FRANK’S BIG DAY OFF
Three act structure? We’ve all heard of it at some point in our lives, haven’t we. And we all hate the bastard too. But hey, why not try to gameify it? Why not try to “steal it for surrealism”? In the following game, each player was assigned one act to write, and the main character name “Frank”. Besides that, no other information was given. After writing our sections in silence, we glued our beast together. Here are the results.
Act 1: Just another Saturday
It was a Saturday, and the sun was glowing a deep bluish blue. Frank sped through the decrepit circus turn-style, spitting out a barrage of overspent poetic alliteration towards all the eyeless. It was his day off today, and this time, well, Frank was determined to make it count. As the cities one-and-only amateur veterinarian, his days off were always few and far between, and this ‘ol Frank, well, he was a real party boy. He glared with relief at a drifting pucker fish, regurgitated his triangular car keys, and then cried. Today he’d do it, yes, finally! And do it, my dear readers, he really really did.
Act 2: The Shit Hits the Fan
Frank walked down the dark street wondering what it all meant if it meant anything at all. But he wasn’t left to wonder long because his foot went suddenly through the pavement. The gaping opening swallowed first one leg and then the other, crumbling wider as Frank frantically clawed at the edges. But there was no help for it. The sinkhole which had just opened beneath him was growing exponentially and inexorably. When the surface finally ceased collapsing the sinkhole had become wide enough to swallow two whole cars, which had been parked on the street nearby during Frank’s unfortunate encounter with the void. Holding onto the edge of the hole with shaking fingers, Frank dared to peak downward. Below him was a massive spinning fan, which slowly ground the fallen cars down to fenders. The terrifying sight forced Frank to void his bowels onto the fan below, which sucked it propitiously into whatever hell lay beyond. Feeling lighter, Frank was able to pull himself over the edge and back to relative safety. He speed walked away from the existential pit and decided it would all make more sense after he had showered.
Act 3
With his memories becoming progressively sporadic, the last several events are presented more as isolated incidents than actual connected events. Frank is in the garage of his friend, Mister K. Mister K is hosting a sleaze-riddled gathering, with the room set with indiscernible noise and the smoking fumes of an unknown substance that reeks of cadavers. While there, Frank meets a woman who is insistent on the fact that she doesn’t actually exist. When Frank asks Mister K about it, K hands him a copy of the Kama Sutra with all the women cut out from the illustrations. This prompts a fight between the two. Mister K overpowers Frank and locks him in a dingy bathroom. Sometime later, Frank is stuck in an underground train station. He’s aware that an industrial apocalypse is about to happen. Despite this, the train never arrives. Frank wanders around the train station, asking intrusive personal questions to various panhandlers he finds around the station. Frank eventually emerges to find himself in the ruins of a fishing village. Seeing the wandering shadow of a schoolboy, Frank follows it. He’s eventually led to the crater that was left behind from a bomb site. Frank can only hear the boy’s laughter when he stands in the middle of the crater.
- SC, HC, AK
