[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

alfa beta wrote: »

oh no - what's going on - yesterday I had three thanks this morning I have two - weebly's disappeared. :eek:

I didn't know you were allowed to take away a thanks !

FudgeBrace wrote: »

I didn't know you were allowed to take away a thanks !

don't even think about it fudge

i've already tracked down weebly

he was repentant - but it was too late....

alfa beta wrote: »

don't even think about it fudge

i've already tracked down weebly

he was repentant - but it was too late....

I am seriously scared to thank your posts now in case I ever have to change my mind. You're scaring me. :eek:

alfa beta wrote: »

don't even think about it fudge

i've already tracked down weebly

he was repentant - but it was too late....

I wouldn't worry - it doesn't look like you're gonna need it!

hcass wrote: »

Was that story about the woman in the car biographical?

god no - that guy was much nicer than me - I wouldn't have bothered offering her a lift!!!

(Can't finish that story - it's not working - funny isn't it, sometimes you think you have a cracking idea and it just flops when you write it - might try to ressurrect it some other time)

thanks hcass - maybe a rematch sometime eh?? -

thought your piece was top drawer stuff - found it really interesting how you turned the bullied into the bully at the end - often tends to be the case for real unfortunately

have to say i didn't expect the violence of the ending - i'd have voted for it over mine actually - it was quite shocking

poor poodle, poor little fi-fi - can't get her final whimpers out of my head - you're a very cruel author!

'solstice' sounds good to me

I'm ready whenever you are bluewolf

that's how I usually feel after a good saturday night too!!!

How about something off this album . . . Songs From The Wood - Jethro Tull.

My Grandmother was a wonderful woman.

Nana Mac we used to call her when we were small. We'd all go round to her place on a Sunday where she’d be waiting with sweets and hugs and smiles and sometimes even money.

I still remember how her little house felt so warm and cosy, the range always on, the smell of fresh bread, my parents sitting at the table drinking tea, my dad laughing and rubbing his hands together the way he did when he was relaxed.

I don't have any memories of Granda Mac. He died before I was born. There was a picture of him in Nana's bedroom though. I remember it because of where it hung - very low on the wall and almost tucked into a corner. 'Why's that picture so low down?' I once asked Nana. She looked at me and smiled. 'I have my reasons' was all she said, tapping her nose.

As I grew, she'd tell me how much I reminded her of him. 'Look how big you're gettin,' she'd say, holding my chin up with a hand that was just starting to shake, 'You look so like my David. The girls'll be mad about you.’ I'd blush awkwardly and my parents would smile. That proud little smile only parents have.

To be honest, the girls weren't that 'mad’ about me. But there was one who seemed to like me. And I liked her too. Jenny was her name. We got married when we were both twenty-five. We had no money, no jobs and a small child at the time. Things were tough.

But they'd have been a lot tougher without Nana Mac. She died the year we got married and in her will she left me and Jenny her little house. The relief of not having to pay rent - on top of all the other bills - was immense. It felt like we could breathe for the first time in months. We moved in quickly and quietly, without fanfare or fuss, our gratitude to the old woman never far from our thoughts as we shunted and carried our meagre belongings into our new home.

It was while lifting boxes of clothes into the upstairs bedroom, the one with the small skylight in the ceiling, that I saw Jenny stop and look curiously at the picture of Granda Mac still hanging in the corner. 'Odd place to hang a picture,' she said.

I smiled and nodded. 'You know, I always thought the same thing.' I lifted the picture off its hook and lay it on the bed, in order to store away later. The wallpaper behind it was a shade darker than the rest. It would have to stay that way though. We had no money to redecorate.

A few months later, as summer loomed and our little house grew more and more accustomed to our presence, I found myself lying on the bed in that same room. It was a late and lazy Saturday morning and I had crossword and coffee in hand. Eight down. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't get it. I looked up and tried to think. And that was when I noticed something.

I noticed how the light that entered the room through the skylight formed a bright rectangle on the opposite wall - a rectangle that was the same shape and size as the patch of recently revealed wallpaper and, what's more, a rectangle that almost - but not quite - lined up with that same unfaded patch.

Then it hit me. And over the following few weeks I kept an eye on it, checking on sunny days to see if I was right. Slowly I realised I was.

It was June 21st, just before midday, when I called Jenny. 'Here, have a look at this, before the sun goes in,' I said. She came and stood next to me. We both looked at the bedroom wall and at the way the shafts of bright sunlight now lined up precisely with the area of darker wallpaper that sat under the newly unencumbered hook.

'That's why she hung his picture there,' I said quietly. 'So he’d be lit up today. The solstice. The day the sun reaches its highest point. And the day he died. It was her way of marking his anniversary.'

We stood there in silence for a while. Then I felt Jenny's hand take mine. 'So sweet,' she said, 'We should put him back up there.'

I nodded. 'She’d like that,' I said.

Alpha beats just tugs at the heart strings so much that they resonate in harmony. It's beautiful!

blue's one about the puppy was nice but I'd like to have been able to imagine the puppy better. I love puppies! No colour makes it hard, for me anyway, to identify with the puppy being an actual puppy.

i wouldn't throw in the towel yet bluewolf....there's a good few hours left for voting and there's a bunch of regulars in here whose names haven't appeared under either story yet.

Come on folks, get your voting sticks out of your assses and hit those thank-you symbols for blue and me....!!!

note for next story: include puppy

(no matter what the ****ing subject matter is...!!!)