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Weekly Contest #359
The singer sang the song. Only one of the lyricists knew this one part of the story behind it, though. His grandfather, now withered and wrinkled, propped him on his knee when he was a small boy. The old man charmed him with chocolate and a scary story, ('if you're big enough to handle a little thrill,' he'd said). It was a cautionary tale, a fable. No one believed it actually happened, but I know the real chain of events. It's my story, my legacy, and I guess I'm the lesson to children to guard their hearts. There are charms, familiars, dol...
Weekly Contest #358
Geoffrey The United Nations convened on a hot, humid, summer afternoon. It was the kind of day where the grime of the city seemed to stick to your skin, lodge its way inside your nostrils, and the only way to quit the dirt was to take a shower, a cool shower. Geoffrey left the UN, looking out on the East River, thinking it was too bad it wasn't really a swimmable river. The Big Decision had been made today, and certain humans wouldn't be too worried about New York, much less the Earth's heat and humidity nor the viability of a good swim in t...
Weekly Contest #357
Sophia and Meredith were more than roommates; they were a unit. Meredith knew it. Sophia knew it. One could not exist without the other. Sophia propped Meredith up, suffered the rants and tirades of her insecurity, and bore the brunt of unending monologues of how she continually fell short. Sophia, the deepest of empaths, felt compelled to exist to lighten Meredith's load. Outside of the two of them and Sophia's mother and sister, no one else was aware of, much less understood their symbiotic relationship.Each morning, Sophia rushed to her d...
Weekly Contest #354
Teddy At first, when it happened it came in short bursts. I would close my eyes, and there it was. It was one of the best days of my life. It may have been the best day of my life. Again, it was only a glimpse. Momentary. A flash. My eyes invariably opened, and I was back in my day-to-day. The people came and went. They seemed disingenuous when they asked how I was doing. Obsequious. They didn't really want an answer. I'd learned this from a personal experiment I conducted. The nurse entered my room. It wasn't a bad room. The furniture the f...
Weekly Contest #350
It could have been the cape. It could have been the long johns. It was probably the mask. What was odd was the sticker on the automatic glass door when you walked into the bank. It had the universal symbol for 'no,' and then there were several pictures beneath, like sunglasses, band-aids (applied to the face), and masks. The bank left nothing to chance. There was a picture of the mask the Lone Ranger wore, and then there were a variety of Halloween masks featured, along with the rubber masks that were usually reserved for presidents' faces. ...
Weekly Contest #348
"Say, you know that song, the one in the cartoons? I think I had to learn the title in my college music appreciation class. What is it? Hmmm…It's on the tip of my tongue. 'In the Hall of the Mountain King!' That's it! I knew I'd remember it. Do you know it?" The small man's eyes lit up as he heard the tune in his head. He began to wave his arms in the air, as if he were conducting the orchestra. "I'll tell you this. Every time I think on it, I feel like I should creep around on tip toe. Skulking, I think. I like to think I might be skulking ...
Weekly Contest #347
"She is the most beautiful baby!" Charlotte's mother, Mandy, heard it daily after she'd given birth to the baby girl. And truly, the child was something special. She was a C-section, so her head was perfectly round. Her hair was black as night, and there was so much of it. Charlotte's eyes were sky blue. Mandy hoped Charlotte's eyes stayed light and bright. Though it was early days, it seemed Charlotte was tracking objects and people around her, already tuned in to her surroundings. Her beauty and awareness were arresting. With the amount o...
Weekly Contest #345
I am a miserable human. I am a slovenly waif, without purpose or direction. I do not have kind words, and, thus, I do not speak. When I enter a room, people take notice immediately. I see the looks on their faces. They try not to look at me. They avert their gazes like one does when one sees a homeless person. They suddenly find a speck of lint on their sleeves the most interesting thing they've seen in the past millisecond. They grow uncomfortable under my stare. My look strips them raw, pulls the skin from the sinews of their very beings. ...
Weekly Contest #342
My son is an only child. My husband is an only child. My mother-in-law is an only child. I am not. I grew up as one of three girls, and our house was busy and loud. If you needed something upstairs and the person who could help you was downstairs, you just yelled for them until they answered back. We were a family of yellers. My husband didn't come from a family of yellers. In fact, his family was the opposite. They didn't talk much at all. At first, I was puzzled. How could anyone get anything done with any expedience if there wasn't the im...
Weekly Contest #339
Cece was often a lonely girl. She was holed up in a luxury apartment on the Upper West Side and wanted for nothing. But still, she was alone and lonely. Each and every day began with a cup of tea and the hope that somehow today might be different. Her life had been devoid of companionship for a while. Had it been a full year? On occasion, she would catch the Amazon delivery person and invite him or her into her apartment for a coffee or tea, and if the delivery person were extremely good looking or proved to be incredibly interesting, Cece w...
Weekly Contest #335
I tried to open my eyes, but sleep crusted them shut. Instinctively, I tried to raise my hand to my face to drag my index fingers through the crust, but there was a problem. My wrists were secured. In an attempt to sit up, I found my torso secured to a gurney or hospital bed or something. I tried to jar the crust loose by trying to blink with my eyes closed, raising my eyebrows, changing my facial expression. Tears of frustration, anger, and cold terror finally won out, lubricating my eyes and lids enough to dissolve the formed crust. With m...
Weekly Contest #334
With Mama, Papa, and Goldie dead, my life changed. I was in the care of Grandma Ursula and Grandpa Paddy. They didn't much care for the grand house on the estate, and truth be told, I didn't much care for it either. We had all the money from Mama, Papa, and Goldie's life insurance policies and all the money from the business—the empire that replaced me in their lives. "What should we do with the house," Grandma asked one evening while we sat on the back terrace, (or veranda, as Goldie liked to call it) of the expansive house. We looked out t...
Weekly Contest #331
I found it in a magazine. It would perhaps enliven the party, and if not, it would certainly draw interest. I clipped a few sprigs of rosemary, took the tops off a few marigolds, and carefully placed the vodka bottle inside the empty milk carton. I slowly filled the carton with water, pausing now and again to place the flowers and herbs in the channel between the bottle and the milk carton's thin waxy cardboard. Gently, gently, I placed the assembly in the freezer. In several hours' time, I would peel the milk carton away, and the vodka woul...
Weekly Contest #330
"Where did Tim go?" Mark asked."I think he wanted to put his leftovers in his car," I said.Everyone was home on break. We called and texted one another to get plans together for the evening. There was an old Italian restaurant that was known for having a duck-pin bowling alley in its basement. They were also known for having meatballs that were about a third of a pound apiece. The name of the game was to order spaghetti with the meatball and marinara and then smash the meatball or slice it or whatever. Everyone had a method for tackling the ...
Weekly Contest #329
The child's scrawl on a Christmas card—such a small, yet special thing. The malformed letters were squished and scrunched every which way in the cramped space beneath a canned greeting, drafted by some man or woman who spent the day coming up with, "Season's Greetings!" while watching the clock tick slowly toward the magical hour when the slog of coming up with fresh holiday greetings ended. This special card was reserved for the Head Elf himself. Santa. Saint Nick. Kris Kringle. Pere Noel. However a child referred to him, it was all the sam...
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