Invitational Linear Fiction

Want to nominate a writer for the invitational linear fiction project? Just e-mail chris@ osric.com.

By: Nimemail: nim@nimweb.netDate: 3/13/01, 1:50 AM
Chris was feeling apprehensive about his new foray into the wilds of Cyberspace. True, he had long since proven that his unique, blotty mark will indeed persevere on the internet, and persevere it should. The unveiling of Mediacropolis, though, was akin to the unveiling of his very soul. "What if," he mulled as he shuffled through the shards of the thousand champagne bottles consumed in the Osric.com HQ Mediacropolis-Goes-Live party, "all Mediacropolis can attract turns out to be second rate hacks who use pseudo-victorian bullshit language like 'akin' and speak in passive tense and talk about 'the unveiling of souls?' What then?" He scratched his stubble, that, on a less refined man, might have reached to his collarbone in the time it had been since Chris had shaved. "I suppose then someone would come along and just turn it into a post-modern loop-de-loop, 'calling the method into discourse' and all that academic bullshit. That would be a shame, because Mediacropolis, I know, is destined for greater things. Things like sex scenes, subtle digs at friend's facial hair characteristics and psychopathic exhousemates who show up at random times asking if anyone wants to investigate their underwear or go kill a bat with them, things like Matlock vs Cojack, things like the proper spelling of Cojack," he mused, pausing to mutter "whatever the hell that might be."
Shuffling onward into the lavish depths of Osric.com HQ, pausing only to extinguish his filterless, clove cigarillo in a crag of one of the many Art Deco friezes depicting formative moments of Keanu Reeves' childhood in tasteful gold lame` and obsidian, Chris continued on his diatribe of tortured, modern genius. "I know, though, deep in my very.... uh, guts, that Mediacropolis will be something very great and influential, like an ulcer. Perhaps I should retire to my Fortress of Solitude and muse over this, but by the time I calculate every possible outcome of this new towering monolith in the great field of towering monoliths that comprise my spectacular, if not a smidge Freudian, career, Mediacropolis will no doubt have already taken its first, embryonic steps down the path that it will ultimately follow to the very end. Indeed," he proclaimed, straightening a little from his usual mad-professor hunch and springing a great crook of a finger into the air besides his wisdom-lined face, "though it has been 'live' for not yet a day, I do not doubt that already my Frankenstein is acquiring flesh. There are enough crackpots and geniuses and sock monkey manufacturers within my little black book to fill a good sized stadium -- or mass grave, now that I think of it -- and I am sure that one of them -- perhaps even two if Sean has beaten Zelda yet -- is right this moment penning the next chapter in this autoepic I call Mediacropolis."
Perhaps it was the slanting light that stumbled into the subterranean corridor, diced and seperated by the many animate fans and gratings that seperated the inky depths of Osric.com HQ and the sunlit surface, but for a moment it could have appeared to a chance observer should any find themselves in the corridor with Christopher TM Novotny-Herdt, brains, brawn, and belch behind Osric.com, that a smile had crept over his stoic, thoughful face for the slightest moment. Whatever it had been, it vanished almost instantly.
Chris cleared his throat, and cocked his head to appreciate the instant, minaiture symphony of echoes it produced as it panicked off the many glistening, Keanu-endowed surfaces of the labynthine lower levels of Osric.com HQ. "I think," he proclaimed, "that I shall visit that favorite bistro of mine, Cafe Felix, for some corned beef and hash. Perhaps my old associate Nim Wunnan will be there debating with Prof. Professor. I haven't seen Mr. Wunnan for some time. I do wonder what he is up to."  
By: chrisemail: chris@osric.comDate: 4/6/01, 1:24 AM
Unfortunately for Chris, he did not realize that Prof. Professor's mental faculties had been rendered nil due to the invasion of an alien evil fungus.

(The fungus, of course, denied these accusations, claiming that it was a benevolent creature looking to set up a symbiotic relationship with an earth creature. While the fungus communicated this to Chris, Nim, and Prof. Houndstooth, Prof. Professor's jaw clamped down on the tip of his tongue, lopping it off and sending it splashing into his bowl of Minestrone.)  
By: Chrisemail: chris@osric.comDate: 4/6/01, 1:30 AM
While he waited for his waitress to bring him his cream of broccoli soup in a bread bowl (Cafe Felix waitresses are cute, but notoriously slow), Chris sipped his coffee and listened to the fungus drone on and on.

Nim leaned over and whispered to him, "Do you think Micatin or Tinactin would remove the fungus? I keep some in my heavily-reinforce highly-modified Army/Navy surplus canvas bag here on my bely...you know how sometimes masculine itching can burn."  
By: chrisemail: chris@osric.comDate: 4/6/01, 1:37 AM
"It might," Chris replied, "but Prof. Professor's gray matter is made of different stuff than ours. Such a remedy could lead to disaster...we might devolve him into a gibbering gibbon."

Prof. Professor's body languidly swayed in his chair to the rhythm of the fungus's newly-launched criticism of Earth's high atmospheric nitrogen content.

Houndstooth slipped an empty sugar packet over to Chris. On it were written the words, "I think we'd better chance the remedy."