Edward Davies's Blog, page 2
January 12, 2016
Short Story : Xeno(morph)phobia
Ogum Migori had been living on Earth for seven years, but he’d never really belonged. Although he was the equivalent of twenty-eight earth years in age, he had been forced to take on the guise of a school child in order to fit in, due to his limited height of four foot nine. As a result he was intellectually superior to all of those around him; even his human teachers weren’t as clever as he was.
He’d spent much of that time studying human beings. It was amazing how ignorant they were to the fact that he himself wasn’t human. In spite of being so short, and having a spherical head more than twice the size of the average human, nobody had so much as batted and eyelid. His colouring – a subtle shade of mauve – never caused any concern for any of the social workers that frequently visited the school he went to, probably for fear of insulting some ethnic minority they had no knowledge of, nor did the suspicious absence of any parents in his life, in spite of it being believed that he was fourteen years old.
Ogum sat in the playground at his school. It was the middle of winter so he was wrapped up warm in a thick coat and woolly hat. He’d been contemplating upon writing his report for the past five years, from his time living on the streets to his current experiences at school. He wished he could have spent more time as an adult, but he didn’t want to spend any time pretending to be a dwarf when he knew what a rough time they had. He had five minutes left before his craft automatically picked him up, and then he’d have all the time imaginable to write his report.
As he looked around the playground one last time, he heard a humming overhead. He looked up, but could see nothing – the craft was shielded from view with the use of a cloaking device not unlike that used in the fictional television series, Star Trek. He’d had some laughs watching that one, though strangely some of the futuristic technologies utilised in the show were actual realities on his home world.
Home.
He smiled as he thought about life back on his home world. The girlfriend he’d left behind who promised to stay faithful to him; his best friend who promised not to let his parents sell his collection of sequential art booklets – what humans called comic books. And his parents, of course, who promised to keep the payments on his domicile up to date in preparation for his return home.
Everything was going to be wonderful.
As he looked up into the empty sky, he felt a humming sensation coursing through his body as he dematerialised and was transported onto the invisible craft. He quietly clambered into a stasis pod on board the unmanned vessel and lay down, allowing the automatic systems close the doors around him as he prepared for his long journey home.
It only felt like a matter of seconds before the pod reopened and released him. He stood up and headed for the doors to the vessel, activating he cargo bay door sequence and stepping out of the vessel. A large number of his peers were stood around the vessel, applauding as he stepped into the light. He couldn’t help noticing their odd expressions when they saw him, standing upright. His people tended to slouch and slump over when they walked, but he’d practiced standing upright for so long while mascarading as a human that he was finding it hard to break the habit.
“Welcome home, Migori,” a taller than average mauve man forced a smile through a thick violet moustache, “we look forward to hearing your report.”
“Thank you sir,” Ogum smiled weakly, having forgotten how strange it would be to be surrounded by his own kind again, “I shall get to work on finalising it immediately.”
“No rush, soldier,” the moustachioed man, whose name was Khi Fefrum, assured him, trying not to stare at Ogum’s odd appearance, “you go see your family first.”
Ogum saluted, an action which caused much talk amongst his peers, before heading through the crowd to the main building that his vessel had landed by. He headed to his office and collected some of his things. On his desk there was a photo of him and his girlfriend, Dhufra Zhou, their arms wrapped around each other as the mugged for the camera. He smiled.
He couldn’t wait to see her.
Collecting a few personal possessions together into a bag, including his house and car keys, he headed down to long term parking to pick up his car. After a long wait for the parking attendant to collect it, he drove back to his domicile in the city.
The building was dark when he approached, but then it was early evening and many people were probably not home from work yet. He climbed the stairs to his apartment and slipped the key into the lock.
It didn’t work.
Puzzled, Ogum checked the key ring to make sure it was the correct key. Realising it was, he tried again.
Still no luck.
Eventually he pounded on the door, hoping his mum or his dad might have come round to welcome him home. After a short wait, the door opened. Ogum stared at the stranger in the doorway.
“Who are you?” Ogum asked.
The stranger looked him up and down, “This is my home, I should be asking you the questions,” the stranger said, “What do you want? And why are you standing like that?”
“There must be some mistake,” Ogum smiled nervously, “this is my apartment.”
“I don’t see how it can be your apartment, you upright weirdo,” the stranger argued, “I’ve been living her for more than three years. Now push off.”
Ogum stepped backwards as the door was rudely closed in his face. He frowned, then made the decision to go to his parents house to find out what was going on.
He arrived at his parents’ home less than twenty minutes later, knocking on the front door. His mother answered, and when she saw him her eyes widened with something that looked to Ogum a lot like guilt.
“Ogum,” she said, “you’re... you’re home.”
“Yes, I’m home,” Ogum confirmed, “but the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t get into my apartment.”
Ogum’s father joined his mother in the doorway, “That’s because it isn’t your apartment anymore,” he confirmed, “we couldn’t afford the repayments once you’d gone. After a year or two we just had to cancel the lease.”
“But what about my things?” Ogum asked, “All of my belongings were in there.”
“Dhufra collected them,” his father said, “she said she’d look after them until you returned.”
“Then maybe I should go and talk to her,” Ogum said angrily, “seeing as I clearly can’t rely on either of you.”
As Ogum marched down the driveway, his mother called out, “There’s something you should know...”
“He’ll figure it out for himself,” his father said, and Ogum, having not heard his mother, climbed into his car and headed to his girlfriend Dhufra’s house.
“Do you think he’s okay?” his mother asked his father, “He was standing so stiffly, and those clothes he was wearing, like some kind of cultists.”
“I hope so,” his father replied, “you know how people so dislike change. We’re not used to such differences in our people.”
Parking outside Dhufra’s house, Ogum walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. The place looked pleasantly familiar, and he smiled as he thought about all the good times he and Dhufra had enjoyed together under that roof. Maybe losing his apartment was for the best; he’d always wanted to move in with Dhufra, but she’d been hesitant about the whole thing. As he thought about his past, he knocked on the door again, still waiting for a response.
Dhufra opened the door, hunched over in a dressing gown and very little else, “Ogum!” she said, looking startled up at him, “What are you doing here?”
“Wel,, that’s a fine welcome,” Ogum smirked, “my parents said you’d taken care of my possessions, so I thought I’d come over and say hi.”
He leaned in to kiss Dhufra, but she moved away as he did so. He stopped, looking at her expression, then looked over her shoulder. There, walking on his hands and feet out of the bedroom with not a stitch on, was his best friend Giabro Auxis.
“What’s going on here?” Ogum asked, “what’s Giabro doing here?”
“Well, you were gone for so long,” Dhufra tried to explain, “and we didn’t know when you were coming back--”
“Yes, you did,” Ogum argued, “today! I was due back today! It was always planned that I would be returning today!”
“Calm down, buddy,” Giabro said, swaggering to the front door and putting his arm around Dhufra, “women have needs, you know. And five years is a long time.”
“But you promised you’d wait for me,” Ogum sniffed, “you promised.”
“I’m sorry, Ogum,” Dhufra apologised, “truly, I am.”
“What about my stuff?” Ogum asked, “Can I at least get my things back?”
“Sorry, bud,” Giabro shrugged, “we had to get rid of it all when I moved in. I hope you understand.”
“Understand?” Ogum growled, “Of course I don’t understand. What can you possibly see in him?”
Dhufra slumped noticeably, “Well, have you seen the way you’re carrying yourself?” she asked, “All upright like that with your shoulder thrown back. What woman would ever find that kind of posture attractive?”
“It’s how the humans stand,” Ogum explained, “I had to get used to it while I was there.”
“And what about that thing on your head?” Giabro added, “What is that anyway? Who wears knitted material on their heads?”
“It’s a hat,” Ogum explained, “it keeps your head warm.”
“What kind of self respecting person has a cold head?” Dhufra chuckled.
“And that coat?” Diabro asked, “Why’s it so... so... puffy? Coat’s should be form fitting, not puffy.”
“Just forget it,” Ogum sobbed, “just... just leave me alone.”
“Not a problem,” Diabro smirked, closing the door on his former best friend.
Ogum stood on the doorstep, wiping his puffy sleeve over his nose and eyes. Maybe they were right; maybe too much time had passed. Maybe he’d changed too much.
Saddened, he climbed back into his car and drove to a local bar.
He walked up to the bar tender and asked for a whisky.
“Whisky?” the bar tender looked confused, “You ain’t from round here, are you partner?”
“I am,” Ogum sighed, “I’ve just been away for a while.”
“Well, maybe you should get with the program and start acting more like a local,” the bar tender advised, “we don’t like people acting all weird and foreign around these parts.”
Ogum couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Since his time on Earth he’d experienced all sorts of xenophobic reactions to different nationalities, both on the news and in real life. Humans treating other humans differently because of cultural differences in spite of being members of the same race – the human race. Now, on his home world, he was starting to see that people weren’t all that different. His fellow aliens – he still thought of his own kind as aliens after so much time spent with humans – had never been faced with cultural differences. Every one of his kind was the same colour, roughly the same height, and had the same general appearance. There were no mutations, no nationalities, no reason to hate their own kind.
But now Ogum had returned, and with him had come human traits that his own kind didn’t understand. Simply his different clothing had been enough for his best friends to turn on him, and his different way of standing had led to him being shunned by the bar tender. Ogum decided to leave the bar and head to his parents. Maybe he could stay in his old room until he got on his feet again.
As he walked to his car, Ogum heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see three hunched over youths, brandishing weapons, approaching him.
“What do you want?” Ogum asked, terrified, “Here, take my car keys. You can have the car!”
“We don’t want your car,” the first youth chuckled.
“We don’t like it when people act different round here,” the second youth said as he approached Ogum, swinging an iron bar above his head, “we want you to leave.”
“Leave?” Ogum repeated, “What, leave town?”
“Leave the planet,” the second youth sneered, “we don’t want your kind round here.”
“But I can’t just leave the planet,” Ogum wept, “there aren’t any scheduled flights off planet that I could possibly take.”
“Then you better leave the old fashioned way,” the third youth said as the second youth connected the iron bar with Ogum’s head. Ogum fell sideways, his woolly hat falling to the street, coated in blood. His vision blurred as his head wound dripped into his eyes, and the iron bar connected with his jaw. He tried to pick himself up from the ground, but all three youths started kicking him, hitting, knocking him back down before he could even get up. As he felt consciousness drifting away, his very life’s blood flowing out of him on the streets he’d once called home, a final thought swum around in his head.
How can they do this to their own kind? He was just like them, but those slight differences since he’d been on Earth meant only one thing here.
His death.
Originally Posted 12/1/2016
Result - Didn't Place
He’d spent much of that time studying human beings. It was amazing how ignorant they were to the fact that he himself wasn’t human. In spite of being so short, and having a spherical head more than twice the size of the average human, nobody had so much as batted and eyelid. His colouring – a subtle shade of mauve – never caused any concern for any of the social workers that frequently visited the school he went to, probably for fear of insulting some ethnic minority they had no knowledge of, nor did the suspicious absence of any parents in his life, in spite of it being believed that he was fourteen years old.
Ogum sat in the playground at his school. It was the middle of winter so he was wrapped up warm in a thick coat and woolly hat. He’d been contemplating upon writing his report for the past five years, from his time living on the streets to his current experiences at school. He wished he could have spent more time as an adult, but he didn’t want to spend any time pretending to be a dwarf when he knew what a rough time they had. He had five minutes left before his craft automatically picked him up, and then he’d have all the time imaginable to write his report.
As he looked around the playground one last time, he heard a humming overhead. He looked up, but could see nothing – the craft was shielded from view with the use of a cloaking device not unlike that used in the fictional television series, Star Trek. He’d had some laughs watching that one, though strangely some of the futuristic technologies utilised in the show were actual realities on his home world.
Home.
He smiled as he thought about life back on his home world. The girlfriend he’d left behind who promised to stay faithful to him; his best friend who promised not to let his parents sell his collection of sequential art booklets – what humans called comic books. And his parents, of course, who promised to keep the payments on his domicile up to date in preparation for his return home.
Everything was going to be wonderful.
As he looked up into the empty sky, he felt a humming sensation coursing through his body as he dematerialised and was transported onto the invisible craft. He quietly clambered into a stasis pod on board the unmanned vessel and lay down, allowing the automatic systems close the doors around him as he prepared for his long journey home.
It only felt like a matter of seconds before the pod reopened and released him. He stood up and headed for the doors to the vessel, activating he cargo bay door sequence and stepping out of the vessel. A large number of his peers were stood around the vessel, applauding as he stepped into the light. He couldn’t help noticing their odd expressions when they saw him, standing upright. His people tended to slouch and slump over when they walked, but he’d practiced standing upright for so long while mascarading as a human that he was finding it hard to break the habit.
“Welcome home, Migori,” a taller than average mauve man forced a smile through a thick violet moustache, “we look forward to hearing your report.”
“Thank you sir,” Ogum smiled weakly, having forgotten how strange it would be to be surrounded by his own kind again, “I shall get to work on finalising it immediately.”
“No rush, soldier,” the moustachioed man, whose name was Khi Fefrum, assured him, trying not to stare at Ogum’s odd appearance, “you go see your family first.”
Ogum saluted, an action which caused much talk amongst his peers, before heading through the crowd to the main building that his vessel had landed by. He headed to his office and collected some of his things. On his desk there was a photo of him and his girlfriend, Dhufra Zhou, their arms wrapped around each other as the mugged for the camera. He smiled.
He couldn’t wait to see her.
Collecting a few personal possessions together into a bag, including his house and car keys, he headed down to long term parking to pick up his car. After a long wait for the parking attendant to collect it, he drove back to his domicile in the city.
The building was dark when he approached, but then it was early evening and many people were probably not home from work yet. He climbed the stairs to his apartment and slipped the key into the lock.
It didn’t work.
Puzzled, Ogum checked the key ring to make sure it was the correct key. Realising it was, he tried again.
Still no luck.
Eventually he pounded on the door, hoping his mum or his dad might have come round to welcome him home. After a short wait, the door opened. Ogum stared at the stranger in the doorway.
“Who are you?” Ogum asked.
The stranger looked him up and down, “This is my home, I should be asking you the questions,” the stranger said, “What do you want? And why are you standing like that?”
“There must be some mistake,” Ogum smiled nervously, “this is my apartment.”
“I don’t see how it can be your apartment, you upright weirdo,” the stranger argued, “I’ve been living her for more than three years. Now push off.”
Ogum stepped backwards as the door was rudely closed in his face. He frowned, then made the decision to go to his parents house to find out what was going on.
He arrived at his parents’ home less than twenty minutes later, knocking on the front door. His mother answered, and when she saw him her eyes widened with something that looked to Ogum a lot like guilt.
“Ogum,” she said, “you’re... you’re home.”
“Yes, I’m home,” Ogum confirmed, “but the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t get into my apartment.”
Ogum’s father joined his mother in the doorway, “That’s because it isn’t your apartment anymore,” he confirmed, “we couldn’t afford the repayments once you’d gone. After a year or two we just had to cancel the lease.”
“But what about my things?” Ogum asked, “All of my belongings were in there.”
“Dhufra collected them,” his father said, “she said she’d look after them until you returned.”
“Then maybe I should go and talk to her,” Ogum said angrily, “seeing as I clearly can’t rely on either of you.”
As Ogum marched down the driveway, his mother called out, “There’s something you should know...”
“He’ll figure it out for himself,” his father said, and Ogum, having not heard his mother, climbed into his car and headed to his girlfriend Dhufra’s house.
“Do you think he’s okay?” his mother asked his father, “He was standing so stiffly, and those clothes he was wearing, like some kind of cultists.”
“I hope so,” his father replied, “you know how people so dislike change. We’re not used to such differences in our people.”
Parking outside Dhufra’s house, Ogum walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. The place looked pleasantly familiar, and he smiled as he thought about all the good times he and Dhufra had enjoyed together under that roof. Maybe losing his apartment was for the best; he’d always wanted to move in with Dhufra, but she’d been hesitant about the whole thing. As he thought about his past, he knocked on the door again, still waiting for a response.
Dhufra opened the door, hunched over in a dressing gown and very little else, “Ogum!” she said, looking startled up at him, “What are you doing here?”
“Wel,, that’s a fine welcome,” Ogum smirked, “my parents said you’d taken care of my possessions, so I thought I’d come over and say hi.”
He leaned in to kiss Dhufra, but she moved away as he did so. He stopped, looking at her expression, then looked over her shoulder. There, walking on his hands and feet out of the bedroom with not a stitch on, was his best friend Giabro Auxis.
“What’s going on here?” Ogum asked, “what’s Giabro doing here?”
“Well, you were gone for so long,” Dhufra tried to explain, “and we didn’t know when you were coming back--”
“Yes, you did,” Ogum argued, “today! I was due back today! It was always planned that I would be returning today!”
“Calm down, buddy,” Giabro said, swaggering to the front door and putting his arm around Dhufra, “women have needs, you know. And five years is a long time.”
“But you promised you’d wait for me,” Ogum sniffed, “you promised.”
“I’m sorry, Ogum,” Dhufra apologised, “truly, I am.”
“What about my stuff?” Ogum asked, “Can I at least get my things back?”
“Sorry, bud,” Giabro shrugged, “we had to get rid of it all when I moved in. I hope you understand.”
“Understand?” Ogum growled, “Of course I don’t understand. What can you possibly see in him?”
Dhufra slumped noticeably, “Well, have you seen the way you’re carrying yourself?” she asked, “All upright like that with your shoulder thrown back. What woman would ever find that kind of posture attractive?”
“It’s how the humans stand,” Ogum explained, “I had to get used to it while I was there.”
“And what about that thing on your head?” Giabro added, “What is that anyway? Who wears knitted material on their heads?”
“It’s a hat,” Ogum explained, “it keeps your head warm.”
“What kind of self respecting person has a cold head?” Dhufra chuckled.
“And that coat?” Diabro asked, “Why’s it so... so... puffy? Coat’s should be form fitting, not puffy.”
“Just forget it,” Ogum sobbed, “just... just leave me alone.”
“Not a problem,” Diabro smirked, closing the door on his former best friend.
Ogum stood on the doorstep, wiping his puffy sleeve over his nose and eyes. Maybe they were right; maybe too much time had passed. Maybe he’d changed too much.
Saddened, he climbed back into his car and drove to a local bar.
He walked up to the bar tender and asked for a whisky.
“Whisky?” the bar tender looked confused, “You ain’t from round here, are you partner?”
“I am,” Ogum sighed, “I’ve just been away for a while.”
“Well, maybe you should get with the program and start acting more like a local,” the bar tender advised, “we don’t like people acting all weird and foreign around these parts.”
Ogum couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Since his time on Earth he’d experienced all sorts of xenophobic reactions to different nationalities, both on the news and in real life. Humans treating other humans differently because of cultural differences in spite of being members of the same race – the human race. Now, on his home world, he was starting to see that people weren’t all that different. His fellow aliens – he still thought of his own kind as aliens after so much time spent with humans – had never been faced with cultural differences. Every one of his kind was the same colour, roughly the same height, and had the same general appearance. There were no mutations, no nationalities, no reason to hate their own kind.
But now Ogum had returned, and with him had come human traits that his own kind didn’t understand. Simply his different clothing had been enough for his best friends to turn on him, and his different way of standing had led to him being shunned by the bar tender. Ogum decided to leave the bar and head to his parents. Maybe he could stay in his old room until he got on his feet again.
As he walked to his car, Ogum heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see three hunched over youths, brandishing weapons, approaching him.
“What do you want?” Ogum asked, terrified, “Here, take my car keys. You can have the car!”
“We don’t want your car,” the first youth chuckled.
“We don’t like it when people act different round here,” the second youth said as he approached Ogum, swinging an iron bar above his head, “we want you to leave.”
“Leave?” Ogum repeated, “What, leave town?”
“Leave the planet,” the second youth sneered, “we don’t want your kind round here.”
“But I can’t just leave the planet,” Ogum wept, “there aren’t any scheduled flights off planet that I could possibly take.”
“Then you better leave the old fashioned way,” the third youth said as the second youth connected the iron bar with Ogum’s head. Ogum fell sideways, his woolly hat falling to the street, coated in blood. His vision blurred as his head wound dripped into his eyes, and the iron bar connected with his jaw. He tried to pick himself up from the ground, but all three youths started kicking him, hitting, knocking him back down before he could even get up. As he felt consciousness drifting away, his very life’s blood flowing out of him on the streets he’d once called home, a final thought swum around in his head.
How can they do this to their own kind? He was just like them, but those slight differences since he’d been on Earth meant only one thing here.
His death.
Originally Posted 12/1/2016
Result - Didn't Place
January 11, 2016
Poem : Coming Home
Home is where the heart
Home is where we lie
Home is where we live our lives
Home is where we die
Home is what we call the place
From where we issue from
Home is where our loved ones live
Home’s where we belong
Home is not a puzzle box
Home is not a question
Home is just a state of mind
Home is a suggestion
Home is what you make of it
A prairie or a prison
Home is where your thoughts come from
Where all ideas are risen
Home is where desires form
Home is life’s direction
Home is where we first rebel
(A toddler insurrection)
Home is where we return to,
From where we rarely roam,
Home is that place that we love
There is no place like home
Originally Posted 11/1/2016
Result - Joint 2nd Place
Home is where we lie
Home is where we live our lives
Home is where we die
Home is what we call the place
From where we issue from
Home is where our loved ones live
Home’s where we belong
Home is not a puzzle box
Home is not a question
Home is just a state of mind
Home is a suggestion
Home is what you make of it
A prairie or a prison
Home is where your thoughts come from
Where all ideas are risen
Home is where desires form
Home is life’s direction
Home is where we first rebel
(A toddler insurrection)
Home is where we return to,
From where we rarely roam,
Home is that place that we love
There is no place like home
Originally Posted 11/1/2016
Result - Joint 2nd Place
January 5, 2016
Short Story : Zero Sum
Game developer Gary Applebaum stared at the screen in front of him, watching the words “Would You Like To Play Again” as they blinked on the monitor, prompting him to either select yes or no. He’d been creating old school computer games for almost a decade now, creating brand new games that appeared to be classic simply because of their graphics and the type of game play they involved. He’d won awards for his classic arcade games for their originality, which always made him smile as he contemplated the fact that the games he’d created were about as original as Arianna Grande’s nose.
As he sat back in his chair, he looked at the screen. The game was good – sort of like Super Mario but with marginally better graphics – and you had to guide your character through the levels and save his two friends from certain death. The problem was, he’d made the game too difficult.
Even he couldn’t figure out how to program the game to allow him to rescue both of them.
Something had gone wrong with the programming which led to the unfair problem that once he’d rescued one character, the other one would die. No matter which way he went about it he couldn’t rescue them both. It was very frustrating.
“I give up,” Gary mumbled to himself, kicking the table on which his Apple Mac stood, then pushed out from his chair and got to his feet. Maybe if he slept on the problem he’d think of a solution, but sitting there staring at a blinking screen was not going to help him much.
As he left his office and flicked off the lights, he didn’t notice his Mac’s monitor flicker back into life as the machine started to spark and fizz dangerously.
The next morning, after a restless night spent thinking about how he could fix his game, Gary awoke to the sound of a klaxon-like alarm. He reached out to switch off his alarm clock before he realised he didn’t have one. Sitting bolt upright in his bed, Gary looked around his room, finally resting his eyes on the curtained window through which he could see a strange flickering orange light. Still half asleep, Gary threw his legs over the side of the bed and walked slowly towards the window.
Upon pulling back the curtains, Gary was faced with a terrible sight. Flames appeared to be everyone, as far as the eye could see. That’s when he realised that his girlfriend, Betty, hadn’t been in bed when he’d woken up.
Where could she be?
As he pondered this, his telephone rang. Still not sure what to make of the situation, and slightly in shock, Gary reached out and answered it.
“Hello?” he said absently.
“Gary?” a voice spoke, “Gary, it’s me, Tony!”
Gary gasped at the fear he heard in his best friend’s voice, “Tony? Are you okay?”
“No,” Tony replied, “I’m being held captive by some sort of...creatures. I don’t know what they are, but I’m scared, Gary. I’m scared. They’ve got me in the warehouse at the end of the street. Hurry!”
“Have you contacted the police?” Gary asked. He wasn’t convinced that Tony was being held captive by anything that could honestly be described as creatures – maybe just some very unattractive people – but he knew he was in some sort of trouble.
“They only let me contact you.” Tony sniffed. It sounded like he was crying, “They said only you could save me.”
Gary grimaced at the phone’s handset. What on earth was going on? It almost sounded like some sort of...
“Game!” Gary concluded, “This is all just a game.”
“Don’t worry, Tony,” Gary smiled, “I’ll find you.”
Gary hung up the phone and smiled to himself. Either this was a vivid dream, or it was the opportunity for some real life role playing game. Either way, it sounded like fun.
Gary raced out of his flat, having forgotten all about his absent girlfriend, and headed in the direction of the warehouse. As he approached, he realised that this was where the flames originated, and they’d spread down most of the street.
“This must be a dream,” he told himself. “no-one could make fake flames look so realistic. And no-one would just set fire to a street for some game.”
As he approached the warehouse, a giant squid appeared as if from nowhere. It looked remarkably like the one he’d designed for his own game, only much more realistic looking.
“What the hell?” Gary’s mouth gaped open as the squid spun in the air in front of him, it’s tentacles whipping out in all directions. Gary ducked and dove to escape the squid, finally finding refuge behind an abandoned car. As he looked around for some sort of weapon to use against the squid he found what looked like a nerf gun, fully loaded with sponges, lying under beside the rear tyre of the car. He shrugged, picking it up and aiming it at the squid. As he fired, the squid’s movements became more erratic until it exploded into a million pixels.
“Well, that was easy enough,” Gary grinned, lowering the nerf gun to his side and racing towards the open doors of the warehouse.
Inside the warehouse, Gary saw his friend Tony, tied up and standing on a shaky platform above a flaming pit, but on the other side of the warehouse he could see his girlfriend Betty in a similar situation.
“What the...” Gary began, before a strange creature suddenly appeared in the room and walked towards him.
“You must choose who you wish to save.” The creature said loudly, “Choose – and accept your decision.”
Gary looked at Betty, then at Tony, trying to choose who to rescue first. The obvious choice was Betty, his girlfriend, but perhaps rescuing Tony would give him someone else who could fight off the creatures that were slowly appearing in the warehouse doorway. Betty was pretty useless when it came to physical violence, but she was his girlfriend...
Finally making a decision, Gary raced across the warehouse towards Betty, hoping that his time pausing to think hadn’t made him too late to save her. If this wasn’t a game, he had to move quickly.
When he reached Betty, he saw she was unconscious, he head lolling down to her chest as she hung by her wrists above another shaky platform. He clambered onto the platform and started to untie her wrists, preparing himself to take her weight by propping her free arm over his shoulder. Once he’d untied her second wrist, Betty slumped onto Gary’s shoulder and he carefully clambered down from the platform.
Looking towards the doors to the warehouse, he saw the unspeakable creatures had been heading towards Tony, who was screaming with fear. As Gary watched, the creatures swarmed over his friend, tearing into him as his screams disappeared into a gurgle of blood. Gary’s eyes widened as the building around him warped and vanished from sight...
Gary’s eyes snapped open – he was back in his bedroom, a klaxon sound ringing throughout the room. Before he could get to his window to see the devastation of the street, his phone began to ring. It was Tony again. The game, if that’s what it was, had started over.
“I’m being held captive by some sort of...creatures. I don’t know what they are, but I’m scared, Gary. I’m scared. They’ve got me in the warehouse at the end of the street. Hurry!”
Gary stared at the handset. That was word for word what Tony had said before. Was he in fact in a game? Had it reset back to the beginning? This was one weird dream.
“Just hold on,” Gary told Tony, “I’ll save both of you this time.”
Gary ran down to the street and, reaching the warehouse, he headed straight for the car that had been hiding the nerf gun. As he picked it up, the giant squid appeared again, and Gary quickly shot him until he disappeared.
The warehouse was just as he’d found it previously, with Tony and Betty hanging by their wrists above shaky platforms. Gary didn’t wait for the creature to appear before heading straight for Tony. Maybe if he rescued Tony, the two of them would be quick enough to rescue Betty as well.
“Gary!” Tony shouted as his friend leapt onto the platform and started to undo the restraints on his wrists, “You made it.”
“Yes,” Gary said blandly, “and this time I’m going to save you both.”
“This time?” Tony repeated as a strange creature appeared before them.
“You must choose who you wish to save.” The creature said loudly, “Choose – and accept your decision.”
“I already have chosen, you idiot,” Gary grumbled as Tony’s second wrist came loose. The two of them jumped down from the platform and began to run towards Betty, but the hoards of creatures that had been coming through the doors had already reached her and silently they started to devour her.
“What are they?” Tony asked, near tears, “What’s going on?”
Gary was about to tell him he had no idea when everything around him vanished again and he was back in his bedroom.
This time Gary calmly clambered out of the bed, walking straight towards the phone as the klaxon rang. As the phone began to ring, Gary swiftly lifted the receiver then hung it straight back up before leaving his flat.
He walked to the warehouse, heading for the car with the nerf gun and making quick work of the materialising squid before walking through the warehouse doors.
Where he waited.
The creature appeared and looked at Gary, “You must choose who you wish to save. Choose – and accept—”
“Blah blah blah,” Gary said in a cocky tone, “So, how do I win the game?”
The creature stared at him, “Sorry?”
“How do I win?”
The creature paused, not quite sure what to say, then spoke.
“You don’t.”
Gary should have looked stunned, but he didn’t, “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well,” the creature began, “if you save Betty, then Tony gets eaten, but if you save Tony then Betty gets eaten.”
“I see,” Gary nodded, “so if I save one person, the other one dies?”
“Correct,” said the creature.
“huh,” Gary said calmly, “it’s something of a zero sum situation, isn’t it? Whatever I gain, I lose just as equally.”
“You could say that,” said the creature.
“Then I might as well lose spectacularly,” Gary smiled, pointing the nerf gun at his chin.
The creature stared, “That won’t kill you,” it said, “it’s just a nerf gun.”
“But this is my game,” Gary said, “and I play it by my rules.”
He pulled the trigger, and the game ended.
He woke to find himself back in his flat, Betty asleep next to him. He smiled, rolling over and going back to sleep.
The next day when he arrived at the office, he found his Mac fizzing silently in the corner of his office. His friend Tony was stood next to it with a fire extinguisher.
“We came in this morning and found it like this,” he said, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything from the disks. Did you have backups?”
“No,” said Gary calmly, “but it doesn’t matter. I think someone... or something... was trying to tell me that the game wasn’t going to work out anyway.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Tony asked.
Gary shrugged, “I guess I’ll just have to start over, won’t I?”
Originally Posted 5/1/2016
Result - 1st Place
As he sat back in his chair, he looked at the screen. The game was good – sort of like Super Mario but with marginally better graphics – and you had to guide your character through the levels and save his two friends from certain death. The problem was, he’d made the game too difficult.
Even he couldn’t figure out how to program the game to allow him to rescue both of them.
Something had gone wrong with the programming which led to the unfair problem that once he’d rescued one character, the other one would die. No matter which way he went about it he couldn’t rescue them both. It was very frustrating.
“I give up,” Gary mumbled to himself, kicking the table on which his Apple Mac stood, then pushed out from his chair and got to his feet. Maybe if he slept on the problem he’d think of a solution, but sitting there staring at a blinking screen was not going to help him much.
As he left his office and flicked off the lights, he didn’t notice his Mac’s monitor flicker back into life as the machine started to spark and fizz dangerously.
The next morning, after a restless night spent thinking about how he could fix his game, Gary awoke to the sound of a klaxon-like alarm. He reached out to switch off his alarm clock before he realised he didn’t have one. Sitting bolt upright in his bed, Gary looked around his room, finally resting his eyes on the curtained window through which he could see a strange flickering orange light. Still half asleep, Gary threw his legs over the side of the bed and walked slowly towards the window.
Upon pulling back the curtains, Gary was faced with a terrible sight. Flames appeared to be everyone, as far as the eye could see. That’s when he realised that his girlfriend, Betty, hadn’t been in bed when he’d woken up.
Where could she be?
As he pondered this, his telephone rang. Still not sure what to make of the situation, and slightly in shock, Gary reached out and answered it.
“Hello?” he said absently.
“Gary?” a voice spoke, “Gary, it’s me, Tony!”
Gary gasped at the fear he heard in his best friend’s voice, “Tony? Are you okay?”
“No,” Tony replied, “I’m being held captive by some sort of...creatures. I don’t know what they are, but I’m scared, Gary. I’m scared. They’ve got me in the warehouse at the end of the street. Hurry!”
“Have you contacted the police?” Gary asked. He wasn’t convinced that Tony was being held captive by anything that could honestly be described as creatures – maybe just some very unattractive people – but he knew he was in some sort of trouble.
“They only let me contact you.” Tony sniffed. It sounded like he was crying, “They said only you could save me.”
Gary grimaced at the phone’s handset. What on earth was going on? It almost sounded like some sort of...
“Game!” Gary concluded, “This is all just a game.”
“Don’t worry, Tony,” Gary smiled, “I’ll find you.”
Gary hung up the phone and smiled to himself. Either this was a vivid dream, or it was the opportunity for some real life role playing game. Either way, it sounded like fun.
Gary raced out of his flat, having forgotten all about his absent girlfriend, and headed in the direction of the warehouse. As he approached, he realised that this was where the flames originated, and they’d spread down most of the street.
“This must be a dream,” he told himself. “no-one could make fake flames look so realistic. And no-one would just set fire to a street for some game.”
As he approached the warehouse, a giant squid appeared as if from nowhere. It looked remarkably like the one he’d designed for his own game, only much more realistic looking.
“What the hell?” Gary’s mouth gaped open as the squid spun in the air in front of him, it’s tentacles whipping out in all directions. Gary ducked and dove to escape the squid, finally finding refuge behind an abandoned car. As he looked around for some sort of weapon to use against the squid he found what looked like a nerf gun, fully loaded with sponges, lying under beside the rear tyre of the car. He shrugged, picking it up and aiming it at the squid. As he fired, the squid’s movements became more erratic until it exploded into a million pixels.
“Well, that was easy enough,” Gary grinned, lowering the nerf gun to his side and racing towards the open doors of the warehouse.
Inside the warehouse, Gary saw his friend Tony, tied up and standing on a shaky platform above a flaming pit, but on the other side of the warehouse he could see his girlfriend Betty in a similar situation.
“What the...” Gary began, before a strange creature suddenly appeared in the room and walked towards him.
“You must choose who you wish to save.” The creature said loudly, “Choose – and accept your decision.”
Gary looked at Betty, then at Tony, trying to choose who to rescue first. The obvious choice was Betty, his girlfriend, but perhaps rescuing Tony would give him someone else who could fight off the creatures that were slowly appearing in the warehouse doorway. Betty was pretty useless when it came to physical violence, but she was his girlfriend...
Finally making a decision, Gary raced across the warehouse towards Betty, hoping that his time pausing to think hadn’t made him too late to save her. If this wasn’t a game, he had to move quickly.
When he reached Betty, he saw she was unconscious, he head lolling down to her chest as she hung by her wrists above another shaky platform. He clambered onto the platform and started to untie her wrists, preparing himself to take her weight by propping her free arm over his shoulder. Once he’d untied her second wrist, Betty slumped onto Gary’s shoulder and he carefully clambered down from the platform.
Looking towards the doors to the warehouse, he saw the unspeakable creatures had been heading towards Tony, who was screaming with fear. As Gary watched, the creatures swarmed over his friend, tearing into him as his screams disappeared into a gurgle of blood. Gary’s eyes widened as the building around him warped and vanished from sight...
Gary’s eyes snapped open – he was back in his bedroom, a klaxon sound ringing throughout the room. Before he could get to his window to see the devastation of the street, his phone began to ring. It was Tony again. The game, if that’s what it was, had started over.
“I’m being held captive by some sort of...creatures. I don’t know what they are, but I’m scared, Gary. I’m scared. They’ve got me in the warehouse at the end of the street. Hurry!”
Gary stared at the handset. That was word for word what Tony had said before. Was he in fact in a game? Had it reset back to the beginning? This was one weird dream.
“Just hold on,” Gary told Tony, “I’ll save both of you this time.”
Gary ran down to the street and, reaching the warehouse, he headed straight for the car that had been hiding the nerf gun. As he picked it up, the giant squid appeared again, and Gary quickly shot him until he disappeared.
The warehouse was just as he’d found it previously, with Tony and Betty hanging by their wrists above shaky platforms. Gary didn’t wait for the creature to appear before heading straight for Tony. Maybe if he rescued Tony, the two of them would be quick enough to rescue Betty as well.
“Gary!” Tony shouted as his friend leapt onto the platform and started to undo the restraints on his wrists, “You made it.”
“Yes,” Gary said blandly, “and this time I’m going to save you both.”
“This time?” Tony repeated as a strange creature appeared before them.
“You must choose who you wish to save.” The creature said loudly, “Choose – and accept your decision.”
“I already have chosen, you idiot,” Gary grumbled as Tony’s second wrist came loose. The two of them jumped down from the platform and began to run towards Betty, but the hoards of creatures that had been coming through the doors had already reached her and silently they started to devour her.
“What are they?” Tony asked, near tears, “What’s going on?”
Gary was about to tell him he had no idea when everything around him vanished again and he was back in his bedroom.
This time Gary calmly clambered out of the bed, walking straight towards the phone as the klaxon rang. As the phone began to ring, Gary swiftly lifted the receiver then hung it straight back up before leaving his flat.
He walked to the warehouse, heading for the car with the nerf gun and making quick work of the materialising squid before walking through the warehouse doors.
Where he waited.
The creature appeared and looked at Gary, “You must choose who you wish to save. Choose – and accept—”
“Blah blah blah,” Gary said in a cocky tone, “So, how do I win the game?”
The creature stared at him, “Sorry?”
“How do I win?”
The creature paused, not quite sure what to say, then spoke.
“You don’t.”
Gary should have looked stunned, but he didn’t, “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well,” the creature began, “if you save Betty, then Tony gets eaten, but if you save Tony then Betty gets eaten.”
“I see,” Gary nodded, “so if I save one person, the other one dies?”
“Correct,” said the creature.
“huh,” Gary said calmly, “it’s something of a zero sum situation, isn’t it? Whatever I gain, I lose just as equally.”
“You could say that,” said the creature.
“Then I might as well lose spectacularly,” Gary smiled, pointing the nerf gun at his chin.
The creature stared, “That won’t kill you,” it said, “it’s just a nerf gun.”
“But this is my game,” Gary said, “and I play it by my rules.”
He pulled the trigger, and the game ended.
He woke to find himself back in his flat, Betty asleep next to him. He smiled, rolling over and going back to sleep.
The next day when he arrived at the office, he found his Mac fizzing silently in the corner of his office. His friend Tony was stood next to it with a fire extinguisher.
“We came in this morning and found it like this,” he said, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything from the disks. Did you have backups?”
“No,” said Gary calmly, “but it doesn’t matter. I think someone... or something... was trying to tell me that the game wasn’t going to work out anyway.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Tony asked.
Gary shrugged, “I guess I’ll just have to start over, won’t I?”
Originally Posted 5/1/2016
Result - 1st Place
January 4, 2016
Poem : Reset Switch
When our thoughts and deeds mismatch
It’s easier to start from scratch
Than try to rescue what we’ve made a mess of
The artwork that is so subpar,
The story that is less than blah
With plotlines no-one else could ever guess of
But unlike art or literature
Our lives don’t have an easy cure
Our lives don’t have a reset switch moreover
People remember our mistakes
No matter how it hurts and aches
It isn’t all that easy to start over
Originally Posted 4/1/2016
Result - Didn't Place
It’s easier to start from scratch
Than try to rescue what we’ve made a mess of
The artwork that is so subpar,
The story that is less than blah
With plotlines no-one else could ever guess of
But unlike art or literature
Our lives don’t have an easy cure
Our lives don’t have a reset switch moreover
People remember our mistakes
No matter how it hurts and aches
It isn’t all that easy to start over
Originally Posted 4/1/2016
Result - Didn't Place
December 30, 2015
Short Story : Suicide Season
The problem Joseph always had with New Year’s Eve was the expectations. People always expected to get off with someone, yet inevitably they didn’t, or if they did it was with someone who was either so hideous that you had to throw up or so unmemorable that you wouldn’t even remember what they looked like if you passed them in the street.
Joseph was at his friend Steve’s house, at a party where he knew only a handful of people, the majority of whom were men. He’d have to make quite the lifestyle choice if he were to get off with someone tonight that he already knew. He took a gulp from his plastic cup filled with colourful punch; ordinarily he’d have been drinking beer and wouldn’t be caught dead drinking something that looked like you’d use to unblock your drains.
As he swallowed down the colourful concoction, he winced and shook his head. It did not have a pleasant taste, probably because it was homemade from some sort of raspberry flavoured liquor and whatever else Steve had been able to find in the kitchen cupboards. It was possible that it actually did contain drain cleaner, but Joseph didn’t want to think about it. From his time at college with Steve, where they first met, he knew that Steve was fond of mixing the sort of drinks that would keep your head in the toilet for a week after consumption.
He just wanted to get drunk. And if that didn’t happen here, he had a load of alcohol back at his flat.
And some pills.
As he sat down in a corner of the living room, preparing himself for an evening of loneliness and boredom, a woman approached him. She was wearing a fancy looking part dress – fancier than anything any of the handful of women he’d ever dated had ever worn – and very little make-up. Yet she still looked remarkably attractive. Perhaps the drink had already started to kick in.
“Hey,” the girl smiled at him.
Joseph nodded in return, “Hey,” he said back, a response filled with originality.
“So,” the girl smiled, “do you come here often?”
Joseph stared at her, “Did you really just use that line?” he asked.
The girl shrugged, “Well, you weren’t coming up with anything original, so I didn’t think I’d go to the trouble,” she held out her hand to him, “I’m Mary.”
Joseph chuckled, “I’m Joseph.”
Mary cocked a doubtful eyebrow, “Seriously? You’re going to wind me up with a line about us parenting the son of God?”
“My name is Joseph,” Joseph confirmed, “I guess it’s just a coincidence.”
“Either that or I’m going to be pregnant by the end of March,” Mary laughed. It was a throaty laugh, and Joseph found himself instantly drawn to it, to her. And not just because she’d just inferred that they’d be having sex sometime soon.
“So,” Joseph began, trying to think of a topic, “who do you know here?”
“My kid brother,” Mary said, “he’s helping to throw this little shindig.”
“You don’t mean Steve, do you?” Joseph asked, “He never told me he had an older sister – to be fair, you don’t look older than him.”
Mary’s smile wavered, “Thanks,” she said.
“Man,” Joseph shook his head, “I can’t believe he kept you a secret. I guess he didn’t want people knowing he had such a pretty sister.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
Joseph realised what he’d said when Mary repeated it back to him. Dammit! He knew better than to let an attractive woman that he was interested in know that he was interested in her – now she knew she could move on to entice the next luckless loser. There was no real winning way out for him now, so he might as well be honest.
“Yeah,” he said, “you’re probably the best looking girl here.”
Mary visibly blushed, “You don’t mean that,” she said.
Joseph took a gulp of his drink, “Of course I do,” he said, allowing the drink to speak for him. Ordinarily he’d never be so up front with a girl, but the combination of alcohol and the fact that Mary was the best looking girl he’d seen in years were enough to loosen his tongue.
Mary reached her hand towards Joseph’s face, brushing the back of her hand across his cheek. Their skin barely touched, but for Joseph it felt like electricity pulsing through his skull. He shivered.
“Woah,” he said under his breath, looking deep into Mary’s eyes.
Mary smiled back at him, “Why couldn’t I have met a guy like you years ago?” she asked.
Joseph shrugged, “Just bad luck, I guess,” he replied. Mary laughed.
“Listen,” she said, “it’s almost midnight, so what say you get us a couple of drinks and meet me outside for the fireworks. I’ll have a red wine.”
Joseph smiled, getting shakily up from his seat beside her, “I’ll be right back,” he said, heading towards the kitchen where Steve was keeping the drinks.
As he headed to the kitchen, he saw Steve and his girlfriend chatting together. Taking a deep breath, he approached Steve, deciding to ask him why he’d been keeping his sister a secret.
“Hey Steve,” Joseph said, standing shakily in front of his friend, “why didn’t you tell me about your sister?”
Something in Steve’s eyes changed, “I didn’t think it was any of your business,” he said flatly.
“What, that you’ve got a drop dead gorgeous sister that you’ve been keeping secret from everyone?”
Steve’s girlfriend gasped, clutching at Steve’s arm. Steve glared at Joseph, “That’s really not appropriate talk, Joe.”
Joseph chuckled, “Man, she is so cute,” he smiled, “and she seems interested in me, too.”
Steve looked confused, “What are you talking about, Joe?” he asked, “My sister died ten years ago.”
Joseph stared at Steve for a moment, then burst out laughing, “Good one, buddy, good one,” he punched him lightly on the arm, “you almost had me going for a moment there.”
“This isn’t funny, Joseph,” Steve said sharply. He never called Joseph by his full name, so Joseph knew this was serious, “I think you’d better leave.”
Joseph stared at his friend, “But I’ve just been talking to a girl who said she was your sister,” he insisted, “have you got another sister?”
“No I haven’t,” Steve said angrily, “just the dead one. Now please, get out of my house.”
Joseph stared at his friend, who was clearly being serious. So he turned away, heading to the front door.
Outside Mary was waiting for him, “Where are the drinks?” she asked.
“I just finished talking with your brother,” Joseph said through grit teeth, emphasising the word brother.
“Ah,” Mary said simply.
“What kind of joke are you playing, huh?” he asked, “It’s really not funny lying about being someone’s dead sister.”
Mary looked down at her feet, “I wasn’t lying,” she said, “I am Mary. I am his sister.”
Joseph laughed loudly, “So what? Did you fake your own death or something?”
Mary shook her head, “No Joseph,” she said, “I’m a ghost.”
Joseph almost did a spit take, “A ghost?” he repeated, “Pull the other one.”
“I’m serious,” Mary said, “look.”
Mary held out her hand towards Joseph, a look of concentration on her face. As Joseph watched, Mary’s fingers slowly disappeared. Joseph took a terrified step backwards.
“Don’t be afraid,” Mary said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then what do you want?” Joseph asked, “You’re not going to steal my body are you? This isn’t a possession thing, is it?”
Mary smiled and shook her head, “No,” she said, “it’s the ten year anniversary of my death, and I just wanted to see my family one last time. Then I ran into you.”
Joseph chuckled, “You ghosts move fast, huh?”
“Life is short,” Mary said, “and so is my time here. You seemed nice, and I thought it might be nice to spend some time with you.”
Joseph smiled, actually feeling a little flattered. Mary took a seat on the doorstep, leaving room for Joseph to join her. Cautiously Joseph took a seat next to Mary, staring off into the sky.
“So,” Joseph said hesitantly, “I’m twenty-three. How old exactly are you?”
“Well,” Mary shrugged, “I died from a… an accident aged twenty-one.”
Joseph rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”
“How old would I be if I was still alive?” Mary asked.
“If you were still alive,” Joseph confirmed.
Mary paused for a moment, then said, “Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-one?” Joseph repeated, then took Mary’s hand lightly, “well, I always did have a thing for older women.”
Mary laughed, tightening her grip on his hand as the fireworks began.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Mary said calmly.
Joseph looked at her, “You said to see your family,” he said.
Mary took a deep breath, which was unusual in someone who didn’t have to breath, “That’s part of the reason, but I didn’t just run into you.”
Joseph frowned, “What do you mean?”
“I was sent here,” Mary explained, “to stop you from doing something stupid.”
“Something stupid?” Joseph repeated, “What do you mean?”
Mary looked directly into Joseph’s eyes, “People do silly things on the holidays,” she said, “and there was a high chance that you, left on your own, might do something… silly.”
“Silly like what?” Joseph asked.
“You know,” Mary said, “you’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about taking your on life. And accidents can happen.”
Joseph opened his mouth to object, but he knew it was true.
“It can be a lonely time,” he admitted, “all I need it some company.”
Mary smiled, “That’s why I’m here,” she said, “and to show you that things could be worse.”
“Will you be able to stay with me?” Joseph asked imploringly.
Mary shook her head, “I’m sorry, no,” she said, “I’m here just to help you so you don’t make a mistake. I’m last year’s language, speaking with last year’s words…”
“And next year’s words await another voice,” Joseph said, “T.S. Eliot.”
“So you understand?” Mary asked, “That next year will hold someone new for you to be with? That you won’t be alone? And even if you are, you won’t be for long.”
“That’s good to know.” Joseph smiled weakly, breathing a heavy sigh, then after a short pause he asked, “How did you die, Mary?”
Mary hesitated, then said, “I don’t like to talk about it.”
Joseph looked at her, “Did you…”
Mary nodded.
After another long pause, Joseph spoke, “So how long do you have before you have to go back?” he asked.
“That depends,” Mary said.
“Depends on what?” Joseph asked.
Mary leaned her head on Joseph’s shoulder, “On how long the fireworks last.”
Originally Posted 30/12/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
Joseph was at his friend Steve’s house, at a party where he knew only a handful of people, the majority of whom were men. He’d have to make quite the lifestyle choice if he were to get off with someone tonight that he already knew. He took a gulp from his plastic cup filled with colourful punch; ordinarily he’d have been drinking beer and wouldn’t be caught dead drinking something that looked like you’d use to unblock your drains.
As he swallowed down the colourful concoction, he winced and shook his head. It did not have a pleasant taste, probably because it was homemade from some sort of raspberry flavoured liquor and whatever else Steve had been able to find in the kitchen cupboards. It was possible that it actually did contain drain cleaner, but Joseph didn’t want to think about it. From his time at college with Steve, where they first met, he knew that Steve was fond of mixing the sort of drinks that would keep your head in the toilet for a week after consumption.
He just wanted to get drunk. And if that didn’t happen here, he had a load of alcohol back at his flat.
And some pills.
As he sat down in a corner of the living room, preparing himself for an evening of loneliness and boredom, a woman approached him. She was wearing a fancy looking part dress – fancier than anything any of the handful of women he’d ever dated had ever worn – and very little make-up. Yet she still looked remarkably attractive. Perhaps the drink had already started to kick in.
“Hey,” the girl smiled at him.
Joseph nodded in return, “Hey,” he said back, a response filled with originality.
“So,” the girl smiled, “do you come here often?”
Joseph stared at her, “Did you really just use that line?” he asked.
The girl shrugged, “Well, you weren’t coming up with anything original, so I didn’t think I’d go to the trouble,” she held out her hand to him, “I’m Mary.”
Joseph chuckled, “I’m Joseph.”
Mary cocked a doubtful eyebrow, “Seriously? You’re going to wind me up with a line about us parenting the son of God?”
“My name is Joseph,” Joseph confirmed, “I guess it’s just a coincidence.”
“Either that or I’m going to be pregnant by the end of March,” Mary laughed. It was a throaty laugh, and Joseph found himself instantly drawn to it, to her. And not just because she’d just inferred that they’d be having sex sometime soon.
“So,” Joseph began, trying to think of a topic, “who do you know here?”
“My kid brother,” Mary said, “he’s helping to throw this little shindig.”
“You don’t mean Steve, do you?” Joseph asked, “He never told me he had an older sister – to be fair, you don’t look older than him.”
Mary’s smile wavered, “Thanks,” she said.
“Man,” Joseph shook his head, “I can’t believe he kept you a secret. I guess he didn’t want people knowing he had such a pretty sister.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
Joseph realised what he’d said when Mary repeated it back to him. Dammit! He knew better than to let an attractive woman that he was interested in know that he was interested in her – now she knew she could move on to entice the next luckless loser. There was no real winning way out for him now, so he might as well be honest.
“Yeah,” he said, “you’re probably the best looking girl here.”
Mary visibly blushed, “You don’t mean that,” she said.
Joseph took a gulp of his drink, “Of course I do,” he said, allowing the drink to speak for him. Ordinarily he’d never be so up front with a girl, but the combination of alcohol and the fact that Mary was the best looking girl he’d seen in years were enough to loosen his tongue.
Mary reached her hand towards Joseph’s face, brushing the back of her hand across his cheek. Their skin barely touched, but for Joseph it felt like electricity pulsing through his skull. He shivered.
“Woah,” he said under his breath, looking deep into Mary’s eyes.
Mary smiled back at him, “Why couldn’t I have met a guy like you years ago?” she asked.
Joseph shrugged, “Just bad luck, I guess,” he replied. Mary laughed.
“Listen,” she said, “it’s almost midnight, so what say you get us a couple of drinks and meet me outside for the fireworks. I’ll have a red wine.”
Joseph smiled, getting shakily up from his seat beside her, “I’ll be right back,” he said, heading towards the kitchen where Steve was keeping the drinks.
As he headed to the kitchen, he saw Steve and his girlfriend chatting together. Taking a deep breath, he approached Steve, deciding to ask him why he’d been keeping his sister a secret.
“Hey Steve,” Joseph said, standing shakily in front of his friend, “why didn’t you tell me about your sister?”
Something in Steve’s eyes changed, “I didn’t think it was any of your business,” he said flatly.
“What, that you’ve got a drop dead gorgeous sister that you’ve been keeping secret from everyone?”
Steve’s girlfriend gasped, clutching at Steve’s arm. Steve glared at Joseph, “That’s really not appropriate talk, Joe.”
Joseph chuckled, “Man, she is so cute,” he smiled, “and she seems interested in me, too.”
Steve looked confused, “What are you talking about, Joe?” he asked, “My sister died ten years ago.”
Joseph stared at Steve for a moment, then burst out laughing, “Good one, buddy, good one,” he punched him lightly on the arm, “you almost had me going for a moment there.”
“This isn’t funny, Joseph,” Steve said sharply. He never called Joseph by his full name, so Joseph knew this was serious, “I think you’d better leave.”
Joseph stared at his friend, “But I’ve just been talking to a girl who said she was your sister,” he insisted, “have you got another sister?”
“No I haven’t,” Steve said angrily, “just the dead one. Now please, get out of my house.”
Joseph stared at his friend, who was clearly being serious. So he turned away, heading to the front door.
Outside Mary was waiting for him, “Where are the drinks?” she asked.
“I just finished talking with your brother,” Joseph said through grit teeth, emphasising the word brother.
“Ah,” Mary said simply.
“What kind of joke are you playing, huh?” he asked, “It’s really not funny lying about being someone’s dead sister.”
Mary looked down at her feet, “I wasn’t lying,” she said, “I am Mary. I am his sister.”
Joseph laughed loudly, “So what? Did you fake your own death or something?”
Mary shook her head, “No Joseph,” she said, “I’m a ghost.”
Joseph almost did a spit take, “A ghost?” he repeated, “Pull the other one.”
“I’m serious,” Mary said, “look.”
Mary held out her hand towards Joseph, a look of concentration on her face. As Joseph watched, Mary’s fingers slowly disappeared. Joseph took a terrified step backwards.
“Don’t be afraid,” Mary said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then what do you want?” Joseph asked, “You’re not going to steal my body are you? This isn’t a possession thing, is it?”
Mary smiled and shook her head, “No,” she said, “it’s the ten year anniversary of my death, and I just wanted to see my family one last time. Then I ran into you.”
Joseph chuckled, “You ghosts move fast, huh?”
“Life is short,” Mary said, “and so is my time here. You seemed nice, and I thought it might be nice to spend some time with you.”
Joseph smiled, actually feeling a little flattered. Mary took a seat on the doorstep, leaving room for Joseph to join her. Cautiously Joseph took a seat next to Mary, staring off into the sky.
“So,” Joseph said hesitantly, “I’m twenty-three. How old exactly are you?”
“Well,” Mary shrugged, “I died from a… an accident aged twenty-one.”
Joseph rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”
“How old would I be if I was still alive?” Mary asked.
“If you were still alive,” Joseph confirmed.
Mary paused for a moment, then said, “Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-one?” Joseph repeated, then took Mary’s hand lightly, “well, I always did have a thing for older women.”
Mary laughed, tightening her grip on his hand as the fireworks began.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Mary said calmly.
Joseph looked at her, “You said to see your family,” he said.
Mary took a deep breath, which was unusual in someone who didn’t have to breath, “That’s part of the reason, but I didn’t just run into you.”
Joseph frowned, “What do you mean?”
“I was sent here,” Mary explained, “to stop you from doing something stupid.”
“Something stupid?” Joseph repeated, “What do you mean?”
Mary looked directly into Joseph’s eyes, “People do silly things on the holidays,” she said, “and there was a high chance that you, left on your own, might do something… silly.”
“Silly like what?” Joseph asked.
“You know,” Mary said, “you’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about taking your on life. And accidents can happen.”
Joseph opened his mouth to object, but he knew it was true.
“It can be a lonely time,” he admitted, “all I need it some company.”
Mary smiled, “That’s why I’m here,” she said, “and to show you that things could be worse.”
“Will you be able to stay with me?” Joseph asked imploringly.
Mary shook her head, “I’m sorry, no,” she said, “I’m here just to help you so you don’t make a mistake. I’m last year’s language, speaking with last year’s words…”
“And next year’s words await another voice,” Joseph said, “T.S. Eliot.”
“So you understand?” Mary asked, “That next year will hold someone new for you to be with? That you won’t be alone? And even if you are, you won’t be for long.”
“That’s good to know.” Joseph smiled weakly, breathing a heavy sigh, then after a short pause he asked, “How did you die, Mary?”
Mary hesitated, then said, “I don’t like to talk about it.”
Joseph looked at her, “Did you…”
Mary nodded.
After another long pause, Joseph spoke, “So how long do you have before you have to go back?” he asked.
“That depends,” Mary said.
“Depends on what?” Joseph asked.
Mary leaned her head on Joseph’s shoulder, “On how long the fireworks last.”
Originally Posted 30/12/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
December 28, 2015
Poem : New Year’s Resolutions
It’s New Year’s Eve and people start
To make their resolutions
As if this is the source of all
Of life’s much sought solutions
They tell their friends they’re going to
Cut down and booze and smoking
They drink all night and smoke all day
You assume they are joking
They say that they will cut right back
On all those yummy sweeties
Then say the same when lent comes round
(That’s why they’ve diabetes)
But last year my resolution
Was not to miss a prompt
On Goodreads and I haven’t yet
(Even when I’ve been swamped)
So everybody listen up
My resolve was successful
So you can do it too this year
No matter if it’s stressful
Originally Posted 28/12/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
To make their resolutions
As if this is the source of all
Of life’s much sought solutions
They tell their friends they’re going to
Cut down and booze and smoking
They drink all night and smoke all day
You assume they are joking
They say that they will cut right back
On all those yummy sweeties
Then say the same when lent comes round
(That’s why they’ve diabetes)
But last year my resolution
Was not to miss a prompt
On Goodreads and I haven’t yet
(Even when I’ve been swamped)
So everybody listen up
My resolve was successful
So you can do it too this year
No matter if it’s stressful
Originally Posted 28/12/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
December 21, 2015
Short Story : The Five Orange Chips
My good friend, Antimony Holmes, had already proven just how good a sleuth she was with the solving of The Adventure of the Chocolate Box, but the next mystery we faced was far less innocent and far more difficult to deduce. At least it was difficult for an ordinary investigator. Antimony made it look easy. Childs play, you might say.
We were only eight years old, but already we were being faced with the problems of the adult world. At school we knew that our head teacher, Mrs Bussell, had a drinking problem, but what that problem led her to do, even we were shocked by. And we should have been shocked, because it simply wasn’t true. She was innocent.
It was a Monday morning when the crime took place, and we were happily chatting in the corridor of our school when we heard a scream. Along with a few other school children, we raced in the direction of the shriek, only to find it was coming from our headmistress’s office.
“Was that Mrs Bussell?” I asked Antimony as we stood outside the door.
“Logic would indicate that it was,” Antimony replied mysteriously, “but the only true way to know for sure will be with through the use of our own eyes.”
She bravely pulled down the handle on the office door, opening it to find Mrs Bussell lying on the ground, presumably dead. Antimony approached her body, looking down at her face.
“She’s alive,” Antimony revealed, then glanced over the desk, “though the same can’t be said for her friend over here.”
As I ventured into the office and looked where Antimony was looking, I could see on the other side of the desk a prone body, suffering from what looked like a particularly nasty head wound. The side of her head had been cave in by something heavy, and the remainder of her face had been obscured by some sort of weapon, a knife or a blade. The office drawers had been pulled out and rifled through, and there was broken glass all over the floor, though I couldn’t see what had been broken. Perhaps a glass, or a vase, though there were no flowers to speak of. Wood chips littered the ground where the drawer had broken from being forced, and there were some small orange flecks of plastic close to the body. It definitely looked like there’d been a struggle, as the desk appeared to have been moved about the room, as evident by the carpet which had scuff marks all over it.
“It looks like Mrs Bussell caught someone going through her desk, then killed them when she found them.” I mused, taking in all the evidence presented to me a drawing my own conclusion, “Perhaps they found her alcohol stash, and threatened to report her. I’d heard that she was on a final warning for drinking at school, so it makes sense she’s lash out at anyone who threatened her job.”
“That may be how it appears,” Antimony stroked her chin, “but I have my doubts.”
I looked at Antimony, seeing her big brown eyes staring off into the distance. I believe she had an idea about what had really happened here, but she wasn’t about to reveal her suspicions until she had all her ducks in a row. She did like being able to present her evidence in an orderly fashion.
Antimony leaned close to Mrs Bussell and sniffed her breath, “She smells of alcohol,” she said, “but it isn’t off her breath. It’s as if someone has doused her in alcohol to make it look like she were drunk.”
She gestured at the broken glass, “Judging by the colour of this glass, it is most likely from an alcohol bottle, and not from a vase or any decorative item. That would be how the culprit tried to hide the fact that they had brought their own bottle of alcohol. A silly thing to try and hide, as leaving it here would have more likely lead us to assume it was just the bottle she had been drinking from, though a lack of any actual glass might have raised suspicions.”
Antimony looked at the broken desk drawers and the pieces that had found their way onto the ground. She scratched her head, “Something isn’t right here,” she said.
Then Mr Jones the PE teacher came into the office, seeing the scene for the first time.
“Come on kids, out you come,” he said, putting down some plastic cones before ushering Antimony and I out of the room, “we’d better call the police and get this seen to.”
Once the police had arrived at the school, Mrs Bussell had regained coherence. She was adamant that she hadn’t been drinking but, because of her known history, nobody believed her. The conclusion of the police was that she’d been heavily drinking and had attacked the person in her office in a drunken rage.
Antimony was still not convinced.
“We don’t even know who the victim is,” she told me, “and if there’s one thing I know it’s that a victim is always known to their attacker, even if the victim doesn’t know them. Whoever killed her has done a good job of trying to disguise her face, but it won’t take long for her tre identity to be found out by the police.”
To be honest, this pretty much went against everything we’d ever learned from Sherlock Holmes stories. The idea in those stories always seemed to focus on the impossible, and stated that whatever conclusion you were left with, no matter how fantastical, was undoubtedly the correct one. But here Antimony was coming to the conclusion that the obvious answer – the only real answer – was not the correct one. It was giving me quite the headache.
“Willa,” Antimony snapped, drawing my attention, “we have to inspect the crime scene. If I am correct, there will be a clue there as to the identity of the true killer.”
“But how do you expect to get past the police?” I asked, “They have the whole room cordoned off.”
“That’s where you come in,” Antimony gestured at me, “I need you to cause a distraction.”
“A distraction?” I repeated, “What sort of a distraction?”
Antimony smiled.
After she’d explained exactly what she wanted me to do, I reluctantly trudged over to the entryway to the school gym and began to act out her plan. The door was just across the hall from Mrs Bussell’s office, and hopefully if all went well, the distraction would be a simple one. I cleared my throat as I stopped next to the doors, then let out a scream as I threw myself to the ground.
Quickly the PE class inside the gym came to see what was going on, and it didn’t take too long before the police officer posted outside Mrs Bussell’s office walked over to see if what was happening was related to the earlier murder. I continued to pretend I had injured myself as, unseen by the others, Antimony snuck into the head mistress’s office.
I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it felt like Antimony spent an age in that office as I continued to fake an injury. I couldn’t decide if I’d twisted my ankle or simply taken a spill, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everyone was too interested in even more drama, especially after the events of that morning.
Mr Jones the PE teacher checked my ankle as I pretended to wince, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” he grumbled, “What are you trying to pull?”
I smiled sheepishly as I looked passed him and saw Antimony emerging from the office, holding something small in her hands. I chose that moment to leap to my feet, “I feel much better now,” I grinned nervously, “whatever you did must have worked, sir.”
Mr Jones glared at me as I moved through the crowd of students that had surrounded me, joining Antimony on the other side of the hall.
“Well?” I asked.
“I have what I need,” Antimony smiled, then called out, “Officer, arrest that man.”
The police officer looked at Antimony, bewildered, then looked at who she was pointing at.
It was Mr Jones.
“Me?” Mr Jones looked flabbergasted, “Why on earth should he want to arrest me?”
Antimony puffed out her chest in triumph, “For the murder you committed earlier today!”
Mr Jones stared at Antimony, “What on earth are you talking about?” he asked.
“It’s quite simple really,” Antimony began as the police officer on guard approached, “when I checked Mrs Bussell’s office just now, I could clearly see that the scuff marks on the carpet were not caused by someone moving the desk, as most people would presume, but instead caused by a body being brought into the room, so the murder was unlikely to have taken place there and far more likely so have occurred somewhere else. This fact alone would have cleared Mrs Bussell as it was unlikely she would kill someone, drag them to her own office, then drink herself into a stupor.”
“This is all just supposition,” Mr Jones growled.
“But,” Antimony continued, “it was these flecks of orange plastic that really nailed it for me.” She held out her hand, revealing five mysterious pieces of plastic. I wasn’t sure at the time why they were significant, but Antimony didn’t leave us waiting for long.
“These come from the orange cones you use in PE class,” she concluded, “I’m sure if this fine officer here were to check your storage room he’d find a broken cone, probably with blood on it if you haven’t wiped it down with bleach.”
Mr Jones looked guiltily at the officer, who took a step towards him. He made to run away, but the crowd of PE students outside the gym made this impossible. The officer grabbed him by the arm, slapping a set of cuffs on him.
“I suppose I wouldn’t have got away with it for long,” Mr Jones sighed.
“I only have one question,” Antimony asked as Mr Jones slumped where he stood, “who was she?”
Mr Jones looked at Antimony, “She was my wife,” he said, “and before you ask, I killed her for the insurance money.”
“But why frame Mrs Bussell?” I asked.
Mr Jones shrugged, “She’s a lush,” he said, “I assumed that if someone found a dead body in her office and her slumped next to it, they’d assume she was responsible. I should have known better.”
“Ordinarily you’d probably be correct,” Antimony said, “but what you forgot is that there’s always the chance that someone will actually investigate further than the confines of a single room. Once the police had established who the victim was, they’d have quickly been on your trail.”
“Why didn’t you run while you had the chance?” I asked Mr Jones, “I mean, you continued to teach classes when you could have made a break for it in the confusion of Mrs Bussell taking the blame.”
Mr Jones shrugged, “I planned on leaving town after school,” he admitted, “I thought that if I disappeared after school was over, no-one would suspect me until I turned up missing tomorrow morning, giving me a larger window of opportunity to escape.”
“A decent plan,” Antimony nodded in approval, “but obviously a flawed one.”
As Mr Jones was led away by the police, Antimony turned to me.
“Well, Willa,” she frowned, “it looks like our cases are taking a decided turn for the deadly. Missing chocolates are all well and good, but there is definite danger in tracking down killers.
“Mr Jones didn’t seem that dangerous,” I said, “he only killed his wife for the insurance money. It was unlikely he’d kill again.”
“Not true,” Antimony shook her head, “once someone has killed, they develop a taste for it. If they get away with the crime, they start to wonder what else they could get away with. Believe me, if we had not have stopped Mr Jones, there would have been more deaths.’
I swallowed nervously. I didn’t relish the thought of more deaths - it was horrible enough seeing the dead body of Mr Jones’s wife – but Antimony was correct.
This wouldn’t be our last murder investigation.
Then a thought struck me.
“Hold on,” I began, “if Mrs Bussell was unconscious, and Mrs Jones was dead, then who screamed?”
Antimony looked at me and smiled.
“Well,” she said, “I thought that would have been obvious.”
I’m not convinced Antimony knew who it was that had screamed, but if she did know she never shared that knowledge with me.
I guess that’s just another mystery.
Originally Posted 21/12/2015
Result - 2nd Place
We were only eight years old, but already we were being faced with the problems of the adult world. At school we knew that our head teacher, Mrs Bussell, had a drinking problem, but what that problem led her to do, even we were shocked by. And we should have been shocked, because it simply wasn’t true. She was innocent.
It was a Monday morning when the crime took place, and we were happily chatting in the corridor of our school when we heard a scream. Along with a few other school children, we raced in the direction of the shriek, only to find it was coming from our headmistress’s office.
“Was that Mrs Bussell?” I asked Antimony as we stood outside the door.
“Logic would indicate that it was,” Antimony replied mysteriously, “but the only true way to know for sure will be with through the use of our own eyes.”
She bravely pulled down the handle on the office door, opening it to find Mrs Bussell lying on the ground, presumably dead. Antimony approached her body, looking down at her face.
“She’s alive,” Antimony revealed, then glanced over the desk, “though the same can’t be said for her friend over here.”
As I ventured into the office and looked where Antimony was looking, I could see on the other side of the desk a prone body, suffering from what looked like a particularly nasty head wound. The side of her head had been cave in by something heavy, and the remainder of her face had been obscured by some sort of weapon, a knife or a blade. The office drawers had been pulled out and rifled through, and there was broken glass all over the floor, though I couldn’t see what had been broken. Perhaps a glass, or a vase, though there were no flowers to speak of. Wood chips littered the ground where the drawer had broken from being forced, and there were some small orange flecks of plastic close to the body. It definitely looked like there’d been a struggle, as the desk appeared to have been moved about the room, as evident by the carpet which had scuff marks all over it.
“It looks like Mrs Bussell caught someone going through her desk, then killed them when she found them.” I mused, taking in all the evidence presented to me a drawing my own conclusion, “Perhaps they found her alcohol stash, and threatened to report her. I’d heard that she was on a final warning for drinking at school, so it makes sense she’s lash out at anyone who threatened her job.”
“That may be how it appears,” Antimony stroked her chin, “but I have my doubts.”
I looked at Antimony, seeing her big brown eyes staring off into the distance. I believe she had an idea about what had really happened here, but she wasn’t about to reveal her suspicions until she had all her ducks in a row. She did like being able to present her evidence in an orderly fashion.
Antimony leaned close to Mrs Bussell and sniffed her breath, “She smells of alcohol,” she said, “but it isn’t off her breath. It’s as if someone has doused her in alcohol to make it look like she were drunk.”
She gestured at the broken glass, “Judging by the colour of this glass, it is most likely from an alcohol bottle, and not from a vase or any decorative item. That would be how the culprit tried to hide the fact that they had brought their own bottle of alcohol. A silly thing to try and hide, as leaving it here would have more likely lead us to assume it was just the bottle she had been drinking from, though a lack of any actual glass might have raised suspicions.”
Antimony looked at the broken desk drawers and the pieces that had found their way onto the ground. She scratched her head, “Something isn’t right here,” she said.
Then Mr Jones the PE teacher came into the office, seeing the scene for the first time.
“Come on kids, out you come,” he said, putting down some plastic cones before ushering Antimony and I out of the room, “we’d better call the police and get this seen to.”
Once the police had arrived at the school, Mrs Bussell had regained coherence. She was adamant that she hadn’t been drinking but, because of her known history, nobody believed her. The conclusion of the police was that she’d been heavily drinking and had attacked the person in her office in a drunken rage.
Antimony was still not convinced.
“We don’t even know who the victim is,” she told me, “and if there’s one thing I know it’s that a victim is always known to their attacker, even if the victim doesn’t know them. Whoever killed her has done a good job of trying to disguise her face, but it won’t take long for her tre identity to be found out by the police.”
To be honest, this pretty much went against everything we’d ever learned from Sherlock Holmes stories. The idea in those stories always seemed to focus on the impossible, and stated that whatever conclusion you were left with, no matter how fantastical, was undoubtedly the correct one. But here Antimony was coming to the conclusion that the obvious answer – the only real answer – was not the correct one. It was giving me quite the headache.
“Willa,” Antimony snapped, drawing my attention, “we have to inspect the crime scene. If I am correct, there will be a clue there as to the identity of the true killer.”
“But how do you expect to get past the police?” I asked, “They have the whole room cordoned off.”
“That’s where you come in,” Antimony gestured at me, “I need you to cause a distraction.”
“A distraction?” I repeated, “What sort of a distraction?”
Antimony smiled.
After she’d explained exactly what she wanted me to do, I reluctantly trudged over to the entryway to the school gym and began to act out her plan. The door was just across the hall from Mrs Bussell’s office, and hopefully if all went well, the distraction would be a simple one. I cleared my throat as I stopped next to the doors, then let out a scream as I threw myself to the ground.
Quickly the PE class inside the gym came to see what was going on, and it didn’t take too long before the police officer posted outside Mrs Bussell’s office walked over to see if what was happening was related to the earlier murder. I continued to pretend I had injured myself as, unseen by the others, Antimony snuck into the head mistress’s office.
I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it felt like Antimony spent an age in that office as I continued to fake an injury. I couldn’t decide if I’d twisted my ankle or simply taken a spill, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everyone was too interested in even more drama, especially after the events of that morning.
Mr Jones the PE teacher checked my ankle as I pretended to wince, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” he grumbled, “What are you trying to pull?”
I smiled sheepishly as I looked passed him and saw Antimony emerging from the office, holding something small in her hands. I chose that moment to leap to my feet, “I feel much better now,” I grinned nervously, “whatever you did must have worked, sir.”
Mr Jones glared at me as I moved through the crowd of students that had surrounded me, joining Antimony on the other side of the hall.
“Well?” I asked.
“I have what I need,” Antimony smiled, then called out, “Officer, arrest that man.”
The police officer looked at Antimony, bewildered, then looked at who she was pointing at.
It was Mr Jones.
“Me?” Mr Jones looked flabbergasted, “Why on earth should he want to arrest me?”
Antimony puffed out her chest in triumph, “For the murder you committed earlier today!”
Mr Jones stared at Antimony, “What on earth are you talking about?” he asked.
“It’s quite simple really,” Antimony began as the police officer on guard approached, “when I checked Mrs Bussell’s office just now, I could clearly see that the scuff marks on the carpet were not caused by someone moving the desk, as most people would presume, but instead caused by a body being brought into the room, so the murder was unlikely to have taken place there and far more likely so have occurred somewhere else. This fact alone would have cleared Mrs Bussell as it was unlikely she would kill someone, drag them to her own office, then drink herself into a stupor.”
“This is all just supposition,” Mr Jones growled.
“But,” Antimony continued, “it was these flecks of orange plastic that really nailed it for me.” She held out her hand, revealing five mysterious pieces of plastic. I wasn’t sure at the time why they were significant, but Antimony didn’t leave us waiting for long.
“These come from the orange cones you use in PE class,” she concluded, “I’m sure if this fine officer here were to check your storage room he’d find a broken cone, probably with blood on it if you haven’t wiped it down with bleach.”
Mr Jones looked guiltily at the officer, who took a step towards him. He made to run away, but the crowd of PE students outside the gym made this impossible. The officer grabbed him by the arm, slapping a set of cuffs on him.
“I suppose I wouldn’t have got away with it for long,” Mr Jones sighed.
“I only have one question,” Antimony asked as Mr Jones slumped where he stood, “who was she?”
Mr Jones looked at Antimony, “She was my wife,” he said, “and before you ask, I killed her for the insurance money.”
“But why frame Mrs Bussell?” I asked.
Mr Jones shrugged, “She’s a lush,” he said, “I assumed that if someone found a dead body in her office and her slumped next to it, they’d assume she was responsible. I should have known better.”
“Ordinarily you’d probably be correct,” Antimony said, “but what you forgot is that there’s always the chance that someone will actually investigate further than the confines of a single room. Once the police had established who the victim was, they’d have quickly been on your trail.”
“Why didn’t you run while you had the chance?” I asked Mr Jones, “I mean, you continued to teach classes when you could have made a break for it in the confusion of Mrs Bussell taking the blame.”
Mr Jones shrugged, “I planned on leaving town after school,” he admitted, “I thought that if I disappeared after school was over, no-one would suspect me until I turned up missing tomorrow morning, giving me a larger window of opportunity to escape.”
“A decent plan,” Antimony nodded in approval, “but obviously a flawed one.”
As Mr Jones was led away by the police, Antimony turned to me.
“Well, Willa,” she frowned, “it looks like our cases are taking a decided turn for the deadly. Missing chocolates are all well and good, but there is definite danger in tracking down killers.
“Mr Jones didn’t seem that dangerous,” I said, “he only killed his wife for the insurance money. It was unlikely he’d kill again.”
“Not true,” Antimony shook her head, “once someone has killed, they develop a taste for it. If they get away with the crime, they start to wonder what else they could get away with. Believe me, if we had not have stopped Mr Jones, there would have been more deaths.’
I swallowed nervously. I didn’t relish the thought of more deaths - it was horrible enough seeing the dead body of Mr Jones’s wife – but Antimony was correct.
This wouldn’t be our last murder investigation.
Then a thought struck me.
“Hold on,” I began, “if Mrs Bussell was unconscious, and Mrs Jones was dead, then who screamed?”
Antimony looked at me and smiled.
“Well,” she said, “I thought that would have been obvious.”
I’m not convinced Antimony knew who it was that had screamed, but if she did know she never shared that knowledge with me.
I guess that’s just another mystery.
Originally Posted 21/12/2015
Result - 2nd Place
December 19, 2015
Poem : It’s A Mystery
Reading all those novels by
The likes of Doyle and Christie
Can leave one looking round at life
With a new air of mystery
You find your lunch is missing from
The work’s communal kitchen
You settle to investigate
Instead of simply bitching
You examine the area
Where you left all your lunching
Your sandwiches, your buns, your drink
On which someone is munching
You look around the area
For clues as to the culprit
You plan to get them to confess
To some guy in a pulpit
You find a clue, a random crumb
And then you find another
A trail soon forms they lead you to
The thieving little mutha
He’s sitting there, all innocent
Chowing down on your food
You loom over them, folding arms
And say, “How very rude.”
The thief looks up, a cheesy smile
And soon he says he’s sorry
“I thought the lunch was mine,” he says
A likely bloody story
“Just give it back,” I say to him
“Next time you’re in the pantry
Make sure you take the lunch that’s yours
It is quite elementary.”
Originally Posted 19/12/2015
Result - 1st Place
The likes of Doyle and Christie
Can leave one looking round at life
With a new air of mystery
You find your lunch is missing from
The work’s communal kitchen
You settle to investigate
Instead of simply bitching
You examine the area
Where you left all your lunching
Your sandwiches, your buns, your drink
On which someone is munching
You look around the area
For clues as to the culprit
You plan to get them to confess
To some guy in a pulpit
You find a clue, a random crumb
And then you find another
A trail soon forms they lead you to
The thieving little mutha
He’s sitting there, all innocent
Chowing down on your food
You loom over them, folding arms
And say, “How very rude.”
The thief looks up, a cheesy smile
And soon he says he’s sorry
“I thought the lunch was mine,” he says
A likely bloody story
“Just give it back,” I say to him
“Next time you’re in the pantry
Make sure you take the lunch that’s yours
It is quite elementary.”
Originally Posted 19/12/2015
Result - 1st Place
December 16, 2015
Short Story : Altered Histories
It was Doug’s 25th birthday, but he wasn’t expecting any presents, so when the large number of Amazon orders arrived on his doorstep he was both surprised and secretly quite please.
Someone had remembered him at least. Perhaps they were from his girlfriend, Leticia.
He opened the first package and looked at the book enclosed. Its name was ‘The Life Of Douglas J Robinson, Aged 13’. Flicking through the book he found it filled with what looked like a diary of sorts, printed single-paged so the back of each page was blank, and the details of his year aged thirteen to fourteen printed for anyone to see. He randomly picked a page, which detailed a particularly upsetting day at school, and it all came flooding back to him.
Doug pulled the packing slip out for the leftover empty box that had contained the book and tried to see if the sender’s details were there, but all it said was ‘Happy Birthday’. He glanced at the other parcels, counting them in his head. There were twenty-five.
One for each year from birth to now.
Quickly Doug started tearing open the parcels, finding that each one had a similar book inside. Eventually he had a whole collection of books, each containing 365 sheets (366 for leap years), and each giving a page of intricate detail about his life. What he could do with them, he had no idea.
It was Saturday, so he had the whole day to himself. His girlfriend was away on a business trip, working as a swimsuit model, so he would be able to flick through the books at his leisure. He could still remember the day he first met Leticia, four years ago, on his first day working at the company that represented her. She’d thought he was odd at first, but he soon won her over and, before he knew it, they’d moved in together. He’d never felt so lucky.
He looked through the pile of books, trying to find the right one from four years back, and quickly flicked through to the date they’d met. There it was, February 1st, and all the details were there. He smiled to himself, wishing he could relive that wonderful day and experience it all over again.
He put down the book and had a look for the ones earlier on in his life, picking up the one titled ‘The Life Of Douglas J Robinson, Aged 11’. It had been at this age that he had started Secondary school, and on the first day he’d been bullied something chronic by an older boy named Clive. It had made the rest of his school life a living nightmare, and he truly hoped that the details weren’t there.
But they were.
There was the date, September 9th, and he read what had been written about that terrible day.
The horror came back to him, and in a fit of rage and disgust he crumpled the page in his hand and tore it from the book. As he did so a flash of light boomed out of the pages and enveloped Doug’s face, momentarily blinding him. He blinked away the flash bulbs from his vision and looked down at the book, but it was gone.
Looking around, he saw that he wasn’t in his flat anymore. He looked at the walls, peppered with the kind of posters a pre-adolescent might have on their walls and recognised a few of them. Then the full realisation hit him.
This was his childhood bedroom.
He looked down at his clothes as he sat up in an oddly familiar bed, seeing a pair of children’s pyjamas, then noticed that his hands were a lot smaller. Crossing the room to his dresser, he looked in the mirror.
He was himself, aged eleven!
“What is going on?” he asked himself.
“Douglas?” a familiar voice called down the stairs, “Hurry up, you’ll be late for school.”
“Mum?” Doug mumbled to himself.
Quickly he dressed himself in the school uniform that was hanging behind his door, then rushed down the stairs. His mum was stood in the kitchen, her hair still brown in spite of it having turned grey more than five years earlier. She turned to smile at him;
“You look very handsome,” she said, “now, here’s your lunch, so hurry along.”
Doug took the proffered lunchbox, “Thanks mum,” he said, then left the house.
So, this was his first day at secondary school, all over again? Tearing the page from the book must have reset the day, allowing him to relive it as if it were a second draft of a story. He smiled to himself, realising the potential this could spell for him.
He could make his school life so much better.
He marched through the school gates, thinking about all the things he could change, when he ran into a familiar face.
“Hey there, new kid,” a deep voice boomed, “hand over your lunch money.”
It was Clive.
“I don’t have any lunch money,” Doug told him, “I brought my own lunch.”
“Then that will have to do,” Clive grinned, his crooked yellow teeth gleaming.
Now, in the original version, Doug remembered that he had handed over his lunch box, and that Clive had taken it before beating the living daylights out of him. This time, things would be different.
“I don’t think I’m going to hand it over this time,” Doug told Clive.
“This time?” Clive asked, “What do you mean this time?”
While live was busy wondering what Doug was talking about, Doug took advantage of the situation and sucker-punched him in the ball sack. Clive doubled over in agony, trying to regain his breath as Doug elbowed him in the spine, knocking him to the ground. As Clive lay there, nursing his damaged organs, Doug started to kick him in the ribs, watching him twitch as each kick hit home.
“If you so much as think about bullying another kid,” Doug warned him between kicks, “so help me I will end you!”
“I won’t, I won’t!” Clive wheezed, trying to protect himself but to no avail, “Just please, stop.”
Doug stopped kicking, noticing that a crowd had gathered around him. Amongst them was Sally Jones, who had grown up to be an incredibly sexy young lady. Unfortunately she had also been Clive’s girlfriend by year nine, but that could all be changed. Doug walked over to her, putting his hand behind her head and tilting her backwards before landing a huge kiss on her lips.
Things would definitely change for the better now.
*
That night, Doug sat in his childhood bedroom, waiting for the bedside clock to his midnight. If his guess was correct, then he’d be sent back to his own time when the day ended, as it was only that day that he’d ripped out of the book. He watched the clock, which read 11.59, slowly turn to 00.00, then there was another flash of light.
Doug blinked. He was back in his living room, aged twenty-five, surrounded by the books detailing his life. He smiled; nothing much had changed, but he felt better about beating up Clive.
He got up off the floor where he’d been sitting, feeling a little shaky. He looked down at his legs, which looked a little thinner than normal, then walked to the bathroom. He needed to pee desperately.
Once he’d finished he crossed to the sink to wash his hands, catching a glimpse of his face in the mirror. What he saw shocked him.
His face was thin and gaunt, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was almost non-existent, which was weird because he had quite thick hair, and his teeth – those that weren’t missing – looked terrible.
How could this be?
As he stared at his face, he heard a voice coming from the bedroom.
“Are you almost finished,” a husky female voice asked, “I’m waiting for you.”
That didn’t sound like Leticia.
Nervously, Doug left the bathroom and entered the bedroom, where a woman was sitting on his bed. She was incredibly thin, her ribs exposed below her artificial breasts, her collar bone jutting out from her neck. Like Doug, she had hollow eyes and thin hair, and not as many teeth as you’d hope for. She looked over at Doug and smiled, and that’s when he recognised her.
Sally Jones.
“Oh my God,” Doug swallowed fearfully, “What happened to you?”
Sally didn’t hear him. She was too busy preparing some concoction which she clearly planned to inject into her arm. A piece of rubber tubing was being used as a tourniquet as she flicked the excess liquid form the tip of her needle.
“Do you want to go first?” she asked.
Doug couldn’t believe this. How had things changed so drastically? All he’d done is beat up a school bully and now he was living in a drug den with a once-hot zombie. This didn’t make sense.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Doug said, leaving the skeletal girl to her habit.
Sitting back down in the living room, Doug started flicking through the books after his eleventh year. None of the details were familiar to him; there were years where he’d become a bully, then he’d started helping out a local drug dealer by beating up non-payers, then when he was fifteen he’d...
...Oh God.
He’d done this to Sally.
Then Doug realised something else.
He picked up the book from four years ago, flicking to February 1st.
Nothing but taking drugs.
He’d never met Leticia.
The question was, what could he do about it?
Doug picked through the pile of books, looking for the one where he was eleven again. He flicked to September 9th, reading through the new entry that had replaced the page he’d torn out. It told how he’d beaten up Clive and kissed Sally, and how everything had changed. Changed for the worse.
There was only one thing for it. Doug grabbed hold of the page, crumpling it between his fingers as a flash of light boomed out of the book.
He sat up in his childhood bed, back to the morning of September 9th when he was just eleven. He threw on his school clothes again and ran down the stairs of his childhood home. His mum was there again, standing in the kitchen.
“You look very handsome,” she said, “now, here’s your lunch, so hurry along.”
Doug took the proffered lunchbox, noting that she hadn’t called him downstairs this time “Thanks mum,” he said, then left the house.
He walked miserably towards the school, walking through the school gates and taking a deep breath as he waited for the inevitable to happen.
“Hey there, new kid,” Clive’s voice boomed from behind him, “hand over your lunch money.”
“I don’t have any lunch money,” Doug said feebly, “I brought my own lunch.”
“Then that will have to do,” Clive grinned, his crooked yellow teeth gleaming. Doug closed his eyes, waiting for the unavoidable punch that was heading his way, then felt it connect with his cheek. He flew backwards, falling to the playground floor, then opened his eyes to see Clive bearing down on.
The beating didn’t last as long as he remembered, but it still hurt. But he knew it had to happen.
When he got home, his mum looked very upset about his face, and his dad demanded to know what had happened. But Doug didn’t tell them. He never told them originally either.
When it turned midnight, a flash of light sent him back to his own time, and he looked around the living room. Clambering to his feet, the first thing he did was go to the bathroom and check his face. He was relieved to see it looked perfectly normal. He smiled.
Next he went to his bedroom. No Sally Jones. No drug paraphernalia. No sign of a wasted life.
Lastly Doug picked up the picture that sat on his bedside table. It was one of him and Leticia on holiday last summer. They smiled at the camera, and Doug couldn’t help but smile back.
He may have hated his life as a child, but he liked his life now, and without those childhood traumas and bad experiences, he wouldn’t be where he was today.
He returned to the living room, collecting up the books detailing his life. One by one he carefully placed them in a trunk in his spare room and locked them up tight.
There was no point living in the past. In real life you don’t get a rough draft, you don’t get a practice run at things – in real life the first draft is your last, and you just have to make the best of it.
Originally Posted 16/12/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
Someone had remembered him at least. Perhaps they were from his girlfriend, Leticia.
He opened the first package and looked at the book enclosed. Its name was ‘The Life Of Douglas J Robinson, Aged 13’. Flicking through the book he found it filled with what looked like a diary of sorts, printed single-paged so the back of each page was blank, and the details of his year aged thirteen to fourteen printed for anyone to see. He randomly picked a page, which detailed a particularly upsetting day at school, and it all came flooding back to him.
Doug pulled the packing slip out for the leftover empty box that had contained the book and tried to see if the sender’s details were there, but all it said was ‘Happy Birthday’. He glanced at the other parcels, counting them in his head. There were twenty-five.
One for each year from birth to now.
Quickly Doug started tearing open the parcels, finding that each one had a similar book inside. Eventually he had a whole collection of books, each containing 365 sheets (366 for leap years), and each giving a page of intricate detail about his life. What he could do with them, he had no idea.
It was Saturday, so he had the whole day to himself. His girlfriend was away on a business trip, working as a swimsuit model, so he would be able to flick through the books at his leisure. He could still remember the day he first met Leticia, four years ago, on his first day working at the company that represented her. She’d thought he was odd at first, but he soon won her over and, before he knew it, they’d moved in together. He’d never felt so lucky.
He looked through the pile of books, trying to find the right one from four years back, and quickly flicked through to the date they’d met. There it was, February 1st, and all the details were there. He smiled to himself, wishing he could relive that wonderful day and experience it all over again.
He put down the book and had a look for the ones earlier on in his life, picking up the one titled ‘The Life Of Douglas J Robinson, Aged 11’. It had been at this age that he had started Secondary school, and on the first day he’d been bullied something chronic by an older boy named Clive. It had made the rest of his school life a living nightmare, and he truly hoped that the details weren’t there.
But they were.
There was the date, September 9th, and he read what had been written about that terrible day.
The horror came back to him, and in a fit of rage and disgust he crumpled the page in his hand and tore it from the book. As he did so a flash of light boomed out of the pages and enveloped Doug’s face, momentarily blinding him. He blinked away the flash bulbs from his vision and looked down at the book, but it was gone.
Looking around, he saw that he wasn’t in his flat anymore. He looked at the walls, peppered with the kind of posters a pre-adolescent might have on their walls and recognised a few of them. Then the full realisation hit him.
This was his childhood bedroom.
He looked down at his clothes as he sat up in an oddly familiar bed, seeing a pair of children’s pyjamas, then noticed that his hands were a lot smaller. Crossing the room to his dresser, he looked in the mirror.
He was himself, aged eleven!
“What is going on?” he asked himself.
“Douglas?” a familiar voice called down the stairs, “Hurry up, you’ll be late for school.”
“Mum?” Doug mumbled to himself.
Quickly he dressed himself in the school uniform that was hanging behind his door, then rushed down the stairs. His mum was stood in the kitchen, her hair still brown in spite of it having turned grey more than five years earlier. She turned to smile at him;
“You look very handsome,” she said, “now, here’s your lunch, so hurry along.”
Doug took the proffered lunchbox, “Thanks mum,” he said, then left the house.
So, this was his first day at secondary school, all over again? Tearing the page from the book must have reset the day, allowing him to relive it as if it were a second draft of a story. He smiled to himself, realising the potential this could spell for him.
He could make his school life so much better.
He marched through the school gates, thinking about all the things he could change, when he ran into a familiar face.
“Hey there, new kid,” a deep voice boomed, “hand over your lunch money.”
It was Clive.
“I don’t have any lunch money,” Doug told him, “I brought my own lunch.”
“Then that will have to do,” Clive grinned, his crooked yellow teeth gleaming.
Now, in the original version, Doug remembered that he had handed over his lunch box, and that Clive had taken it before beating the living daylights out of him. This time, things would be different.
“I don’t think I’m going to hand it over this time,” Doug told Clive.
“This time?” Clive asked, “What do you mean this time?”
While live was busy wondering what Doug was talking about, Doug took advantage of the situation and sucker-punched him in the ball sack. Clive doubled over in agony, trying to regain his breath as Doug elbowed him in the spine, knocking him to the ground. As Clive lay there, nursing his damaged organs, Doug started to kick him in the ribs, watching him twitch as each kick hit home.
“If you so much as think about bullying another kid,” Doug warned him between kicks, “so help me I will end you!”
“I won’t, I won’t!” Clive wheezed, trying to protect himself but to no avail, “Just please, stop.”
Doug stopped kicking, noticing that a crowd had gathered around him. Amongst them was Sally Jones, who had grown up to be an incredibly sexy young lady. Unfortunately she had also been Clive’s girlfriend by year nine, but that could all be changed. Doug walked over to her, putting his hand behind her head and tilting her backwards before landing a huge kiss on her lips.
Things would definitely change for the better now.
*
That night, Doug sat in his childhood bedroom, waiting for the bedside clock to his midnight. If his guess was correct, then he’d be sent back to his own time when the day ended, as it was only that day that he’d ripped out of the book. He watched the clock, which read 11.59, slowly turn to 00.00, then there was another flash of light.
Doug blinked. He was back in his living room, aged twenty-five, surrounded by the books detailing his life. He smiled; nothing much had changed, but he felt better about beating up Clive.
He got up off the floor where he’d been sitting, feeling a little shaky. He looked down at his legs, which looked a little thinner than normal, then walked to the bathroom. He needed to pee desperately.
Once he’d finished he crossed to the sink to wash his hands, catching a glimpse of his face in the mirror. What he saw shocked him.
His face was thin and gaunt, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was almost non-existent, which was weird because he had quite thick hair, and his teeth – those that weren’t missing – looked terrible.
How could this be?
As he stared at his face, he heard a voice coming from the bedroom.
“Are you almost finished,” a husky female voice asked, “I’m waiting for you.”
That didn’t sound like Leticia.
Nervously, Doug left the bathroom and entered the bedroom, where a woman was sitting on his bed. She was incredibly thin, her ribs exposed below her artificial breasts, her collar bone jutting out from her neck. Like Doug, she had hollow eyes and thin hair, and not as many teeth as you’d hope for. She looked over at Doug and smiled, and that’s when he recognised her.
Sally Jones.
“Oh my God,” Doug swallowed fearfully, “What happened to you?”
Sally didn’t hear him. She was too busy preparing some concoction which she clearly planned to inject into her arm. A piece of rubber tubing was being used as a tourniquet as she flicked the excess liquid form the tip of her needle.
“Do you want to go first?” she asked.
Doug couldn’t believe this. How had things changed so drastically? All he’d done is beat up a school bully and now he was living in a drug den with a once-hot zombie. This didn’t make sense.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Doug said, leaving the skeletal girl to her habit.
Sitting back down in the living room, Doug started flicking through the books after his eleventh year. None of the details were familiar to him; there were years where he’d become a bully, then he’d started helping out a local drug dealer by beating up non-payers, then when he was fifteen he’d...
...Oh God.
He’d done this to Sally.
Then Doug realised something else.
He picked up the book from four years ago, flicking to February 1st.
Nothing but taking drugs.
He’d never met Leticia.
The question was, what could he do about it?
Doug picked through the pile of books, looking for the one where he was eleven again. He flicked to September 9th, reading through the new entry that had replaced the page he’d torn out. It told how he’d beaten up Clive and kissed Sally, and how everything had changed. Changed for the worse.
There was only one thing for it. Doug grabbed hold of the page, crumpling it between his fingers as a flash of light boomed out of the book.
He sat up in his childhood bed, back to the morning of September 9th when he was just eleven. He threw on his school clothes again and ran down the stairs of his childhood home. His mum was there again, standing in the kitchen.
“You look very handsome,” she said, “now, here’s your lunch, so hurry along.”
Doug took the proffered lunchbox, noting that she hadn’t called him downstairs this time “Thanks mum,” he said, then left the house.
He walked miserably towards the school, walking through the school gates and taking a deep breath as he waited for the inevitable to happen.
“Hey there, new kid,” Clive’s voice boomed from behind him, “hand over your lunch money.”
“I don’t have any lunch money,” Doug said feebly, “I brought my own lunch.”
“Then that will have to do,” Clive grinned, his crooked yellow teeth gleaming. Doug closed his eyes, waiting for the unavoidable punch that was heading his way, then felt it connect with his cheek. He flew backwards, falling to the playground floor, then opened his eyes to see Clive bearing down on.
The beating didn’t last as long as he remembered, but it still hurt. But he knew it had to happen.
When he got home, his mum looked very upset about his face, and his dad demanded to know what had happened. But Doug didn’t tell them. He never told them originally either.
When it turned midnight, a flash of light sent him back to his own time, and he looked around the living room. Clambering to his feet, the first thing he did was go to the bathroom and check his face. He was relieved to see it looked perfectly normal. He smiled.
Next he went to his bedroom. No Sally Jones. No drug paraphernalia. No sign of a wasted life.
Lastly Doug picked up the picture that sat on his bedside table. It was one of him and Leticia on holiday last summer. They smiled at the camera, and Doug couldn’t help but smile back.
He may have hated his life as a child, but he liked his life now, and without those childhood traumas and bad experiences, he wouldn’t be where he was today.
He returned to the living room, collecting up the books detailing his life. One by one he carefully placed them in a trunk in his spare room and locked them up tight.
There was no point living in the past. In real life you don’t get a rough draft, you don’t get a practice run at things – in real life the first draft is your last, and you just have to make the best of it.
Originally Posted 16/12/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
December 14, 2015
Poem : What Is It Good For?
Civilians forced to fight a war
They had no part in starting
Bear arms they don’t know how to use
To foreign climes departing
Trained how to kill the enemy;
An enemy unheard of
They’ve never met these innocents
They’ve helped destroy a third of
Forced by their country into fights
Against civilizations
Who aren’t that different from our own
These much frowned upon nations
We fight the people of the street
Not those that make decisions
Not those that declared war on us
Not those filled with derision
The men who make the judgment calls
The men who control nations
Are not the ones that risk their lives
Not even their relations
So why do we fight for a cause
Protecting ways of living
The propaganda might be skewed
By official misgiving
We’re better off just trying to
Inspire peace in others
Then one day that man that you shot
Might consider us brothers
Originally Posted 14/12/2015
Result - Joint 3rd Place
They had no part in starting
Bear arms they don’t know how to use
To foreign climes departing
Trained how to kill the enemy;
An enemy unheard of
They’ve never met these innocents
They’ve helped destroy a third of
Forced by their country into fights
Against civilizations
Who aren’t that different from our own
These much frowned upon nations
We fight the people of the street
Not those that make decisions
Not those that declared war on us
Not those filled with derision
The men who make the judgment calls
The men who control nations
Are not the ones that risk their lives
Not even their relations
So why do we fight for a cause
Protecting ways of living
The propaganda might be skewed
By official misgiving
We’re better off just trying to
Inspire peace in others
Then one day that man that you shot
Might consider us brothers
Originally Posted 14/12/2015
Result - Joint 3rd Place
