Sunday April 15th, 2012

The exercise:

Let's see what we can do with: no room for error.

After a very short summer last year following going to game 7 of the finals, the Canucks are now face to face with an extremely long one. With tonight's loss to the Kings, they're now down three games to none and must win the next four games if they want to make it out of the first round.

They do like a challenge, don't they?

Mine:

"They are bringing the hostages out of the building." The voice in Martin's earpiece was calm, almost bored. As though he were sharing a vaguely interesting quote from a newspaper article he'd read at breakfast. "Stand by for orders."

Martin swung his gaze to the front doors of the building across the street. A few moments of nothing passed before the first civilian appeared, the top three buttons of his business shirt unbuttoned, his hair pasted to his sweating forehead, arms over his head. Another followed, this one a woman in bare feet and a torn blouse. Behind her -

"First target spotted." The voice of Martin's Captain again, totally devoid of emotion. "Third one in line. He's yours Martin."

Martin swallowed hard as he locked in on his assigned target. While he waited for the remaining three hostage takers to appear and be subsequently given to a fellow sniper, he examined his man. The dark circles around his eyes were no surprise, not after a three day standoff. The slight paunch hanging over his belt, on the other hand, gave Martin pause.

It was a humanizing trait, a reminder of his father, something he could relate to. One he could not afford.

"All targets are up, gentlemen." The Captain spoke slowly. "We have to take them down simultaneously if we wish to avoid collateral damage. There is absolutely no room for er-"

Martin swore loudly as his earpiece erupted in loud static, forcing his hand away from the trigger to rip it off. By the time he looked through his scope again chaos had erupted in the street below.

4 comments:

Greg said...

The Canucks are certainly taking "coming from behind" a little too seriously now. I hope that they're going to give you a thrilling final set of games, and not just fall over and play dead.
I really like paragraphs four and five here, they bring in the feelings of the sniper well (and suggest he's not really cut out for his job), and they catch the reader's attention, allowing you to then mix things up a lot in the last paragraph. It's all rather well done, and I'm envious!

No room for error
Miss Snippet paused as she picked up Sam's homework. The entire sheet of paper was densely packed with tiny, crabbed writing. From even a short distance it looked like he'd simply coloured the page in with his pencil.
"Sam?" she said. The class paused what they doing – building a 1:1 scale replica of ENIAC – and Sam poked his tousled blond head out of a mass of cogs.
"Miss?"
"Sam, why have you written so much so small?"
"So there's no room left on the page for error, miss."

Cathryn Leigh said...

@Marc - oooh a nice juicy piece of suspense... I wonder what happened to cause the statis, and who it might have been. The suspects were trying to sneak out with the hostages I suspect... :}

@Greg - ah a little kid trying to out smart his teacher apparently. because if he leaves no white space her red pen will have no where to mark... sound thinking, for a kid, but sadly, I suspect Miss Snippit will find eorrs anyway. :}

And now I take you into space, where there really is no room for error. And, well, Lolita has some adjusting Rachae;'s ship. Poor planet bred girl, afraid of space walks, yet she idolizes Racahel and wants to be a Spacer...


no room for error

“We’re in a small space ship, dufuss,” Rachael snapped at Lolita. “You make one mistake in fixing your screw up and we could all end up dead!”

Lolita stifled tears. “You never yell at Adam for his mistakes.”

“Adam hasn’t made any life and death ones,” Rachael snorted handing the girl a bundle of wires.

“Why can’t he fix this, he’s better at electronics than...”

“Because he’s got more important things to do!” She banged the tool kit on the counter and Lolita’s bottom lip began to tremble. “Oh for stars sake, don’t cry. Keep your eyes clear so you can do a proper job fixing it.” Rachael heaved a sigh as she began to leave. “You can go cry on Adam’s shoulder when you’re done and get laid.” She stopped at the door, spinning to face Lolita. “And next time use the Replicator instead of setting fire to your cooking. There’s a reason I don’t use the stove!”

“Yeah I know,” Lolita grumbled to herself, trying not to cry. “Fire’s an f’ing waist of Oxygen.”

~Yes, but it was most amusing~

Lolita glared at Stowie. The feline smiled back before proceeding to clean himself as she went back to work.

Krystin Scott said...

Vincent took hold of the alligator’s tail and gave it a quick shake back and forth before yanking the animal closer and grabbing hold of its thick neck.

"All alligators are extremely dangerous. But the average adult alligator has a bite pressure of 3000 PSI." Vincent said to the crowd.

Vincent laid the small gator across the table. "Now how many of you have heard you can put an alligator to sleep by turning it over and rubbing its belly?"

A few members of the audience raised their hands. "We'll I'm going to try and demonstrate that phenomenon for you today."

Vincent carefully clamped the alligators mouth closed with his hands and turned the gator over.

"As you can see the gator is out cold." Vincent grabbed hold of the alligator’s foot and lifted it off the table. He let go and the foot fell back to its original position.

"However watch closely as I flip him back over. He will immediately wake up in an even grumpier mood then before."

Vincent turned the alligator back over and was maneuvering his hands around the mouth of the alligator as it woke.

"As you can see there is no margin for error. One mistake and" Thawp! Thwap! The alligator’s tail lashed out repeatedly hitting Vincent hard across the back.

“Ugh!” Vincent gave the crowd a false smile and said, “Anyone want some gator tail?”

Marc said...

Greg - yes, I'm all for excitement and quite set against playing dead.

Thanks for the kind comments on mine!

Sam is a clever one, I like him!

Cathryn - hah, good to see another appearance from your telepathic cats. I think you saved the best line for him :D

Krystin - love the descriptions here. Couldn't get me within a hundred feet of that gator, but I certainly enjoyed reading about it :)