Today, my story characters crashed in a blinding snowstorm in the Cascades and were forced to participate in one of those “prioritize these twelve items to ensure your survival” group bonding simulations. As bad as the (fictitious) crash was, the (real) group dynamics were far worse. Not only did we take four times longer to complete the exercise than the other groups crashing in the same snowstorm, we also chose self-destruction — whiskey, a handgun, and an aeronautical sectional map were involved — as an alternative to survival and having to put up with each other for another few days.
I’m slightly over 5,000 words…
Who’s going to get eaten first?
Interesting question.
Team Member A insisted the aeronautical map was the most useful and important thing. To prove her mettle as a PhD in geography, she set out in the blinding, winter snowstorm in search of the town 20 miles away. She may have been eaten by a pack of squirrels who mistook her being nuts for actual nuts.
Team Member B, the doctor of physics, had too much whiskey, passed out and bonked his head on the handgun. He would have been the most likely eaten, but no one thought to grab the cigarette lighter to start a fire. Thus, the remaining members all perished, but were glad it was finally quiet and they didn’t have to die listening to A and B bitch at each other.
Jim,
Remember the same PhD in Geography had suggested in class after watching a Martin Luther King film that there is no racism where this PhD is from? You had a good comeback 🙂
Michael, the Black Team