DFTBA Short Story Anthology 2012

By Michael Trimmer

What does DFTBA mean? Dinosaurs Fail To Beat Asteroid? Darling, Fetch The Battle Axe? Doctors First Tracheotomy Botched Awfully? No. It stands for "Don't Forget To Be Awesome", advice that all of the contributors to this anthology definitely listened to.

What do we mean when we say "An act of Charity"? How can it be interpreted? How can we understand it? This is what this anthology seeks to examine. Inside are fifteen stories by fifteen writers from the phenomenal "Nerdfighter" on-line community, founded by John and Hank Green (NY Times best-selling YA novelist and renown internet entrepreneur/pioneer respectively) that each take the concept of "An act of Charity" and explore it in innovative and exciting ways.

From a chance meeting in a hospital resulting in an act of great kindness, to an interstellar aid transport encountering an unexpected delay. From moral quandaries in a world running low on blood, to two women dealing with the difficult sides of autism. This anthology is a wide and varied response to a simple, but deeply multifaceted idea.

All proceeds from sale of this book will be donated to "The Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck". For more infomation go to http://fightworldsuck.org/ and http://www.projectforawesome.com/soon. Alternatively, search "P4A" on Youtube.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Trimmer
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012

Book preview

The DFTBA Short Story Anthology 2012

An Act of Charity

Edited by Michael Trimmer

Copyright December 2012 ©

A Strange Kindness Copyright 2012 © Lily Stanicek

A Twist of Fate - Copyright 2012 © Luzia Leifheit

An Evening in Soledad - Copyright 2012 © Ali Zayaan

Blind Hope - Copyright 2012 © Jenni Herd

Indianapolis Awaits - Copyright 2012 © Jack Tindle

It Goes On - Copyright 2012 © Anni Clark

No Good Deed - Copyright 2012 © Nicole Sherman

Reformation Through Deception - Copyright 2012 © Emily Unger

Squaring the Circle - Copyright 2012 © Josephine Arnoux

Still Reading - Copyright 2012 © Alissa Charvonia

The Body - Copyright 2012 © Emily D’Elia

The Machines are Talking - Copyright 2012 © Jerry Patton

The True Spirit of Christmas - Copyright 2012 © Michael Trimmer

To Live Forever - Copyright 2012 © Dan Taflin

Your Story - Copyright 2012 © Alex Suggs

Cover artwork by Sian Jossi

For Nerdfighteria.

Table of Contents

The DFTBA Short Story Anthology 2012

An Act of Charity

Edited by Michael Trimmer

For Nerdfighteria.

Table of Contents

Preface: A Note from the Editor

A Strange Kindness

By Lily Stanicek

A Twist of Fate

By Luzia Leifheit

An Evening in Soledad

By Ali Zayaan

Blind Hope

By Jenni Herd

Indianapolis Awaits

By Jack Tindle

It Goes On

By Anni Clarke

No Good Deed

By Nicole Sherman

Reformation Through Deception

By Emily Unger

Squaring the Circle

By Josephine Arnoux

Still Reading

By Alissa Charvonia

The Body

By Emily D’Elia

The Machines are Talking

By Jerry Patton

The True Spirit of Christmas

By Michael Trimmer

To Live Forever

By Dan Taflin

Your Story

By Alex Suggs

Contest Results

Special Thanks

Preface: A Note from the Editor

This introduction is really written for two audiences, very much defined by their responses to the title of this book. If you read the title and thought to yourself something along the lines of what does DFTBA stand for? then this first section is for you. If you knew what those letters meant, then these first few paragraphs are somewhat redundant, and I crave your indulgence while I do a little elaborating.

First of all, what does DFTBA mean? Dinosaurs Fail To Beat Asteroid? Doctor’s First Tracheotomy Botched Awfully? Digital Fighter To Bemoan Adolescence? No. It stands for Don’t Forget To Be Awesome and it is the closest thing to a ‘motto’ that the Nerdfighter community has.

‘What is the Nerdfighter community?’ is probably your next question. To answer this, let’s ask Wikipedia.

Nerdfighters are members of the open-to-all internet community that has grown around the VlogBrothers. The community is often referred to broadly as Nerdfighteria, which is jokingly located in Winner, South Dakota (a town halfway between where Hank and John live), and consists primarily of fans of John Green, Hank Green, or the VlogBrothers show, as well as people who adopt the term because they believe they fit in with the community.

While this might have helped you a little, it’s probably left you with more questions than answers. Namely things like, who are Hank and John Green? Who are the VlogBrothers? Who is ZeFrank? What is Brotherhood 2.0? While I’d love to be able to provide an in-depth and comprehensive explanation of all of these things here, the sad and yet wonderful truth is that many of these things are so multi-faceted that were I to attempt to explain it all to you in a single piece, there may well be more words in this humble introduction than will appear in this book as a whole. For a very brief introduction though, again let’s turn to Wikipedia, a thoroughly apt source for the internet centric nature of this entire enterprise.

The VlogBrothers is a video bloggers (vloggers) series broadcast on Youtube. The Internet-based show is created and hosted by brothers, John Green (an American author of young adult fiction) and Hank Green (a professional entertainer and entrepreneur), who utilize a registered YouTube channel that allows viewers to become subscribers… The Greens state that their vlog has no steadfast format: Really, it's not about anything in particular. Whether we're talking about our lives, making each other laugh, or trying to get something more important across, people seem to enjoy it. (Taken from the Wikipedia entry on The Vlogbrothers, John Green and Hank Green)

If you wish to know more than that, I strongly recommend you to go and visit their Youtube channel. Just put Vlogbrothers into the search bar on Youtube. You’ll find them pretty quickly.

While that’s some of what the community around this anthology is about, what about the anthology itself? This is a charity project that was organized as a contest via the social media blogging platform ‘Tumblr’. Writers were encouraged to submit stories to us via e-mail, having paid an entry fee, which was donated to our chosen charitable enterprise. It is so focused on charity that every story here has been written around the prompt of An Act of Charity. Though not every story will contain that specific phrase, it is their central inspiration.

The charity all the profits from this publication will be donated to is the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck. If that sounds like an incredibly vague and somewhat confusing title, I can relate to that, but here is a brief explanation.

Every year, since 2007, on December 17th, Hank and John Green organize what is called the ‘Project For Awesome’ or P4A for short. What happens here is that all across YouTube, people are encouraged to make videos about non-profit and charitable organizations of their choosing, and then the wider YouTube community is encouraged to comment, ‘rate’, and ‘like’ these various videos, so that on that day, in the YouTube ‘most liked’ or ‘top rated’ videos section, all the videos will be about the work of specific charitable organizations, projects and enterprises, and their screenshot will feature the P4A logo of that year. What then happens is, on the P4A website, these videos are collected, embedded, and voted upon, and at the end of December 18th, five top ‘Winners’ are chosen. And the charities in these videos are given one fifth of the total money raised by The Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck. So that is where the money is going. To be shared among the charities which receive the most votes during the Project For Awesome. For more information, I suggest you search for ‘Project For Awesome’. It will be very worth your time.

And now, an introduction to those who were already familiar with Nerdfighteria. Firstly, let me say that the idea to create this anthology was not mine. I had certainly thought vaguely and distantly about constructing something like this many times, but it wasn’t until I saw someone on the Nerdfighter Ning forums actually talk about making something like this a reality that I decided for definite it was something I wanted to do.

This book also owes its existence to the fact that Nerdfighteria is so very full of writers. It is quite natural that a community founded partially by a New York Times Bestselling author and a web journalist extraordinaire (whose creations from IHatei4.com to EcoGeek.org and beyond have seen him receive attention from publications as varied as Time, Scientific American, Mental Floss Magazine, and the Orlando Sentinel) would have many dozens, hundreds and thousands of writers gravitating towards it. So I created this as an opportunity for those writers to have a chance to shine, and be recognized for the future of literature that so many of them will be. I really hope that one day, a future New York Times Best Selling novelist will look back and remember this publication as one of their earliest publishing starting points.

Also, this anthology, and the contest that created it, was a personal reaction to frustration I experienced with a number of other writing contests. It would always gnaw at me when I saw a website asking for submissions by saying something like write a story X-thousand words by the deadline of the Yth of Z-ber. No theme, no prompt. No concept around which to gather your creative energies. Immensely annoying. As Mr O’Neill, the English Literature teacher from the Daria animated series once pointed out ‘Sometimes, boundaries can paradoxically provide us with freedom!’ And it’s that freedom that I so craved from these other contests, that I wanted to give people here. A real story, based on a real prompt, with a really important core idea, anchoring everything together, and bringing out the best in peoples literary talents.

And so, here is the result. The DFTBA Short Story Anthology 2012. I hope very much you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it. Though I can’t guarantee that every tale here will be to everyone’s taste, one thing I can be sure of is that in purchasing it, you’ve contributed towards a cause that everyone can get behind. Helping the world suck that little bit less.

A Strange Kindness

By Lily Stanicek

The other prisoners called him the silent one. Inside the cell, the man listened as the rain fell. Gusts of wind made the rain sound like thousands of tiny, glass balls, shattering against the window. He sat with his head rested against the wall, one hand on his knee; the other twisted a dirt-streaked red bandana around his wrist. He sat in silence, but his dark eyes seemed to see everything.

There was a tapping on the bars of the cell next to him and the man turned in the direction of the noise. The noisy one exclaimed, What’d they got you here for. Something bad, I’m thinking. So, what was it? The man remained silent. Oh, I see. You feel bad, don’t you? the noisy one cackled. Hey guys, we got a remorseful one over here, he yelled out. He turned back to the man. You regret your crime, huh? Well, you better remember, the Ruler has no sympathy for apologetic criminals.

No, I don’t regret it. Not this time, the man whispered.

One month earlier

The boy ran up to the palace entrance and rapped on the door. It swung open and a servant stared down at him with cool eyes. The boy smiled brightly. Hey Bell. Is Remy around?

Bell sighed, Yes, Master Jeremy, he’s in his room.

Ok, thanks, he responded, and slid past Bell and down the corridor.

As he rounded the corner, he saw his uncle coming down the stairs towards him.

Hello, my boy. How are you? he said. I didn’t know you were stopping by. Remy will be glad to see you. His voice had an air of artificial fascination while he doled out practiced pleasantries.

I am well, Uncle.

Good. I wanted to speak with you, Jeremy. It’s something of importance, so don’t be sore with me for keeping you from your play date.

No, of course not, Uncle.

To avoid equivocation, I will simply say it. I want you to accompany me to the Game this month.

It was neither a question nor a request. Jeremy knew immediately it was an order, and not from his uncle but from the Ruler of the village. His uncle stared expectantly at him. But Uncle, Jeremy stammered. Doesn’t Remy go with you to the Game each month?

Yes. But you know the custom. Every child in the family must come to at least one Game once they reach the appropriate age. Your brother did. You’re fifteen; it is now your turn.

But of course he knew he could not deny his uncle. This was just a part of life in the village.

Jeremy agreed, Very well, Uncle. I will go with you to the Game.

***

When dusk had settled in the sky, Jeremy headed quickly though the village, ducking under clotheslines and sidestepping busy mothers and their children. He raced recklessly down the road just above the tunnel that ran through the entire village. His mother had told him to return by sunset. At that moment, the sky was bleeding red.

There was a short cut he knew of. It was down an alley that led to the narrow dirt road to his mother’s farm. In the village, the alleys were notorious for sheltering the corrupt, the criminal, and the disreputable. These dwellers hid beneath the shadows and no act was too violent or too cruel when they tried to take what they wanted.

But, knowing he couldn’t make it home in time, he made a snap decision. He cut down one of the side roads, so resolute he didn’t notice his heart pounding out of his chest.

The alley stretched infinitely before him and was almost completely covered in shadows, despite the dim light that painted the