WRiTE CLUB 2021 - Semi-Final #2

Today is the 2nd and final WRiTE CLUB bout where the readers have a say in the outcome.  After these two bouts, it will be in the hands of the celebrity judges. But first, we need to decide who gets that opportunity.

The voting for both of this week's bouts will close on Wednesday, Feb 2nd (noon central time).

Here once again 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

Welcome back to the ring our first contestant...Lady Warbleon

LOST-AND-FOUND BOYS

 

Everything in the world is broken except for us. We are kings, reigning over a landfill empire. We make thrones of pocked appliances, build castles in the hollow hulls of old Teslas. We spend our days hunting for treasures in caves carved of trash. Once, this would have been called make-believe, but now that’s all there is.

Boys are the scarcest treasure of all. Some were killed over food, and some to feed the war machine. And then there are my boys. Princes of the apocalypse. Guardians of the junkheap. My boys: Andy, Logan, T-Dog, Blub—the last so named because he cries at night. If the others do, they know better than to give it noise. Crying is not allowed here. Lying is not allowed here. Cussing is encouraged, except for one word:

Gr*wnup.

We don’t care to remember them, and we will never become them.

Tonight, Logan snares a rabbit, and we dance in celebration. Though it scarcely softens the hunger, we go to bed with greasy smiles. T-Dog tells us a story of a Cyborg who falls in love with a mermaid and is thus electrocuted. He says it like that too: is thus electrocuted, as though he’s some kind of scholar. Our laughter echoes through the metal turrets long into the night.

As I drift off, Andy whispers, “Crow.” I’m so named because I’m a scavenger with a sharp memory. “I think we’re gonna be alright.”

I smile but don’t agree; lying is not allowed here.

In the morning, we wake to the smell of burning rubber. This is the smell of men.

“Raiders,” my boys hiss. I’ve known they would come. We are too happy and they won’t abide that. The Raiders were never boys; they were men who went to war and brought it back with them. They talk out of steel mouths with gunpowder words. They want our treasures and our youth.

They will get neither.

Instead, we launch fireballs at their fleet from catapults made of shovels and bungees. A few land true and we howl in triumph, louder even than the gunshots.

“Never!” we yell, to the Raiders, to fate. We defend our kingdom like it is our heart.

Burned and bested, the Raiders eventually retreat—a glorious, if temporary, victory. We are drunk off the adrenaline of it, all of us bubbling with laughter. All but one. T-Dog leans against the makeshift battlement with a hand to his belly, blood spilling between his fingers as oil through an engine gasket.

We carry him to his castle and try to remember what comforting looks like. He tells me he’s afraid. He says it like that too: I’m afraid, as though he’s just a boy. So I tell him a story of a knight who falls in love with a fairy and flies away. It’s a love story, or maybe an adventure.

Everyone is crying now, and I allow it tonight. But tomorrow, my boys, we must be kings again.

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Also welcome our second contestant...Trelawney

Cat Show

Emily Parker had a lovely garden.

“Ooh, isn’t that lovely?” she’d hear passers-by exclaim on a summer’s day – especially when the blush pink roses were in bloom and tumbling round the cottage door.  Sometimes they’d stop, inhale its beauty, and take some photos to post on Instagram. The pictures would capture the exuberant jumble of hollyhocks, foxgloves and columbine that filled the borders, as well as the honeyed shades of the old stone walls – but, somehow, they never seemed to catch so much as the outline of the woman forever sitting sewing by the open window.

Emily Parker had lovely cats too.  Cats who would fastidiously wash their paws on the front step, or sit in a sunbeam on the grass, or settle down to sleep amongst the forget-me-nots.  Young cats, old cats, neat cats, fat cats, fluffy cats – all rescued, well fed, and thoroughly contented.  The villagers – those few who noticed her – nicknamed her ‘batty cat lady’, an archetype of eccentricity in shapeless clothes, which were surely fur-smothered.

“Well, she’s got inherited money, I reckon. Spends all her time gardening and looking after those animals.” 

“No, she’s only early ‘50s,” said the even fewer who knew her name. “Seems to take in a bit of sewing.”

“Bit sad, really.”

And that was as far as it went.

Seated at her window, Emily Parker would hear these scraps of conversation as she stitched and snipped and mended; would breathe in the scent of the blush roses as she created dreams from soft lengths of velvet, satin, and lace; tied exquisite bows from silken ribbons; and fixed sparkles onto bustles, and delicate pearly buttons onto bodices and gloves.  Every so often, she would slip a finished item into a protective cover and place it in a bag or cardboard box, cocooning her creation in a nest of tissue paper. Any cats tempted to turn one into a bed were gently shooed.

That was daytime.

The evening was rather different.

For, a couple of times a week, when Emily Parker had finished her sewing, she would leave her seat by the window, water her lovely garden and bring her cats indoors to be fed. Then she would go upstairs to her bedroom, pack a suitcase, and slip out. Nobody ever seemed to notice as she stowed the boxes and bags into her little car – or seemed to see her as she drove out of the village.  Once she reached the city she’d park, gather her belongings, and disappear into the side door of an unassuming building where she’d swiftly distribute her creations.  

“Oh, it’s gorgeous.”

“Just what I asked for!”

“Darling, you’ve mended it perfectly.”

She’d smile, then follow the recipients to the nightclub’s changing room. There, she would put on her make-up, open her suitcase, and take out her favourite velvets, and satins, and sparkles, and heels. And then, Emily Parker would transform herself into Catty La Fou - the finest, most luscious, burlesque dancer in the country.

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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 Thursday with the final 1,000-word battle. 

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!