Thanks again to Sam Adamson, @FutureNostalgic for being our guest judge this week. And for being so FAST getting the nominees to me. YAY!
And here they are! In no particular order:
Moses Siregar III, @MosesSiregar
Andrew, @snowppl
Here are their entries. Get to voting there on the right side of the page. Congratulations everyone!
The sweat dried on my body as I stood on the balcony smoking my last cigarette.
I never knew what lovemaking was until this very night. I always thought ‘lovemaking’ was just a nice way to say ‘fucking.’
I met him only a few weeks ago at a business meeting. There were glances and sly smiles. Then a lunch and laughter.
I hadn’t laughed for a long time.
The meeting lead to a business trip to London. And the lunches turned into dinners. Then finally to this weekend’s incident in Rome.
I take another slow drag from my cigarette and turn to see him sleeping peacefully. In our bed.
The man who taught me how to make love.
If I were single, this would be the answer to all my prayers. It’s perfection in every sense of the word. A fairytale come to life.
But life isn’t a fairytale. There are complexities and realities that should be dealt with.
Should be, but I won’t. I’m a coward that way. And probably a little bit selfish. I want this moment—this feeling– to be my last.
I take the last drag and jump.
I expected to scream on the way down. At the very least piss myself. But none of that happened.
I will tell you that my last thought was one of peace. My wife would never know I’d found true love in the arms of another man.
Moses Siregar III, @MosesSiregar
Martha Blumenfeld picked up a dusty slab of wood, being careful not to pick up any splinters in the process. It begins with one thing. Then another.
The entire apartment complex, an antique of old Detroit, lay in rubble. Shards of glass, fragments of an old dresser. Bricks that might have been a hundred years old. Keep going, old lady. You’ll find it.
It wasn’t that her husband had been buried under the heaping graveyard. It had been a long time since she enjoyed having his heavy body lay on top of her.
I’ll find it. The ring is here somewhere.
“Let us never speak of this incident again,” said Thoki climbing out of the rubble.
“I’m sorry, Thoki,” said Lor. “I didn’t know that the carpet would catch fire like that.”
“Yes, welll…” grumbled Thoki picking wood splinters out of his hair.
“Or that the fire would ignite all those cats.”
“Hrm. I thought I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Or that the cats would then try to eat all the lobsters that escaped,” added Lor, probing his memory like a tongue probing a tooth cavity.
“Well the lobsters wouldn’t have escaped if you hadn’t knocked over the hockey sticks,” sniffed Thoki.
“In my defense, I think leaning them against those hydrogen tanks was a bad go to begin with.”
“Yes, but your stupid camping magazines were taking up floorspace,” said Thoki testily.
“I like camping,” said Lor sadly.
“Well I’m not sure the plan would have worked anyway,” said Thoki kindly.
“It was a long shot that the bear was going to eat the petit fours anyway,” agreed Lor.
“Exactly. I think holding the world for ransom is going to require a lot more effort on our parts.”
“Yes. It made so much sense when we wrote it out last night.”
“Everything does at 3 am,” sighed Thoki looking around him at the devastation. “On the bright side, here’s one shopping district that won’t be seeing it’s parking lot for a while.
“I guess.”
“Now let us never speak of this incident again.”
“What incident?” asked Lor who had the memory of a stunned rabbit.
“Exactly.”
The stones and glass cutting into her knees were the least of her concerns. Sydney held her hands over her ears as if it would block out the words just spoken to her. The tears were instantaneous, they welled in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks before he finished his sentence.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, we regret to inform you of your husband’s…”
She knew as soon as she opened the door. A uniformed officer on her door step, a uniformed officer at her home, a uniformed officer-the most feared thing for the war wives to see when they look through the peephole.
Even through her sobs she could hear him, “The incident happened…” she wailed, “friendly fire…” What does that mean? she thought. “Unknown explosive.”
“Unknown?” she muttered.
“Dead,” she sighed.
It didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing mattered anymore.
The worst part was she’d lost Danny long before this moment. She’d lost him when he’d driven away without looking back. She’d lost him when the world became cloaked in fear and he felt he needed to defend his country. Even though she wanted to, even though she knew she should have, she hadn’t been able to stand behind him. He left her. He took his crooked smile and piercing blue eyes and went to war, leaving her alone.
She’d lost him then. Before the incident. Before his death.
As her emotions drained out of her onto the pavement, her tears and snot mixing with the concrete, and the uniformed officer, looking miserable for doing this for the tenth time that day, shifted uncomfortably, Sydney remembered when Danny had come home last Christmas. It wasn’t him. His eyes were empty. And the hardest part of everything, was she remembererd what he was like before. What he was like before the war turned him bitter and took the light from his eyes.
She remember his soft kisses; the way he shook her hand when they first met; the smell of his cologne. And now all she had was memories. And an incident.
Andrew, @snowppl
The incident was something we were all worried about. My mother and father especially. Grandma had gone down to the store with Dad, and somehow she managed to piss everyone off.
Dad sincerely apologized for her, but Mr. Bart did not appreciate his employees being called “Damn Lessers.” Grandma was always a bit on the touchy side. I don’t know why Dad took her to Bart’s anyways. We all knew she didn’t like the non-magic folk. I guess it was because it was on the way home from bowling.
Anyways, the incident has turned out to be more than Grandma’s bad mouth. Our whole family shops and Barts, well we used to, and now we’ve been banned for life. I guess I won’t get to her that cute boy say, “Hi Rosaline” anymore.
But that’s not where it gets bad. The village judge, Hon. Johnson, has summoned us to appear before the court. The whole family! I can’t believe it. One bad comment out of Grandma and we all have to appear before the judge. His family used to be well-respected Magickers, but now they can only do parlor tricks.
We are all being charged with the worst crime imaginable, Superioritus Magicus. Thinking we are all better because we can use magic. I know I’m not better than everyone even if they have to do manual labor and cannot harness the powers of the Universe. Of course I have no idea what we plan to do about it. I think Grandma said we’re going to do a Circle and enchant the town. Dad said that sounded brilliant. My mom was in favor of setting everyone on fire. I have to pick a side, and have to help because the punishment for this incident in Severing us from magic. I can’t lose that. We’d die, literally. I’m going to support Grandma and Dad in this one.
@RobHollywood wuz robbed!
My vote’s in. Go, TL.
But as usual, all were worthy — including some that didn’t make the final cut. Nice work, everyone.