WRiTE CLUB 2013 - Bout 9

Our seventh WRiTER has taken a step forward into the playoff rounds and their name is Joy Stique.

Before we move on to the next round I like to recount a conversation (email string) with one of my fellow blogging buddies I had when I first started WRiTE CLUB.  In it my fellow blogger expressed how much they enjoyed WRiTE CLUB, but they just couldn't bring themselves to hurt somebody's feelings (by voting for one over the other).  I replied by telling them that even though WRiTE CLUB was completely anonymous, I understood where they were coming from.  But then I went on to pose a question...does that type of reasoning demonstrate a "glass half empty" point of view.  What about the exhilarating feeling of the WRiTER who earns a vote, doesn't that count just as equally, and if so, wouldn't it be better to look at it from a "glass half full" slant?  There are those that would counter by asking if we should be drinking at all.  My answer is that most of our readers ultimate goal is publication, and that doesn't happen in a vacuum.  There are winners (multi-book contracts) and losers (rejection letters), and WRiTE CLUB is just a small taste of that world.

Enough of my soap-box, let's bring out our contestants.

Standing in the far corner, weighing in at 429 words representing the Paranormal Romance genre, please welcome to the ring Jamie Stuart.

Adam might be in limbo, but Evie was a slice of heaven.

He hovered over the lovely sleeping woman as she hugged the covers to her chin. Oh, how he would love to sleep beside her and have her hug him. Of all the occupants who have lived in this apartment, she was the first he felt that way toward.

But who was he kidding? Hugs were no longer an option. That would require touching. And sleep? Ha! Why break up a perfectly boring day? At least now he had something worth seeing. Inky black hair framed her olive complexion, and if she were awake, he’d be lost in her chocolate brown eyes. He wondered what she smelled like.

“Evie.” Just saying her name woke up one specific part of his body. Who knew he could still get a reaction after being dead for ten years?

She smiled as if she heard him. He’d like to think she had.

She jerked under the covers as if she were having a nightmare. He reached out without thinking; his fingers met the warmth of her cheek. A scent of flowers filled his nose. The gasp barely left his mouth when gravity came into play and dropped him on top of her, solid as if he were alive.

Her eyes flew open. She might have screamed if he hadn’t squished the breath out of her.

Quickly, he rolled off her and became incorporeal once more. Sweet heaven. What the hell just happened?

She sat up and pulled the covers to her chin. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She stared at the spot where his legs disappeared inside her bed. A smile spread across her face and she looked up. Those wonderful sweet eyes appeared to look right at him, except that was crazy. She couldn’t possible see him.

“Well, hello there,” she said.

He looked over his shoulder. No one was behind him, so who was she talking to?

“Yeah, I’m talking to you, Mr. Ghost. What’s your name?”

What? How did she see him? How was he able to touch her? He floated over to the corner, afraid to answer her. Afraid she might hear him. Afraid she might not.

She turned on the bedside lamp, shoved the covers aside and climbed out of bed. Her pink flowery nightgown reached her feet and flowed behind her as she approached him. Fear froze him in place. This wasn’t happening. People weren’t supposed to see him. She wasn’t supposed to see him. 

But damn, he wanted to touch her again.
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And stepping into the other corner, weighing in with 500 words of Fantasy, give it up for Wideawakegirl.

He gazed out over his city, the coldness in his heart unmatched by the ice covering his skin. In all his ancient days, he had never felt as empty and as lifeless as he did now.

Memories were doing what time could not. They were destroying him.

That first day, when her small hands had gripped his so tightly and she had crawled over the railing to hide from the Jackers. His great stone body had hidden her.

Please don’t let me fall, she had whispered.

He looked down. Special permission had been given for the service to be held inside the cathedral. So many of her novels had been written here.

I’ll come back soon, she had promised. Dark blue eyes made owlishly large by thick lenses had smiled up at him. Most people, especially children, found him grotesque. Not his Elaina. She had given him her trust, her friendship; a name.

Sleet pelted him and he welcomed the pain. Maybe it would carve out the ache that was crushing him from inside. He tried not to see the procession leaving the cathedral, taking her away from him forever. Were it possible, he would have leapt from his perch and shattered himself, hopefully into pieces too small to feel the ache of her.

He had watched kings rise and fall, bloodbaths, tyranny, revolution. Incredible brutalities and beautiful acts of kindness had gone unnoticed by all but his eyes, and none had ever made him feel. Anything.

Elaina, though, had taken him to the heights and depths of emotion. She became a constant companion, growing from a curious child to a beautiful woman.

Against his better judgment, he had allowed her presence, her words, her touch, to change him. He had allowed himself to dream of her. To need her. He had burned with anger whenever she spoke of men. When they disappointed her, he had been ashamed at his relief.

Chevalier. The memory came unbidden, breaking him. She had laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his. I wish you were real.

Selfishly, he had wished it, too.

Lightning had ripped open the heavens and she had dashed for home.

That night, a stranger had come to her door. She had told him later of how they had talked for hours, as if they were old friends. And of how he had loved her. Then vanished. Desiree had been born nine months later.

That was fourteen years ago. Now Elaina was gone. Forever.

The intensity of his grief strengthened his resolve. A fissure formed in the ice encrusted at his clawed feet. Soon, he thought.

“Chevalier.” Was he hallucinating?

Desiree leaned against his frozen body, her strange granite-gray eyes reflecting the pain inside him.

“You were Mom’s only friend.”

Until you, he thought.

Sobs wracked her slender frame. His stone heart nearly burst.

“I am so alone in this world,” she whispered. “I wish I could stay with you.”

He wished it, too.

Lightning flashed.
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You know the drill, leave a vote for the winner of round 9 in the comments below, along with any sort of critique you would like to offer.  Please remind your friends to make a selection as well.  The voting will remain open until noon Sunday (Aug. 11). 

Remember, here in WRiTE CLUB, it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!

WRiTE CLUB 2013 – Bout 8

Congratulations to Gordon Holmes for winning bout #6.

Today is a bit of a milestone, the mid-way point of the preliminary rounds for WRiTE CLUB!  After today there will be just eight more matches over the next four weeks before we head into the play-offs, and I can already feel the anticipation…or maybe its dread…building! Here’s a reminder for all of our contestants still in the hunt…if you make it past the first playoff round you’ll be required to submit a NEW 500 word sample to compete with, so don’t wait until the last minute.

Let’s get right to it…shall we?

Making their way through the ropes is today’s first combatant.  Weighing in at 499 words representing the Literary genre, give it up for S. King.

Washing dishes is a simple task, almost mindless in fact. It’s where my mind goes during this necessary task that kills my soul. Susan said I should just stuff everything in the dishwasher, pop in a detergent pack, let the machine do all the work. She said I deserve a break. I say I don’t deserve shit. But that’s the way life is; never what you expect—or want. Daydreaming out the kitchen window while my wife works the evening shift at JC Penney’s—a perfume spritzer I think they’re called— doesn’t help. In the mornings she waits tables at the Waffle Shack on Main.

This evening I’m finishing up the breakfast dishes while tonight’s dinner simmers on the stove; a pork chop recipe I found on the internet. A Blue jay stares at me through the kitchen window. I wonder if it can think like I think. Does it have hopes and dreams like I used to? A train’s whistle blows somewhere in the distance. A picture of a conductor, all muscle with soot coated overalls, fills my mind. I imagine a calloused hand tugging at the whistle string and glance longingly where my left hand used to be. I don’t see it as a problem, though. Doing dishes with one hand is just like doing them with two, only slower.

At a quarter to nine Susan comes in with a mind bending array of perfumes following her into the kitchen. She kisses me on a scarred cheek, barely suppressing a yawn behind her tired smile, then eyes the pork chops with only mild interest. Mechanically, she lugs her plate to the table. I picture the conductor again, wondering if he has a wife to go home to, and two hands to hold her tight.

Susan says something to me, her voice barely audible over the sound of her fork sliding around her plate, pushing her pork chop from one side to the other. She wants me to call the electric company tomorrow and see if they’ll take a partial payment. She says she wants me to do it because I have a kind voice, but that’s not the real reason. I see the apprehension on her face when she tells me to mention to them that I’m a veteran. I half-smile and tell her I’ll see what I can do.  

When I can bear the sadness in her eyes no longer, I gather the dishes and take my familiar spot at the kitchen sink. There’s a stiff south breeze blowing across the back yard. The porch light elongates the shadow of a tattered rope swing hanging from our oak tree. It was there when we bought the house two years ago, three months before I went to Iraq. I never bothered to take it down, maybe thinking one day my own child might use it, but the baby-making equipment went with the hand.

The train’s whistle moans again. I wonder where the conductor is off to now.         

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And in the other corner is their opponent who weighs in at 500 words and represents the YA Dystopian genre, let me introduce to you,  January Jones.

Blaze is already dead when I find him. My hand grazes the rough gatepost to check the latch, as my boot thuds against something I thought was just a shadow. He’s half buried in the snow, and I’m lucky I see him at all in the deep blue of an autumn twilight. In another hour the drifts will have completely covered him, hiding any evidence until the thaws of spring. Still, I have to look hard to see that there is evidence at all. The absence of blood doesn’t throw me. I know there are other ways to fell a beast.

I curse under my breath over forgotten mittens, as my bare fingers dive into the new and downy snow. Tucking dark strands of my long hair behind an ear with one hand, I find a rigid foot with the other. Then, breathing slowly to calm the sick feeling now rising, I begin dragging Blaze towards the house like a killed deer. My father will be sad to lose his favorite companion. He came to Pa as a puppy, fur all black and caramel, nose wet and dark like rain-soaked earth. At the thought of breaking the news, my stomach turns to stone. But as I walk in my slow trudge back to the house, fingers burning cold, dragging the weight behind me and trying not to stumble, my relief comes out in a puff. This time it’s only the dog. And I’m lucky for that, because next time it might be me buried lifeless in the snow.

Ours is the only house outside of the wall. Technically it’s part of the wall—the back of our stone cabin is built into our city’s great protection. And even though we tell ourselves that this makes our home safe, we live our lives jutting into that bleak space just before the forest, sticking out like a blemish on the face of Drosera.

As I plod back towards our modest home, I eye the forest. The depths are still, as if they have frozen just as I’ve tried to catch them coming for me. The fog of my gray breath hangs between us. I search into the webs of bare branches, but only darkness stares back. A chill that has nothing to do with the weather sweeps through my body, and I pull my gaze away. I’d rather live on the inside, but my father’s job doesn’t afford that luxury. The sentinels are the strength, but the gatekeeper is the steward. My father’s shifts are long and unheralded. But he helps keeps the city safe, which is valiant enough for me.

I drop Blaze on the porch, his leg falling with a thud. The sound makes the stone in my stomach churn. My numb hands push wearily against the steel reinforcements of our heavy cabin door. Fire glow greets me as I breathe in the familiar smells of mulled cider and stewing meat. Shedding my worn leather boots, I cross the threshold.

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As with every WRiTE CLUB bout, anyone can vote for their favorite writing sample…just make sure to sign up on the Linky Tool located HERE first.

As were fond of saying, at WRiTE CLUB it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!