The Eviction, 600 word short short story

[AnimaDictio]

This is for a competition. It's due Sep 25th. I'm trying to be sophisticated, deep, smooth and a little funny. I feel I haven't reached it. Help?

The Eviction


I sit in Grandpa’s chair, which still smells like him – Magic Shave and cocoa butter -- seven months after his death. Grandma watches television through slack lids. Sedation is her latest refuge from grief. In months past she lived in a prison of bitterness, cursing every injustice from Jim Crow to Grandpa’s cancer. She hasn’t left home since the funeral. I dig through my soul for a morsel of hope to offer her though I fear she’s lost her appetite.

On screen we see a robotic chauffeur materialize from nothing in General Assembly Hall. He approaches the attorney. They shake hands and the chauffeur leans in to speak. The attorney stumbles back, looks around. Something’s wrong. Grandma perks up.

Ten days ago more than a thousand uniform alien devices descended to Earth. Most were quickly retrieved by militaries. Nine days ago, at 10:06 am GMT, the machines issued forth crisp business letters. They were notices of eviction faxed from across the universe. Each was written in the dominant language of its recipient populace.

To All Creatures at This Location,

Star system 12-5-3907 belongs to Zyrka, a realty development corporation. We’ll commence developments here in two weeks. You must vacate immediately. Please take your possessions with you, including any planets. You may not, however, remove any stars as they are fixtures of our property. If you wish to assert legal rights, you have one week to submit a court petition.

As a courtesy, I’ve sent blank petitions and the legally required bulletins in oracle form. Pardon the translation. Your primitive languages are inadequate. Thank you.

Mo

Evictions Coordinator

Mo’s oracle hung in the upper ionosphere above Equatorial Guinea. A day was lost to the debate over potential dangers of extraterrestrial bacteria. Then it was retrieved. That was seven days ago.

The oracle, which sometimes manifested as a glowing orb and other times as a woman, failed to answer most of our questions. She gave us the basics. We have the right under universal law to defend ourselves. Only one advocate is allowed.

The hearing is before the Intergalactic Seat of Judgment, Landlord-Tenant branch, near the center of the Milky Way. Translation services must be requested a week in advance by calling the Office of Judicial Care. Representatives asked the oracle how to make such a call and she described quantum seam telephony, which no one understood.

Five days ago, a teenager figured out how to fax Mo back. The U.N. General Assembly quickly faxed in, pleading our inabilities to travel across the galaxy, to move planet Earth, to make quantum seam telephone calls or to mount a sufficient defense on such short notice. They also asked myriad questions, including how we might acquire a book of the universal laws.

Mo sent another form: Public Transport Request for Indigent Civilizations. He recommended that we file it with our petition. He also chided us for our “abuse” and blocked the faxes.

Filing court petitions by oracle is no picnic. It took two days. We missed the deadlines. Everyone prayed or cried or both. A day later, the oracle proclaimed that our hearing and transport were confirmed.

Now it’s hearing day and the chauffeur is here but he’s demanding fare in some otherworldly currency. We’re doomed. Grandma chuckles for the first time since Grandpa died. I stare at her.

“I know. I shouldn’t laugh,” she says, “but…”

Her wizened eyes tell me enough. She’s faced a cold alien justice system before. “I don’t want to die in New York City,” she says, “maybe the Catskills.”

I nod, grinning and we head out.

[TiPerihelion]

The clarity is great. I even think you could slash a few words here and there and the reader would make the necessary intuitive leaps with you. Consider:

I sit in Grandpa’s chair, which still smells like him – Magic Shave and cocoa butter -- seven months after his death. Grandma watches television through slack lids. Sedation is her latest refuge from grief.

In months past she lived in a prison of bitterness, cursing every injustice from Jim Crow to Grandpa’s cancer.

I think it should read, "Grandpa's cancer to Jim Crow." Start with what's closest to home and expand outward. You might even say something like, "cursing every injustice from Grandpa's cancer to Jim Crow to the price of stamps." The juxtaposition of the important with the unimportant is a subtle way to convey Grandma's heightened emotional state.

She hasn’t left home since the funeral. I dig through my soul for a morsel of hope to offer her though I fear she’s lost her appetite.

This is clever. I'm not sure about the image of offering Grandma a soul-morsel of hope to devour. Sounds cannibalistic. But I like the wordplay.

On screen we see a robotic chauffeur materialize from nothing in General Assembly Hall. He approaches the attorney. They shake hands and the chauffeur leans in to speak. The attorney stumbles back, looks around. Something’s wrong. Grandma perks up.

I would specify that it's the UN General Assembly, because the words "general assembly" are a generic phrase. Also, what attorney? I'm not familiar with the make-up of the General Assembly, so I googled it, but there doesn't seem to be an official known as the "attorney." Why not raise the stakes and have the chauffeur speak directly to the Secretary-General? That would also help specify which General Assembly you mean.

Ten days ago more than a thousand uniform alien devices descended to Earth. Most were quickly retrieved by militaries. Nine days ago, at 10:06 am GMT, the machines issued forth crisp business letters. They were notices of eviction faxed from across the universe. Each was written in the dominant language of its recipient populace.

To All Creatures at This Location,

Star system 12-5-3907 belongs to Zyrka, a realty development corporation. We’ll commence developments here in two weeks. You must vacate immediately. Please take your possessions with you, including any planets. You may not, however, remove any stars as they are fixtures of our property. If you wish to assert legal rights, you have one week to submit a court petition.

As a courtesy, I’ve sent blank petitions and the legally required bulletins in oracle form. Pardon the translation. Your primitive languages are inadequate. Thank you.

Mo

Evictions Coordinator

You can go over the top here with the diction and vocabulary. I would google both eviction notices and funny mistranslations, especially the latter. Since you have a disclaimer already ("Pardon the translation") why not throw in something really hilarious? Just remember, it's crucial that the reader understand the intended meaning.

Also, you switch from the "we" pronoun to the "I" pronoun, which is jarring. I think you should keep the "we" throughout.

Mo’s oracle hung in the upper ionosphere above Equatorial Guinea. A day was lost to the debate over potential dangers of extraterrestrial bacteria. Then it was retrieved. That was seven days ago.

The oracle, which sometimes manifested as a glowing orb and other times as a woman, failed to answer most of our questions. She gave us the basics. We have the right under universal law to defend ourselves. Only one advocate is allowed.

The hearing is must take place before the Intergalactic Seat of Judgment, Landlord-Tenant branch, near the center of the Milky Way. Translation services must be requested a week (a week by whose planetary rotation period?) in advance by calling the Office of Judicial Care (this department name could use a makeover). Representatives asked the oracle how to make such a call and she described quantum seam telephony, which no one understood.

Five days ago, a teenager figured out how to fax Mo back. The U.N. General Assembly quickly faxed in, pleading our inabilities inability to travel across the galaxy, to move planet Earth, to make quantum seam telephone calls or to mount a sufficient defense on such short notice. They also asked myriad questions, including how we might acquire a book of the universal laws.

Mo sent another form: Public Transport Request for Indigent Civilizations. He recommended that we file it with our petition. He also chided us for our “abuse” and blocked the faxes.

Filing court petitions by oracle is no picnic.

The switch to present tense is jarring here. Also, this phrase is hackneyed.

It took two days. We missed the deadlines. Everyone prayed or cried or both. A day later, the oracle proclaimed that our hearing and transport were confirmed.

Now it’s Today is hearing day and the chauffeur is here but he’s demanding fare in some otherworldly currency. We’re doomed. Grandma chuckles for the first time since Grandpa died. I stare at her.

“I know. I shouldn’t laugh,” she says, “but…”

Her wizened eyes tell me enough. She’s faced a cold alien justice system before.

This may be personal preference, but this last sentence doesn't do it for me. It gets swallowed somehow, even though I know it's supposed to be the crux of the story. I would play around with the phrasing and reading it aloud. Maybe something like, "She's faced a cold alien justice system all her life." Something to trigger that "aha!" moment I can see you're going for, when the reader recognizes the play on the word "alien."

“I don’t want to die in New York City,” she says, “maybe the Catskills.”

I nod, grinning and we head out.

Also lacking punch as a final sentence. It's hard to say why. I want to say it's too literal. Even something simple like, "I couldn't agree more," has an edge. It's that intuitive leap. I read that and I know they're going to the Catskills without your needing to spell it out. Alternatively, you could try bringing the story full circle, with a final reference to Grandpa.

--

Overall, I think this is very skillful and tightly written prose. It's ironic, it's got a strong theme. I like the trajectory of Grandma's feelings toward injustice: anger --> defeat --> amusement. She doesn't win the battle, she simply chooses to stop fighting. Not necessarily a happy ending, but an authentic one. Very sympathetic. I think it's a great story. It's a little derivative of the opening to Hitchhiker's Guide, but the similarity isn't crippling. Great job. This is way better than you think it is. The best way to nail what you said above ("sophisticated, smooth, funny") is, in my opinion, to go big on the letter from Mo. Really stilted legalese mixed with deliberate mistranslations.

Please let us know how this does in the competition!

[AnimaDictio]

Thanks Ti!! I'm debating rewriting it so that the nature of the eviction is a surprise at the end. I'll let you know what I finally decide.

[TiPerihelion]

Well, your writing is strong, so I'm sure you'll take it where it needs to go. Only you can really know what story you're trying to tell.

[crescentstar]

I don't know if you were going for this, but I was confused by the era the story took place in. Well at least at first, it becomes much more clear later. The use of magic shave and Jim Crow seemed to date the story in the late thirties or forties. I was confused by the robotic chauffeur at first thinking it was a scifi tv show, this also made me think early 60's was the setting . Then it was revealed to be a modern story. I understood when I got there but wasn't so clear during the journey.