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"Blown Away" (the eighty-seventh ACWclub monthly writing contest) |
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Assignment: Write a story or poem using the following title: "Blown Away" 2500 words or less. Deadline: Midnight (EST), Nov 15, 2008 All entries are the property of the authors and cannot be copied or reprinted without their consent. |
| Blown Away By Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com (Entry #3) |
| ~Winning Entry~ |
| It's not so much that you're broke,
it's just that you're down on your luck a bit, that's all. Lucky for you, though, you know someone who knows someone and the next thing you know, you got yourself a piece. A cold, hard piece jammed down the front of your pants, and you're walking around with that thing down there looking like you overdid your Viagra or some shit like that. So you pull your jacket on down low in front and hope to hell you don't look too fucking weird and walk on in to the Buy & Bye 'cause it's open all night and there ain't no other cars in the parking lot. You're real careful to nod all friendly like at the asshole in the red and white shirt with the company logo who's got the dumbass luck to be working the overnight shift. You go to the back of the store, walking all casual like – as if you've done this a thousand times before – and browse through the bread, reading the labels and making like you're checking out the vitamin content or some shit like that. Truth is you've never done anything like this before, never been this desperate before, and you're scared shitless, and you know you're just stalling 'til you get up your nerve. But you've come this far and you can't just go walking out the door with nothing, so you pick up a loaf of bread – it doesn't matter which one, any one will do – and go walking up to the counter with that thing in your pants, praying to god – to someone else's God, borrowing someone else's God 'cause you don't have one of your own – that you don't go shooting your nuts off. Yeah, like of all the things god's watching out for, he's watching out for your nuts. So you set the bread down on the counter and hope Mr. Nightshift loser doesn't notice how much your hands are sweating and how you can't hardly swallow and how your breathing is all shallow and rapid like, which he doesn't, you guess, 'cause all he says is two ninety-eight and will there be anything else. And you can hear your heart pounding in your ears, it's beating so loud – thumpada-thumpada-thumpada, like that – and you wonder if he can hear it, too. Somehow you manage to tell him you want a pack of Marlboros in the flip-top box, 'cause it sounds like a manly kind of cigarette, but what the hell do you know because you don't even smoke. But Mr. Dumbshit Nightshift doesn't know that, and he turns around to get a pack. And that's when you yank the piece out of your pants. Not because you wanted to, or because you thought you ought to, but because you had practiced this moment over and over again, and you did it automatically, almost more like a reflex – not like anything your brain had a role in – and you surprise yourself with how fast you pulled it out. And, because it was so easy, because your movements were so quick and fluid and almost cat-like, you try to convince yourself that you're a natural. But it doesn't take. And when Mr. Dumbshit turns around and sees you holding the piece on him and drops the stupid Marlboros you never wanted anyway on the floor and puts his hands up, all you can squeak out of your mouth is, "Money" like you're some sort of pussy no-brain eighth grader whose voice just changed. But it works. It fucking works! And he starts yanking all sorts of bills out of the cash register and setting them down on the counter for you while you keep the piece pointed at him just the way you planned it out in your mind. You're amazed at how smooth it's all going, and you begin to think – to convince yourself, really – that you're gonna pull it off, that you're gonna rob this asshole and go walking outta there with a shitload of money when – dammit – the fucking telephone rings. And the sound of the phone sets off some sort of motor-synaptic neuron or some shit like that that you can't remember from high school biology, except that you know that this motor neuron thing in your brain someplace done shot its wad, and your whole fucking body twitches. And the gun goes off. The fucking gun goes off. Blam! Like that, only louder. Ten thousand times louder. So loud that you can't hear anything else and you throw the damn thing down on the floor and your ears are ringing and you can't think, you can't think, you can't think, and so you go running out of the store, crying like some sort of little baby. Like some little baby running on home to mama, crying his little eyes out. Little baby you, crying your eyes out 'cause you just killed somebody. |
| Blown Away By Linda.L.Rucker: Author@Large www.lindalrucker.com (Entry #6) |
| ~Runner Up~ |
| Tears stained the note she held, or
maybe it was just the sea spray that blew in from the Atlantic. It really
didn’t matter which. Nothing really mattered any more. She’d read the
note; dozens of times actually, so the words it contained were committed to
memory. She chuckled and shook her head, burned into her memory was more like
it. The one time in her life Lydia acted on impulse had ended badly, as she suspected it would, but what the hell, you only live once, right? She crumpled the note in her hand, then quickly smoothed it out again as best she could, and reread it. Lydia, summer is over, and so are we. I wish things could have been different, but we both know it just isn’t possible. I will always have my memories of you, of us, of this place. Try to be happy. “A Short, sweet and final. Lydia got to her feet and began walking down the deserted beach. A cold wind blew in from the ocean. Saw Grass swayed, and tiny ripples disturbed the small puddles of salt water trapped in deep depressions in the sand. Gathering her sweater tighter around her, Lydia hunched her shoulders against the chill. Is this what emptiness feels like, this cold aloneness? Likely it did. How much worse could it get? Indeed, how much less could she feel? She’d already lost her family. Her husband of thirty years had been horrified at first by her revelation, then angered, and finally disgusted. If there were other names he could have called her, Lydia was certain he’d have used them, and she likely deserved to be called every one of them, but instead he’d simply hung up on her and three days later she was served with divorce papers. She expected to be charged with adultery at the very least, but all the papers said were “irreconcilable differences”. Lydia had to chuckle at that one. Differences? You bet. Irreconcilable; beyond doubt. She supposed she should be grateful that he hadn’t demanded that the scarlet letter be branded across her forehead, but she rather suspected that his own infidelity wouldn’t allow him that satisfaction, and she supposed she should be grateful. The real pain was the loss of the love and respect of her children. She hadn’t considered that Bo and the girls would be so repulsed by her actions that they would turn away from her so completely, but they had. That was by far the deepest cut of all; up until today at any rate. “I guess I can understand why they feel like they do.” Lydia spoke into the wind, her words blown away like the cottony fibers of the Cat Tails that grew on the dunes. “I should have known the summer would end.” “Ahhh, but it was such a sweet summer,” she sighed. Long evenings kissed by the warmth of ocean breezes that caressed her skin like the hands of her lover. Deep purple skies sparkling with stars glimmering like diamonds cast upon black velvet; breath taking sunrises and sunsets to make you weep, and wish for the end of day just to see it again; long, lazy days spent basking in each others company and sweet, steamy nights spent holding each other closely and marveling that so late in life she’d come to learn who she really was. But, it was all gone now; the summer, the love, the magic, and Ava. Ava. She loved the way her name rolled off her tongue, sweet and thick like honey. Four months ago, Lydia would have been mortified by so much as the mention of a lesbian love affair; especially one she herself could be involved in, but… She’d checked into the Clairmonte Inn that Saturday looking for nothing more than a nice month long vacation by the sea; just her, her books and the peace and quite that she needed to heal from the mastectomy she’d been given to remove a cancerous lump in her right breast. But more, to get away from the looks of pity and distaste that Bob had tried vainly to hide from her every time she undressed. To give him his due, he did try, but after thirty years, she knew him and his looks all too well. At first she told herself it was just the shock of seeing the vicious, red scar across her chest that shook him, but after a few months, she knew it was more. She took to dressing and undressing in the bathroom to save them both embarrassment. The intimate part of their relationship was naturally put on hold while she healed, but eventually it became apparent to Lydia that Bob’s ardor had cooled to the point of frigidity, if a man could be said to be frigid, and she took to staying up well passed her normal bedtime so as to avoid the possibility of being rejected by her husband. Four months after her surgery, she discovered that Bob was having an affair. It wasn’t that he was careless or made mistakes; it was more like he didn’t even try to hide it from her. For some reason this bothered her more than the affair, so she decided to pretend ignorance. She wasn’t going to give him any excuse to leave her. She’d done nothing wrong; the cancer had and she’d be damned if she’d be punished for it. When he came to her with the idea of a month at the beach, she almost wept with relief. Finally, he had come to his senses and realized that she was still her, still the woman he’d married, still the woman he loved. “Can you take the time off?” she’d asked. But, her hopes were dashed with his reply. “I’m not going. I’ve got way too much work to do, and besides someone needs to be here for the dogs.” “Oh, right, yeah the dogs.” She said. The bitch you mean, she thought fighting back tears. And so she’d gone, and the second night there she entertained the notion of taking that long walk into the peaceful waters of the Atlantic and putting paid to a life less than perfect, but she didn’t. The next morning she met Ava, and everything changed. Their immediate bonding was almost supernatural, and Lydia felt a closeness, a kinship the likes of which she’d never known and before she knew it, she was feeling things she thought she’d never feel again, like passion, desire, a need for intimacy she thought was gone, and thankfully, Ava felt the same. Their first night together lit a fire in Lydia that seemed to consume her and she cried out as the intensity of those flames burned her very soul. They were together every minute from then on and Lydia got up the nerve to call Bob and tell him she was staying for another month or six weeks. To her relief, he encouraged her to, and his reasons made no difference to Lydia. All that mattered was that she had more time to spend with Ava. They spent that time making love, walking on the beach and talking. Lydia’s mind raced with plans for the two of them. She would get a divorce so the two of them could be together for always. They’d find a cute little cottage somewhere near the beach and spend the rest of their lives making each other happy. Looking back now she could clearly see Ava’s noncommittal responses to her prattling. Now she could hear the reticence in her replies. But then, all she could see, all she could hear was what she wanted to see and hear. Lydia raised her head and stared out at the gray sky that kissed the even grayer ocean. The wind blew harder, almost wailing, echoing Lydia’s cries of yesterday. “You’re up early,” she’d said sitting up in bed. Across the room Ava was pulling clothes from the closet, laying them across the chair. “What are you doing?” “Packing,” Ava replied, not looking at her. “Where are we going?” Lydia felt a small flutter of panic like the rapid fire heartbeat of a terrified rabbit being chased by a hawk. “I’m going home today.” The reply was flat, unemotional, delivered in the deadpan tones of an inexperienced actor reading from an unfamiliar script. Lydia let her words sink in, then, “Alone?” Ava turned to her, “Yes, alone.” “Why?” She tried to crawl out of bed, but Lydia’s legs felt like lead weights. “Because, I have to. Because my family wouldn’t take too kindly to me bringing you home with me. I don’t think they’d understand.” Ava smiled at her, but the smile fell short of reaching her eyes. “I don’t understand. I thought…” “You thought what? That we’d what, get married, move in together. What did you think, Lydia?” Ave hauled her suitcase from the top of the closet and tossed it on the bed. “I’m married. I have a husband, three kids, a couple of grandkids.” “So do I.” “I never told you that this, what we had was permanent, Lydia, did I?” Ava began emptying the dresser drawers. “Not in so many words,” Lydia began, but Ava cut her off. “Not in any words.” Lydia finally found her feet and walked over to Ava. “But, I told my husband about us.” She reached for her purse and fumbling inside pulled out the divorce papers Bob had her served. “Look,” she said, holding them out to Ava. “He’s divorcing me. He thinks I’m, God Ava he thinks I’m less than a woman because I only have one breast. Now he thinks I’m a lesbian. My kids hate me. You’re all I have.” Ava shook her head, then grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look into her eyes. “Lydia, we had a great summer. I was there for you; I helped you to realize that you are still a woman, one breast or none. I showed you how to love again, how to feel, but Honey, I never promised you forever, now did I?” Her voice was soft, fluid, soothing, but her words, heartbreaking. Lydia shrugged away from Ava, shaking her head. “No, you didn’t.” She turned and pulled her clothes on, then headed for the door. Grasping the handle, she turned back to Ava. “I wish you well, Ava. I…” her voice cracked and she swallowed convulsively. “There’s a note there for you,” Ava said, nodding toward the dresser. “I was going to try to be gone before you woke up.” Lydia reached out and gently fingered the note, wanting to snatch it up, but at the same time not wanting to touch it. Picking it up, she opened the door and stepped through without a word. Twenty-four hours ago she had the world, today? Lydia looked down at the note crumpled in her hand. Slowly she opened her clenched fingers and watched as the wind tore the note from her hand. As she walked, the sea lapped at her feet, her ankles, her knees, her hips. It wasn’t the warm embrace she wanted, but it was an embrace. |
| The
WCA's The Writers' Choice Awards |
| Here's how the members of the
ACWclub voted for their favorite entries: First place: #3 Second place: #6 Third place: #2 Others receiving votes: #1, #5 |
Here are all the entries, posted in the order they were received.
| Blown Away ecdericd@comcast.net |
#1 of 5 |
| 255 words | |
| Once upon a time there was a family they weren’t a
perfect family but they loved each other all the same , but one day the mother
of this family got terribly sick they took her to the hospital and said they
would be back in a few days. One week latter they came back but when they got
there the doctor who was treating their mother sadly said that she had died.
Through out the years the brothers and sisters went to foster home to foster
home because there mother was dead and their father had to work all the time.
Exactly three years after the mother pasted away the father died. They were all
very sad no mother no father now what were they suppose to do. Fourtainetly the
oldest sister had just turned 18 so the family could stick together. They all
lived in a small cottage with one bed room from day to day the would tell
stories to pass the time. One day the oldest sister found her one and only true
love they got married and had four children, eventually the children had
children. Sadly the husband had a heart attack while his youngest grandchild
was there. She called 911 but they didn’t make it in time. Latter on the
mother got in a car crash and died. And that was the end of the not so perfect
family eventually they all drifted apart. I was blown away when I first heard this story and I hope you are to. |
|
| Blown Away sj.swain@bigpond.com |
#2 of 5 |
| 1967 words | |
| I’m still here. Natsumi Carpenter opened
her eyes then narrowed them as she let them adjust to the bright morning light
streaming into her hospital room. She smiled a weak smile. Her granddaughter,
Michelle, was asleep on a chair at the foot of the bed, her head resting on a
pillow that one of the nurses must have given her during the night. Carefully Natsumi rolled her eyes to the window that was still open and whispered, "Thank you." The nursing staff were just wonderful and had been so understanding, if not a little amused. This was the first time, they had told her, that a window on this floor had been opened in years. But it was Natsumi’s final wish. She wanted her final breath to be of real air and not the chilled recycled stuff from the vents high up on the wall behind her. She was fourteen floors up but that air was reaching her through that window. She could smell it and love it. To her, Los Angeles had always been a living thing. She saw its highways as its arteries, the traffic as its blood and its central business district, with its majestic tall buildings of concrete and glass, its heart that sucked the blood in and pumped it out, keeping it alive. Even the sirens of the ambulances way below her and the others, the police perhaps, further away, were a comfort to her. With all of its imperfections, this city made her happy, she loved it and she believed it loved her. The night before she had asked that her life support be switched off. She wanted no distraction, nothing else, just to die with the sounds and the smell of it in her veins. She rolled her eyes back to her granddaughter, still sleeping peacefully, exhausted after sitting with her for the night. She had no idea what day it was. She knew it was August and that she had been brought in two days earlier, which was the fourth, so what day was that? Wednesday? Friday? She couldn’t remember, but unless she had slipped into some sort of coma that she hadn’t been aware of, today must be the sixth. How fitting. Her thin pale lips parted in another weak smile and her pale eyes lifted to the ceiling. Yes, she thought as images of her family, her dear husband and father drifted through her mind. This would be a good day for me to leave. She had lived a long and happy life, but one with some guilt and some reprehension. As a child and as a teenager she had thought of another city as a living thing, a busy, noisy, bustling thing that would never sleep. She had lived with her father in that city, in a small timber house close to its heart. Her mother had died when she was young and her only sibling, an older brother, was a soldier and at that time was listed as missing or captured on Okinawa Her father was a lame, retired navel officer, who had maintained right through the war, amateur radio contact with several other navel officers of several other countries, even some in the United States and a couple in particular in Hawaii. He was a spy of sorts, but not officially. However the information provided to him from his contacts had spared several young Japanese lives and, with the information that he had been able to provide, so too had many American, British and Australian lives also been saved. He was not sanctioned but was tolerated by his government and audited often, some considered him dangerous but he had also at times been useful. It was early, before dawn, when Natsumi woke with her father shaking her shoulders. “Get up darling, quickly.” Waking up had always been a problem for Natsumi, it came slow to her. Quick.” Her father insisted, still shaking her. “Now!” “What is it?” She asked rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Get up. . . Get dressed. We have to tell our friends to leave. . . A terrible thing, a very big bomb is coming. . . Now, my little beauty. Now!” Her father left to return to his radios. “Hurry girl, please hurry,” he called behind him. Natsumi dressed in a light coat, it was warm, and ran into the street that was just beginning to bloom with the first light of the day. She had never seen her father so distressed. She ran up and down, apologising as she rapped on doors and windows. When she returned to her father some of the neighbours were with him. He was gathering a few belongings together and trying to convince them to tell their friends, their families and whoever they could, to get far away, quickly. He grabbed his coat and threw it over his shoulder. Until then Natsumi had been confused, now she was beginning to feel frightened. Her father saw her as she squeezed between the neighbours demanding more information from him, and reached out to her. “It’s up to you,” he was telling them, looking around at them as she snuck into the crook of his arm. “But you could all die if you stay here.” Natsumi watched him reach out and lay a hand against the side of his best friends face. “Leave my friend, please, and save your family.” He then hugged Natsumi closer, tighter than he had in a long time and she realised that he too was frightened. “Put some clothes together quickly,” he told her, in a sort of a whisper as he removed his arm from her. She knew he was trying to sound calm, trying to reassure her. “We’ll find someone in authority and tell them. . . Hurry child, time is short.” A moment later, carrying a small bag each, she and her father, whose limp seemed more pronounced than she had noticed in a while, left their home without closing the door. They hurried through a group of their puzzled neighbours and towards the town centre. Natsumi was aware of both activity and inactivity in their street as she moved through it. Some of their neighbours were leaving and some weren’t. She saw one man gesture rudely to her fathers back for disturbing him. The more her father walked the more obvious the limp. She was supporting him and he was sweating and panting heavily by the time they found a guards post. There were two tired, red eyed young men, not much older that Natsumi, on duty, both struggling to remain awake. Her father told them what he had learnt. They radioed the information to a superior and then told them to wait. Natsumi and her father stepped back and sat on a small wooden bench. They sat quietly until her father took off his watch and handed it to her. He didn’t speak, just smiled and nodded for her to take it. She did and slipped it on her wrist, it was heavy and loose and it was 6.25am. Within a few minutes a vehicle arrived, dust drifted through the door and into the post as it pulled up outside. Two soldiers and an officer, a captain, climbed out. Natsumi and her father stood and her father repeated to them what he had told the guards. The captain used a field telephone to call, presumably someone higher up, spoke for a while then replaced it in its cradle. “You’ll have to come with me,” he said. “Where to?” Natsumi’s father asked, his brow creasing with concern. “We have a base set up near the promotional hall. It’s not far.” “Yes, I know it, but I want to take my daughter to safety. I only know what I have just told you. I can‘t help you any further than that.” “Sorry.” Natsumi’s father sighed deep as he thought. The officer didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry so he took Natsumi’s hand and steered her back to the bench. They sat again. “My darling girl, listen to me,” he said, cradling one of her hands in both of his. “I need you to run from here as fast as you can and get as far away as you can. . .” “No father,” Natsumi interrupted. “I will stay with you. We can go together.” “No!” Her father snapped, she jumped. "Do as I tell you." He pulled some cash from his pocket, some notes and some change and placed it in her hand, wrapping her fingers around it. “You are not to stop and not to look back. . . When it is over I will find you, okay?“ She saw that he had a tear in one eye. “Father?” He stood then and looked at the officer and appeared to snap to an awkward attention. “Okay.” he said. “Let’s go then.” With the officer he walked to the vehicle and climbed in. Natsumi watched as they drove from her, wishing for her father to look back at her, just once, but he didn’t. When they were out of sight she waited for awhile then stepped from the guard’s post and began walking, slowly at first, feeling confused and lost. It was daylight now; the sun was up, already warming. Holding the watch in the palm of one hand, her small bag of possessions and the money in the other, with no idea where she was going she began running through the heart of the city that was only just then beginning to stir, and she continued running and walking until she heard the air raid sirens. Then she stopped to look back. The sirens pleased her. Perhaps, she thought, her father had convinced the authorities to do something. He was a good man, she was proud of him; everything will be okay because of him. The sirens did not sound for long. She walked on for another hour; people were up and about now, going about their business. It was already warm. She would find somewhere to wait, she decided, and return home at midday. From high in the sky she could hear the drone of one maybe two planes and wondered if her father had got something wrong. She thought of some of their neighbours, those that would have left their homes might be angry with him. She checked her fathers watch, it was 8.15am. Her next memory was regaining consciousness in a field hospital. Her back stung, it was burnt. From others she had learnt what had happened, that the living town she had once known was now dead, had been blown away, and that she was alone. Her injuries were not serious but she remained at the hospital as a volunteer worker until and then with the Americans, when they arrived some months later and took over. It was hard for her to accept that these were the same people that had caused so much pain and so much destruction. They were a caring people, it seemed to her, and so many of them were so remorseful. She met and worked with a young army doctor who came from a town called Seattle, his name was Stanley Carpenter. A year later she left Hiroshima with him, as his wife, bound for Los Angeles. Stanley had passed away two weeks earlier, unexpectedly, she had always been the weaker of the two and had always expected to go first. She missed him so much. This man that had taken her from the dead heart of one city to another that was very much alive. This man that had loved and had cared for her and with her had created a family, a new beginning, that she knew her father would have been proud of, and years of blissful happiness, was gone. Now she must join him. She sniffed a light sniff. A tiny breath of Los Angeles slipped into her small wasted body and stayed there. |
|
| Blown Away Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com |
#3 of 5 Winner |
| 853 words | |
| It's not so much that you're broke, it's just that
you're down on your luck a bit, that's all. Lucky for you, though, you know someone who knows someone and the next thing you know, you got yourself a piece. A cold, hard piece jammed down the front of your pants, and you're walking around with that thing down there looking like you overdid your Viagra or some shit like that. So you pull your jacket on down low in front and hope to hell you don't look too fucking weird and walk on in to the Buy & Bye 'cause it's open all night and there ain't no other cars in the parking lot. You're real careful to nod all friendly like at the asshole in the red and white shirt with the company logo who's got the dumbass luck to be working the overnight shift. You go to the back of the store, walking all casual like – as if you've done this a thousand times before – and browse through the bread, reading the labels and making like you're checking out the vitamin content or some shit like that. Truth is you've never done anything like this before, never been this desperate before, and you're scared shitless, and you know you're just stalling 'til you get up your nerve. But you've come this far and you can't just go walking out the door with nothing, so you pick up a loaf of bread – it doesn't matter which one, any one will do – and go walking up to the counter with that thing in your pants, praying to god – to someone else's God, borrowing someone else's God 'cause you don't have one of your own – that you don't go shooting your nuts off. Yeah, like of all the things god's watching out for, he's watching out for your nuts. So you set the bread down on the counter and hope Mr. Nightshift loser doesn't notice how much your hands are sweating and how you can't hardly swallow and how your breathing is all shallow and rapid like, which he doesn't, you guess, 'cause all he says is two ninety-eight and will there be anything else. And you can hear your heart pounding in your ears, it's beating so loud – thumpada-thumpada-thumpada, like that – and you wonder if he can hear it, too. Somehow you manage to tell him you want a pack of Marlboros in the flip-top box, 'cause it sounds like a manly kind of cigarette, but what the hell do you know because you don't even smoke. But Mr. Dumbshit Nightshift doesn't know that, and he turns around to get a pack. And that's when you yank the piece out of your pants. Not because you wanted to, or because you thought you ought to, but because you had practiced this moment over and over again, and you did it automatically, almost more like a reflex – not like anything your brain had a role in – and you surprise yourself with how fast you pulled it out. And, because it was so easy, because your movements were so quick and fluid and almost cat-like, you try to convince yourself that you're a natural. But it doesn't take. And when Mr. Dumbshit turns around and sees you holding the piece on him and drops the stupid Marlboros you never wanted anyway on the floor and puts his hands up, all you can squeak out of your mouth is, "Money" like you're some sort of pussy no-brain eighth grader whose voice just changed. But it works. It fucking works! And he starts yanking all sorts of bills out of the cash register and setting them down on the counter for you while you keep the piece pointed at him just the way you planned it out in your mind. You're amazed at how smooth it's all going, and you begin to think – to convince yourself, really – that you're gonna pull it off, that you're gonna rob this asshole and go walking outta there with a shitload of money when – dammit – the fucking telephone rings. And the sound of the phone sets off some sort of motor-synaptic neuron or some shit like that that you can't remember from high school biology, except that you know that this motor neuron thing in your brain someplace done shot its wad, and your whole fucking body twitches. And the gun goes off. The fucking gun goes off. Blam! Like that, only louder. Ten thousand times louder. So loud that you can't hear anything else and you throw the damn thing down on the floor and your ears are ringing and you can't think, you can't think, you can't think, and so you go running out of the store, crying like some sort of little baby. Like some little baby running on home to mama, crying his little eyes out. Little baby you, crying your eyes out 'cause you just killed somebody. |
|
| Blown Away glenlee10@sky.com |
#4 of 5 |
| 167 words | |
| Thistledown children, in a quiet place of waiting. need little to flicker from bud into flowering. Thistledown children are motes reflected only in young girls’ eyes. They sleep beyond time until called; in millennia-long lullabies. Passion can call them to being; love will nurture creation. But when hate pulls the trigger, there’s no place for conception. When passion’s misspent, then each generation turns its back on its future denies procreation. Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred; scythed down by cannon, their bones left uncovered, and as they died their thistledown children were lost to the agony, drowning in crimson. At Ypres and the Somme, thistledowns were held by a tenuous thread. Cut by battlefield barbarism, they withered until they lay dead; as men were destroyed by artillery; and blood was trampled to mix with the mud of a sickened world empowered by the use of ballistics. New thistledown children wither, seared by hot desert storms; blown apart by the science of man and the evil that over them swarms. There’s no lessons learned. Politicians still plot and strut and parade. Arms manufacturers gloat in the background, and thistledown children are left to just fade. |
|
| Blown Away Colin Campbell www.colincampbell.org |
#5 of 5 |
| 66 words | |
| When the dust is blown away. Memories will still live on. Far beyond this world’s decay, essence that is not yet gone. Memories will still live on. Yes, you can say that again. Essence that is not yet gone, fading echoes from back then. Yes, you can say that again. Far beyond this world’s decay. Fading echoes from back then, when the dust is blown away. |
|
| Blown Away Linda.L.Rucker: Author@Large www.lindalrucker.com |
#6 of 6 Runner-up |
| 1867 words | |
| Tears stained the note she held, or maybe it was just
the sea spray that blew in from the Atlantic. It really didn’t matter
which. Nothing really mattered any more. She’d read the note; dozens of
times actually, so the words it contained were committed to memory. She
chuckled and shook her head, burned into her memory was more like it. The one time in her life Lydia acted on impulse had ended badly, as she suspected it would, but what the hell, you only live once, right? She crumpled the note in her hand, then quickly smoothed it out again as best she could, and reread it. Lydia, summer is over, and so are we. I wish things could have been different, but we both know it just isn’t possible. I will always have my memories of you, of us, of this place. Try to be happy. “A Short, sweet and final. Lydia got to her feet and began walking down the deserted beach. A cold wind blew in from the ocean. Saw Grass swayed, and tiny ripples disturbed the small puddles of salt water trapped in deep depressions in the sand. Gathering her sweater tighter around her, Lydia hunched her shoulders against the chill. Is this what emptiness feels like, this cold aloneness? Likely it did. How much worse could it get? Indeed, how much less could she feel? She’d already lost her family. Her husband of thirty years had been horrified at first by her revelation, then angered, and finally disgusted. If there were other names he could have called her, Lydia was certain he’d have used them, and she likely deserved to be called every one of them, but instead he’d simply hung up on her and three days later she was served with divorce papers. She expected to be charged with adultery at the very least, but all the papers said were “irreconcilable differences”. Lydia had to chuckle at that one. Differences? You bet. Irreconcilable; beyond doubt. She supposed she should be grateful that he hadn’t demanded that the scarlet letter be branded across her forehead, but she rather suspected that his own infidelity wouldn’t allow him that satisfaction, and she supposed she should be grateful. The real pain was the loss of the love and respect of her children. She hadn’t considered that Bo and the girls would be so repulsed by her actions that they would turn away from her so completely, but they had. That was by far the deepest cut of all; up until today at any rate. “I guess I can understand why they feel like they do.” Lydia spoke into the wind, her words blown away like the cottony fibers of the Cat Tails that grew on the dunes. “I should have known the summer would end.” “Ahhh, but it was such a sweet summer,” she sighed. Long evenings kissed by the warmth of ocean breezes that caressed her skin like the hands of her lover. Deep purple skies sparkling with stars glimmering like diamonds cast upon black velvet; breath taking sunrises and sunsets to make you weep, and wish for the end of day just to see it again; long, lazy days spent basking in each others company and sweet, steamy nights spent holding each other closely and marveling that so late in life she’d come to learn who she really was. But, it was all gone now; the summer, the love, the magic, and Ava. Ava. She loved the way her name rolled off her tongue, sweet and thick like honey. Four months ago, Lydia would have been mortified by so much as the mention of a lesbian love affair; especially one she herself could be involved in, but… She’d checked into the Clairmonte Inn that Saturday looking for nothing more than a nice month long vacation by the sea; just her, her books and the peace and quite that she needed to heal from the mastectomy she’d been given to remove a cancerous lump in her right breast. But more, to get away from the looks of pity and distaste that Bob had tried vainly to hide from her every time she undressed. To give him his due, he did try, but after thirty years, she knew him and his looks all too well. At first she told herself it was just the shock of seeing the vicious, red scar across her chest that shook him, but after a few months, she knew it was more. She took to dressing and undressing in the bathroom to save them both embarrassment. The intimate part of their relationship was naturally put on hold while she healed, but eventually it became apparent to Lydia that Bob’s ardor had cooled to the point of frigidity, if a man could be said to be frigid, and she took to staying up well passed her normal bedtime so as to avoid the possibility of being rejected by her husband. Four months after her surgery, she discovered that Bob was having an affair. It wasn’t that he was careless or made mistakes; it was more like he didn’t even try to hide it from her. For some reason this bothered her more than the affair, so she decided to pretend ignorance. She wasn’t going to give him any excuse to leave her. She’d done nothing wrong; the cancer had and she’d be damned if she’d be punished for it. When he came to her with the idea of a month at the beach, she almost wept with relief. Finally, he had come to his senses and realized that she was still her, still the woman he’d married, still the woman he loved. “Can you take the time off?” she’d asked. But, her hopes were dashed with his reply. “I’m not going. I’ve got way too much work to do, and besides someone needs to be here for the dogs.” “Oh, right, yeah the dogs.” She said. The bitch you mean, she thought fighting back tears. And so she’d gone, and the second night there she entertained the notion of taking that long walk into the peaceful waters of the Atlantic and putting paid to a life less than perfect, but she didn’t. The next morning she met Ava, and everything changed. Their immediate bonding was almost supernatural, and Lydia felt a closeness, a kinship the likes of which she’d never known and before she knew it, she was feeling things she thought she’d never feel again, like passion, desire, a need for intimacy she thought was gone, and thankfully, Ava felt the same. Their first night together lit a fire in Lydia that seemed to consume her and she cried out as the intensity of those flames burned her very soul. They were together every minute from then on and Lydia got up the nerve to call Bob and tell him she was staying for another month or six weeks. To her relief, he encouraged her to, and his reasons made no difference to Lydia. All that mattered was that she had more time to spend with Ava. They spent that time making love, walking on the beach and talking. Lydia’s mind raced with plans for the two of them. She would get a divorce so the two of them could be together for always. They’d find a cute little cottage somewhere near the beach and spend the rest of their lives making each other happy. Looking back now she could clearly see Ava’s noncommittal responses to her prattling. Now she could hear the reticence in her replies. But then, all she could see, all she could hear was what she wanted to see and hear. Lydia raised her head and stared out at the gray sky that kissed the even grayer ocean. The wind blew harder, almost wailing, echoing Lydia’s cries of yesterday. “You’re up early,” she’d said sitting up in bed. Across the room Ava was pulling clothes from the closet, laying them across the chair. “What are you doing?” “Packing,” Ava replied, not looking at her. “Where are we going?” Lydia felt a small flutter of panic like the rapid fire heartbeat of a terrified rabbit being chased by a hawk. “I’m going home today.” The reply was flat, unemotional, delivered in the deadpan tones of an inexperienced actor reading from an unfamiliar script. Lydia let her words sink in, then, “Alone?” Ava turned to her, “Yes, alone.” “Why?” She tried to crawl out of bed, but Lydia’s legs felt like lead weights. “Because, I have to. Because my family wouldn’t take too kindly to me bringing you home with me. I don’t think they’d understand.” Ava smiled at her, but the smile fell short of reaching her eyes. “I don’t understand. I thought…” “You thought what? That we’d what, get married, move in together. What did you think, Lydia?” Ave hauled her suitcase from the top of the closet and tossed it on the bed. “I’m married. I have a husband, three kids, a couple of grandkids.” “So do I.” “I never told you that this, what we had was permanent, Lydia, did I?” Ava began emptying the dresser drawers. “Not in so many words,” Lydia began, but Ava cut her off. “Not in any words.” Lydia finally found her feet and walked over to Ava. “But, I told my husband about us.” She reached for her purse and fumbling inside pulled out the divorce papers Bob had her served. “Look,” she said, holding them out to Ava. “He’s divorcing me. He thinks I’m, God Ava he thinks I’m less than a woman because I only have one breast. Now he thinks I’m a lesbian. My kids hate me. You’re all I have.” Ava shook her head, then grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look into her eyes. “Lydia, we had a great summer. I was there for you; I helped you to realize that you are still a woman, one breast or none. I showed you how to love again, how to feel, but Honey, I never promised you forever, now did I?” Her voice was soft, fluid, soothing, but her words, heartbreaking. Lydia shrugged away from Ava, shaking her head. “No, you didn’t.” She turned and pulled her clothes on, then headed for the door. Grasping the handle, she turned back to Ava. “I wish you well, Ava. I…” her voice cracked and she swallowed convulsively. “There’s a note there for you,” Ava said, nodding toward the dresser. “I was going to try to be gone before you woke up.” Lydia reached out and gently fingered the note, wanting to snatch it up, but at the same time not wanting to touch it. Picking it up, she opened the door and stepped through without a word. Twenty-four hours ago she had the world, today? Lydia looked down at the note crumpled in her hand. Slowly she opened her clenched fingers and watched as the wind tore the note from her hand. As she walked, the sea lapped at her feet, her ankles, her knees, her hips. It wasn’t the warm embrace she wanted, but it was an embrace. |
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"You're Too Loose"
The Aspiring Editors Club