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Weekly Contest #333
“Are you sure you’re up for the task?” asked Melinda, my mother-in-law. “We give you kids appetizers because they’re easy and—hiccups—harder to mess up. I don’t think you can handle all of the gluten-free desserts for our Christmas gathering...event.” While I certainly loved having her doubt my basic ability to follow instructions, I pressed on with my sweet proposal for sweets. “Don’t worry, I’m sticking to an old family recipe,” I explained. “My Uncle Jim had celiac issues, so gluten-free was big in my family before it ever occurred to s...
Weekly Contest #293
“Honey, I’m late.” Those are the words that I never wanted to hear in my relationship with Heather. I guess playing fast and loose with my wild oats had finally caught up to me. Thoughts raced in my head, like desperate shoppers on Black Friday. There was no clear resolution; only more confusion “Stupid Christian school upbringing, leading me to go crazy with the carnalities in my freshman year. Is she telling the truth? Is it mine? How am I to be a father with only $49 in my checking account at any given time?” How coul...
Weekly Contest #282
“We made it, bud. We freaking made it.” Ken’s text was but a hint of consolation, as looked up from the screen to see a 4 p.m. sunset staring back at me. But he was right, the longest day of the year was almost over and the days would only get brighter. Excruciatingly slow, but steadfastly sure. It was harder in the high latitude lines of the Pacific Northwest. Rain never bothered me years ago back in the mid-teens, but the darkness...the darkness. It has a way of hanging over you in a way that is more than the mere absence of lig...
Weekly Contest #280
I was seven miles down the road when I heard my destiny. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Some poignant truths take a while to detonate, and the missive I wrote earlier on my steamy bathroom mirror was finally coming to fruition. “It all stops and starts here,” said Levar, my hyperbolic Lyft driver with a flair for the dramatic. “One might say, ‘commences.’” Close enough, I guess. I’d told him about it at the beginning the ride, and I wasn’t going to fault him for paraphrasing my words. Bu...
Weekly Contest #278
“I was wrong, and reckless then. You deserve so much better, and it is a wonder that you even stayed in the relationshi--” “Wait, wait, hold on. Kim said this? The psycho from a few years back?” Tracy was pissed and beside himself, but his curiosity trumped his incredulity and he wanted to learn more. “She did, apparently,” I said. “There are even a few strategically placed “tear drops” on the paper.” He and I both knew that was her manipulative style—take a few drops of Visine and put one or two near an emotional passage in ...
Weekly Contest #276
“There’s a wait so long, so long. You’ll never wait so long.” ~Here Comes Your Man, The Pixies A startling amount of life’s adventures start out in a spirit of dispassionate inquiry. At least for me they do. It is Summer, 2005, and I’m in the mood to run it up the flagpole and see. Check the flypaper, see what’s sticking. Insert any number of cheeky colloquialisms here. “There, whaddya think?” I asked Willa, my roommate. I had just shown him my tongue-in-cheek word salad—no, word vomit—that I wrote for a MySpace b...
Weekly Contest #274
A lost love envelops me, personified in a dark-haired beauty with almond shaped eyes. No complications or messy communication. Just pure love. Rapture. Joy. She takes my hand, but I’m hesitant. Something is calling me, something that has to be dealt with before I can give myself to bliss. It’s getting louder, and the sound more and more offensive. The siren slips out of my grasp, and I’m left confused, with only myself, disappointment, and a grating sound that refuses to pass. Fuck. It’s the alarm, and no, I’m not even clo...
Weekly Contest #273
Sean has seen enough slick Netflix and Hulu horror movies to know he should throw away the invitation. Embossed in fancy, red wax seals and a hint of sandalwood odor, the invitation itself is an appealing parchment that should be destined for the recycling bin, along with his poor solo album review in the local alternative weekly paper. “No harm in opening it,” he mutters, as he trudges back to his house from the mailbox. It is three in the afternoon, and he is still in his bathrobe and slippers. Traditional time keeping has lost ...
Weekly Contest #233
Getting sober and staying sober is rarely easy, but Nathan feels that he is on a roll. Two months into recovery, and he has not had a sip of alcohol. Better yet is the fact that he is actively working on sobriety, which is better than simple abstinence. “Dry drunk,” is how his AA peers put it. This morning, the menu of Progress and not Perfection entails going to another job interview. And for the first time in two months, he wants a drink to quiet his nerves. “I miss the bitch. She was trying to kill me, but boy do I miss ...
Weekly Contest #229
Tom wakes up with a headache. The stubborn alarm clock and the morning sun don’t help matters, either. Normally, this would make a random Tuesday in August a bad day. Yet malaise is compounded by the fact that this is Christmas Eve. The holiday ringer awaits—a big party with fake smiles, pretending to enjoy the company of others, trying not to drink too much, and coming up with superlatives about gifts that he doesn’t care for. And he hasn’t made one purchase towards his Christmas shopping yet. He does, however, have an engagement ring...
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