back from inside the womb.
99-The mirror rippled. No! She didn’t want to! But it drank her, swallowing memory and pain. Alice fell through the looking glass and she was startled by what she saw on the bridge; it did not seem to have a shape,and yet it was moving toward her, and she found herself inexplicably compelled to stay put
