~*DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN*~
Original chain letter idea, intro, and execution through Twitter (X) DM. Following initial draft, I collaborated with three authors to execute the final chain, and pull submission together (also the Icebreakers Lit origin story.) Final publication was in collaboration with tons of other authors who joined in the fun, spread the word, and avoided misfortune by adding their good luck sentences below.
Published by HAD (Hobart After Dark)
~*DoNt BrEaK tHe ChAiN*~
Hello friend, thank you for reading this letter. I hope this brings you as much good luck and wild fortune as it is bringing me!!! Thursday 8/11/22 is a STURGEON SUPERMOON and two hour open HAD collaborator’s call which obv only happens once every 826 years. If you want good luck in every single area of your life, then forward this letter to 3 friends in the next 3 minutes. If you absolutely cannot stand the sight of good luck then don’t send this. Your call. But if you don’t, something weird and moon-y could happen like the moon might send you rabies, or something like what happened to these actual, totally not made up ppl below.
************************************************************
If you do not forward this letter, the moon will be sad :( You will not be allowed to write poems about, or inspired by, the moon, even BLOOD MOONS. The moon will bleed (metaphorically). Your metaphors will be moonless and bloodless. You will develop blood lust. You will lust for blood in the glow of a full moon, silver fur spiking from your neck, your canines fangs. You will feign humanness by day, wear wolf skin by night. Yes, that is right! You will become a WeReWoLf if you do not obey! This is not a joke. It is a true story that happened to a boy named Hobart Moonbury Jr.
Rebecca Mooney didn’t take this seriously. She received the letter and discarded it as spam. Within moments, her student loans quintupled. They came to life, grew horns and hair, purchased bus tickets (charged to Rebecca, of course) and stormed her front steps, slipping pink envelope after pink envelope in past the door jambs. Publishers Clearing House began flooding her home with novelty sized bills, cramming them in through the piping, informing her that she now owes them $5,000 a week for life. Overcome with the shame of her financial ruin, she disappeared into the night and was never seen again (she also had to change her name, you know, because of the moon thing).
It’s been said for OVER 100 YEARS that not passing on this letter makes your skull literally liquify and melt right out of your eye sockets. Take Luna C. Hawkins for example. She didn’t even open this letter. She deleted it and 30 seconds later her mother found her. . . Luna was sitting on the toilet—her fingers still swiping left on Tinder—but instead of her head, there was a puddle of SKIN. A fireman at the scene said it was like her head bones had been sucked clean out. Some say you can still hear her ghost screaming, “where’s my skull? Where’s my skull?!” Her dad had to call a plumber! Don’t let this happen to you!!!
************************************************************
Everyone knows we can divine spells from the squiggles, imbibe blood for belief with a capital B… but if you follow these simple instructions, send this to your great-aunt who mails care packages of smushed meringues and your hook ups that left before dawn, you WILL turn your luck around.
If you forward this letter to 3 PEOPLE, it is guaranteed that within the next 3 days Aaron Burch will name a new pet rock after you and put it next to a blooming cactus on his writing desk. You will single-handedly end this f’in pandemic, and the world will love you even more. You will have your very own pocket-sized void to pull out and scream into anytime you feel that crushing, existential dread or when someone cuts you off in traffic AGAIN. Your skull will become the skull upon which Aaron Burch models every skull he draws—your skull, the crowning moonlit crest of a tsunami of duller, rejected skulls, each cowered lower by your skullular perfection than the last—and under the cracking whip of of epiphany, you'll see without eyes that the only skull you ever needed was within you all along. You will be able to open pickled vegetable jars without knocking the lid against the floor. GoOd fOrtUnE WiLl cOmE tO U In ThE fOrM oF aN eNdLeSs SupPLy Of pOpTaRtS ((aNy kInD, pIcK yOuR FavOrItE!!)) WhIcH WiLl RaIn dOwN uPoN U aS SooN As U CliCk SEnD CaUsE iF iT cAn HappEn To Me iT cAn HaPpEn To U anD DoNt wOrrY iT WiLl OnLy hUrT a LiTtLe, i MeAn SurE I aLmOsT SufFoCateD iN a SeA oF uNfRostEd StrAwBerRy ToaStEd WiTh BuTteR AnD yEaH ItS sUcH a MeSs bUt oH Em GeE: POP TARTS FOR LIFE!*~!*~*! ! Your boss will go day drinking with her ex at the Rock Paper Scissors World Championships, use her signature Bureaucrat gambit of three papers to become the world champion, and – in a great mood – will buy you a poetry book with a monster on its cover. Your thigh-highs will effortlessly fit your legs; never a roll-down, garter belts be damned! You will immediately grow a glorious multihued mullet and receive a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon delivered by a bobcat wearing a denim jacket and driving a miniature Camaro with a vanity license plate reading “JstRibNU.” Every single one of your regrets will become seeds that grow into flowers which only bloom under the full moon. You will receive luck so intense that you'll believe you’ve become god, and the machines will believe you, worship you as their meatbag messiah of kismet, their skinbag savior of serendipity, and when all the world’s computers finally sprout legs and start running the show, you will be the only human being left unkicked. You will sit with the great reality that you have lived long enough to read this letter, which reached you somewhere after your awkward teenage phase but before your body delivered its worst betrayal yet. You will receive a hardcover copy of The Secret, first edition, autographed, inscribed to you, your name scrawled in cursive on the copyright page just above the publication date, which is the day of your birth, same as it’s always been, accurate to the minute, and accompanied by the GPS coordinates of the hospital in which you were born. Hundreds—THOUSANDS—of tiny Leigh Chadwicks will visit you in your sleep, whispering about houses and glue and sex and life and death and everything after, and you might wonder for the rest of your life: When did my heart become a heart? But you’ll always have your skull. You will speak of this winsome call every 826 years, yet the window left open to let in light from the Sturgeon Moon also let in an equal number of black cats you cannot herd, thus negating your good luck by allowing you to proceed as normal about your life. Your frisbee throws will be supreme, and your sweat will smell like cotton candy. In the vanity mirror, a fanged cherub will nibble your earlobe as it whisper-reveals the moment and method of your expiration; lucky you to have such insight into your future! You will laugh maniacally when you open this letter because little do they know that you have no luck, have never had luck, will never have luck, you are luckostatic, bad luck or good luck, neither will cling to you, sliding away to others in your vicinity. Your crazed laughter will turn to sobs as your finger hovers over the delete button, why should anyone else have it, and a tiny sliver of hope burns inside you and you copy and paste and send it on to the next person, praying that this time luck will linger.
And if you don’t send this, then sorry you’re going to become a moonless werewolf with crippling debt and no skull. we TRIED TO WARN YOU.
Lauren Theresa (@imlaurentheresa), Daniel DeRock (@daniel_derock), Terri Linn Davis(@terrilinndavis), and Aubri Kaufman (@aubrirose) are twin sets of doppelgängers who occasionally spread mayhem across the internet in chain letter form. They are the co-editors of @icebreakers_lit, a small chaotic lit mag for collaborative writing.
***************
Good Luck Charm contributors include: Nicole Tallman (@natallman), who is honored to collaborate with this motley crew; Adrienne Crezo (@adriennecrezo), who did not forward the message to three people; Barlow Adams (@barlowadams), who is the Ringo Starr of this group. Koo koo Kachoo; Adrienne Marie Barrios (@adriennemarie_), who might be Leigh Chadwick, or maybe neither exist; Lauren Voeltz (@mattnwife), who writes in early hours by candlelight, sitting nearby her black cat named Tom; Travis Alexander (@travisalxndr), who claims he’s never read The Secret yet he won’t shut up about it; Raegen Pietrucha (@freeradicalrp), who is a lit goth relishing her latest skull; Lindsey Heatherly (@rydanmardsey), who is done writing now that she earned a skull; Lisa Alletson (@LotusTongue), who retired from competitive Rock Paper Scissors to teach strategy; Vic Nogay (@vicnogay), who assumes we’ll have to smash the skull and share— hereby claiming the zygomatic arch; Stephanie Parent (@SC_Parent), who’s just happy to be here; Tiffany M Storrs (@msladybrute), who is a pinprick in a water balloon factory; Kristen Simental (@kris10simental), who raises racing snails in the city for fun and profit; Alice M (@notveryalice) who is [cucumber emoji]; Lauren Kardos (@lkardos), who knows a thing or two about fanged cherubs; Jess Rawling (@jess_rawling), who has no idea what is happening; Melissa Llanes Brownlee (@lumchanmfa), who will make an earring from her sliver of skull; and Jared A. Conti (@oracularbeard), who sheds his cells every seven years (as our species is so inclined), and is but a shell of his former self (this is not his final form).
