Arthur’s Comments (group member since Oct 25, 2008)

Arthur’s comments from the Short Story Contests group.

Concert banner: THE SPLIT DECISION

Striking in his midbrain Split-Z poses in the middle of the stage during the off lights was his signature. The lead guitar guy Planet-Z with the lead singer Split-Z bob heads and as if motioning to me during a momentless thing in a long lullaby I sigh. A baby fetish if you will but I wallowed it in while of his voice and of his power of performance and his manly counterstriking against man. As if with shear manpower controlling us we can sublimate world hunger by our joining of hands, and lighting lighters with eyes weeping in audience. And then he tires out and we stay having the will to carry on. To carry his tunes as we head home. But it’s just a ten minute break. Way to go Split-Z. I wasn’t at all disappointed. Neither did I feel out of place. I was probably the only one to take notice of my age but still while wearing my Vampyric print Vuranus shirt.

A minor correction to my last observance statement. I may be the only one wearing a Vuranus shirt but the guy next to me just moved in to get a closer look at the stage. And me. He was looking at me. I must have been in his way because I stood in the third row then I noticed his pushing toward me then pasting me. I believed he was going to pass. He pulled off his jacket, heavy denim, sleeved with cuffs and buttoned-jacket with pockets. Sometimes it’s rare that males wear clothing not worn throughout with baggy holes in them. He was neat in appearance like his clothing. He next tussled it off it hitting the floor. Almost stepping on it he turned to me with a surprising look. A Buffy the Vampire surprise-look. I couldn’t help but smile to see him again and after all these years. Ten to be exact. Standing right next to me wearing his own matching Ognus white t-shirt his muscles hugging his.

“Mat.” He said. Mat I said dreamily. My brother’s friend ten years ago was named Mat. I never knew Mat was muscular in shirt style.

Split Decision played something soft next. I found myself tranquilized but even the audience’s approval had be hoping more and more for more. The singing erupted and had come from every direction in the members of the audience choosing songs as Split Decision was singing them it was like being in the Sunday choir.

“So that was you at the last concert?” I asked.

“Yeah. Your brother sold me tickets. He told me about you but I didn’t have my hopes up or anything. I was a farm boy in a hay field.”

“What have you been doing?” As if it mattered.

We talked while Split Decision tossed out grand oldies. Mat yelled out a request that was close to my favorite and they immediately took it up and played it. It was so cool. Mat and his dark complexion hadn’t signaled him out like rice in a bowl. He was there for the same reason we all were the Music. After the concert came to its final we choose to walk together through the arena’s exit.

I asked Mat, I had to know. “Will I ever see you again?”

He said. “I can walk you?”

It was safe leaving the old arena with Mat, why should I mind. We walked as we talked more.

“You never told me what you spent the last ten years doing farm boy.”

I was beginning to know him better. He really was comfortable to be with.

Along the way we stopped at the local coffee shop but it was closed. So we kept on going down the street. I could tell him I had to go home. Even if we hadn’t been going to my house. I noticed that in an instant. At first we were headed to the coffee shop then anywhere.

Suddenly he asked. “How about a drink at my place?”

I nodded.

I felt sure with Mat. As certainly as the gap of ten years was shrinking. With anyone else I had been with before I guessed I had always known I had been a kind of a loner. Unlike the feeling I had now. I could go home and write about UFO abductions in my free time now. Because with Mat I felt different like he could understand my feelings. What I was feeling now wasn’t just as a silly girl. A drink of whatever he had had was a delicate way to suggest I’d consider staying a little late. I don’t know. Would it hurt?

I asked him. “You noticed the full moon?”

“Yeah it’s cool. Silver and blue. The sun set was beautiful. I watched you watch it. And it is not pitch dark either now. It’s more like that silvery dark night like Ognus and Vuranus describe when they raised from their graves to feed on blood.”

I asked. “Yeah?” I had not known this. “How did you know that?”

He nodded. “Issue six.” He looked askance. “You haven’t read it?” I didn’t know it was already out. If I was at home in the big town, but during the homecoming I kind of forgot. I had to say it too. It was true.

Vuranus of the underground had only come to the surface when the moon drove her to. Vuranus is a werebat vampire. She only need is to feed during the full-turning silvermoon or whatever her curse of being the underground goddesses is that is rises. But to our surprise in issue two she has the hots for Ognus the heavenly singing sailor and they fight tooth to nail until she steeped into his throat with her werebat fang. Only he didn’t die. He faints. We are left wondering why. Because but whatever, in issue four he raises from his grave as a werezombie-corpse thing in hope of her vampire blood after she had been lonely for him and mad slaughtering pointlessly in issue three. Its fate and love at first bite. In five he bites her becoming immortal like her. We learn she has vampire-immortality and is the underground-goddess. It was always this type of moon when she rose to feed.

“Oh no not yet. I will when I get home. I’m not worried about it. It’s a small sacrifice for coming for my homecoming this week.” I saw him become shyly nervous. I mentioned talking about going home, already. He even blinked heavily.

I asked. “What happens?”

We were going up a spiral of steps into his apartment house. It smelled of dried oranges. The hall had been painted within the past month. It had ceiling fixtures that made the hallway thick by it carpeting that was old also. The floor squeaked as our bodies wheezed on it touching through to old fashioned wood.

“It could be worth another visit tomorrow afternoon. We could get together, then and you can have my copy, while I make us diner?” He asked so sweetly. I couldn’t refuse him, not now.

He unlocked his door. We slid inside. Mat stopped at the boot stand to kick off his shoes when I felt silly like necking a little there in his open doorway. But he closed it tightly behind us making us domain slaves. Then I turned to Mat with a snicker on my face to see his eyes roll up white. And the blood to begin to trickle down his face. It was mine swirling onto him. But his was splashed into my eyes, too, making it hard to see what was in the entranceway. Two vampires, one Ognus and his beauty Vuranus alive and feasting away sick with waiting, sinking their teeth in us, waiting for us, tethering us, our throats to begin to drain, our silence to death begins. Not a beautiful ending of my homecoming.

The End

Name: Love at First Sight
Words: 2305
Genre: fiction/fantasy
By: Arthur
Notes: I had though a first draft needed a little work on this story a bit longer to get better dialogue but I’m over my word limit. Better to locate them than not describe anything at all.

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Love at First Sight

My ten year homecoming. My life of boredom escapes into new freedom desired ten years ago.

I knew it would be hard to graduate high school. When I did I moved away. And it seemed for good too; permanently as long as I just stayed away, but it was so long ago I left, college was forthcoming. And I wanted to return after I graduated from my college but my school campus was really too far away.

I came home every year for Christmas while in college. Finally the family just fanned itself out. After college graduation I got myself my premiere job. I stayed in the city and I came home for Christmas that year and then it was every two years it seemed. Now having this return to my old town during summer for this unneedful family and homecoming reunion; but it was forthcoming. They were once no it was more like twice an idea willingly abandoned.

Here I was. Yet all alone because without seeing my brother who is always away doing some assigned military mission for the corps rules out his company.

I guessed this weekend began for Saturday and Sunday all of our relatives will begin to arrive. Thursday I will be going to my tenth year high school homecoming. I know it sounds like I’m all ready to back out on these people but I guess Mom has convinced me to consolidate factors. My work has stolen my hometown roots. So she says. It has severed roots and that’s why I am still single. That thought scares me. She may have made me believe.

My Dad never calls me by my first name. His old habit was never going to die.

I guess with his contracts, office work, it was too hard for him to remember, Jennifer-Jane. I rarely saw him. He rarely saw me either. He was so busy. He made me think Mom was lonely. He still hasn’t change that much. Dad has an office working from his cell-phone.

My first morning waking up. I was in my bathroom, in the bedroom away from my custom city life, the big city apartment I shared with my roommate. My being in my old bedroom became my home from home in a night of rest, and the home of homes because it was being home with my parents. It could have been worse. In fact I had found a ticket for the Split Decision rock concert tonight on my breakfast table. It had my name on it.

Left there as a surprise for yours truly, I know it was my thoughtful Dad. On the outside he was always grumpy. It was his cold and stern features of a father, always, also like my big brother’s, but Dad’s inside was the considerate one. Dad was the thoughtful warm man of reason for me as he was for my Mom.

My concert starts seven at the community arena. Ten hours. I threw my breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. I stomped back up the stairs to my bedroom. I planned a day with my Mom not knowing there was a concert tonight.

I remember this band. I wish I had been brave enough to ask for tickets to go see them, but one day my Dad came home with tickets. He gave me two. He also gave my brother two tickets to see the concert. We could take a friend. My brother wasn’t the kind of guy to take out time by leisure and sold his to his friend Mat. Mat was a total stranger to me. We never met.
I really wanted to go to the concert. Split Decision is a home grown band. My Dad has rented the arena to them before for their homecoming concert. Delilah and I had gone ten years ago. And that was one-night’s performance I will never forget. It had been a total blast.

I kept trying to get a certain eye connection with this guy I saw in the audience at the concert. He kept making eye contact with me too and sometimes we kept staring at each other. After the concert I never saw him. I wonder if he will be there tonight.

My mother stopped outside my doorway knocking. Unaware I’d been up already and now dressed on my own. She was beginning to feel like the old days when she had to remind me. Today however we were on our way to shopping.
Hours passed with one sidewalk sale after another and after that we had lunch together.

She insisted I dress more casual if I’m to attract men my own age. But I don’t always listen to my mother. Like times past. I save money buying shirts instead of expensive sweaters. And I spent the savings buying her and my lunch.

The night of the concert felt like I was giving a chance of distinguishing who I was by dressing in part. I had put on my black jeans and finished my dressing in the latest fashion the new t-shirt I found while shopping earlier. It was a Vuranus. For those of you who don’t know what a Vuranus t-shirt is from a Miller Light t-shirt I suggest you keep up. A Vuranus shirt is the hot vampire heroine from the Vuranus & Ognus book. Super villain comic books are bossing Mr. Hog. She was the chick that changed Ognus into the vampire like her. Now he does her spiritual bidding. What happens of course, in the second issue was Verona & Ognus are sold out every copy once it’s placed on the shelves. I’ve read every issue. I’ve just finished its latest, the fifth issue recently, a few weeks ago. And I am waiting to learn what they are up to next. Very hot items.

Hey everyone that was a long week!! Try out this coming new week contest.

Congratulation Pixie!! wins the past week's story topic wither Lies Spawn Hope. Nice!! Pixie will be featured on Story Galore. An entertaining story at that!!

Instructions:
Please do not use a story previously used on goodreads. After the week's contest, you are welcome to put it on your profile writings, but please refrain from using stories you have already put on there.

You have until Saturday afternoon to post a story on here. Please post it directly onto this topic, rather than posting a link. Also, please do not discuss stories on here. You must go to Weekly Short Story Contest Discussion for that. This will avoid any clutter and confusion, so that people can simply come on here and read the story, without having to read comments on the story.

This week's Topic is Homecomings. If anyone has any objections to this topic, please go to the Objections post. The rules are pretty loose. You could write about having a reunion and return home, or return to old school tale, etc, or just have the word in the story.

Weekly stories must be at least 500 words long to 2,000 words long. (if the whole story won't fit in one post, divide it into two)

Good luck!

Arthur, [acting for Clare:]

P.S. PLEASE say if you would like to have your story on Short Story Galore, if you win. This way it wouldn't take me ages to get your consent afterwards. This includes adding a link to your stories. If you want to have your story on the Short Story Galore, but not the link, just say so.

You have until Sunday afternoon to post a poem on here before the Topic changes. Please post it directly onto this topic, rather than posting a link. You're welcome to discuss poems on here also.

This week's Topic is Soar. If anyone has any objections to this topic, please go to the Poetry Topic Objections post.


Poems can be as long and short as you want them to be. This is not a contest, it's just for fun and to show off our own poetry.

OK everyone this contest is to the vote. Please go to the poll and vote for this week favorite story. ... If you haven't posted your story, please post it next week, starts Monday!!

I stepped so fast I fell. Out of step in my travels and hurtling I felt a bad taste in my mouth. Until I caught my balance I thought about my fall. When my weight connected to the ground I didn’t yet feel any pain only the joy of my fall. Then the feeling had reordered and I felt the pain. The so urging of my legs to get up didn’t connect that they had scrapped in the tilting fall.

These are stories that are ALWAYS less than 75 words. Today's topic is Travels.

You may write your story to be a really short self story, personal mystery or experience. It can be anything.

“Whatever it was it has been left in secrecy. This place was a total mystery.” Hamlett answered.

The entire interior floor had grates embedded in them to drain water leakage. The hall went in one direction. Into a kitchen styled compartment room where there are shelves enough but they are all empty. There were no cooking wares or utensils and appliances, nor any visible tools. No tables or chair. It was obvious children had stripped it bare years ago. In a sleeping quarter it was bare except details of litter and the feelings of it once containing bunks or mattresses.

In one room was a large metal communication unit long ago demolished and wires stripped of anything that looked like it belonged to the computers.

Certainly anything not fastened down with bolts found useful or productive would not have preserved after an almost seventy years of neglect.

They found uniforms soiled and covered in mold rotten and with filth of decay that stick to their skeletons to the floor.

In one empty room they found the skeletons that had decayed after death and were now without flesh. Preserving in pyramid, the soul gone singing, weeping and loving through seventy years. They were all heaped in a secluded spot where the body, neglected and forgotten, would quickly give its elements back to air and earth.

One man bare of his uniform shirt wore only an undershirt was the only one propped up wearing a hat signaling him as a Major of rank.

Ngoc told of the village children who named these skeletons. They made names up for each as heroes for play but the one with the hat had played as a leader in the playing games. Ngoc then for them sang her song about the leader if he ever was one that made children laugh a little.

“These uniforms are pre-SS Nazis. Before the war, so, it’s hard to tell what they served.”

James nodded. “These were SS uniforms although. That type issued that time was rare. Before the war Nazis believed in the attempt of world dominance.” He told them.

“If this happened before the war it makes me think our government or the other power had something to do with it.” Pastor Hamlett said with a mysterious clause.

James then slouched and clenched up a few slugs from a skeleton. “Assassinations happen willingly during the secret operations of the SS often. These are no ordinary slugs. Maybe to be exact are Russian?”

“”Lord.” Exclaimed the Pastor.

“You think they had been double crossed over something?” asked Evellyn.

“Well, Russia got involved! But would never have gone in favor of the Germans. I do not believe since they addressed the Germans before the war would they have gone and done anything to help the Germans.”

They backtracked to the other end of the facility where they found broken down doors left wide open and again each was striped bare of anything. They found nothing and turned back again. They were about to leave because the facility was empty when Ngoc pointed to the metal portal she saw as a child a number of times but had been until now well hidden under inches of decay and dust.

James returned to the jeep for tools. He brought back what he called jimmy gear. It was a small detonator of explosives. He patted putty around the circle and everyone cleared away from it. The explosion wrecked the door leaving it loose as ripple on water. Then James pulled the remainder of it off with a fancy crowbar.

It had been a tube going straight down and they then climbed down holding its ladder handles. When they reached the bottom they found a surprise for them. The laboratory had been intact and looked the same as it did seventy years ago. It had been sealed off and covered in secrecy all this time.

Hours later Hamlett had retrieved files showing SS documentation success level reports that must have never reached back to their fatherland. Since there was no longer any claim on them he made one. In the name of science. In the name of the father in heaven God he collected the files and they quickly sorted out a mysterious affair that happened a long time ago but that would never have been known. This scientific team had uncovered a cloning mask that replicated the human body to become exact samples from samples of its originals.

When Hamlett announced this to the group James hollered a yahoo in surprise. The Nazis had been defeated. But during the war they discovered life after death with these cloning experiments. A pity they never had the chance to conduct the final experiment that would have led them to their dominance changing world history.

The Nazis had sealed off the file records as they begun being under their attack. It was a fluke of luck the portal remained unnoticed by who ever had been their assassin. If they had ever now known to look for a portal was now even doubtful. Why leave it behind after all these years? This was such a waste and a mistake. It needed to be brought to the publics attention and soon.

Soon their return brought James home. Ngoc had also returned to school where she tried to contain the enthusiasm.

Evellyn and Hamlett returned to their country taking with them the files. Within a short about of time they had sought donations to quickly build the cloning mask laboratory themselves.

Brendan Smith an extensively wealthy man, a billionaire, invested greatly in the enterprise. He it was who saw the first human clone. His wife was the first human cloned product in history. They lived happily ever after.

The End

Name: Where’s There’s Death, There’s Hope
Words: 1931
Genre: fiction/ hope
By: Arthur
Notes: "Where there's death, there's Hope" is a quote by Bob Hope. My story has “…preserving in pyramid, the soul gone singing, weeping and loving through seventy years.” & “…secluded spot where the body, neglected and forgotten, would quickly give its elements back to air and earth.” which are borrowed from sources.

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Where There's Death, There's Hope

Brendan Johnston Smith remained for the moment hunched in his own door frame watching the emergency team leave. Soon finished there was nothing left to do after consoling Mr. Smith when the ambulance was already somewhere on its way to the municipal hospital. The ambulance would be already too late when it got to the emergency.

Brendan hung back to rest for a moment. Then closed the door in his home. Walked a few paces from tiredness, it grew, the tragedy ending his hanging his head over the mantle above the stone hearth left him dizzy. It was not a kind of coldness or a life with warmth but was rest with his head spanned in his arms from his broken pain. He held his marriage band in fingers and slipped it onto the candle stick. It slid until it clinked with his wife’s ring already there. His wife was with uterus cancer when they were prevented to have children. That prevention in their early marriage the cancer returned in her early thirties and taking only months closing Brendan’s dreams.

Pastor Hamlett leader of the community of Christians and colleges rose in protest against experimenting. Christian reformists have performed in protests in their communities when Christians united. They were united as reformists and dreamers. Christians do not have known Catholic values or those Catholic rules and laws of prohibition known in Catholic history and the pope. But they did have insight in investigative media, all over world they have known all kinds of true stories in all the rural parts of the world where they have brought Christianity. In these places like where most all of Hamlett Gilliard’s three years spent as pastor had also spent investigating the Dharma experiments but proved useless. An experimental facility in Vietnam as old as the WWII. This had been closed down during that war. He had no lead to its whereabouts. Until March 12, 2009 when he received a communicated confirmation of the Dharma experimenting facility. In research Hamlett could prove it had come from German scientists mantling SS experiments in the late nineteen-thirties.

Placing themselves in the next existing plane heading for Vietnam Hamlett and his companion Evellyn traveled alone across water.

When they reach they will accompany retired militia Sergeant Thomas James, who knew of topography of Vietnam and could get them to Dharma and its facility. Although it did lie in a devastate remote environment. Dharma was surrounded by miles of jungle and the terrains have few people travel in those wild outback ranges. Minor accidents occur when people go into those unmapped ranges finding the outdated war fields or war machine old roads.

Ngoc had been just a little girl before she learned of the wastelands and facilities of Dharma. Under her experience of getting away and seeing the world it had been something around her, but she reached the proper school age and she realized what Dharma in her forests had been. A lab to create war. A deserted lab empty and forgotten and ever hidden.

Ngoc as a Christian in school wrote a paper report about it, the old facility she knew, describing it as she saw it as a child. Impressed were her peers who took interest and interviewed her. She drew a map collaborating her report.

March thirteenth 2:28 am a black swarm of bees landing on the ground of an old plane field stop in action. The engines go to kill mid stopping. The ground grew heavy. The plane turned racketing on its wheels to a final stop. Pastor Hamlett and Evellyn step out to meet Sergeant James and they shake hands in Vietnam.

Their first meeting was on an air field. They also greeted Ngoc who had been a pretty girl. She felt honored with meeting the Christian Pastor from the other continent. Who had come to see her map she drew which leads to the forgotten facility in Dharma.

Pastor Hamlett listens to Ngoc reliving her story over their breakfast. This discussion was in all possibility to find if safety of going to the facility had been a factor. Sergeant James believed it was safe to try.

The jeep stopped outside Ngoc’s childhood village. Excitedly she pointed with a little lithe pale finger going over the deserted field where she used to go everyday to find flowers. They were fifty miles into a jungle and in an area among unknown hills.

In this field in its middle bedazzled as jewels was a hidden metal floor with a door that opens and it was no surprise that it was no longer locked. They stepped down and went inside through its door.

“It’s dark down here!” Evellyn protested.

James took from his bag four fluorescing flashlights that crank. They each turn on their light. The stairwell led them down a place bare of features but descended into a cavern made hall where darkness began to outbreak the sources of light from the outside sun. The noise of the wild birds diminished into nothingness as they moved deeply into the interior which was only of cavitate reinforcing arches every few ten feet along walls until it ended and then goes in two different opposite directions.

“Do you know why we came down here?” Croaked James in a flustered questioning voice.

“I thought it would be apparent. Yes, they had experimented closing in on making annihilation using some times their own soldier-men or slaves. Quite often they sometimes took animal life, which is why we found this in Vietnam. Would anyone notice the missing animals or people? And yet still where did it lead them?”

“You mean what did they experiment?” James chimed in as he pointed to the right tunnel for them to follow him down it as a group.

Sing song alley she day. Big bag alley what a way. Shin slang what a ding dang. Wing wonk a curious song. Ho hums a puddle of dung. Well meow let someone here know I move. Wall up and the sprawl. Run clang tip over a can. Harrumph, ta da pull out a bone. Bing bong run into a ball. Leap and jump getting out of gunk. Fling flam licking a tail. Whoop snoop stopping.

youse teh gang? you guys serious?

These are stories that are ALWAYS less than 75 words. Today's topic is CAT.

You may write your story to be a really short mystery, personal experience or about the topic of felines. It can be anything.

con't...

“But that’s no reason to become angry with your father. Are you angry with him still?”

“Oh no. He was everything to me while he lived.” Will pointed out. An opaque whiteness ached at his eyes as Will tried to remember Will’s father. “He married the evil step-mother that I hate today. I mean I don’t speak or see her. I don’t even know if she lives. If she does, she’s quite old, and yes maybe I forgive her for all the mean things she meant to me. But I will never forget.”

Will had saw the lovely neighbor he had known all his life, the widow next door marry Will’s father. Will was shocked. Especially at first, his own mother’s death, and then next he was trapped in the house and forced to love other relatives he did not love of this step-mother’s.

He felt cheated. He felt cold and embittered.

He felt like a promise of church and god and of state and security had been turned over to fall from a handmade basket.

“Of all the rotten luck.” Penelope said.

“After I had a chance to go to college I refused to go! I didn’t want her left with my father to change him to what, her dead husband? That started the war!”

“You battled with your step-mother a lot?”

“No, no not a lot. Or really even in reason at all, you know? Not at all. She couldn’t have a lazy lass in the house and tried to get me kicked out. But my father stuck to his guns as much as I did. He loved me. He owed me that. And I hoped he had saw the woman he married a second time and did regret it some too.”
My had Will a really rough life Penelope decided. That no wonder he talks to himself. But why? Hadn’t he tried to stay and be like his father? When the thought finally occurred to her. Will stayed home to help his father until. . . .

“When he died I was torn apart Penny. I was all but twenty-three. Destitute and alone. She urged me to move. She was giving me the boot. I took what I had on, and left no looking back. I don’t know who I am. How about you Penny. Who are you?”

Penelope thought about that for a moment. Could it hurt to admit her faults? Tell her story?

“I had graduate last year. My farther knew a friend of a friend, and so on, you know, who got me a job at the Hobbit. I worked for six months. I guess it was a clerical error I committed. That Sabo fired me on the spot. Six months I worked for him taking his …” she thought and thought.

“Clerical. Those are the worse. Mind if you tell me about it?”

“Sex! !! I worked in a commercial advertisement company. With Hobbit Included Ltd. A small office and small responsibilities at first but more work coming my way. I got mixed upped. We did well that term I guess, I met a guy and he came on to me to strong. He worked there too. I shouldn’t have. But my boss walked in on us in my office. He must have heard us. But I was undressed when he walked in and he fired me. That’s it.”

“It will be hard to find another job now, I know. When I got this one I held on to it.” Will tried to sound important. That working for Amos was not so bad.

Penelope lashed an eye. Crumpled her coffee cup and tossed it in the empties. Will smiled and took the bag up filled with the cups and kept talking as he took out the trash.

“Well see you Penny. I’ve got to get this stuff out, it’s trash day. I will be seeing you.”

The End

Name: The Empties
Words: 1625
Genre: fiction/ empties
By: Arthur
Notes: I thought this one up this morning and it took me a while to figure if I liked it or not. But I guess I did. Maybe you could read it and tell me.

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The Empties


Will was patient but while the bathroom remained occupied he cursed. He cursed today and sweated a little too and waited until the woman came out.

“Gee thanks lady.” He said, she caught a look at him and then he just dove into the washroom.

The lady remained standing outside the door until she heard the flush and then the water run in the sink. He’s at least sanitary, she thought. Will stepped out and gave her a glare. She had no intention of moving. Will turned away in wonder at her. He had to go to do other jobs. He moved warehouse supplies, cleaned on weekends and did maintenance in the big old warehouse on Johnston and First streets. He did not want another embarrassing encounter with this lady even if she were pretty, again.

“So what do you think of Will?” Amos was the boss. His niece Penelope had kept makeup in her purse as a precaution and was blushing it on her face in a mirror when suddenly Will had realized someone was in his bathroom. Or the warehouse’s bathroom, a room he certainly felt really a part of.

“He’s ok for an old fellow I suppose. He’s what about forty? He married?”

“Christ no! He is one strange character though, but don’t fear him. The harmless type. I first hired him through an agency, oh way back; I think he was just twenty-three. He’s never done anything else with his life. After he started he hung out here. Began to do all the maintenance, I had to let the other fellow go to save money. Will saved me and my warehouse. I’ll have to put something in for his retirement. If I ever let him retire!”

“He’s not bad looking I admit. But it’s strange. It’s almost like he was a mute, if it weren’t for the fact he spoke.”

“Hey, he isn’t sick. He doesn’t drink. I don’t know much other than he needed to get his life straight at one time, but I guess he never did.” Amos shook his head. Pulled out his wallet. “Here’s something to start. Then I can give you a check every two weeks.”

Penelope smiled. Put her arms around her big Uncle Amos and gave him a squeeze and hug.

Two weeks had passed. Will had been in and out constantly.

Penelope stacked boxes onto skids and directed the skids onto trucks out of the warehouse. She stooped over the load fork and called Will.

“Hey you! Help me out will you. Have I’ve got this skid stuck or something?” she had pressed and pressed the release button and attempted to pull away but no result.

“Okay. I’ll wrapped a rope and tie it like so, so when you pull the rope will hold. It’ll take a good pull to get it off. Let’s see.” Whack, thump. “It was a nail. There it goes.”

Penelope had been pleased when she saw Will. He came and went and did things for her when asked.

One day she had come in early and saw the sun rising and she took her coffee outside to hear a conversation Will was having but with himself.

“You have to leave!”, “:Why?”, “I’ll stay. I should. For him!” and “You can’t go.” “No go!”, “I will leave. I feel free!”, he was stamping his feet and having this two way conversation with himself.

Oh Amos why didn’t you tell me he was a nut crack? Penelope tried to shrug it off. But more and more she bumped into the oddest conversations when Will was not looking. She could hear him when he had conversations while he did work. She could hear Will when he had been alone for lunch. Will, Will, Will. It had to be always Will. And no wonder he was alone too, he talked to himself. Penelope was concerned.

One afternoon Penelope was beyond bored. Beyond listening to Will and his conversation. No longer could she put up with the nut crap.

“Will? Who are you?” Penelope asked out of the blue.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Was his reply as his only hope to salvage his pride that the lady had interrupted him once again for conversation.

“I mean how come you came to work for Amos?”

“Oh that. I needed work.”

“Yes I guess don’t we all. But what’s your story?” she smiled for him to be patient but strong while she nudged him more and more to continue with her conversation with him.

For once he began to crack under the pressure. After all Penelope had been Amos’s niece and he owed Amos something. Maybe this was a chance to settle that long owed debt, Will decided.

“Well for starter I had lived at home till a late age. Some do do that did you know?”

She nodded.

He tried to continue. The stress and strain.

“My parents had been good to me. I was in high school and my mother and I had an argument about why I was late from school everyday. You see I played hockey with the other boys. You know, ball hockey.”

She nodded.

“She probably detested the other boys that they were an improper influence, and blah blah blah.”

She nodded to continue.

“That was when she had that big stroke that night right there while her face was screaming at me not to play late with the others. Later that night in hospital she died. The doctors tried to say she had gall stones that erupted. But I still blamed myself.”

“Will, I’m so sorry. Oh, that is so sad. She died just like that?”

“Yes. But my father remarried.” He smiled like a big kid who feared something, like everyone were outsiders in his little protective world.

Instructions:
Please do not use a story previously used on goodreads. After the week's contest, you are welcome to put it on your profile writings, but please refrain from using stories you have already put on there.

You have until Saturday afternoon to post a story on here. Please post it directly onto this topic, rather than posting a link. Also, please do not discuss stories on here. You must go to Weekly Short Story Contest Discussion http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/6... for that. This will avoid any clutter and confusion, so that people can simply come on here and read the story, without having to read comments on the story.

This week's Topic is emptiness. If anyone has any objections to this topic, please go to the Objections post. The rules are pretty loose. You can write about anything that has emptiness, where contains nothing or unoccupied, insincere, dull, meaningless, unfed etc., or feeling of a surrounding in general, just have the word in the story.

Weekly stories must be at least 500 words long to 2,000 words long. (if the whole story won't fit in one post, divide it into two)

Good luck!

Arthur [ acting for Clare :]

P.S. PLEASE say if you would like to have your story on Short Story Galore, if you win. This way it wouldn't take me ages to get your consent afterwards. This includes adding a link to your stories. If you want to have your story on the Short Story Galore, but not the link, just say so.

*NEW WINNING RESULTS ARE IN*

Short Stories latest winner of weekly contest is Sunny! Sunny with her story named 'Angel of War' will enliven readers and is simply a new must read. 4 votes, 50.0% Congratulations Sunny!! This story will be displayed on Story Galore.

Good, cool actually!

"Yikes I've forgot my pass ticket and it's left for its departure!!" Said Uncle.
"Now what? Do we have to stay here?" Asked Miff to her Uncle.
"I can't drive I'm too old. And I wanted so much to get there for my sister's birthday."
"Mom's going to be so disappointed. We could hitchhike." Replied Miff, unhappy she couldn't get home. “No!”
”There’s one chance yet, but we’ll be late. We can take a train!”

You have until Sunday afternoon to post a poem on here before the Topic changes. Please post it directly onto this topic, rather than posting a link. You're welcome to discuss poems on here also.

This week's Topic is disquiet. If anyone has any objections to this topic, please go to the Poetry Topic Objections post.


Poems can be as long and short as you want them to be. This is not a contest, it's just for fun and to show off our own poetry.