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It Could Probably Get Worse · Original Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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“What the fuck did you have to push her for?” Johnen asked as they walked down the sidewalk. Every other light overhead was out, casting the area in patches of light and darkness. The clouds overhead reflected city lights, casting everything into pale orange glow.

Veronica threw her hands in the air. “They took my fucking money and didn’t give me the drugs. What the hell did you want me to do? Oh shit, it’s the cops.”

Johnen looked ahead, spotting the cruiser rolling slowly down the street. “Ignore it. They’re probably just patrolling.” Despite the weather, he zipped up his jacket. Heads down, they walked on in silence as the patrol car passed.

Then the cop flicked on the siren briefly, with two blips breaking the peace of the city night, and the lights began flashing.

“Shit.” Johnen looked over to Veronica. “Don’t look back. Just keep walking.” He took out his phone, swiping a pattern to unlock it, opening the video recorder, and locking the screen.

The car pulled over beside them, and they were walking fast enough to pass it before the cops were out. “Halt, police!”

Johnen turned, walking backwards. “Hey officers. We’re just headed home. Not looking for any trouble.”

The officer on the sidewalk—Harris, according to the nametag—quick-walked towards Johnen. “Walker, you get the girl,” he said to the officer jogging past him on the street. “Johnen Luna?”

Johnen nodded, still walking, but turned back forward. “Maybe. Why do you wanna know?” He pointed the phone towards Veronica, but couldn’t keep it focused on her because of his pace.

“We need to talk to you. There was a call about a disturbance at a house near here. Your name was mentioned. Please put the phone away.”

“Look man, I didn’t do anything. I’m just going home. Are you arresting me?”

“We just want to talk to you, Johnen. You need to stop walking.”

“Am I under arrest?” Johnen felt a hand on his shoulder as Officer Harris swept his feet out from beneath him, dropping him to the ground. “Ah fuck, my elbow. What—”

“I said to stop. Where’s the phone.”

“It’s underneath me. Ow! Get off me, man. Let go! What the fuck, you’re cuffing me now? What’d I do.”

“Resisting arrest.”

“The hell?”

Harris rolled him over and sat him up on the curb. “Okay, now where’s that phone.”

“Screw you, asshole.”

BANG!

BANG! BANG!

“Fuck.” Harris reached for his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is Harris. We have shots fired near Wilkes and Booth.”

“Holy shit. Did you just shoot my girlfriend?” Johnen began to rise, but Harris pushed him back to the curb.

“Copy that, Harris. Shots fired near Wilkes and Booth. We have additional units on the way.”

Harris walked towards Walker, reaching again for the radio on his shoulder. “Suspect is hit. All officers are okay.”

Walker was kneeling now over Veronica. “I don’t have a pulse.”

Harris rushed to assist.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” Awkwardly, due to his hands being cuffed behind him, he grabbed his phone, pointing it towards the officers but not really sure if he was capturing them, and narrated as his voice cracked.




“I know it doesn’t feel this way, but you’re goddamn lucky. You’d probably be in jail if you hadn’t configured your phone to upload video automatically.”

Staring out the church’s office window, Johnen gave a noncommittal grunt, then turned to face the priest. “Father, why did God allow this to happen?”

The priest sighed. “God gave free will to humanity. We each have the choice to accept or reject his grace. The systems that we build can promote good or problematic behaviour, but it doesn’t make them good or bad objectively. Striving to improve ourselves in spite of ourselves is the human condition.”

Johnen looked down at his hands. “I’ve been thinking of quitting my job. I’ve enjoyed working for the church, but it’s like you just said. I want to improve myself and improve my community. I think I can do more for the community by working on the governor’s re-election campaign. They offered me a position and I’ve been thinking about taking it.”

“We’ll miss you around here, but we’ll support you whatever you decide. Just give us some warning if you do decide to go.”

“Of course, Father.” Tears pooled in Johnen’s eyes. “Does it get any easier?”

“The hurt never goes away, but if you fill your life with good things, it’s harder to notice.”
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#1 · 6
· · >>LoftyWithers
FUCK THA POLICE, COMIN' STRAIGHT FROM THA UNDERGROUND—

Something I liked:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Something I didn't like:

I was really confused by this entry when I first read it, and a second reading didn't help. There's a story here, but I struggle to take anything from it, because everything is written in such a context-lacking fashion. I'm not sure what Johnen and his girlfriend were up to, or why the police were looking for them. I guess Johnen is supposed to be a criminal, but I'm not sure what he even does specifically. I'm not sure why the cops shot his girlfriend at point-blank range, and we're never given an explanation for that either. The last scene doesn't really clear up anything. It was just a very messy read for me.

Verdict: Unfortunately this is the first entry on my slate that I just don't vibe with. Sorry. :/
#2 · 1
· · >>LoftyWithers
I pretty much agree with Raisin said above. This is very disjointed.

First of all, though, I'd like to pinpoint how messy your first paragraph is. Let me quote it here: “…Every other light overhead was out, casting the area in patches of light and darkness. The clouds overhead reflected city lights, casting everything into pale orange glow.” Now not only the first and second sentence look suspiciously identical (overhead × 2, casting × 2) but they are also contradictory. If everything is cast in pale orange glow, there cannot be patches of darkness.

I am with Raisin when he says we don’t get why the GF get shot. I know, and Cassius likes to remind me, that American cops are very trigger-happy, but here it doesn’t really make sense, all the less that we get only a very partial description of the situation. We also don’t get to know by what miracle the cops identify the two characters in the street despite the very poor lighting condition. Then, for whatever reason, we are whisked off the scene and carried both in space and time towards a church for a conclusion which is both a bit lecturing and somehow so remote from the first scene that we barely connect them.
#3 · 2
·
I hate to be mob-mentality, but my sentiments match Raisin's and Monokeras. The whole story is dizzy. For the most part, I understand things got ugly in the night before, and now Johnen is talking with a Pastor. After that, I can't make out anything in the blur. The descriptions of the characters are very sparse, only leaving the reader to imply what they look like. The only reason I bring this up is that the disjointing, as Monokeras said, can be lessened if you give the scene some more rooting, maybe a little description of the thoughts of Johnen as he is approaching his Girlfriend like "Father will not be happy with this" or something else. Again, I don't know your intentions.

Most questions you'll probably get is why the meeting with the Pastor? When Johnen's GF got shot, who said "I don't have a pulse."? How did they get spotted in the dark?

Most of my confusion can be pawned off on my crap comprehension skills. Forgive me if this has something deeper I didn't spot.

I feel like this review can come off as very snarky, if it is, I apologize. That was not my intentions.

All in all, thanks for writing!
#4 · 4
· · >>LoftyWithers
Hey, Author, sorry you've not got a lot of traction on this story. Just wanted to pop in and say this looks like an unfinished entry, or, rather, it looks like a story that ran into the max word count way sooner than expected, so the beats are a little confused. But thanks for entering it; I hope the experience was worthwhile.

Only thing to add to the above: the pastor is voiced very well, except for the part where he uses God's name in vain. Little out of character for a man of God.

Thank for entering, again!
#5 ·
· · >>LoftyWithers
I like how this story's one of our much more grounded entries, with how it tries to tackle real-world issues. It's sometimes tough to try to write something that feels meaningful without the veil of a sci-fi or fantasy setting to hide behind, so you're definitely getting kudos from me.

Now, I'll be upfront and say that the story as a whole definitely feels a bit rough to me. I think a lot to do with it might be pacing. You're trying to fit an awful lot of pretty heavy content within the scope of a minfic, and I don't think the 750 word limit is doing you any favors. We're only able to get a bare-bones summary of the shooting itself before an abrupt cut to church scene, which actually confused a lot of readers in the Discord chat. During the stretch where we only have dialogue of the arrest, it takes effort to try to figure out exactly what's going on, and it makes it hard to emotionally resonate with the events occurring.

As for the story itself, I'll state my opinion that I personally don't think this is how unjustified police shootings go down. But I don't have any professional experience to back that statement up; all of my knowledge comes from the fact that some of my hobbies take me into the sphere of law enforcement folks, and I've talked about unjustified shootings with a few people who are much more qualified than I.

So in the end, while I really like the concept on display here, I think the overall trajectory of the story is hurt by the very short amount of time we get to build on the ideas that get presented. I don't think it can really fit within the scope of a minific entry comfortably, although I am impressed by its ambition.

Thank you for entering!
#6 ·
·
>>No_Raisin
>>Monokeras
>>Miller Minus
>>Bachiavellian
I'll just toss this in the scrap pile. Commentary on the prose was fair. Commentary on the narrative being unrealistic was hard to hear.

This story is based on several real life events that happened to me and people I know—personally and at a remove—mixed with events I've seen or heard through video and audio recordings. The couple bits taken from written accounts are ancillary. Everything happening here is as realistic as I could make it from the limited perspective I gave myself while writing after midnight.

The comments about realism really drive home this point: truth is stranger than fiction. After receiving feedback, I listened again to episode 9.09 of Writing Excuses: What to do When Truth is Stranger than Fiction. I made several of the mistakes they discuss on the episode. I'll need to re-listen before writing rl fiction again.

I confirm the ”hit word count” comments. To preserve anonymity, I won't discuss which bits of the story came from where; suffice it to say that they're stitched together at seams with common elements between stories that then went in different directions.

If I were to rewrite this story, it would be from the perspective of the officer who discharged his firearm, as that perspective would give clarity to the situation. I almost did, but it was a bit too late to undergo those revisions before submitting. The second scene would be pretty similar. If I were to extend this story, I'd make instead a smaller set of edits, with just a bit more revealed during that first scene and more revealed later.

I don't think officer-involved shootings usually go down this way. However, there are a number of senseless shootings each year—some of which happen this quickly—with situations degrading in seconds from standard police encounters to tragic deaths. Body cameras and mobile phones are a blessing for the police. In cases where police are faultless, they can provide evidence of innocence. In cases like the Recent Fort Worth shooting, they allow disciplinary and legal action against people who should not be police.

I didn't come to preach about this topic, so I'll stop there. If you'd like to discuss this issue further, I'd be up for a private chat on discord as time allows.

One more thing before I go. I won't say if the cussing priest is someone I know personally, but it's perfectly realistic. Again: truth is stranger than fiction. If you're interested in discussing Catholic dogma regarding cussing and the Lord's name, pm me.