Edward Davies's Blog, page 6
August 18, 2015
Short Story : Worlds Collide
The two tribes of the Thirteen lived separately, ever since the Great War. In their planetary system there were only three worlds; the first was home to the tribe of the A-M, the third acted as home for the tribe of the N-Z, while the central planet was used as a grounds for trade between the two. It was barely habitable because of its incredible dry heat, and was only used once a week for market day.
L.X. had never been allowed to visit the trade world before; his parents feared that he might be influenced by the N-Z tribal members that came to trade with them, but now that he was thirteen, L.X. could make his own decisions, his own choices. L.X. loved the idea of trading with the other tribe, and finally being able to see why he hadn’t been allowed to have contact with them before was something he couldn’t wait to experience. What would they look like? Would they have two heads like his best friend E.N. has always claimed, or did they have gold coloured skin like C.C. had claimed when his class had done show-and-tell? With his older sister K.T. by his side, L.X. stepped off their shuttle and started the short walk to the market, holding his breath as he imagined what wonders he might see.
As L.X. and his sister walked into the market, his wide smile collapsed under the weight of his disappointment. Every person he could see looked pretty much like the people from his own world. They were all about the same range in height, they all fell into the same variety of skin colourings, and not one of them had more than one head.
“Where are the others?” L.X. asked his sister, “From the other planet?”
K.T. looked around, “They’re all over,” she told him.
“I can’t see any,” L.X. stated.
K.T. sighed, “See that man over there,” she pointed to a man standing at a stall selling fish.
“Yes,” L.X. said.
“That’s Y.T., the fish monger,” she told him, “He’s from N-Z.”
“But he looks just like you or me,” L.X. declared, “Well, obviously much older, and he’s not a girl like you, but you know what I mean.”
“The N-Z tribe do look just like us,” K.T. told him, “We were all one people once, you know.”
“I was expecting to see people with extra heads,” L.X. groaned.
“You shouldn’t listen to stories that E.N. tells you,” K.T. chuckled, “That kids disturbed.”
K.T. walked over to the fishmonger, with L.X. close in tow. She waved at him as she approached, and shook his hand when she got close enough.
“Ew!” L.X. stuck out his tongue, “Won’t you catch something, doing that?”
“It’s just fish,” Y.T. the fishmonger told him.
“I don’t mean from the fish,” L.X. shuddered, “I mean from you.”
Y.T. cocked an eyebrow, turning back to K.T., “Is he new?” he asked her.
“He’s my little brother, it’s his first time here,” K.T. told him, “His friends have filled his head with fantasy stories about what the N-Z look like, and I’m guessing they’ve been telling him you carry diseases too.”
“That’s okay,” Y.T. smiled, “My kids have been told the same stories too.” He reached out a hand to L.X. and ruffled his hair, much to L.X.’s disgust, “Just make sure he holds his tongue around certain people, okay?”
K.T. nodded as Y.T. started to wrap some fish for her, clearly her usual order. She bundled the fish into her basket and the two of them started to walk to the next stalls.
“Why did you let him do that?” L.X. asked.
“Do what?” his sister K.T. queried.
“Touch my hair,” L.X. shuddered again, “He might have anything.”
K.T. stopped in her tracks and held her brother by the shoulder, “You need to learn that just because we were once at war with the N-Z does not mean that you can go about insulting them. It’s a very tricky situation going on between us and them, and I don’t need you going around shooting off your mouth and starting fights.”
L.X. tutted loudly, not liking being told off, “I didn’t even want to come here today,” he lied, “it’s just a waste of my time.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be here, you can just wait with the other kids over there,” she said, pointing at a group of children slightly younger than L.X. who were playing in what passed for a playground.
“I don’t want to play with those little kids,” L.X. complained.
“Well, you’re not coming with me,” K.T. told him, “It’s not easy getting people to trust you at the market, and I don’t want you spoiling the relationships I’ve formed here. Now go wait over there, I’ll be back to get you in an hour.”
K.T. walked away, leaving L.X. to ponder his behaviour. Deciding that following his sister probably wasn’t the best idea, he slowly and reluctantly started to walk over to the playground.
The other children looked like they were enjoying themselves, but L.X. was too old for such childish games. Taking a seat on a nearby bench, L.X. opened up his own bag and pulled out a hand-held game. Switching it on, he started to play.
“That looks like fun.”
L.X. looked up to see who had spoken. A beautiful girl about the same age as him stood over him, the sun shining through her hair and a smile caressing her full lips. L.X. almost dropped the game when he saw her, and he swallowed nervously.
“Hi,” he said nervously, then in answer to the girl’s question, “Yeah, it is fun. Do you want to have a go?”
The girl sat down next to him, and L.X. offered her the game. She took it gently from him and started to play. He watched her face as her fingers pressed the buttons to play the game, and he smiled to himself.
Maybe this trip had been worth the effort.
“Are you here with your parents?” the girl asked without looking up from the game.
“No, my sister,” L.X. replied.
“Where is she?” the girl asked.
“Off getting food,” L.X. told her.
“Why aren’t you with her?” she asked.
“She said I was embarrassing her,” L.X. admitted, “Just because I believe rumours that people tell me.”
“Like the others having two heads?” the girl chuckled.
“Yeah,” L.X. laughed, “Or golden skin.”
“I haven’t heard that one before,” the girl chuckled, “That’s funny.”
“Yeah,” L.X. smiled at the girl. He’d never seen anyone so pretty before; she was even better looking than L.S.N., the best looking girl in his class. He continued to watch her as she played his game, the concentration in her face as she played making her look even more beautiful. Maybe she lived close to him, he thought to himself, then he could go and visit her when they got back home. Maybe they could go out on a date...
“Do you have a girlfriend?” the girl suddenly asked.
L.X. almost choked on the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, “N-No,” he said, “You?”
“No,” the girl replied, looking up from the game and smiling, “I don’t have a boyfriend either.”
L.X. chuckled, realising how his question must have sounded, like he wanted to know if she had a girlfriend. What an idiot he was.
“Is this your first time here?” she asked him, going back to the game.
“Yeah,” L.X. nodded, “You?”
“Yeah,” she said, “My dad’s around here somewhere. He told me to play over here because I was getting under his feet.”
“I guess we’ve got a lot in common,” L.X. smiled.
The girl smiled back at him, “Say, do you want to go somewhere a little more... private?”
Did he ever!
“Sure,” he smiled, “Why not?”
The girl switched off the game and handed it back to L.X. again. Once he’d put it in his bag, she took his hand and lead him round the back of the playground.
L.X. found himself alone with this mystery girl, and he kept wondering – well, more hoping – what might happen between them. The girl stopped, letting go of L.X.’s hand, and turned to face him.
“You’re really cute,” she said to him, smiling sheepishly, “I just wanted to say that when there was no one else around, just in case you ran off.”
“I’m not running off anywhere,” L.X. smiled back, “You’re really pretty too.”
The girl brushed her hair behind her ears, “Thanks,” she said shyly, “You’re sweet.”
She took L.X.’s hand again and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. He felt his cheek burning as he felt the softness of her lips against it.
“Would you like to go out some time?” L.X. asked bravely. He didn’t want this girl to get away, and he really hoped she wasn’t just messing with him like that time F.E. had put her hand down his shorts, then squeezed really hard.
“I’d like that,” the girl said, then frowned, “You know what, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s L.X.,” L.X. told her, “What’s yours?”
The girl stared at him with worry, “Your name is L.X.?” she asked.
“Yes,” L.X. said, “Why?”
“Mine is N.G.” she told him, and L.X.’s heart stopped in his chest.
If her name was N.G., then that meant she came from the other tribe.
She was his enemy.
“You’re from the other planet?” L.X. asked, his eyes burning as he tried not to cry.
“Yes,” N.G. told him sadly, then smiled again, “But does that really matter?”
L.X. thought this over. All his life he’d been told that the N-Z were his enemy; that he could trade with them but nothing else. A-M and N-Z could never be friends. That kind of relationship would never work.
“But how would this work?” L.X. sighed, “We don’t even live on the same planet. We come from different worlds.”
N.G. shrugged, “We could make our own world,” she said, “right here. What do you think?”
L.X. looked her in the eye. She looked a little sad, but there was also a happiness on her face. She still held his hand tightly, and he squeezed it even tighter.
“I’d love that,” he told her, “but what do we tell our families?”
“They’ll understand,” N.G. said, “We’ll leave them a note. Maybe it’ll make them think differently about how they think about each other.”
N.G. took a notebook from her own bag and started to write. It was a goodbye letter – the most beautiful goodbye letter L.X. had ever seen – and when she’d finished writing, they both signed it and left it on the ground before walking away into the desert.
*
K.T. finally finished the weekly grocery shop and returned to the playground where she’d left her brother. She looked around briefly but couldn’t see him anywhere.
“L.X.?” she called out, but didn’t get a response. She dropped her basket to the ground, running over to the playground and grabbing one of the children.
“Have you seen my brother?” she asked, “He’s got brown hair, dark eyes, he’s carrying a red and blue back pack?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, “I saw him go off behind the playground with a girl. She was real pretty.”
K.T. let go of the child and ran to the alleyway behind the playground. She could see no sign of her brother. Then she noticed his hand-held game sitting on the ground, holding down a piece of paper.
“N.G.?” she heard a voice calling, and a man came around the corner, “Say, have you seen a young girl around here; blonde hair in a summery dress?”
K.T. had bent down to pick up the paper and was reading over it, her tears welling up, “Did you say her name N.G.?” she asked.
“Yes,” the man said, “I’m her father, O.N. Have you seen her?”
K.T. showed him the letter, and O.N. gasped as he read what his daughter had written.
The two children were never seen or heard from again, but N.G.’s words in her letter served as a reminder to the people of A-M and N-Z that they had once been friends, and it might take a long time, but I think they might be friends again, sometime in the future. Don’t you?
Originally Posted 18/8/2015
Result - 1st Place
L.X. had never been allowed to visit the trade world before; his parents feared that he might be influenced by the N-Z tribal members that came to trade with them, but now that he was thirteen, L.X. could make his own decisions, his own choices. L.X. loved the idea of trading with the other tribe, and finally being able to see why he hadn’t been allowed to have contact with them before was something he couldn’t wait to experience. What would they look like? Would they have two heads like his best friend E.N. has always claimed, or did they have gold coloured skin like C.C. had claimed when his class had done show-and-tell? With his older sister K.T. by his side, L.X. stepped off their shuttle and started the short walk to the market, holding his breath as he imagined what wonders he might see.
As L.X. and his sister walked into the market, his wide smile collapsed under the weight of his disappointment. Every person he could see looked pretty much like the people from his own world. They were all about the same range in height, they all fell into the same variety of skin colourings, and not one of them had more than one head.
“Where are the others?” L.X. asked his sister, “From the other planet?”
K.T. looked around, “They’re all over,” she told him.
“I can’t see any,” L.X. stated.
K.T. sighed, “See that man over there,” she pointed to a man standing at a stall selling fish.
“Yes,” L.X. said.
“That’s Y.T., the fish monger,” she told him, “He’s from N-Z.”
“But he looks just like you or me,” L.X. declared, “Well, obviously much older, and he’s not a girl like you, but you know what I mean.”
“The N-Z tribe do look just like us,” K.T. told him, “We were all one people once, you know.”
“I was expecting to see people with extra heads,” L.X. groaned.
“You shouldn’t listen to stories that E.N. tells you,” K.T. chuckled, “That kids disturbed.”
K.T. walked over to the fishmonger, with L.X. close in tow. She waved at him as she approached, and shook his hand when she got close enough.
“Ew!” L.X. stuck out his tongue, “Won’t you catch something, doing that?”
“It’s just fish,” Y.T. the fishmonger told him.
“I don’t mean from the fish,” L.X. shuddered, “I mean from you.”
Y.T. cocked an eyebrow, turning back to K.T., “Is he new?” he asked her.
“He’s my little brother, it’s his first time here,” K.T. told him, “His friends have filled his head with fantasy stories about what the N-Z look like, and I’m guessing they’ve been telling him you carry diseases too.”
“That’s okay,” Y.T. smiled, “My kids have been told the same stories too.” He reached out a hand to L.X. and ruffled his hair, much to L.X.’s disgust, “Just make sure he holds his tongue around certain people, okay?”
K.T. nodded as Y.T. started to wrap some fish for her, clearly her usual order. She bundled the fish into her basket and the two of them started to walk to the next stalls.
“Why did you let him do that?” L.X. asked.
“Do what?” his sister K.T. queried.
“Touch my hair,” L.X. shuddered again, “He might have anything.”
K.T. stopped in her tracks and held her brother by the shoulder, “You need to learn that just because we were once at war with the N-Z does not mean that you can go about insulting them. It’s a very tricky situation going on between us and them, and I don’t need you going around shooting off your mouth and starting fights.”
L.X. tutted loudly, not liking being told off, “I didn’t even want to come here today,” he lied, “it’s just a waste of my time.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be here, you can just wait with the other kids over there,” she said, pointing at a group of children slightly younger than L.X. who were playing in what passed for a playground.
“I don’t want to play with those little kids,” L.X. complained.
“Well, you’re not coming with me,” K.T. told him, “It’s not easy getting people to trust you at the market, and I don’t want you spoiling the relationships I’ve formed here. Now go wait over there, I’ll be back to get you in an hour.”
K.T. walked away, leaving L.X. to ponder his behaviour. Deciding that following his sister probably wasn’t the best idea, he slowly and reluctantly started to walk over to the playground.
The other children looked like they were enjoying themselves, but L.X. was too old for such childish games. Taking a seat on a nearby bench, L.X. opened up his own bag and pulled out a hand-held game. Switching it on, he started to play.
“That looks like fun.”
L.X. looked up to see who had spoken. A beautiful girl about the same age as him stood over him, the sun shining through her hair and a smile caressing her full lips. L.X. almost dropped the game when he saw her, and he swallowed nervously.
“Hi,” he said nervously, then in answer to the girl’s question, “Yeah, it is fun. Do you want to have a go?”
The girl sat down next to him, and L.X. offered her the game. She took it gently from him and started to play. He watched her face as her fingers pressed the buttons to play the game, and he smiled to himself.
Maybe this trip had been worth the effort.
“Are you here with your parents?” the girl asked without looking up from the game.
“No, my sister,” L.X. replied.
“Where is she?” the girl asked.
“Off getting food,” L.X. told her.
“Why aren’t you with her?” she asked.
“She said I was embarrassing her,” L.X. admitted, “Just because I believe rumours that people tell me.”
“Like the others having two heads?” the girl chuckled.
“Yeah,” L.X. laughed, “Or golden skin.”
“I haven’t heard that one before,” the girl chuckled, “That’s funny.”
“Yeah,” L.X. smiled at the girl. He’d never seen anyone so pretty before; she was even better looking than L.S.N., the best looking girl in his class. He continued to watch her as she played his game, the concentration in her face as she played making her look even more beautiful. Maybe she lived close to him, he thought to himself, then he could go and visit her when they got back home. Maybe they could go out on a date...
“Do you have a girlfriend?” the girl suddenly asked.
L.X. almost choked on the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, “N-No,” he said, “You?”
“No,” the girl replied, looking up from the game and smiling, “I don’t have a boyfriend either.”
L.X. chuckled, realising how his question must have sounded, like he wanted to know if she had a girlfriend. What an idiot he was.
“Is this your first time here?” she asked him, going back to the game.
“Yeah,” L.X. nodded, “You?”
“Yeah,” she said, “My dad’s around here somewhere. He told me to play over here because I was getting under his feet.”
“I guess we’ve got a lot in common,” L.X. smiled.
The girl smiled back at him, “Say, do you want to go somewhere a little more... private?”
Did he ever!
“Sure,” he smiled, “Why not?”
The girl switched off the game and handed it back to L.X. again. Once he’d put it in his bag, she took his hand and lead him round the back of the playground.
L.X. found himself alone with this mystery girl, and he kept wondering – well, more hoping – what might happen between them. The girl stopped, letting go of L.X.’s hand, and turned to face him.
“You’re really cute,” she said to him, smiling sheepishly, “I just wanted to say that when there was no one else around, just in case you ran off.”
“I’m not running off anywhere,” L.X. smiled back, “You’re really pretty too.”
The girl brushed her hair behind her ears, “Thanks,” she said shyly, “You’re sweet.”
She took L.X.’s hand again and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. He felt his cheek burning as he felt the softness of her lips against it.
“Would you like to go out some time?” L.X. asked bravely. He didn’t want this girl to get away, and he really hoped she wasn’t just messing with him like that time F.E. had put her hand down his shorts, then squeezed really hard.
“I’d like that,” the girl said, then frowned, “You know what, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s L.X.,” L.X. told her, “What’s yours?”
The girl stared at him with worry, “Your name is L.X.?” she asked.
“Yes,” L.X. said, “Why?”
“Mine is N.G.” she told him, and L.X.’s heart stopped in his chest.
If her name was N.G., then that meant she came from the other tribe.
She was his enemy.
“You’re from the other planet?” L.X. asked, his eyes burning as he tried not to cry.
“Yes,” N.G. told him sadly, then smiled again, “But does that really matter?”
L.X. thought this over. All his life he’d been told that the N-Z were his enemy; that he could trade with them but nothing else. A-M and N-Z could never be friends. That kind of relationship would never work.
“But how would this work?” L.X. sighed, “We don’t even live on the same planet. We come from different worlds.”
N.G. shrugged, “We could make our own world,” she said, “right here. What do you think?”
L.X. looked her in the eye. She looked a little sad, but there was also a happiness on her face. She still held his hand tightly, and he squeezed it even tighter.
“I’d love that,” he told her, “but what do we tell our families?”
“They’ll understand,” N.G. said, “We’ll leave them a note. Maybe it’ll make them think differently about how they think about each other.”
N.G. took a notebook from her own bag and started to write. It was a goodbye letter – the most beautiful goodbye letter L.X. had ever seen – and when she’d finished writing, they both signed it and left it on the ground before walking away into the desert.
*
K.T. finally finished the weekly grocery shop and returned to the playground where she’d left her brother. She looked around briefly but couldn’t see him anywhere.
“L.X.?” she called out, but didn’t get a response. She dropped her basket to the ground, running over to the playground and grabbing one of the children.
“Have you seen my brother?” she asked, “He’s got brown hair, dark eyes, he’s carrying a red and blue back pack?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, “I saw him go off behind the playground with a girl. She was real pretty.”
K.T. let go of the child and ran to the alleyway behind the playground. She could see no sign of her brother. Then she noticed his hand-held game sitting on the ground, holding down a piece of paper.
“N.G.?” she heard a voice calling, and a man came around the corner, “Say, have you seen a young girl around here; blonde hair in a summery dress?”
K.T. had bent down to pick up the paper and was reading over it, her tears welling up, “Did you say her name N.G.?” she asked.
“Yes,” the man said, “I’m her father, O.N. Have you seen her?”
K.T. showed him the letter, and O.N. gasped as he read what his daughter had written.
The two children were never seen or heard from again, but N.G.’s words in her letter served as a reminder to the people of A-M and N-Z that they had once been friends, and it might take a long time, but I think they might be friends again, sometime in the future. Don’t you?
Originally Posted 18/8/2015
Result - 1st Place
Poem : They’re Out There!
The idea that the universe
Would make the odd decision
To limit intelligent life
Is oft met with derision
That mankind is wholly alone,
That Earth is so unique
That only it can create life
Is stupid, so to speak.
There must be other life out there
Off in the great vast ether
Or did God think that branching out
Was simply too beneath Her?
But until aliens invade
And take us to their leaders
We’ll just assume they don’t exist,
The sneaky little bleeders.
Originally Posted 18/8/2015
Result - Didn't Place
Would make the odd decision
To limit intelligent life
Is oft met with derision
That mankind is wholly alone,
That Earth is so unique
That only it can create life
Is stupid, so to speak.
There must be other life out there
Off in the great vast ether
Or did God think that branching out
Was simply too beneath Her?
But until aliens invade
And take us to their leaders
We’ll just assume they don’t exist,
The sneaky little bleeders.
Originally Posted 18/8/2015
Result - Didn't Place
August 11, 2015
Short Story : Final Performance At The Maagiline Festival (aka. Magical Pig)
Wielding the magic of the ages might have been something special in most worlds, but in the land of the Zamatsenga is was something of an everyday occurrence, and for many it simply marked their coming of age.
Sihiri was a few weeks off turning sixteen cycles old, but she had been practicing magic since she was eight, and soon she would be able to compete in the annual Maagiline Festival, where the youth of society were tested to see just how powerful their magic had become. She’d been practising a simple magic spell that would produce a rain cloud above the stage of the open air auditorium, and she thought that weather manipulation was sure to win her a place next term at the Maagiline class.
Sihiri’s best friend Serhli was a few months older, and had been able to compete the previous year. She had come eleventh so had just missed out on a place in Maagiline classes, and was very excited to get the chance to compete again.
“This is going to be so much fun!” she said enthusiastically as Sihiri sat in front of her mirror, applying makeup to her snout. As part of the ritual the youngsters were encouraged to dress in traditional tribal outfits and Sihiri planned on going all out as this was her first time. Her mother had given her some of her outfits from when she was a child, and Sihiri had planned on taking the best elements from each of them and combining them to make one spectacular ensemble. She’d only finished a few days before, and she was extremely happy with how her outfit had turned out.
“I wonder how Gaib is going to look?” Sihiri said absently as she puckered her snout and applied snout-stick to it, “I bet he looks amazing.”
“I’m sure he’ll be more worried about how you look,” Serhli chuckled, “He’ll be looking at you all dreamy with your fancy clothes and make-up.”
“Shut up,” Sihiri smiled, “What about you and Kichawi? I saw the two of you making out after lessons last week.”
“You didn’t?” Serhli slapped Sihiri gently on the shoulder, “Oh my, I’m so embarrassed! Did we look like we knew what we were doing?”
Sihiri shrugged, “I guess so,” she said, “I wouldn’t really know anyway.”
“You mean you and Gaib never—“
Sihiri shook her head.
“But you two have been together since you were eleven! And you’ve never even kissed?”
Sihiri shook her head again.
“That’s sad,” Serhli sighed, “Me and Kichawi snog all the time! I’m surprised you haven’t caught us before.”
“Well it’s not like I make it my life’s mission to track you down and record your make out sessions,” Sihiri chuckled.
“Stop it!” Serhli chuckled in return, her snout wrinkling into her cheeks, “You make me sound like such a slut.”
As the two friends chuckled together, Sihiri’s mother entered the room. She smiled to see the two friends joking together and took a look at how her daughter had progressed with her dress.
“This is wonderful, daughter,” she smiled, “You are going to be the prettiest girl at the festival.”
“Thanks mum.” Sihiri smiled.
“What about me, Mrs Alade?” Serhli smiled cheekily.
“You will be a close second, Serhli,” Sihiri’s mother laughed.
“You’ll always be number one to Kichawi!” Sihiri chuckled.
“Shut up!” Serhli growled.
“You two had better hurry up,” Sihiri’s mother warned, “You only have an hour before we have to be at the Maagiline festival. Come on now, chop chop.”
“Come on Sihiri,” Serhli hurried her friend along, “You better get that dress on quickly.”
Sihiri picked up her dress and pulled it over her head, careful not to touch it with her snout for fear of getting snout-stick all over it. Once the dress was on she smoothed down the wrinkles and turned to face her friend.
“Well?” she asked, “How do I look?”
“You look amazing!” Serhli told her, shaking her head in disbelief, “I wish I’d asked you to make my dress.”
“Just think,” Sihiri smiled, “Once today is over I’ll be able to attend Maagiline classes with you and I’ll be able to make all the dresses I want.”
“Careful what you say,” Serhli warned, “the Maagiline council don’t like people using magic for their own ends. If they hearing you saying things like that they may not let you attend Maagiline lessons. They might even use any ourbursts to get rid of your friends and family if they happen to be going through lessons also.”
“Don’t worry,” Sihiri beamed, “I won’t do anything to embarrass you.”
*
Sihiri stood back stage with Serhli, waiting for the festival to begin. Each of the teenagers that were coming of age would go on last, with the previous year’s contestants going on ahead of them. As children could perform up until the age of eighteen, there were a lot of contestants to get through.
Serhil looked passed the curtain to see her parents, Mr and Mrs Donuz, sitting a few rows from the front. A few rows in front of them, she caught sight of Gaib, and she tugged at Sihiri’s dress to get her attention.
“Your boyfriend is out there,” she smirked, “do you think he came especially?”
“Maybe,” Sihiri blushed. He’d come second the year before so had been allowed to progress to Maagiline lessons. Sihiri thought how great it would be to share classes with him again.
“I’m so nervous,” Serhil told her friend, “What if my magic goes wrong?”
“It won’t go wrong,” Sihiri told her, “Just focus on your parents and everything will be fine.”
“I think I’ll concentrate on something else,” Serhil said, “I’ll imagine Kichawi in his underwear... again! You can do the same with Gaib!”
“You’re terrible,” Sihiri laughed, tapping her friend gently on the arm.
As the two friends joked, another girl named Sixir approached them. She was wearing a slinky dress, coloured deep red, with slits up both sides to show off her legs. She looked far older than her sixteen cycles, and she used that to make men do what she wanted, even at her young age.
“I don’t know why you two are even bothering to try out for Maagiline lessons,” she said snootily, “You should just get jobs as maids, like your mothers.”
Serhil growled at Sixir, “Just because our mothers didn’t make it to Maagiline classes doesn’t mean we won’t,” she oinked, “for all you know, you might fail for the next four years and end up working for me.”
Sixir laughed, “I somehow do not see that happening,” she smiled creepily, “I mean, imagine; a Doofaarka working for a Donuz? Or worse, an Alade? I don’t think so.”
Sixir walked away from the two girls. Laughing at her own joke. Sihiri and Serhil didn’t find it funny.
“Don’t listen to her,” a boy named Miharo said, having been listening in on their conversation, “I’ve seen her practising her magic, and she isn’t very good. She’ll be lucky to make it into the top twenty!”
“Thanks Miharo,” Sihiri said as the boy smiled and walked off to join his friends, “and good luck.”
The two girls peeked out into the audience, seeing that all the seats had been filled, and they spotted the festival judge, Hudol Mochyn, walking out onto the stage. He held up his hands to a round of applause, then lowered them to indicate silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hudol announced, “it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the seventy-sixth Annual Maagiline Festival. This year we have some spectacular returning contestants who didn’t quite make it last cycle, but are sure to have made vast improvements over the last twelve months.”
The audience clapped, and Serhil smiled, “He’s talking about me, you know,” she grinned.
“Me more likely,” a girl called Bolimda chuckled, dressed in an outfit that was almost as spectacular as Sihiri’s.
“Wow, you look amazing,” Serhil whispered to her, “but that doesn’t mean your magic is better than mine.”
“We’ll see,” Bolimda boasted, wrinkling her snout up into a wide grin.
“I’m going to beat you all hands down,” a boy named Ajaib told them all.
“You?” Bloimda chuckled, “You won’t win—it’s your first year.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ajaib said, “Remember Caroban Svinja five years back?”
Everyone remembered Caroban Svinja. He had hands down given the best magical performance in seventy-six years of the Maagiline Festival, creating a rainbow that had showered the audience with solid gold. They were only small pieces, so as not to injure anyone, but no-one had ever before or since been able to create gold with magic.
“That’s true,” Serhil admitted, “but he was the exception that proves the rule.”
“I never understood that saying,” Ajaib grumbled, “how can there be an exception if it’s a rule. That’s like saying ‘no running in the halls unless you need to run in the halls’. It’s stupid.”
“Well, just do your best and see if you can be the next Caroban Svinja,” Sihiri smiled, “I’m sure you’ll do well.”
“Don’t patronise me,” Abaija growled, walking away.
The girls turned back to the stage to see Hudol Mochyn finishing up his speech.
“And so, without any further ado, let’s welcome our first participant onto the stage.”
The first of the teenagers to go on stage was a girl named Balodis. Sihiri knew her from their language lessons together, and she quite liked her even though she was extremely quiet. Balodis was dressed in a green and brown dress which hung from her flat chest, and she smiled with embarrassment as she walked on stage, not uttering a single word.
As the light shone in her eyes, she held her hands above her head and waved them mystically. The audience watched as a puff of black smoke burst over her head and a small Balodis bird appeared and fluttered around the stage before landing on her shoulder. Balodis smiled sheepishly as the audience politely applauded her, then walked off stage with the bird.
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough to win her first place,” Serhil commented as the next contestant walked out on stage.
This was a boy named Idan, who was very tall for his age. His outfit didn’t quite fit him in length, so his arms and legs appeared to taper wildly from out of his sleeves and trouser legs. He smiled widely as he took centre stage, wheeling a table with a black velvet top hat in the middle of it.
“Oh no,” Sixir chuckled, having approached the two girls from behind, “this looks like a very old fashioned trick indeed.”
She wasn’t wrong. Idan proceeded to produce a black wand with a white tip, and he waved it over the top hat.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he boomed, “Behold the wondrous magic of The Great Idantini!”
“Idantini?” Sixir mocked, “It’s probably the only thing about him that’s ‘tini’. Clearly his ego isn’t!”
Reaching inside the hat, which he had already revealed to be empty, Idan pulled an ehoru, its nose twitching and its long ears flipping back and forth. He stopped for applause, which there wasn’t that much of.
As he walked off stage, wheeling his table with him, Sixir punched Sihiri on the arm, making it look like she was being gentle and friendly but actually hitting quite hard.
“Well, I’m up next,” she grinned, “and I think you’re going to like my performance.”
Sixir took long strides out onto the stage, allowing her legs to be revealed under her slinky dress, then stood in the spotlight with her hands in the air. Loud applause and wolf whistles arose from the audience as she stuck out her chest and waited for the clapping to stop. When it did, she spoke loudly.
“For my magical performance I will require a volunteer from the audience,” she announced, “Who would like to come and help me?”
All the teenage boys in the audience started throwing their arms in the air, desperately wanting to be a part of Sixir’s magic tricks. Basically they just wanted to get close to her, maybe even have her touch them, but they were all going to be out of luck.
“You,” she announced, pointing into the audience, “Please, come and join me on stage.”
Sihiri and Serhil tried to see who she’d selected, but couldn’t see who it was until he alighted the stage.
It was Gaib!
“That bitch!” Serhil oathed, “She’s doing this to piss you off.”
Sihiri said nothing. She just watched as Sixir began her performance.
“My magical focus for the last twelve months has been on mind control,” Sixir announced, “and as such I have mastered the ability of taking over the mind’s of other people,” she gestured to Gaib and said, “Please, take a seat.”
Gaib sat down on a stool a short distance from Sixir, looking very uncomfortable.
Sixir removed a watch and chain from her dress -- Sihiri couldn’t quite figure out where she’d been hiding it -- and swung it gently in front of Gaib’s face.
“Now, you may start to feel a little sleepy,” she said loudly, chuckles coming from the audience. Even if she didn’t take first place for her tricks, she’d certainly take first place for showmanship.
The watch continued to swing, and Gaib’s eyelids started to droop. Sixir smiled as Gaib’s head lolled foward, indicating that he was completely under her spell.
Sixir smiled, “Now, bark like an Anjing!”
Gaib lifted his head and started to howl, getting up from his seat and prancing around the stage like somebody’s pet.
Sixir waved her fingers and bellowed, “Now, fly like a burung,” she spoke.
Gaib suddenly lifted into the air, flying around the stage as if he were some creature of the sky. The audience oohed and ahhed, then started to applause. Sixir grinned.
“The show isn’t over yet,” she said as Gaib came in to land beside her, “No, kiss me.”
Gaib, his eyes still glazed over, leaned in to Sixir and the two of them started to passionately kiss on stage in front of everyone. The audience didn’t seem that sure of what to make of it, but Sihiri could feel the rage building up inside of her.
Sixir was going to pay for this.
As the horrible girl finished her magic show and walked off stage, a bewildered Gaib being led off by some audience members, Sihiri realised it was her turn to go on stage.
“Beat that,” Sixir smirked as she walked past her, purposely placing her foot on the end of Sihiri’s dress. There came a loud rip, and half the skirt tore down the side. Sihiri stared at Sixir as she walked off, and her cheeks began to flush with rage.
Sihiri walked on stage to applause, which turned to laughter as people saw her torn clothes. Clearly they thought the daughter of a maid could only afford second hand damaged clothes, and they thought it was hilarious.
Sihiri didn’t find it funny at all.
She looked at Gaib, sitting back in his seat, still looking a little out of it. She couldn’t believe that Sixir had kissed him. Like Sihiri, Gaib had been saving himself for the right person, and she knew that Gaib thought Sihiri wast he one, but Sixir had stolen that from her. She had stolen the first kiss of her true love.
Sihiri bunched her hands together into fists and looked up at the sky in the open air auditorium. Then she looked sideways at Sixir, who was standing off stage laughing.
Angrily, Sihiri began her magic trick, raising her hands above her head and summoning a small rain cloud so she could make it rain on stage. But, as she concentrated, she couldn’t help thinking about Sixir and how angry she had made her. She felt her fingernails cutting into the palms of her hands, and tears trickled down her cheeks and snout.
The cloud appeared above her head, and the audience gasped with appreciation as it rumbled and rolled. Sihiri sniffed as the cloud started to grow bigger, continuing to rumble and roar, the light of lightning threatening to burst free from inside.
Offstage, Serhil gasped at how impressive her friends display was.
“I didn’t realise she was this good,” she whispered to Bolimda. Bolimda nodded silently.
The cloud grew and grew, causing violent winds to pass through the auditorium, and some of the audience started to get nervous about what might happen. Through her tears, Sihiri smiled slightly, looking over at her friend Serhil as the cloud grew ever bigger. Serhil saw the smile and she watched in awe as lightning started to crackle within the storm cloud.
“What’s happening?” Bolimda muttered to Serhil, “Is that supposed to happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Serhil replied, not taking her eyes from the stage. The sound of thunder started to rumble loudly throughout the auditorium, and then the lightning started to violently streak across the stage.
Some people in the audience stood up to leave, worried the lightning might be beyond Sihiri’s control, while others didn’t move from their seats, watching in astonished awe. All the while Sihiri stood motionless on the stage, her hands still raised above her head.
With a sudden motion, Sihiri sweopt her hands down and to the side, and a lightning bolt freed itself from the storm cloud, striking across the stage and off into the prompt corner where some of the other contestants were standing, including Serhil.
Seeing the lightning bolt heading offstage, Serhil ducked, but she needn’t have bothered.
The bolt had an intended target.
From her prone position on the ground, Serhil looked around to see the bolt of lightning strike Sixir. Sixir screamed in what could only be described as agony as she turned from a gentle pink to a crispy black in a matter of seconds, then her charred body collapsed to the floor, dead.
Serhil looked back to the stage where Sihiri stood, her hands slowly lowering to her sides and the cloud gently dissipating into nothingness. Once the cloud was gone and her hands were by her sides, she fell to her knees. Hudol Mochyn ran on stage to see if she was okay as murmurings started to rise from the audience.
Serhil jogged over to check on her friend, who opened her eyes slowly to look at both her and Hudol.
“Are you okay, young lady?” Hudol asked, his hand supporting her back.
“I... I think so,” she murmured, “How did I do?”
“Well,” Hudol furrowed his brow, “with that kind of power we can’t help but offer you a place in our class.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, “we need to make sure you learn how to control this magic you’ve discovered.”
Sihiri looked confused, “What do you mean, help me control the magic?” she asked.
Hudol smiled warmly at her, “Well, you lost control of the lightning, didn’t you,” he said, “and that’s why that girl got killed back stage.”
“Lost control?” Sihiri repeated.
Serhil looked down at her friend, “That is what happened, isn’t it?”
Sihiri looked at her friend, “Of course,” she told her. Then she winked.
Originally Posted 11/8/2015
Result - 1st Place
Sihiri was a few weeks off turning sixteen cycles old, but she had been practicing magic since she was eight, and soon she would be able to compete in the annual Maagiline Festival, where the youth of society were tested to see just how powerful their magic had become. She’d been practising a simple magic spell that would produce a rain cloud above the stage of the open air auditorium, and she thought that weather manipulation was sure to win her a place next term at the Maagiline class.
Sihiri’s best friend Serhli was a few months older, and had been able to compete the previous year. She had come eleventh so had just missed out on a place in Maagiline classes, and was very excited to get the chance to compete again.
“This is going to be so much fun!” she said enthusiastically as Sihiri sat in front of her mirror, applying makeup to her snout. As part of the ritual the youngsters were encouraged to dress in traditional tribal outfits and Sihiri planned on going all out as this was her first time. Her mother had given her some of her outfits from when she was a child, and Sihiri had planned on taking the best elements from each of them and combining them to make one spectacular ensemble. She’d only finished a few days before, and she was extremely happy with how her outfit had turned out.
“I wonder how Gaib is going to look?” Sihiri said absently as she puckered her snout and applied snout-stick to it, “I bet he looks amazing.”
“I’m sure he’ll be more worried about how you look,” Serhli chuckled, “He’ll be looking at you all dreamy with your fancy clothes and make-up.”
“Shut up,” Sihiri smiled, “What about you and Kichawi? I saw the two of you making out after lessons last week.”
“You didn’t?” Serhli slapped Sihiri gently on the shoulder, “Oh my, I’m so embarrassed! Did we look like we knew what we were doing?”
Sihiri shrugged, “I guess so,” she said, “I wouldn’t really know anyway.”
“You mean you and Gaib never—“
Sihiri shook her head.
“But you two have been together since you were eleven! And you’ve never even kissed?”
Sihiri shook her head again.
“That’s sad,” Serhli sighed, “Me and Kichawi snog all the time! I’m surprised you haven’t caught us before.”
“Well it’s not like I make it my life’s mission to track you down and record your make out sessions,” Sihiri chuckled.
“Stop it!” Serhli chuckled in return, her snout wrinkling into her cheeks, “You make me sound like such a slut.”
As the two friends chuckled together, Sihiri’s mother entered the room. She smiled to see the two friends joking together and took a look at how her daughter had progressed with her dress.
“This is wonderful, daughter,” she smiled, “You are going to be the prettiest girl at the festival.”
“Thanks mum.” Sihiri smiled.
“What about me, Mrs Alade?” Serhli smiled cheekily.
“You will be a close second, Serhli,” Sihiri’s mother laughed.
“You’ll always be number one to Kichawi!” Sihiri chuckled.
“Shut up!” Serhli growled.
“You two had better hurry up,” Sihiri’s mother warned, “You only have an hour before we have to be at the Maagiline festival. Come on now, chop chop.”
“Come on Sihiri,” Serhli hurried her friend along, “You better get that dress on quickly.”
Sihiri picked up her dress and pulled it over her head, careful not to touch it with her snout for fear of getting snout-stick all over it. Once the dress was on she smoothed down the wrinkles and turned to face her friend.
“Well?” she asked, “How do I look?”
“You look amazing!” Serhli told her, shaking her head in disbelief, “I wish I’d asked you to make my dress.”
“Just think,” Sihiri smiled, “Once today is over I’ll be able to attend Maagiline classes with you and I’ll be able to make all the dresses I want.”
“Careful what you say,” Serhli warned, “the Maagiline council don’t like people using magic for their own ends. If they hearing you saying things like that they may not let you attend Maagiline lessons. They might even use any ourbursts to get rid of your friends and family if they happen to be going through lessons also.”
“Don’t worry,” Sihiri beamed, “I won’t do anything to embarrass you.”
*
Sihiri stood back stage with Serhli, waiting for the festival to begin. Each of the teenagers that were coming of age would go on last, with the previous year’s contestants going on ahead of them. As children could perform up until the age of eighteen, there were a lot of contestants to get through.
Serhil looked passed the curtain to see her parents, Mr and Mrs Donuz, sitting a few rows from the front. A few rows in front of them, she caught sight of Gaib, and she tugged at Sihiri’s dress to get her attention.
“Your boyfriend is out there,” she smirked, “do you think he came especially?”
“Maybe,” Sihiri blushed. He’d come second the year before so had been allowed to progress to Maagiline lessons. Sihiri thought how great it would be to share classes with him again.
“I’m so nervous,” Serhil told her friend, “What if my magic goes wrong?”
“It won’t go wrong,” Sihiri told her, “Just focus on your parents and everything will be fine.”
“I think I’ll concentrate on something else,” Serhil said, “I’ll imagine Kichawi in his underwear... again! You can do the same with Gaib!”
“You’re terrible,” Sihiri laughed, tapping her friend gently on the arm.
As the two friends joked, another girl named Sixir approached them. She was wearing a slinky dress, coloured deep red, with slits up both sides to show off her legs. She looked far older than her sixteen cycles, and she used that to make men do what she wanted, even at her young age.
“I don’t know why you two are even bothering to try out for Maagiline lessons,” she said snootily, “You should just get jobs as maids, like your mothers.”
Serhil growled at Sixir, “Just because our mothers didn’t make it to Maagiline classes doesn’t mean we won’t,” she oinked, “for all you know, you might fail for the next four years and end up working for me.”
Sixir laughed, “I somehow do not see that happening,” she smiled creepily, “I mean, imagine; a Doofaarka working for a Donuz? Or worse, an Alade? I don’t think so.”
Sixir walked away from the two girls. Laughing at her own joke. Sihiri and Serhil didn’t find it funny.
“Don’t listen to her,” a boy named Miharo said, having been listening in on their conversation, “I’ve seen her practising her magic, and she isn’t very good. She’ll be lucky to make it into the top twenty!”
“Thanks Miharo,” Sihiri said as the boy smiled and walked off to join his friends, “and good luck.”
The two girls peeked out into the audience, seeing that all the seats had been filled, and they spotted the festival judge, Hudol Mochyn, walking out onto the stage. He held up his hands to a round of applause, then lowered them to indicate silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hudol announced, “it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the seventy-sixth Annual Maagiline Festival. This year we have some spectacular returning contestants who didn’t quite make it last cycle, but are sure to have made vast improvements over the last twelve months.”
The audience clapped, and Serhil smiled, “He’s talking about me, you know,” she grinned.
“Me more likely,” a girl called Bolimda chuckled, dressed in an outfit that was almost as spectacular as Sihiri’s.
“Wow, you look amazing,” Serhil whispered to her, “but that doesn’t mean your magic is better than mine.”
“We’ll see,” Bolimda boasted, wrinkling her snout up into a wide grin.
“I’m going to beat you all hands down,” a boy named Ajaib told them all.
“You?” Bloimda chuckled, “You won’t win—it’s your first year.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ajaib said, “Remember Caroban Svinja five years back?”
Everyone remembered Caroban Svinja. He had hands down given the best magical performance in seventy-six years of the Maagiline Festival, creating a rainbow that had showered the audience with solid gold. They were only small pieces, so as not to injure anyone, but no-one had ever before or since been able to create gold with magic.
“That’s true,” Serhil admitted, “but he was the exception that proves the rule.”
“I never understood that saying,” Ajaib grumbled, “how can there be an exception if it’s a rule. That’s like saying ‘no running in the halls unless you need to run in the halls’. It’s stupid.”
“Well, just do your best and see if you can be the next Caroban Svinja,” Sihiri smiled, “I’m sure you’ll do well.”
“Don’t patronise me,” Abaija growled, walking away.
The girls turned back to the stage to see Hudol Mochyn finishing up his speech.
“And so, without any further ado, let’s welcome our first participant onto the stage.”
The first of the teenagers to go on stage was a girl named Balodis. Sihiri knew her from their language lessons together, and she quite liked her even though she was extremely quiet. Balodis was dressed in a green and brown dress which hung from her flat chest, and she smiled with embarrassment as she walked on stage, not uttering a single word.
As the light shone in her eyes, she held her hands above her head and waved them mystically. The audience watched as a puff of black smoke burst over her head and a small Balodis bird appeared and fluttered around the stage before landing on her shoulder. Balodis smiled sheepishly as the audience politely applauded her, then walked off stage with the bird.
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough to win her first place,” Serhil commented as the next contestant walked out on stage.
This was a boy named Idan, who was very tall for his age. His outfit didn’t quite fit him in length, so his arms and legs appeared to taper wildly from out of his sleeves and trouser legs. He smiled widely as he took centre stage, wheeling a table with a black velvet top hat in the middle of it.
“Oh no,” Sixir chuckled, having approached the two girls from behind, “this looks like a very old fashioned trick indeed.”
She wasn’t wrong. Idan proceeded to produce a black wand with a white tip, and he waved it over the top hat.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he boomed, “Behold the wondrous magic of The Great Idantini!”
“Idantini?” Sixir mocked, “It’s probably the only thing about him that’s ‘tini’. Clearly his ego isn’t!”
Reaching inside the hat, which he had already revealed to be empty, Idan pulled an ehoru, its nose twitching and its long ears flipping back and forth. He stopped for applause, which there wasn’t that much of.
As he walked off stage, wheeling his table with him, Sixir punched Sihiri on the arm, making it look like she was being gentle and friendly but actually hitting quite hard.
“Well, I’m up next,” she grinned, “and I think you’re going to like my performance.”
Sixir took long strides out onto the stage, allowing her legs to be revealed under her slinky dress, then stood in the spotlight with her hands in the air. Loud applause and wolf whistles arose from the audience as she stuck out her chest and waited for the clapping to stop. When it did, she spoke loudly.
“For my magical performance I will require a volunteer from the audience,” she announced, “Who would like to come and help me?”
All the teenage boys in the audience started throwing their arms in the air, desperately wanting to be a part of Sixir’s magic tricks. Basically they just wanted to get close to her, maybe even have her touch them, but they were all going to be out of luck.
“You,” she announced, pointing into the audience, “Please, come and join me on stage.”
Sihiri and Serhil tried to see who she’d selected, but couldn’t see who it was until he alighted the stage.
It was Gaib!
“That bitch!” Serhil oathed, “She’s doing this to piss you off.”
Sihiri said nothing. She just watched as Sixir began her performance.
“My magical focus for the last twelve months has been on mind control,” Sixir announced, “and as such I have mastered the ability of taking over the mind’s of other people,” she gestured to Gaib and said, “Please, take a seat.”
Gaib sat down on a stool a short distance from Sixir, looking very uncomfortable.
Sixir removed a watch and chain from her dress -- Sihiri couldn’t quite figure out where she’d been hiding it -- and swung it gently in front of Gaib’s face.
“Now, you may start to feel a little sleepy,” she said loudly, chuckles coming from the audience. Even if she didn’t take first place for her tricks, she’d certainly take first place for showmanship.
The watch continued to swing, and Gaib’s eyelids started to droop. Sixir smiled as Gaib’s head lolled foward, indicating that he was completely under her spell.
Sixir smiled, “Now, bark like an Anjing!”
Gaib lifted his head and started to howl, getting up from his seat and prancing around the stage like somebody’s pet.
Sixir waved her fingers and bellowed, “Now, fly like a burung,” she spoke.
Gaib suddenly lifted into the air, flying around the stage as if he were some creature of the sky. The audience oohed and ahhed, then started to applause. Sixir grinned.
“The show isn’t over yet,” she said as Gaib came in to land beside her, “No, kiss me.”
Gaib, his eyes still glazed over, leaned in to Sixir and the two of them started to passionately kiss on stage in front of everyone. The audience didn’t seem that sure of what to make of it, but Sihiri could feel the rage building up inside of her.
Sixir was going to pay for this.
As the horrible girl finished her magic show and walked off stage, a bewildered Gaib being led off by some audience members, Sihiri realised it was her turn to go on stage.
“Beat that,” Sixir smirked as she walked past her, purposely placing her foot on the end of Sihiri’s dress. There came a loud rip, and half the skirt tore down the side. Sihiri stared at Sixir as she walked off, and her cheeks began to flush with rage.
Sihiri walked on stage to applause, which turned to laughter as people saw her torn clothes. Clearly they thought the daughter of a maid could only afford second hand damaged clothes, and they thought it was hilarious.
Sihiri didn’t find it funny at all.
She looked at Gaib, sitting back in his seat, still looking a little out of it. She couldn’t believe that Sixir had kissed him. Like Sihiri, Gaib had been saving himself for the right person, and she knew that Gaib thought Sihiri wast he one, but Sixir had stolen that from her. She had stolen the first kiss of her true love.
Sihiri bunched her hands together into fists and looked up at the sky in the open air auditorium. Then she looked sideways at Sixir, who was standing off stage laughing.
Angrily, Sihiri began her magic trick, raising her hands above her head and summoning a small rain cloud so she could make it rain on stage. But, as she concentrated, she couldn’t help thinking about Sixir and how angry she had made her. She felt her fingernails cutting into the palms of her hands, and tears trickled down her cheeks and snout.
The cloud appeared above her head, and the audience gasped with appreciation as it rumbled and rolled. Sihiri sniffed as the cloud started to grow bigger, continuing to rumble and roar, the light of lightning threatening to burst free from inside.
Offstage, Serhil gasped at how impressive her friends display was.
“I didn’t realise she was this good,” she whispered to Bolimda. Bolimda nodded silently.
The cloud grew and grew, causing violent winds to pass through the auditorium, and some of the audience started to get nervous about what might happen. Through her tears, Sihiri smiled slightly, looking over at her friend Serhil as the cloud grew ever bigger. Serhil saw the smile and she watched in awe as lightning started to crackle within the storm cloud.
“What’s happening?” Bolimda muttered to Serhil, “Is that supposed to happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Serhil replied, not taking her eyes from the stage. The sound of thunder started to rumble loudly throughout the auditorium, and then the lightning started to violently streak across the stage.
Some people in the audience stood up to leave, worried the lightning might be beyond Sihiri’s control, while others didn’t move from their seats, watching in astonished awe. All the while Sihiri stood motionless on the stage, her hands still raised above her head.
With a sudden motion, Sihiri sweopt her hands down and to the side, and a lightning bolt freed itself from the storm cloud, striking across the stage and off into the prompt corner where some of the other contestants were standing, including Serhil.
Seeing the lightning bolt heading offstage, Serhil ducked, but she needn’t have bothered.
The bolt had an intended target.
From her prone position on the ground, Serhil looked around to see the bolt of lightning strike Sixir. Sixir screamed in what could only be described as agony as she turned from a gentle pink to a crispy black in a matter of seconds, then her charred body collapsed to the floor, dead.
Serhil looked back to the stage where Sihiri stood, her hands slowly lowering to her sides and the cloud gently dissipating into nothingness. Once the cloud was gone and her hands were by her sides, she fell to her knees. Hudol Mochyn ran on stage to see if she was okay as murmurings started to rise from the audience.
Serhil jogged over to check on her friend, who opened her eyes slowly to look at both her and Hudol.
“Are you okay, young lady?” Hudol asked, his hand supporting her back.
“I... I think so,” she murmured, “How did I do?”
“Well,” Hudol furrowed his brow, “with that kind of power we can’t help but offer you a place in our class.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, “we need to make sure you learn how to control this magic you’ve discovered.”
Sihiri looked confused, “What do you mean, help me control the magic?” she asked.
Hudol smiled warmly at her, “Well, you lost control of the lightning, didn’t you,” he said, “and that’s why that girl got killed back stage.”
“Lost control?” Sihiri repeated.
Serhil looked down at her friend, “That is what happened, isn’t it?”
Sihiri looked at her friend, “Of course,” she told her. Then she winked.
Originally Posted 11/8/2015
Result - 1st Place
August 10, 2015
Poem : Calm...
Barely blowing is the wind
Gentle are the autumn breezes
Hints of raindrops yet to come
Coax an end of summer sneezes
The sounds that whistle through the reeds
The nights grow warm as thunder rolls
A circle envelops the moon
A sign to chill our very souls
We wait with baited breath and watch
As birds migrate and insects swarm
The air grows still as it suggests
The calm before the coming storm
Originally Posted 10/8/2015
Result - Didn't Place
Gentle are the autumn breezes
Hints of raindrops yet to come
Coax an end of summer sneezes
The sounds that whistle through the reeds
The nights grow warm as thunder rolls
A circle envelops the moon
A sign to chill our very souls
We wait with baited breath and watch
As birds migrate and insects swarm
The air grows still as it suggests
The calm before the coming storm
Originally Posted 10/8/2015
Result - Didn't Place
August 3, 2015
Short Story : Just When You Think You’ve Got It All Figured Out...
“Your family are dead.”
Carter stared blankly at the man and woman that stood in front of him. He lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, his right arm in plaster. He licked his dry, cracked lips before speaking.
“What did you say?”
The woman sat down on the edge of Carter’s bed. It was the man who had spoken before, and she glared at him as if he was a tactless idiot. Which he was.
“What we meant to say was,” the woman began, “that there was an accident.”
“An accident?” Carter repeated.
“Yes,” the woman smiled, “Can you remember anything about the accident?”
Carter shook his head.
The woman breathed in deeply, flaring her nostrils, then began to explain.
“My name is Agent Tracey, and this is my colleague Agent Reese,” she informed him, “Your wife was driving you and your two children to the shops when she seems to have lost control of the vehicle. She spun uncontrollably, and the car flipped. You were thrown clear of the vehicle—that’s how you broke your arm--but your wife and children were trapped inside.”
Agent Tracey paused.
“The vehicle caught fire—“
“Where are they?” Carter croaked, “Where are my family?”
“Didn’t I already cover this?” Agent Reese whispered to his colleague. Agent Tracey shushed him.
“The fire burnt quickly,” Agent Tracey explained, “they didn’t suffer. They didn’t survive.”
Carter shook his head, “No,” he wept, “You’re wrong.”
Agent Tracey stared at her feet, “We’re sorry for your loss.”
Carter sniffled, thinking about his wife and two children. What a horrible thing to wake up to, he thought to himself, and it was almost his birthday as well...
Carter furrowed his brow, and looked around the room. It didn’t look like hospital room he’d ever been in before; it was carpeted, for one thing, the walls were a lively creamy yellow colour rather than a dull hospital grey or white, but it was the calendar on the wall that caught his attention.
Today was his birthday.
Carter started to chuckle to himself, and the two agents stared at him as if he were mad.
“Why are you laughing?” Agent Reese asked.
“This is a prank, right?” he grinned, “For my fortieth birthday? You’re punking me and none of what you said is true!”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Agent Tracey frowned.
Carter looked at Agent Tracey. She was kind of good looking, and she looked like she had a decent rack under her blazer.
“You’re a stripper, aren’t you?” Carter tried to sit up in his bed, “Did Steve organise this? That Steve. He’s such a prankster.”
Agent Tracey glared at Carter, standing up from the bed, “I am NOT a stripper,” she said harshly, “I’ll let that comment go seeing as how you have just lost your family, but you had better be careful what you say to me in the future.”
Carter threw back his sheets with his good left arm, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, “Something isn’t right here,” he said, “so wither you’re a stripper, or there’s something more going on here.”
He reached forward with his good left hand and grabbed the front of Agent Tracey’s blazer, pulling the buttons open. Before she could do anything, he ripped the front of her blouse open, expecting to see a pair of firm breasts in some lacy undies.
Instead he saw metal.
“What the f—“ he began before Agent Tracey gripped his wrist.
“Didn’t I tell you to be careful,” she grinned, and Carter could see lights behind her teeth.
“What are you?” he stammered, not understanding what was going on.
“We are robots,” Agent Tracey explained, “created by your government to ensure your co-operation.”
“My co-operation?” Carter blurted, “Why would you need my co-operation?”
“Your family were not killed in an accident,” Agent Reese spoke up, “They were killed in a terrorist attack.”
‘A what?” Carter shook his head, “What kind of craziness is this?”
“We’re trying to explain—“
“No!” Carter screamed, “No-one on Earth can create robots as realistic as you two. What the hell is going on? And you better tell me the truth this time.”
As he spoke, Agent’s Tracey and Reese suddenly seemed to wind down, like clockwork, and Carter began to panic. He jumped from the bed, cautiously approaching the two androids, and nudged them gently with a finger. They rocked side to side, but other than that they didn’t respond.
Collecting his thoughts, Carter raced to the doors to his hospital room and passed through them into a corridor.
But not just any corridor...
Carter stopped short, taking in his surroundings. He was in a metallic corridor, at least thirty feet high, flanked by railings that looked down over uncountable balconies. He swallowed nervously, looking down quickly, then continued to run. If this was a government facility, then the public were paying far too highly if this was the sort of facility they could afford, but Carter’s suspicions had already moved away from possible government conspiracies...
He’d seen enough episodes of Doctor Who to know that this was most likely an invasion by Cybermen!
He ran along the balcony walkway as fast as he could, hoping that he wasn’t too late to escape whatever had captured him. What if they wanted to turn him into a robot too! He shuddered at the thought.
Reaching the end of the balcony Carter was faced with a doorway, a control panel to the side of it. Having no idea how the control panel might work, Carter closed his eyes and swung his plaster cast into the panel, hoping for the best. Some sparks flew from the panel, there was a loud hiss, and the doors slowly started to open.
Beyond the doorway, Carter could see three pulsating blobs sat in front of a giant window. Out the window he could see the Earth, which meant only one thing...
He was in space!
He gasped uncontrollably, catching the attention of the three pulsating blobs.
“It is awake,” the first blob said, surprisingly in English.
“It must have destroyed the robots,” the second blob noted.
“We must destroy him!” the third concluded, and in terror Carter ran from the room, the three pulsating blobs following him.
Filled with panic, Carter looked for somewhere he could hide, or perhaps even escape from the three alien blobs. Realising that the situation he was in was almost impossible to escape from, Carter leaned against a wall to catch his breath.
As he did so, he accidentally activated a panel that opened up a doorway in the wall. As it slowly opened, a computerized voice spoke.
“Escape pods activated.” It said.
Suspecting this was his only chance to get home, Carter leapt through the doorway and strapped himself into a chair as the doorway closed around him.
He was lunged into darkness.
Everything was silent. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing as he waited for something to happen.
He waited.
And waited.
Then, just when he thought he’d waited enough, an immense white light burst into his field of vision, almost blinding him. He lifted his shattered cast to shield his eyes.
“Who’s there?” he asked nervously.
Carter heard a voice clearing its throat. A loud, booming voice.
“I,” the voice said, “am God!”
“God?” Carter said, “Seriously?”
“Yes,” God said, “And I am here to tell you that you have been chosen to lead your people into the Promised Land. The Earth is doomed, and only you can save your people from their inevitable destruction.”
“Well,” Carter smiled, putting on a random pair of dark glasses, “that’s a turn up for the books.”
Suddenly everything went black. Carter disappeared, God disappeared, and instead they were replaced by scrolling words.
“Well,” Peter shook his head, “that was terrible.”
“I know,” Dave said, “Sometimes these movies filled with mind games are nothing but a waste of time.”
“I tell you one thing,” Peter grinned, “that’s the last time I watch anything directed by The Wachowskis!”
Originally Posted 3/8/2015
Result - 3rd Place
Carter stared blankly at the man and woman that stood in front of him. He lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, his right arm in plaster. He licked his dry, cracked lips before speaking.
“What did you say?”
The woman sat down on the edge of Carter’s bed. It was the man who had spoken before, and she glared at him as if he was a tactless idiot. Which he was.
“What we meant to say was,” the woman began, “that there was an accident.”
“An accident?” Carter repeated.
“Yes,” the woman smiled, “Can you remember anything about the accident?”
Carter shook his head.
The woman breathed in deeply, flaring her nostrils, then began to explain.
“My name is Agent Tracey, and this is my colleague Agent Reese,” she informed him, “Your wife was driving you and your two children to the shops when she seems to have lost control of the vehicle. She spun uncontrollably, and the car flipped. You were thrown clear of the vehicle—that’s how you broke your arm--but your wife and children were trapped inside.”
Agent Tracey paused.
“The vehicle caught fire—“
“Where are they?” Carter croaked, “Where are my family?”
“Didn’t I already cover this?” Agent Reese whispered to his colleague. Agent Tracey shushed him.
“The fire burnt quickly,” Agent Tracey explained, “they didn’t suffer. They didn’t survive.”
Carter shook his head, “No,” he wept, “You’re wrong.”
Agent Tracey stared at her feet, “We’re sorry for your loss.”
Carter sniffled, thinking about his wife and two children. What a horrible thing to wake up to, he thought to himself, and it was almost his birthday as well...
Carter furrowed his brow, and looked around the room. It didn’t look like hospital room he’d ever been in before; it was carpeted, for one thing, the walls were a lively creamy yellow colour rather than a dull hospital grey or white, but it was the calendar on the wall that caught his attention.
Today was his birthday.
Carter started to chuckle to himself, and the two agents stared at him as if he were mad.
“Why are you laughing?” Agent Reese asked.
“This is a prank, right?” he grinned, “For my fortieth birthday? You’re punking me and none of what you said is true!”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Agent Tracey frowned.
Carter looked at Agent Tracey. She was kind of good looking, and she looked like she had a decent rack under her blazer.
“You’re a stripper, aren’t you?” Carter tried to sit up in his bed, “Did Steve organise this? That Steve. He’s such a prankster.”
Agent Tracey glared at Carter, standing up from the bed, “I am NOT a stripper,” she said harshly, “I’ll let that comment go seeing as how you have just lost your family, but you had better be careful what you say to me in the future.”
Carter threw back his sheets with his good left arm, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, “Something isn’t right here,” he said, “so wither you’re a stripper, or there’s something more going on here.”
He reached forward with his good left hand and grabbed the front of Agent Tracey’s blazer, pulling the buttons open. Before she could do anything, he ripped the front of her blouse open, expecting to see a pair of firm breasts in some lacy undies.
Instead he saw metal.
“What the f—“ he began before Agent Tracey gripped his wrist.
“Didn’t I tell you to be careful,” she grinned, and Carter could see lights behind her teeth.
“What are you?” he stammered, not understanding what was going on.
“We are robots,” Agent Tracey explained, “created by your government to ensure your co-operation.”
“My co-operation?” Carter blurted, “Why would you need my co-operation?”
“Your family were not killed in an accident,” Agent Reese spoke up, “They were killed in a terrorist attack.”
‘A what?” Carter shook his head, “What kind of craziness is this?”
“We’re trying to explain—“
“No!” Carter screamed, “No-one on Earth can create robots as realistic as you two. What the hell is going on? And you better tell me the truth this time.”
As he spoke, Agent’s Tracey and Reese suddenly seemed to wind down, like clockwork, and Carter began to panic. He jumped from the bed, cautiously approaching the two androids, and nudged them gently with a finger. They rocked side to side, but other than that they didn’t respond.
Collecting his thoughts, Carter raced to the doors to his hospital room and passed through them into a corridor.
But not just any corridor...
Carter stopped short, taking in his surroundings. He was in a metallic corridor, at least thirty feet high, flanked by railings that looked down over uncountable balconies. He swallowed nervously, looking down quickly, then continued to run. If this was a government facility, then the public were paying far too highly if this was the sort of facility they could afford, but Carter’s suspicions had already moved away from possible government conspiracies...
He’d seen enough episodes of Doctor Who to know that this was most likely an invasion by Cybermen!
He ran along the balcony walkway as fast as he could, hoping that he wasn’t too late to escape whatever had captured him. What if they wanted to turn him into a robot too! He shuddered at the thought.
Reaching the end of the balcony Carter was faced with a doorway, a control panel to the side of it. Having no idea how the control panel might work, Carter closed his eyes and swung his plaster cast into the panel, hoping for the best. Some sparks flew from the panel, there was a loud hiss, and the doors slowly started to open.
Beyond the doorway, Carter could see three pulsating blobs sat in front of a giant window. Out the window he could see the Earth, which meant only one thing...
He was in space!
He gasped uncontrollably, catching the attention of the three pulsating blobs.
“It is awake,” the first blob said, surprisingly in English.
“It must have destroyed the robots,” the second blob noted.
“We must destroy him!” the third concluded, and in terror Carter ran from the room, the three pulsating blobs following him.
Filled with panic, Carter looked for somewhere he could hide, or perhaps even escape from the three alien blobs. Realising that the situation he was in was almost impossible to escape from, Carter leaned against a wall to catch his breath.
As he did so, he accidentally activated a panel that opened up a doorway in the wall. As it slowly opened, a computerized voice spoke.
“Escape pods activated.” It said.
Suspecting this was his only chance to get home, Carter leapt through the doorway and strapped himself into a chair as the doorway closed around him.
He was lunged into darkness.
Everything was silent. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing as he waited for something to happen.
He waited.
And waited.
Then, just when he thought he’d waited enough, an immense white light burst into his field of vision, almost blinding him. He lifted his shattered cast to shield his eyes.
“Who’s there?” he asked nervously.
Carter heard a voice clearing its throat. A loud, booming voice.
“I,” the voice said, “am God!”
“God?” Carter said, “Seriously?”
“Yes,” God said, “And I am here to tell you that you have been chosen to lead your people into the Promised Land. The Earth is doomed, and only you can save your people from their inevitable destruction.”
“Well,” Carter smiled, putting on a random pair of dark glasses, “that’s a turn up for the books.”
Suddenly everything went black. Carter disappeared, God disappeared, and instead they were replaced by scrolling words.
“Well,” Peter shook his head, “that was terrible.”
“I know,” Dave said, “Sometimes these movies filled with mind games are nothing but a waste of time.”
“I tell you one thing,” Peter grinned, “that’s the last time I watch anything directed by The Wachowskis!”
Originally Posted 3/8/2015
Result - 3rd Place
Poem : Should I Ask...
The games that people like to play
To mess inside our head.
To act all coy and hard to get,
To get into your bed
There’s people who just can’t talk straight
Around-the-subject sneaking
They dance around the topic as
A substitute to speaking
They’d rather hint or intimate
Than make a lewd suggestion
They’d rather beat about the bush
Than ask a simple question
Sometimes it’s hard to gauge just what
A person might be thinking
But sometimes it is preferable
To sit on your own drinking
For if you ask a girl direct
If you could have the pleasure
You might receive a welcome yes;
A moment you could treasure
But often not knowing is why
These mind games are engaged
It’s better simply not to know
Than getting all enraged
Originally Posted 3/8/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
To mess inside our head.
To act all coy and hard to get,
To get into your bed
There’s people who just can’t talk straight
Around-the-subject sneaking
They dance around the topic as
A substitute to speaking
They’d rather hint or intimate
Than make a lewd suggestion
They’d rather beat about the bush
Than ask a simple question
Sometimes it’s hard to gauge just what
A person might be thinking
But sometimes it is preferable
To sit on your own drinking
For if you ask a girl direct
If you could have the pleasure
You might receive a welcome yes;
A moment you could treasure
But often not knowing is why
These mind games are engaged
It’s better simply not to know
Than getting all enraged
Originally Posted 3/8/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
July 27, 2015
Short Story : The World Smells Different After It Rains
The drought that had for many years affected the crops on Upsilon 4 – a planet known colloquially as Euphoria – had not been the worst thing that could have happened to the colonists. The massive artificial bio dome that now covered the colony made sure that there weren’t any long lasting effects because of this lack of rain water by creating an artificial atmosphere, though it meant that crop development had been limited to the areas surrounding the habitats of the locals. Life for the colonists now consisted of tending their personal crops twenty-four hours a day, and trying to prevent their less honest neighbours from stealing from them.
Trisuten Bor spent much of his day tending the crops that grew in his family’s garden. His mother had died giving birth to his little sister and, in recent years, his father had become extremely ill, so the seventeen year-old pretty much had to cope with feeding what was left of his family on his own. His sister Tocktott wasn’t any help – she was more interested in playing with her pony toys, which was understandable for a six year-old.
Tocktott stood on the porch, a pony in each hand, watching her older brother as he slaved over the latest crop of potatoes. The artificial atmosphere may have provided all the rain fall they needed, but it didn’t plant the food for them.
“Are you almost finished?” Tocktott asked in a whiny voice, “Daddy’s too tired to play with me, and I’m so bored.”
Trisuten turned to his little sister, resting on his hoe, “Can’t you just go inside and find something to do?” he asked, “This is important work I’m doing here.”
“I don’t even like vegetables,” Tocktott pouted, “Why can’t we have cake for dinner?”
“You know how difficult it is to make the ingredients for a cake,” Trisuten told her, “You need flour, eggs, sugar—“
“I get it,” Tocktott interrupted, “No cake. Fine! I’ll just starve then!”
And she stormed back into the house.
Trisuten rolled his eyes at his sisters temper tantrum, wiping the sweat from his brow and looking out of his garden into the one next door. His neighbour, Trembuama Adique, lived only a few feet away with her sick mother, but he’d never been brave enough to speak to her. She was a year older than Trisuten, and a few inches taller, but Trisuten didn’t care if she was taller or shorter than he was.
That’s what love will do to a person.
As he watched her gardening and digging, he smiled to himself, leaning dreamily on his hoe which rested neatly amongst his potatoes. As he continued to watch Trembuama, she glanced up from her work, seeing him staring.
Panicked, Trisuten almost fell over himself to look like he hadn’t been staring and tried nonchalantly to carry on farming his garden. Trembuama smiled to herself and continued with her work.
Trisuten glanced surreptitiously at Trembuama, to see that she was no longer watching, and he breathed a sigh of relief, stretching his back and staring into the sky. The sun was bright today; even brighter than usual, and even through the protective dome he could feel its heat. As he continued to stretch, he couldn’t help noticing something he’d never seen before. A strange white formation that was moving across the sky. He furrowed his brow as its white colouration darkened to an almost grey, racking his brains to try and think what it was.
Then he finally clicked.
It was a cloud.
His eyes widening in sudden excited panic, he ran back into the house to tell his sister and his dad. Trembuama glanced up as Trisuten disappeared into his house, then she too looked up at the cloud.
In his house, Trisuten raced into the living room where his dad was lying down on the sofa and his sister was playing with her ponies.
“C-cloud!” he stuttered, staring at his two family members.
“What?” his dad asked, trying to sit up.
“Outside,” Trisuten swallowed nervously, “There’s a cloud!”
“A what?” Mr Bor managed to stand up from his seat, “What did you say?”
“There’s a cloud, in the sky!” Trisuten told him for the third time, “Quick, come and look!”
Mr Bor groaned as he tried to lift himself to his feet, just about managing before taking a step towards the front door. Trisuten grabbed his arm and whisked him out the entrance, calling back to his sister.
“Come on, Tott! Come and see the cloud.”
“What’s a cloud?” Tocktott asked, getting up from the floor and dropping her ponies.
“Just come and see,” Trisuten shouted from the garden.
A Tocktott joined her father and brother in the garden, she saw them staring up into the sky. Beyond the bio dome that engulfed them, a large grey cloud loomed overhead. Trisuten glanced over at Trembuama, who was walking over to join them.
“Is that... a rain cloud?” she asked, staring up into the sky.
“I think so,” Trisuten smiled at her, “It must be a miracle.”
Trembuama smiled back at him.
“Is it going to rain?” Tocktott asked, “Will there be a rainbow?”
“I don’t know,” Trisuten chuckled, “Dad, what do you think?”
Mr Bor was just staring at the cloud, “It seems weird,” he said, “there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for many years. This drought has been ongoing since I was very young, and now there’s a cloud...”
Trisuten stared at his dad, “What are you saying?” he asked.
Mr Bor looked gravely at his son, “I just don’t like it,” he told him.
#
Three weeks had passed since the cloud had arrived. Celebrations had begun on the second day when the cloud broke and rain began to fall. After a day of tests from the colonist scientists, the rain water had been deemed safe and the bio dome had been retracted to allow the rainwater to water the local crops. Some colonists had even begun to plant new crops outside the dome, in areas that had previously been deemed impossible for agriculture.
But Mr Bor had remained staunch in his views about the cloud.
“I’m telling you, something isn’t right about that thing,” he said to his son over dinner that evening, “I’ve never heard of a single cloud producing rain water when the rest of the sky is clear.”
“So what do you think it is?” Trisuten asked his father.
“I don’t know,” Mr Bor said, “but I don’t trust it.”
After dinner, Trisuten went over to visit Trembuama. After the incident when they cloud first appeared, he’d actually plucked up the courage to talk to her, and they had gotten on famously. They were planning their first date for the following weekend.
“So, how have your crops been fairing?” Trembuama asked him when he arrived at her door.
“They seem okay,” Trisuten told her, but my father still thinks that there is something suspicious about the cloud. If he had his way he’d have kept the bio dome up, at least over our garden. He won’t even eat any of the new crops. He’s been surviving on the leftovers we’ve had in storage.”
“Well I think it’s been a blessing,” Trembuama smiled, “You know how sick my mother has been? Well, ever since she’s been eating the crops that have been rained on she’s shown signs of improvement. She can even walk unassisted now! It’s almost like the rain water is enriched with pure goodness. If you breath in, you can even smell it. It smells divine.”
Trisuten widened his eyes in disbelief, “That’s great news,” he said, “but—“
“But what?” asked Trembuama.
Trisuten furrowed his brow, “Don’t you think that’s a little bit odd?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, rainwater making someone better?” Trisuten said, “I don’t know much about the history of rainwater, but I always thought that the artificial rain we had with the bio dome was pretty much the same, and that didn’t have healing properties.”
“So what are you saying?” Trembuama asked, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive motion, “That my mother is making things up?”
“No, of course not,” Trisuten shook his head, “It’s just... what if the cloud is dangerous?”
“If it’s making my mother feel better, than how can it be dangerous?” Trembuama said angrily, “Maybe your father should try some of the new crops—then he might actually start feeling better and get off his fat behind and actually do something for the community.”
Realising that he’d made Trembuama angry, Trisuten tried to appease the situation, “Now, there’s no need to—“
“Just go,” Trembuama boomed, “and forget about this weekend. I’m busy.”
Trisuten stared in disbelief at Trembuama, shocked that things had turned so quickly. Maybe there wasn’t anything dangerous about the cloud, but Trisuten’s father had never been wrong before...
Another week had passed, and the colony was holding a festival to celebrate the cloud. The rain had seemed to come and go as needed, and the crops had flourished. Many of the colonists had actually started to gain weight from over indulging on the new crops, but like his father Trisuten had decided not to eat them. His sister had been reluctant to agree to this but, as far as he knew, she had only been eating the food her father and brother had prepared for her.
Trisuten stood next to a table, staring out at the young people who were joking and dancing together. He didn’t much feel like celebrating; Trembuama hadn’t really spoken to him since their argument, and she’d started seeing Dashid, a handsome muscular lad who had caught her eye during one of the now regular community gatherings to discuss the cloud.
Trisuten father seemed even more ill than usual, but had managed to make it to the festival. Little Tocktott didn’t seem much different than before, other than having initially lost a bit of weight after the arrival of the cloud.
As he stood at the sidelines of the happy event, the mayor of the colony, who also happened to be Dashid’s father, clinked his glass for silence. Everyone stopped partying and turned to him.
“Welcome, one and all,” he began, “to our one month celebration of the cloud. We once used our bio dome to grow limited crops which barely fed those of us that live here, but now we have enough good soil and rain cover to start exporting to other colonies and actually turn a profit here.”
A big cheer rose from the crowd. The mayor waved his hands for quiet.
“It has been a pleasure seeing everyone flourish in the last few weeks,” he continued, coughing slightly, “and I hope to see you all flourish further in the weeks to come...”
The mayor put his hand to his mouth, having something of a coughing fit, and Trisuten looked around as other members of the colony also started to join in the coughing. Mr Bor stood to attention as he noticed the colonists doubling over in fits of coughing madness, and Tocktott clung to his leg.
“What’s happening?” she asked, clutching her pony toy for dear life.
Mr Bor shook his head, “I think I know,” he said, “it’s the rainwater.”
The three watched as people started to cough off discoloured bile, and Trisuten almost screamed as he caught the eye of Trembuama. She was clawing at her own throat as black and green gunge oozed from between her lips, and she collapsed to the ground in a fit that sent her into spasms.
“What are they doing, daddy?” Tocktott wept as she watched every member of the only community she’d ever known collapsing to the ground in spasmodic fits, “Why are they lying down?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Mr Bor said flatly, resting a comforting hand on his daughter’s head.
As the colony members slowly stopped moving, the three remaining stared in disbelief at the gunge and bile that had emanated from their mouths. As they watched, it started to move together, swishing and swirling as it drew itself into one huge mass and lifted itself from the ground.
“Greetings,” the mass spoke, “we are the Euphoria organisms. We come in peace.”
“Peace?” Trisuten shouted fearfully, “You’ve nearly killed us all.”
The organism moved around, appearing to take in its surroundings, “We did not mean to,” it explained, “What did you do to us when we fell from our cloud?”
Trisuten shuffled his feet, “They used you to water their crops,” he explained, “They... they ate you!”
The organism shook slightly, as if it were laughing, “Well, no wonder they died,” it explained, “as our name suggests, to imbibe us is to be filled with an overwhelming sense of well-being—but it is short lived. We did not mean any harm.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mr Bor said, “We should have known better than to not suspect the arrival of the cloud.”
“Thank you for understanding,” the organism said, “perhaps in time we can work together to make things right.”
Mr Bor held out his hand, and the organisms moved to envelop it in a welcoming gesture.
Trisuten looked down at the dead bodies that were littered all over, and stared sadly at the corpse of Trembuama, the girl he had once loved.
He remembered how she had said that the rainwater made the air smell divine. Well, now all he could smell was death.
Originally Posted 27/7/2015
Result - 1st Place
Trisuten Bor spent much of his day tending the crops that grew in his family’s garden. His mother had died giving birth to his little sister and, in recent years, his father had become extremely ill, so the seventeen year-old pretty much had to cope with feeding what was left of his family on his own. His sister Tocktott wasn’t any help – she was more interested in playing with her pony toys, which was understandable for a six year-old.
Tocktott stood on the porch, a pony in each hand, watching her older brother as he slaved over the latest crop of potatoes. The artificial atmosphere may have provided all the rain fall they needed, but it didn’t plant the food for them.
“Are you almost finished?” Tocktott asked in a whiny voice, “Daddy’s too tired to play with me, and I’m so bored.”
Trisuten turned to his little sister, resting on his hoe, “Can’t you just go inside and find something to do?” he asked, “This is important work I’m doing here.”
“I don’t even like vegetables,” Tocktott pouted, “Why can’t we have cake for dinner?”
“You know how difficult it is to make the ingredients for a cake,” Trisuten told her, “You need flour, eggs, sugar—“
“I get it,” Tocktott interrupted, “No cake. Fine! I’ll just starve then!”
And she stormed back into the house.
Trisuten rolled his eyes at his sisters temper tantrum, wiping the sweat from his brow and looking out of his garden into the one next door. His neighbour, Trembuama Adique, lived only a few feet away with her sick mother, but he’d never been brave enough to speak to her. She was a year older than Trisuten, and a few inches taller, but Trisuten didn’t care if she was taller or shorter than he was.
That’s what love will do to a person.
As he watched her gardening and digging, he smiled to himself, leaning dreamily on his hoe which rested neatly amongst his potatoes. As he continued to watch Trembuama, she glanced up from her work, seeing him staring.
Panicked, Trisuten almost fell over himself to look like he hadn’t been staring and tried nonchalantly to carry on farming his garden. Trembuama smiled to herself and continued with her work.
Trisuten glanced surreptitiously at Trembuama, to see that she was no longer watching, and he breathed a sigh of relief, stretching his back and staring into the sky. The sun was bright today; even brighter than usual, and even through the protective dome he could feel its heat. As he continued to stretch, he couldn’t help noticing something he’d never seen before. A strange white formation that was moving across the sky. He furrowed his brow as its white colouration darkened to an almost grey, racking his brains to try and think what it was.
Then he finally clicked.
It was a cloud.
His eyes widening in sudden excited panic, he ran back into the house to tell his sister and his dad. Trembuama glanced up as Trisuten disappeared into his house, then she too looked up at the cloud.
In his house, Trisuten raced into the living room where his dad was lying down on the sofa and his sister was playing with her ponies.
“C-cloud!” he stuttered, staring at his two family members.
“What?” his dad asked, trying to sit up.
“Outside,” Trisuten swallowed nervously, “There’s a cloud!”
“A what?” Mr Bor managed to stand up from his seat, “What did you say?”
“There’s a cloud, in the sky!” Trisuten told him for the third time, “Quick, come and look!”
Mr Bor groaned as he tried to lift himself to his feet, just about managing before taking a step towards the front door. Trisuten grabbed his arm and whisked him out the entrance, calling back to his sister.
“Come on, Tott! Come and see the cloud.”
“What’s a cloud?” Tocktott asked, getting up from the floor and dropping her ponies.
“Just come and see,” Trisuten shouted from the garden.
A Tocktott joined her father and brother in the garden, she saw them staring up into the sky. Beyond the bio dome that engulfed them, a large grey cloud loomed overhead. Trisuten glanced over at Trembuama, who was walking over to join them.
“Is that... a rain cloud?” she asked, staring up into the sky.
“I think so,” Trisuten smiled at her, “It must be a miracle.”
Trembuama smiled back at him.
“Is it going to rain?” Tocktott asked, “Will there be a rainbow?”
“I don’t know,” Trisuten chuckled, “Dad, what do you think?”
Mr Bor was just staring at the cloud, “It seems weird,” he said, “there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for many years. This drought has been ongoing since I was very young, and now there’s a cloud...”
Trisuten stared at his dad, “What are you saying?” he asked.
Mr Bor looked gravely at his son, “I just don’t like it,” he told him.
#
Three weeks had passed since the cloud had arrived. Celebrations had begun on the second day when the cloud broke and rain began to fall. After a day of tests from the colonist scientists, the rain water had been deemed safe and the bio dome had been retracted to allow the rainwater to water the local crops. Some colonists had even begun to plant new crops outside the dome, in areas that had previously been deemed impossible for agriculture.
But Mr Bor had remained staunch in his views about the cloud.
“I’m telling you, something isn’t right about that thing,” he said to his son over dinner that evening, “I’ve never heard of a single cloud producing rain water when the rest of the sky is clear.”
“So what do you think it is?” Trisuten asked his father.
“I don’t know,” Mr Bor said, “but I don’t trust it.”
After dinner, Trisuten went over to visit Trembuama. After the incident when they cloud first appeared, he’d actually plucked up the courage to talk to her, and they had gotten on famously. They were planning their first date for the following weekend.
“So, how have your crops been fairing?” Trembuama asked him when he arrived at her door.
“They seem okay,” Trisuten told her, but my father still thinks that there is something suspicious about the cloud. If he had his way he’d have kept the bio dome up, at least over our garden. He won’t even eat any of the new crops. He’s been surviving on the leftovers we’ve had in storage.”
“Well I think it’s been a blessing,” Trembuama smiled, “You know how sick my mother has been? Well, ever since she’s been eating the crops that have been rained on she’s shown signs of improvement. She can even walk unassisted now! It’s almost like the rain water is enriched with pure goodness. If you breath in, you can even smell it. It smells divine.”
Trisuten widened his eyes in disbelief, “That’s great news,” he said, “but—“
“But what?” asked Trembuama.
Trisuten furrowed his brow, “Don’t you think that’s a little bit odd?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, rainwater making someone better?” Trisuten said, “I don’t know much about the history of rainwater, but I always thought that the artificial rain we had with the bio dome was pretty much the same, and that didn’t have healing properties.”
“So what are you saying?” Trembuama asked, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive motion, “That my mother is making things up?”
“No, of course not,” Trisuten shook his head, “It’s just... what if the cloud is dangerous?”
“If it’s making my mother feel better, than how can it be dangerous?” Trembuama said angrily, “Maybe your father should try some of the new crops—then he might actually start feeling better and get off his fat behind and actually do something for the community.”
Realising that he’d made Trembuama angry, Trisuten tried to appease the situation, “Now, there’s no need to—“
“Just go,” Trembuama boomed, “and forget about this weekend. I’m busy.”
Trisuten stared in disbelief at Trembuama, shocked that things had turned so quickly. Maybe there wasn’t anything dangerous about the cloud, but Trisuten’s father had never been wrong before...
Another week had passed, and the colony was holding a festival to celebrate the cloud. The rain had seemed to come and go as needed, and the crops had flourished. Many of the colonists had actually started to gain weight from over indulging on the new crops, but like his father Trisuten had decided not to eat them. His sister had been reluctant to agree to this but, as far as he knew, she had only been eating the food her father and brother had prepared for her.
Trisuten stood next to a table, staring out at the young people who were joking and dancing together. He didn’t much feel like celebrating; Trembuama hadn’t really spoken to him since their argument, and she’d started seeing Dashid, a handsome muscular lad who had caught her eye during one of the now regular community gatherings to discuss the cloud.
Trisuten father seemed even more ill than usual, but had managed to make it to the festival. Little Tocktott didn’t seem much different than before, other than having initially lost a bit of weight after the arrival of the cloud.
As he stood at the sidelines of the happy event, the mayor of the colony, who also happened to be Dashid’s father, clinked his glass for silence. Everyone stopped partying and turned to him.
“Welcome, one and all,” he began, “to our one month celebration of the cloud. We once used our bio dome to grow limited crops which barely fed those of us that live here, but now we have enough good soil and rain cover to start exporting to other colonies and actually turn a profit here.”
A big cheer rose from the crowd. The mayor waved his hands for quiet.
“It has been a pleasure seeing everyone flourish in the last few weeks,” he continued, coughing slightly, “and I hope to see you all flourish further in the weeks to come...”
The mayor put his hand to his mouth, having something of a coughing fit, and Trisuten looked around as other members of the colony also started to join in the coughing. Mr Bor stood to attention as he noticed the colonists doubling over in fits of coughing madness, and Tocktott clung to his leg.
“What’s happening?” she asked, clutching her pony toy for dear life.
Mr Bor shook his head, “I think I know,” he said, “it’s the rainwater.”
The three watched as people started to cough off discoloured bile, and Trisuten almost screamed as he caught the eye of Trembuama. She was clawing at her own throat as black and green gunge oozed from between her lips, and she collapsed to the ground in a fit that sent her into spasms.
“What are they doing, daddy?” Tocktott wept as she watched every member of the only community she’d ever known collapsing to the ground in spasmodic fits, “Why are they lying down?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Mr Bor said flatly, resting a comforting hand on his daughter’s head.
As the colony members slowly stopped moving, the three remaining stared in disbelief at the gunge and bile that had emanated from their mouths. As they watched, it started to move together, swishing and swirling as it drew itself into one huge mass and lifted itself from the ground.
“Greetings,” the mass spoke, “we are the Euphoria organisms. We come in peace.”
“Peace?” Trisuten shouted fearfully, “You’ve nearly killed us all.”
The organism moved around, appearing to take in its surroundings, “We did not mean to,” it explained, “What did you do to us when we fell from our cloud?”
Trisuten shuffled his feet, “They used you to water their crops,” he explained, “They... they ate you!”
The organism shook slightly, as if it were laughing, “Well, no wonder they died,” it explained, “as our name suggests, to imbibe us is to be filled with an overwhelming sense of well-being—but it is short lived. We did not mean any harm.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mr Bor said, “We should have known better than to not suspect the arrival of the cloud.”
“Thank you for understanding,” the organism said, “perhaps in time we can work together to make things right.”
Mr Bor held out his hand, and the organisms moved to envelop it in a welcoming gesture.
Trisuten looked down at the dead bodies that were littered all over, and stared sadly at the corpse of Trembuama, the girl he had once loved.
He remembered how she had said that the rainwater made the air smell divine. Well, now all he could smell was death.
Originally Posted 27/7/2015
Result - 1st Place
July 26, 2015
Poem : A Welcome Rain
Like tiny feet the drizzle comes
It’s been a month of Sunday’s since
The last time I saw stormy clouds
So I can repeat lather, rinse
The dry and arid ground outside
Is so not used to moisture’s kiss
As beating sun gives way to damp
A needed rain we sorely miss
The plants may have long since passed on
The ground may have dried up and died
But with that sorely needed rain -
A hope on which we have relied.
Our crops may flourish soon enough
Now they’re receiving heaven’s tears
The pleasant smell that fills our nose;
Encouragement for coming years.
Originally Posted 26/7/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
It’s been a month of Sunday’s since
The last time I saw stormy clouds
So I can repeat lather, rinse
The dry and arid ground outside
Is so not used to moisture’s kiss
As beating sun gives way to damp
A needed rain we sorely miss
The plants may have long since passed on
The ground may have dried up and died
But with that sorely needed rain -
A hope on which we have relied.
Our crops may flourish soon enough
Now they’re receiving heaven’s tears
The pleasant smell that fills our nose;
Encouragement for coming years.
Originally Posted 26/7/2015
Result - Joint 1st Place
July 20, 2015
Short Story : We Are Legion
Alfie desperately tried to protect his face as Trent commenced pummelling him with his fists.
He hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but in Trent’s eyes he had committed a cardinal sin; apparently there was a certain way you could or couldn’t look at Trent, and Alfie had unknowingly chosen the wrong way.
Once the pummelling had finished, Alfie cautiously looked around to see what Trent was doing.
“Don’t let it happen again, Alfie!” Trent growled when Alfie finally plucked up the courage to look in his dorection, “Or you’ll get the same thing tomorrow. Understand?”
Alfie nodded, not daring to make direct eye contact with him. Trent growled, rubbing his hands down his rugby shirt, then walked away.
Alfie’s sister, Gertie, had seen what had happened to her brother. From across the playground she ran to her brother, watching as Trent walked off, laughing to himself.
“Are you okay?” Gertie asked her older brother, helping him up from the ground, “What did you do this time?”
“I looked at him funny,” Alfie told her, nursing his nose which was bleeding slightly and felt incredibly painful.
“You looked at him funny?” Gertie shook her head in disgust, “That Trent really needs to be taught a lesson.”
Alfie chuckled, “And who’s going to teach him? Me? I couldn’t punch my way out of a paper bag, let alone take on the biggest kid in school. For Christ’s sake, even the teacher’s are scared of him.”
Gertie shook her head, “It’s just not fair,” she said, “He’s so big, a one on one fight just isn’t fair!”
“Yeah,” agreed Alfie, picking up his school bag which now had a big tear in it, “Maybe if everyone ganged up on him he’d think twice.”
Gertie stared at her brother, “What did you say?”
“I said maybe if the whole school ganged up on him he’d stop picking on kids,” Alfie said.
Gertie smiled, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”
Alfie laughed, “I really don’t think that everyone at school is going to turn up and beat up Trent!”
“We don’t need the whole school,” Gertie grinned, “Just the others.”
“The others?” Alfie repeated his sister’s words.
“Yeah,” said Gertie, “The other kids that Trent has singled out to pick on. I reckon if all of you got together you could easily take on Trent and kick his stupid face in.”
“I don’t know,” Alfie rubbed his neck which still hurt from being hit, “I’ve seen the kids Trent picks on – some of them are even weaker than I am.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Gertie said, “Didn’t Aristotle say, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’?”
Alfie stared at his sister, “Where did you learn about Aristotle?” he asked her.
Gertie rolled her eyes, “There are these things called books—“
“Ha ha,” Alfie groaned, “Very funny. So you think this plan of yours will work? Get all the other bullied kids to stand up to Trent?”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“It could hurt,” Alfie corrected his little sister, “Look at my face – you can see that it hurts!”
“Let’s just try to think of people that Trent might have been bullying in the past,” Gertie suggested, “Now, is there anyone in your class that you can think of?”
Alfie shrugged, “Maybe one or two.”
Gertie sighed, “Well, let’s go and speak to them.”
Alfie and his sister headed across the playground towards two kids sat by themselves hear the bike sheds. They were Austin and Rainbow, two emo kids that Alfie recalled had previously had run ins with Trent.
Gertie gestured towards them, “Which one?” she asked.
“Both of them,” Alfie said, “On different occasions.”
Gertie cleared her throat as they approached the two depressed looking boys and smiled when they looked up at her.
“Hi,” Gertie said cheerily, “I’m Gertie. I was wondering if we could talk to you about something.”
Rainbow stared blankly at her, “What is it you want?” he asked.
“We were wondering if you’d be interested in getting revenge against Trent Mitchum,” Gertie asked.
Austin stared at Gertie, “We don’t believe in revenge,” he told her, “It’s not our thing.”
“Seriously?” Gertie asked, “You’re going to let him get away with what he did to you?”
“If he doesn’t like guys wearing eyeliner, that’s fine by me,” Rainbow shrugged.
Gertie groaned, “It’s not like you’d have to get into a fight or anything,” she told the two boys, “We just want to show him that if he tries any of his violent behaviour with anyone in school again that there are an awful lot of kids who will stand up to him.”
“But we wouldn’t have to fight?” Austin asked.
“Nope,” Gertie crossed her arms triumphantly, “You’d just have to stand there in support.”
Austin and Rainbow looked at each other, then nodded, “Okay,” said Austin, “Well do it. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll gather in the playground after school,” Gertie said as Alfie just watched her taking control of the situation, “When Trent comes out of the building, we’ll call him over and tell him what will happen if he messes with any of us again.”
Rainbow looked at Gertie, “And what will happen?”
Gertie tilted her head, “You’ll all beat him up!”
“And who are these people who will beat Trent up?” Rainbow queried.
“Well, there’s you two,” Gertie said, “My brother Alfie here, and the others.”
“Who are the others?” Austin asked.
Gertie smiled, “We’ll let you know once we’ve rounded them up.”
Gertie started to walk away from the two emo kids, and Alfie jogged to catch up with her.
“So, who should we approach next?” Alfie asked.
“You tell me,” Gertie shrugged, “You’re the one who knows who Trent bullies all the time. You’re in his class.”
So Alfie and Gertie wandered around the playground, every so often Alfie pointing out someone who he’d seen get into a confrontation with Trent in the past. The kids came in all shapes and sizes; fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones, black ones, white ones, boy ones, girl ones. Basically Trent picked on anyone who he thought might not fight back against him.
By the end of lunch time, Alfie and Gertie had managed to convince no less than twenty kids to join them at the school gates at the end of the day to confront Trent as a group.
At three thirty, Trent walked out of the school building, b=not really paying any attention to the odd assortment of school kids that were grouped together by the gates. As he continued to walk, he heard a voice shout, “Oi, Trent!”
Trent turned to the group, seeing Alfie standing at the front with his little sister, their arms folded across their chests. He sneered.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“We want you to stop bullying kids at this school,” Alfie told him, swallowing nervously, “We want you to know that we aren’t afraid of you, and that if you beat up one more kid at this school, we will all come after you.”
Trent looked at the group of odd looking kids, and he smiled.
“What makes you think I’m afraid of the likes of you lot?” he asked casually, taking a step towards them.
“You... you should be,” Alfie stammered, “Together we can easily take you on.”
“But not on your own,” Trent leered evily at Alfie, “You couldn’t beat me up on your own, Alfie. And I don’t think that if I were to, say, punch you in the face, that any of your new friends would jump to your assistance.”
Alfie looked at the twenty or so kids that were stood with him, and couldn’t help noticing that some of them had started to back away.
Alfie gulped.
“So, do you want to fight me?” Trent asked, taking further steps towards Alfie, “Is it all of you? Or just little Alfie here?”
Alfie started to shake as he realised that the plan was not going the way he’d hoped. The rest of the kids had backed almost completely away from Alfie and his little sister, and he two of them were stood, isolated, as Trent bore down on them.
“This is going to hurt,” Trent chuckled as he swung back his fist and whacked Alfie hard in the face. Alfie spun, dropping his school bag before collapsing to the floor.
Trent looked at the group of weirdoes and loners nad started to laugh.
“Does anyone else want some?” he asked, egging the group on with his hands in a beckoning gesture, “That’s what I thought.”
As he moved to turn away, some suddenly jumped on his back, raking their fingers across his face. Trent tried to spin and shake the person off, but their grip was too strong and he felt tiny fists pounding on his back.
“I’ll teach you for attacking my brother!” Gertie cried, holding on to Trent’s throat while punching him in the face and scraping his cheeks with her fingernails. Trent spun again, falling to the ground, and Gertie continued to lash out at him, punching him in the nose and kicking him in the ribs.
“Get off!” Trent screamed, his voice reaching a pitch not many sopranos could manage, “Please, I didn’t mean it!”
Gertie continued kicking and punching Trent as he lay on the ground, his face bleeding over the playground ash e vainly tried to shield his face.
Alfie got up from the floor and stared at his sister as she kicked the living daylights out the school bully.
And he grinned.
Originally Posted 20/7/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
He hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but in Trent’s eyes he had committed a cardinal sin; apparently there was a certain way you could or couldn’t look at Trent, and Alfie had unknowingly chosen the wrong way.
Once the pummelling had finished, Alfie cautiously looked around to see what Trent was doing.
“Don’t let it happen again, Alfie!” Trent growled when Alfie finally plucked up the courage to look in his dorection, “Or you’ll get the same thing tomorrow. Understand?”
Alfie nodded, not daring to make direct eye contact with him. Trent growled, rubbing his hands down his rugby shirt, then walked away.
Alfie’s sister, Gertie, had seen what had happened to her brother. From across the playground she ran to her brother, watching as Trent walked off, laughing to himself.
“Are you okay?” Gertie asked her older brother, helping him up from the ground, “What did you do this time?”
“I looked at him funny,” Alfie told her, nursing his nose which was bleeding slightly and felt incredibly painful.
“You looked at him funny?” Gertie shook her head in disgust, “That Trent really needs to be taught a lesson.”
Alfie chuckled, “And who’s going to teach him? Me? I couldn’t punch my way out of a paper bag, let alone take on the biggest kid in school. For Christ’s sake, even the teacher’s are scared of him.”
Gertie shook her head, “It’s just not fair,” she said, “He’s so big, a one on one fight just isn’t fair!”
“Yeah,” agreed Alfie, picking up his school bag which now had a big tear in it, “Maybe if everyone ganged up on him he’d think twice.”
Gertie stared at her brother, “What did you say?”
“I said maybe if the whole school ganged up on him he’d stop picking on kids,” Alfie said.
Gertie smiled, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”
Alfie laughed, “I really don’t think that everyone at school is going to turn up and beat up Trent!”
“We don’t need the whole school,” Gertie grinned, “Just the others.”
“The others?” Alfie repeated his sister’s words.
“Yeah,” said Gertie, “The other kids that Trent has singled out to pick on. I reckon if all of you got together you could easily take on Trent and kick his stupid face in.”
“I don’t know,” Alfie rubbed his neck which still hurt from being hit, “I’ve seen the kids Trent picks on – some of them are even weaker than I am.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Gertie said, “Didn’t Aristotle say, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’?”
Alfie stared at his sister, “Where did you learn about Aristotle?” he asked her.
Gertie rolled her eyes, “There are these things called books—“
“Ha ha,” Alfie groaned, “Very funny. So you think this plan of yours will work? Get all the other bullied kids to stand up to Trent?”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“It could hurt,” Alfie corrected his little sister, “Look at my face – you can see that it hurts!”
“Let’s just try to think of people that Trent might have been bullying in the past,” Gertie suggested, “Now, is there anyone in your class that you can think of?”
Alfie shrugged, “Maybe one or two.”
Gertie sighed, “Well, let’s go and speak to them.”
Alfie and his sister headed across the playground towards two kids sat by themselves hear the bike sheds. They were Austin and Rainbow, two emo kids that Alfie recalled had previously had run ins with Trent.
Gertie gestured towards them, “Which one?” she asked.
“Both of them,” Alfie said, “On different occasions.”
Gertie cleared her throat as they approached the two depressed looking boys and smiled when they looked up at her.
“Hi,” Gertie said cheerily, “I’m Gertie. I was wondering if we could talk to you about something.”
Rainbow stared blankly at her, “What is it you want?” he asked.
“We were wondering if you’d be interested in getting revenge against Trent Mitchum,” Gertie asked.
Austin stared at Gertie, “We don’t believe in revenge,” he told her, “It’s not our thing.”
“Seriously?” Gertie asked, “You’re going to let him get away with what he did to you?”
“If he doesn’t like guys wearing eyeliner, that’s fine by me,” Rainbow shrugged.
Gertie groaned, “It’s not like you’d have to get into a fight or anything,” she told the two boys, “We just want to show him that if he tries any of his violent behaviour with anyone in school again that there are an awful lot of kids who will stand up to him.”
“But we wouldn’t have to fight?” Austin asked.
“Nope,” Gertie crossed her arms triumphantly, “You’d just have to stand there in support.”
Austin and Rainbow looked at each other, then nodded, “Okay,” said Austin, “Well do it. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll gather in the playground after school,” Gertie said as Alfie just watched her taking control of the situation, “When Trent comes out of the building, we’ll call him over and tell him what will happen if he messes with any of us again.”
Rainbow looked at Gertie, “And what will happen?”
Gertie tilted her head, “You’ll all beat him up!”
“And who are these people who will beat Trent up?” Rainbow queried.
“Well, there’s you two,” Gertie said, “My brother Alfie here, and the others.”
“Who are the others?” Austin asked.
Gertie smiled, “We’ll let you know once we’ve rounded them up.”
Gertie started to walk away from the two emo kids, and Alfie jogged to catch up with her.
“So, who should we approach next?” Alfie asked.
“You tell me,” Gertie shrugged, “You’re the one who knows who Trent bullies all the time. You’re in his class.”
So Alfie and Gertie wandered around the playground, every so often Alfie pointing out someone who he’d seen get into a confrontation with Trent in the past. The kids came in all shapes and sizes; fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones, black ones, white ones, boy ones, girl ones. Basically Trent picked on anyone who he thought might not fight back against him.
By the end of lunch time, Alfie and Gertie had managed to convince no less than twenty kids to join them at the school gates at the end of the day to confront Trent as a group.
At three thirty, Trent walked out of the school building, b=not really paying any attention to the odd assortment of school kids that were grouped together by the gates. As he continued to walk, he heard a voice shout, “Oi, Trent!”
Trent turned to the group, seeing Alfie standing at the front with his little sister, their arms folded across their chests. He sneered.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“We want you to stop bullying kids at this school,” Alfie told him, swallowing nervously, “We want you to know that we aren’t afraid of you, and that if you beat up one more kid at this school, we will all come after you.”
Trent looked at the group of odd looking kids, and he smiled.
“What makes you think I’m afraid of the likes of you lot?” he asked casually, taking a step towards them.
“You... you should be,” Alfie stammered, “Together we can easily take you on.”
“But not on your own,” Trent leered evily at Alfie, “You couldn’t beat me up on your own, Alfie. And I don’t think that if I were to, say, punch you in the face, that any of your new friends would jump to your assistance.”
Alfie looked at the twenty or so kids that were stood with him, and couldn’t help noticing that some of them had started to back away.
Alfie gulped.
“So, do you want to fight me?” Trent asked, taking further steps towards Alfie, “Is it all of you? Or just little Alfie here?”
Alfie started to shake as he realised that the plan was not going the way he’d hoped. The rest of the kids had backed almost completely away from Alfie and his little sister, and he two of them were stood, isolated, as Trent bore down on them.
“This is going to hurt,” Trent chuckled as he swung back his fist and whacked Alfie hard in the face. Alfie spun, dropping his school bag before collapsing to the floor.
Trent looked at the group of weirdoes and loners nad started to laugh.
“Does anyone else want some?” he asked, egging the group on with his hands in a beckoning gesture, “That’s what I thought.”
As he moved to turn away, some suddenly jumped on his back, raking their fingers across his face. Trent tried to spin and shake the person off, but their grip was too strong and he felt tiny fists pounding on his back.
“I’ll teach you for attacking my brother!” Gertie cried, holding on to Trent’s throat while punching him in the face and scraping his cheeks with her fingernails. Trent spun again, falling to the ground, and Gertie continued to lash out at him, punching him in the nose and kicking him in the ribs.
“Get off!” Trent screamed, his voice reaching a pitch not many sopranos could manage, “Please, I didn’t mean it!”
Gertie continued kicking and punching Trent as he lay on the ground, his face bleeding over the playground ash e vainly tried to shield his face.
Alfie got up from the floor and stared at his sister as she kicked the living daylights out the school bully.
And he grinned.
Originally Posted 20/7/2015
Result - Joint 2nd Place
Poem : Don't Ignore Us
The Others are the people that
Don’t fit into a group
They never come into the house
They sit out on the stoop
They never get involved in games
In sports or recreation
They’d rather sit and play alone
And ignore team formation
The Others are the singular
The standalones, the only
The sort that like their company
And never seem that lonely
The isolated, separate,
The outsiders, the peerless
The proud of their dividedness,
The hopeless, and the fearless
The Others are exceptional
Solitary, unique
You know you’ve met an Other by
The way in which they speak
Their present may be troubled but
Their future will be blazing
The innovations they create
Will make our world amazing.
Originally Posted 20/7/2015
Result - 1st Place
Don’t fit into a group
They never come into the house
They sit out on the stoop
They never get involved in games
In sports or recreation
They’d rather sit and play alone
And ignore team formation
The Others are the singular
The standalones, the only
The sort that like their company
And never seem that lonely
The isolated, separate,
The outsiders, the peerless
The proud of their dividedness,
The hopeless, and the fearless
The Others are exceptional
Solitary, unique
You know you’ve met an Other by
The way in which they speak
Their present may be troubled but
Their future will be blazing
The innovations they create
Will make our world amazing.
Originally Posted 20/7/2015
Result - 1st Place
