tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30028762022544932142024-03-13T02:45:51.182-07:00The Wordslayer ComethRandom Thoughts From a Semi-Regular Mind.GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-87494791594560809962023-10-27T10:25:00.000-07:002023-10-27T10:25:00.177-07:00Happy Halloween from 1986<p> Last week I was cleaning out some old files and I came across this short story I wrote for Halloween back in 1986. I was four years out of high school and just beginning my writing journey. I wasn't very good back then and there are those who will argue that I haven't gotten any better. I thought it might be fun to share the story here, knowing that it was written by a young man just beginning to learn his craft. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAQ_L2zd544zaoYTaxwt4sn8oXjgiZhDEyqN9m27SrCq5wX6scIXIplfYI9s0T9PKzVJrjJpuTZ0Jzeuz0aIi9m3iwPoXgeVccYxlafutJ0DiwDYiZ-EpR-WxdBJV0C_g2N0soNz-UCNzCN7bKJm2jS0fyT-8qCflMEpkbT-8_BtZLAJdM2mAXUPuDgs/s4032/20231027_101517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAQ_L2zd544zaoYTaxwt4sn8oXjgiZhDEyqN9m27SrCq5wX6scIXIplfYI9s0T9PKzVJrjJpuTZ0Jzeuz0aIi9m3iwPoXgeVccYxlafutJ0DiwDYiZ-EpR-WxdBJV0C_g2N0soNz-UCNzCN7bKJm2jS0fyT-8qCflMEpkbT-8_BtZLAJdM2mAXUPuDgs/s320/20231027_101517.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">CARVED<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">by<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Bill Wilbur<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Stephen Vale drove through the quiet
streets of his hometown of Middleboro, Massachusetts looking for a pumpkin.
Where once there had been Halloween decorations every October, now there were
bare, dark yards which seemed to hide the town’s demons even better. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Seven months ago, just ninety days after the
ball dropped in Time’s Square 200 miles away in New York, the idiot
conservatives in Washington DC had declared that Celebrating Halloween was now
against the law. As if the country didn’t have bigger problems, trick or
treating was now a federal offense. No more candy, no more jack-o-lanterns and
most definitely no more roaming the streets in costume.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Some folks called them ‘Candy Cops’, but that
was a little too cutesy for Stephen, he referred to them as ‘Pumpkin Police;
not much better perhaps, but easier to spit out with some attitude. He was an
old man now, and had no short supply of attitude. He’d worked hard his whole
life, got married, had a beautiful daughter, paid his taxes fairly and on time,
buried his wife five years ago only three days before their grandkids were
born.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">His family had always gone all out for
Halloween every year, and though some of those had been bad years, their spooky
decorations had always been a high point, something that pulled them all
together as a family when they began to drift. It was tradition, and no damned
law was going to take that away from him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Though his grandkids had been
trick-or-treating in the past, they’d been too young to fully grasp the
holiday. But they were five years old this year and they were beginning to
understand the holiday better. It pissed him off.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Stephen had lived a simple life, never paying
much attention to politicians and their idiocy. Middleboro was a small town and
the people there kept mostly to themselves. Big politics didn’t affect them
much one way or the other, so like every year before, he’d decorated his house
and yard with ghosts and witches and all manner of spooky creatures. They
hadn’t lasted a day. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">When Joe ‘Dog’ Canberry pulled up in front of
his home with three deputies behind him, Stephen thought maybe it was some sort
of joke.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Hey Joe, What do ya know?” Stephen came down
his porch steps from where he’d been hanging fake spider webs. He stuck out his
hand but the sheriff didn’t shake it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“What are you doing here, Steve?” The sheriff
asked. He stood there rigid amongst the zombies and ghouls with his hands
planted firmly on his hips.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Stephen dropped his hand. “What do you mean?”<br />
Sheriff Canberry gestured with
his hands all around the yard. “You can’t be doing all this.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Oh come on, Joe. Nobody cares.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Somebody cared enough to report you to the
national website.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“What?” Stephen asked. “Who? I’ve gone
fishing with damn near everyone in this town, you included. We’re all friends
here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“We got to confiscate all of it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Joe…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The sheriff stepped in close.
“Listen to me now. I got an early morning call from the Feds. They instructed
me to come here and arrest you, I’m not gonna do that, but the decorations have
to come with me. I have to put em in a pile out back of the station and set
fire to them. They want me to send them a video of it being done, Stephen.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “That’s a bit extreme don’t you
think?” Stephen asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “What’s extreme is, if I don’t send
them that video by five o’clock today, They’ll be at your door tomorrow morning
to take you into custody. You’ll do ten years in a federal lock-up just so they
can make an example out of you, and you’re too old for that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> So Stephen watched while his fishing
buddies, men who he called friends, tore down all of his decorations and carted
them all off in the back of their squad cars. All around him neighbors came out
of their houses to look and Stephen wondered which of them had contacted the
Feds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> He circled the town for what felt
like the twentieth time, enough so that he had driven all of its streets.
Pulling onto Maine Street, he crept forward at a slow pace. There were no cars
out this night before Halloween. Could he still call it that, or was that
outlawed as well?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> He stopped at the intersection of
Maine and Ash streets and sat idling for a beat. A left would take him past the
hospital toward home, and a right would take him out of town and to the
turnpike. He pondered for a long minute and the pull of the turnpike was almost
overwhelming when a strange, crooked man called to him from the mouth of an
alley Stephen didn’t remember ever seeing before. Not once in his seventy-six
years of living just around the corner.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The little man gestured with his
hand and Stephen rolled down the window of his truck.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “You the law?” The man’s voice
sounded like he had glass shards in his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Am I the law?” Stephen asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Yeah you. Did I stutter? C’mere for
a minute.”<br />
“What do you want? I don’t
have any money.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Don’t want no money.” The man
cackled. “Need your help is all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Stephen
pulled to the curb and turned off his truck. He debated for only a second
before he climbed out and crossed the street.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “What?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The little man grinned to show
blackened and stained teeth. “You lookin’ for a pumpkin?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Even if I was, I’m out of luck.
There probably isn’t a pumpkin for a hundred miles, and if there was, nobody
would dare sell it to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The old man cackled a broken glass
cackle. “You’re right. No one would dare sell you a pumpkin for fear you’d
carve it into a jack-o-lantern. We’ve all heard what happened at your house.”
The man grinned. “I’ve got a pumpkin and I’ll give it to ya.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The fine hairs on Stephen’s neck
stood up. “Why would you do that? What’s the catch?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Ain’t no catch!” the man screeched.
“Well, mayhap there is after all, mayhap there is, but not much of a one. You
want to see it or don’t ya?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Stephen wondered if he was being
watched, or if maybe he’d fallen asleep at the wheel of his truck and this was
some bizarre dream. He felt himself nodding at the crooked little man.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Follow me and keep up.” The man
scurried toward the mouth of the alley that shouldn’t be there, and Stephen
followed in a daze.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> As the shadows thickened, closing in
around them, Stephen thought he saw strange shapes in the darkness. At one
point he was sure a giant tentacle rose at least fifty feet into the air before
sinking back into the shadows. A low, constant moan, like wind through a
canyon, rebounded off the walls of the alley and built upon itself the deeper
they walked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Finally, the man stopped and
pointed. Sitting next to a dumpster against one wall, was the biggest pumpkin
Stephen had ever seen. Stephen knelt down for a better look and something
inside the dumpster thumped hard on the inner wall.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “How much?” Stephen asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Told ya,” The troll man said. “I
don’t want no money. You can have it for free.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Something inside the dumpster
slammed against the inner wall again hard enough to move it a few inches.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Stephen stood transfixed, staring at
the pumpkin. “And the catch?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The little man stepped forward and
rested a hand on the dumpster. “All you have to do is promise not to carve it.
Draw a face on it with a crayon if you want, that’s safe enough, but don’t
carve it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “I won’t promise that,” Stephen
said. “It’s the only reason I’d want the damn thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The troll man put a protective hand
on the pumpkin. Was he still a man or had he become something else?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Then I can’t let you have it. Good
day, sir.” The troll thing turned to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Wait!” Stephen said. “What’s wrong
with it? Why can’t I carve it?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “You can’t carve it because it’s
evil. It’s the Devil’s pumpkin stolen from the gardens of hell. Cutting into it
would open a portal and you wouldn’t survive it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “That’s crazy,” Stephen said.
“You’re insane.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The troll creature hissed, more
creature than man now. “Think what you want about me, but if you want it, you
have to promise.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Okay, okay, I promise. I’ll use
paint to decorate it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The troll produced an ancient paper
scroll and slowly unrolled it. Pulling a pen from somewhere he held it up to
Stephen. “Sign this transfer of ownership.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Stephen took the pen and bent to
sign, both of them knowing that he would break his promise.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The troll spirited away the scroll
as soon as Stephen lifted the pen from the paper. “I don’t care how you get it
out of here, but do it quickly.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Let me back my truck in right now.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> When Stephen backed up to the
pumpkin the crooked troll man was gone, and as he lifted the gourd into his
truck, something large stirred within the dumpster.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> With the turnpike no longer
beckoning him, Stephen drove straight home and pulled his truck into the
garage, away from the prying eyes of his neighbors. Struggling with every step,
he carried the pumpkin in though the kitchen and hoisted it up onto his dining
room table. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he reached for his phone
to call his daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Hi dad,” Carrie said when she
picked up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Are you bringing the twins over
tomorrow night?” Stephen asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “I don’t know, dad. Tomorrow is a
school night and, I mean, what’s the point now that they can’t trick or treat.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Look, I know Halloween is against
the law now, but I’ve got a pumpkin here bigger than my head. It’s just waiting
to be turned into a Jack-o-Lantern. Bring the kids over and we’ll all carve it
together inside the house.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Carrie paused. “That’s really sweet
of you, dad. But I can’t bring the kids. Have you been watching the news?
They’re executing people. I’m sorry but I don’t want my kids learning to be
criminals, and I don’t want them dead either.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “What do you mean dead?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “It was on the news. They executed a
family up in New Hampshire.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Nobody’ll know. They won’t find
out. Nobody will ever find out.” Stephen pleaded. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Everybody would, can’t you see
that?” Carrie said. “When they go to school the day after and tell all their
friends about the pumpkin they carved at Grandpa’s house. Agents will be at
your house by noon, and my kids will be taken from me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “They won’t tell anyone. We’ll tell
them not to. What do you say?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> “Dad, they’re only five. They’d be
too excited. They’ll tell everyone, they won’t be able to keep it in. I’m
sorry, but we won’t be over tomorrow.” There was a click when she hung up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Dammit!” Stephen screamed and threw the
phone across the room. She wouldn’t bring them. After all he’d gone through to
get the damn pumpkin in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Sitting heavy onto one of his dining
room chairs he put his head in his hands. “I’ll do it myself he whispered, and
he couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought the pumpkin whispered back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> As the evening wore on, his unease began
to grow. The pumpkin whispered nonstop but Stephen couldn’t make out the words.
Try as he might, he couldn’t bear to have the pumpkin out of his sight for more
than a few seconds at a time. After dinner, he carried the pumpkin into the den
so he could keep an eye on it while he watched TV. When he couldn’t stay awake
any longer, he placed it beneath a floor lamp in the corner of his bedroom, but
for most of the night sleep eluded him and he opened his eyes constantly to
make sure the pumpkin hadn’t moved closer to the bed somehow.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> The next morning, Stephen did his
best to try and ignore the pumpkin but around noon his nerves were cranked up
to a fever pitch. Rummaging around in the far back corner of his kitchen
cabinets produced a nearly full bottle of vodka. He hadn’t touched a drop in
years, not since his doctor had instructed him to lay off. He unscrewed the cap
as if he expected a snake to jump out at him but when none did, he raised the
bottle to his mouth and felt the old familiar burn run down his throat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> By the time he’d emptied half the
bottle, he had gotten himself back under some semblance of control. He spread
some old newspaper on the table and struggled to get the pumpkin in place.
“That creepy little guy was crazy.” He studied the pumpkin from all sides until
he decided on the perfect spot. “The Devil’s pumpkin from the gardens of hell.
HA!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> From the kitchen he retrieved the
largest knife he owned, a twelve inch carving knife, and went back to the
table. Holding the knife out to the pumpkin he said, “This knife is big enough
to take care of everything, including evil spirits.” He took another drink. “You ain’t nothing but
a big orange balloon an I’m gonna pop ya!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">He took another swig from the nearly empty
bottle and closed his eyes as he swallowed. He hadn’t realized how much he
missed the feeling only alcohol would bring. Opening his eyes he raised the
knife above his head and focused on a spot near the pumpkin stem.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Here it comes,” Stephen said. “Are you
ready?” He closed his eyes and brought the knife down. It sank in all the way
to the hilt. Stephen gripped the handle tight, waiting for something to happen.
When nothing did, he opened his eyes and let go of the knife which jutted from
the top of the pumpkin like a lone cactus on an orange desert.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“I knew it! I knew that man was crazy. Look
at you, I stuck a knife in you and you sat there and took it. Nothing happened.
Come on…come get me.” He sat completely still for a beat. “I knew you weren’t
no Devil Pumpkin. I wasn’t scared to stick ya.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Something thumped at his front door hard
enough to shake the window beside it and the pumpkin began to whisper.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Who’s there?” Stephen yelped and whirled
toward the door. “I ain’t scared.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And the whispers asked, ‘<i>Then why are you talking to a pumpkin</i>?’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That voice had been right next to his ear. He
looked all around the empty room but no one was there. “Must be the booze,” he
said as he turned back to the pumpkin. Picking up the knife from the table, he
raised it above his head. ‘<i>I already did
this</i>,’ he thought as he brought the knife down. <i>‘How did the knife get back on the table?’ </i>His mind screamed but it
was too late. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The orange of the pumpkin turned black. A
loud hissing noise came from the cut and a scalding steam poured out around the
blade. Stephen began to scream as the mist engulfed first his hand, and then
his wrist. When it reached his shoulder the mist expanded to cover his entire
body. His screams changed in pitch as the pain intensified and as he screamed,
the mist crawled up into his mouth and down his throat. His screams turned to a
low, choking gurgling sound and then stopped altogether. His eyes went wide<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Stephen reached out toward the pumpkin, which
stayed mockingly out of reach. With his other hand he clawed at his throat,
ripping the flesh and leaving bloody trails as they raked downward. One
fingernail caught his carotid artery and as blood pumped from his ruined
throat, he collapsed to the floor. As he fell, and before darkness claimed him,
he thought he heard a broken glass cackle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Excuse me, Sheriff?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Joe Canberry turned from the group of men he
was chatting with. “Yeah?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“My name’s Johnson. Homicide,” He flashed his
badge. “I understand you were first on scene.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Joe spat on the ground between his feet.
“Damndest thing I ever seen. Did you get a look at his face?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Johnson from homicide nodded. “I saw the body
before they loaded it into the ambulance.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“He don’t need an ambulance, he needs a
hearse,” Canberry said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Can you show me where you found the body?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sheriff Canberry led the way inside and
stopped at the dining room. “He was on the floor there near the table in that
pool of blood. The knife we believe to be the murder weapon was leaning against
that pumpkin there on the table. We’re holding it for evidence. Looks like he
was gonna carve that pumpkin when somebody decided to carve him up instead.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Johnson stared at the scene for a moment.
“Can I see the knife?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Sure.” Canberry stepped to the door.
“BOBBY!” He yelled. “Bring in that knife for a minute.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">After a few seconds, Bobby, obviously a
rookie, came into the room carrying the knife in an evidence bag.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“This is my boot, Bobby. I’m his training
officer. He’s having a helluva a first week.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Bobby held out the evidence bag. “Here you
go, Sheriff. Keep it as long as you want, it gives me the creeps. I mean, did
you see his face?” The young man’s voice rose an octave.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“That’ll be all, Bobby.” Canberry said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Jesus! They carved him up like a
Jack-O-Lantern!” Bobby cried. “His eyes and nose were triangles! And his jagged
mouth…and his teeth, they were gone, just gone. We haven’t found them
anywhere.” Bobby doubled over and stumbled out the door to be sick.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Here you go.” Johnson held the knife out to
Canberry.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“You’ll have to excuse him,” Canberry said.
“He’s young and this is his first week.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">They stood there and looked out the door
where Bobby had gone. “Think he’ll be back for week two?” Johnson asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Would you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">They remained side by side for a moment
longer and then Canberry said, “If you don’t need ma anymore, I’ve got a report
to file.” He headed for the door.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Send me a copy?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Canberry turned back to him. “You got it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“He never even cut into it, did he?” Johnson
asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Into what?” The sheriff asked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">‘The pumpkin.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Canberry looked past him to the pumpkin on
the table, it was the brightest orange he’d ever seen. “Nope, never touched it,
why?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“I think I’ll take it home. My wife makes a
helluva a pumpkin pie.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">END<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-5728338065594589092023-05-16T11:27:00.003-07:002023-06-14T11:02:01.184-07:00Outlaw Tales Submissions Sought<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4450Dgn4Qq7aamvk7THITK277UJgTHceaGGbXDf_Pz87Cd7G--f8QN4gjIXx-Qzj2Sv0x_fEGDU3oOOPzC-rQK_3ZYoIfD2Wf6XKFpsO9aqJt868LW6ih1tCD26kj6b3HA2Lu7X2_uwOuIZw0TBY_CzRnFtdBa0_j3VI9nYPBqIzDMc9epA3k9Vox" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="450" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4450Dgn4Qq7aamvk7THITK277UJgTHceaGGbXDf_Pz87Cd7G--f8QN4gjIXx-Qzj2Sv0x_fEGDU3oOOPzC-rQK_3ZYoIfD2Wf6XKFpsO9aqJt868LW6ih1tCD26kj6b3HA2Lu7X2_uwOuIZw0TBY_CzRnFtdBa0_j3VI9nYPBqIzDMc9epA3k9Vox" width="160" /></a></div><p></p><p><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">I am planning a series of anthologies about old west outlaws. These will not officially be associated with any organization. It is an idea I had and it is a collection that I would read. I invite all writers to submit stories they feel would fit.</span></p>Seeking submissions of traditional western short stories about Billy the Kid. Billy remains one of the most polarizing figures of the American west. Was he a Robin Hood or a killer. Perhaps he was something in between. <br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Stories should be no longer than 5000 words.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Deadline for submission is August 1, 2023</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Stories must be in standard story format: 1" margins...double spaced...indented chapters...etc.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Bill Wilbur will choose the final stories to be included in the anthology. upcoming anthologies will feature Butch Cassidy, Sundance, Doc Holliday, etc</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Payment is two contributor's copy and a 30% author discount on extra copies</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Submissions should be in the form of an email attachment as a .doc file.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Editor will not significantly change your work, with the exception of punctuation.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Submit only your best work. Correct grammar and spelling is appreciated. All genres considered. You may or may not receive feedback. If the story isn't ready, don't send it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Late submissions will not be accepted.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 15.84px;">Acceptance/ rejection notification will be emailed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;" /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84px;">Questions should be sent to: gnubill@yahoo.com</blockquote>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-23782316896645419952016-02-03T20:44:00.005-08:002016-02-03T20:45:26.635-08:00NYC Midnight 2016 Round One - Heat 20So for this year's NYCMidnight contest, I had one week to create a short story based on the criteria they gave me. I was in heat 20 in round one.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
I had <strong>THRILLER/A FLOOD/A TEENAGER IN LOVE</strong></div>
<br />
Here is what I came up with, I would love any feedback you would care to share, be it good or bad!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>PAPER HEARTS<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">BY<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">BILL WILBUR<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie Monroe lay on her bed cutting
paper hearts out of red construction paper and listening to Love Nation, her
new favorite group. Their song, ‘The Beauty of You’ was on repeat. It was the
most beautiful song she’d ever heard, and described perfectly her feelings for
Jake. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At sixteen she knew how childish it
all was but didn’t care, she was in love. On each paper heart she’d written Jake
Logan’s name in some form. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie
and Jake forever.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">FM
+ JL.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie
loves Jake. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">And on one, the one that she kept
hidden, she had written <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankie Logan</i>,
as if they were already married. He’d been her childhood crush and now he was
something more. They’d been neighbors their entire lives, and they had always
been friends, but after the accident, Jake had been so sweet and gentle and
kind they became something more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The car that had stolen her ability to
walk had been driven by a man named Ernie Blatt. She had been out jogging down
a country road usually devoid of traffic early on a Sunday morning. Blatt had
been texting when his car crossed the lanes. Police found cocaine residue in
the car, but Blatt tested negative. She’d lay in a coma for thirteen months and
awoke to find Jake sitting in a chair. Her back was broken and though an
operation might help, it was very expensive for the small chance it offered.
Her parents just didn’t have the money. Ernie Blatt suffered a suspended
license and a fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">She’d cried for months, and Jake was
there through all of it. Slowly she accepted that her life would be different.
When she returned to school she became ‘Wheelchair Girl’. Most of her friends
avoided her and when they saw each other in the halls it was awkward and
strained, as if she was suddenly a different person instead of a broken version
of the same girl they all knew. Her true friends found their way back and she
made new friends. Slowly her life pieced itself back together – forever changed
but in many ways better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">She joined the swim team as a way to
build upper body strength. It had been Jake’s idea. He was captain, and every
day at the pool he lifted her from the chair and carried her into the water.
Frankie loved swimming. It freed her from the confines of her chair and made
her feel normal for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The song ended and, after a pause,
started up again:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My
heart feels<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brand new<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And my eyes can’t contain<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The beauty of you<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake had sung it in the car yesterday,
and though he hadn’t exactly sung it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to</i>
her, he had definitely sung it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i>
her. Picking up her phone, she checked it again. Rereading his text from this
morning still caused butterflies in her stomach. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘I want to see you. I have something to tell you.’</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Frankie hugged her pillow. They
hadn’t said it yet; those three big words. She wondered if he would say I love
you first, or if she would blurt it out in her excitement. She sung the rest of
the song at the top of her lungs. It wasn’t until the song ended, in that
momentary silence before it repeated, that she heard the siren.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">An advance warning system, the siren blared
from outside. Frankie threw off her headphones. She became suddenly aware of a
thunderous roar coming from outside. Looking out the window she saw a wall of muddy
water as tall as a grown man tearing through town like Godzilla through
Tokyo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flood lifted a Volkswagen Bug
and flipped it in the air. The bug landed on top of a cinder block wall before
it teetered and fell into the yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As she watched, the tall oak in Mrs.
Cubberson’s yard, which had stood as long as she remembered, was ripped from
the ground, and as it fell, it hit the corner of the house’s roof shattering
it. For a few seconds, the tree lay wedged between the ground and the house as
water rushed over and around it, but the current was too strong and sent the
massive tree like a spear down the street. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie pulled herself to the edge of
the bed and into her chair. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had to
get upstairs. Pushing herself toward the door, she twisted the knob just as the
water slammed into the house, a solid wall four feet high. The windows on that
side shattered and several shards cut her skin. Water churned into the room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Pushing her wheelchair was impossible as
the water slammed into her, nearly knocking her over. The whole house shuddered.
Frankie’s heart raced. She had to make it to the stairs, had to get to higher
ground. Her parents were both in the city and Jake was at swim practice.
Whatever she needed to do to survive, she would have to do alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Her bed’s pillows floated past as the
water rose to her chest, shoving and pulling at her. Pushing out of the chair,
she let herself be lifted by the cold roiling water. The water’s current was
angry and formed an artificial riptide that tried to suck her below the
surface. As she started to swim a paper heart sailed across her vision. She
jabbed at the water with powerful strokes and dragging her useless legs behind
her, she reached the stairs just as Mrs. Cubberson’s oak tree slammed through
the front door and wedged itself there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The influx of water hit Frankie with
such force she lost her grip. Her head dipped below the surface. She began to
panic. Her mouth filled with the foul-smelling water and she gagged and
coughed. She found the newel post and pulled herself against the current. The
water was rising too fast, but it worked to her advantage and she allowed it to
lift her toward the top of the stairs as she guided herself up the railing. She
reached the landing on the second floor and pulled herself across the hall. The
house creaked and groaned under the water’s onslaught and Frankie wondered if
it would hold.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The water lapped at the landing of the
second floor but for the moment did not breach it. The carpet soaked up the
flood’s edge but so far she was safe. Frankie pulled herself to the hallway
closet and muscled out the folded wheelchair inside. Pulling herself into it,
she rolled into her parent’s bedroom. She tried the phone, but it was dead. Her
own cell phone was under water downstairs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Rolling to the window, she pushed it
open and her breath caught in her throat. The entire town was underwater. Only
the roofs of the houses were visible. The leading edge of the water had passed
them, but the flood still carried all sorts of debris in its current. Frankie
saw toys and mailboxes and plant life of every kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were larger things as well. Tires and
screen doors, and what looked like part of someone’s deck all careened and
crashed their way down the street. The gas station sign from the corner tumbled
lazily in the water, still advertising gas at $2.45 a gallon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amidst all of it, navigating through all the
junk, Jake was swimming toward her, pulling at the water with the long,
powerful strokes that had earned him the spot of captain on their swim team. A
rope was looped over his head and shoulders and trailed out behind him. At the
end of it was a dark square package roughly the size of a toaster and wrapped
tightly with plastic. He was swimming with the current but dug his hands into
the water, pulling desperately toward her. Frankie’s heart swelled. She loved
him and her heart filled with that certainty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">When he had closed half the distance,
Jake stopped to give his arms a break. Bobbing in the water, letting the
current pull him slowly, his eyes found her in the window and he smiled, waving.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The man in the boat came around the corner
of the street. Frankie began to think that everything would be ok. Rescue
efforts had obviously begun. The man wore a rain slicker, and when he spotted
Jake, he turned the boat directly for him. Jake’s expression changed and he
spun around with just enough time to dive below the surface before the boat
plowed into him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Resurfacing, Jake began swimming
frantically toward Frankie’s house as the boat circled in a wide arc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Jake!” Frankie screamed. “Look out!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As fast as he was, Jake was no match for
the outboard motor. The boat bore down on him and he dove again, but the man in
the slicker killed the engine, leaned over and grabbed the rope around Jake’s
shoulder, pulling the package in beside him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the boat’s momentum carried them forward, Jake reappeared trying to
slip out of the loop around his shoulders, but the stranger yanked the rope
tight, pinning Jake to the side of the vessel. Swinging out a leg, the boat man
kicked Jake in the temple. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie saw Jake’s head snap back and
screamed. Boat Man drew back and kicked again and Jake’s body went limp. Pulling
a knife from beneath his slicker, the man in the boat leaned down and cut the
rope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Leave him alone!” Frankie screamed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The man in the slicker looked up and
Frankie recognized him instantly. It was Ernie Blatt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake leapt from the water grabbing him by
the shirt. Letting the weight of his own body do most of the work, Jake pulled
the man overboard, capsizing the small boat. He shimmied out from the rope tied
around him as Blatt gripped him around the neck. The package floated away in
the current.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As Jake tried to fight, kicking his
strong legs to break Blatt’s hold on him, Blatt jammed the blade deep into his
back. Screaming, Jake spun around to fight but Blatt swung the knife’s handle into
Jake’s temple twice, knocking him out cold. The man let go and Jake’s body
floated away face down, leaving a cloud of blood behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“JAKE!” Frankie screamed, sobbing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Blatt considered Frankie for a long
second and a spark of recognition flooded through him. Looking around, he saw
the package as it floated toward the doorway of the girl’s house. It caught for
a moment on the doorjamb and then floated inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a moment’s hesitation, he started
swimming after it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie backed her wheelchair away from
the window. She needed to find a way to protect herself. She needed a weapon. Blatt
had killed Jake and now he was coming for her. She pulled all the drawers from
her father’s nightstand and dresser but the best she could find was a pair of
toenail clippers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Girly.” Ernie Blatt’s voice came from
downstairs. “I’m comin’ ta see you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie rifled through her mom’s things
and then through the closet. Nothing. From downstairs she heard Blatt sloshing
through the water, and then the creak of the bannister on the stairwell. She
pushed her way through the ankle high water into the bathroom. Her father’s
razor sat near the sink but would offer about as much help as her mom’s curling
iron and toothbrush. She looked at the small window but there was no way she
could get through it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Where are you, Girly?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie grabbed the shower curtain and
pulled it down. The aluminum curtain rod crashed down on top of her and she
quickly slipped the rings off. Dropping the rod on the floor, she backed over
the end three times with her chair, flattening it. Rotating it a quarter of a
turn she ran over it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A shadow filled the bathroom door.
“Hello, Girly.” Blatt stood there holding the small package to his chest. “I
remember you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“GET OUT!” Frankie screamed. “HELP!
Somebody help me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Blatt sloshed in. “Ain’t nobody gonna
hear you, Girly. You looked out that window. Ain’t nobody around to help you.
They’re all dead or treadin’ water.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie sobbed. “You killed Jake!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, well Loverboy took what didn’t
belong to him.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He patted the plastic-wrapped
package.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“Get away from me!” Frankie screamed.
She lunged out of the chair to the floor. She needed him off balance. It was
her only chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Blatt set the package down on the toilet
lid and moved closer to her. “That accident ruined my life,” he said. He lunged
and his hands gripped Frankie’s throat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Gasping for air, Frankie lifted the
shower curtain rod and jammed it into Blatt’s side. She put all of her strength
into it, and although she had aimed for his chest, she felt the satisfying give
as the point of her spear pierced his skin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Blatt grunted with the impact and let go
of her throat with one hand to grab the rod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie tried to squirm free but his
hand was still like a vice on her throat. She pushed with all she had, but
Blatt slowly pulled the rod out. He let out a long gasp and a short chuckle
escaped him. “Not today, Girly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A scream rose up behind Blatt as Jake
slammed into him from behind, forcing Blatt down onto the spear, which slid
through smoothly, piercing the liver and exiting out the back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Blatt screamed and stumbled backward
swinging out at Jake. He grabbed at the spear, which now had blood gushing out
around it, but could not pull it free. “Damn cripple.” He stumbled backward through
the bathroom doorway and landed on the hallway floor, leaning against the wall.
He coughed and blood sprayed from his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake leaned down to Frankie. “Are you
ok?” He was dripping wet and blood soaked his shirt. There was a cut on his
left temple and he winced as the blood leaked into his eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Through her tears, Frankie said. “You
look terrible.” And she began sobbing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake lowered himself down next to her
and held her until she stopped crying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie looked up at him. “What
happened?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake pointed to the package on the
toilet seat. “I stole that from Blatt. It’s drug money. I found out he’s been
selling to the kids at school for years. I thought maybe it would be enough to
pay for your surgery. Maybe we can dance together at the senior prom, unless
they put me in jail. We’ll have to tell someone when we get out of here and deal
with the consequences.” He reached over and plucked something from her
shoulder. It was red and in the shape of a heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Frankie’s tears started again. She took
some time to process everything, and then she smiled. “I love you!” There it
was, she’d blurted it out before he could say it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jake kissed her. “I love you too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">END<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-53104848402454200362016-01-28T13:32:00.000-08:002016-07-15T17:23:29.801-07:00Call for Submissions: Carnival Anthology<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAkW_Pndb4JFov_Hby3gAuL-2qY7_pgOY_kfzFy-_OHHVV7m58btuiUAhuV_ruhyphenhyphenZJj8sIkkWQvqv9KwUJgPUX8M79xUzCxMtwy1dxKlt3Tx_fmFDubHxw9P6tprSY69uSbbxk_PDdyY0/s1600/Crazy+MailiCopyright.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAkW_Pndb4JFov_Hby3gAuL-2qY7_pgOY_kfzFy-_OHHVV7m58btuiUAhuV_ruhyphenhyphenZJj8sIkkWQvqv9KwUJgPUX8M79xUzCxMtwy1dxKlt3Tx_fmFDubHxw9P6tprSY69uSbbxk_PDdyY0/s320/Crazy+MailiCopyright.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I am planning another anthology. This will not officially be associated with any organization. It is an idea I had for an anthology and it is a collection that I would read. I invite all writers to submit stories they feel would fit.<br />
<br />
<i>Prompt: There is a carnival that appears overnight in a field somewhere in the Midwest. You know the kind...there is something off about it...something wrong. It wasn't there yesterday. Your character(s) visit the carnival, and encounter the mysterious Celestial Raven whose role at the carnival is unclear...she may be a mystic...she may be the owner or manager...she may be evil or good...and she may very well be the soul of the carnival itself. Your Character(s) must experience something odd or strange or unexplainable...light or dark.... </i><br />
<br />
Stories should be no longer than 3500 words.<br />
<br />
Deadline for submission is July 31st 2016<br />
<br />
Stories must follow the writing prompt.<br />
<br />
Stories must be in standard story format: 1" margins...double spaced...indented chapters...etc.<br />
<br />
Bill Wilbur will choose the final stories to be included in the anthology.<br />
<br />
Payment is one contributor's copy<br />
<br />
Submissions should be in the form of an email attachment as a .doc file.<br />
<br />
Editor will not significantly change your work, with the exception of punctuation.<br />
<br />
Submit only your best work. Correct grammar and spelling is appreciated. All genres considered. You may or may not receive feedback. If the story isn't ready, don't send it.<br />
<br />
Late submissions will not be accepted.<br />
<br />
Acceptance/ rejection notification will be emailed.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Questions should be sent to: gnubill@yahoo.com</blockquote>
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-30577473994600296292015-10-20T17:44:00.000-07:002015-10-20T17:44:26.240-07:00Five Strange Things You Don't Know About Me<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I can't gargle. Nope. I can't. Every single time in my life that I've tried I came close to drowning myself. I get the concept of gargling, I really do. Water in the mouth, tilt the head back, bounce the water at the edge of the throat, start gagging uncontrollably, spit water out and hock up a lung for the next half hour. I always end up there. Sputtering, coughing, gasping in convulsions. People around me try to perform CPR and the Heimlich maneuver. It would be funny if I wasn't drowning over here. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Take one look at me and you can pretty much see that I am not athletic. I am in no shape to exercise. But there are a few things I can do fairly well in that world. In High School I was on the basketball team. I was a decent player, but never a star. I only had one shot, but it was a beauty. Deep down in the corner, in three point territory at the side of the basket, I had a sweet jump shot that went in more than not. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I can dive pretty well. As a kid I was a fearless swimmer, and soon took to diving. jackknife, swan, high dive. I can even flip off a diving board. My form and technique are pretty good.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I can serve overhand in volleyball accurately. I learned that way, I've never done it underhand. I'm not a bad player either.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I'm not ticklish, never have been. Back of the arms, knees, feet...nothing. I don't get it. I mean, I'm a pretty happy guy, I like to laugh. Maybe I don't need to be ticklish because I laugh too much as it is. Who knows?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Along those same lines, until I met Evelyn, I had never experienced Goosebumps, Goose Pimples, Goose flesh, or any other waterfowl type sensation. About a month into our courtship, during an emotional, deeply felt embrace, my skin erupted with an amazing rush of sensitivity. Problem is they didn't look anything like geese.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I was struck by lightning. I was eighteen or nineteen, driving my 1980 Mustang hatchback. That baby was light blue metallic, four cylinders, and could go from zero to sixty in just under four days. A nasty storm was pounding down, visibility was murky and flashes sporadically turned night into day. After white-knuckling my way home for over an hour, I was finally a half block from my house. I was just starting to relax when lightning struck the hood of my car and the intensity of all that electricity engulfed my car in a fireball of blinding light. Thankfully I wasn't touching metal and as quickly as it came, the lightning was gone. I pulled into my driveway, ran in and breathlessly told my mom who didn't believe me. Parents. Sheesh.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I saw a UFO once. My sister and I were flying without our parents back home from vacation. I must have been nine or ten. I was scared to death of flying when I was a kid. I would get pale and talk non-stop to mask my nervousness. But my big sis was with me and she promised to keep me busy the whole way. Twenty minutes into our late-night flight she was sound asleep. Head back, mouth open kinda sleeping. I did my best not to lose it. I read the on-board magazine...twice. I looked around our cabin a lot. I stared out the little window into the inky darkness. Suddenly a light appeared, some distance away but very bright. It stayed alongside for a bit, then shot forward out of sight ahead of us. After several seconds, it returned for about a minute before slowly drifting straight up and out of my view from the window. I shook my sister awake and explained what I saw. She turned away from me, pulled the window shade down, and went back to sleep. </span>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-75439234359138898692015-10-16T22:36:00.000-07:002015-10-16T22:36:05.903-07:00Dahlia and Other Stories<div class="_4-u3 _5cla" style="border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border-top-style: none; padding: 16px;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_LQoekYDQCrYxAd3DFVwfN1QYJlhdwngFCoQLRPWsmzLZJKUHWIA7Ero6_pAVzbSAiaWX-qly5pfo_YBoejAOYLMn9Xc3WdIZQtQ1AoesXjf45bdBLZj4QiXWtgKyLthGLw8c_AUmqQ/s1600/instaDahlia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_LQoekYDQCrYxAd3DFVwfN1QYJlhdwngFCoQLRPWsmzLZJKUHWIA7Ero6_pAVzbSAiaWX-qly5pfo_YBoejAOYLMn9Xc3WdIZQtQ1AoesXjf45bdBLZj4QiXWtgKyLthGLw8c_AUmqQ/s320/instaDahlia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Dahlia and Other Stories</h2>
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I thought I would give you an idea of what you can find within the pages of my new book,<strong>Dahlia and Other Stories</strong>. There are a total of fifteen stories, including the first story I ever wrote as well as the shortest story I have ever written. Here is a brief synopsis of the stories.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Dahlia</strong><br />
An ex-hooker is hired by the oldest woman in the world to commit murder in the nursing home.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Placebo</strong><br />
A psychiatrist must lock himself into a panic room with a patient who thinks he will spontaeously combust without his medication. Is it getting warm in here?<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>War Paint</strong><br />
A short vampire story where the hunters dress like clowns to hide their identities<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Sandtrappings</strong><br />
A horror story set at a golf course, where three friends find themselves in a classic battle of good vs. evil <br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Cherry Bomb Slushee</strong><br />
A woman revisits the sight where she murdered her boyfriend years before only to find him waiting.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Man or Mouse</strong><br />
Mickey kills Minnie<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Feel the Burn</strong><br />
When a man thinks the billboard ouside his window is speaking to him, he gets one chance at revenge against a childhood bully<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>I Am Not God</strong><br />
A haunted ATM may be one man's salvation, or perhaps his ruination<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Shoe Envy</strong><br />
Cinderella covets a certain pair of ruby slippers but Dorothy wont give them up without a fight<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Penny</strong><br />
How much luck can a single penny hold, and at what cost to the person who finds it?<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Anniversary</strong><br />
A tense moment inside a convenience store becomes a moment of quiet triumph for a lost woman.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Stammer of the Gods</strong><br />
A band of misfit vikings search for the elusive golden butterfly<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>When Magic Dies</strong><br />
Where does magic goes when it dies and what happens to the boy who is burdened with the answer?<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Dust Bunnies</strong><br />
I was challenged to write a story in 100 words. This is the result<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Hands Off</strong><br />
This is the first story I ever wrote that I shared with others. I was fourteen.<br />
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GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-26868065245748954102015-10-16T09:10:00.002-07:002015-10-16T09:10:56.931-07:00A Humble Cowboy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9n0jTKsQv717QzSabglXB0HDhL8nq7EGp_alLTfC7aD_Vs1oxO4G6J0_xWMHp7Swk-rp4EoYg32OHjypJ9lVFrOJPtwZd8lh8_OuyskvgiHf7dakSVOMC2xjr5gRZP27CiVpkG_dCDn0/s1600/instaSaragosa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9n0jTKsQv717QzSabglXB0HDhL8nq7EGp_alLTfC7aD_Vs1oxO4G6J0_xWMHp7Swk-rp4EoYg32OHjypJ9lVFrOJPtwZd8lh8_OuyskvgiHf7dakSVOMC2xjr5gRZP27CiVpkG_dCDn0/s320/instaSaragosa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I am a writer, most of you know that, and while I write many different things, I always return to the old west. I grew up watching westerns with my father. It was something we did. He was also a fan of western novels, Louis Lamour being his favorite and I read them all because of him. The old west is a comfortable place to me. </div>
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When my father's health began to fail, I rushed to finish SARAGOSA so that he could read a western written for him. I am happy to say he enjoyed it and was proud of his oldest boy. If that had been the end of it, I would have been happy.</div>
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But that was not where the SARAGOSA journey ended. A small production company optioned my even smaller book with plans to turn it into a feature film. Finding financial backers for a western has proven to be difficult and so the movie process creeps forward at a pace even a snail could beat. If that had been the end of it, I would have been happy.</div>
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In 2012, I spoke with my old high school about doing a staged reading of the script. To my delight, they were interested. I asked the producer from the production company who'd optioned my book if he could become involved to help work with the students, giving them practical guidance and direction.</div>
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In February 2013, I was honored to be a part of SARAGOSA: The Stage Production. Seventeen students took on the daunting task of putting a performance together in only three and a half weeks. Stop and think about that for a minute. A normal play takes months of preparation and rehearsals to pull off. The students at Northview High School did it in three and a half weeks! They had a total of eight rehearsals. They'd been told that they could carry their scripts with them on stage during the performance, but on opening night, not a single one of them used the scripts, they had memorized a 62 page script!</div>
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Six months ago, I didn't know any of these fine, young actors, nor did they know me. SARAGOSA wasn't on their radar. But now I feel like they are all a part of my extended family. These days I have nearly twenty new friends, like neices and nephews I never knew I had. </div>
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We all bonded during those crazy weeks leading up to the performance. There is a term, Brotherhood by Fire. It describes a group of people who bond over an intense shared experience. That is what we had. There were long hours and curve balls thrown at us the entire time, but in the end, these amazing kids, my new extended family shined like the superstars they are. I am honored to have gotten to know them. </div>
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No matter where the SARAGOSA journey goes from here, no matter who may play those characters in the film version, these young actors did it first, and theirs are the faces I will see when I think of the characters from SARAGOSA. If this is the end of it, I will be happy.</div>
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The movie production is a go! The production company is working full steam to bring my traditional western to life...stay tuned to this blog as I chronicle that journey!</div>
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-71780024535948082782015-10-01T15:01:00.002-07:002015-10-01T21:50:16.256-07:00CHWG Anthology Project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello all and welcome! As a member of the Coffee House Writer's Group, you have the opportunity to be a part of our next collective anthology project! The purpose of this anthology is to showcase the talents of our writers while raising awareness for the Coffee House Writers Group to the public. My name is Bill Wilbur and I am a member of the group. Christine asked if I would act as editor for this anthology. I currently have four published books, two of which are short story collections. Here is the information you need to submit your work to this collection:<br />
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Theme: <i>It is present day. Your character(s) find themselves in a deserted town in the Arizona desert called Beggars Crossing where red cliffs loom up all around, keeping the town hidden. They encounter a mysterious old man who sports a long white beard and walks slightly hunched over using a cane. The town shows signs of habitation, but the old man is the only person your character(s) see. It is up to you why they are there, but before they leave, your character(s) must experience magic, either good or evil, and they must accidentally leave something behind when they go. Do not try to explain who the old man is, he should remain a mystery. Character, plot, and conflict are all up to you.</i><br />
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Stories should be no longer than 3000 words.<br />
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Deadline for submission is November 15th 2015<br />
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Stories must follow the writing prompt.<br />
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Bill Wilbur will choose the final stories to be included in the anthology.<br />
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Author agrees to donate their work to the anthology.<br />
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Submissions should be in the form of an email attachment as a .doc file.<br />
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No late submissions will be accepted.<br />
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Editor will not significantly change your work, with the exception of punctuation.<br />
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Submit only your best work. Correct grammar and spelling is appreciated. All genres considered.<br />
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100% of the proceeds will benefit CHWG Organization.<br />
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Late submissions will not be accepted.<br />
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Questions should be sent to: gnubill@yahoo.com<br />
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EndGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-10548919308727948852014-03-31T21:18:00.002-07:002014-03-31T21:21:14.856-07:00NYC Midnight: Round TwoI was so excited to make it through the first round of the NYC Midnight short story contest, and then I realized round two would require me to write a 2000 word story in only three days. When I got my assignment, I think I actually groaned out loud. My assignment for round two was to write a fantasy story that involved dancing and a repossessor. What the hell was I going to do with that and how on earth was I going to do it in three days? What I came up with is the story you are about to read. I would love your feedback...did you like it...did you hate it?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Shoe Envy</span></strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">by</span></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">Bill WIlbur</span></strong></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When it came to fairytale kisses,
Snow had them all beat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had been in
a coma until her prince leaned in for a closer look and accidentally brushed
his lips against hers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was the
truth of it, no matter what the storybooks say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had been an accident. But it is true that
kiss woke her from eternal slumber and became THE KISS, the one smooch by which
all others were judged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When it came to swords, there was
the mighty Excalibur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hair was Rapunzel’s
thing and you couldn’t think of a little prick without thinking of Sleeping
Beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when it came to shoes, there
was where the waters grew murky, the ocean, by the way, belonged to Ariel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cinderella had her glass slippers,
and while they were beautiful and considered THE SHOES by nearly everyone,
there was another pair, belonging to another girl in a faraway land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cinderella had long heard tales of the ruby
slippers and the girl who clicked her heels incessantly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There
were days when Cinderella could think of nothing else. She hated sharing the
spotlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If shoes were to be her
thing, than they should be hers alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She shouldn’t have to share the glory with some farm girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shoe envy can be an ugly thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So
troubled was Cinderella, that she’d summoned her fairy Godmother, who arrived,
as usual, in a giant bubble, which floated through the air propelled by the
soft flutter of hundreds of bluebirds all flapping their wings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the bubble landed softly in the courtyard,
the birds began dropping onto the grass, their tiny chests huffing and
puffing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Glinda
stepped through the slick transparent wall with a loud pop as the bubble
burst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She made her way up the path to
the castle, gingerly stepping around the passed out birds on the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Cindy!”
She squealed as Cinderella appeared in that doorway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
ran down the hill toward her fairy Godmother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Glinda!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">They
embraced and made fake kissy noises in each other’s ears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I’m
so happy you could come,” Cinderella said as they walked up the hill, the heels
of her glass slippers sinking ungracefully into the soft hillside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heels on a slipper, who does that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It has been such a long time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Well,
how could I resist your note.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Glinda
smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearing her throat she recited,
“Glinda, come at once. It involves shoes. Love, Cindy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Smiling,
Cinderella said, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I’m
a girl aren’t I?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shoes are like men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t have just one pair.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Behind
her, the bluebirds were recovering and beginning to flutter around in circles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
led her fairy godmother into the castle, explaining her situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They plopped down on Cindy’s bed and stared
at the ceiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Those ruby slippers
should be mine, they’re too fancy for a farm girl to wear when slopping the hogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Be
careful, dear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last girl to say that
melted.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cindy
pouted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There must be some way.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Well,”
Glinda said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I could ask Dorothy to
give them to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I doubt she
would.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“You…you
know her?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Of
course, dear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I‘m her fairy Godmother
too.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
sat up in the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All this time I
thought you were mine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I
am, Dear,” Glinda said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“No,”
Cindy responded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“ONLY mine. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know I had to share you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“You
should know something else,” Glinda touched Cinderella on the cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I gave Dorothy the ruby slippers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were a gift after she dealt with a
certain unpleasantness in Oz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give all
my girls shoes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“How
many of us are there?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cinderella asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Oh,
too many to count, Dear.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
jumped up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You can ask for them back!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Glinda
shook her head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No, I couldn’t do
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A gift, once given, is forever.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“But,
I’d give you back my glass slippers if you asked me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Glinda
smiled, patting Cindy lightly on the arm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I’m sure of that, Dear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
Dorothy is a sportier type of girl…made of heartier stock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is stubborn and self-righteous, and she
holds on to what is hers. She does have a bit of a gambling problem
though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t resist a bet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s how the wizard got her to steal the
witch’s broom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
slumped back onto the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Isn’t there
any way?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Glinda
thought for a moment and smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Perhaps there is something.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A
bet was offered and accepted, and word soon spread across the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dance-off between Dorothy of Oz and
Cinderella of The Kingdom was set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
people travelled great distances to watch the winner-take-all match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fields around the castle filled with
commoners and hucksters alike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
with no money, and those who wanted it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Winner
of the dance-off got the shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both
pairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Glass and ruby slippers
both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For three days the crowd waited
and on the fourth a great cheer began to rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dorothy had arrived, but she had not come alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walking beside her were the Tin Man, the
Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Together,
they approached the massive door to Cinderella’s castle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I’m
having déjà vu,” said the Tin Man<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“It
sure does feel like we’ve done this before,” agreed the Scarecrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dorothy
said nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her face was a mask of
determination and she clutched her handbag and her little dog too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
door swung open as they approached and Cinderella stepped out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her eyes darted to the girl’s shoes before
rising to look at the girl herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was a plain girl with hard eyes, and really, who wore pigtails anymore these
days?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dorothy
curtsied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Hello ma’am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m very pleased to meet you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
pasted a smile to her lips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
pleasure is mine, Dorothy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Welcome to my
kingdom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a sweep of her arm, she
said, “Please come in.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Crossing
the threshold, the cowardly lion looked all around and sighed, “Here we go
again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
royal atrium at the castle’s center began to fill as the wealthiest among them
bought their way inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stadium seats
had been constructed by the royal masons along all four walls for the best view
of the battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mutton vendors walked
among the seated crowds where two pence bought a slab of meat and goblet of ale
to wash it down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">High
above, a skylight illuminated a royal pedestal draped in royal cloth at the
center of the royal dance floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Off to
one side, a royal band of minstrels tuned their instruments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Presently
a stout man with facial hair so long, it nearly hid his short, round torso
waddled to the center of the floor and stood near the pedestal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He held his hands up to the crowd for silence
and after several minutes the room was quiet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">From
somewhere beneath his beard, the stout man produced a scroll and unrolled it
with a flourish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Hear ye, Hear ye,” he
proclaimed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Let it be known that on
this day there will be a great contest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cinderella of the Kingdom challenges Dorothy of Oz to a dance-off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A winner-take-all competition for…” and here
he paused to examine the scroll for a moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“…for…uh…shoes.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
crowd, made up almost entirely of women, erupted in a tumultuous cheer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The few men in attendance, presumably there
to witness a catfight, applauded discreetly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
stout man rolled the scroll tightly and muttered, “That’s how I roll,” before
slipping it back beneath his beard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
reached out a hand and snatched the royal cloth off the pedestal to reveal two
pair of slippers, one made entirely of glass and the other encrusted with
rubies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd gasped collectively, and
one man in the front row suddenly leapt to his feet in excitement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presently, the minstrels began to play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">From
the east entrance, Cinderella entered the arena, and from the west came
Dorothy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were both barefoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stood side-by-side at the center of the
room while the crowd bellowed, and turned to face the spectators along each of
the four walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
stout man held his arms up again and the crowd grew instantly silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a great flutter of wings from above
as Glinda’s bubble descended through the skylight surrounded by hundreds of
bluebirds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She drifted slowly down until
her bubble burst on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
bluebirds collapsed all around as she walked to each girl and hugged them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“How exciting,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The
battle will consist of three rounds,” announced the stout man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Each lady will perform a dance of their
choosing and Glinda will be the sole judge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She will declare the winner and award the shoes to that person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her decision will be final and we shall all
abide by her verdict.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd erupted
again, and the man in the front row nearly fainted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“As
this is Cinderella’s home, Dorothy of Oz shall go first.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stout man lifted the pedestal and carried
it off the dance floor, gently pushing exhausted bluebirds out of his way with
the toe of his boot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
minstrels resumed as Glinda and Cinderella left the dance floor, picking up
bluebirds along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dorothy
of Oz raised her arms above her head, and brought them down dramatically with a
heavy strum of the mandolin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She leapt
and twirled and mesmerized the crowd who had never seen such movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spinning faster and faster as the music
swelled, Dorothy leapt high in the air and landed in the splits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
crowd jumped to their feet and the man in the front row actually ran from the
room in his excitement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They cheered for
a full three minutes and only calmed down when Dorothy walked off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
music started again, slow and melodic, as Cinderella entered from the opposite
side of the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She began her dance
with a curtsy to the crowd and then twirled and danced with an elegance and
grace rarely seen outside the castle walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While Dorothy’s dance had been filled with an angry sort of beauty,
Cinderella’s commanded the room with its simple sophistication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the music faded, she finished as she had
begun, with a curtsy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd sat in
stunned silence trying to catch their collective breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d witnessed a magical performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dorothy
erupted onto the stage for her second dance with her hair flowing free around
her face, no longer retrained by pigtails. She performed a strange dance full
of jerky half movements and angry screams that left the audience stunned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
followed with a dance where she was carried by servants for most of it to give
the appearance of flying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For
their final performance, they shared the stage and battled head-to-head to a
fast number played by the minstrels. Spinning madly and flipping her hair
around, Cinderella twirled in a spirited tribal dance from the farthest reaches
of the kingdom, while Dorothy laid some woven mat on the floor and spun on her
hips and back, legs in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dance was intense and both girls were out of breath at the end of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
the crowd applauded, Glinda rolled inside her bubble across the floor, her bluebirds
still recovering, and stepped out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“My,
that was exhilarating.” Glinda motioned for both girls to stand next to her. “I
don’t know how I will ever choose, you both deserve to be crowned the
winner.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She sighed. “But choose I must
and so the winner of this dance-off is…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A
scream cut her off mid-sentence and a hand maiden rushed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Milady,” she curtsied to Glinda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The shoes, they’re missing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“What!?”
shouted Cinderella.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
maiden handed her a note and Cindy unfolded and it read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Royal
Order of Repossession.</span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></i> </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By
order of the royal credit bureau, both pairs of shoes have been repossessed. Glinda
and her shoe habit have grown out of control and until payment can be made in
full, said shoes shall remain unavailable.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cinderella
glanced to the empty chair in the front row where the excited little man had
been and then at Glinda, who only shrugged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">END<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">END<o:p></o:p></span></div>
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-64556187347109972652014-02-16T08:30:00.002-08:002014-02-16T13:46:20.555-08:00NYC Midnight 2014 Writing Contest: Round OneSo for this round, I had one week to create a short story based on the criteria they gave me.<br />
<br />
I had HORROR/ADVERTISING/ A BULLY<br />
<br />
Here is what I came up with, I would love any feedback you would care to share, bit good and bad!<br />
<br />
<b>Feel the Burn<br />
by<br />
Bill Wilbur</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Jacob Bodeen tossed off the sheets and sat up in bed. This was the third night this week that he couldn’t sleep. The heat was part of it. His broken air conditioner wheezed and shook and tried to cool the place, but all it really succeeded in doing was pushing the hot air around the room like a soft breeze from hell. <br />
<br />
Sleeping with the window open barely helped, but the bright lights of the billboard directly across the street lit up his room, painting the walls in their bright red neon. The advertisement was for some new brand of lipstick and both the lips and the stick glowed with the promise of electric sex.<br />
<br />
The woman on the billboard, more beautiful than any he had ever seen, was looking directly at the camera with her lips, full and voluptuous, parted ever so slightly as the tip of the red lipstick was poised for penetration. <br />
<br />
Jacob didn’t know anything about advertising, but he knew what he liked.<br />
On more than one occasion he had stared back into those deep hazel eyes and pleasured himself. On those nights with his eyes closed and his mind lost in fantasy, he could swear the woman in the sign whispered the nastiest things into his ear. <br />
<br />
He was handsome enough, and had dated women off and on most of his life, but none of them compared to the beauty out the window. And once those women got a good long look at the scar tissue that covered most of his body, they couldn’t run away fast enough. <br />
<br />
With a sigh, he rolled onto his side and allowed the billboard to lull him to the edge of sleep with the soft buzz of its incandescent spotlights. His eyelids grew heavy and just as he started to drift, with the prospect of sleep no longer just a distant concept, a loud thud came from the bathroom followed immediately by the unmistakable sound of the toilet lid slamming shut. <br />
<br />
<br />
Jacob rolled over, turning his back on the most beautiful woman in the world, and stared at the doorway to the bathroom. The neon glow of lipstick was not strong enough to penetrate the shadows that far into the room. He squinted into the darkness a minute more, listening. But when all he heard was the sound of his own breath, he lay his head back down; sure that sleep would elude him for the rest of the night. <br />
<br />
Staring at the ceiling, trying to take deep, rhythmic breaths, a soft lullaby entered his thoughts. It was the same song his mother had sung to him every night as a child when the night terrors would wake him screaming from whatever nightmare they’d chased him through. She would come and sit at his bedside, stroking the top of his head and singing a sweet song of love and loss.<br />
<br />
That was always the thing with lullabies, they sounded sweet and innocent but the words sometimes told a different story. And as the grown-up Jacob drifted away on the lilting voice filling his mind, he thought that tonight, the lullaby sounded just a bit sinister.<br />
<br />
The thumping woke him around three o’clock. He came instantly awake. The room was like a sauna and the hot air had a weight to it that was hard to move through. It took real effort to raise his hand to his face and wipe the sweat from his eyes. There was a humid stickiness to the air, like when he took long showers in the winter with the apartment sealed up against the cold and the water hung lazily in the unmoving air. <br />
<br />
The toilet seat slammed in the bathroom and Jacob started. He swung his legs over the edges of his bed and listened intently. There was nothing for a long time and then, softly there came a thump. It had been subtle and deliberately quiet, as if whoever was in there moved stealthily, not wanting him to hear. Or maybe they had wanted him to hear after all. Maybe whoever it was had made just enough noise that he would hear but the neighbors wouldn’t.<br />
<br />
“Who’s there?” He called out to the darkness. Reaching beneath his bed, Jacob retrieved the baseball bat he kept there. He’d hit the winning run with it during the CIF playoffs his senior year in high school, and if it was good enough then he was damn sure it would be good enough for whoever was in his apartment.<br />
Thump.<br />
<br />
Jacob edged toward the bathroom door. Snaking his hand inside, he flipped on the light. <br />
<br />
Empty. <br />
<br />
He took a second, longer look, staring into the mirror which showed the shower and the rug on the floor and the towel rack where his towel hung, it showed the clothes hamper in one corner and the toilet in the other. The lid to the toilet was down. Across from the commode was a small window, too small for anyone but a small child to crawl through. Everything was clean and tidy and where it should be.<br />
He edged around the door with his bat raised high and stepped into the bathroom. The smell hit him full force like a punch to the face, and he recoiled back out of the room. It had smelled of urine and shit and burned plastic, there was no other way to describe it. <br />
<br />
It had smelled like his childhood.<br />
<br />
A sudden, horrible memory slammed into him and he nearly slumped to the floor with the weight of it. He was thirteen years old and it was the last week of summer camp. For the entire summer Jacob had avoided a beating by the camp bully, a fifteen year old named Stanley Renker, though there had been several close calls. A dozen times in the mess hall, Stanley had knocked the tray from Jacob’s hands and whispered, “Feel the burn.” But Jacob was good at making himself scarce and for the entire summer, the dumped trays had been the worst of it. Until the final week. <br />
<br />
They came for him while he slept. His cot was closest to the door of the cabin and they simply reached in and grabbed him under his blanket. He struggled and fought, but the blanket held him like swaddling and he was defenseless. Somebody pulled a pillow case over his head. He screamed and a few lights went on in some of the cabins, but nobody came to rescue him. It was summer camp after all and pranks were a part of the experience. They built character according to the counselors. They were harmless. By the time the adults figured out they were wrong, Jacob was nearly dead.<br />
<br />
The bullies carried him out to the lake and tied his hands and feet with knots they had learned that very summer. They gagged him with a jock strap from somebody’s locker and tossed him into the blue plastic outhouse that stood lakeside for emergency use. “Feel the burn!” Stanley shrieked as Jacob struggled and lunged from the outhouse. Stanley shoved him back against the wall and Jacob slipped to the floor in whatever disgusting slime was there. The bullies laughed and slammed the door shut. Jacob heard a padlock snap into place and knew he’d lost the fight. He’d have to wait until a counselor came down for a swim in the morning. If this was the worst of it, he could bear it. The humiliation would be bad, but he would only have to deal with the jeers for another week.<br />
<br />
From outside the outhouse there was a commotion and then a voice said, “Jesus, Stanley, what the hell are you doing?”<br />
<br />
Stanley only laughed and repeated, “Feel the burn.” But there was something in his voice then, something that scared Jacob bad.<br />
<br />
The sudden smell of gasoline filled the night air and Jacob edged to the door, peering through the crack at its edge. A soft orange glow filled his vision and then the first of the flames licked up the side of the outhouse. Jacob screamed and kicked at the door. The blue plastic walls began to run and molten plastic dripped from the ceiling onto Jacob’s skin. Within a minute, the entire outhouse was aflame and beginning to melt into itself. Jacob’s skin blistered as the burning plastic dripped onto his scalp and arms. His heart hammered in his chest and he knew he was about to die.<br />
<br />
With every ounce of courage he had, amped up by the intense fear of being burned alive, Jacob lunged against the door, coating the right side of his body in burning plastic. With a shriek he lunged again, and the melting door bulged outward. With a third lunge, he broke through and the melting door wrapped around him as he fell. Rolling down the slight incline, Jacob threw himself into the lake. The plastic cooled immediately and bonded to his exposed skin. The world grayed before his eyes and he forced himself up onto the bank of the lake. As his head hit the dirt, he passed out.<br />
<br />
Stanley and his goons spent three years in Juvenile Detention and were released on their respective eighteenth birthdays. Three years and they reemerged with a clean slate, while Jacob spent those same three years undergoing one hundred fourteen separate skin graft operations, and the rest of his life horribly disfigured. Twelve years of therapy had done nothing to alleviate the anger.<br />
With a last look around the bathroom, Jacob flipped the light off, and in the afterglow of the dying filament he saw it. His subconscious registered the shape behind the shower curtain while his tired mind tucked it away as a shadow and a trick of the light.<br />
<br />
Jacob climbed back into bed, blew a kiss to the woman outside his window and closed his eyes. From the bathroom came the unmistakable sound of the shower curtain being drawn slowly back followed by a soft thump. He sat up in bed just as his shampoo bottle rolled from the darkness and across the bedroom floor.<br />
<br />
“Who’s in there?” He yelled as he jumped from the bed, his baseball bat already in his hand. Lunging through the doorway, he switched on the light poised to swing at whoever he found. <br />
<br />
But the bathroom was empty. <br />
<br />
The shower curtain was still pulled across the tub as he had left it, though the bathmat beneath it was wet and showed the very distinct impression of a foot. Jacob whipped the curtain aside and slammed the bat forward into the empty shower. He swung left and right, his heart beating a tribal dance in his chest. <br />
<br />
There was nobody there. <br />
<br />
He stood perfectly still, breathing heavy and feeling like a fool. Halfheartedly he swung the bat at the bunched up shower curtain and sent it flying like a vinyl ghost in the wind. Laughing a nervous laugh, he shook his head. He set the bat down, straightened the shower curtain and knelt to examine the bath mat. As he traced the moist impression, a woman’s voice slammed into his mind. “Behind you!”<br />
<br />
In one fluid motion, Jacob snatched up his bat and spun around to face the empty room. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror and all at once all the breath left his lungs and he slumped forward. The bat grew heavy in his hands and when he dropped it he barely heard it hit the tile floor. Somebody had written on his mirror in what looked like blood. The words ran down and dripped red onto the sink. <br />
<br />
FEEL THE BURN.<br />
<br />
He stumbled backward out of the bathroom, pulling the door closed and didn’t stop until the back of his knees hit the mattress. Sitting down hard on the mattress, he fumbled for his cell on the nightstand. As he punched in the numbers, a loud thump hit the backside of the bathroom door and his brain suddenly brought forward the shadowy image he had registered earlier behind the shower curtain.<br />
<br />
“911 operator, what is your emergency?”<br />
<br />
The toilet lid slammed three times in succession.<br />
<br />
“I…uh…I think someone is in my apartment.”<br />
<br />
The bathroom door rattled in its frame as something heavy slammed into it from the other side. <br />
<br />
“Are you in the apartment, sir?”<br />
<br />
“Yes,” he whispered. There was the sudden, unmistakable sound of glass shattering and his toiletries being thrown around the room. It sounded like a war zone in there.<br />
<br />
“What is your apartment number, Sir?”<br />
<br />
“Apartment Four-A”<br />
<br />
“We have a unit on the way, Sir. Can you leave the apartment or are you confined in some way?”<br />
<br />
“No.”<br />
<br />
“Help is en-route and will arrive in approximately three minutes, Sir. I suggest you wait outside for the officers.”<br />
<br />
“Thank you,” he said and hung up. Stepping into his slippers, he headed for the door to do just that when the female voice in his head screamed, STAY!<br />
He stood indecisive for a few seconds, his hand hovering over the doorknob. There was no noise coming from the bathroom and so he let himself relax. He sat down in a chair near his dresser and glanced out to the woman on the billboard. She looked as beautiful as ever with her slightly parted, invitingly full bright red lips, the phallic lipstick teased ever so close to them. Her teeth looked longer somehow and sharper. And she was winking at him. <br />
<br />
STAY! <br />
<br />
The word infiltrated his mind again and he felt his sanity begin to slip ever so slightly.<br />
<br />
A loud knocking at the door drew his attention away. “Police, open up!”<br />
<br />
Jacob glanced back at the woman out the window. She was looking directly at him again and he thought he detected just a tinge of madness in her eyes. Her grin had pulled up a little further at the edges revealing long, white, razor sharp teeth.<br />
<br />
“Mr. Bodeen?” A sharp rap at the door. “Are you there, Sir?”<br />
<br />
Jacob rushed across the room and opened the door. A young, short officer with a sharp angular face stepped into the room followed quickly by his partner, a tall, wide man with a head of shockingly blonde hair. The big man glanced quickly at Jacob and then surveyed the room. There was no recognition on the man’s face whatsoever. Why should there be, the last time they’d seen each other was nearly ten years old. Back when they were kids. Back at summer camp.<br />
<br />
The shorter officer spoke while the big man moved about the room like a panther stalking prey. “My name is Officer Harrington. You stated to the 911 operator that you believed someone to be in your apartment. Do you believe that to still be the case, Mr. Bodeen?”<br />
<br />
Jacob only nodded. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other officer. He stared, disbelieving. Ten years after nearly killing him, Stanley Renker had become a cop. <br />
<br />
“The bathroom,” Jacob wheezed.<br />
<br />
Stanley pulled his weapon and proceeded to the closed door. <br />
<br />
“Please wait out in the hall while we clear the room, Sir.” Harrison followed Stanley the goon toward the bathroom door, unsnapping his holster but leaving the pistol sheathed for the time being. <br />
<br />
Jacob came up behind them. “It sounded like an MMA fight in there,” he whispered. <br />
<br />
They both looked back at him and for the first time, he noted a glimmer of recognition on the goon’s face. <br />
<br />
Stanley turned back to the door and knocked. “Police! If anyone is in the bathroom you have ten seconds to come out or make yourself known.”<br />
<br />
They held their breath. The seconds ticked by. <br />
<br />
Nothing.<br />
<br />
Stanley turned the knob and, with a deep breath flung the door open. He lunged through and Harrison went in after him. Jacob stayed where he was until Officer Stanley called out to him.<br />
<br />
“Mr. Bodeen? Could you come in here please?”<br />
<br />
Jacob braced himself and stepped into the bathroom. There was no damage, no broken glass, everything was as it always was. He glanced at the mirror. The words were gone. <br />
<br />
“Well, Mr. Bodeen.” Harrison walked over. “Everything appears to be in order. Perhaps it was a bad dream that felt real.”<br />
<br />
Jacob nodded but he wasn’t really listening. Instead he was staring over the officer’s shoulder at Stanley, and at the shower curtain behind him. A dark shape shifted stealthily behind the curtain until it was directly nearest the man who had nearly burned Jacob alive.<br />
<br />
TAKE THE GUN! The woman’s voice screamed in his head. KILL HIM!<br />
<br />
Before he knew what was happening, Jacob reached out and snatched Harrison’s pistol from the holster. He pushed it into the man’s chest and pulled the trigger twice. Even as the short man fell, Jacob pivoted and pointed the gun at Stanley who had his own pistol up.<br />
<br />
“Feel the burn, Stanley?”<br />
<br />
Recognition flashed suddenly on Officer Stanley’s face and his hand wavered.<br />
<br />
NOW! The voice in Jacob’s head screamed, and he felt his mind snap fully. PUSH HIM NOW!<br />
<br />
Jacob put his head down and charged. He heard Stanley fire once, twice, and then he plowed into the bully, knocking him back into the shower.<br />
<br />
The scream in Jacob’s head was deafening and he dropped to the tile floor. <br />
<br />
A sudden darkness swirled up and over Stanley, wrapping around him like a blanket. “It BUUUUURRRNNNS!” he screamed before the inky blackness poured into his mouth and down his throat. His eyes grew wider and his body began to convulse and in just a few seconds, Stanley ‘The Goon” Renker died.<br />
<br />
“Feel the burn, fucker,” Jacob said and tried to stand but the world tilted and he slipped on the linoleum. There was blood soaking his shirt and pooling onto the linoleum. He tried to push himself up but his foot slipped in the blood, and he sat down hard. His head grew heavy and he rested it on the toilet seat. Words appeared on the side of the tub, written in what looked like blood, but Jacob knew better. He recognized that particular shade of red. It was lipstick. <br />
<br />
I love you, Jacob.<br />
<br />
He smiled a weak smile and closed his eyes while hysterical laughter filled his mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
END<br />
<br />
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-22740601540608175062013-09-08T18:00:00.001-07:002013-09-08T18:01:16.486-07:00The Adventures of Elf Abba Vols 1-4As most of you know, Evelyn and I write a new original Christmas story each year to send out as a Christmas Card to our family and friends. I am now happy to announce that volumes 1-4 are available in audiobook form. These holiday tales are read by Valerie Trujillo, an aspiring new actress on her way to big things. We are proud that she chose to be the voice of Abba, our clumsy little elf.
You can order the first set now! Volumes 1-4 contain the following Adventures of Elf Abba:
Volume One: Abba Gets Her Wish
Volume Two: Christmas Cheer
Volume Three: Abba's Big Surprise
Volume Four: The Christmas Caper
Enjoy the preview and pre-order yours now!
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GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-27089358485112968432013-08-03T07:22:00.001-07:002013-08-03T07:25:33.012-07:00The Busted Mule and Other StoriesMy newest story, The Busted Mule', is the first commissioned piece I have ever written. the gentleman who requested it kindly donated to The Saragosa Project, a movement to bring my novel to the big screen. He is a muralist and asked that my protagonist be the same. The Busted Mule was the result, I hope you enjoy it. You may purchase it below along with a few other short stories I have made available but clicking the corresponding 'buy it' button.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/9423229380/" title="Busted Mule CoverWEB by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3792/9423229380_ecffa26c4e_b.jpg" width="387" height="500" alt="Busted Mule CoverWEB"></a>
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endGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-52752759379629398722013-07-01T18:04:00.001-07:002013-07-01T18:07:08.307-07:00The Voice of Elf Abba<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/9189441814/" title="Valerie Abba web by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2862/9189441814_99b38a1667_n.jpg" width="320" height="249" alt="Valerie Abba web"></a>
Local high School Student to be the Voice of Christmas
Valerie Trujillo (15) of Covina has been chosen to voice a popular series of Christmas stories penned by local author Bill Wilbur. For years, Mr. Wilbur has written a Christmas story chronicling the adventures of a clumsy elf named Abba and sent the story as a Christmas card to his family, friends, and a few select fans. Recently a copy of the latest story was made public and fans began clamoring for copies.
Mr. Wilbur is probably best known for his western novel, SARAGOSA, released in 1995 and now in pre-production to be turned into a feature film.
“I have always had the heart of a child when it comes to Christmas. I think there is real magic in the air around the holidays and that sometimes gets lost in the commercial juggernaut of retail. I try to capture a bit of that magic to share with my family and friends,” Mr. Wilbur said when asked about his unique Christmas cards.
In March of this year, students from Northview High School in Covina, CA performed a stage production of Mr. Wilbur’s book, SARAGOSA. They sold out three nights and raised money towards their proposed theatre which is set to begin construction early next year.
Ms. Trujillo played the lead female role in the stage production and Mr. Wilbur felt her energy and voice were perfect for his little elf.
“Abba needed equal parts of exuberance and stubbornness mixed with a healthy dose of wide-eyed wonder. Valerie embodied all of those elements and added an air of intelligence to her reading that made the words sing,” Mr. Wilbur said.
The audio productions of ‘The Adventures of Elf Abba’ will be available this holiday season on CD and for download through Mr. Wilbur’s author blog, The Wordslayer Cometh.
Contact the author at gnubill@yahoo.com
GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-89803215878594225192011-12-22T18:54:00.000-08:002011-12-22T18:55:36.587-08:00The GiftWhen I was a kid, my parents didn't have much money, <br />
and yet somehow, they managed to make Christmas <br />
special. We always decorated the tree together as a family. <br />
On those nights, a joyous mood wafted through the air <br />
carrying with it the aroma of cider. <br />
<br />
First came the lights, those multi-colored blinking <br />
ones. You know the kind. If one bulb was out, the entire <br />
string wouldn't light. And you also know, if you ever had <br />
those lights, that every year at least one strand was dark. <br />
I can remember sitting with my father replacing bulb after <br />
bulb for what seemed like hours until we found the right <br />
one.<br />
<br />
After the lights--my mother would always say there <br />
weren't enough--we strung the garland. Silver, whispery <br />
rolls of it wrapped around and around. And then came the <br />
ornaments--dozens of gaudy red balls my parents had found at some discount store. With very little money, they managed to work Christmas magic. <br />
<br />
I can close my eyes and still see the exact shade. They were the color of dreams. Candy apple red almost gets you there, but not quite. They were in-your-face bright red. And there were lots of them.<br />
<br />
Each year we lost at least one of those red balls. <br />
Some dropped from branches overloaded with cheer, while <br />
others were accidentally stepped on. Once, when I was nine, <br />
I gave one to a friend whose family didn't have much of <br />
their own. We certainly had enough for ourselves, and <br />
wasn't giving the true nature of the season?<br />
<br />
As the years rolled past, picking up steam like an <br />
old locomotive cresting a hill, our society became one of <br />
disposability. My siblings and I began buying newer and <br />
shinier ornaments. We made a concerted, though unspoken, <br />
effort to abolish once and for all those bright red <br />
eyesores. We could do better, couldn't we?<br />
<br />
Here it is years later, and the child I was then has <br />
become the man that I am now. Did we do better? It's hard <br />
to say. My parents certainly have an eclectic assortment of <br />
decorations for their tree now. Is that better? Who knows? I can only tell you this; with each passing year a feeling <br />
inside me grows just a little bit stronger. The feeling <br />
that something is missing. <br />
<br />
I'm not sure when it happened, but finally it did. One <br />
year those red bulbs were gone. Not a few of them, not most <br />
of them...all of them. Gone. Like a dream, we let them <br />
fade into nothingness. <br />
<br />
I remember noticing their absence years later. The box of decorations was empty...the tree was full...and there <br />
were no red spheres hanging anywhere. I didn't say anything <br />
then, but each year since I have looked for them. I <br />
searched my parent's house and came up empty. So this year, <br />
just like every other, I look wherever decorations are sold. <br />
And, just like every other year, I keep not finding them. I <br />
can remember that deep, lustrous crimson that looked almost <br />
brown when the light hit it just right. Apparently that <br />
shade of red is hard to come by these days. <br />
<br />
I turned Forty Seven this year. My birthday fell on <br />
Thanksgiving and my family and friends sang Happy Birthday. <br />
I received more than my fair share of presents, but it <br />
wasn't until later that I got the gift.<br />
<br />
The evening drew to a close and my wife and I walked <br />
slowly to our car. We were sleepy and full from too much <br />
food. I opened her door first, and closed it behind her. <br />
Then I turned and waved to my mom who always stands at the <br />
front door and watches her children drive safely away. <br />
<br />
The box, neatly wrapped and held together with a silver bow, rested silently on my seat. I glanced back, but my mother had already gone inside. I looked at my wife, but she only shrugged. With a smile, I opened the box.<br />
<br />
Who can know when their world will change? How does a person prepare for the simple things that sometimes mean so much? Nestled among the folds of silver tissue paper was a shiny red Christmas ornament. Tears welled in my eyes. I stared at my wife, who knew some of the story but not all of it, and then up at the house. <br />
<br />
There, in the window, was my father. He stood very still as he watched. I waved to him and he waved back, then he turned off the light and went to bed. My dad, who had somehow known when no one possibly could have. <br />
<br />
It was the perfect shade of red. <br />
<br />
My wife and I drove home in comfortable silence. A <br />
week later, we placed that ornament on our own tree. <br />
<br />
All the others paled in comparison.GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-12015116893139823752011-08-22T21:33:00.000-07:002011-08-22T21:59:35.297-07:00Saragosa Teaser<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/6071764739/" title="cover web by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6078/6071764739_9dffee80b0_z.jpg" width="404" height="640" alt="cover web"></a><br />
<br />
<b>SARAGOSA</b><br />
by<br />
Bill Wilbur<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Prologue<br />
</b>New Mexico Territory, Fall 1873-<br />
<br />
The setting sun turned the sky the color of blood oranges as the twelve man garrison from Fort Ord inched slowly forward, their mounts whispering a steady cadence through the tall, dry wheatgrass. Officially, they reported to Captain Dudley, but it was Orin McNeel who led them.<br />
<br />
The only man on foot, Orin was a civilian, content to fight his own battles and not those of other men. He answered only to himself--and that had always been enough. The son of a preacher, he’d left home at fifteen, a boy who thought he was a man with something to prove, and now eight years later, had yet to return.<br />
<br />
During his years of drifting, he’d learned the natural curves, sounds, and smells of the earth, and how a man’s passing could affect them. Scouting and tracking had become second nature, next to breathing. He’d traveled with Kit Carson for a time and had the reputation as being one of only a handful of men who could surprise an Apache; it was for that particular skill the Army had hired him.<br />
<br />
A small, roving band of Mescalero had taken to raiding travelers and small settlements along the Rio Grande. The braves terrorized the settlers with their banshee screams, riding through camp like tornados, kicking up dust and driving off cattle and horses. Only once had someone been fatally injured, and that after he fell in front of stampeding cows. No other deaths had been attributed to the Apache raids.<br />
<br />
Two weeks ago, the warriors attacked an encampment of soldiers and left no survivors. According to the Army, the attack had been brutal and unprovoked--Orin had his doubts. But now the Army wanted blood--Apache blood.<br />
<br />
The land sloped gently upward and, at the base of a small hill, Orin signaled for the men to halt and dismount. He’d picked up the faint smell of burning juniper an hour ago and it led him here. Just beyond the next rise, a hint of white smoke rose lazily against the darkening sky. These were not the warriors they sought and Orin wanted to be sure Captain Dudley understood that. These people were mostly old men, women and children. The warriors Dudley was after had passed this way about a day before, but their trail turned north through the hills.<br />
<br />
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Orin turned and waited as Captain Dudley approached, his great handlebar mustache impeccably waxed and just beginning to show gray. With his back ramrod straight and his arms snapping in time with each step, the Captain walked with the stiffness of a man who considered himself important. <br />
<br />
“What is it?” Dudley asked. “Why have we stopped?”<br />
<br />
Orin nodded toward the rising smoke. “Small village over this <br />
rise.” He turned his gaze north toward the rolling hills and pointed. “Your warriors went off that way.”<br />
<br />
Dudley regarded Orin briefly and then looked up at the smoke. Finally he said, “We’ll wait ‘til full dark, and then we’ll show them savages the strength of the United States Army.” With the crispness of new currency, Dudley turned and started toward his men.<br />
<br />
Grabbing his arm, Orin turned him back. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. The ones you’re after went thataway. This here’s a peaceful bunch, old people—villagers.”<br />
<br />
Dudley furrowed his brow and cocked his head. “The hell you say?” He glanced at the smoke. “They Apaches or ain’t they?”<br />
<br />
“They are.”<br />
<br />
“Looky here,” Dudley crushed a beetle with the toe of his boot. “You found ‘em sure enough, but now you jes’ leave the fightin’ to us.” His voice held the stink of hatred and revenge and for the second time, he turned his back on Orin.<br />
<br />
Orin’s hand flashed out and landed hard on the Captain’s shoulder, spinning him around.<br />
<br />
“Unhand me!”<br />
<br />
“Listen, Dudley.” Orin’s voice rumbled with disgust. “You ride in there, you’ll be killing women and children. There ain’t no warriors down there.” Orin moved in close, almost touching noses with the Captain. “You want to be a hero that bad?” He locked eyes with Dudley, and even in the waning light, Orin could see madness.<br />
<br />
“Lower your voice, McNeel! You’ll alert the enemy to our presence.”<br />
<br />
“Alert ‘em? Hell, they already know you’re here. They had a scout on us for the better part of a day now.”<br />
<br />
The change in the Captain was instantaneous. He ducked his head slightly and pulled in his massive chest. Nervously, his eyes darted to the hills around them.<br />
<br />
“Damn you, McNeel!” Dudley spat. “You rode us straight into a trap! If I live to see the dawn, I’ll have you hanged.”<br />
<br />
“Ain’t no trap, Captain. These...”<br />
<br />
“The Hell it ain’t!” Dudley looked up at the hill and felt the first cold tendrils of fear crawl up his spine. Outlined by the rising moon against the night sky, were at least two dozen Apache villagers. “You walked us in here mighty easy. Now we got a whole village t’other side’a that hill, and savages closin’ in around us. If that ain’t a trap, then mister you tell me what is.”<br />
<br />
He stormed back to his troops. “Mount up,” he ordered as he swung into his saddle. “Bugler, prepare to sound the charge.” Dudley pulled his saber and held it high. If the men noticed it shaking, they gave no indication.<br />
<br />
“Dudley!” Orin stood before the Captain’s horse, his stance wide and determined. In his hand was an army-issue Colt .45 which Dudley himself had given him. “I ain’t gonna let you murder these folks. You still want to ride after them that killed your friends, then I’ll lead ya. If not, the job ends here.”<br />
<br />
A murmur started among the men as the seeds of doubt began to take root. Orin turned to them. “You men are backin’ this gent, an’ he’s gonna lead you straight to hell. You willing to murder for him?” A ripple passed through them as their hushed discussions grew urgent. A few backed their horses away from the rest and waited. None of them seemed anxious to move on. Arguments broke out as fear and doubt took hold.<br />
<br />
“SILENCE!” Dudley screamed and the troop snapped immediately to attention. “You men will follow my orders or answer to a hangman’s noose.” Slowly he lowered the tip of his sword until it pointed at Orin. “Get out of my way.”<br />
<br />
“I won’t”<br />
<br />
“I’ll have you court martialed!”<br />
<br />
“I’m a civilian.” Orin could see Dudley beginning to shake as his rage boiled within.<br />
<br />
With a roar, Dudley spurred his horse and charged, his sword near invisible in the dark. As he came, he raised the saber in a high arc and brought it down level with Orin’s neck.<br />
<br />
Twin explosions lit the night as Orin fired. <br />
<br />
Dudley somersaulted backward, and landed in the grass twisted at an odd angle. For one full heartbeat, nobody moved, and then from the ground, Dudley raised a shaky arm and let it fall. <br />
<br />
Orin knelt near the Captain. The bullets had passed through his shoulder less than an inch apart. The soldiers crowded around them as Dudley tried to speak. Orin leaned close and the Captain smiled.<br />
<br />
“I’ll see you hanged,” he whispered.<br />
<br />
Standing up, Orin replaced the gun in its holster. As he turned, someone struck him from behind, a crashing blow to his skull. He went down and tried to roll, and another man kicked him in the ribs. Fists began to rain down on him, one after another until they blended together. Someone slammed the stock end of a rifle into the back of his head, and as a cloud engulfed the moon, Orin passed out.<br />
<br />
The trial lasted only two days. Captain Dudley testified to his version of the events and his men agreed to it. Orin was convicted of shooting an officer of the United States Army. <br />
Nobody took the stand in his defense. <br />
<br />
His ten year sentence at the Sweetwater, Texas jail began October 18, 1873. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><br />
Chapter One<br />
</b>Spring 1883-<br />
<br />
They were close, but there was still a chance.<br />
<br />
Orin pumped his legs, forcing them to carry him up toward a grove of cottonwoods overgrown with mesquite and sagebrush. High above him, the Guadalupe mountains loomed, their shadows reaching farther and farther across the land with the late afternoon sun.<br />
<br />
Crawling out onto a ledge of rock that ended in a drop of several hundred feet, Orin peered down upon his pursuers below. He counted nine men and a guide. <br />
<br />
From this distance, Orin couldn’t tell much about the rest of them, but he didn’t need a closer look to know who led them. It was Joe Dog.<br />
<br />
An Apache tracker with loyalty to none but himself and his tribe, Joe Dog would track only the white man. Once on a hunt, he would sleep or eat only when his body required it. A bloodhound to be sure, the name fit him well, and it was Orin’s scent that he followed. <br />
<br />
Working his way backward off the cliff, Orin crouched near a large pine, studying the men below. Suddenly Joe Dog’s eyes fell upon him and he froze where he stood. Their stares met. Orin caught his breath and held it. Here was the moment he’d known would come. Here was death staring him in the face, and then remarkably, moving past. He allowed himself to relax his lungs but nothing more. The tracker hadn’t seen him.<br />
The men below dismounted and began to make camp. It was a sound decision and one that Orin hoped they would choose. The ground at the base of the mountain was gravel and prone to sudden slides. The horses would have to pick their way slowly as the men led them up. They knew, as he had known they would, that chasing a desperate man into rocky terrain at night was a death sentence.<br />
<br />
When Joe Dog turned his back, Orin moved. It was a smooth, silent action. Not a speck of dust was disturbed. He squeezed in between a pair of sandstone boulders and then worked his way straight up. The rocks would block him from view for several yards. Covering that distance in a few running steps, Orin veered toward the sound of a small trickling stream to his right. <br />
<br />
This was it then. His last chance. The New Mexico territory lay on the other side of these hills and he had but one night to reach it. Tomorrow would find him crossing into the territories. Or dead trying.<br />
<br />
Kneeling near the stream, he cupped his hands into the cold mountain water and brought them to his lips. After drinking his fill, he submersed his head completely and then smoothed his hair back quickly. Refreshed a bit, he stretched and allowed his spine to break the silence.<br />
<br />
With a fresh wind blowing through his lungs, he pressed on quickly. By morning he would be on the other side and hopefully beyond the posse’s will to follow. For the first time in years, he allowed a smile to spread across the hard lines of his face. Maybe he should have gone south to Mexico, but there were matters to be settled first. He broke from cover for only a split second, but if he had chanced to look back at that moment, he would have stared into the dark, emotionless eyes of the Indian tracker far below as they followed his progress.<br />
<br />
* * * *<br />
<br />
Private Everson walked with a slow, hesitant stride through the courtyard of the fort. He felt ill and twice paused to suppress the urge to sick up his nervous stomach. Stopping outside the officer’s quarters, he contemplated the first step, which seemed taller than the walls surrounding the fort. Slowly, tentatively, he raised a booted foot and gingerly tested the wood. He looked up at the door. His breathing came in quick gasps and his hands were shaking. The colonel didn’t like to be interrupted during his naps. Everson climbed the steps and approached the door with trepidition. He’d been assigned a post here at Fort Stanton only two months ago, and as low man on the roster, he always got the shit detail. Like waking the colonel with bad news.<br />
<br />
Everson looked again at the sealed message, leaden in his palm. He shook his head slightly, at least as a private he couldn’t be demoted any further.<br />
<br />
He knocked sharply on the heavy wooden door to the colonel’s private quarters and solemnly wondered if a firing squad would be less painful. <br />
<br />
“What in the hell...?” The colonel’s voice came crashing through the door an instant before the man himself.<br />
<br />
“WHAT!? What is it Private?” The colonel filled the doorframe and Everson noticed that his legendary handlebar mustache lay like a rats nest on his upper lip, gray and slightly misshapen.<br />
<br />
Everson held out the note and saluted. “Sir.”<br />
<br />
The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your name, boy?”<br />
<br />
“P-P-Private Everson, sir”<br />
<br />
“Private,” Colonel Dudley said, “this had better be the most important message of my lifetime or so help me you’ll be on stable duty for the rest of yours.” He snatched the paper from Everson’s hand and read it quickly. <br />
<br />
A smile twisted with hatred crossed the colonel’s face and Everson took a full step back. Dudley turned his face to the sky and closed his eyes.<br />
<br />
“I’ve got that son-of-a-bitch now, by God!” He looked up at the nervous private. “I knew that bastard would foul up sometime. You are dismissed, Private.” Everson snapped a quick salute, but the Colonel was already fading back into his quarters.<br />
<br />
Turning on his heels, Everson double-timed it for the farthest point he could think of, a cannon post atop the wall of the fort.<br />
<br />
“Private Everson!” Dudley called from behind him. Reluctantly, Everson halted and turned to find the colonel walking directly toward him. He steeled himself against the infamous wrath of the colonel. The private drew a deep, nervous breath and braced himself for the inevitable.<br />
<br />
“Remind me to have you promoted to sergeant.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
endGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-23185438181977294702011-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:002011-07-14T20:52:15.592-07:00InvasionI am a man of simple joys. It doesn't take much to make me smile. Llast Summer, while working on a photo prject, I discovered an alien invasion that had gone virtually unnoticed. Since 1984 these little guys have flown their mission. Thousands of cars passed by them every week and virtually none took notice of the alien threat. In truth they meant no harm to anyone. They were there, I imagine to offer a bit of whimsey in a world that moves very fast. These little guys tickled me to death. I loved knowing that they were there. Sometime in 1984 a local artist painted them on the retaining wall of a freeway overpass, and there they remained. Taggers left them alone, though left their marks several feet away. All these years, the city took great pains to cover the grafitti as soon as it would appear, but left these little guys alone...until that is this month. After 27 years of harmless invasion. The City of West Covina has abolished the Alien Uprising. They have destroyed a work of art, something that made a bit proud to live here, and covered it up. They took something fun and whimsical and created an ugly patchwork of dull, industrial paint. I am sad to know that this little piece of coolness has been taken away from me. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5938529475/" title="spaceships1 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6146/5938529475_9e8a1806f6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spaceships1"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5939083752/" title="spaceships by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6026/5939083752_04260ace86.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="spaceships"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5938529917/" title="spaceship cover up by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6129/5938529917_f8cefc7660.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="spaceship cover up"></a>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-57762775344419221912011-05-05T22:16:00.001-07:002011-05-05T22:20:56.770-07:00How To Write a Novel<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5692001483/" title="howtowriteanovel by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3238/5692001483_359344a132_m.jpg" width="240" height="168" alt="howtowriteanovel"></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
endGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-34335342843128829302011-03-24T18:44:00.000-07:002011-03-24T18:45:27.765-07:00The Trading PostGnubill's Trading Post is a new spin on something I did years ago, the idea was stolen...uh...inspired by a local radio station who did this on a late night show.. This is where you come to trade items you don't want for items you might want. <br />
<br />
Here are the rules: <br />
<br />
The trading post will begin with a random, seemingly worthless item. A classic from the past was a broken shoelace, but we can do better than that this time around. You send an email with an item you want to trade for what we have. Your item has to be worth slightly more than what you are trading for. We will run the trade for three months before we start a new one. <br />
<br />
Items in the end will be auctioned off and the proceeds will go to The Heart Gallery, which is a local charity that I support. Follow the link if you are interested in finding out more! <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.heartgalleryla.org/">http://www.heartgalleryla.org/<br />
</a><br />
Now you can all get involved, and have a little fun in the process! By the way, that shoelace ended up in the end as 15 acres of land outside Santa Fe, New Mexico and raised $250,000 for charity. Her is the link to the Facebook page:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Gnubills-Trading-Post/209712989056902?sk=info">Gnubill's Trading Post Facebook Page<br />
</a><br />
This doesn't work without all of you so join this page to play, whether you ever trade or not, tell all your friends and I will post the first item on Monday, March 28thGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-22323488065008153612011-03-17T16:51:00.000-07:002011-03-17T17:08:13.446-07:00Audio Short Story Published!I have been remiss in telling you all about <a href="http://www.sniplits.com/index.jsp">Sniplits</a>. If you are a fan of audiobooks, check out their site! They produce professional, high quality audio short stories. There is truly something here for everyone, including a story by me entitled Kid Bolero! Here is the link: <br />
<br />
http://www.sniplits.com/bill_wilbur.jsp<br />
<br />
Enjoy!GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-14452681297232279062011-02-24T15:53:00.000-08:002011-02-24T15:53:23.903-08:00Zelda's CaveThere is a nasty little legend in the town where I live. The legend of Zelda's Cave has been around for a long time here and is a story kids tell each other to scare their girlfriends. Or is it something more? I decided to find out for myself, to search out the ghost. To find Zelda.<br />
<br />
In the early 1900's, a young girl of fifteen named Zelda was kidnapped by a local cult and taken into an underground tunnel. After doing horrific things to her, the cult sacrificed her during the night in a ritual of blood. Rumor has it that anyone entering her cave today will be killed by Zelda before making it to the end.<br />
<br />
So I thought I'd go. Evelyn and I drove over the the area, and while she stayed behind in the car, I grabbed my trusty camera and headed down into the creek bed toward the location most agreed was Zelda's Cave. I came upon an old drainage tunnel, with a steel grate that had been propped open.<br />
<br />
I stopped about twenty feet from the grate and listened to the strange noises emenating from its depths. There were some freaky sounds that reminded me of all the bad horror movies I've seen in my life. I raised my camera and took a picture. There was some murky water left over from recent rains and I didn't relish the idea of sloshing through all that bacteria and so I decided that for now, twenty feet was as close as I would get. <br />
<br />
As I turned to leave, my feet were swept out from under me, like those old cartoons of a guy slipping on a banana peel. Both feet shot straight out and for a moment I was in the air, having lost all contact with the ground, and I landed hard on my back and shoulder blades. One minute I was standing there and the next I was laying on the concrete slab, the wind knocked out of me. There is no explanation for my feet suddenly being swept out from under me. I was not standing on an incline, I was not moving. One minute standing, the next lying with a bruised spine trying to catch my breath. I suddenly realized nobody knew where I was.<br />
<br />
When finally I could move I staggered up the side of the creek and hobbled to the car.<br />
<br />
"What happened?" Evelyn asked eyeing my dirty clothes.<br />
<br />
I looked at her and said, "That bitch tried to kill me!"<br />
<br />
So for now, Zelda has won the battle, but I will visit her again soon and then we'll see if I can hold my own against her in round two.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5475180878/" title="Zelda by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/5475180878_9922cd9a68_b.jpg" width="900" height="600" alt="Zelda" /></a>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-50145105741166066612011-02-16T06:52:00.000-08:002011-02-16T06:52:39.559-08:00PLACEBO - NYC Midnight 2011Placebo<br />
by <br />
Bill Wilbur<br />
<br />
“Dr. Kelly.” The intercom on the corner of the desk<br />
squawked. “Your ten o’clock is here.”<br />
<br />
Robert Kelly closed the photo album and laid a hand softly on its closed cover. It contained proof of a happy family. A happy life. A happy man who no longer existed. Stephen Carter’s life was contained within those pages, but his was a past life, a used-to-be. <br />
<br />
Stephen Carter had been dead more than five years and from the tragedy rose Dr. Robert Kelly. Stephen Carter was a man the Chicago Mob would love to find and Dr. Kelly knew his death had only delayed that inevitability. Witness protection saved your life and stole it from you at the same time. The Feds, every bit as menacing as the gangsters who hunted him, had advised against starting up a practice again, but psychiatry was all he knew. So he’d ignored the warnings and opened a small office in his home, seeing only a few patients. He’d kept his head down for more than five years and slowly began to feel safe. With a sigh, scratched his bald head, opened the bottom desk drawer and slipped his former life under some file folders. Was the mob even still actively looking for him? He had his doubts.<br />
<br />
Still, he liked knowing his panic room lay just behind the bookcase. A small button hidden behind his copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ slid the entire shelf unit aside for 8 seconds, enough time to enter, and then slid shut again, locking out the world. The button deactivated itself after being pressed and the room could only be opened again from the inside. Once sequestered, a closed-circuit television showed the outer office and he could sit tight until help arrived. <br />
<br />
Opening the folder on his desk, he glanced briefly at the next patient’s file, a disturbed young man who believed that he would spontaneously combust at any moment. Dr. Kelly had prescribed a placebo, sugar pills mixed with a bit of camphor to give them a slight medicinal taste, to hold the flames at bay until they could work through the delusion. Cases like these were why he couldn’t leave psychiatry. At the core of every delusion is the desire to be normal.<br />
<br />
Pressing the intercom he said, “Send him In, Cheryl.”<br />
<br />
A moment later the door opened and Daniel walked in. The young man had dark circles under his eyes and a three-day growth of beard clinging to his face. He carried a tattered backpack and his clothes were dirty and wrinkled. As he crossed the room, Dr. Kelly detected the odor of stale sweat. <br />
<br />
When the young man had taken a seat, not on the traditional couch, but in a comfortable leather recliner, he set the backpack on the floor. <br />
Dr. Kelly leaned forward and clicked on the recorder. “Hello, Daniel.” <br />
<br />
“Hey, Doc.” Daniel offered a weak smile, which broke into a huge yawn.<br />
<br />
“Trouble sleeping lately?”<br />
<br />
Daniel nodded and glanced at his watch. “I almost burned.”<br />
<br />
“Tell me.”<br />
<br />
“I worked a double shift at the warehouse and was really dragging ass by the time I got home.” He rubbed his arms briskly, like a junkie anticipating his next high. “I forgot to set my alarm!”<br />
<br />
“I see,” Dr. Kelly said. He’d prescribed a sugar pill every four hours. “And you went without?”<br />
<br />
“I woke up dripping with sweat. The blankets were smoldering and my feet were hot. It had been six hours!” His voice rose with a quaver and he glanced down at his pack. “I swallowed a pill, ran into the shower and stood under the cold water for an hour.” He looked up. “I’ve been afraid to go to sleep since.” <br />
<br />
“Is that the first dose you missed since we started treatment?”<br />
<br />
Daniel nodded. “I keep the pills with me constantly. There’s a bottle near the bed, one in the kitchen, and one in my backpack.” He rubbed his arm harder. <br />
<br />
“And when are you due for another?”<br />
<br />
A quick glance at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly held out a hand. “Give me the pills, Daniel.”<br />
<br />
The young man recoiled as if Kelly had slapped him. “I...I don’t understand.”<br />
<br />
“You’re focused on them too much. We’ll set them on the desk here near the clock. You watch the time and take one in twenty minutes. But until then, we are going to focus on other things. Deal?”<br />
<br />
Moving slowly, like a man being forced at gunpoint, Daniel reached down and withdrew the prescription bottle from the backpack. He clutched it in a fist for a moment before holding them out to Dr. Kelly who took the pills, set them on the corner of the desk and then turned the digital clock around to face Daniel. “There. Alright?”<br />
<br />
With wide eyes, Daniel gave a curt nod of the head.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly stood and came around to the front of the desk and sat on one corner. “Now...” <br />
<br />
From the front office Cheryl let out a loud, piercing scream. There was terror behind it as it grew in pitch and intensity for a few seconds before gunfire erupted in a burst and cut the scream off. Angry male voices rose in the silence, muffled by the closed door of the office.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly lunged for the bookcase and slammed the Bradbury book back into the hidden button. The bookcase slid aside silently and he leapt at Daniel, pulling him from the chair with so much force that the young man’s sleeve nearly tore off in his hand.<br />
<br />
“What?” Daniel sputtered.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly shoved him toward the opening in the wall. “No time. Get in there or we’re both dead!” He threw Daniel into the panic room as the door began to close and had just enough time to slip in sideways as the steel-enforced door closed them off from the gunmen. <br />
<br />
On the other side of the room, the lock on the office door exploded in a shotgun blast. <br />
<br />
And then the panic room sealed them in total darkness. <br />
<br />
Seven locks, both mechanical and electronic, engaged in a series of clicks and beeps, triggering the battery-powered emergency lighting. Soft fluorescence filled the room even as the dull thud of bullets hit the other side of the door. There were muffled shouts and the unmistakable sound of furniture being destroyed. The television showed two heavily armed men firing madly at the bookcase. <br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly looked at his watch. They had six hours.<br />
<br />
When the room was activated, a silent beacon transmitted out across a wireless network and notified the local police. Sergeant Cooper received the emergency signal and picked up the phone to call the FBI. After a brief but heated conversation, Cooper dispatched several officers to the residence of one Robert Kelly. Less than a minute later, another report came in for the same address. <br />
<br />
Shots fired.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly turned away from the sounds of destruction coming from his office and looked at Daniel who sat curled in a ball in the far corner of the sparse room. He rocked slightly and mumbled to himself. “It’ll be alright,” Dr. Kelly said. “They can’t get in. The police have been notified and will be here in no time.” He walked over to the young man and squatted down. “We’ll just sit tight until the cavalry shows up.” He offered a nervous smile. “I suppose I owe you a bit of an explanation.”<br />
Daniel whispered something.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly leaned against the wall near the young man. He stared at the door listening to the raging behind it. A barrage of gunfire punched the other side and the gunmen screamed something unintelligible. “They killed my wife and kids,” he said, his voice far off in memory. “They loaded a semi with explosives and drove it into the parking garage of her office building.” He swiped at his eyes. “It was take-your-kids-to-work day but my wife had to be there early for a meeting, so I dropped the kids off a little later.” A sob escaped him. “Jesus, I drove my own kids to their death.” <br />
<br />
An angry shout from the gunmen and the screen showed them trashing the office, sending the bookcase crashing to the ground. <br />
<br />
“The explosion tore off three floors on her side of the building.” He looked at Daniel without truly seeing him. “I saw the truck. They pulled in as I was saying goodbye to my children. I remember thinking it was too tall for the underground parking, and they barely cleared the ceiling. They parked near the elevators.” From the other side of the door there was silence, but the men were still there. “I watched my kids get in those elevators, and while the doors closed, the drivers of the truck got out and climbed into a black Lincoln Town Car with the plates covered with rags.” He shook his head. “Why do those cars always have to be black? They just got into that car and drove away. I was behind them on the way out of the structure and the rag fell off the license plate. RAMSEY1. I’ll never forget it. The bomb went off three hours later. I told the Feds what I saw and helped take down a major crime family. Yay for me,” he said dryly. “Now they’ve found me.” He turned to Daniel, whose face was white with fear. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”<br />
<br />
Daniel looked up at him. Sweat poured from his forehead and tears streaked down his cheeks. “My pills.” He wheezed and looked frantically at the door.<br />
<br />
Realization struck Dr Kelly. The young man hadn’t heard a word of his story. He’d been focused on those damn sugar pills. How long had it been? How long since he’d taken the boy’s pills away and set them on the desk like a carrot before the horse. He looked at his watch. Nearly 30 minutes had passed. He locked eyes with Daniel.<br />
<br />
Daniel only nodded slowly, rocking himself in the corner. “My pills,” he said again.<br />
<br />
On the screen, the men brought in a struggling Cheryl. She was bleeding from her shoulder. One of the men held a gun to her head, screaming something. Cheryl sobbed soundlessly, shaking her head. <br />
<br />
“Oh dear God” Dr. Kelly whispered.<br />
<br />
“I’m burning!” Daniel screamed.<br />
<br />
“No,” Dr. Kelly whirled on him. “You made it six hours before, Daniel. You can hold on until help arrives.” He turned back to the screen. The man with the gun hit Cheryl across the nose and she dropped. He stood over her for a moment longer and then shot her in the head. <br />
Dr. Kelly dropped to his knees.<br />
<br />
“I’m burning!”<br />
<br />
Feeling as if he’d been punched in the stomach, Dr. Kelly knew he had to try and help this young man. “Stand up, Daniel,” he said softly.<br />
<br />
Forcing himself up the wall, Daniel stood slumped over and hugged himself tight. “I missed my dose.”<br />
<br />
Sweat broke out on Dr. Kelly’s forehead. Was it warmer in here? The panic room was temperature controlled, but he swore the room was hotter. “Daniel, those pills, they’re sugar pills. They don’t control anything but your sweet tooth. Do you know what a placebo is? The power of the mind is a wondrous thing. You do not have this affliction; you only believed you would burn. Don’t you see? It was all in your mind. You created your illness.”<br />
<br />
“Placebo?” Daniel asked, confused.<br />
<br />
“Yes!”<br />
<br />
Daniel looked up, a coldness had enveloped his features. “Then why are you sweating?”<br />
<br />
“Daniel.” Dr Kelly grabbed his patient by the wrists. They were as hot as the coals in a campfire. He looked down at them in disbelief and saw a soft tendril of smoke rising between them. In the distance he thought he heard sirens approaching. As they stood there facing each other, the air between them jumped ten degrees and Dr. Kelly stumbled backward. <br />
<br />
Daniel’s head snapped up and his arms shot straight out. His breathing became erratic and intermixed with sobs. The hair on his head and arms stood on end and began to smolder. His whole body trembled in the grips of an uncontrollable seizure. His pupils dilated and turned crimson and with a guttural scream of pain his entire body burst into intense flame. His clothes rippled with the heat, and then his skin began to melt. The unmistakable smell of burning flesh filled the room. Daniel dropped to the floor and rolled like they taught kids in elementary school but the flames, almost supernaturally bright would not be quashed. <br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly shielded his eyes and watched in fascination as the young man burned. Amazingly, the carpet was unscathed. The polyester blend should have gone up like a grass fire, but as Daniel rolled he left behind no scorched fibers. Nothing else seemed to burn at all. His garbled screams rose in intensity, rebounding off the solid walls of the small room and flames poured from his open mouth. He tried to stand, this man engulfed, pitched forward and then lay still. <br />
<br />
Outside the sirens wailed and the closed-circuit monitor showed the thugs running from the room. Several minutes later, police officers stormed the house, pouring into the outer office. Dr. Kelly looked back toward the young man who’d been afraid to burn, but there was nothing left. The flames were gone and on the floor was a pile of ash.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kelly slid down the wall and sat hard on the floor. That pile, it was smaller than he imagined it would be. It was too small to mark the life it represented. He hung his head and began to cry. He’d driven his own children to their doom, and as a result of that day, he’d locked this young man in a room to face his. <br />
<br />
In a daze he reached over and typed the code to open the door. Rough hands grabbed him and pulled him from the panic room. Voices shouted. The room was a whirl of confusion. In the center of the room, Cheryl lay beneath a white sheet. Dr. Kelly allowed himself to be led to the easy chair, which had been righted and set amidst the ruined office. Police buzzed everywhere, like a swarm of angry wasps and Dr. Kelly’s eyes fell on the book lying at his feet. A sad, horrible smile crossed his face while fresh tears blurred his vision. <br />
<br />
But not before he’d read the tag line on the back cover.<br />
<br />
It was then that he felt his mind begin to slip. Those six words tugged at the fragile thread of sanity at the back of his mind. Over the next few months that tightly wound thread would unravel completely. Six words on the back of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ <br />
‘It was a pleasure to burn.’<br />
<br />
<br />
ENDGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-44046187583159279992010-12-02T16:35:00.000-08:002010-12-02T16:35:56.596-08:00Elf Abba Is On Her Way!Each year for the past three years, as a Christmas card to my friends and family, I write an original story in the ongoing adventures of Elf Abba. Instead of a card, I mail out little booklets furthering the tale of Abba and her friends. I always tell myself that I'll work on it throughout the year, but I don't. I never start until at least Thanksgiving, and this year, I started the tale on December 1st. After a few misgivings about where her story might lead this year, (I never work with a plot outline) I plunged in and am happy to say Elf Abba's misadventure this year has begun!<br />
<br />
Here is the cover from the first volume:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/5227844704/" title="COVER by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5227844704_ea2c7ef33e.jpg" width="386" height="500" alt="COVER" /></a>GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-71223769308174045472010-10-14T10:47:00.000-07:002010-10-14T10:47:57.298-07:00100 Greatest Opening Lines From NovelsHere is a list I found that lists the 100 best opening lines from novel. Of course any list like this is highly subjective, and I do not know how American Book Review came to these conclusions, but I for one found a few omissions that belong in my humble opinion. What do you think? What are some of your favorites?<br />
<br />
The most glaring omission for me is the opening of To Kill A Mockingbird:<br />
<br />
<i>"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."</i><br />
<br />
Her then is the list as presented to me:<br />
<br />
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)<br />
<br />
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)<br />
<br />
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)<br />
<br />
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)<br />
<br />
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)<br />
<br />
6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)<br />
<br />
7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)<br />
<br />
8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)<br />
<br />
9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)<br />
<br />
10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)<br />
<br />
11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)<br />
<br />
12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)<br />
<br />
13. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. —Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925; trans. Breon Mitchell)<br />
<br />
14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)<br />
<br />
15. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)<br />
<br />
16. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)<br />
<br />
17. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. —James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)<br />
<br />
18. This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)<br />
<br />
19. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me. —Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–1767)<br />
<br />
20. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)<br />
<br />
21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. —James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)<br />
<br />
22. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. —Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)<br />
<br />
23. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. —Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)<br />
<br />
24. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. —Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)<br />
<br />
25. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)<br />
<br />
26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)<br />
<br />
27. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605; trans. Edith Grossman)<br />
<br />
28. Mother died today. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Stuart Gilbert)<br />
<br />
29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)<br />
<br />
30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)<br />
<br />
31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz)<br />
<br />
32. Where now? Who now? When now? —Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953; trans. Patrick Bowles)<br />
<br />
33. Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree." —Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1925)<br />
<br />
34. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner. —John Barth, The End of the Road (1958)<br />
<br />
35. It was like so, but wasn't. —Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)<br />
<br />
36. —Money . . . in a voice that rustled. —William Gaddis, J R (1975)<br />
<br />
37. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)<br />
<br />
38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)<br />
<br />
39. They shoot the white girl first. —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)<br />
<br />
40. For a long time, I went to bed early. —Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (1913; trans. Lydia Davis)<br />
<br />
41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. —Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)<br />
<br />
42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. —Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)<br />
<br />
43. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane; —Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)<br />
<br />
44. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)<br />
<br />
45. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. —Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911)<br />
<br />
46. Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation. —Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa (1974)<br />
<br />
47. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)<br />
<br />
48. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)<br />
<br />
49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)<br />
<br />
50. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. —Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)<br />
<br />
51. Elmer Gantry was drunk. —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)<br />
<br />
52. We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. —Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)<br />
<br />
53. It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)<br />
<br />
54. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. —Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951)<br />
<br />
55. Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. —Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)<br />
<br />
56. I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me. —Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)<br />
<br />
57. In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. —David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)<br />
<br />
58. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. <br />
—George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)<br />
<br />
59. It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)<br />
<br />
60. What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings? —Gilbert Sorrentino, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things (1971)<br />
<br />
61. I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. —W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)<br />
<br />
62. Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)<br />
<br />
63. The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. —G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)<br />
<br />
64. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)<br />
<br />
65. You better not never tell nobody but God. —Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)<br />
<br />
66. "To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die." —Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)<br />
<br />
67. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)<br />
<br />
68. Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden. —David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System (1987)<br />
<br />
69. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. —Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964)<br />
<br />
70. Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. —Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear it Away (1960)<br />
<br />
71. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. —GŸnter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959; trans. Ralph Manheim)<br />
<br />
72. When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson. —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)<br />
<br />
73. Hiram Clegg, together with his wife Emma and four friends of the faith from Randolph Junction, were summoned by the Spirit and Mrs. Clara Collins, widow of the beloved Nazarene preacher Ely Collins, to West Condon on the weekend of the eighteenth and nineteenth of April, there to await the End of the World. —Robert Coover, The Origin of the Brunists (1966)<br />
<br />
74. She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. —Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)<br />
<br />
75. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)<br />
<br />
76. "Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. —Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond (1956)<br />
<br />
77. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. —Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)<br />
<br />
78. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. —L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)<br />
<br />
79. On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. —Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (1980)<br />
<br />
80. Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. —William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own (1994)<br />
<br />
81. Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)<br />
<br />
82. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)<br />
<br />
83. "When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing." —Katherine Dunn, Geek Love (1983)<br />
<br />
84. In the last years of the Seventeenth Century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffee-houses one rangy, gangling flitch called Ebenezer Cooke, more ambitious than talented, and yet more talented than prudent, who, like his friends-in-folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had learned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day, afroth with Joves and Jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string-taut with similes stretched to the snapping-point. —John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)<br />
<br />
85. When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. —James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss (1978)<br />
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86. It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man. —William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)<br />
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87. I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot," or "That Claudius," or "Claudius the Stammerer," or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius," am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled. —Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934)<br />
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88. Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women. —Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990)<br />
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89. I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. —Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953)<br />
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90. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. —Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)<br />
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91. I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from the same puffy stuff as a young girl's underdrawers; still lover of that small naval boat which somehow survived the distressing years of my life between her decks or in her pilothouse; and also lover of poor dear black Sonny, my mess boy, fellow victim and confidant, and of my wife and child. But most of all, lover of my harmless and sanguine self. —John Hawkes, Second Skin (1964)<br />
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92. He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)<br />
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93. Psychics can see the color of time it's blue. —Ronald Sukenick, Blown Away (1986)<br />
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94. In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. —Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)<br />
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95. Once upon a time two or three weeks ago, a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man decided to record for posterity, exactly as it happened, word by word and step by step, the story of another man for indeed what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a somewhat paranoiac fellow unmarried, unattached, and quite irresponsible, who had decided to lock himself in a room a furnished room with a private bath, cooking facilities, a bed, a table, and at least one chair, in New York City, for a year 365 days to be precise, to write the story of another person—a shy young man about of 19 years old—who, after the war the Second World War, had come to America the land of opportunities from France under the sponsorship of his uncle—a journalist, fluent in five languages—who himself had come to America from Europe Poland it seems, though this was not clearly established sometime during the war after a series of rather gruesome adventures, and who, at the end of the war, wrote to the father his cousin by marriage of the young man whom he considered as a nephew, curious to know if he the father and his family had survived the German occupation, and indeed was deeply saddened to learn, in a letter from the young man—a long and touching letter written in English, not by the young man, however, who did not know a damn word of English, but by a good friend of his who had studied English in school—that his parents both his father and mother and his two sisters one older and the other younger than he had been deported they were Jewish to a German concentration camp Auschwitz probably and never returned, no doubt having been exterminated deliberately X * X * X * X, and that, therefore, the young man who was now an orphan, a displaced person, who, during the war, had managed to escape deportation by working very hard on a farm in Southern France, would be happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to come to America that great country he had heard so much about and yet knew so little about to start a new life, possibly go to school, learn a trade, and become a good, loyal citizen. —Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing (1971)<br />
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96. Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. —Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)<br />
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97. He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. —Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)<br />
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98. High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. —David Lodge, Changing Places (1975)<br />
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99. They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. —Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)<br />
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100. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)GnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-53327974045950294062010-07-01T22:16:00.000-07:002010-07-01T22:16:37.700-07:00July Writing PromptMany of you know I am judging a writing contest for the City of West Covina. You will find the writing rules further down in this blog on another post. If you are interested, here is the prompt for the month of July.<br />
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<i>During a rainstorm there are two kinds of people; those who don't use an umbrella, and those who do. Of those that do, some walk directly into the rain, opening their umbrellas as they go, while others stand beneath shelter until the umbrella is safely open. Warren Klepke was of the latter type</i><br />
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Let's see what you've got!<br />
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endGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3002876202254493214.post-18586708239317808832010-06-20T09:15:00.000-07:002010-06-20T09:15:03.260-07:00Writer in the Window: The ChallengeThe challenge was to create an original short story in an hour. The audience would shout out six words that you would find in the old west, and I had to incorporate them into an original short story on the spot. When time was up, I had to read what I had...finished or not...good or not. I've done them before with mixed results. This time, however, it had to be a kid-friendly story, which meant I had to write a western with no gunfights, cussing, or whiskey<a href="http://www.edenluna.com">.</a> <br />
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Now, watching a grown man type on a laptop for an hour is not as riveting as you might think for kids, so while I did my thing, there was a cartoonist named <a href="http://alternativechronicle.wordpress.com/author/snarkyjack/">Jonathan Burrello</a> who entertained our pint-sized audience until I could finish. <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/">Barnes and Noble</a> along with the <a href="www.westcovina.org/">City of West Covina </a>sponsored and hosted the event and gave away raffle prizes every fifteen minutes. This event kicks off six months of writing and photo contests sponsored by West Covina and judged by yours truly.<br />
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In the end, I created a tale fit for the kids, read it for them and got a rousing round of applause from them and the scattered grown-ups in the room. I like my little tale. I think I am going to ask the cartoonist if he would be interested in bringing "The Adventures of the Two-Cookie Kid" to life in pictures and perhaps seek publication for it. A kid's book...from me...who'd have thunk it?<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717033779/" title="IMG_2180 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4717033779_3567cd5378_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2180" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717676722/" title="IMG_2185 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4717676722_38e79e49dd_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2185" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717677670/" title="IMG_2191 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4717677670_bb487cc6b4_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2191" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717034523/" title="IMG_2188 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4717034523_f4a8bc678f_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2188" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717677484/" title="IMG_2192 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4717677484_e78844b687_b.jpg" width="450" height="600" alt="IMG_2192" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717677278/" title="IMG_2193 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4717677278_7d6001d925_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2193" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26381145@N05/4717676882/" title="IMG_2181 by gnubill, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/4717676882_78e0667d5d_b.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="IMG_2181" /></a><br />
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endGnuBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06557382331398285981noreply@blogger.com2