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Mini Sledgehammer May 2012: St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on May 11, 2012 by writer

We often see themes in stories that aren’t necessarily inherent in the prompts, and this contest was definitely one of those. Stories covered psychosis, murderous dreams, and games the mind plays when it thinks it’s found a killer. Sarah Lambert’s story stole the prizes for its “most creative use of a prompt and best incorporation of an ending, according to judge Néna Rawdah. Congratulations, Sarah!

Prompts:
Character: A man who has killed
Action: Lying down
Setting: A small-town parade
Prop: A city bus

***

Untitled

by Sarah Lambert

What time was it?

The man woke to a pounding in his head. What time was it? There was a thrumming noise in the background, strange and incongruous to the thumping in his head. Hung over. Was it a hang over? What had he done last night?

He realized slowly that it was pavement under his head. The grit of gravel against under his cheek said that whatever had happened, his night had not involved the warm embrace of a good woman. Gradually his senses took in other things – the taste of bile in the back of his throat, the brightness of the sun shining in his eyes. Morning, was it morning, or had more of the day passed? How much time had he lost? What time was it?

Slowly he moved to sit up and realized his body was too sore, too stiff, for such exertions. The noise in the background grew louder and began to shape itself into distinct sounds. Brass music, cheering, an engine honking. Was it a parade? The thought was so ridiculous he almost laughed out loud, but his throat was raw with vomit and no sound came.

The man lay still on the pavement, willing movement but surrendered to the awareness that none would come. The parade – if that’s what it was – came closer. Where was he? Laying still was his best action, but he allowed his eyes to move and gradually adjusted so as to come up on his elbows. The sun was bright overhead, his awareness had not been wrong. He’d been lying in an alley behind what looked like a warehouse, slightly back from a street. The sidewalk of said street had a scattering of people on it, none of whom was looking at him. They were all looking out, waiting for the…the honking, and the brass instruments, and the people…the parade. The goddamn parade.

The man remembered being a child, his excitement at 4^th of July, begging his parents to take him to the parade. He wanted to see fireworks and sparklers and eat a hot dog and enjoy the music. Somehow waking battered and hung over with no memory in an alley, the presence of a parade brought all the innocence of the child he had been forcefully back to him, and the man smiled with the delight of one who’s parents allow him cotton candy.

That was when he noticed the blood.

Not a lot, not enough to be his. On his hands mainly, but there were splash marks up his arms. His heart froze in his chest, and somewhere deep inside he felt a moan but no sound came out. Blood. What had happened, where was he, what time was it?

Once long ago in another life he’d received a massage. At the end of it the therapist had said, “when you are ready, slowly turn to one side and sit up.” He heard her voice in his head now, clear as if she had been standing next to him, and he slowly rolled to his side and pushed himself up to sitting. The effort made him dizzy but he succeeded.

The parade was closer, almost to his block. He saw a child waving an American Flag. Was it the 4^th of July? He was probably the only person in the world at that moment who didn’t know. The child had a flag, he looked for sparklers but didn’t see them. He liked sparklers.

No one saw him, or if they did they pointedly looked elsewhere. He didn’t know how he looked, but he could venture a guess. It would probably be easy to ignore him, to assume he was street trash and leave it at that. Another day – yesterday – he would have done the same.

He had money, and a home. A job, not much but enough. The parade was at his street now, and the thin crowd made it easy to see. The expected brass band at the front, no doubt with a sign announcing they were part of some community center, a black car with the mayor (it did most of the honking), others to follow, his vision blurred and memories began to splice back together in his mind.

He’d taken Julia out – his on again off again friend who was sometimes more but usually less – a nice quiet dinner away from the city. His car broke down on the way there. She was unforgiving of his suggestion they get a cab to go the rest of the way and had used it to take her home instead. He couldn’t leave his car and was mad at her for abandoning him. Fortunately the road was on the route of a city bus and the driver was able to take him part way to a mechanic shop. He had to walk the rest of the way, but it was okay.

His memory suddenly became blurry again, his heart rate increasing. Something about the mechanic shop…something there. The sound of the parade was no longer comforting or innocent to him. It was clashing against the terror of his memory. There had been a drug deal, he had walked in on it, his life had been in danger, and he had survived.

That was what the man remembered as the parade marched on.

His hands were red but they would wash clean, as the whiskey had washed his memory.

***

Sarah Lambert is a local business owner who enjoys writing for the most part as a hobby, though is not above attempting the occasional book. More of her writing is available on her blog, Notes from a Rational Psychic, at www.bodyinsights.com.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Indigo Editing, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, Sarah Lambert, St.-Johns-Booksellers, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer April 2012: St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on April 19, 2012 by writer

The prompts were marvelously specific this month, which led to themes ranging from love to murder, and almost every story had room to grow much bigger. What a blast! Congratulations to Mr. McLaren, whose winning story earned him a copy of Ink-Filled Page and a $36 gift certificate from St. Johns Booksellers.

Prompts:
Character: A slam poetry champion
Setting: On an apartment building fire escape
Prop: A venetian glass paperweight
Phrase: “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.”

***

Slam Judge

by T. A. McLaren

Somehow Stillman had allowed her to talk him into judging a poetry slam. Judging. Poetry. And he was already late.

His good friend Eleanor Barnes, English teacher at PS 109, had organized the Poetry Slam for the past six years. She said the kids would remember a scorecard they got from a real-life detective.

He was familiar with the neighborhood around the high school. He had lived not far from here when he first moved to town many years ago. He came back sometimes to visit a buddy who lived in an apartment building across from the high school.

He parked down a side street and was taking a shortcut through an alley when the explosive sound of shattered glass brought his attention to a spot not 5 feet in front of him. The heavy brass base of a venetian glass paperweight remained dented but intact. The splintered red and blue glass around it was like a bright and brittle obituary.

He looked up past the hanging ladder to a window opening onto the third floor fire escape. It was open and a heavy red curtain was flapping in the wind.

Otherwise, there was nothing unusual going on. No one around. No other sounds except cars on the street. He was intrigued but remembered his judging duties. He continued to the end of the alley, across the street and into the high school.

When he entered the auditorium Eleanor shrieked and ran to him.

“Stillman, dear, we were afraid you were caught up in some dark and mysterious adventure.”

“Sadly, no, ” he laughed as she pulled him in. He returned her hug.

“Come on,” she said, “lets get you down in front.”

The logistics were simple enough. He was given a stack of white poster boards and a fat sharpie. As each contestant concluded their performance – there was no other word for it – he was to provide his Olympian judgement (on a scale of 1-10), hoisted high above his head for all to see.

Eleanor was MC. After laying out the ground rules, she introduced the first poet.

Stillman was surprised that he enjoyed the first reader’s piece as much as he did. He liked the attitude, images, and brutal honesty, both social and personal. Many of the subsequent writers were good, too. There were a couple of exceptions.

One young man, reluctant to reveal any vulnerability, still managed to devote five minutes to his broken heart, repeating the quotation “there is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you”. Maybe the kid thought it was spelled “baring”. Whichever way he spelled it, Stillman shared his agony.

At the conclusion, his friend tallied the votes and announced the winner. It turned out to be the first poet. Stillman got up to congratulate her and say goodbye to Eleanor.

As he was talking to the young woman, he noticed Eleanor jog quickly up the center aisle to meet two policemen who had appeared at the back of the auditorium.

Stillman followed his intuition, excused himself and quickly headed for a side door. He cut quickly through the school grounds, and back across the street to the alley.

He looked up at the fire escape. A cop was peering out the open window on the third floor. On the street, near the spot where the paperweight had landed not an hour before, a trench coat had been hastily thrown over a broken, crumpled body.

***

I write for work as a systems analyst. I started writing fiction with Write Around Portland a few years ago. The Mini Sledgehammer is the first prize I ever won. Despite my excitement, my so-called friends are insisting that I keep my day job for the time being.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Indigo Editing, prizes, Sledgehammer, St.-Johns-Booksellers, T. A. McLaren, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer February 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on February 16, 2012 by writer

Some people theorized that a Valentine’s Day Mini Sledgehammer would result in a serious lack of contestants, but lo, the crowd came out! Thanks to everyone who spent their V-Day with us.

Congratulations to Jarrod Schuster, whose disturbingly delicious story claimed first place.

***

Prompts:
Character: A twenty-something dog walker
Action:
Setting: An abandoned hotel on Valentine’s Day
Prop: Wrinkle cream

***

Untitled

by Jarrod Schuster

The Long Goodbye had seen better days. Once the pride of honeymooning couples and Valentine’s sweethearts, today it was a derelict monument to art-deco excess, and decay.

Chas had been trying to get Henri’s dog to commit suicide there for two whole weeks.

Henri, at home grading papers for her “day job” (as she so often felt the need to remind Chas of) had long relegated to him the task of taking Grief for her nightly constitutional. A more aptly named creature Chas could not imagine. Henri claimed she was named for how she acquired her – an impulse purchase after the ‘tragic’ death of her sister. Chas explained to anyone out of Henri’s earshot how she had been named for the misery her presence inflicted.

Grief was some kind of purebred freak of genetic casualty; an inbred, wheezing, bow-legged, smoosh-sinused terror of patchy fur and wrinkled flesh, whose appearance was long announced by nasal snufflings and whine riddled hacking coughs. Every morning, Grief was subjected to a series of vitamins, pills, drops and inspections that would make the most cancer ridden of geriatrics feel relieved at their own plight. And yet, in spite of the genetic minefield the dog straddled, every day Chas awoke to it’s wheezing hiccoughing need for ablutions.

The Long Goodbye had seemed like the perfect place to finally rid himself of the dog. A warren of exposed, still sparking wires, tetanus laced bed springs, disease breeding leaky pipes and a pool long reclaimed by the wet wild. Henri would never forgive him for outright “losing” the dog, but as Grief was born of accident, her demise by such would seem poetic to Henri’s literary attuned mind. “God bless English majors,” Chas had initially thought. Now his musings revolved around the capricious cruelty of heavenly beings who plagued him with the thrice-damned burden of ‘designer’ dogs.

Chas stumbled over the half-sealed front doors, hopelessly released Grief as he had a hundred times before, and prayed to half-believed in deities that tonight the damned dog would finally meet its end. Grief took off, as she always did, investigating the depths of the darkened lobby with a nose that Chas absolutely knew, could-not-possibly, smell any more than he could.

“I can help your dog, mister.”

Chas fell on his own ass in shock, trying to turn the panicked yip he had made in fear into a rough cough. A man in the shabbily mismatched layers of professional street people stepped into the partial light of distant street lamps, the miraculous buzz and stutter of the still functional ‘Hotel’ sign above the door lintel.

“Yore dog. I can help ‘er.” he said again, with the earnest sincerity of the evangelical. Or the insane.

“Ex-hrmm-excuse me?” managed Chas, back-peddaling on his bottom away from the ancient stranger.

“I can help yer dog,” stated the derelict, “With this!” He flourished a half-used, generic white tube. In black marker, long faded, someone had scribbled ‘Wrinkel Creem’.

Chas just stared at the man.

Taking the silence as assent, the stranger confidently strode over to Grief, scooped her up in one begloved hand. He unscrewed the cap of the ‘Wrinkel Creem’ with his stained teeth, liberally squirted out a line of dirty yellow gelatin onto the dog’s back. Pocketing the still uncapped tube, the vagrant began to vigorously scrub the cream into the dog.

Like a child scrubbing at an unworthy drawing with a fat pink eraser – the dog began to vanish. Tufts of fur, curls of flesh pattered to the floor as the dog, with only a slight snuffle, disappeared.

“T’ain’t right to do that to no beast,” said the derelict, “What you need is a proper mutt.”

As the man shuffled into the empty hotel’s depths, Chas realized his dream had come true.

He was so screwed.

***

The author of this work, like any good author, is entirely implied. Feel free to grace him, her or it with whatever characteristics, attributes, or opinions you may wish. Just do not be boring with your details. Everyone abhors a bore.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Jarrod Schuster, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, Valentine's Day, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: December 2011, St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on December 20, 2011 by writer

Sledgehammer First Place Individual Dora Raymaker read at this month’s Mini Sledgehammer in St. Johns. Thanks to all the people who came out for the reading!

The writing contest was a lot of fun too. Our prompts were:

Character: the baby Jesus
Action: pitching a tent
Setting: the enchanted forest
Prop: a quart of store brand eggnog

***

Untitled

by Pat Jewett

***

My favorite eggnog is at Safeway that’s where I’m going now. Tis the season for eggnog. It’s my favorite time of the year.

The eggnog is lined up next to the milk in the milk section in the cooler. I like the feel of the carton, it is cool to touch and the carton is smooth.

It’s cold and foggy outside but the eggnog is safe inside the bag inside my backpack. I take a step and my foot slips a bit on the frozen ground. I’m headed across the St Johns Bridge and into Forest Park for the night. The bridge looks down into the Willamette River. People sometimes jump from the bridge into the murky river. I think maybe they see the baby Jesus down there.

I pull the collar tighter around my neck. It is very cold up here. There are semi trucks and cars speeding across the bridge and it is windy tonight. The moon is full and I like to look at the moon through the cathedral towers on the bridge. Forest Park is there in the haze and from this end of the bridge it looks enchanted. It is enchanted. Very few people know that. Most people come to hike the 80 plus miles of trails but they don’t see how the Forest is enchanted. I know it is.

Halfway across the bridge there are flowers along the rail. I am always respectful of the flowers. Someone has jumped and taken their story with them to the baby Jesus in the water.

I hit the traffic button for the walk signal. The entry into Forest Park are numerous but I like the stairs. Hiking books call the stairs the Ridge Trail Stairs. To me they are just stairs that go up into the enchanted forest.

I adjust my pack by lifting my shoulders up. I can feel the tent pushing against my sleeping bag into the small of my back. That’s the problem with just having one compartment in a backpack. Soon I’ll find a place to camp and be able to sit on a log and warm my hands over a small illegal campfire.

Most people come up into the park and they stay on the main trails. I don’t blame them. It is safer on the trails. Most people don’t realize how many of us live in Forest Park. If you ever are hiking and feel like you are being watched you probably are.

There are people who live in the park and during the day if they don’t go into town they will climb a tree and hide up there during the daytime.

I haven’t been here for awhile. I had been living in St Johns and was working part time at the gas station on Fessenden but it didn’t work out. Too many people, too much noise and someone telling me what to do. I preferred the forest with it’s quiet enchantment.

I step off the main trail and follow a slight path probably made by a raccoon. I try not to damage the undergrowth as I walk my way further off the main trail. I am slightly downhill but there is a place that is level and not readily seen by the nearest trail. For tonight it will good enough. Tomorrow I will go deeper into the forest.

The moon is still shining through the trees but I still need my flashlight. I set my pack on the ground and pull out my tent and poles and sleeping bag and the eggnog. I open the carton and take a small swig of eggnog. It is cold and thick as I swallow it.

The poles are the kind that snap into each other and then I have to weave them through the tent holes. I bought the tent on Craig’s list last year. It is a Mountaineer 2 person tent that I only paid $100.00 for. I had to save for it.

With a rock I pound the stakes into the ground and I unzip the tent and throw my backpack and sleeping bag inside.

I clear the ground in a small circle and start breaking off small twigs and find small branches on the ground. Some of them are damp but I have some dry twigs in my backpack.

I have some newspaper that makes good tinder and I piled my sticks in a teepee around and over the timber. I reach into my pocket and pull out the lighter I found this afternoon.

The tinder lights and the campfire lights up the surrounding trees. I lean against the trunk and take another drink of eggnog. If I sit here quietly the little people will come out of their hiding places and join me in the campfire. Forest Park is home to many things that are unseen by the traveler who just hikes across the trails. I’ve seen people who walk on all fours, deer, elk, even a bear, dead bodies, even baby Jesus. I drink the eggnog and wait in the enchanted forest.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Indigo Editing, Pat Jewett, prizes, Sledgehammer, St.-Johns-Booksellers, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: December 2011, Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on December 20, 2011 by writer

Indigo’s Susan DeFreitas hosted this month’s Mini Sledgehammer at Blackbird, and Kerrie Farris earned the prize package. Congratulations, Kerrie!

The prompts were:

Character: An out-of-work sign painter
Setting: Walmart
Prop: A pair of jumper cables
Phrase: “The meaning of life…”

***

Untitled

by Kerrie Farris

***

Chris had been hanging around Walmart for at least an hour, waiting for Jill. It was the only place in town after 11, besides the bars, which he was still too young to go to. By the time he was old enough to go, Chris thought, he’d be out of this shitty little town.

Jill was late. Very late. Getting later all the time. They’d been seeing each other for three months, and Chris wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her. When she laughed, she was bright and beautiful, and Chris felt good reflecting that light.

An hour and a quarter. An hour and a half. Chris bought a pack of cigarettes, going through the same quiet check stand and quiet girl he had when he got to the store and bought two sodas. He realized halfway through the transaction that he must’ve set Jill’s soda down somewhere as he wandered through the fluorescent catacombs of electronics and sporting goods. He lunged for another Cherry Coke and thanked it down on the belt before the cashier had finished ringing him up. She looked at it for a moment with her colorless eyes, then smiled, revealing crooked teeth.

Chris stuffed the soda in his pocket and walked out the electric doors. He rounded the corner of the building, the pack of cigarettes smacking into his palm as he went. He shivered and shuddered and wondered when the hell Jill was going to get there as he lit a cigarette. It was clamped between his teeth, but he nearly swallowed it when he heard a voice call “Hey!”

A man with shaggy gray hair was calling and waving from beside a parked car. Chris looked behind him – no one there. The man was definitely calling to him.

Chris didn’t recognize the guy. It was a small town, and he had lived there too long and knew nearly everyone. Still, he walked over to the man.

“Hey, buddy, you got any jumper cables? My car won’t start.”

Chris shook his head. He’d walked to the store. Since he’d graduated, he walked often at night. Sometimes to the 24-hour Walmart, sometimes nowhere.

“Well, hell.” The guy said.

Chris didn’t know how to help, but he didn’t just want to walk away. He was about to offer his cell phone, but the things in the backseat of the car caught his eye and instead he asked “What’s all that?”

“Oh, that’s my painting gear.”

Chris was puzzled. The debris in the backseat did not include an easel, and this guy didn’t look like a Rembrandt, or even have the crazy-panache of a Van Gogh. But then, neither do I, Chris thought.

“Painting…?” Chris echoed.

“Yeah.” The creases between the man’s eyes melted as he shifted his gaze from the open hood of the car to the jumble of pots and brushes and towels and hoses in the backseat. “I paint windows. You ever see those storefronts, at Christmastime, with Sanna Clause and snowflakes and angels and shit like that? I paint that stuff. Sometimes anyway. It’s getting harder because there are hardly any Main Streets left. Just these big ugly hummers now.” He pointed at the looming, spotlit store. “Yeah, hardly any little shops with windows that need something pretty for the holidays…sometimes I wonder a little bit what the meaning of it all is, if there’s nothing little left.”

Chris pictured the guy, traveling from town to town, leaving little bits of art in his wake, Chris wondered if he could get a gig like that.

Chris turned at the sound of another “Hey!” It was Jill. He smiled at the man, who grinned and nodded with a faraway look.

He jogged over to Jill.

“Chris, I’m late.”

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled at her, waiting for her laugh.

“No, Chris, I’m late. I’m pregnant.”

***

Kerrie Farris is currently working on her first novel, which was supposed to have been done by now. She lives in Northwest Portland with her fiancé and two cats. She enjoys reading, rain, conversation, and waffles.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Kerrie Farris, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

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