In honor of the 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Contest winners announced last week, here’s one of my unsubmitted attempts at writing an entry:
The old grandfather clock in the oak-paneled hallway of Critchwick Manor intoned the hour, its haunting chime echoing along the parquet floor, out the stained glass window depicting the Battle of Agincourt and traveling down to the moors where Geoffrey stood, stalwart, his hazel eyes blazing as he thought of the lost years he had spent without his one true love Belinda, staring into the mist longingly for what seemed like an eternity before muttering at last to himself and no one else, “What the hell was that noise?”
Haha.
Not that it will make much (any?) sense if one hasn’t played MUDs in general, or this MUD in particular, but during a recent contest at Ishar to come up with new echoes for a backstab attack (e.g.: “Teltheilar screams in pain at your WICKED backstab”), I offered the following Bulwer-Lytton-inspired suggestion:
Teltheilar suddenly recalls the time his father took him out in the rowboat to go fishing, when the sun on the water was so beautiful, and he felt completely at peace for the first time in his life, just before his father caught the bass and asked him to pass the needle-nosed pliers from the tackle box, and he accidentally dropped them over the side, watching them sink and knowing that his father would never forgive him, as your BRUTAL backstab penetrates his liver.
Hey! Yours is fantastic! Although, I would have preferred Belinda to be a Bob!
this one from the contest is hilarious……
Winner: Adventure
It wasn’t the desolate remoteness of the campsite that bothered him, or even the terrifying roar of the rapids beating themselves against solid granite below, so much as the eerie sound of pigs squealing in the distance and the fact that, in this light, cousin Billy looked disturbingly like Ned Beatty.
Cindy Erickson Gilman
Mission Viejo, CA
kinda makes me miss camping…. not like i ever went.
I want to read the rest. 🙁