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Weekly Contest #342
"All right, then, I'll go to hell." - Huckleberry Finn (musing on saving his friend, the slave named Jim, even if he goes to hell for it) I grew up with Jimmy. He lived in an apartment just down the hall and I met him on that first day when we moved into the building. I was ten years old and an only child. He was almost two years older and about two inches taller, with broad shoulders. I liked him right away. We became fast friends in a very rough neighborhood. I got my ass kicked numerous times trying to protect him when we were growing up...
Weekly Contest #332
The Ordinary World: I just wanted to get out of the game. I was tired of it. It was January and it was cold. I was out there on the block, looking after my crew, wishing I was back at the crib with the heat turned up watching some ESPN or some shit. But we all gotta make a living. Alejandro and Luis were out there and my cousin Santino texted me to say he was on his way. Just another day. The customers came and went, the police rolled past and the old ladies gave me their nasty looks. They aint stupid. They know what’s up. I was tired of it ...
Weekly Contest #331
It was mid-October but the heat was still brutal. Over 110 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity every day over the last week or so. Bucking and hauling firewood under such conditions was gruelling and exhausting but winter would arrive at some point - no one could say when - and so they couldn’t stack the piles high enough. Last year the winter lasted over nine months. Nate didn’t see any reason to measure the passage of time in terms of years any longer. The sun no longer rose and set at its scheduled times and the seasons had grown libera...
Weekly Contest #330
“You guys are so cool and we really appreciate your friendship. I’m so glad we met you all.” Whenever I was with Margot I always referred to us in the plural form. We were a duo. We are a duo. I remember saying this to my new friends about a week or so after I moved here to downtown San Jose. I was walking my little French Bulldog, Margot, through the lush, green and beautiful campus of San Jose State University on that first night after I moved into my apartment on South 4th Street when I saw a bunch of dog owners gathered in a small field ...
Weekly Contest #329
My name is Clayton Cordell, or at least that is my name now, but I just go by Clay. I was born in Munich, to a family of German nobility in the year 1226, during the ascension of the Holy Roman Empire. I had a highly privileged upbringing, replete with household servants, riding lessons, trips abroad, and I attended the finest schools in Europe. Still, I was never truly happy then. I am still not happy now. Happiness is a fleeting and elusive thing that I can never seem to hold onto for very long. I was knighted at the feet of Frederick II i...
Weekly Contest #328
When I was a senior in high school I had a friend named Jeff. That was back in 1978. I thought he was a little awkward but he didn’t seem to have many friends and my parents raised me to be a true follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Empathy. Compassion. It was a little odd at first, but eventually I became friends with Jeff and we got along well enough. He was just weird sometimes. It didn’t matter all that much to me. I had a lot of other things going on and we didn’t spend very much time together. I was mostly just trying to be kind...
Weekly Contest #327
It’s a dangerous world for me out there. But when I dream, I dream that I am human. When I am able to drift off for a while, I know what it’s like to be human. I can feel it, and it feels so good. I never want to wake up. I was never actually given a real name but when I am dreaming and I am human my name is Jennifer, and I am surrounded by a loving family in a beautiful home out there in the leafy suburbs with the manicured lawns. Three siblings and two loving parents. We all sit down together for dinner every night and we smile at each oth...
Weekly Contest #326
I knew Michael on Mondays. I was his therapist for almost two years and he came to my home office almost every Monday afternoon. He was sweet. A shy kid, 19 years old when I first met him, and it took quite a while to get him to open up about his real problems, but eventually he did. “Michael, why don’t we pick up where we left off last week. You were talking about the pressure you were feeling at home from your father and your brothers. You said that this has been going on for a long time but we didn’t really get into the details. Perhaps y...
Weekly Contest #325
The cool breeze brushes up against the skin of my cleanly shaven face. It is a beautiful morning, and if you know how to hate just one person I can teach you how to hate the millions. I ride my pale horse through the valley, sharpened sword at my side. My faithful hound Marcus keeps pace, ever ready for the next slaughter, as am I. We are both proud soldiers of the Fatherland. Stolza Deutsche Soldaten. I wear the goat horns and I bring the flame. I bring death by the bullet or the blade or the rope. I am all of these things. I wear the SS li...
Weekly Contest #323
The first time I used the machine nothing really happened at first. I just stepped out of the pod a minute or so after the lights shut down and everything seemed the same. I mean, I didn’t really know what to expect. I was just curious. But when I woke up the following morning I was three inches taller and almost thirty pounds heavier. All muscle. I didn’t know what to think but I definitely got some strange looks when I arrived at work that day. It’s not a coincidence that I took the janitorial job at CalTech. For some strange reason I was ...
Weekly Contest #321
“So…So you think you can tell?Heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain?Can you tell a green field…From a cold steel rail?A smile from a veil?Do you think you can tell?” - David Gilmour Dante arrives at his destination. It is a beautiful strand of beach. He is not sure exactly where he is or how he got there or even who is now but the water is bright blue, the sand is soft and white and the sun is shining down upon him. A warm breeze brushes his face and he smiles and lowers his chin, grateful for the moment. He slowly removes his shirt and lay...
Weekly Contest #320
I received the email from the National Park Service two weeks before the end of my junior year at Vanderbilt. I had been dreading a repeat of last summer, when I spent five days a week working under the soul-sucking fluorescent lighting of a cubicle farm on the 23rd floor of a drab office building in downtown Nashville. At least I had Ashleigh then, and she made everything worthwhile at the end of the day. But she was gone now, and I haven’t slept well since. So I was pretty stoked to land that summer job as an Assistant Park Ranger at Cumbe...
Weekly Contest #316
By 9:30 EST on election night all of the major news networks had called the race for Roger T. Barrett, returning him to the United States Senate for a third term. The margin of victory was slim enough that a recount was still a possibility, but his lawyers and senior campaign people felt that they were on terra firma. They might have to deal with some legal challenges for a month or so, but in the end the poll results would likely hold up. Right now the top priority was seizing claim to the victory, in the current news cycle, and cementing t...
Weekly Contest #315
CW: Deals with themes of terrorism, war and PTSD “Oil and blood money fills the banksAnd puts working class kids in tanksAll of the profits from all of the war crimesLine all the pockets of all the fat swineWar machines breed chaos and painBlood falls from the sky like rainSo stand by the victims of freedomAnd light a candle for the dead and the beaten…" Never forget. That’s what they told me. That’s what they told all of us. It was spelled out on signs posted in the streets downtown and in the subway stations and in the terminals at JFK In...
Weekly Contest #314
CW: Mentions of substance absue and overdose. "If you are ever going through hell...just keep going." - Winston Churchill Thank you for calling Checking Out Travel, the one-stop shop for all of your destination needs. We are unable to answer your call right now, but please leave a message on this fully-encrypted voice line and one of our agents will return your call within 24 hours. We look forward to delighting you with your ideal destination experience! “Hello. My name is David Fullerman, from Morgantown, West Virginia, and I would like t...
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