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The Call of the Kitchen
It was an abomination. An aberration, spawned from what unholy, swirling pit of twisted despair I could scarcely imagine. No god could conceptualize this, no mortal comprehend it. Its very existence battered at what remained of my sanity.
Its form was horrible: a horrific conglomerate of every conceivable evil arranged haphazardly into a bestial mockery of reality. Sloppy and amorphous, it appeared to undulate under my gaze, for my eyes could find neither purchase nor reference on its surface. No top, bottom, or distinct side could be ascertained. The mere observation of the thing threatened gastrointestinal distress.
The background offered no respite. Endless planes of white assaulted my vision, encapsulating all I knew until there was only the horror in the center of my attention. I could not stand to regard it, yet neither would my eyes be diverted! What sadism has been brought upon me!
Even worse than the sight was the stench. I care not to dwell upon what living matter must have been sacrificed for this darkest of ritualistic construction. Seared, rotting flesh met my nostrils, accompanied by the tang of blood and black, bitter smoke. This, too, was combined with salty sulfurous fumes originating from unknown parts of the terrifying monstrosity. My nerves screamed in protest, and yet there it remained, offensive in the highest of degrees!
The effect on the rest of my senses I have not the words to describe. I can say only that it was detrimental. Unearthly wails of deceased brutes echoed through the underworld to curse the thing’s continued being. My head rang and trembled in the wake of such a dastardly presence, futile in its attempts to rationalize its continuation.
What cruelty to allow this into the land of the living! Begone, hideous atrocity! Begone, foul bane of the midday meal!
“Yo, Jake! You okay? You’re kinda staring, and it’s starting to creep me out.”
The owner of the voice knows not what he has done, what destruction he has wrought. I dare not remove my eyes from the hellish creation as I articulate a reply: “I can’t believe you would put salami on white bread. You know it would go better on a rye!”
“Hey, I got an idea: I don’t tell you how to live your life, and I get to eat my lunch. C’mon, just bring ‘em in, man. The show’s about to start!”
“Your funeral,” I growl, and snatch my plate off the counter as he mirrors my motions. I could swear I hear his sandwich growl back in response.
Its form was horrible: a horrific conglomerate of every conceivable evil arranged haphazardly into a bestial mockery of reality. Sloppy and amorphous, it appeared to undulate under my gaze, for my eyes could find neither purchase nor reference on its surface. No top, bottom, or distinct side could be ascertained. The mere observation of the thing threatened gastrointestinal distress.
The background offered no respite. Endless planes of white assaulted my vision, encapsulating all I knew until there was only the horror in the center of my attention. I could not stand to regard it, yet neither would my eyes be diverted! What sadism has been brought upon me!
Even worse than the sight was the stench. I care not to dwell upon what living matter must have been sacrificed for this darkest of ritualistic construction. Seared, rotting flesh met my nostrils, accompanied by the tang of blood and black, bitter smoke. This, too, was combined with salty sulfurous fumes originating from unknown parts of the terrifying monstrosity. My nerves screamed in protest, and yet there it remained, offensive in the highest of degrees!
The effect on the rest of my senses I have not the words to describe. I can say only that it was detrimental. Unearthly wails of deceased brutes echoed through the underworld to curse the thing’s continued being. My head rang and trembled in the wake of such a dastardly presence, futile in its attempts to rationalize its continuation.
What cruelty to allow this into the land of the living! Begone, hideous atrocity! Begone, foul bane of the midday meal!
“Yo, Jake! You okay? You’re kinda staring, and it’s starting to creep me out.”
The owner of the voice knows not what he has done, what destruction he has wrought. I dare not remove my eyes from the hellish creation as I articulate a reply: “I can’t believe you would put salami on white bread. You know it would go better on a rye!”
“Hey, I got an idea: I don’t tell you how to live your life, and I get to eat my lunch. C’mon, just bring ‘em in, man. The show’s about to start!”
“Your funeral,” I growl, and snatch my plate off the counter as he mirrors my motions. I could swear I hear his sandwich growl back in response.
Eh, it's cute, but it's not much of a story. This is probably meant as a joke, but I didn't really laugh much since the idea's fairly obvious; I had a decent idea of where this was going after the first paragraph, and I wasn't really surprised by the ending. The fact that this appears to be an overreaction helps a little, with the over-wrought contrasting against the blase, but not enough to really elevate it above slight-mouth-quirk funny.
Still not as bad as the time I bought ceviche from a street vendor.
Whether or not the Necronomicon has a chapter for recipes is up for debate, what's not is the quality of the story. It's engaging and colorful in it's shortness.
Also, considering the prompt, I have to give you credit for writing the first story that has made me hungry.
Whether or not the Necronomicon has a chapter for recipes is up for debate, what's not is the quality of the story. It's engaging and colorful in it's shortness.
Also, considering the prompt, I have to give you credit for writing the first story that has made me hungry.
I don't have much to say here that hasn't already been more succinctly put by >>Not_A_Hat. Some of the build-up tickled my cheeks, but I think something else needed to replace the fairly obvious ending for me to have been more satisfied. Well written, though. Thanks for sharing your work.
Ironic I should talk about another story's Lovecraftian prose blowing out my purple-o-meter (cf. >>horizon) when this one appears to be literally inspired by Lovecraft. >>ZaidValRoa's Necronomicon name-drop is not unfounded, and the title appears to be a direct reference.
I'm honestly not sure I can talk about this without directly comparing and contrasting with Just Another Shift, because both hit my same prose pet peeve and (more importantly) because both are telling the same joke: a long, deliberate purple-prose wind-up into a subversion of expectations.
Here, though, I don't think the style imitation was as engaging, because there are a number of times when it engaged in vague hand-waving rather than doubling down on details:
And some descriptions feel awfully anticlimactic:
With occasional word salad:
On the other tentacle, I think this does hit the Lovecraftian patter a little more on the nose with the various narrator lamentations, whereas JAS confines the purple to its descriptions. And this does take some care to align its descriptions with the actual situation as revealed, which is a nice touch.
Spoilers for both Call Of The Kitchen and Just Another Shift:
As to the punchlines, JAS feels like a punchier execution to me: it confines its reveal to two paragraphs rather than four, despite being 1.5x the length. And I found JAS's core joke funnier — that all of the bombast used to evoke hellish torment literally was describing Hell, justifying it in hindsight. COTK was an equal reversal of expectations, but the subversion that this is merely a scenery-chewing reaction to a normal sandwich turns all the language into a head-fake, making it windup-windup-windup-anticlimax rather than windup-windup-windup-recontextualization.
It's always hard to know how to fairly score a story that uses a literary device I don't like. On one hand, the scoring should reflect my actual reaction as a reader to the story; on the other, my tastes will not always perfectly align to "is this a good story", and I believe the Writeoff should reward good stories. So what I try to do is look around the edges of the things I don't like and evaluate what's going on with the rest of the story. Here, this felt like a miss, and I hope I've explained some ways which it feels like it falls actually short, because "too purple for me" is unhelpful feedback for what you're trying to do here but the other things I've pointed out might offer you opportunities for editing. And even if I didn't like it, as >>Ceffyl_Dwr says, thank you for sharing.
Tier: Misaimed
I'm honestly not sure I can talk about this without directly comparing and contrasting with Just Another Shift, because both hit my same prose pet peeve and (more importantly) because both are telling the same joke: a long, deliberate purple-prose wind-up into a subversion of expectations.
Here, though, I don't think the style imitation was as engaging, because there are a number of times when it engaged in vague hand-waving rather than doubling down on details:
The effect on the rest of my senses I have not the words to describe. I can say only that it was detrimental.
And some descriptions feel awfully anticlimactic:
Its very existence battered at what remained of my sanity. ... Its form was horrible: a horrific conglomerate of every conceivable evil arranged haphazardly into a bestial mockery of reality.... The mere observation of the thing threatened gastrointestinal distress.
With occasional word salad:
futile in its attempts to rationalize its continuation
On the other tentacle, I think this does hit the Lovecraftian patter a little more on the nose with the various narrator lamentations, whereas JAS confines the purple to its descriptions. And this does take some care to align its descriptions with the actual situation as revealed, which is a nice touch.
Spoilers for both Call Of The Kitchen and Just Another Shift:
As to the punchlines, JAS feels like a punchier execution to me: it confines its reveal to two paragraphs rather than four, despite being 1.5x the length. And I found JAS's core joke funnier — that all of the bombast used to evoke hellish torment literally was describing Hell, justifying it in hindsight. COTK was an equal reversal of expectations, but the subversion that this is merely a scenery-chewing reaction to a normal sandwich turns all the language into a head-fake, making it windup-windup-windup-anticlimax rather than windup-windup-windup-recontextualization.
It's always hard to know how to fairly score a story that uses a literary device I don't like. On one hand, the scoring should reflect my actual reaction as a reader to the story; on the other, my tastes will not always perfectly align to "is this a good story", and I believe the Writeoff should reward good stories. So what I try to do is look around the edges of the things I don't like and evaluate what's going on with the rest of the story. Here, this felt like a miss, and I hope I've explained some ways which it feels like it falls actually short, because "too purple for me" is unhelpful feedback for what you're trying to do here but the other things I've pointed out might offer you opportunities for editing. And even if I didn't like it, as >>Ceffyl_Dwr says, thank you for sharing.
Tier: Misaimed
I have to say, what I expected to see there at the end was a culinary disaster beyond reproach. The overreaction as >>Not_A_Hat said though was so overboard over what it was that I actually let out a loud, short laugh at the reveal of the true extension of the ruined meal. It might be the simple way the character puts it "I can't believe..." is so extremely simple over the rest of the story that it really tickled my fancy.
It does end up being too short however. Through all of it, the only thing that is being said in essence is;
- I don't like how you made this sandwich.
- Whatever.
It's not a story of even half of one, but part of a scene.
It does end up being too short however. Through all of it, the only thing that is being said in essence is;
- I don't like how you made this sandwich.
- Whatever.
It's not a story of even half of one, but part of a scene.