"Mission Improbable" by Clodagh O'Brien

"Mission Improbale" by Clodagh O'Brien (2010, 3 pages)

March 1 to March 31

Clodagh O'Brien

Event Resources

Prior Posts for ISSM3

Wordlegs.com  one of the most cutting edge of Irish literary journals, is edited by Elizabeth Reapy.  They publish short fiction, poetry and a some editorial matter.  Most of the contributors are from Ireland but there is a strong international representation among their published writers.  Today I read a story by Clodagh O'Brien, Dublin, from a recent issue, "Mission Improbable",  which has one of the most shocking never saw it coming in a million years surprise endings I have ever read.   Imagine a short story produced by Saki and H.P. Lovecraft  with a bit of help from Philip Jose Farmer and you can get sort of the idea for the feel of this story

"Mission Improbable" (you can read it here and you will thank me if you do) starts out with three friends Alan, Carl, and John starting a race.  The story starts out like a cross between "The Hunger Games" and "Death Race".  The race starter tells the 1000s of runners only one of them at best has any chance of surviving to live past race day.  As the story proceeds on it then seems to be taking place on some strange nightmare alternative world where 100s of runners die at once in macabre ways. We learn the runners were created just for this race in which most if not all will die a violent death.  I love this section near the close of the story and was thinking, wow what a great science fiction/alternative world story and I was eager to see how it will close.  I want to quote enough from the story to give you a feel for the marvelous prose of Clodagh O'Brien.

"Up ahead the opening widens and a small crowd is gathered in front of two spiral tubes. One leads to the right, the other the left. Only a handful have made it to this point, and deep discussions are taking place. But time is ticking by. A quick decision steers John into the left passage, and surreptitiously the other two follow. 
It soon becomes clear why nobody else is going through. The entrance is littered with desiccated and shrunken bodies. Undeterred, they pass over the fallen corpses. Wet heat slaps their faces and breathing becomes difficult. To share the burden they move in a triangular shape with Alan leading. Purple feathered tentacles line both sides of the tunnel, which waft menacingly as they pass. Lethargic and distracted they veer off course. In an instant a furry frond reaches out and grabs Alan. He gasps and splutters in the tightening coil as the pair look on helplessly. Convulsions rack his heavy frame and he croaks “keep going” before disappearing into the furling appendage. Moisture gathers in John and Carl’s eyes as they mourn their lost comrade."
Once the trap is sprung on us I did gasp as to how well I had been fooled.  I loved it.  This is a death race from a perspective you have never seen before.

"Mission Improbable  is  totally entertaining, takes us to a world we at first think is a strange horror planet of some kind only to have the literary rug completely pulled out from under us at the close of business.  

Author Data


Clodagh O'Brien writes short stories, poetry and is working on the rickety bones of a novel. Her work has appeared in wordlegs, thefirstcut, Bare Hands Poetry, The Blue Staircase and Other Short Stories anthology, Paragram 'Connections' anthology and is forthcoming in and The Poetry Bus amongst others. A number of her short stories have been turned into podcasts which you can listen to on podcasts.ie. In 2002 she won the Daily Telegraph ‘Young Science Writer of the Year Award' Earlier this year she was longlisted for the Doire Press 2nd Annual Fiction Chapbook Competition and has also been longlisted for the 2012 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year and  Spoken Ink‘s audio story competition in 2011. After years of wandering the globe she has returned to her roots and resides in Dublin.

There are links to more of her work on her webpage.

I will for sure be reading more of the short stories of Clodagh O'Brien.  She has also kindly agreed to a Q and A Session for Irish Short Story month so look for that soon.

Mel u