Welcome to the #SatSunTails microfiction 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)
- Monday 11am GMT is the expected closing time for entries BUT the competition will be open until I put a ‘competition closed’ comment so you may be able to slip something in (because I’m extra kind like that). Got 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:-
“catching integrity”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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To Do Or Not
The flowers were pale pink this time. She always gave me flowers and shit like that when she did something terrible. As if things would somehow make everything better, as if they would erase all the fucked up things she had done in the past.
I took one and started to pick its petals off saying, "To do or not to do." When I got to the last petal I said, "Not." Even when I said it I knew I was lying to myself. I had heard from somewhere that when a person was lost in grief the only thing anchoring them is their integrity. I had lost mine when my children died.
I knew the doctors said she wasn't to blame for our sons death. That she was mentally ill. But it didn't matter, all I've left now is my duty to avenge as a father. It was nothing but catching integrity.
Word Count – 153
@oswelela
Unlucky In Love
When she’d first set her sights on Bradley she knew it was a longshot. He only paid her attention when he had a paper due or any of a host of other menial tasks needed performed.
She had no delusions of snaring true love, no illusions of capturing integrity, no dreams of becoming his wife. She just wanted to be held, caressed, loved.
At length, she’d been forced to admit Bradley would never desire her in the way she burned for him. It wasn’t a pleasant realization but, still, undeniably so.
If the scattering of flower petals upon her bed weren’t confirmation enough, the bloody fingernails on her other side were, certainly, beyond being ignored.
As she’d pulled each one with the pliers, she’d offered him the chance to acquiesce. He hadn’t and now he was beyond ever doing such.
His cooling corpse would have to go but not just yet she sighed…not just yet.
155 words @klingorengi
Her message rested on the sofa. A Chrysanthemum. All but one of its petals pulled off. The petals strewn haphazardly on the paper. She’d written “Not” on the last petal. I knew she was gone. She’d been talking about leaving for weeks. “You don’t love me. All you want is a good lay. You’ve taken everything. My dreams. Hopes. Goals. You even took my integrity.”
Since she wasn’t around to stop me anymore, I went to Skipjack’s Gentleman’s Club. I sat at a table watching the service girls walk around, wearing nothing but thong bikini bottoms. I watched the strippers on the stage. I never knew hips and boobs could move those ways.
As I watched I raised my beer, and made a toast to her. “Well, Darlin’. May you catch integrity yourself. I’m not catching integrity for you.” Then I enjoyed watching naked knockers bounce around.
155 words
@LurchMunster
“Doesn’t matter. She’s gone, and you’re alone.” Where compassion and a friendly ear hadn’t worked, I hoped this would. “C’mon, we’re going.”
“W-where? I don’t want someone else, if that’s what you have in mind.”
“Just come with me.” I led him back to my place, where we found what I was looking for down in the basement, and then out into the night, to a place he knew well.
It wasn’t until we were huddled beneath her bedroom window that he looked at me with the question in his eyes.
“What are we doing here? Don’t go catching integrity on me. She doesn’t love you, but you can still have her. Do what needs doing or shut up about it.”
I knelt there, waiting for him to decide she wasn’t worth it. Finally, he nodded, and I reached out to pat him on his shoulder. Smiling, we rose and burst through her window together.
155 words
@drmagoo
To have seen her with the flower one would have thought she was reliving the imagination of her childhood: plucking each petal's pronouncement of her chances with the new boy in her classroom, only to have her hopes dashed. That may have been her, at one time, but she was different now. What the scars of her past had begun eliminating, her training had finished.
It wasn't her official training, but the indirect instruction of everyday life in the police force of a third-world country. Yes, in general, she protected and served, but the machine of corrupt politics had to be kept well oiled – a few bribes here, some extortion there – all to ensure a steady flow of money to whoever was in office, regardless of party.
She may have caught a few thieves, now and then, but her true, unspoken job lay in catching integrity – and punishing it.
150 words
@LupusAnthropos
One word, just eleven letters left and Abby would finish the crossword puzzle. She knew the word, it hung in her mind just out of reach.
It was a flower, similar to the daisy lying beside her. It had white petals and a yellow center. Her fingers twitched to use her smart phone and Google search the answer. She’d cheated before. Wouldn’t be the first time. And catching integrity was hard, harder still to hold it. If she could just remember. She picked up the flower debating as she plucked the petals
Cheat
Not
Cheat
Not
Forget, forget, forget, she always forgot. And it didn’t help that this wasn’t for her. Abby was all about Abby. Her favorite word in the English language, me.
She wondered for a moment. Could anyone ever forget me?
Then the answer came to her and she filled in the blanks.
Forget-me-not.
word 147
@fetterslopez
Competition closed!