We can't start this second round of our Exquisite Corpse without first thanking every participant in our first, experimental edition for joining this proposal with such wonderful and creative writing.

Last week we chose H.G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes as the starting point for our 7-handed story, which was the number of participants who co-created the following piece:

One afternoon, at low water, Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging at Boscastle, walked from that place to the picturesque cove of Pentargen, desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitous path to the Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in an attitude of profound distress beneath a projecting mass of rock. The hands of this man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red and staring before him, and his face was wet with tears. (H.G. Wells)

Just then, I rounded the corner and tried to take in the situation. But of course, at first I was confused – even more so than usual. So I shouted: "Hey, what's-your-name, leave my friend Sisyphus alone!" And I asked him: "Did that bloke insult you? Or hit you, perhaps?" Growling, I turned back to what's-his-name. What was his name again? Let's call him Jon.

Jon stared at me in shock: "No, for heaven's sake, I'm just as shocked as you are, I don't know what's going on here, I haven't done anything!" And we both looked at Sisyphus. He wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hands and, still half-sobbing, explained: "As always, I've taken such great pleasure in rolling the boulders, but my wife gave me a telling-off today and said I always have the same thing on my mind, and that I should finally broaden my interests or hobbies, find myself a sensible, useful, meaningful activity…" And he sobbed again and went on: "But I do love rolling the stones so much, even if I never manage to get them all the way to the top."

Jon and I took his calloused hands in ours and tried to comfort him: "Look, Sissi, your wife isn't entirely wrong, but perhaps there's a good solution. For example, you could turn the futile rolling of stones into a sort of art project – a performance that opens people's eyes to their own pointless actions? (@ty-ty)

Sisyphus paused briefly; his gaze cleared for a moment. Then he waved his hand dismissively, resigned, and his sobbing grew all the more intense. "Art… art! Who pays any attention to art these days?! People have problems, real problems. There's no energy or point left for art!" Mr Isbister, Jon, shakes his head: "The good man isn't entirely wrong. I'm an artist myself and I hardly get any commissions these days. People cut back on art when times are tough..."

Stunned, I look from one to the other: "Are you serious?? It's the role of art, of artists, to shake people awake! You're the ones who can change something about this whole shitty situation. You're the barometer, the catalyst and the motivator for the masses!"

The sobbing didn't stop. After a while, however, I got the impression that it had turned into a giggle... (@weisser-rabe)

"Are you giggling?" Jon, who turned out to be Dutch, asked, his hair ruffled. "Are you putting on some sort of theatre show, testing just how far you can go? Are you not a man of your word at all, and do you really not like rolling those stones to the top? Have you just made it all up? I could well imagine that you don't have a wife at all. If I were you, I'd stop this right now, drama queen, otherwise you'll need those stones for something else – like building your own 'hunnebed.'"

I said: I tell you, your sense of humour isn't exactly great. You can clearly see he's dead serious; perhaps he's giggling because he's nervous – it's not easy to start something new; it takes courage. You know yourself what it's like, when everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks. It's not easy being an artist, even if you've got an art degree.

"That's true," said Jon: #freeartfreesart, but not the artist. All those materials have to be bought first, and just try standing out amongst all those bananas stuck to the wall... Phew

"What do you think of being a sculptor?" I asked my friend. He had enormous hands and could certainly, just like Thor on his anvil, deliver some fantastic karate blows with them. No tools needed.

The giggling stopped abruptly. My friend wasn't the brightest of the lot and was, indeed, a bit of a wimp. A nudge in the right direction is what he needed, and a fat bank balance, I realised. I was struggling myself and trying to hide my depression. I'd only come here to see the caves and find a quiet spot to die alone.

"Let's walk up together," I suggested, "roll that stone up too – I've got a great idea…" (would that stone be able to close the entrance to a cave of my choice?) (@wakeupkitty.pal)

Right now..? I thought that was a suggestion for something to happen in the future. Why now? You knew that I was feeling tired from rolling all those stones. You know that, and you still asked the question with all seriousness. I could see that on your face. It is just the way that you act, isn't it? You just try to lure others to say things that they try to hide. It is that attitude that you cannot let go off, isn't it? Well, this time is going to be different. We are still going to roll that stone up. But, while we are at it, I need you to tell me what happened when you disappeared for two years. How has it been? I heard rumors that it was not something that you wanted to do. It was a favor to someone dear to you. It is those little things that you try to hide. Well, let us get ready to move and you can start telling me all about it while we are moving. (@ronnie10)

"Two years?" I muttered, my hands slipping on the wet, mossy granite as the boulder wobbled between us. A sharp gust of sea wind nearly knocked the breath out of me, but I held my ground. "You call it a favor, but back then, it felt more like taking the hit for a fire I didn't start."

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my forearm and looked him dead in the eye, the heavy stone trembling under our weight. "I stayed away because if I came back any sooner, the whole village would have known whose hands were really on that chest. But since we're finally talking... tell me, Ronnie, did you ever open it while I was gone, or is the rusty padlock still sitting on the bottom of the cove?" (@dannyben39)

The narrator of this story, a certain @ladyaryastark, saw that the experiment was getting out of hand. Sisyphus was no longer carrying a stone to the top of the mountain only to have it roll back down into the void, but rather a "wet, mossy grain," like river sediment, in his hands. Then he stopped to reflect: Can an absurd life cease to be absurd at a certain point? What is the point of bearing the "weight" of what happens in the world if not even the reflections written by @gor671, so insightful, will be read by the "masters of the world"? Do I become anxious about the present, or do I close my eyes and immerse myself in this narrative where @ronnie asks about the two years I spent in Hades? Does Ronnie not know that the underworld of before is now our world?

Ladyaryastark read what Sol had written, and she was furious to see that this "newcomer" was trying to read her thoughts, then she took control of her "exquisite corpse" and decided that we should return to the moment when Mr. Isbister was on the beach at Pentargen. (@solperez)

No doubt, if H.G. Wells himself performed a literary autopsy on this text, he would be as satisfied with it as he was with the one he wrote himself.

If you don't know the game: Exquisite Corpse (cadavre exquis) is a surrealist technique from 1925 in which several people build a single work by taking turns, each one seeing only the last fragment before adding their own. No one controls the whole. No one gets to plan the ending. That's the point.

We're bringing that chaos to this community, one paragraph at a time — and yes, we're putting real Steem (and more) behind it.

A note on this edition

To keep the early editions simple — and until we have a better mechanism to play the game as faithfully as possible — we're adjusting the dynamic for now: instead of starting from a blank page, each weekly post will open with an initial paragraph from a public domain work. Participants will write the continuation in the comments.

How it works

🗓️ Starts: every Sunday
🏁 Closes: every Saturday, 23:45 GMT
✍️ How to participate: the post opens with an initial paragraph from a public domain work. Write the next paragraph of the story as a comment on the weekly post
🌐 Language: English. If you don't write in English, translate your paragraph with whatever tool you trust before posting — Google Translate, DeepL, an AI, a bilingual friend, whatever gets the job done
📏 Length: no minimum, no maximum — write what the story needs
🧠 The only real rule: your paragraph has to make sense with what's already been written. Read before you write.
👥 Number of participants: unlimited
⏱️ Final cut: whatever has been published as a comment by Saturday 23:45 GMT is what counts. After that, the story is closed — even mid-sentence, even if it's a disaster. That's the deal.

Rewards

Our dear @weisser-rabe will reward every participant who meets the criteria with a 500 SP delegation for a period of 1 month.

80% of the liquid Steem rewards earned by the weekly post will be split equally among the participants who meet the criteria.

The remaining 20% will go to the Dream-Steem Community, to build a fund of its own for prizes in future games and contests.

At the community owner's discretion, additional prizes from sponsors or supporters who want to back the dynamic may also be added.

About bots, multi-accounts, and AI-generated entries

This is a human game about human unpredictability. It goes without saying that the game is intended for human users only: multi-accounts are not allowed, and neither are responses generated with Artificial Intelligence.

Entries that look bot-generated or AI-generated will be muted by the community owner — unless the participant can justify or demonstrate the legitimacy of their contribution. Consider yourself warned, not accused.

---

_{Inspired by the surrealist Exquisite Corpse technique (1925). Proposed and organized within this community.}

---