WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Playoff Bout #3

Reminder - Playoff Bouts 1-2 are still taking your votes. Please make those your next stop if you've not voted there yet.

We are now down to just six contestants and it's time to see how they match up with ALL NEW MATERIAL.

This is the 3rd of three playoff bouts and you need to pay special attention to when voting ends because a staggered timeline will be used again. Speaking of voting, it has a special significance during the playoffs because in addition to three winners advancing to the semi-finals, a fourth Wildcard winner will also be selected. How is the WC chosen? It will be the loser that had garnered the most votes among all three losers. So every vote counts - win or lose.

We do ask that you leave a brief critique for all of our contestants because that is one of the real values of this contest – FEEDBACK. Please be respectful with your remarks!

The voting for today’s bout will close on Wednesday, June 12th (noon central time).

The piece that garnishes the most votes will move on to the semi-final round where they’ll face a different opponent with another 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

Please welcome back into the ring, with all new material - 

Organized Confusion

I sweep and sweep, but pale ashes remain, marking the asphalt. They get into the tiniest cracks and refuse to be removed. My memories are the same; I can't cry enough to wash them away.

Each time I fall asleep, I relive the accident: the glare of headlights, the screech of twisting metal, fragments of safety glass raining down on me like malevolent diamonds.  My brother's screams call to me each night.

“Kari! Help me!”

“I'm hurt!”

“I need you, Kari!”

I'm always stuck, just like that night, pinned in place by the seat belt across my chest and the shaft of the steering wheel in my right thigh. I twist as far as I can and reach behind me—whether to comfort him or myself, I'm still not sure.

His screams fade to cries … whimpers … silence.

I clutch at his hand. “Wake up, Teddy!” I stretch one more inch out of my already strained shoulder and shake him.

I keep my arm wrenched behind me, fingers wrapped around his limp hand despite the cramps in my shoulder blade, until help arrives. Paramedics pry us apart to whisk me away in an ambulance. They intentionally block my view of the tiny body in the back seat.

My parents pretend they're not angry, but I hear them talking late into the night. In a hushed, grief-thickened voice, my father asks, “Do you think she was on her phone? Texting, maybe?”

My mother takes a second too long to say, “I'm sure she wasn't.”

I never looked at my phone with Teddy in the car. They don't ask me—they wouldn't believe me if they did—but it's true.

Teddy's ashes sit in their plain black box on our mantle for weeks. The stark white label pasted to the front announces his name, his birthday, and the date of the accident, but says nothing about the sparkle of his laughter or the annoying way he chewed carrots with his mouth open.

Mom and Dad finally decide how they want to release his ashes.

“Balloons—red and blue ones,” Mom says. “Friends and family can come to the house, share a memory before we let him go. He always wanted to explore the world.” She chokes on the end of her sentence. Dad puts his arm around her and blinks back tears. I press a thumb down on my wounded thigh until it's all I feel.

A cold wind blows the day of his memorial. The wind and the old oak trees lining the drive conspire against Mom's plan. Brightly colored orbs snag in the branches one-by-one, bursting. Ash rains down on us.

The gunshot sounds of each memory's aborted journey fold my mother into a crumpled version of herself. Dad takes her inside and puts her to bed. Those who gathered to pay their respects disperse, fleeing in the face of so much unfathomable pain.

I find a broom and fail to save my brother once again.

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Our second contestant is Sydney Slayer

It is our turn to tend to the dragon.

We live at the top of the dragon-wrapped mountain and on this day we tend to the dragon that gives us his magic. Being so close to him does something; it changes us. We can’t ever walk away from it. It’s in our blood, our lungs; our eyes.

Our eyes.

Sameera watches me unpack my kit and re-pack it; it’s a tradition, the morning of dragon day, to make sure we have everything. I like the ritual. I like touching the bottle of oil, feeling its weight; checking the tools. The other girls do it quickly and most of them are done repacking their kits while I’m still touching all my things.

“Do you wish to delay the inevitable, Ryu?” Sameera asks, her eyes glittering sapphire. That’s the thing about jewelled eyes; it’s harder to tell what we’re thinking. Sameera can pretend all she wants but we both know she isn’t being kind.

“I just like to make sure everything is perfectly ready, Sameera. Some of us don’t like to push things before their time,” I reply, my eyes glittering back at her. I smile and tilt my head and her face flushes; she does not like to be reminded of how she pressed Grandmother last year to let her vision-travel, after Grandmother told us we weren’t to try it yet. Sameera doesn’t like to get in trouble; she just wants to be the best. The first at everything.

“When you get tired of fondling your kit, maybe the dragon will let you fondle him,” she says crudely, and the other girls gasp, looking from one to the other.

I turn my back on her; she shames herself with her words, not me.

Not me.

Grandmother is waiting in the teaching square for us as we file out of our room, packs slung over our backs, silent and solemn as is proper for such a sacred duty. She stands under the shoyu tree and her black diamond eyes do not shine as she watches us walk, single file, Sameera in front as always, me bringing up the rear, the other two girls an ineffectual buffer between us.

Grandmother hands us tea mixed with honey and sings to us, a chant, a melody, something soothing that makes everything fall away until our minds are clear as a mountain lake, a dark pool that holds everything and nothing in complete stillness. My annoyance with Sameera drowns in that pool along with all my thoughts of leaving the mountain. She croons to us and the stillness brings peace; a necessary peace, so that our wild girlish notions and loud emotions will not disturb the dragon’s rest.

It is very, very important not to disturb the dragon.

Wrapped in song and stillness we leave our home and take the winding path up the mountain, snow drifting like blossoms around us, our footsteps silent in the hush of the misty path.

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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 two semi-final bouts. 

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!