Story A Day 03

I have two stories today. I was very dissatisfied with the official Story A Day prompt. It was less of a prompt and more of an overly-narrow, overly-specific writing task from which I couldn't get any inspiration. Instead I kept twisting my brain trying to find a way around writing exactly what the prompt writer had in mind while not technically violating the instructions.

I didn't like that at all. I've always thought of a prompt as a semi-abstract, totally open idea which can be adapted to any writing style, genre, or even language. So I have started a set of alternate writing prompts for this month on the Bay12Games forums. In the end, I wrote a short story for each of these prompts. Neither of them has me particularly excited, but tomorrow is another day.

Official prompt: “Work the words vermillion and musky somewhere in the next 250 words you write.”

“V-E-R-M-I-L-L-I-O-N. Vermilion.” Tommy bit his lip and clenched his sweaty fists, nervously watching the judges confer. There was some disagreement, but in the end they all submitted to the official dictionary spelling.

“We’re sorry, Thomas. That is incorrect. The correct spelling is V-E-R-M-I-L-I-O-N.” One L. Just one. He should have known.

Trying not to cry, he stumbled awkwardly and gracelessly down from the stage and took a seat in the front row with the other disqualified fifth-graders. He stared straight ahead, not daring to wipe away the tears that escaped his eyes, afraid to call attention to them. Everyone would laugh if they knew how upset he was over a stupid spelling bee.

“Amanda, your word is musky.”

Amanda grinned maliciously, staring straight at Tommy with that vicious glee he had gotten so used to as she spoke primly into the microphone.

“Musky.”

Tommy squeezed his fists so hard his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. He kept pushing, harder and harder, trying to get out his frustration. Trying to prove to himself that he was strong.

“M-U-S-K-Y.”

He pushed harder and harder. He wanted to cut into his hands and make them bleed. Harder and harder, to prove how angry he was.

“Musky.”

She shot a cute little smile at the judges and twirled a ring of her curly hair around her finger. She snuck another cruel glance at Tommy as everyone began to applaud. They didn’t even need to wait for the judges’ ruling, because any idiot could spell musky.

He opened his hands and looked. No blood. Just little indentations on the skin that would go away in a few minutes. He was too weak to even make himself bleed.

Fortunately, no one looked at him now. He was invisible again. Just like always. His clothes were wrinkled and mismatched, his hair greasy. He talked too loud. He smelled like sweat even though he showered every single day. No one wanted to notice a person like that, so no one did.

He pushed through the crowd to the door and ran outside rather than watch the awards ceremony and listen to the stupid speech about how they were all winners, really.

Bay12 random prompt: “funded cheating”

Aditya finished his presentation and smiled humbly as the big bosses applauded.

“It’s brilliant,” said Mr. Cunningham, standing up to shake the presenter’s hand. “Tell me, are all the guys in India as smart as you, son?” He winked at Aditya as though he were a child.

“I don’t know, sir,” he replied. “There are too many of them for me to keep track.”

All the bosses let out a big laugh. Aditya knew how to play this game.

Mr. Cunningham put his arm around the smaller man and leaned in. “You’re gonna do well in this field, son. We’re giving you full funding for this project.”

The project was confidential, of course. Always defined in the vaguest and most professional of terms so as not to reveal its very simple goal.

The public cried out more and more for equality, fairness. There were all these upstart organizations calling for better education for minorities, programs designed to encourage women to join scientific fields, even non-profits pushing for more rights for immigrants. And to everyone’s surprise and against all odds, they were succeeding. Things were changing.

The class system was failing. After so many years of working perfectly behind the scenes, it was all falling apart.

The big bosses were not at all pleased, but they hadn’t been able to find a way to stop it.

Aditya’s plan was simple. All he had done was a little research. He had a list of names of administrators in Ivy League universities, officials in charge of standardized tests and other assessments. Some were sympathetic to their cause; all could easily be bought. All that was needed was a little “funding.” An investment in the education of the big bosses’ children and grandchildren, to keep them in the lead, to give them the advantages that were their right by birth. And to keep the undesirable elements out of these prestigious institutions.

The real beauty was in Aditya’s talent for keeping the “funding” legitimate from start to finish. He was a genius with paperwork, and the bosses hadn’t been able to find a single hole in his plans. Not a trace of risk for any of them.

And so they didn’t hesitate to transfer the money directly to him to get things going. That was step one. The cash couldn’t ever be traced back to any of them.

After the first round of convoluted transactions went through without incident, the bosses were confident enough to give him the rest of the money. Most people would consider it an enormous amount of money, but it wasn’t much to them. Anyway, they trusted him. He obviously knew what he was doing.

Aditya didn’t waste any time now that he had all the money. It wouldn’t take long for them to notice things were no longer going according to plan.

By the time they realized something was wrong, it was too late. The money had been distributed to so many different people that they could never get it all back. Aditya’s family back in Bangalore would never go without again. But he was not a selfish man. It was so much money. He kept only what they would need. The rest, he spread around the poorest communities in the Philadelphia area. Every family got something. He personally made sure none of the children were hungry, none of the elderly sick, before he headed to the airport. His last action before boarding the plane was to send out a press release from his smartphone exposing the whole scam. Then he bid the United States goodbye and flew home.

They would never find him. He had intentionally misspelled his last name during his entire stay in the country. Even when comparing it to official documents, none of the Americans had noticed.

He remembered his first conversation with Mr. Cunningham. He had done very well in the interview, and at the end, the boss had asked him, “So how long did it take you to learn English?”

“English is my native language, sir,” had been the obvious reply.

Mr. Cunningham had laughed heartily, as though Aditya had delivered the punchline of an excellent joke.

The joke was on him, now.