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Weekly Contest #319
Hello, my name is Kate Batts and I’m quite famous in these parts. I am known in the west end of Robertson County, Tennessee in this house. It became famous when I made my first appearance back in 1817 when John Bell and his family moved in to farm this acreage. According to local legend, I was the cause of his death. I find that humorous. My name has been associated with witchcraft and a deep sense of evil. Tell me truthfully, do I look evil to you? There are folks from Clarksville who would claim that I am the embodiment of evil around her...
Weekly Contest #318
Andy Beckett was once the King of the Late Night with the top-rated variety shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some of the best talent walked onto his show over the ten years he had on air. Many people could still recall some of the memorable moments he had in front of a live audience that included a young senator from Massachusetts who was running for president and a foul mouth comedian named Lenny Bruce. In his final season, he had a young kid from Seattle who would play at Woodstock before he passed away at age twenty-seven. One t...
Weekly Contest #317
There is an old adage when you are involved with a project that can be risky, “When the red lights start flashing, you’d better have an exit strategy.” My grandpa told me that. My grandpa worked on the Manhattan Project. Maybe you have heard of it. The research and experimental testing at Los Almos, New Mexico.My grandfather Cecil Monroe was a professor of physics at Princeton university. The head of the department was Albert Einstein who had developed where his theories had advanced nuclear fission. As he told me, Los Almos became a bee...
Weekly Contest #316
My name is a contradiction. That is the first thing you should know about me. I read about things I’ve done in the newspapers. Some of it is accurate, but other accounts are not. I am not here to tell which stories are true and which stories are false.All I can tell you is, I am not who you think I am, but I think that is a good place to start. I was born Bo Wong, in the city of Canton on March 4, 1962, in the Year of the Tiger. Growing up in our small apartment, I quickly learned the value of love and kindness from my mother Ai. My mothe...
Weekly Contest #315
Private Eugene Crawford was lost. Stumbling over the uneven terrain, he had become separated from his unit during an attack on the German lines. It was a frosty morning, the kind that numbs you to the bones and stings your lungs each time you breath in. Fog mixing with gun powder from the battle had obscured his vison as cloud after cloud rolled on through. It seemed to him that his comrades took the high road, and he took the low road during the fiercest part of the fighting. Going over the top, he felt was nothing but utter suicide. B...
Weekly Contest #314
Looking back at my first summer in Arizona in 2005, it is difficult for me to make this true story real, because no matter what I tell you, it is going to sound like fiction. After driving down the Al-Can Highway from Chugiak, Alaska to my new home in Gilbert, Arizona, I had no idea what waited for me there. My father-in-law and I arrived in Gilbert in April. Little did I know what the summer held for me in the Valley of the Sun. At one time in the not-too-distant past, Gilbert used to be a small whistle stop on the way to Phoenix, Arizo...
Weekly Contest #313
Can someone disappear right before your eyes? Magicians and illusionists have sold us on this idea for centuries, but in the concrete world of investigation, this type of hocus-pocus is not considered feasible. When covert criminal activity is involved, there is always a victim and perpetrator. My professional instincts have usually prevailed or so I thought until a few years before I hung up my badge for good. Sitting on my front porch with my coffee in one hand and my book in the other, I enjoy the peace and solitude earned with forty yea...
Weekly Contest #312
Paul Gallager was a quiet and reserved records runner toiling in the labyrinth known as County Public Records. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to his idiosyncrasies and odd behavior. He did his best to keep to himself cloaked in obscurity but suspected that others in the department somehow knew his secret. Whenever he would pass by their cubicles, he would meet their suspicious glances and sometimes hear their gossip. Ever since P.L 1927 went into effect at the beginning of the week, Paul could not quell his apprehension over the new pub...
Weekly Contest #311
Slim Bodine woke up with an incredible hang over. Getting to his feet was a major effort causing pain in every frontier of his brain. Evidence of his wild ruckus from the night before lay where he had discarded the items in his drunken rampage that included a boisterous acclamation of how his life sucked. Slim knew as he approached his thirtieth fifth birthday, the only thing getting thinner was the hair on his head. Bessie, his girlfriend, had finally worked up the nerve to tell him that she was moving on. Everyone knew he was a loser. ...
Weekly Contest #310
The Big Top Bookstore was going out of business. The owner Cronin Riggleworth was selling the place after his grandfather opened the store in the previous century. He had returned from the war in Europe in 1919. His grandfather’s love of books was displayed throughout the store. There were some big promotions that had taken place in his store during that time, but when Cronin left for the evening, he would not be returning in the morning to open as he had for the last thirty years of his life. It was hard to compete with the electronic ...
Weekly Contest #309
“Take one more step and I’ll blow ya to Kingdom come.” A red-bearded man dressed in a kilt with blue tartar held a musket aimed at some discarded crates a few feet from where I had landed my skiff. Using an eighteen-horse powered outboard motor, I navigated the choppy waters from the port of Tagharry to this unnamed jutting pile of rocks a few kilometers west of Deasker Island in the northern Atlantic Ocean.Standing with my hands in the air, not daring to move a muscle, the large man spoke again, “Don; t’ink I won’ pull the triggah. The be...
Weekly Contest #308
I recall my wife’s voice as if I heard it just yesterday. Memories can be deceiving, however. The distant memories can come to life right before your eyes, while things that happened in the recent past get clouded and lost. I would like to tell you how I reflect on my distant memories, but you’d probably think I was daft. At this point, it really doesn’t matter to me. “Vernon!” She called out to me as I was working in the yard. “You have a phone call. I shut the engine of my lawnmower off and walked to the front porch where she had been ...
Weekly Contest #307
“Where am I?” I asked as the door closed, and I stood in complete darkness.Silence.“Is anybody here?” I could feel the panic surge through me like an electrical current. My eyes might as well be closed as the absence of light made me feel totally blinded.What was I doing before I came here? How did I get here? Why am I here?“Welcome.” A voice sounded from the darkness.“Who are you?” I panted, “Show yourself.” “We have a few questions for you.” The voice sounded demanding.“Not until I know where I am.” I definitely snapped. Laughter, deep a...
Weekly Contest #306
When the Sunset Falls Hard When I look back at the ending scene, it reminds me of a movie script. And so with a heavy heart, I will attempt to write the script that I have just lived through. I am the hero. The writer is always the protagonist but believe me I am not feeling very heroic. (Scene opens with a panning shot of my street around lunchtime during summer break) Narrator: (Me. I play both protagonist and narrator) This is my street, Greentree Drive. It’s not very exciting at the moment, because it’s lunchtime. Lunchtime mea...
Weekly Contest #305
Cover Up I was once asked a philosophical question by one of my graduate students. She asked if there was ever an instance when telling a lie was a better option than revealing the truth. My mind instantly thought of several instances in history where political leaders chose to cover up the truth. Later the leaders justified the tactile advantage of a cover up which would lead to a more favorable diplomatic situation in the long run. After mulling this over for several minutes, my answer was a definite maybe that left me some wiggle room....
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