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Weekly Contest #365
Today marks the first anniversary of the death of my closest friendship. Sandra and I were once inseparable, twins from different uteruses, we used to say (though I think it might be uteri? I’m not sure). Then one year ago, to the day, he walked into the office, and moments later, our friendship jumped out the tenth-story window—kersplat, wet viscera and broken hearts oozing out—onto the concrete courtyard where we first cemented our kinship over our identical packed lunches of banana and ketchup sandwiches. That shared love of salty-sweet, ...
Weekly Contest #349
I’m pulled from a ghost-filled nightmare by the crack of thunder, loud enough, as they say, to wake the dead. If only that were true. In the deep, moonless night, the dim glow of embers shows me I am completely alone. I look around wildly, my heart staccato-pounding loud enough for a friendly neighborhood wolf or bear to hear. Damn. They really left me. I was afraid this might happen, ever since the night we drank that bottle of whisky, and I made the mistake of telling them. Confessing. They seemed so nice compared to the human animals I ha...
Weekly Contest #329
They knew who I was. They’d heard the stories, knew the legends and myths. While some tales are complete fancy, most hold some, if not absolute, truth. It is safe to say my reputation preceded me. Even if it did not, I myself regaled them, told them who I was and of what I was capable. And still, they did nothing. The fools should have known better than to think me merely entertaining. Even a child recognizes a leopard can’t change its spots. As such, hear me when I say I should be assigned no blame for the events I describe henceforth. Due ...
Weekly Contest #315
Your faces tell of forgotten things. You stare out, your large, hungry eyes hollow from your crossing, from bad food, illness, and your ill-shapen clothing threadbare and stained from overwearing. One of you, dark hair peeking out from under the edges of a head scarf, you hold a tiny, sleeping infant as tenderly as if she were a sack of seedling potatoes. The babe is so new, so ethereal and small she looks premature, her early delivery brought on by your terrible seasickness, one that made it impossible for you to hold anything down, espec...
Weekly Contest #297
Nebraska Prairie, 1892 “I ain’t goin’ back, I told you.” Jacob grabbed the reins harder, steering the rumbling wagon toward the bruised-looking horizon. “I want Mama! Even that dang baby. Daddy’s gonna’ be real mad when he finds us gone,” Sarah whined. She didn’t have to finish the rest. It made her want to cry like a baby to think of the rest even though she was a full six-years-old now. Jacob shook his head, eyes focused on the purple and pink streaks that hearkened dawn. “I told you, Mama won’t come, and we jes gotta go.” He set his jaw h...
Weekly Contest #296
I never understood the world. Never fit in it. Other people seemed like unsolvable puzzles, and from the time I was able to speak, I seemed to evoke the same feeling in them. Even the small things I said or did made them frown and cock their heads with tight, confused smiles. At six…I walked in late again, and my classroom burst into laughter. Befuddled, I smiled back. They screamed. Teacher grabbed me by the ear and pulled me to the principal’s office before I’d even put my things in the cubby with my name on it. Arms crossed, face red, t...
Weekly Contest #285
ring-ring, ring-ring, ring-ring click “Sanderson residence.” “Hi, Mrs. Sanderson. It’s Chuck. Can I speak to Roger?” “Hello, Charles. Not sure he’s here—roGER! CHARles! Oh, he is here. Hang on.” rustle, phh, phh, phh, clack “Got it, Mom. Hey, Chuck. What’s up?” “Jesus, Rog, I think your mom blew out my eardrum.” “Yeah, she does that. Mom, I said you can hang up now!” click, click “Crap. Did she hear me, Rog?” “Heh, heh, yeah, man. You’re off her Friday night meatloaf list now, dude.” “Thank god for that, heh, heh.” “Wish I could be. Anyway, ...
Weekly Contest #274
My grandmother, who I called Nonnie, was by all accounts a great beauty in her day. By the time I became a conscious human, there were still remnants of that youthful beauty, and Nonnie took great care to preserve them. Every night, she carried out a beauty regimen as I watched in fascination: · Brush out waist-length hair one-hundred times with boar hairbrush. Pin it back up and wear a hair net over that. · Clean face with gentle cleanser—never soap—and water. Use toner and cotton ball. Gently smooth on Olay moisturizer. · ...
Weekly Contest #235
Statement to Park Police, 9:17 AM, September 18 Sure. This morning started like any other. Began my run at 6:30 as usual, took the same route. Well. I mean, except… Except I’m halfway to the lake on the parkway when I decide to deviate from the paved path to run along the unpaved trail next to the creek. I don’t know why. Maybe because snow’s going to fly soon, and I’m already nostalgic for summer even if the heat was brutal this year. Maybe I want to see the changing leaves. Maybe I’m simply sick of the same route. Is this really import...
Weekly Contest #208
She perches demurely on my desk. Her impossibly long legs are bent at the hip socket and slightly at the knee—shapely, Caucasian-flesh-toned rubber sticks protruding from too a narrow pelvis and a wasp waist any Victorian woman might have died for. Literally. She still confuses me, my 50-year-old Kelly doll in a prim green and white polka dot dress. Maybe that’s why I rescued her from my parents’ house clean-out, why she sits gazing vacuously toward some point behind me while I work. I can’t help but wonder: why did my feminist mother give ...
Weekly Contest #189
It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. I had no shoes, no coat, and couldn’t remember anything before this moment, how I’d come to be in these woods, where I’d come from. Who I was. A clean slate, a near mental newborn, stranded in a frozen, impenetrable, forest primeval. Toes numb, teeth clacking, I rubbed my eyes, hoping to clear, or rather, fill my aching, empty head with understanding. My basic survival instisnct and my ability for complex thought were both intact, so one thing was clear: if I didn’t find sh...
Weekly Contest #186
A boy. No, a man, a young man, blue dawn across his fluttering eyelids. Out his open window, purple and gold through the mesquite tree. Yucca flowered breeze. Iron smell of pumped water. Bird chittering. Flitting silhouettes. Swoop and dip, swoop and dip, choreographed dancers in a stillborn sky. Raven-guttering from the corrugated barn roof, an eerie echo reverberating across the valley Awakening slow, with a shuddering yawn, blissful dreams of boyhood tugging. Another raven’s cry, pulling him out all the way, and remembering returns, pani...
Weekly Contest #182
No way this asshole was getting away with it. Not over my dead body if I could help it, but definitely over his. Rage and adrenaline masking my pain, I wiped the blood from my eyes and wobbled from the alley to the road. I flagged down an empty taxi, then another, then a third, but they all passed me, speeding by as if I didn’t exist. Not a single pedestrian so much as looked my way either. Doubtless they all avoided me because of the blood streaming down my face. Better not to get involved, eh? This goddamned city. Living here would have d...
Winner of Weekly Contest #178 🏆
Squat, beige and Soviet, the Marie Antoinette Apartments stood against the stale gray Minneapolis sky. Irony of the worst kind, he thought, blandly ugly and unconscious. He would take exquisitely self-aware irony any day over this three-story architectural monstrosity, “classed up” with tacked on ionic Greek columns, harsh blue LED Christmas lights wrapped inexpertly around them, canned Christmas classics pumping through the air. God, this place was only better than minimum security prison by a hair. But it was all he could afford now, so h...
Weekly Contest #64
(What’s the worst thing you can say to a ghost? I dunno. What? “I don’t believe in you.” Ouch! I admit I kinda’ love the irony, though. You can’t actually talk to ghosts because they don’t actually exist. You want more irony? You can’t actually talk to ghosts—unless you believe in them.) The night I found the doll…wait. Always ahead of myself these days, always so tired and caffeine jumpy. The house first. Three months ago, I bought this lacy, pumpkin and ochre Victorian house renovated to within an inch of kitschy in the middle of this ra...
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