Social Writing Experiment take #1

Thanks to Adi Peshkess we did what he calls an “Exquisite Corpse” yesterday. Some of you may know it as a “Round Robin”.

Below are the rules that were required, followed by the final results of the experiment. It was an interesting first go!

So here's the dealio - those who choose to participate are going to collectively write a story.

Please keep your entry over 10 words, but under 250.
Please please please refresh your page before posting so that the story flows. Pick up from the last post and keep it going! :)
Feel free to post more than once, but allow five people to post between your last post and your newest one.

When the story comes to an end, I'll post it all together on my blog and here on G+ as a memory of a fun little G+ experiment.

Give +Adi Peshkess all the props here as it is completely his idea!

The story will start in the comments below, feel free to add as soon as you can!


The Results:

The woman waddled down the sidewalk, red wagon in tow behind her. She avoided the snow drifts, stepping around them precariously. The stiff plastic tires on the wagon grated heavily on the pavement.

Every few steps, she looked around as if she thought she might be followed, and an on-looker who didn't know better might even think she was sniffing the air.

She didn't always take this route but the recent riots forced her to find an alternative path. She longed for the warmth of the home she once had and sleep weighed heavily on her eyelids.

In the wagon, a scraggly puppy whined under a threadbare woolen blanket, and eyed the bag of groceries with a longing of Shakespearean dimensions. The French baguette and Italian salami were teasingly close to its snout, but every sniff earned the mongrel a reproachful word from Nanette's lips.

It had been years since she had last visited him, and the memory of the wood stove burning, the warmth of his tiny kitchen, the safety of his hidden home, urged her steps on. "Hush!" she whispered to the pup she had just rescued. "We're almost there”

She stoppe'd, and she could see they didn't followe'd her anymore! The ice cold sweat on her forhead started to come into her eyes. The street laying there cold and dark, the only thing she could hear was her own breath

Nanette reached down and gave the puppy a quick pet, smiling a little as it licked her gloves, then hurried on. Suddenly, a figure stepped out from a snowdrift in front of her. He was covered with fresh flakes, but it hadn't snowed for the past few minutes, so he had to have been standing there, waiting, for a quite a while.

She recoiled, fearful recognition in her eyes. "I told you to leave me alone," she wailed. In the wagon, the puppy growled

He stoppe'd for a while, he came closer to her. She could smell the whisky from his mouth as he grab around her neck. Pleace, she said, I didn't do it!

Nannette tried to look away, but she averted her gaze seconds too late. The man stared deep into her eyes revealing a universe of psychedelic floating checkerboards and liquid rainbows. Nannette's world spun wildly around her, before it turned to black.

Gerard smiled at her fear. He was well aware of the effect he had on women, and used it to his advantage.

"Another mouth to feed, Nanette?" he asked, showing his teeth in a sneer. "That bread won't go far if you keep spreading it so thin. Where did you find the whelp anyhow? Strays don't last long on the streets these days. Not everyone can find sausage, you know."

Gerard removed a wristwatch from his pocket. Its spring band rattled in his palsied grip.

He spread his lips in a cancerous smile. "You don't have to worry about meeting Jordan, Nanette. Not anymore."

A worn leather leash, attached to the sturdy wagon, bought the frenzy of oversized paws and matted fur crashing to the ground. Gerald smiled, let Nanette sink into the grey slush, and slowly approached the snarling puppy.

"Well, well, well. You WILL be useful. This is turning into a wonderful day."

Gerard, blinded by his malice, tripped over a can of red tart cherries which had rolled from the cart. He flailed but to no effect, and consciousness left him as his head hit the edge of the cart with a sickening plastic crack.

Nanette forced away the taste of bile in her throat as she dared to hope for a reprieve. Urgency seized her, and she did not feel the cold in her limbs as she sprang to free the puppy and flee...

Then, still with much fear and disgust, she carefully approached Gerard - or, to be precise, as she soon found out, Gerard's still warm body: his skull fractured, a thin vein of blood slowly flowing from the wound, breathless. Nanette felt relieved but the moment of reprieve was brief:

for her puppy decided right then to pee on the poor corpse, marking the death as his own to all his fellow dog brethren, so he would go down in the annals of history as "the dog that killed a man with a can of cherries" After Nanette tugged hard on the dog's leash to keep him away from the body...

she continued her initial course of fleeing the scene. Waddling faster and faster, her feet pounded hard against the cold pavement, slushing through the snow drifts that she no longer bothered to avoid. Her breath blew out in cloudy little puffs before her face and her nostrils began to stick together with every intake of crisp air.

She became vaguely aware of the sound of steps coming from her left, and then, all of a sudden, startled hearing Jordan yelling her name. She turned, and there he was, walking with Gerard behind him. But Gerard had different clothes, somewhat more suited for the weather, and no visible wound on his head.
"Jordan" she cried "what's going on?" - but soon it became clear to her that Jordan had a gun pointed at his back. And another strange thought started sneaking up on Nanette: the person holding the gun might not be Gerard, in spite of the apparent morphological similarity.

Just then, her attention was drawn away from the tableau by a more immediate concern: the child in her swollen belly kicked insistently, taking her breath for a moment. When she could focus again, the two were much closer. But the man in back still looked too much like Gerard for her comfort.



That’s as far as we got in one day. It took some interesting turns!
Here is a list of the participants:

Nina Pelletier
Tessie L'Amour
Raul Marengo Lopez
Adi Peshkess
Miriam Dunn
Liv Berg
Kathlyn Hawley
Drew Nicholson
Chris Allinotte
Karl Vaden
Tony Escobales
Gianmario Scotti
Kathlyn Hawley
Nykki B