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Short Story Competition 2: Tenth Round is Open for Voting

By Maeve

All right folks, the last round is live. We have 7 stories competing on this one, for a total of 97 stories and over two months of competition. Phew!

If you sent a story to us and it was not published in any of the previous rounds, let us know as soon as possible and we will look in the hundreds of emails that we received trying to find it. If the story is there I will update this round to include it.

Remember that you have until Sunday to vote on this round. Next Monday we will launch the grand final with the 10 round winners competing for the winner title.

1. Night Vision by Krista Magrowski

Family legend has it that when my grandfather was seventeen he ran away from home, headed to the California coast, hitching and riding the boxcars. Several weeks later, in a Nebraska state of mind and homesick, he called his father back in Philadelphia asking for some money to come home by train. My great-grandfather’s reply was that my grandfather should point his feet east and start walking; sooner or later he’d hit the East Coast.

Now, over seventy years later, standing outside a roadside diner in some indistinguishable Midwestern state, I can understand what drew him westward. Sure, there are a few more cars now, and the romance of depression-era traveling by rails and boxcars has all but died out, yet here on the plains there is still the overwhelming immensity of space and land. Ribbons of road crosshatching at a pinpoint in the distance unblocked by skyscrapers or housing developments and strip malls or even trees. This is Road Warrior territory. Here was the dream of unbounded freedom and legendary American bigness looming in the absence of the concrete and here, also, was absolutely nothing to do.

The mechanic, staring at my black spider-web stockings and black platform boots, said it would take at least a day to fix my car. I had been expecting to be somewhere civilized (well, at least Kansas City) by nightfall, so I had dressed to impress. I definitely had not expected my Civic to blow some gaskets in the middle of nowhere. My romance with the open road had its limits.

That night I stayed at the Bo-Peep motel where the idea of hi-tech was three channels on a rabbit-eared TV and a vibrating bed, and I’d be damned if the occupants next door weren’t actually using theirs. Luckily, the noise from the bed drowned out most of the moaning seeping between the walls.

Around midnight, after an hour of replaying in my head the argument I had with my sister right before I flew Philly and tired of listening to Billy Bob and Suzy Mae getting it on next door, I realized I wasn’t getting sleep anytime soon. I know it hadn’t been the smartest move, taking off on my own after arguing with my sister over our band but, damn it, I was not getting one of those M&M characters tattooed over my bellybutton and calling ourselves Melts in Your Mouth. And my sister calls me stubborn and vain. Ms. Literary, she had sneered. The terms “copyright infringement” and “legal action” didn’t even make a dent in her resolve to go through with it. So now I was stuck in this middle of nowhere. And more alone than I thought it was possible to be.

Noticing too many big rigs at the bar down the road, I decided to go for a walk in the other direction. At once, the silence blanketed me until slowly I realized I could hear crickets singing in the distance and small animals rustling in the dry brush next to the motel. The absence of the artificial sounds of cars, of sirens, of thousands of people crammed into a few square miles startled me. Those sounds were the white noise of my life, humming persistently and constantly in my ears, not hearing them until they were gone. Even the air smelled cleaner, more pure, than anything I had breathed before.

As this novelty settled over me, I looked up. The stars on that moonless night seemed innumerable and, for the first time, I saw them as they were meant to be seen, as our ancestors back before we became so civilized saw them. Not a hundred or so pale, pale reflections of what could be stars, their luminosity choked by the electric lights which blaze in the night sky at home, but thousands upon thousands of bold stars so innumerable they jostled each other for space on the licorice backdrop. I dropped to the ground, uncaring about the dust and dirt on my clothes, and laid my head back.

I knew that they were just balls of hydrogen and helium, in a continuous explosion of electromagnetic radiation. Yet, as they spun lazily around my head, I still wondered what great light lit those brilliant pinpricks from behind the veil of space. What primordial laughing goddess sprinkled her crystal dewdrops throughout the universe and were we such worthy creatures that we were allowed to see what infinity meant? Poetry aside, I watched the night sky like I never did before. An occasional plane flew by or truck rumbled through carrying its payload out into the night, dispelling the illusion that I was completely alone but soon after each incident, I fell back into my isolation.

Suddenly my awe subsided, remembering long forgotten lectures in musty auditoriums. One day all this would be gone. Not just our civilization, the earth and the sun but everything. The stars would burn through all their fuel, the black holes would dissipate and the neutron stars would ebb away. The collected memories of the universe would fade. Even this beauty would one day be all for naught. At the doorstep of the infinite, I was humbled.

I lay there on the ground for more than two hours. When I finally returned to the motel, the guy behind the front desk, tipping up his auto parts cap, looked over at me from his Andy Griffith Show reruns. “Hey there, you alright? I saw you out there on the ground. You sick?”

“Oh no, I’m fine,” I smiled. “I just never saw stars before.”

“Mmm,” he said, nodding. “You’d better head west to California then. They got lots of stars.”

Thinking of my grandfather’s interrupted Western adventure, I walked back to my room to phone my sister. It wasn’t too late.

2. Blind Date by Janet

Thanks to a friend for helping me remember the time I went out on a blind date years ago?a real blind date! And as it turned out I was glad he couldn’t “see” what happened… Your browser may not support display of this image.

My blind date had picked the restaurant we met at - one he was familiar with - so he was very comfortable. I had never been there and it was a rather nice upscale place. The restaurant was crowded and he was already seated at a small wooden table with a plaid tablecloth. I was escorted to his table. He was sitting with his back against the wall.

I was standing next to him about to say how glad I was to meet him when he must have sensed my presence and asked to feel my face to know what I looked like. I wasn’t too happy about that but what could I say, ?Talkie first, touchy face later??

He reached out one hand for me to take and pulled me to him. His fingers of his other hand went to my face and knocked off my glasses. He also poked me in the eye. After he quickly apologized I collected my glasses from the floor.

When I sat across from him I noticed the table had a slight wobble to it. My blind date stated that he had always sat at this same table because he felt that he was out of the way of the other diners.

After those first 5 minutes I knew it wasn’t going to be a love connection. I decided I would be gracious and finish the dinner date without making myself stand out as special to him. I actually thought my plan would work as I perused the menu… Your browser may not support display of this image.

Then our drinks arrived. We each received a glass of water. I chose a beer and he chose a red wine. My plan of not standing out to him quickly soured when I accidentally kicked his sleeping (snoring) dog under the table and the dog woke up with a start probably thinking

I was trying to attack its master.

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Before I could excuse my action to the owner the dog?s teeth gripped my foot causing me to jump and bump the table with my knee hard enough to knock the man’s wine glass over…and of course…toward him. It spilled all over his lap. He never ?saw? it coming. From the shock of “lap wine” he took in a deep breath and jumped…kicking me in the process…and in turn, I jumped and bumped the table again with my other knee…and I knocked his water glass over…and it spilled all over his lap…deja’ vu! Now he let out a rather loud expletive. I could not believe how quickly all this happened. I was trying to hide my laughter.

Meanwhile…his dog was under the table licking the spilled wine from its owner when the waterfall occurred. This caused the dog to jump and I think it must have had part of its owner?s pants (or parts) in its mouth at the time because the owner screamed and jumped again, this time tipping the table… toward me. Before I knew it I had beer all over my lap - lucky I had my water glass in my hand. I was trying to drink water to stop my laughter. Your browser may not support display of this image.

After its unexpected bath his dog decided to proceed to sample my ?lap beer? and was licking my legs. When I pushed the dog off me it backed into its owner and knocked the chair off balance enough that my blind date grabbed the table to help steady his balance. Needless to say he had hold of the tablecloth instead and pulled it off the table with him as he went backwards (he certainly wasn’t “s-table”)…and unlike a magician…he didn’t leave a thing remaining on the table! For his finale his chair continued backwards and the wall behind him stopped his decent…well…actually his head did that… Your browser may not support display of this image.

It was about this time I decided I needed to try to sneak away before I peed myself laughing…but when I stood up watching his face as he was shaking his head from his unannounced headache I tripped over his dog hiding under my chair. I went down…not gracefully but at least not in the water, wine, or beer spillage. Sneaking out was not an option anymore…and don’t ask me why I was looking at him to see if he noticed I was on the floor. Maybe I thought hitting his head that hard would bring back his vision…just my luck! Your browser may not support display of this image.

To make a long story short I decided it was time to leave before I accidentally killed him. He agreed. I left smelling of beer and I hadn’t even had a sip! Same with the wine shared between he and his dog.

The waiters and other customers were trying not to laugh as we left. I am sure I overheard someone say, ?I will NOT have what she had!? (A reverse of “When Harry Met Sally”) Your browser may not support display of this image.

On the way out of the restaurant I asked if I could drive him somewhere. I wasn’t surprised when he told me without emotion, ?No thank you.? This was probably best. If I were to be pulled over by the police the three of us smelling as we did I doubt the officer would believe the truth.

As we parted ways I told him not to worry about what just happened… I was sure the restaurant would welcome he and his dog again (maybe as the entertainment) and that the water should keep the wine from staining his clothes. Your browser may not support display of this image.

As far as not making myself stand out as special to him…well…what can I say? I am sure he will never forget me…as I of him… Your browser may not support display of this image.

3. Acta Non Verba by Yee-Lum

It is raining, again, and the temperature is eleven degrees lower than predicted. They promised the weather control would be fixed by this week, but of course it isn’t. The gray sky is depressing, and she turns away from the window, leaving it frosted with breath.

He is standing in the doorway behind her, quiet. I’d like to be told I’m beautiful, she says, wistfully, more to the window than to him. She is, after all, young enough to remember romance, or at least the idea of it, when it was still allowed, when people still wrote books about it, sang songs about it. You are beautiful, he says. Like birds. Like the sun.

What am I worth to you? she asks. She is ashamed of the question almost as she asks it. It sounds so weak, as if she needs his reassurance. But she knows what he is worth: two thousand four hundred crowns, exactly; and if he is worth something she must be, too. She wonders why they’re still called crowns when all the kings are long since dead. You’re worth everything, he replies. You’re precious.

Tell me you love me, she whispers, because if she spoke aloud the desperation in her voice would be laid out, naked, shameful. The hope rising in her heart is black, a false hope?how far has she fallen, to hope that mere words could be a replacement for love?

There is a dry clicking, like the rattling of bones. No answer.

Sometimes the robots do not do everything they are told, regardless of the labels on the packaging. Sometimes they cannot. “Everything you ever wanted!”–a lie.

4. A Gift of a Heart by austheke

She has three months to live and she is determined to spend them like she should. She is not going to lie there and let it take her, or at least not until she’s had her last word. First, though, comes the necessary things: what her parents will do when she is gone, who will get the few belongings of hers that she thought were important, where her organs will go when she can give them up in good conscience. She works through the list academically, because they are a fact and death is a fact and life is an opinion. She has always been opinionated.

The only thing that interests her about all these tedious details is the matter of her heart. Of course there are kidneys and lungs and such, but while the truly great artists can make something out of nothing, she finds little of interest in her less noble organs. The heart is what fascinates her. (She notices with a pang how it is no longer her heart; merely “the”, as if it’s already been given away.) The heart?no, her heart, hers until it’s actually over?is only a muscle, maybe the size of her fist, pulsing wetly in her chest. Or that’s what the doctors say. Secretly, she knows that her heart is where the words come from, and maybe the doctors know too, deep somewhere inside.

Somehow it’s still strange to her that something as small as a bacterium or a blood cell can cause such problems. It shouldn’t be strange anymore, not after seeing so many people come and go, some home, some not. She is beginning to realize why disease is awful: because it is indiscriminate. It does not care whether you are close to dying anyways or whether you are in the prime of your life or whether you are a child.

There is a new patient, the next day. She has yet to meet him, but word gets around, in some way or another?perhaps it’s the nurses’ talk. She hears it’s heart problems. She stops listening there, because she would rather hear it from him, and because stories are always better as told by the hero.

The doctors would rather not let her in to see him, but he is her age, maybe older, and so his word bears a little authority. Hello, she says, settling herself in a chair. The greetings are exchanged, the standard ones, but when they are finished she asks for a story. Not much to tell, he says, grimacing at the sheets. It was some virus infection. Damaged the heart muscle. It doesn’t contract properly anymore. I’m going to need a transplant, but they haven’t been able to find a donor.

She knows what that matter of fact means?that if a donor heart can’t be found, he is going to die. She admires the wisdom in his calmness, because only she knows better than to think him apathetic.

Somehow, the atmosphere of the hospital is not very conducive to talk of medical affairs, as if the sheer cleanliness of it is enough to drive away dark thoughts, for the time being. The conversation turns to better things. When she leaves, it is only because the nurse refuses to bring her dinner to his room. Goodbye, then, he says, grinning. You are coming back? Of course, she says. What did you think? He laughs. Good. Goodnight. She tells him the same and pulls the door shut after her, with a smile on her face.

She lies awake, with the blinds on the tiny window open and moonlight scattering across the room. She knows she should sleep, but the sheets are impossible tonight, and she is content to stay up and let the wilder ideas roar in her head. She knows it’s pretentious, to think that her heart could save a life. But it might.

She wishes that the greatest gift she could give him were something better than only her heart. She wishes she’d met him before the cancer started to kill her.

He spends his night, sleepless, trying to avoid the thought that scares him the most. The truth is that he suspects himself of falling in love.

She is awake too early, but then again so is he. Good morning, she says, sleepily. Heart donors, you were saying yesterday. It’s so simple, she continues. Is it? he asks.

Yes. You can have mine when I’m done with it. She smiles, triumphant. He stares. Well, it’s the only solution, she says. I don’t have much time left, and you could have a whole life if you’d take this. Her eyes are defiant because she knows she is right.

I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, he says savagely. As if your life weren’t important. That’s not it, she says. It’s that there’s no way out of this for me and there are a hundred ways out for you through me. Don’t you want my gift?

He is silent a moment. She wants to shake him. Doesn’t he see? Doesn’t he realize what she’s trying to give him? She sees the decision on his face, suddenly?he begins to shake his head, no?and her heart breaks.

I love you, she says, desperate, for no reason, for every reason. Please, because this is all I can give you?I can’t give you me, or my time, or my life. I am out of time. I can only give you your own life. Please. Promise me you’ll take it, she says, voice thick with tears.

I will, he says?his heart is breaking, his traitor heart that is killing him now?and somehow her face is blurring in his eyes. I’ll live as long as I can, for you, every year with your heart keeping me alive. I love you, he says again, and then she is saying it too, until the words are confused and they are speaking together, like heartbeats in tandem.

5. Jasmine by Sandra A. Mushi

She couldn?t keep her eyes awake though she felt drowsy. Maybe from the herbal concoction he had made her drink. This one seemed to be much stronger than the ones she had been drinking before. Her ears pricked to the sound of mountain wolves. She had heard that a wolf or two had been spotted around the mountains. Hugging her cold frame, she prayed they wouldn?t come, that they would not smell her, that the strong smell of the jasmine would mask her human blood scent. Her eyes bulged with fright and watered from the cold she felt.

The sensation of yearning suddenly exploded in her breast ? for a while forgetting about the cries of the mountain wolves. I have to have one, she cried silently. She had been trying for years! Instead of their support, they called her names behind her back. And instead of his support, he curled to a corner not saying a word, not defending her - which of them was to blame.

Every night they visited, the aggressive ones would shamelessly spit their venom spiked insults at her. After they left, he would cushion his inadequacy at a pub near their home, while she would curl up trembling in their big bed and cry alone.

He wouldn?t go for medical check up. They wouldn?t allow him. ?He is a man,? they would spit at her. ?You are the problem! Our family only has real men!?

The blood rose up to her neck as she choked grief and anger and let her freezing body fall back against the tree trunk as if she had been struck with a blow from the pain she felt. Loudly she cried in anguish and pain, pounding her clutched hands angrily on the red earth. Breathing in, she sniveled. As she hugged herself tighter, she wished she had remembered to take a jacket with her.

At first she was afraid to ask him why she should spend every fortnight outside for six weeks. The bone earring he wore that elongated his earlobe had made her afraid. It looked like a bone from a finger ? a baby?s finger. She had never seen a man with such an earring and such long red hair. She stared at the earring as he chanted, her eyes straying from the earring to the small bones and horns scattered on the red earth. Every now and then he would pick up the biggest horn, shake it and then listen to it as if it was talking to him.

The hair ? long curly hair was a dull colour between yellow and red. It somehow reminded her of the red ochre and clay Maasai warriors back home used to colour their hair with. She watched his scruffy ponytail bounce up and down as he talked to the horn excitedly. After which he would go into a trance as if he was possessed.

?The spirits are waiting for you, my child, just follow your nose,? he would say after waking up from the trance, his eyes blood shot red. Finally explaining he added, ?follow your nose, child, it will lead you to where she will come from.?

The smell of jasmine whose flowers opened in the night like white stars would waft by her nose by the night breeze as she walked blindly through the still of the night following her nose, silently memorizing the strict instructions he had given her.

?Don?t look back,? he had always warned her.

She was always so tempted to look back ? to see how far she was from his little thatched shack with old black cloths, horns, amulets of every sizes and colours as well as pots draped casually at the entrance.

He must be of Arab descendent, she mused. How else would one explain the colour, length and texture of the hair? Drowsily she smiled as she imagined him bending down to pick up herbs, his ponytail falling over his wrinkled caramel brown skin, sweeping the flowers on the grass.

Every fortnight morning she would wake up disheveled, tired and aching. Memories of the night before toying with her mind ? the prayers, infusing herself in incense, the chanting, beheading of the black cock, massaging her breasts with the warm blood, the trances, the cries of the wolves ? were there someone with her, a companion - a night visitor? Every morning she would shake her head as if shaking the thought away.

Quietly the thought would creep back, teasing her tired mind that desperately need some sleep. Maybe it was her. Maybe she was finally coming. Jasmine, that?s what she would call her. No, she would shake her head angrily; she should count the chicks before the eggs hatch.

She shivered and welcomed the thought as she remembered them. The worse was the older sister, Zalika. Always wrapped in the most expensive Kente or Adinkra cloth, her well manicured hands dangling car keys of the BMW X5, she was given as a gift after she had bore a boy. After his circumcision, she was taken to Paris for shopping.

?Useless woman!? She would spit on the floor disgustedly. Her lipstick chic, the words would trip out as cold as ice and as sharp as a blade ? cutting her insides, ?just filling my brother?s toilet.?

She sighed. Jasmine ? breathing in the syllables. There was already one Jasmine in the family - her brother in law?s, two year old daughter with curly reddish brown hair, like the colour of jasmine oil. Jasmine?s mother, Lulu, was quiet always wearing a mocking smile.

?Even if her grandfather was from Tanga, I don?t see how Jasmine could inherit the red hair!? Zalika had spit when Lulu was presented with a RAV4. ?He was as black as coal, I hear!?

Jasmine. She arrived finally - six weeks ago. They had a hair cutting ceremony after arobaini; her hair is not as black and kinky as her father?s and hers. Her Jasmine ? whose hair colour is that of jasmine oil.

6. A Man Around the House by Betty J. Vickers

?I just don?t understand why this door won?t open,? groused Arlene to Dixie for the umpteenth time since the two women moved into the mobile home in the over-55 park four days before. ?We?re just not safe in here without being able to access this entrance.?

Dixie was tired of hearing her older sister?s complaints about the door. ?Move aside and let me try again,? she sighed. But when Dixie put all of her considerable weight into tugging the stuck door, it was to no avail. It remained tightly closed and wouldn?t budge. ?It acts like it?s locked, but none of the keys the owner gave us fits this door. We should have made him move those boxes he had stacked in front of it so we could try it while we were looking over the house to buy it.?

?Well, it?s too late to make that creepy old skinflint do anything now,? said Arlene, ?but we need to be able to access this door, I don?t care if we do have two other doors to the outside.?

?Then you?re just going to have to call Bucky to come over here and pry it open for us,? Dixie answered for the third time that morning.
Arlene placed her hands on her hips and sighed. ?I told you, I don?t want to call Bucky with every little glitch we run into,? she huffed. ?You know how he worries about his poor old grandma living all alone when I could be living in that big house with his family out at the ranch.?

A Man Around the House 2.

Dixie laughed. ?Yeah, like I?m invisible or don?t exist,? she fumed. ?You?re not exactly living alone, are you??

?Now, sis, you know what he means. Besides, he?s told you a dozen times he has room for both of us out there at his house.?

?Why can?t he see that two old women need their own privacy?? asked Dixie. ?He thinks we can?t take care of ourselves, that?s what it is?that we need a man around the house. It?s not like we?re exactly helpless, is it??

?He?s not usually like that, Dixie, and you know it,? Arlene answered, defending her grandson?s concern. ?It?s just that so many women living alone have been murdered in this area lately that he worries about me?us.?

Dixie was fed up with that kind of talk. ?But you?re not living alone,? she insisted. ?Besides, those other three women lived clear over on the other side of town, so it can hardly be considered this neighborhood??

The sisters sat down to breakfast and continued the conversation. Dixie took a bite of buttered toast before she spoke again. ?You need to call Bucky anyway to crawl under the house and get rid of whatever?s living under there?raccoons, cats or whatever it is. I?m still hearing a bump or two late at night after we?ve gone to bed.?

?I know,? Arlene agreed. ?I keep hearing it now and then, too, but I just hate to call Bucky and have him say I told you so.?

Dixie took another sip of the hot coffee. ?Well, are you willing to be the one to crawl under there and see what?s what? Because there?s no way I?m going under any house.?

?Okay, I know you?re right,? said Arlene. ?I?ll call him this morning.?

A Man Around the House 3

And she did. Right after breakfast. Bucky, of course, was only too happy to accommodate his grandmother and his aunt, and agreed to be at their mobile home bright and early the next morning to repair the door and rout any animals in residence under their new home.

But Bucky shouldn?t have put off the jobs to the next day.

Late that night while the two women slept peacefully in their beds, the skirting that covered the crawl space moved aside ever so silently. The man slid soundlessly out from under the mobile home. He straightened briefly, stretching his back muscles, and then crept softly up the three steps to the door. Reaching into his jacket, he slipped a key out of his pocket. Then he glanced around the darkened porch and eased the key into the lock of the stuck door.

7. Truth by Patrick Van Do

A dove flits among mirrors, along the trodden path. The world is but a bone of what the dove once knew. It remembered the fluctuating call of life, the rising scent of the vines, the ascending grandeur of the dilated mountains; and the motion, the motion of the earth that was once munificent and copious with its many lavished fruits. There was once beauty and grace, now replaced by the desolate splay of water that now ravished the carved planet. Where the dove once knew there to be its nest, with its many splendors, of love and family, there was now a great aquatic sheet. All that was left to the desolate bird was that strip of land; that single path that was the way through time, the walkway to infinity, that wrought and crushed all existence. The existence God had condemned for its insolence. It was not the dove, nor the water, that were the ones that had by dint of their sin shattered the earth. No, it was the bipeds who tarnished the earth with their many great monoliths of grey, the grey mist that seemed to purge the air of purity and flush from existence those whom did not adapt to the smoky wrath.

And so now there was nothing, nothing but the ocean and the path that are both the bane and savior of the bird. These two things showed that it had not passed into the void, and they are what reminded the bird of how far the great had fallen. Truth was gone from this darkness. The winged one?s truth had deserted the creature when it had witnessed those great hawks of grey that swooped toward the ground in shades of crimson gore, annihilating its home, its friends, its reason for existence. Now all that mattered was that the makers of those hawks were punished, no matter if it was punished with them.

Onward the dove flew, gazing toward the horizon, the horizon that was always grey and blue and with the dusted tan of the small strip of land that went always on. Below rested the ruins of the path, the wreckage, the tattered mortar of the nests of the bipeds, the once tall, now jagged and crumbling. These many great blocks of agony had crushed life from the earth, their roots growing ever into the sublime depths, piercing the pulsing conflagrated heart of the place, like a crowing demon.

The dove descended, wings extending as it caught a draft that gently brought it down to land on a high piece of debris, a dusty platform that was the only refuge remaining of land-based structures. Fluttering the sooty wings that were its own, the dove pivoted to an echo of a cry, like the ones that it once knew, but darkened with great weariness. Scrutinizing skyward, the beast saw another blemish upon the tarnished canvas of sky, one that rapidly expanded in distinction and size, until it was recognizable as raven. Through the wreckage the raven flew, passing long panes of sullied glass, yellowed and speckled with age, and fragmented walls, with splintered panels and shattered doors, until the blackened being alighted next to the dove.

Thus they traveled on, walking adjacently and silently. Each immersed in the somber reminiscing, seeing their home in ruins, but even more painfully, seeing their enemy also destroyed. For the two-legged wiry creatures were now also, like so much else of the world, dead and gone. Into the morbid relief of the void was the final wrath. The others had reaped no reward from their destruction. Their tirade had yielded no fruit - there was no reason for the insanity of this massacre.

Why had they torn life from its roots, razing their environment in their meaningless struggle? Why had they lost regard for the earth in their nugatory vengeance? The pale-colored flyer remembered the phoenixes that tore into the air, screeching and wresting the momentary calm with empyreal crimson flames. Tongues of heat scorched and burned, rippling with the colors of a fiery autumn. Screams of agony resonated through the dwindling air. Their vibrations flowing through the colossal firestorm, with its hail of charred wood and metal from the once quiet homes. There were tall walkers that had donned the cold, stubborn armor of war, and yet were still moved by the horrors of the wreckage they had caused. Even against the opponent, the two combating sides saw so many die without reason. Even though they knew that they could not continue, and yet the destroying larks of steel still flew.

Endings are all that mattered now. As the dove looked upon its companion, with its dark feathers and its beak clamped tightly. With its dry and speckled talons and its deep, satin-green eyes, the knowledge came that there would be no more new journeys, no new starts, no reconstruction of the fallen. Novelties no longer had their place on the dying planet.

However, this is not the end. Elsewhere, somewhere beyond the stars, there are billions of races God has provided for. Somewhere, in the realms that embody more that just life, there are multitudes of ethereal civilizations. This was a beginning; an end for us, but an example to those others, whom could even now be watching, that there was a chance. This was not about whether the races of the doves would continue to eke out their existence, or not ? this was whether the other inhabitants of Gods vast continuum would see our folly and in doing so learn the wisdom that we, small ants in the eternal universe, had ignored.

And so the dove left the raven with the knowledge ? not success ? that he needed.

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Copyright by Daily Writing Tips.

Short Story Competition 2: Tenth Round is Open for Voting

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).