Once upon a time, on a dark and rainy night, Kelly Wyre sat online with her friend, Henley, drinking and browsing through porn via a Tumblr Dash."Blow job... naked dude... close up of anatomy that I didn't need, as I'm not currently engaging it, myself. Dude... is that a... pierced... nevermind. Puppy in a basket... scary chick with fake contacts, rim job, fucking..." Kelly sighs. "It's all beginning to blur together."
"I know what you need," Henley says, in that classical, smug way he has when he thinks he's being clever.
"Oh?" Kelly asks, humoring Henley. And silently admitting that he's probably right in whatever assessment he's made on what she "needs."
A link comes through, and lo and behold...
Colby Keller's form comes to life, framed in a video flanked by money shots, and he's balls-deep in a beautiful boy with dark hair and a slightly pained-bewildered-yet-delighted expression.
"Yep," Kelly says. "That'll do. That guy always...
does."
"I thought it might work for you."
Kelly ponders, quiet for a rare second, which makes Henley nervous. As it should. "Something wrong with the link?" Henley asks.
"No, I was just thinking..."
"Oh boy."
"Shut up. There was this post I saw, the other day... On his blog."
"You read his
blog?"
"Yeah?"
"Stalker much?"
Kelly makes a rude sound. "Pot, I'm kettle. Have we been properly introduced so I can kick your ass?"
"I believe so, yes. Let the ass play commence."
Kelly rolls her eyes. "
Anyway. He made this post about this art thing..."
"Art thing?"
Kelly sets her gin down with more force than necessary. "You know it drives me nuts when you do that thing where you repeat the last few words I say, right?"
"Wait, who's pot and who's kettle, again?"
"Shut it. Point is, there's art. Here."
Kelly sends a link. Henley reads. Kelly waits. Henley makes a noise that is reminiscent of a chicken getting choked by a zombie beaver.
"The fuck?" Kelly exclaims.
"We... You... WE... WE!"
"...all the way home?"
"MUST DO! SOMETHING! THIS!"
"Yoda? Is that you?"
"SERIOUSLY!"
"Seriously WHAT? The hell do you think we should do? There's so much art-school speak in this post that I got lost after the second prepositional phrase."
Henley sighs, put upon and woe-tis-him-Kelly's-so-smart-yet-so-slow-sometimes. "We write. Him. A. Story."
"...Huh."
"What do you MEAN, 'huh?'"
"Well, I guess, I just wasn't thinking about stories when I was thinking about art."
"Oh for the love of--"
"I get that it's art, dude. I know that writing is absolutely a work of--"
"KELLY."
"WHAT?"
"WE HAVE TO WRITE A STORY."
...and so it was that Kelly and Henley spent many a babbling hour trying to contemplate what in the hell to do with this call to arms.
On that first night, though, they didn't get very far. What they determined was that Colby Keller -- equal appreciator of ass and art -- wanted a little audience participation. He would post a picture "prompt," so to speak, once a month for eight months. Each picture was to inspire "conversation" and each picture would stand for one or more "values" represented in "philosophical terms."
The trouble, of course, for Kelly was that A) they were already late to the party, B) the hell were they supposed to do with these little drawing-virtue-meaning-symbol things, and C) inspiration was scarce on the ground for an art project without boundaries.
The next morning Kelly goes for a drive, as she likes to do, and goes to get coffee, which she likes even more, and somewhere between the sixth and last red light, an idea parts the clouds, screams through the October sky, and smashes through the roof of her car and into her poor brain. Swerving and distracted, Kelly pulls into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, furiously texting Henley, while a creepy man obsessively sweeps the parking lot in a direct circle around her car.
"Love letters. Back and forth. Emails. Music. Lots of angles. About modern communication. Finding someone. Based on histories and truth and centered around the virtues."
Henley writes back: "Huh?"
"THE ART, DUDE."
"I was getting food."
"THEN STOP AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE AWESOMENESS."
"Did you do a thing?" There's a grin in his text.
"I totally did a fucking thing."
Doing "things" is what got Henley and Kelly together in the first place. Doing "things" basically amounts to a sincere and insane desire to do creative projects that scare the bejesus out of them, for whatever reason, but to do them, anyway.
For the love. For the art. For the sharing.
SO HERE'S WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW...Eight Turns of Fate is the name of the story/project that was born from the desire to answer Colby's prompts. The entire project will be uploaded onto a Google Drive, the files will be shared, and comments will be enabled. The history of the project, associated links, the story itself, along with disclaimers and all points of contact (not to mention music files and the ilk) will be included.
All you've gotta do is click... read... and (hopefully) love.
The story will be continuous over the eight month span. Somehow. Some way. We'll make it work. We will update the Master Link list every time we add something new and exciting, including new chapters. The first chapter is done, the second (November's) is in the works, and we plan on doing it all, folks.
Because, as it turns out, Colby's not just an eyeball-burning-Jesus-take-the-wheel-so-I-don't-need-both-hands gorgeous kind of guy... He's also clever, professional, kind...
...and really,
really nice about deadlines.
And so now, without further ado and with a little help from Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Superman, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, we give you:
