Sledgehammer Writing Contest

Thanks for another great Mini Sledgehammer, all. Congratulations to the February winner, Daniel Granias! We hope to see you at Mini Sledgehammer again.

Character: Hostile talking animal

Action: Going to happy hour

Setting: Underneath and underpass

Prop: Child’s toy

***

Untitled

by Daniel Granias

“I told you that wasn’t a good idea, Chuck.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them arrest me?”

“You’re not worth the handcuffs it’d take.”

Chuck sent a heel into the underbelly of Roy, the mange-ridden Labrador, hard enough to throw the hostile hound on his side.

“Shut up, fleabag.”

The pair began to gather the damp and torn remnants of clothing and blankets that were strewn in the muddy gutter, wrapping the green camping tarp over the bundle and dragging it out of the rain beneath the convergence of Eisenhower Expressway and the Dan Ryan.

Less than a year ago, Chuck had in fact been worth more than just a pair of handcuffs—millions more. And Chuck hadn’t always been Chuck; he was formerly Charles T. Greyson, co-owner of Greyson Motor Industries Unlimited. That was before his brother Julius signed the company over to a corporate account that specialized in the electronic digitization of transmissions, a move that left Charles defending a backless, diesel-guzzling freight line, and therefore forced to withdraw all shareholding. This left him with nothing, and his insurance coverage was invalidated after his wife of six years who provided the plan revealed her intention to leave Charles for Julius since they met at the Golden Nugget happy hour two years ago.

But now Charles was Chuck, and Chuck was on the move.

“I should’ve left you with Meredith, Roy.”

“That bitch? I’d’ve rather eaten shit.”

“You already do.”

“Fuck off, you sorry excuse of a bum.”

Just as the ragged team slugged their way up to the narrowest part of the ramp, a doll tumbled out of Chuck’s tarp. It rolled down the moss and mildew scattered concrete and stuck in a mud bank at the bottom. Its eyes stared up at Chuck in the single yellow glare of the streetlight.

“Why’d you take that from Audrey?”

“She can survive. Her mom can provide her with everything now.”

“But why that? She never played with it anyway.”

“It was the first thing I bought for her. I doubt she even remembers it.”

“She remembers you.”

“I’d rather she didn’t.”

“She’s better off.”

© Daniel Granias 2013

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

Elissa Nelson, a long-time Sledgehammer friend, has upped her friendliness by offering to lead Mini Sledgehammer for the next handful of months–tonight was her first in this role. Thanks, Elissa!

Can you guess what, from the winning story below, Elissa’s prompts were? [Insert theme music to Get to Know Your Facilitator, an exciting new game from the producers of Wheel of Fortune!]

***

January

by Kerrie Farris

The crows crowded in at her feet, squabbling in rough voices over the cold, half-eaten calzone Grace had dropped a moment before. Some of them stood away from the fray, beady eyes trained on her, grumbling and squawking as if their lack of dinner was her fault.

When two birds each grabbed a scrap of crust and flew straight in to her face, she abandoned the damp cement bench in front of the library and set off in search of somewhere with fewer feathered ruffians.

Shivering in a gust of wind that nearly took her hat off, Grace skirted a wispy-haired woman in a wheel chair, a wispy-haired palm-sized dog tucked into a fold of the dingy Pendleton jacket draping her hunched shoulders. “I walked those streets, my dear, and there was only half an hour I was ever happy,” the woman said to a space well to the left of Grace.

She passed a park, with trees but no grass, where two girls sat on another damp bench, delicately twining each other’s hair into spirals, then roughing it up toward the roots with their fingertips. A quick way to turn shiny, soft hair into dreadlocks. Pulling hair in reverse.

Grace left the park behind her. A few silky-feathered crows ahead of her scrattered over, of all things, a pair of ethereal blue panties. Grace lost her footing at the curb, the toe of her boot jutting too boldly into space. She went down, on her hands and knees and chin, onto the damp pavement as the furious crows shredded the panties, strands of soft, shiny elastic breaking as they were pulled the normal way, the harder way, and wondered if she might not have spent a happier half hour at the library. Even in January, the place was warm.

(c) Kerrie Farris 2013

Kerrie Farris lives in Portland and watches the crows when she ought to be working.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Kerrie Farris, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, writing contest | 1 Comment »