Photo copyright – DLovering
She stood at the center of the town square. Friends and relatives gathered around, forming an impenetrable wall. In a town that small, everyone she’d ever known was one or the other.
As a child she’d loved the festival. The lights, the sounds, the rituals of her people: they all used to fill her with a sense of awe and wonder. To be part of such things used to be amazing.
Now that she was at the center of the year’s festivities she had changed her mind. It was barbaric.
It was her best friend who cast the first stone.
—
This post was written for Friday Fictioneers.
It’s been probably 20 years since I read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, but the story stuck with me and is a heavy inspiration behind this piece.
Adam Ickes 
April 11th, 2014 at 7:22 AM
Those are brutal rituals that end in death. I think I’d go somewhere else if possible. Good story, Adam. Well written.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:53 PM
Sadly, I think it’s too late for her to go somewhere else.
April 11th, 2014 at 7:50 AM
This was super-reminiscent of The Lottery! One of my favorite stories. One of Marilyn Manson’s music videos (Man That You Fear) also drew upon the same idea. Nice one.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:53 PM
Thanks. I’ve always loved that story. I want to go reread it now. It’s been far too long.
April 11th, 2014 at 8:03 AM
Oh! That’s sad… Sorry that best-friends turn enemies & festivities have no meaning.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:54 PM
Thus is the mob mentality. People do things they normally wouldn’t, especially in the name of tradition.
April 11th, 2014 at 9:18 AM
a concise re-telling of a classic. my kind of story, when you don’t really know what’s happening until the end, then you have to go back and re-think everything.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:55 PM
Always fun to keep guessing clear up until the end.
April 11th, 2014 at 9:41 AM
That’s brutal…and shows a very warped little village, to have a girl grow up in a festival like this thinking it was wonderful and amazing…
I was also reminded of The Lottery!
Nicely done.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:56 PM
We all have our traditions. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one exists in some remote corner of the world.
April 17th, 2014 at 5:31 PM
Yeah it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Humans can do some pretty unspeakable things sometimes.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:29 AM
The end is the end. And you have us at the end Adam! Nicely done!
Regards
Jim
April 14th, 2014 at 8:57 PM
Thanks, Jim.
April 11th, 2014 at 1:50 PM
fab job 🙂
April 14th, 2014 at 8:57 PM
Thanks, Helen.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:11 PM
Turnabout is fair play. Isn’t it often in hindsight we rethink our actions? Well written Adam.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:57 PM
Indeed it is. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
April 11th, 2014 at 2:16 PM
Ouch! Yikes, that is barbaric!
April 14th, 2014 at 8:58 PM
Sure is. I wonder if the best friend will get the same treatment next year by the rest of the town.
April 11th, 2014 at 5:25 PM
It’s all fun & games until you’re it…
April 14th, 2014 at 8:59 PM
I think “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye” also applies here.
April 12th, 2014 at 12:00 AM
Murder in the open and it’s a celebration? Very clever Adam! Good story! Nan 🙂
April 14th, 2014 at 9:00 PM
Not just a celebration. An offering to the gods for a fruitful harvest. She had to die. There was really no way around it. Don’t want to make the gods angry, do we?
April 12th, 2014 at 12:18 AM
Being you, I was just waiting for something to go horribly wrong!
She seemed to enjoy these rituals in previous years when presumably the same thing happened to others – now it’s her turn. I have no sympathy 🙂
April 14th, 2014 at 9:03 PM
They never see how horrible it is until they’re the one standing in the center of the town square… though i’m guessing those that do voice opinions against the practice often “mysteriously” end up being “it” next time around.
April 12th, 2014 at 2:56 AM
Very nicely done! The passage from childhood to adulthood was a swift and harsh one for this girl.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:04 PM
Her adulthood was then cut abruptly short.
April 12th, 2014 at 4:47 AM
Very well told. I like the way you sum up the smallness of the place in that first paragraph.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:04 PM
Thanks, Sarah.
April 12th, 2014 at 7:15 AM
I guess that’s the nature of the ‘society’ beast. One day it props you up, the next day it eats you up. Very well etched – the transition.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:05 PM
A beast is a beast is a beast. It will always have teeth and it will always be hungry. Never get complacent when a beast is involved.
April 12th, 2014 at 12:29 PM
With friends like that you don’t need enemies.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:05 PM
Too true.
April 12th, 2014 at 2:19 PM
I only hope when I go to Majorca, I don’t get an invite!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:06 PM
An invite could be very bad, especially if you’re the “guest of honor.”
April 12th, 2014 at 3:11 PM
What a grizzly twist Adam .. this kind of festivals the world can live without.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:07 PM
I couldn’t agree more. Sadly wishing something out of existence rarely works.
April 12th, 2014 at 4:06 PM
Excellent, Adam, with an understate and all-too-realistic horror.
janet
April 14th, 2014 at 9:08 PM
Thanks, Janet.
April 12th, 2014 at 4:18 PM
Oh, bugger, once again, I’m reading your Friday Fictioneers story far too early in the day to be able to give you a suitable half-drunken rant. Should have brought my laptop along to dinner last night and read this after three glasses of chicken wine. Oh well . . .
As to the story itself: Excellent telling of a story that reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” I would recommend nixing the words “It was” from the final sentence, but that’s the only nit I see here. I especially like the voice you use as you tell about how our heroine has always loved the festival–until today. Nice work.
Cheers!
Marie Gail
April 14th, 2014 at 9:10 PM
I would think you’d know better by now. What am I going to do with you?
As for your critique: when you’re right, you’re right. I completely missed the dreaded “It was” monster in my editing. Who knew editing 100 words could be so difficult? I shall be more vigilant next time.
April 12th, 2014 at 8:00 PM
Dear Adam,
No blood, no gore…all the more horrifying. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
April 14th, 2014 at 9:11 PM
Thanks, Rochelle. Sometimes subtle is far more terrifying than going straight for the jugular.
April 13th, 2014 at 11:45 AM
Great take Adam, just the right amount of horror, frighteningly realistic.
Dee
April 14th, 2014 at 9:11 PM
Thanks, Dee.
April 13th, 2014 at 5:28 PM
Your scene is very compelling, Adam. I knew something was coming, but wasn’t quite expecting that. Horrible festival, indeed!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:12 PM
And I bet if you passed through the town on any other day you’d think it a lovely place. You’d never know the dark secret they hide.
April 14th, 2014 at 1:47 AM
Odd, my birthday parties usually feature an activity just like that. How I got this age I’ll never know!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:13 PM
I knew I had heard this story somewhere. It must have been you telling me about one of your many, many, many, many birthday parties.
April 14th, 2014 at 8:03 AM
An imaginative interpretation of the prompt. There’s often something dark in the background of our “quaint” local customs. And yours is one that has stayed true. Unfortunately for your protagonist.
April 14th, 2014 at 9:14 PM
Indeed. Small towns creep me out. You never know what’s really just beneath the surface.
April 14th, 2014 at 10:48 AM
still laughing from Perry’s comment above.
disturbing. and i need to read that book, it sounds very interesting…
April 14th, 2014 at 10:51 AM
P.S. i noticed the changes in your blog. great job. love the new look. 🙂
April 14th, 2014 at 9:19 PM
I highly recommend you do read it. It’s good stuff. It’s actually a short story so it’s a quick read. (Here’s a pdf version: http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf)
P.S. The new look is actually an old look. This is what my blog originally looked like when I first started it. I decided I wanted to go back to it after tinkering around looking for a new theme for a couple days.
April 14th, 2014 at 10:57 AM
I had a feeling it was all going to go horribly wrong in the end. Oh the barbaric mob mentality! Loved it!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:20 PM
That darn mob mentality will get you every time.
April 14th, 2014 at 12:29 PM
Urgh, I felt a sense of impending doom for the first words, Adam, but you still managed to conjure it slowly and steadily and the opening made the close so much more powerful. Great stuff!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:20 PM
Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
April 14th, 2014 at 12:59 PM
I love the small town setting with the main character hemmed in by an impenetrable wall of everyone she knows, finding herself the victim of the brutality in which she had previously participated. That just about sums up the darker side of small town life!
April 14th, 2014 at 9:22 PM
Small towns are a bizarre oddity of nature. Creepy as all get out if you ask me.
April 14th, 2014 at 3:19 PM
You led me down a rosy path…to a horrific ending. Score one for you! Good job…
April 14th, 2014 at 9:24 PM
The true horror is that the same scene plays out year after year.
April 15th, 2014 at 11:28 AM
I had a feeling something awful was about to happen. And, oh! a stoning. Good tale,
April 15th, 2014 at 3:27 PM
When I read the sentence,” Friends and relatives gathered around, forming an impenetrable wall,”I knew that something terrible was going to happen and Adam you upped the ante with this one!!What a shocking end-loved it of course 😀
April 16th, 2014 at 3:10 AM
Very clever indeed!