Winners in Our
"Thirteen Writing
Prompts" Contest.
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Recently, we had a contest where we asked people to submit their best story based on one of Mr. Dan Wiencek's Thirteen Writing Prompts. We're proud to now be publishing the runners-up and prizewinners in this space, one at a time over the coming days and weeks, culminating in the grand-prize-winning story.
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Runner-up No. 6.
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Prompt No. 5
A wasp called the tarantula hawk reproduces by paralyzing tarantulas and laying its eggs into their bodies. When the larvae hatch, they devour the still living spider from the inside out. Isn't that fucked up? Write a short story about how fucked up that is.
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Untitled.
By Dave Higgs
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Question: "A wasp called the tarantula hawk reproduces by paralyzing tarantulas and laying its eggs into their bodies. When the larvae hatch, they devour the still living spider from the inside out. Isn't that fucked up?"
Answer: Certainly it is fucked up; what remains uncertain is its definitive, quantifiable level of fucked-up-ness. I will therefore measure the fucked-up-ness in units of repetitions of dropping a billiard ball onto my own testicles (DaBBoMOTs) from a height of 10 inches. Just a moment.
And now I have the results ...
Well, the larvae devouring the living spider from the inside measures 0.5 on the DaBBoMOT scale. Therefore, it would take the death of two tarantulas by internal devourment to equal the fucked-up-ness of 1.0 DaBBoMOT.
Update: Both of my testicles are hopelessly damaged, and "Lefty" may have been ruptured.
OTHER WINNERS
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