Welcome to the thirteenth #SatSunTails micro fiction competition.
Be warned – the prompts aren’t easy, but that’s so you can write to the best of your ability.
If you haven’t had a go before at this writing challenge, then please don’t hesitate to try this weekend.
Rules!
- Post stories in the comments
- Stories must be 150 words (margin of 5 words either side) AND based on the picture and written prompts.
- If you title your entry this is not counted in your word count.
- Only one entry allowed (so make it count)
- End each entry with word count and name/twitter handle (if you forget these REPLY TO YOUR OWN COMMENT with them before judging closes)
- You may enter until Monday 10am GMT (because I’m extra kind like that).
If you do not comply with these rules your story will be disqualified from judging. Good spelling and grammar will also help to make a better impression on judges – the odd typo, however, will be overlooked so please don’t worry about that.
For tips, read through the critiques from last week’s entries.
Winners!
There will be ONE OVERALL WINNER and THREE RUNNERS UP. After that there will be THREE CRITIQUES of three stories that didn’t make it.
It would also be nice to those participating if you could promote your fellow competitors and those who win.
Today’s Prompt!
The following may be used as a sentence in your story OR provide a basis for it:-
“burning up your/their/our/her/his concentration”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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Forever Madeline
By Lisa McCourt Hollar
She’d always had a way of burning up his concentration, from the first time he saw her walk through the schoolhouse door. He’d been whispering in Billy Blake’s ear. They were planning to go frog hunting at recess, but then she entered, Madeline with her dimples and hair full of curls. He’d spent recess sitting on the rock wall with her, while Billy gave him dirty looks. He didn’t care. Madeline was the only person that mattered, then and now.
She was dying. Someone had wanted her purse and Madeline said no. Jeremy hadn’t seen her in years, having left Madeline at the altar, but he knew the minute it happened and came to her. He had left her because he’d been infected and was no longer good for her, but now…now he could help her.
Bending over his love, Jeremy kissed her cheek, and then bit into her neck. She would be his forever.
Word Count: 155
@jezri1
The Last Kiss
Our Moms forced us into that “first kiss.” I remember that day, church, then hot dogs at Sal’s. We loved each other practically from birth. Heck, Mom pegged you as my wife while you still formed in the womb.
You’re ebullience shines through unconsciousness.
It’s been a great trip, an adventure worthy of song. My love, I remember that other “first kiss” at the top of the Ferris wheel. You didn’t giggle that time. No, you’re soft mewling excited me. Walking was a little uncomfortable after that ride.
These wires don’t restrain you.
Then our wedding night. Lots of kisses. Ones we’d only dreamed of before, and some we hadn’t even imagined. I remember every second of that blissful time.
I love you.
With that warm summer day after church burning up my imagination, I can ignore these IV lines and wires on your body. May our last kiss be as magical as the first.
@Leo_Godin 155 words
Unconventional Warfare
He knew his fighter had crossed their outer perimeter when the first tentative probes reached out for him. Cold, glistening claws of alien force raked his psyche, thrusting and scrabbling to dominate his will.
He slipped into a defensive trance, knowing if his focus were to waver then death would be preferable to the alternative. His mind would be theirs to command and his actions theirs to decide.
As he closed, their attacks intensified, burning up his concentration like dry grass in a wildfire. He cycled through defensive images: his first baseball glove, fishing on the riverbank with his dad, his first kiss on the cheek of an unsuspecting Mary Sue Masterson.
That did it! With a whoop of victory, he felt their presence fade and the mental fog lift. He chuckled, knowing Vice Admiral Mary Masterson would not be amused to know how powerful that particular memory was to one scruffy old fighter jock.
155 words @klingorengi
Sat on the usual freezing brick steps I stared at my shoes, though never truly seeing them. I should be at home, studying my brain continuously squawked in the back of my head, like a parrot emulating it's master. Though all I did see was her… everywhere. In the backs of heads, the flowing shapes of the clouds, the white-froth of streams, half frozen over, as if to mimic my moods…
And yet every time I sat on this brick step, my hands quivering with a mixture of nerves and cold, she had a way of burning up my concentration. My eyes would dart up, not unlike an eager child, when I heard her footsteps. Fool, I though solemnly as I kicked a snow-coated stone away and got to my feet. Walking away was always the hardest part…
“Daniel?” her voice rang out.
The snow would surely melt from the blushes.
152 words
Connor McDougall
http://distortedfaith.tumblr.com
The First Kiss
They sat together on the wall, discarded lolly wrappers and sticks underneath their feet. The usual Saturday treat when the ice cream van came calling.
Only today there was no Simon sat between them picking at his scabby knees. It was nice to sit beside Jacqueline for a change; he caught the scent of apple shampoo in her hair and could hear her steady breathing.
Their mothers were talking in hushed tones, some grown-up crisis. His mum had been crying this morning so he offered her his hankie, it was almost clean. He’d never seen her cry before.
He really wanted to kiss Jacqueline, she was the prettiest girl in his class at school and smart too, always waving her hand in the air.
His chance may never come again to sit so close.
Burning his concentration he kissed her quick and she tasted as delicious as a strawberry lolly.
150 words Sarah @reravelling
His hands slid under her shirt, lifting it up. She shivered at his fingers on her ribs. This shouldn’t be happening, she should stop him, but he was burning away her concentration so quickly, so easily, just as he always had.
For all the flaws in their marriage, physical chemistry wasn’t one of them.
“Harry, Harry, stop. We shouldn’t.” She gasped as his mouth closed around her nipple.
“Of course we should,” he murmured, sliding down her body, taking the waist of her jeans in two hands. He had unfastened them a while ago, slipping his hand down her pants and leading to the position she now found herself in.
No one could turn her on like Harry.
“We’re not good for each other,” she muttered, the fight gone. She needed this. She needed him to do this.
“We’re perfect for each other. We have been from that first kiss.”
150 words
@angelicadawson
This image was one that stirred feelings so deep and so powerful, it was almost as though some higher power had intended I thumb through the entire dust ridden album just to to find it. A feeling so incarnate that I had to question how it could ever be captured by anything so artificial as celluloid.
The smile on Jessica's face never altered with age. I can only look at it for a heart beat before that very same heart is broken beyond repair. I wish with every fibre of my being that I could turn to the back page and see the two miscreants stood at the alter.
The boy in the photograph faces away from whichever intruder dared immortalise the summation of an entire childhood. For that, at least, I am eternally grateful. I could not conceive looking in to those eyes. An innocence lost.
147 words
Michael Hedley
The future is what hasn’t happened yet—even if it has. We are born in a future. Our future is full of wonders, strange, terrible, and many. We are here because our future is one without a future.
Girl-child. Boy-child. They sit on bricks and Boy-child kisses Girl-child, who laughs. This present is simple, pleasant. It will change. One will kill, one will die. The One Who Dies must create us when they grow into maturity. The One Who Kills destroys further futures by their adult actions.
Keeping time frozen is burning up our concentration. If we kill The One Who Kills, our future will have future and all will be well. If we kill The One Who Dies we will not be created and The One Who Kills will be unopposed. If we kill both, will the future be safe without us?
Did The One Who Dies begin as a Boy-child or a Girl-child?
155 words
@DavidALudwig
Well done! Great concept.
The estate room at Ludwig & Sons was deep, and dark, and full of strangers. Fabrizio shuffled down the aisle, cane in hand. White flowers lined the walk. It might have been a wedding, but Eliana had married someone else, long ago.
He chose a seat on the right, near the back, out of the way.
The executor stepped to the front. He read her will slowly, the words careful, the tone loving. Murmurs rippled among the crowd at each bequest. The Milan estate went to her niece, the paintings to her nephews. The gifts were generous. The strangers smiled and cried.
At last his name was called. “To Mons. Fabrizio Castelli, I leave my fondest memory.”
He accepted the vial. He inhaled the scent.
It took him there, to the wall, to the warmth of the sun. His lips pressed her cheek. She laughed. They were together. And he was happy.
@MLConklin
–152 words
There's no justice if this story doesn't win.
It had been the sweetest of kisses. They had been waiting outside the church, for parents to pick them up. No cry out of ‘cooties’. She gave a giggle, the high sound bubbling out from her lips. They hadn’t seen anything wrong until angry hands pulled them away from each other, digging into soft flesh. There was only confusion, burning up their concentration as they looked at each other, confused around the yelling adults.
They had been having fun and blowing the puffy balls of dandelion seeds into the wind. They didn’t understand the concept of betrayal or hatred.
She stared at him over her shoulder as she was dragged away, large tears sliding down her face while the claw of a hand that held him attached to the tight lipped face pulled him in another direction. Out of each other’s sight.
142 words
@solimond
Competition is closed.