WRiTE CLUB 2015 - Bout #16

WRiTE CLUB is a writing community sensation sponsored by the DFWWriters Conference that is loosely based on the popular movie Fight Club.  There are numerous versions of this concept floating around the internet, but nothing like we do it here.  This unique approach embodies simple, good-natured competition, with lots and lots of fun sprinkled on top. 

Today we continue with the second phase of the contest which involves ten more daily bouts (M-F) over the next two weeks between Anonymous 500 word writing samples, submitted under a pen name.   The writing can be any genre, any style (even poetry) with the word count being the only restriction. Today is Bout #16.  Read each sample carefully and then leave a vote in the comment section for the one that resonates with you the most.  Don’t forget to leave with a brief critique of both submissions as well.

Voting for each bout will remain open for one week. The winner of each will be posted HERE, at the WRiTE CLUBscoreboard.  Are you ready?

Here are todays randomly selected WRiTER's.

Standing in this corner, representing the Science Fiction genre and weighing in at 460 words, please welcome to the ring……..Cj Lehi

The planet, they said, was called Strad, because somehow its discoverer was a violinist. It was firmly in the middle of the Goldilocks zone, orbiting a big yellow star almost the same nuclear composition as our own sun, named, prosaically, Gliese 2411, and which we started calling Two-fer almost before the first briefing was over. Strad would pull 1.1 grav, slightly heavier than Earth, but probably not so much that it would be a problem, if we lived long enough to get there. Strad was eighteen years away at the speed of light. By the time we reached it, more than a hundred years would have passed on Earth.

Oh, and there was room for two. Just two. Space considerations dictated by cost, very sorry about that, and weren’t you told?

We hadn’t been.

At first, I thought that put paid to the entire idea. Asking Alohi to leave Rani and Joaquin was akin to asking her to pluck out her heart and leave it, still beating, on the smooth glass of the briefing-room table. She told the gentlemen she’d need to think carefully about the assignment, thanked them politely (you have 24 hours, they said, before we move on to the next candidates), and cried great wracking sobs all the way home.

But she never cried again, and I underestimated the force of her desire, as it seemed I always did. By the next morning she had made her peace with the boys, arranged for them to live with their grandparents in Houston, and called NASA to tell them we were in.

Did I have a say in all this? Yes, I did. And no, I didn’t. If I had objected, really been serious about declining the mission, she would have listened to me and she would have stayed with me. I believe this. I must believe it. But if I had been the sort of man that could deny my wife the thing she believes is her purpose, the thing that defines her humanity, I could never have been Alohi’s husband in the first place. I am not and never was that sort of man. The power of her desire was partly my power as well. I didn’t say no. I never considered it.

In a ship called Hesperus we left Earth orbit fourteen months later and a year after that Espero was born.

There isn’t a lot to do on a smallish spacecraft, and no birth control – outside the one that we both agreed was morally indefensible – is 100% effective. If you’re thinking there are surgical means that could eliminate the possibility of pregnancy, you’re right, and we had those procedures, both of us, and still Espero came to us, so make of that what you will.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And in the other corner, representing the Sci-Fi genre with 487 words let me introduce to you……….Lanfear

I step quietly down the hallway of the high school, running my fingers down the row of faded blue locker doors. Sometimes I imagine which one could have been mine. I like number sixty-seven. It’s on the end, close to the water fountain and the biology lab. Science would have been my favorite subject, or maybe math. Grandpa’s always said I’m a problem solver.

I rub the dust off the tarnished number plate and keep searching.

My dusty footsteps take me past more classrooms and the propped open doors of the gym. Banners hang from the ceiling, with Go Wildcats painted across in large blue and silver letters. Most are ripped or torn apart completely, but one still hangs whole, quietly defiant as it stirs from the breeze passing through broken windows. I try to imagine the bleachers filled with students, but I’m not even sure what that many people together would look like.

As I turn a corner, a yellowed piece of paper falls to the ground from a bulletin board that is barely hanging on the wall. I stop, hold my breath, and gently lift it up. Would they notice if I take it? The warning we live by rings in my mind: Take only what we need, leave no trace, and don’t get caught. I stare at the paper, its faded black words advertising the Homecoming dance. The silhouette of a boy and girl is still visible, he in a suit and she in a ball gown, but most of the details have faded away. I carefully pin it back to the wall, noting the faded splatter of bloodstains on the peeling grey paint.

My stomach clenches at the sight. It’s time to go. We really shouldn’t have come here in the first place.

The mark of civilization holds nothing but death.

People used to call this place a ghost town, back when that was something to be proud of. Now ghosts are all it has left.

I’m almost around the next corner when I see a shadow coming from the cafeteria. It’s moving slower than it should, for a human. I press myself against the wall, my mind speeding down the hallway behind me, planning an escape route, weighing the successfulness of each path, knowing it won’t really do any good. But I’ll still fight, regardless.

I tense, waiting for the shadow to manifest into something solid. I pray it is a person, but I know where everyone else is supposed to be. My heart sinks when I hear the faint whir of gears. We were wrong. They haven’t forgotten about this place. I pull my knife from my boot, wondering if I should attack first, or save both of us the trouble and slit my own throat.

I’ve come to expect death, but I don’t make it a point to seek it out.

Something clatters down the hallway, and the shadow stops.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enjoying two talented writers at work is only part of the price of admission, now it’s up to you to decide who moves forward to the playoffs.  In the comments below leave your vote for the winner.  Which one tickled your fancy?  After you vote please tell all of your friends to stop by and make a selection as well.  Yes, it’s subjective, but so is the entire publishing world.  It’s as much about the readers as it is about the writers. 

This is WRiTE CLUB – the contest where the audience gets clobbered!