110 responses to “Thicker soup – Friday Fictioneers”

1. Bjorn, I think you should live in Hawaii for a while where there is a lot of sunlight. >KB

   • Ha. yes.. that would be a treat..

     • Really, with your talent you nneed some sun to fully write what you are capable of. >KB

     • Thank you that’s a great compliment.. I have not started on novel yet though..

     • God sakes don’t write it in the dark. >KB

2. Ooh a grizzly idea – people disappear and the soup gets thicker. Reminds me a bit of The Matix. Great premise for this week’s picture Bjorn.

   Claire

   • Thank you.. a little bit new for me to write dystopia

3. Great piece Bjorn, thicker soup, such an intriguing idea. Enjoyed it very much.

   • I somehow thought how it would be to live in such a world .. and the idea of a labour camp came to me.

     • I can see that image alright and the need for thicker soup.

4. Good story, Bjorn, although scary. I don’t think I want to know why the soup gets thicker . Well done.

   • The scariest thing is I think everyone knew…

5. Somehow this brought an image of a labor camp to me, too. Although soup had no part in it – thicker or not. Thanks for the creepy story, Bjorn

   • Ah.. Those spotlights that divide work from sleep..

6. Man. That’s chilling. You really have a penchant for the portrayal of human misery, don’t ya?

   • I’m afraid so.. somehow it comes up first.

7. Excellently dreadful. Your words conveyed a sense of one mindlessly following ways never questioned. Good work.

   • To some extent this is what I have read from people surviving labor camps…

   • they mindlessly follow because that’s what you have to do to survive – both mentally and physically. mentally you must numb yourself to what you know, pretend you don’t know it. physically, same thing, pretend you don’t feel. i suppose that include emotionally too.

8. ohhh, that was creepy but nourishing, fab job 🙂

   • Thank you 🙂

9. Perfectly Creepy! Reminiscent of Soylent Green days. Well done.

   • I had not heard of that movie.. but yes dread of despotism and scarce resources…

10. Very stark and dread-filled. The narration fills in the blanks, and foreshadows doom.

    • Thank you.. yes dystopia theme is an interesting one… Maybe next week I have to do rom-com

11. Great piece Bjorn…it must be hard to make quota when the soup is so thin!

    • Actually in Gulag the food rations where decreased when you did not meat your quota. From that point it’s a slope leading to death…

12. A haunting write, very haunting, I will have to ponder it with the lights on.

    • Yes I think daylight can be a blessing.

13. What a grisly story. I bet you’ll be delicious though and help the rest of us meet our quota!

    • There is a certain anticipation in the air.

14. Very Stephen-King-ish, Bjorn. So you think that just because you aren’t actively killing people off, that this is better? I beg to differ, as do those who end up soup! I do think it might be time for summer sunshine in your life. 🙂

    janet

    • I will try.. I actually wrote a cute poem the other day,

15. Very clever, darling. This is a story worthy of your talent. You are such a poet, a skill that requires thinking around corners for metaphors and imagery. The recurring motif of thicker soup keeps nagging at the my mind, and much as I might try to brush it away like a pesky fly, it keeps buzzing in my ear until I’m forced to accept what it is you’re telling me. That you didn’t just pull this out of your hat in the last line makes the dark secret of this story more, not less, effective. Excellent tale.

    • Yes.. Still there could be other reasons than the obvious.. I was actually thinking of stories I have heard of prisoncamps…

16. Oh wow, that was creepy.

    • Thank you…

17. Thicker soup, such a dreadful euphemism. You surpassed yourself this week Bjorn.

    • Yes.. I have read too many of kz:s tales…:-)

18. Dear Björn,

    Dark, stark and disturbing. Well done.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

    • I hope sincerely to be able to write a lighter story someday.. This week maybe.

19. Labour camp or a sweatshop in a poor country. Disturbing read but still poetic as ever.

    • Thank you so much.

20. People disappear and the soup gets thicker . . . disturbingly delicious.

    • Indeed.. yes that would be disturbingly bad.

21. Wow! Awesome metaphor! This so reminds me of WWII and the atrocities of the work camps, also of the famine stricken parts of the world in the modern age. The metaphoric ripples are astounding!

    • Thank you. I think these are how we all would become…

      • Sadly, a part of me agrees. Humans… the only species that actively preys upon itself (aside from mating insects).

22. Definitely brought images of the Holocaust to my mind. The writer’s desolation is very engaging. This is a story that might echo around in my head for a while.

    • Somehow I think a desolation and matter of fact story makes it sadder and more believable.

23. very thought provoking. good job!

    • Thank you so much.

24. This left a bad taste in my mouth, in a good way. Creepy and well done! It is sort of Soylent Green-ish.

    • So amazing .. I have never seen the film, and you are not the only one pointing that out…

25. A different take. Really dark. A touch of Margaret Atwood?

    • It could be.. I have only read “a handmaid’s tale”.. and that was disturblingly dark..

26. Whoa! Four words — Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!! I think I’ll order the salad next time. Dark and disturbing and I had a great time reading it, Bjorn!

    • Ha.. amazing I have not even seen Soylent Green and still … I must have a sick mind.

      • It’s a good movie. You might be able to rent it or watch it somewhere. It’s based on s-f writer Harry Harrison’s novel “Make Room, Make Room!”

27. Thicker soup, very disturbing Bjorn. Made me think of Soylent Green.

    • I have never seen that movie.. but definitely I will put it on my list

28. is the soup thicker because there are fewer mouths to feed when somebody leaves or is it because whoever leaves becomes part of the soup? if the latter is the case, sure this story is creepy.

    • Ah.. I leave that open to the reader.. but I think it’s sad anyway…

29. Good story, it can be interpreted in so many different ways.

    • With 100 words that’s the only way.

30. I love this – so clever – and what a brilliant concept.

    • Thank you. Somehow it came to me while I wrote it…

31. very nice…

    • .. Thank you

32. Why do I not want to touch soup after reading this. Great piece of writing!

    • Ah.. I can understand that.. hmm

33. OK, that’s horribly good – emphasis on the ‘horribly’! Glad I wasn’t eating soup at the time of reading!

    • I should have put a warning label

34. Dark and delicious. You should absolutely write a book.

    • Thank you.. a book is on my long list of things to do… but likely it will be poetry.

35. I did a Fictioneer this Friday, too. Only I did mine on Friday. Mine isn’t quite so gruesome.

    • In this bunch there are quite a lot of gruesome tales… I hope to be able to go less dark next week.

36. A sad commentary on the future of humanity, Bjorn. Interesting that you chose production as the future measure of worth.

    • ah.. yes.. a production set would be a disturbing end..

37. Thicker soup, very disturbing notion. Something like this happened in labour camps I think I read somewhere, but there when you didn’t do enough work, presumably due to malnutrition,your food ration was reduced, cruelty and stupidity knew no bounds.
    Well done Bjorn for this though provoking tale
    Dee

    • It’s well documented that in Gulag you were given ratios depending on how you reached your quota, and sooner or later you fell behind and eventually starved to death. I read that in Ann Appelbaums well known book..

38. Great writing as usual, Bjorn. Thicker soup, uh, no thank you.

    • I agree.. but who knows..after being brought up like that.

39. Was the soup called “Soylent Green”? 8^)
    Nice dystopian story.

    • Ah.. so interesting about the referal to a movie I haven’t seen.

      • Actually, I haven’t either, just familiar with the concept.

40. Ominous, and very well done. Always a pleasure to read your work. Thin soup’s OK with me.

    • I hope I would have choosen the thin soup too.

41. brilliant, Björn, it was subtle but so horrifying! and the fact that they wonder if life was ever different for humanity… so sad and disturbing. one of my favorites this week 🙂

    • Thank you K.Z. very inspired by your writing .. but I choose another tone to convey a dark story….

42. Yeeks. Everyone wants the thicker soup I guess, but no-one wants to say out loud what they all know deep down. I wonder how humanity ended up like this (though several scenarios spring to mind).

    • There are several scenarious.. indeed..

43. I love the narrator’s voice in this piece. I think this is one of your best (so far), Bjorn.

    • Thank you.. there is a certain strength in a low-key voice

44. it may have already been written, but i assume the soup is thicker because with fewer people to feed, they don’t have to add so much water to stretch it out. it’s an excellently horrible way to refer to the death of others. i don’t know if it’s good or bad that i never would have thought of something like that. well done.

    • Actually that’s the lesser evil of two horrific ways to interpret the story… I have left that open to interpretation.. the more evil one is that the dead was used in the soup…

      • Thought about that one, but for me the other is equally horrific because there’s reality in it. It actually happened. The other may have happened, but less reality so less horrific to me.

      • Indeed.. you are quite right.. the truth is what really makes one sick

45. i immediately felt the pain and loneliness of your character. as always, a well presented story.

    • There is a lot of pain in a system like that…

46. You do awesomely at whatever genre you try. This paints a grim picture of humanity; just waiting for one to die so they can benefit from it. Great job.

    • Unfortunately this is how most would be behave.. there are so many evidence to this unfortunately…

47. Dear Bjorn, great story – sort of reminds me of a movie from the 70’s (probably before you were born). Really enjoyed the hopelessness of the narrator. Good JOB! Nan 🙂

    • Ha.. I was born way before the 70s– but I might have missed that movie anyway.. I was in my teens at the late 70s

48. Such a different take on the prompt. And such a powerfully understated story. Your narrator’s matter-of-fact reporting adds to the sense of what’s happening behind his words.

    • Yes there is a lot of strength in the understated and mundane…

49. Beautiful tone to your writing, as usual, Bjorn. A beautiful horror tale. I’m interpreting this as a kind of Soylent Green tale, where the people who disappear, end up thickening the soup! I see others reading less horror into it, in that the soup is thicker because there are less people to distribute to. I like it as a dangling question planned or accidental. It’s like a melody that’s never quite resolved.

    • I think it works best with me in understated writing.. and yes, personally I prefer stories that leaves some dots to be connected by the reader.

      • Thanks for the dots. Ann

50. Oh my goodness! I love that you only imply how the soup is made thicker, leaving the grisly details to the imagination. Well done and always, Bjorn!

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