Dorkpool: So AGrim’s returned to reviewing again.
Sylvia: Wait, who?
Dorkpool: AGrim. Old friend from the Wiki. She and I made fun of a couple of stories together. Mirror was with us for one of those.
Mirror: Oh yeah. That stupid League of Legends story.
Dorkpool: Anyway, she reviewed a story that she found funny because it’s so bad. It’s called “It All Happened in the Parking Lot.”
Sylvia: We’re Riffing it, aren’t we?
Dorkpool: Yep.
Sylvia: Ugh.
Dorkpool: Anyway, let’s stand in a parking lot and freak out some moron, and Riff this bitch!
START RIFF
I'm not going to try and create some distinctive attention grabber.
Dorkpool: (Narrator): Mainly because I’m pretty lazy.
I don't want your attention. Although, I do want you to know what happened to me.
Mirror: (Narrator): But I don’t want your attention while I tell you. Maybe just play a game or something while I tell my story.
Nothing bad, really. Just a very unnerving tale of a man that liked to fuck with my head. A man that invaded my privacy from January 1st, 2006 - April 3rd, 2008. I called him the Annelid Man.
Sylvia: Isn’t Marvel doing a movie about Annelid Man?
You will know why if you read on. The Annelid Man had a talent for making me feel watched, because I know he was watching me every day. I just fucking know it.
Dorkpool: He fucks with your head and watches you? So…he’s Slender Man then.
The ball dropped. The new year started. And of course, the first thing said to me on the new year was to take out the damn trash.
Mirror: (Narrator): Not sure why I was told to take myself out too, but whatever.
I remember walking outside, and the first thing I saw was the Annelid Man. I live in an apartment complex. I would walk outside, and to my right would be the parking lot. On the far left side of the parking lot, there are two evergreen trees. I remember seeing him standing there underneath the trees. He had his back turned. I remember walking out and seeing him, nothing else.
Sylvia: Except for, you know, the trees. You saw those. Just saying.
It was almost as if I was standing in a white room, and the only form of color that stuck out was his black peacoat. His black dress pants. His black shoes. His black hair which was greased back.
Dorkpool: So…greaser Slender Man.
I walked to the dumpster, eyes fixated on him. A sort of disturbing vibe radiated from him, I swear it spread throughout the entire neighborhood.
He would only appear in the parking lot at 12:02 A.M. exactly. No other time. He would appear at 12:02 A.M., and leave at 2:02 A.M. I would never stay to see him arrive, or to see him leave. I feel as if he lived here.
Mirror: (Narrator): But, of course, he never paid rent. Fucking freeloader.
Either that or he just slowly faded in from thin air, like a ghost. But the Annelid Man wasn't a ghost. He was an existent being. An evident enigma.
Sylvia: A pretentious alliterated name.
An oddity that chose me due to weird circumstances.
I remember the first time he looked at me. Now that I think about it, I don't even know if he was looking at me. It was sometime in mid January, and it was the first time he didn't have his back turned. But he was facing me. I couldn't see his face. I could see black. Everything about him was black.
Dorkpool: Wait, is the Annelid Man actually Shaft?
Sylvia: Can you dig it?
His presence sent chills up my spine. He didn't fucking move. He just stood there; frozen.
I tried to get my parents attention on this topic. They would just reply with, "I'm sure it's nothing, Logan. Worry about yourself, and the man will mind himself as well."
That was a bunch of bullshit. He haunted me for two years. No one knew about it. It was all between the Annelid Man and myself. No one else was involved. No one saw what I saw. No one heard what he said to me. No one knew. Not a single goddamn person.
Mirror: Wait, did anyone else know? You were very vague about that.
I've tried to tell people about him. I was beginning to create theories as to who or what the Annelid Man was. I resorted to internet forums, asking people if they've seen this type of man, attempting to debunk the possibility that I was dealing with a paranormal entity. I wasn't. They all said it was just some fucking whacko staring at the stars. I've tried to tell my friends, I've tried to invite them over to see the Annelid Man, to try and crack the case with me. They all refused. Every single one of them.
Sylvia: (Logan): I mean, granted, I only have a single friend, but that’s not the point.
I believe it's time to explain the climactic events between me and the Annelid Man. I'm sure by now, you, the reader, have many questions. Why do I call him the Annelid Man? Did he hurt me? Did he hurt my family? Did he kill anyone?
Dorkpool: Why am I wasting my time reading this?
For a year and a half, the Annelid Man would stand outside. Back turned, except for that one time. I remember the exact day when shit started to get weird. November 27th, 2007.
Mirror: (Logan): I have it marked on my calendar as “The Day Shit Got Weird.”
When I walk outside, there's a parking lot on my right, and to my left there is a cement bench underneath another evergreen. He was sitting there. I creeped my head out of the doorway slightly to see if he was where he had always been, not seeing him in the parking lot was different. My stomach dropped. I dashed outside, wiped my eyes, and stared at the parking lot in disbelief.
Sylvia: (Logan): Some asshole took up two parking spaces!
It didn't take long for something inside me to tell me to look to the left. He was sitting on the stone bench. He rested his arm on the back rest, and was staring right at me. I'm sure almost everyone was in bed by now. It was just me and him. Alone. Several feet from each other.
Dorkpool: (Logan): You could’ve cut the sexual tension with a knife.
"You better run back inside. You'll catch cold."
I looked through my peephole throughout the entire night.
He never walked up to my front door.
I would search for hours on the internet. Trying my hardest to figure out who the fuck this man was. I tried my best to find posts about people having the same occurrences. No one ever did. It was just me.
Mirror: (Logan): No one else would admit to being this creeped out by a guy who honestly didn’t do much of anything.
It was frustrating. There were no resources that could have possibly helped me. Maybe it was because some people that experienced this never lived to tell the tale. That has to be it. I couldn't have been the only one going through this shit.
Sylvia: You never know. Maybe he just wants to fuck with you and only you.
I would have nightmares about the Annelid Man, I knew that something bad was going to happen.
Dorkpool: What do you mean “going to happen”? This story’s already happening.
Every time I would look outside, and he would be standing there, I was just inching closer and closer to some sort of demise. Some sort of inescapable point, almost like an event horizon in a black hole. And I was right.
Mirror: (Logan): It was the first time that ever happened. Felt kind of weird, honestly.
The night the Annelid Man bid his farewell, is the night that still prevents my psychological recovery. The night that left me confused and terrified. The night that left me answering my own questions. The night that proved half of my theories wrong, and half of them right. The night that no one else knows about.
Sylvia: The night that we danced away.
Dorkpool: The night that was dark and stormy.
Mirror: The night before Christmas.
The night the Annelid Man left, is the night that will haunt me for as long as I live.
It was April 3rd, 2008. I checked to see if he was outside at the given point in time. He wasn't under the evergreens, or sitting on the cement bench, but he was lying in the middle of the parking lot. Sprawled out.
Dorkpool: (Logan): Drunk off his ass.
It looked like he had been assaulted.
I knew that I didn't want to approach him. But something told me to go help him, those words were just blaring in my fucking head, for me to go help him. It had to have been him.
Mirror: Or it was just a convenient way to move the plot along.
Dorkpool: What plot?
I knew better than to not go after him. There's just no way in hell I would have made the decision to try and help him on my own. He did something to me. I know he did.
Sylvia: (Logan): He stole my heart!
I walked slowly. Everything in me was trembling. He was already staring at me. Even when I was indoors, he was staring at my building. Waiting. He knew I was going to fucking walk out. The closer I was, the more clearly I could see that expression on his face. Those blank eyes. The flaring nostrils. The shit eating grin he had on his face. He had terrible intentions, and he was excited to unleash them on me.
Dorkpool: (Logan): He made his terrible intentions pretty clear when he held up the handcuffs and ball gag.
Why do I call him the Annelid Man?
Mirror: (Logan): Marketing gimmick.
Well, the scientific name for a worm is of course an Annelid. And at that moment, he was indeed an Annelid. You know how a worm will slide, and even when they're still, there's that wave-like movement inside of them? That was the Annelid Man. He was slowly grooving side to side in a wave like motion.
Sylvia: Groovy.
Almost as if his body was breathing in a chronological order starting from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and then all the way back up, and all the way back down.
He began to roll over, and slide slowly across the parking lot. Giggling.
Dorkpool: So he was doing the worm and laughing? That’s fucking hysterical.
I knew what I was seeing was real, and I knew that I just had to get out of the fucking parking lot. Every time I would attempt to escape, he would whisper, "Please don't leave me." in a garbled voice that changed every time he said it.
Mirror: (Logan): Sometimes he’d sound like Ronald Reagan. Other times he’d sound like Gilbert Gottfried. One of those times he sounded like Morgan Freeman. That was pretty cool, actually.
He had this spell over me, I felt sympathy for him whenever he begged me to not leave him. And I didn't. I just stood there.
Sylvia: Like a dumbass.
Terrified. He rolled back over on his back, and he looked right into my eyes. His face began to change, but it didn't. I can't describe what I saw, but there was his face, and then another face.
Dorkpool: This is the weirdest origin I’ve heard for Two-Face.
A face of someone I knew. His limbs would change too, I can't really explain what I was looking at. I wish I could. I wish other people could have seen what I saw. I know what I saw was real.
This altercation between the Annelid Man and myself was coming to an end. It started at 12:02, and it just struck 1:57.
Mirror: (Logan): I’d been standing around doing basically nothing for about an hour and fifty-five minutes. God, I need a life.
I didn't want to say goodbye to the Annelid Man. He was a huge part of two years of my teenage life. I wasn't ready to let go of the man that stimulated almost every emotion in me.
Sylvia: Give love a chance!
I didn't want him to go. And when he did, it was the hardest goodbye I've ever had to deal with.
Hopefully one day he'll stand outside of your residence. Perhaps he is right now.
I've told you everything. Thank you.
Dorkpool: You’re welcome?
END RIFF
Dorkpool: This story sucks.
Mirror: It’s honestly pretty lame. We have the typical “I don’t want to write this” opening that way too many stories have, though it almost immediately contradicts itself. There’s little to no characterization, and Logan comes off as one of those protagonist/narrators who’s way too afraid of something for no adequately discernable reason. The writing style itself isn’t too great, being way too repetitive and overdramatic at times. As for the monster himself, the Annelid Man’s kind of lame. He’s just greaser Slender Man with a face who moves like a worm. While having a monster based on a bug isn’t the worst idea, it’s pretty poorly handled here. What might’ve been scarier is having the Annelid Man always squirming and moving a bit. Not like a human, but like he’s filled with many little living, squirming things. Then at the end have it revealed that the Annelid Man is just a bunch of murderous worms inhabiting a skinsuit. Then have the worms exit the skinsuit, squirming out of the man’s mouth, letting the emptied suit collapse to the ground as the worms go to devour someone. It’s not an amazing idea, but it’s better than a guy just squirming around on the floor. Also, the Annelid Man appears to have some sort minor mind control power that’s very ill defined, and makes Logan sympathetic to him for some reason. The sympathy thrown in at the end of the story is kind of lame, considering that we just spent most of the story hearing how horrible and evil the Annelid Man is. And, honestly, the Annelid Man didn’t do anything to earn any sympathy or fear. He wasn’t pathetic or in any way relatable or pitiable, and he didn’t do anything all that scary. Finally, there’s one more thing I’d like to address: the name of the story. While “It All Happened in the Parking Lot” does sort of work, it implies the focus of the story should be on some sort of event, and the only thing we really know for certain is that it all happened in the parking lot. However, the story focuses more on the Annelid Man, which makes me wonder why this story wasn’t just called “Annelid Man”? Was it because it would’ve been immediately taken off the Wiki because it sounds too much like Slender Man?
Sylvia: There are some good things though. The spelling and grammar were pretty good, which is rare for stories we Riff. It’s not unbearably long, so it doesn’t drag. And on the whole it isn’t awful, just sort of meh at best.
Dorkpool: But that’s what we think. What do you guys think? Was the story good? Was the Riff good? Do you think we’re being to Annelid-ical?
Sylvia: Boo!
Mirror: Dude, that was lame.
Dorkpool: Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
By the way, check out AGrim's review of the story here
Sylvia: Wait, who?
Dorkpool: AGrim. Old friend from the Wiki. She and I made fun of a couple of stories together. Mirror was with us for one of those.
Mirror: Oh yeah. That stupid League of Legends story.
Dorkpool: Anyway, she reviewed a story that she found funny because it’s so bad. It’s called “It All Happened in the Parking Lot.”
Sylvia: We’re Riffing it, aren’t we?
Dorkpool: Yep.
Sylvia: Ugh.
Dorkpool: Anyway, let’s stand in a parking lot and freak out some moron, and Riff this bitch!
START RIFF
I'm not going to try and create some distinctive attention grabber.
Dorkpool: (Narrator): Mainly because I’m pretty lazy.
I don't want your attention. Although, I do want you to know what happened to me.
Mirror: (Narrator): But I don’t want your attention while I tell you. Maybe just play a game or something while I tell my story.
Nothing bad, really. Just a very unnerving tale of a man that liked to fuck with my head. A man that invaded my privacy from January 1st, 2006 - April 3rd, 2008. I called him the Annelid Man.
Sylvia: Isn’t Marvel doing a movie about Annelid Man?
You will know why if you read on. The Annelid Man had a talent for making me feel watched, because I know he was watching me every day. I just fucking know it.
Dorkpool: He fucks with your head and watches you? So…he’s Slender Man then.
The ball dropped. The new year started. And of course, the first thing said to me on the new year was to take out the damn trash.
Mirror: (Narrator): Not sure why I was told to take myself out too, but whatever.
I remember walking outside, and the first thing I saw was the Annelid Man. I live in an apartment complex. I would walk outside, and to my right would be the parking lot. On the far left side of the parking lot, there are two evergreen trees. I remember seeing him standing there underneath the trees. He had his back turned. I remember walking out and seeing him, nothing else.
Sylvia: Except for, you know, the trees. You saw those. Just saying.
It was almost as if I was standing in a white room, and the only form of color that stuck out was his black peacoat. His black dress pants. His black shoes. His black hair which was greased back.
Dorkpool: So…greaser Slender Man.
I walked to the dumpster, eyes fixated on him. A sort of disturbing vibe radiated from him, I swear it spread throughout the entire neighborhood.
He would only appear in the parking lot at 12:02 A.M. exactly. No other time. He would appear at 12:02 A.M., and leave at 2:02 A.M. I would never stay to see him arrive, or to see him leave. I feel as if he lived here.
Mirror: (Narrator): But, of course, he never paid rent. Fucking freeloader.
Either that or he just slowly faded in from thin air, like a ghost. But the Annelid Man wasn't a ghost. He was an existent being. An evident enigma.
Sylvia: A pretentious alliterated name.
An oddity that chose me due to weird circumstances.
I remember the first time he looked at me. Now that I think about it, I don't even know if he was looking at me. It was sometime in mid January, and it was the first time he didn't have his back turned. But he was facing me. I couldn't see his face. I could see black. Everything about him was black.
Dorkpool: Wait, is the Annelid Man actually Shaft?
Sylvia: Can you dig it?
His presence sent chills up my spine. He didn't fucking move. He just stood there; frozen.
I tried to get my parents attention on this topic. They would just reply with, "I'm sure it's nothing, Logan. Worry about yourself, and the man will mind himself as well."
That was a bunch of bullshit. He haunted me for two years. No one knew about it. It was all between the Annelid Man and myself. No one else was involved. No one saw what I saw. No one heard what he said to me. No one knew. Not a single goddamn person.
Mirror: Wait, did anyone else know? You were very vague about that.
I've tried to tell people about him. I was beginning to create theories as to who or what the Annelid Man was. I resorted to internet forums, asking people if they've seen this type of man, attempting to debunk the possibility that I was dealing with a paranormal entity. I wasn't. They all said it was just some fucking whacko staring at the stars. I've tried to tell my friends, I've tried to invite them over to see the Annelid Man, to try and crack the case with me. They all refused. Every single one of them.
Sylvia: (Logan): I mean, granted, I only have a single friend, but that’s not the point.
I believe it's time to explain the climactic events between me and the Annelid Man. I'm sure by now, you, the reader, have many questions. Why do I call him the Annelid Man? Did he hurt me? Did he hurt my family? Did he kill anyone?
Dorkpool: Why am I wasting my time reading this?
For a year and a half, the Annelid Man would stand outside. Back turned, except for that one time. I remember the exact day when shit started to get weird. November 27th, 2007.
Mirror: (Logan): I have it marked on my calendar as “The Day Shit Got Weird.”
When I walk outside, there's a parking lot on my right, and to my left there is a cement bench underneath another evergreen. He was sitting there. I creeped my head out of the doorway slightly to see if he was where he had always been, not seeing him in the parking lot was different. My stomach dropped. I dashed outside, wiped my eyes, and stared at the parking lot in disbelief.
Sylvia: (Logan): Some asshole took up two parking spaces!
It didn't take long for something inside me to tell me to look to the left. He was sitting on the stone bench. He rested his arm on the back rest, and was staring right at me. I'm sure almost everyone was in bed by now. It was just me and him. Alone. Several feet from each other.
Dorkpool: (Logan): You could’ve cut the sexual tension with a knife.
"You better run back inside. You'll catch cold."
I looked through my peephole throughout the entire night.
He never walked up to my front door.
I would search for hours on the internet. Trying my hardest to figure out who the fuck this man was. I tried my best to find posts about people having the same occurrences. No one ever did. It was just me.
Mirror: (Logan): No one else would admit to being this creeped out by a guy who honestly didn’t do much of anything.
It was frustrating. There were no resources that could have possibly helped me. Maybe it was because some people that experienced this never lived to tell the tale. That has to be it. I couldn't have been the only one going through this shit.
Sylvia: You never know. Maybe he just wants to fuck with you and only you.
I would have nightmares about the Annelid Man, I knew that something bad was going to happen.
Dorkpool: What do you mean “going to happen”? This story’s already happening.
Every time I would look outside, and he would be standing there, I was just inching closer and closer to some sort of demise. Some sort of inescapable point, almost like an event horizon in a black hole. And I was right.
Mirror: (Logan): It was the first time that ever happened. Felt kind of weird, honestly.
The night the Annelid Man bid his farewell, is the night that still prevents my psychological recovery. The night that left me confused and terrified. The night that left me answering my own questions. The night that proved half of my theories wrong, and half of them right. The night that no one else knows about.
Sylvia: The night that we danced away.
Dorkpool: The night that was dark and stormy.
Mirror: The night before Christmas.
The night the Annelid Man left, is the night that will haunt me for as long as I live.
It was April 3rd, 2008. I checked to see if he was outside at the given point in time. He wasn't under the evergreens, or sitting on the cement bench, but he was lying in the middle of the parking lot. Sprawled out.
Dorkpool: (Logan): Drunk off his ass.
It looked like he had been assaulted.
I knew that I didn't want to approach him. But something told me to go help him, those words were just blaring in my fucking head, for me to go help him. It had to have been him.
Mirror: Or it was just a convenient way to move the plot along.
Dorkpool: What plot?
I knew better than to not go after him. There's just no way in hell I would have made the decision to try and help him on my own. He did something to me. I know he did.
Sylvia: (Logan): He stole my heart!
I walked slowly. Everything in me was trembling. He was already staring at me. Even when I was indoors, he was staring at my building. Waiting. He knew I was going to fucking walk out. The closer I was, the more clearly I could see that expression on his face. Those blank eyes. The flaring nostrils. The shit eating grin he had on his face. He had terrible intentions, and he was excited to unleash them on me.
Dorkpool: (Logan): He made his terrible intentions pretty clear when he held up the handcuffs and ball gag.
Why do I call him the Annelid Man?
Mirror: (Logan): Marketing gimmick.
Well, the scientific name for a worm is of course an Annelid. And at that moment, he was indeed an Annelid. You know how a worm will slide, and even when they're still, there's that wave-like movement inside of them? That was the Annelid Man. He was slowly grooving side to side in a wave like motion.
Sylvia: Groovy.
Almost as if his body was breathing in a chronological order starting from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and then all the way back up, and all the way back down.
He began to roll over, and slide slowly across the parking lot. Giggling.
Dorkpool: So he was doing the worm and laughing? That’s fucking hysterical.
I knew what I was seeing was real, and I knew that I just had to get out of the fucking parking lot. Every time I would attempt to escape, he would whisper, "Please don't leave me." in a garbled voice that changed every time he said it.
Mirror: (Logan): Sometimes he’d sound like Ronald Reagan. Other times he’d sound like Gilbert Gottfried. One of those times he sounded like Morgan Freeman. That was pretty cool, actually.
He had this spell over me, I felt sympathy for him whenever he begged me to not leave him. And I didn't. I just stood there.
Sylvia: Like a dumbass.
Terrified. He rolled back over on his back, and he looked right into my eyes. His face began to change, but it didn't. I can't describe what I saw, but there was his face, and then another face.
Dorkpool: This is the weirdest origin I’ve heard for Two-Face.
A face of someone I knew. His limbs would change too, I can't really explain what I was looking at. I wish I could. I wish other people could have seen what I saw. I know what I saw was real.
This altercation between the Annelid Man and myself was coming to an end. It started at 12:02, and it just struck 1:57.
Mirror: (Logan): I’d been standing around doing basically nothing for about an hour and fifty-five minutes. God, I need a life.
I didn't want to say goodbye to the Annelid Man. He was a huge part of two years of my teenage life. I wasn't ready to let go of the man that stimulated almost every emotion in me.
Sylvia: Give love a chance!
I didn't want him to go. And when he did, it was the hardest goodbye I've ever had to deal with.
Hopefully one day he'll stand outside of your residence. Perhaps he is right now.
I've told you everything. Thank you.
Dorkpool: You’re welcome?
END RIFF
Dorkpool: This story sucks.
Mirror: It’s honestly pretty lame. We have the typical “I don’t want to write this” opening that way too many stories have, though it almost immediately contradicts itself. There’s little to no characterization, and Logan comes off as one of those protagonist/narrators who’s way too afraid of something for no adequately discernable reason. The writing style itself isn’t too great, being way too repetitive and overdramatic at times. As for the monster himself, the Annelid Man’s kind of lame. He’s just greaser Slender Man with a face who moves like a worm. While having a monster based on a bug isn’t the worst idea, it’s pretty poorly handled here. What might’ve been scarier is having the Annelid Man always squirming and moving a bit. Not like a human, but like he’s filled with many little living, squirming things. Then at the end have it revealed that the Annelid Man is just a bunch of murderous worms inhabiting a skinsuit. Then have the worms exit the skinsuit, squirming out of the man’s mouth, letting the emptied suit collapse to the ground as the worms go to devour someone. It’s not an amazing idea, but it’s better than a guy just squirming around on the floor. Also, the Annelid Man appears to have some sort minor mind control power that’s very ill defined, and makes Logan sympathetic to him for some reason. The sympathy thrown in at the end of the story is kind of lame, considering that we just spent most of the story hearing how horrible and evil the Annelid Man is. And, honestly, the Annelid Man didn’t do anything to earn any sympathy or fear. He wasn’t pathetic or in any way relatable or pitiable, and he didn’t do anything all that scary. Finally, there’s one more thing I’d like to address: the name of the story. While “It All Happened in the Parking Lot” does sort of work, it implies the focus of the story should be on some sort of event, and the only thing we really know for certain is that it all happened in the parking lot. However, the story focuses more on the Annelid Man, which makes me wonder why this story wasn’t just called “Annelid Man”? Was it because it would’ve been immediately taken off the Wiki because it sounds too much like Slender Man?
Sylvia: There are some good things though. The spelling and grammar were pretty good, which is rare for stories we Riff. It’s not unbearably long, so it doesn’t drag. And on the whole it isn’t awful, just sort of meh at best.
Dorkpool: But that’s what we think. What do you guys think? Was the story good? Was the Riff good? Do you think we’re being to Annelid-ical?
Sylvia: Boo!
Mirror: Dude, that was lame.
Dorkpool: Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
By the way, check out AGrim's review of the story here