WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Cage Bout #6

Reminder - The previous bouts are still taking your votes, but bouts 1 and 2 will close their doors at noon Sunday (Jun 2). You can follow along with all of the bout results right HERE.

Behold the sixth and final WRiTE CLUB Cage Bout. This bout features our three SAVE WEEK survivors and unfortunately, this will be the end of the road for two of them as only one will get to continue on. 

Beginning tomorrow we'll start tabulating the votes and determining which writers will move forward to the next elimination round where they'll be matched one on one with a new competitor - both of which will be brandishing brand new writing samples. More fun times ahead!

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 Thursday, June 6th (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 final cage bout (in random order) are -

Blue Bonnet

After 33 years of a howler monkey living inside my head, I am used to it.

Some of the time, he’s sleeping. Curled up in a folded corner of membrane, occasionally sighing deeply, pulling a twist of brain over his furry belly like a blanket. Those are the times I start to think that maybe he’s not so bad, my friend the howler monkey. I still know he’s there, but if he’ll only stay asleep, maybe I don’t mind renting him a corner of my mind.

Then I do something crazy, like leave the house. At the first whiff of pollen and car exhaust, the monkey is alert. “What’s this?” his beady eyes ask, his head tilted slightly. “Have you forgotten our agreement?”

I haven’t forgotten, but nor do I want to remember. I ignore him and stride bravely on. I make it all the way to the grocery store down the block before the monkey knows what’s hit him.

He’s on his feet as the automatic doors whoosh in front of me, artificial air blowing my hair back and knocking me slightly off balance.

“Aaooo,” he whispers slightly, gearing up, one foot stamping impatiently. “Aaooo.”

“I’m not listening,” I reply, and grab five of those handy wipes to clean the cart.

“Aaooo,” he continues, more insistently, as I narrowly avoid colliding with a small child who has escaped his mother.

“I have to eat,” I plead, willing him to be quiet.

“I’m so sorry,” says the mother, grabbing the boy’s grubby hand and trying to pull him away. The boy won’t budge.

“What’s on your face?” he asks, pointing.

“AAOOOO,” screams the monkey.

The mother pulls harder on the boy, jerking his arm and whispering stridently in his ear.

“AAOOO! AAOOO!” The monkey is on all fours now, and his face holds no trace of friendliness. I hate it when he gets like this. He’s just one step away from full chaos. My stomach rumbles.

I urgently push the cart to the produce section, throwing fruit in my cart with abandon. I put my head down and speed walk down the next aisle. Peanut butter - 10 jars. Refried beans - 5 cans. Anything with a long shelf life.

The checkout line looms.

“AAOOO! AAOOO! AAOOO!” The monkey is screaming so loud my ears ring. He begins to jump up and down on all fours, landing each time with a thud that rattles my teeth. I let my hair fall in front of my face, trying to spy the conveyor belt through the wispy strands.

“Good morning!” chirps the cashier.

“AAOOO! AAOOO! AAOOO! AAOOO! AAOOO!”

“You must love peanut butter! What are you going to do with all this?”

I look up briefly. Fear flickers across the cashier’s face, quickly replaced with feigned nonchalance. He says something else, but I can’t hear him. All I can hear is the monkey. Always the monkey.

I run, abandoning my cart.

Once home, I try not to let the monkey see my tears.

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Contestant number two is PBSSpecial

The smell assaulted me first. I rubbed at my nose. Wet animal and kibble.

My sister assaulted me next. “Okay pick one.”

I froze in the entrance. Two glassed enclosures took up the back of the building. Dogs on one side, cats in the other. I turned and stared at my sister.

My face must have communicated my ire, because she rolled her eyes.

“The therapist said a pet would do you some good,” she reminded me.

As if I needed reminding.

“I don’t need a pet to get over Charles ditching me. He never paid attention to me. Or appreciated my keeping his house clean. Or any of the thousand little things I did for him over the last twenty-five years.”

My chest heaved having run an emotional mile. Her exaggerated nod chided me.  My older sister had spent over forty years dictating what was best. She wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. Why should she? She’d always been right.

The dogs in the left enclosure chased each other and played with the volunteers. Too much energy. As I walked towards the cats, a medium sandy-colored dog snared me with her soulful gaze. Her pink collar read Minnie. Her calm abandoned her the moment she realized I watched her, too.

Just the sight of that need, that expectation, made my neck itch and stomach clench. “I’m not the one for you.”

She tilted her head as if trying to make sense of me.

My sister read the placard labeled ‘Minnie’. “Four month old Bullmastiff mix. She’s a beauty. She’ll be big but a great companion.”

She was beautiful. The most beautiful dog I’d ever seen.

“I need a pet that can take care of itself. A cat,” I told her.

“A dog would be better.”

The dog crept closer. Her nose wedged into the corner of the glass enclosure, as close as she could get to me. “No. They’re too needy.”

Inside the cat-quarium, an all-white cat lounged in a bed, licking its paws. The regal bearing and calm demeanor convinced me of my choice.

The worker pointed me to a solitary room and the cat was brought in.

Rex was his name. King.

The cat explored the room without thought of me. Only with the offer of treats did it let me pet him. Once he’d gotten all the treats he wanted, he walked away.

Just like Charles.

My jaw dropped along with my stomach. I’d just chosen my husband again. I backed into the door before I realized I’d stood from the chair. Turning, I fumbled with the door in my haste to leave. The cat hissed at me.

Probably for bothering him.

I stumbled out the door, my eyes immediately going for the sandy dog on the other side of the room. She was right where I left her. Her tail wagged wildly when my eyes landed on her.

I placed both hands on the glass.

“I'll take this one!”

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And finally, number three is Sydney Slayer

I was born on a mountaintop in ancient Koyu, a place where dragons wind around the stony spires and winter red trees and breathe out the misty smoke that drifts through our sky like clouds.

This is what my grandmother taught me, her hands weaving spells in the air and pulling on the dragon mist to paint pictures in my mind.

She taught me other things too, how to eat the petals of the blossoms that drop from the twisting shoyu tree; the flowers that show us the future. The petals are soft and fat, the size of a baby’s palm, pearlescent white with a blush of pink and, at its heart, the reddest of reds.

They look juicy and full of water and the first time I eat it I am afraid, afraid all that water will rush like a dark river down my throat and I will drown, drown while dreaming of the future.

But as succulent as the petal looks, it is not. It’s as light as air; it tastes like the memory of candy, sweetened with icy melon and fiery hawkfruit, or like nothing at all. It tastes like everything and emptiness all at once, for Grandmother says that is the future - not my future, of course, I am nothing in the vastness of the universe. What we taste is the future of all things.

What did I see, that first time I ate a shoyu petal, you ask? Why, I saw you. Sitting in a tea shop, eating a cookie shaped like a shoyu petal, laughing and pulling the pictogram off your tongue, the pictogram that comes when the cookie is gone, and your lovely eyes try to see me as you puzzle out the dragon-wrapped mountain on the candy disc and then with one bite it is gone. You eat it and nothing is left.

I ask my grandmother about this vision; she paints the air and tells me, in the future there are not so many shoyu trees, so people do what they can.

And then she teaches me to weave the long soft gortse hairs, and the coarse ones too, into braided yarn, and then the yarn becomes a blanket and the blanket stays with me at night when I try to find her in my sleep, the dragon-mist softening my dreams.

I search for her, the girl of the shoyu vision; the future girl who drinks tea and laughs so freely. I cannot find her in the dragon mist again.

She is not there.

The other girls rustle and wake, disturbed by my tossing and turning.

Settle down, Ryu, they say. Their jewel-like eyes light the darkness in our small stone room.

Go to sleep, Ryu, they whisper as one.

We are as one in all things, but not in this.

They want to sleep; they want to follow, but I do not.

I want to break things; I want to dance in the sky.

I want to lead.

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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 next week with our Quarter-Finals. 

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!