A Dickensian Tale, or What The Dopers Wrote

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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** HEY YOU ! YEAH, YOU ! ** We’re all too hot and stressed, and the summer’s just getting going. Let’s crack open a nice iced tea, and write a story together!!

Rules: We each get to take a shot. Your shot has to be at least one paragraph. Introduction of new characters is not a necessity in each new posting, but may be viewed as expanding the horizons of the story. Nothing gets written that’s ban-worthy, after all- Charles Dickens wrote a ton of fine books and never was banned from the Straight Dope :D.

So…here we go unless this is too MPSIM-mmy for MPSIMS. Enjoy !

         **Chapter the First. **

Madeline Crane stood back from her handiwork, and smiled. Her eyes stung with sweat and her body was covered with a generous dusting. After slaving for so many years in the Formica mines of Philly, she felt elated at the simplest self-motivated act. It was a pity that she would have to wait until morning to view it in it’s entirety, but then what with the New Orthodoxy being enforced so rigidly, she dared not light a torch by which to see it now. She climbed up out of the pit, and sat down on a milk crate that served as her chair. The night settled in around her easily like familiar friends at a weekly game of Spades. She chewed ice contentedly, gazing up at the billboard images thrown upon the surface of the moon by laser from Earth. Her parents apparently remember a time when it’s surface was untouched by LaserAds. She smiled at the quaint idea.

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Cartooniverse

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Madeline looked more closely at the moon. She’d seen it so many times in her life that the slight warp the pictures were forced to undergo as they curved around the surface was automatically corrected by her mind. There, as ever, was the mark of the New Orthodoxy glowing in the left hand corner, condoning and approving of this little slice of advertising as Right and Proper. “Right and Proper” she smiled to herself – that was her life.

The man in the ad was leaning lazily against against the walls of what was undoubtedly mean to be his home. He looked cool and comfortable and in his hand he held a little remote device. The ad simply said

“Control. You know you want it.”

A teaser ad, she supposed. She stretched and wandered across to her lean-to.

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A few blocks away a gangly youngster trudges wearily up the street. The 'tweens clothing is well worn and everything seems too large. A bucket hat rests upon hair that is neither blonde nor red but somewhere in between, reminscent of old gold. The awkward weight of the bag when slung over the shoulder, causes the childs gaze to fall upon feet clad in shocking electric blue Doc Marten’s.