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

Arthur’s comments from the Short Story Contests group.

In the people's world there was no stranger thing than a giant's life. A giant can stumble without thinking and knock over anything. It can cry where there are not enough place to sit. It can stretch out to sleep and it needs yards of wool for a blanket. Imagine trying to re-explain over and over again to a giant that what they were was strange. But as they say there is two heads are better than one, that's why my best friend is a giant.

*** ((everyone please no more stories for this topic, contest closed due to voting)) ***

Alright we should vote even if it’s getting late, sorry waiters. Let me post the poll and get you to go and vote for your favorite this week : featured poll & topic Ambush. See you there!!!

For Vee her parents upset her. The death of her parents upset her even more.
“What did they die from?” He asked.
She stammered when she spoke. It happened only a week ago.
“Old.” They were old.
“A new couple wanted their place and, and home,” which was genocide, “. . . ‘you ate it!!!’” Squaw announced ashamed. A couple had to feed another couple poison leading to their deaths. Then they would claim the possessions. Her parents had been the most important thing in her life.
“Oh. I’m so sorry. So the next couple who tricked them is living in their house?” Chief asked.
Squaw wasn’t shocked about it, not anymore. Genocide happened often. But still there was no proper excuses for the way society had become by 2049. She had come home a week ago from holidays, learning immediately her parents were dead. They had invited their own deaths.
In society today you don’t ask strangers into your home for dinner, it could spell death. In this case, when the government allows genocide and the youth often pry on the old and sick to steal from them their possessions.
Today it has become bad, tomorrow is getting worse, the over population is so high the law allows the genocide and they don’t attempt to cover it up. It has become fashion to poison guests and steal property to get ahead.

“That’s so sad, I’m really so sorry for you, Squaw. I wish there was something to do. You knew after my own parents died last year I’d decide to change. My life was without meaning. I didn’t have you,” she looked up at him in shock. He hadn’t admitted it before,
and I tried. And I did change. No more am I certain of the future.” Chief’s two parents died in a traffic accident. He was supporting the two youths who were hit by his parents.
He was going to talk about things. He tore of the recyclable foil from the bottle and pulled the cap off of Ambush 2049 and passed it on to Squaw. She poured a head in her glass. He decided he was already drunk and his glass remained empty after his last glass of the Shadow nineteen ninety-nine.
“There comes a time when a man must summon on forces.” He smiled. “I have decided to retire.” He announced this unexpectedly. She looked up suddenly a little drunk at his news.
It was impossible for him to deal with the market without his father. He feared if he didn’t retire he wouldn’t survive in the market for many years to come.
“I’ve got to decide to try this retirement, and settle down and start a family, I’m too old aren’t I to?” He said in guilt. Squaw’s flush was rosy and rose up in a warm glow while listening to him.
In a rush he continued, “My lawyers seem to think if I sell things I don’t need before I retire and start figuring out my future, I’d be set.” Laywer’s usually made sense, if he could make do with his essentials he could find a wife and a little family and then?

“that also why I came in person. I know how you feel about your parents. I know for years I’ve left you a promise in my will that if I should die you would get my possessions. And I’ve left you a private island in Barbados. But my lawyer suggests I must sell everything, even my island in Barbados if I’m going to retire and remarry someone and start a family. It would be protection from the genocides. I wanted you to have the island but I can’t give it away, my lawyers won’t let me. And frankly it’s to expensive to buy from me.” He said.

“I understand. No. it’s alright Chief. For years I lived with the fear that you would die and leave me. I dreaded it every day. I’m glad you are not dieing.” Squaw admitted to Chief at that moment.

Which was why she slipped the poison in the Shadow 1999 before he arrived and had an antidote for herself. he was going to die.

Which was why he had slipped the genocide poison in her Ambush 2049 and brought his antidote. He made all the wrong choices in life and couldn’t face them. Now like a duke as he’d been he was going to murder her then marry another woman to replace her love he needed.

The End.

Title: Opaque Sunrise and Dinner
Author: Arthur
Words: 2100
Short Story Galore: 50/50

………………..

Opaque Sunrise and Dinner

He walked through the front door, into a hall, and then turned and he stood. He was warmly welcomed into the house.
“there he is.” The voice he knew so well said.
“how are you?” Zim (Chief) asked.
“g…g…g…good.” Vee (Squaw) said getting a bear hug from Chief. It was uncomfortable but rather like finding the lost cub in the forest. Veena let him squeeze her tightly without complaint, enjoying it really.
“What’s for diner?” he popped. “Guess what?” Zim said.
“You’ve been starving?!” what was it like traveling all the way here? Vee had to say it to get Chief to put her down.
“Come in Chief.” Squaw said. She called him Chief since they met and shared lunch at a detention in school. For two unconnected hand splattering mischiefs in grade three of Mrs. Malarkey’s art room.
Both people choose in different periods to detonate in class and destroy others work after noisy classmates had criticized them. Two different class periods Mrs. Malarkey told her students all to behave, two periods in one day she had to signal out the bad apple and send them for detention during the lunch period. There Squaw and Chief met. They had wild imaginations and learned to like one another and became fast friends there after. All through becoming great friends they shared in on their most wanted things.

High school Chief wanted to bum around which really eventually got on Squaw’s nerves. She liked going out with him, with different people constantly, only the loneliness number Zm played on her some times annoyed her greatly.
At other times Chief found ways to remind her that her so called friends would be fakes unless they made something with their lives, which was why he avoided her friends and sometimes his own friends totally saw little of Zim.
But in college things had changed between them. Not their friendship though, it still grew strong. Only they detached from the high school feelings and hang ups. Chief seemed his old self again, he was studying in his own classes. Of course his teachers found him agreeable in all cases except art where he still had a grudge against art.
Squaw then saw transformations in Chief. Her boyish attraction would grew into a crush after they began college. He was tall, lean and muscular and good mannered. Rich too and would probably be successful. Only if he’d notice her in that way. for her life time friend didn’t. Only now that college began she could begin her fashion career and become a consultant.

“This looks quite good Squaw.” He gestured around the dining room hall and into the dining room. “Maybe this is something we should do often?” Chief suggested across the table when they sat. It wasn’t so wide at the table she couldn’t hear him. It was a long walk around the table though where she sat. She pushed a bottle across to him across the long table. Their glasses stood shiny on the table between candles. The drinking glasses had a black stem with a gold patch of flowers painted on the clear glass. She poured a little and gave it to him, he gave her a wink nonchalantly.
“Shadow 1999? Humph, was it expensive?” he asked. Chief had heard of imitative wines and feared that bottles older than two-thousand or were fakes.
“Nope. Chief, this is nothing but the best.” She raise her glass, “let’s have a toast, shall we? To old times and real memories . . .” Her standing there and reaching ahead to him felt moving. She even touched his hand. It felt real enough. It felt like rekindling an old romance.
He rose for the toasting, the memories and rekindling, nodded his head when the glasses chinked.

When Squaw found her seat she sat down. She then watched him place a bottle out on the table from his own stock. It read Ambush two-thousand forty-nine, this year vintage wine.
He began conversation of their college years. “Do you remember just after college when you became first engaged?” Chief asked.
“Yes I do. Oh it was so hard to say yes. I loved you, but I thought I loved him very much, he stole my breath, he took my heart, he left me—nearly all alone standing at the alter—for that, for that, Jenny something, what’s her face.” Squaw angrily remembered. Chief had finally learned of Jenny running away with the groom to be, Chief had to find Squaw and give her the news that he heard Jenny had found a husband. Vee would forgive them later.
“I thought I’d never see you again, until they ran away, but here you are.” He said.
“I doubt that very much. I would have kept in touch.” Squaw said to him passionately. She held a crush for Chief in her first years in college until he was going out with another girl. The most popular girl in school. That girl hated art too. It was a fling of passion in hatred for art they both shared.
“I would never have married her if I knew you and I could still be friends, what’s his face told me to stay away, and I thought he was stealing you away from me.” Chief said touched. “So I just married the first girl that came along.”
“I led you to think that after you ignored me. I missed you so much.” Squaw admitted. And, “She wasn’t the first girl that came along, you’d been dating her in secret for a year.”
Zim smirked because he knew she did miss him. Not that that woman he ended up marrying for money was better than Squaw. But because his parents approved of his marriage. Five years later, Chief’s wife she had been caught in a scandal made public of having carried on an affair with a notorious football player for the Stampede’s and they then had to have a divorce. Admittedly Chief felt cheap and his family dishonored.

“Have they ever found that Jenny and what’s his face?” Chief asked about her fiancé who ran away.
“No. It’s so strange those four years after their honeymoon people began to notice them missing and it was in the magazines.” She remarked about the disappearance of her fiancé and that bimbo Jenny, he ran out on her two weeks before the marriage marrying the other woman instead.
“Why did it take them so damn long to figure it out they had been missing?” Chief muttered.
It was obvious. The cruse ship docked then the couple went on a missionary service for a three year term. The families didn’t expect to hear from them for that period of time. When the mission camp hadn’t received the honeymooners, they went ahead on the safari anyway and waited for word of their arrival. They never came. Years later they were reported missing.
It was a strange world.

She talked about old times. And about Zim’s divorce only five years after the marriage.
They cried and they wept in laughter.
They regretted their spending so much time apart and taking far too many years on the phone or on the computer talking instead of sharing it together in real time. In real living style like they now can afford. Only now things have changed, again.
Again and again two ships have missed each other in turbulent sea storms and missed bringing them together like miracles or by tragedy.

“I’m sorry for your parent’s recent death.” Chief said in a way to console hi soul friend. “That’s why I called you and want to see you. I miss you, but I also can’t go on without being near you.”
Squaw had everything going for her. Only she was getting tired looking but she kept working in the fashion industry.
Vee had her fortune in that industry. She learned taking what she wanted helped her get ahead. She protected her assets. Something like greed and it was something she learned from Zim, to be greedy.

These are stories that are ALWAYS less than 75 - 100 words. Today's topic is giants.

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

‘Genie’ by golly that was what dad called Robert’s sister when she was born. We are distant cousins visiting the large estate. Rich and big was what Dad called it. It had a gold pond for fish in the front yard. It had stairwells to the water closets. There was a line of garages. When Genie arrived we hugged her and kissed her until she burped or whatever newborns did when they were rich.

The votes are in.
***Drum rolls*** It is a smooth tie between,

A Zenith Of Irresponsibilty by Davis and Time by Megan. Congrats to each writer with 8 votes.

Congrats Megan and Davis, I'm sure things are getting hot this summer with reading and writing.

Hope everyone is returning for the new topic.

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 ambush. If anyone has any objections to this topic, please go to the Objections post. The rules are pretty loose. You could write about any kind of surprised attack, concealment of, waiting on an ambush set by somebody, pretty much anything. Just have the word in the story.

Weekly stories must be at least 500 words long to 2,500 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.

Dogs. There were a dozen of them on Dark Island, where no man any longer went. A part of the pack had run on the sandy beach to chase predators to the water. Watch for fish close to shore, wood and other junk, then chase the birds away. They had been once playful pups now savage and mad they merely clung to one another. When they returned to the inner circle of the island where those dogs had been lost to join the rest of their pack they would try to bring the food or they would begin play.
The old mother just died because she wouldn’t walk to water anymore. The boys all played antics for her to wake but she was too lazy for that any longer.

Joelle wrote: "Do you guys mind if I make it a little harder tomorrow? Like with a topic AND some sort of restriction-type-thing? It's really challenging but fun."

are you going to try it?

Gothic ???

Kyle wrote: "Arthur wrote: "the voting goes on till past tonight Kyle"

oh okay :P"

close one, whew, I almost posted 'yeah congrats Megan' a day earlier too.

the voting goes on till past tonight Kyle

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 follower. 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.

lol

See my article in the scrapbook

12. Morning

Father Ledman’s energetic daughters played at music instruments well past the sun setting. They woke up at sun rise and went about quickly to prepare breakfast.

If the weather permits one of them at dawn steps outside to open the wooden shutters freeing up the darkness and extinguishes candles and letting in fresh air.

The Father merely rolled to one side and adjusted himself, and sitting up turned out of his bed. The goodness of the still morning air reached him, his window was open. A small hole made to allow light and with wood shutters.

If anything Father Ledman was attuned to treatment of being special in his family, life was well and God knew it. The shack was built on a little street hill right next to the church. Father Ledman turned putting on shoes and an old ragged piece of clothing. His body just levitated this morning, guests in his home reinvigorated the old man. Then he took a fixed look at his necklace with the two crosses with calming hands and tied them with one string at the back of his neck. Father Ledman’s crosses dangled and slid down and then hung into his chest until they were under his aging rags in his protection.

A sparse room of no valuable luxury. Only a chair that had his fresh new day clothes hanging on a backing of the chair. This chair was made from a tree trunk and three boards nailed behind it for a backing to rest when sitting.

This morning had a beginning with the good weather so the girls collected leaves from a sapling tree and made some herbal tea. And used some gum also and put it into porridge for taste.

Sashay told Horus her pecking bird to be quiet, the falcon cockatoo had said ‘Big tiger, bad tiger, nope no nope.’ Horus’s dark gape tensed up and then his feathers struck out expanding, billowy to full length. He tried to circle the room.

A calico cat found its way back into the shack. Through a night of heat it staggered in in thirst looking for water from one of the daughters. It took a sudden dislike for fancying torturing the huge pecking bird.

The daughters rush in from the kitchen to save the cat after they hear her scream at a cat attempting to catch it and put it outside.

These are stories that are ALWAYS less than 75 - 100 words. Today's topic is Dogs.

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

Esther wrote: "ps, if youre wondering how to prenonce her name its ill-er-oli-oo-see-aa her last name is
fur-lin-see-kol-ee-ta"

i got it, nice one

11. Home

They walked toward the shack. Ledman went inside. He had a donkey tied to a post outside too, and he took as many sticks there were on it placing them on his back. He looked like a little man, dark from sun with all the weight of the sticks on his back. He carried them inside to the kitchen. When Football attempted to help, Ledman smiled and beckoned them to come inside.

Instead there was a table with a young girl of maybe twelve putting plates on it. She had it lit with only one candle now that the sun was falling, but it was big and lighted the enormous room.

“Night comes quickly this time of season. Come, sit and my daughter will bring some stew for us in a few moments.” Clapping his hands his daughter smiled in return then merely turned to the other door that led to some kind of kitchen.

“You are some kind of priest?” Football asked excitedly.

“Aren’t we all? Yes, I am fond of God and his garden and the seed of life, and give for his opinion and the divinity and also I am a seer of his, all my stolid wisdom.” Ledman said waving both hands around in a cross while his beard fell all about.

He watched Football looking at Ledman in his curious fashion, with pity for the hump on Ledman’s back. Ledman tried to raise his chin even higher.

“Oh, you see, I first was a bell ringer when we had a bell, but it was stolen when I was still a youth. In those days anything may have been stolen. And as I aged I missed the ringing greatly, and then again when the priest died he had left me this church. I’m also a good cook, and so are all of my daughters and the locals address me Father Ledman.”

“Well Father Ledman we are only passing. We are on a secretive mission of sorts.” Football admitted.

“Oh?” Ledman trying not to become too curious in case he should learn nothing of this secret his new friends were meaning.

“Are you not interested Father?” Asked Sashay feeling a kind of pity for this hunchback man.

“Oh no. No. God is my Shepard I mean to do his will and keeping his secrets. Really if I knew yours what difference will it make?” Ledman asked.

“God wants us to find someone who has disappeared, and gone missing. He seems to think it was sometime before last night, that there was an important angel kidnapped. We are going find this angel but we seek guidance.” Hera said.

Ledman paused without and took a deep breath. So it was understandable to him. One of God’s angels was held somewhere against their freewill, abducted by the evil side, and these three were looking for some holy relics or someone holy to tell them where the angel may be. Exercises for the heathens and learn of the missing angel’s whereabouts.

“I wish I were able to help. I will pray on behalf of God you find the angel you speak of.” Ledman pulled out rosaries. A very old cross tied to another cross dangled. “May you only tell me who it was if it was Michael?” The priest enquired.

“No it was not Michael. This happened to another angel, but important to God.” Hera said. “We are looking for people in pure spirit who will help divine how or where this missing angel is hidden.”

Ledman stood up when another of his daughters entered the room carrying the bowls of soup. They ate and Ledman entertained the visitors with tales of Babylon as his guests rejoiced with the thoughts they were closer in finding a way in their mission save God.