WRiTE CLUB 2020 - Cage Bout #4

Reminder - You can follow along with all of the bout results right HERE.

It's CAGE BOUT time!

Here's how this works. Instead of two writers competing against one another, now it's THREE AT ONCE. But there's a twist. All of the winners have been given the opportunity to absorb the feedback offered during their preliminary round and submit an edited version of their original submission. As a writer, utilizing feedback can be a tricky proposition - because frankly - not all feedback is equal. This is our chance to see how the contestants used that feedback (if at all).

The readers/voters are to choose one of the three to move on.  There will be six daily bouts (Mon-Sat), and no saves this time.

Remember, one of the real values of this contest is FEEDBACK. So, 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 9th (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 BRAND 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.

Here our the contestants for this first cage bout (in random order) are -

P. Baker

The number one rule if you don’t want anyone to know that you’re pregnant: NEVER touch your stomach. Don’t rub it. Don’t check on the protrusion in the mirror. And never, ever rest your hand at the peak of the curve just above your belly button.

I can’t think of a worse place to be secretly pregnant than church camp. I had brought my baggiest t-shirts with me, or actually, the biggest shirts I could sneak out of my brother’s room, but it won’t make a lick of difference in a minute when they force me in the lake. A wet shirt will expose my swelling bomb.

The other girls are all out waiting for me on the wooden platform. If I wanted to sit directly under the blistering sun and just look at the water, I could stay on the shore, thank you very much. But you’ve never experienced peer pressure until you’ve said no to your church friends.

“Daisy! Get your booty out here,” Rebecca calls for the tenth time. I block the sun with my hand to see her on the platform. Her pink swimsuit is a glitch in the brown East Texas lake. Other campers shriek and laugh in the water around the queen’s waterlogged throne. I shift between feet, rocks and twigs stabbing at the soles.

The counselor puts a hand on my shoulder and hits me with the toothy white smile of a TV evangelist. “You can make it!”

“Daisy!”

“I’m coming! Christ,” I mutter. The counselor clears her throat. “Uh, just praying…” I shrink away from her and wade into the water. It's the temperature of a warm bath, but it feels nice on my sun-crisped skin.

I swim out to the platform and hoist myself onto the wooden deck. The girls cheer as I right myself. Rebecca hugs me, pulls away and stares down at the wet shirt clinging to my round belly. My throat tightens. She sees. The queen of the Good Christian Girls, notorious spy for the parents of us sinners. The plum-sized fate in my gut suddenly weighs a thousand pounds.

She turns back to the shore and starts the peer pressure campaign over again on some other girl. I pull the fabric away from my skin. How could she not have seen? To me, it’s so obvious, a neon sign on my stomach growing brighter every second. A swelling tumor, a parasite consuming my whole body. As glaring as Hester Prynne's letter A. But to her, I’m an extra, shrinking into the background of her personal movie set.

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Contestant number two is Circle Slide

That moment before wake and sleep. That beautiful time when people’s dreams paraded themselves in tumbling orbs of liquid images. A bubbling fantasy of pure enjoyment. Worlds contained in a single moment—gleaming, dewy droplets of pretend.

 I called it the Land Between. Nothing was impossible in that Land. There, spina bifida didn’t tether me to forearm crutches or worse, a wheelchair. There I experienced things: wind whistling in my ears, slippery mud up to my ankles, and the glorious sun warming my skin. In the Land Between, I ran free, my limbs obeyed my brain, my joints moved with unabashed ease.

 And another thing, there, I wasn’t a social outcast.

 Most nights, I bounced from one person’s dream to another—a skipping stone in a tranquil pool. I’d keep to the edges of their imagination. People don’t appreciate you mucking about in their heads, but stay in the shadows, and you are golden.

 Nearly all were the same, uninspiring snippets of their daily life—a pop quiz, the winning shot of a school basketball game, showing up naked in a crowded waiting room.

 But last night something was different.

 I’d settled in Birdie’s Land Between. She was my favorite, like a comfy sweatshirt—secure, warm, and snug. Maybe I preferred her dreams because her Land-Between was my first. I’ve relived every one of her birthday parties and witnessed her dreams change from toys to boys, all from a safe distance. Sometimes I searched for her in crowded places. If a girl with a tight ponytail walked by, I’d just know it was her. Except it never was. Which was a good thing, because meeting her in real life, would break my number-one, red letter rule, and I could never visit her again. I crossed that line once, and I would never do that again. 

 But last night, while I lurked in the shadows, a shining broke through the boundaries of her dream. It rocketed across her fantasy in a blinding display.

 She didn’t notice, but I did. A person appeared, like me, who wasn’t supposed to be there.

 I saw a boy.

 #

 “Earth to Piper,” Toby, my seventeen-year-old brother, said as a rubber band stung my chest.

 “Ouch.” I yawned. The afternoon sun warmed my cheek from the sunroom windows. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I had searched for the boy longer than I’d intended.

 “Daydreaming again?” Toby was the opposite of me in every way, good looking, athletic, and charming. Somehow he avoided his embarrassing years altogether, whereas my awkward years pulled up a chair and snickered at me from the coroner of the room.

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And finally number three is Miss_Sunflower

The audience was full of Chorale Directors and Ship Captains. Lyra Academy always drew a crowd. The sky above the open arena was the clear blue of an island spring. Across from her, a boy stood barefoot beside a pool of seawater, holding a set of pipes loosely in his hand.

 “Show us what you can do.” The bass rumble of Master Singer Lyranch set off a whirlpool of nerves in her stomach as a waiting silence fell. 

Zaraina shifted slightly, digging her toes into the fine damp sand, lengthening her posture. Her breathing deepened, she caught the tang of sea salt on the air. Whether this wind caller could keep up with her or not, she would sing her best, as written. Her eyes met his. He raised the pipes to his lips.

Storm Songs had no lyrics. There was no need for them when you were singing to water and wind. He began the melody and instantly Zaraina felt a breeze tug at hair she’d tucked behind her ear. She narrowed her eyes, catching the barest smirk in the quirk of his cheek, and took a fresh breath. Then she let out that first long clear note. She felt the water in the pool answer her in a rippling echo. The notes of the pipes changed just so, meeting her tone, strengthening it. She blinked. No one had ever done that. The joy of the music lifted her voice into the first aria. 

The soft patter of the notes as she released them began to pull water from the pool and into the air, a mist forming clouds above them. For this piece, it was up to her to carry the depth of the song. She met the melody in perfect counterpoint, bringing the water out to play as breezes and gusts swirled. The harmonies sent a chill over her skin and a hum in her bones unlike any she’d felt before. The resonance built into a current pulling her off the pages of music drilled into her head. Wind and water danced into a storm.

The music and the magic flowed through her. She wept with the strength of it. On cue, a warm rain began to fall. Her tears and the rain mixed, pooling at their feet. Her voice softened as she returned to the practiced piece. Her eyes closed as she breathed the last few notes. The music faded and she opened her eyes to see him take the pipes from his lips. Stormclouds thinned. They stared at one another in a silence that still vibrated with power.

A door above them slammed open. Zaraina shot her gaze away as a steward rushed in. “Master Lyranch sir, there....” His voice faded into whispers.

The Master Singer never moved his eyes from the pair of them. “It dissipated moments ago?”

“Yes sir.” 

Lyranch gestured to another steward. “Take them to the Sounding rooms.” He ordered. 

Zaraina trembled, confused. “Did we pass?”

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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 detraction's.

We’ll be back tomorrow with 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!