Esmeralda Santiago’s only friend was a girl named Luna who lived on the moon. Luna and Esmeralda had been classmates since kindergarten and had spent every day after school running through the woods behind Esmeralda’s house – skinning their knees on fallen, moss-covered trees, forging alliances with the fairies who lived amongst the ferns, and establishing an uneasy truce with the kingdom of squirrels who inhabited the tall oaks and maples.
In the days of the Southern Song Dynasty, in the land of Hangzhou, two snake spirits took on the form of humans. One named herself Bai Suzhen, the white snake, and the other named herself Chingching, the green snake. While out wandering one day, Bai and Chingching met a simple medicinal herb merchant named Xu Xian, and Bai fell in love with him at first sight.
Bai and Xu quickly married and opened a medicine shop, which allowed them to live a comfortable life together.
Shoji checked his watch; he didn’t want to be late for his first shakedown. As he hurried down the crowded streets of Tokyo III, passing businessmen in suits and housewives in smart skirts, people gave him a wide berth. The pompadour haircut; black, leather pants; black shirt; and black, leather gloves made him look like a gangster – which, of course, he was trying to be.
After passing the Spaceport, where the whine of antigravity engines filled the air, Shoji cut through Yamamoto Square.
Ryan’s day began like most days: early. He woke at four AM, which gave him a half an hour to talk to his subordinates in Texas before his daily conference call with the company’s officers. As a Junior VP of Sales for one of the largest oil companies in the world, his mornings were filled with conference calls. He slipped his earpiece on, rolled out of bed, and padded to the bathroom.
This week, I’m going to be presenting the short stories I wrote for the Ceramic DM 2007 writing tournament, which I managed to win. As with the previous tournament, each pair of competitors was presented with a set of images that they were required to integrate into a coherent and compelling short story. Each story is presented here, however, without the initial prompts. Hopefully they stand alone.
Today, the story from round one, A Late Aubade, is a tale of urban fantasy involving one man’s love for a very special tree.
“John! John, I’ve just made an amazing discovery!”
John paused the soccer game, set down his hamburger, and groaned. Whatever was about to come out of his roommate’s mouth was bound to give him a headache. “Really? What now, Lars?”
“Cows!” he was waving a sheaf of notes over his head with such vigor that he was nearly out of breath.
“Ok?”
“Hyper-intelligent cows!”
“Huh?”
“Hyper-intelligent cows rule the world.” He thrust the sheaf of papers toward John’s face and waved them excitedly.
Well, that’s a wrap for the competitive fiction pieces from the 2004 tournament. Next week, I’ll present the stories from the 2007 tournament that I ended up winning. I hope you’ll stick around for those.
Also, stay tuned Friday for a flash fiction story from 2007 that I also found in my archives.
Thanks to all for reading!
Captain Chrysanthemum was never a particularly important superhero. He was not part of the team that stopped Dr. Colossal from destroying the city, nor was he among the coalition members that sent the Beryllians running back to their home world with their tails between their tentacles. No, for the past thirty years he had spent most of his days in the park, entangling pickpockets and politely asking passers-by not to trample the flowers.
Dear Charles,
I write to you this evening, in the hope that, once you regain the use of your faculties, you will be able to verify my account of the dreadful circumstances surrounding the loss of our expeditionary party. As the only other survivor of the voyage, you are in a unique position to confirm the veracity of events that, in any other circumstance, would be considered the work of one of those dreadful pulp authors that are so popular these days.
Today through Wednesday, I’ll be sharing three stories from a writing tournament that I competed in during 2004. I made it to the semifinals before being defeated, but I didn’t go down without a fight.
Each pair of competitors was given a selection of images, and the challenge was to create a cohesive story around them. Then a panel of judges critiqued and selected the winner of each pair.
I believe that each of the stories still holds up without the original prompts, so I’ve decided to share them here.
