Season 11, Week 30 Portfolio: "Lifeboat"

[rayaso]

BUNKERS AND BLUEBERRY PIE

Jack was sitting at the counter inside Annie’s Restaurant when the world didn’t end, yet again.  The asteroid had missed, or God had forgiven humanity, or the mystic calculations were off just a little, or whatever the excuse was. Jack was just happy to be eating his second piece of one of the best blueberry pies he’d

Comments

[encrefloue]

Really cool to see a modern take on the river Styx. I enjoy how you led us to believe the bunker lifeboats were your take on the prompt, only to ferry us along to a meatier interpretation in Charon's vessels of souls. Great work!

[rayaso]

Yes, there were two lifeboats, the doomsday bunkers and Charon's barge taking souls to their dooms. The selling of the first nearly got Jack sent to Hell when he crossed the Styx on the second. The moral of the story is that if you really like blueberry pie, you won't go to Hell, at least if you're a medium-grade sleazeball salesman.

[lyssa027]

I enjoyed this a lot ;) I loved the hints at greek mythology through it

[rayaso]

Thank you. I've always loved Greek mythology, so I made Charon's barge one of the two lifeboats in the story.

[dadi]

What a nice person, Annie <3
A great story and quite pertinent to current times...!

[rayaso]

Annie was a very nice person and a great pie maker. The doomsday preppers fascinate me. I read of one who made his own tank, and another who converted his life savings into gold because of the coming economic collapse, then put it in leak-proof containers which he sank in the bottom of a lake. He lost them, of course.

[viagra]

This was great! :) I always love it when you do your supernatural stuff; the way you straddle genres is one thing I always really enjoy about your work. This started off seeming like maybe some sort of noir thing, then took a turn into the Twilight Zone, but still with that little bit of humor you inject into your stuff. Personally, I'd love to see you writing something like this for TV; I'd love to watch a Twilight Zone-eqsue anthology series of your shorts!

[rayaso]

This started as a story about a guy who likes pie, and spun out of that. I thought about a romance, but that didn't seem to work, so I went with the River Styx. Thank you for the Twilight Zone comment, and for your support in general.

[roina_arwen]

Brilliant! Great take on the prompt!

[rayaso]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it.