WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Cage Bout #4

Reminder - The previous three bouts are still taking your votes and you can follow along with all of the bout results right HERE.

No rest for the weary here in WRiTE CLUB as we rush towards the championship. Today we bring back another group of winners to battle it out inside the infamous cage.

Here's how this works. Instead of two writers competing against one another as was the case is previous bouts, now it's THREE AT ONCE. The contestants will be using the same writing sample that allowed them to get this far, the only difference being that now they're up against new competitors. The readers/voters will have to choose one of the three to move on.  There will be six daily bouts (Mon-Sat), and no saves this time.

If you voted in the preliminary rounds, then there is no need to leave a critique with your vote this time, however, if this is your first time seeing these writers we do ask that you leave a brief critique because that is one of the real values of this contest – FEEDBACK. Please be respectful with your remarks!

Even though there will be a different bout every day (M-S), because of time restrictions the voting period will be staggered somewhat, so please pay attention to the dates posted. The voting for today’s bout will close on Tuesday, June 4th (noon central time).

The piece that garnishes the most votes will move on to the next round where they’ll face a different opponent with a NEW WRITING SAMPLE. 

As always, in case of a tie, I’m the deciding vote.

Here are the voting guidelines –

1) One vote per visitor per bout.

2) Anyone can vote (even the contestants themselves), but although our contestants are anonymous, voters cannot be. Anonymous votes will not count, so if you do not have a Google account and are voting as a guest, be sure to include your name and email address.

3) Using any method (email, social media, text, etc) to solicit votes for a specific contestant will cause that contestant's immediate disqualification. It’s perfectly okay, in fact, it is encouraged to spread the word about the contest to get more people to vote, just not for a specific writer!

4) Although more of a suggestion than a rule - cast your vote before you read other comments. Do not let yourself be swayed by the opinions of others.

Like the man say's

Our contestants for this cage bout (is random order) are -

Sunshine&Rainbows

The fate of Santi’s world balanced on a feather’s edge… and the back of his thieving chicken.

Hundreds of shoppers made a dull roar like a heavy rain on a tin roof. The aroma of cinnamon fry bread permeated the air, broken intermittently by the scent of mule dung and perspiration.

Frango, Santi’s best pickpocket, flapped his wings and then strutted into the browsing crowds at the souk, hunting for shiny baubles small enough to carry back to their hideout. Exactly the way Santi had explained.

The more Frango brought back, the larger his pile of feed at the end of the day. The bird brain wasn’t the smartest fowl around, but Frango understood that.

Sweat beaded on Santi’s upper lip, and his stomach growled. For most of Santi’s barnyard cohorts, feed was currency, but Santi needed a good payday.

Frango darted between people, ducked beneath goods tables, and challenged the fat tabby that the grocer employed to keep the rats at bay. Though, Santi had never seen the feline with anything rodent-like in his mouth.

A monk exited the convent to ring the hourly bells, the deep tones vibrating loud enough to silence the mob. A cart rumbled by, blocking Santi’s view of his feathered partner. He tipped up on his toes and peered over, catching the eye of a well-dressed woman on the other side of the street.

Santi turned and dropped back into the shadow of a stoop. He had to look out for his little friend, but, in their line of work, undue attention never helped.

Down the way, a man yelped, drawing Santi’s gaze.

The thick-shouldered, sour-faced man muttered words Santi couldn’t make out and rubbed at his bottom, a line of a dozen gold hoops quivered in his ear and gold chains circled his neck, his nose a little too high in the air.

Something must have gotten him, and it wasn’t the first time Frango had pecked the mayor’s ass.

In a flash of iridescent feathers, Frango bolted around the corner toward home, and Santi grinned. He couldn’t make out what Frango had in his beak, but it could mean food for an evening or food for a week… or more, if they were lucky.

Being able to communicate with animals hadn’t been the curse that Santi initially expected. Thanksgiving might be in order.

He set a leisurely pace toward the hovel they shared near the cemetery. The local authorities hadn’t yet figured out the band of creature misfits, so the slip-away would be easy. He winked at the row of grandmothers that sat in the shade cast by the eaves of the shrine, waiting on the nuns to come out and bestow the alms of the Matriarch.

Curses filled the air, and women gasped at the language. Santi crouched and pretended to re-lace his leather boots so he could keep an eye on the mayor. 

“I’ll butcher that chicken,” the mayor bellowed, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

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Contestant number two is Cardigan Fig

Through the barred window high on his cell, Tulloch studied three stars of the Crow Constellation. He couldn't take this anymore. He missed being able to see all the stars. Missed walking under the night's sky--or any sky. Missed quiet. Donnelly should be here, not him. If he had to spend the rest of his life behind bars he should have the chance to kill his brother first.

He smeared his hands up his face and gritted his teeth against the need to scream. The second star of the constellation winked out. He blinked. The darkness where the star had been moved. Something flew straight at him. He ducked. The object passed through the bars of his fourth floor cell and landed with a clang on the floor.

That clang echoed through an eerily silent prison. Hairs rising on the back of  his neck, he turned to the door, straining for any sound of life without. The curses, yells, sobs, moans, and groans, he'd been trying to tune out were gone.

Since his arrest eleven months ago, he'd not experienced a silence this deep.

A shiver ran down his spine. Moving slowly, he turned to search his cell's floor. By dim hall lights, he could pick out a small, dark blob. He bent to scoop it up. His fingers curled around a key.

Tulloch straightened, his eyes glued to the iron key he couldn't see in his hand. The identification of type of metal by weight and touch warmed his heart. Convict or not, he was still a jeweler. He looked at the door. He glanced at the window.

Ignorant political prisoner he might be, but he understood this: if a key fell into your cell, you did not stop to ask where it came from or how. You didn't wonder who gave it to you.

You used it.

Then again.

He squinted at the window. A key sailing perfectly through the bars of a fourth-floor cell, only one way that happens. He shuddered and looked at his door.

Five bars cut across the upper half of the iron door fitted into the stone wall. He could drop the key through those bars. Reject this gift and the obligations that came with it. Stay here. He shuddered again. No. No, he couldn't.

Silence radiated outside his door. His own breath far too loud in his ears, he crept to the bars, pressed his face into them, and strained to look both ways down the corridor. As far as he could tell, it was empty.

He cleared his mind of all but one thought that circled in his head: an order not to drop the key.

Hands that had once been so steady they'd done fine filigree in silvers and golds shook as he shoved his arm through the bars. He forced himself to take a deep breath. He could do this. Metal screeched against metal as he trailed the key awkwardly around the iron plating, searching for the lock. 

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And finally, number three is Ms. Sunnydale

It took me five years to forget the ocean. The memory didn’t leave all at once. Rather, it leaked from my mind little by little like a seeping wound: first the sound of waves, then the smell of salt, the keening of seagulls, and so on.

Mercifully, other pleasures went quicker. In two years, I couldn’t recall the taste of fast food, or the lyrics to that pop song. In three, I’d forgotten the good scald of a shower and the shudder of a bus engine beneath me. Like society, like peace, memory is a fleeting thing.

I wish I could forget him as easily. But the memory of him in the nursery window is still there, infecting my brain like a persistent poison.

“Jossana.” The way he had said my name was a song. A prayer. I heard more hope in it than a hymn, even if it had been spoken by a sinner. And not just any sinner. A Reb. The Steadfaster elders say their name like an obscenity, if they say it at all. As though not speaking the name will make the Reb’s offenses less real. As though we could forget the heathens who usurped our government, plundered our food, set fire to our cities. Under the Rebs, violence had spread like a plague—hot rashes of anger and oozing grudges infecting anyone with a bone to pick.

But the boy in the window hadn’t come for violence that night. He came only for a song. As irony would have it, it was Amazing Grace. My brother Tannen had asked me to sing it while I tucked him in, because he still believed in the magic and goodness in its words. And me? I had outgrown magic and knew better than to trust goodness, so I sang it hoping it would make me a better sister than I was a Steadfaster.

A good Steadfaster would have called out when she saw the boy, yelled for the elders in the other room. But it had been my fault. I had popped the plywood from the window that night to let the breeze in. And instead of feeling threatened when my eyes snapped around the boy’s silhouette, I had felt the immoral tug of excitement.

But neither had the boy come armed, as far as I could tell. Rather, he wielded a smile that dug out two shallow dimples in his cheeks, and eyes that cupped warm candlelight.

And a question, What’s your name, girl?

To which I answered, Jossana.

When he echoed it, the word had taken flight off his lips like an enchanted, winged thing, more beautiful than it had the right to be. I wonder if it might have floated off that night, taking part of me with it so I would never be quite whole again.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember the ocean, but I remember every shade of blue and green in his eyes.

Memory is an enduring, excruciating thing.

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Please leave your votes and critiques in the comments below. Again, be respectful of your remarks and try to point out positives as well as detractions.

We’ll be back tomorrow with yet another cage bout. Please help all our writers out by telling everyone you know what is happening here and encourage them to come vote.

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