[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

Can't do this weekend I'm afraid, maybe next week?

Oh, I completely forgot.

I'm up for it if he is?

Sure

Magic.

Write a story with a supernatural, or Gothic, or what have you, element

Does that fit the rules?

Cool

As long as I have my fedora

Mark slicked back his hair and put on his fedora.

Okay, he was ready for this college graduation. He had his proud bit of beard, which sprawled gracefully across his neck, and he had perfected his trick. Flame danced on his fingers and he gave himself the ould ‘**** me eyes’. The ladies wouldn’t be able to resist his chivalric charms.

The real collection of monsters collected in the auditorium. Wizards, ghouls, leprechauns, witches, and Mark even saw a fine lookin’ Pooka. A club was floating pizza slices through the air. When someone reached for them it moved half an inch away. By degrees, it slowly led confused college students to the club’s sighn up sheet. His eyes caught a flash of black hair and, boy George did his heart stop in his chest. That woman…oh her eyes were as blue as sapphires and her skin as soft as a rabbit’s bottom. She had no chest to speak of, but, quite simply, he had never seen a woman so beautiful.

He stuck out his hand, ‘Mark. Please to meet ya.’

‘Oh. Hi.’

God, she had the prettiest face. It lit up in a vampiric smile and she stood closer to him than most people. She even punched his arm when she laughed. They spent hours just talking and joshing together like two men. They met up with others. One was a succubus clad entirely in black with a fedora on her head. The other was a man with olive skin and a necklace of teeth. Mark spent a bit, a small bit, of time talking to him. Truth be told he had never seen an ind- a native American magician before.

Mark stuck his hand out, ‘Howya. You know, I’ve never seen a native American magic user before’.

He glared at Mark and spoke in thick Dublin accent, ‘I’m Irish, buddy. For feck sake me father was from India and I keep getting gob****es coming up asking if I’m a feckin’ indian. ****in’ hell, I’m a leprechaun!’

‘But…what about the necklace of bones?’

‘So what people trade me their teeth for me lucky charms? You got a ****in’ problem with that?’

‘No, but wouldn’t that make you a tooth fairy?’

Surprisingly, the conversation didn't last long after that. The four of them wandered around in amicable silence for the most, and awkward for some. They were outside and Mark saw his chance. Alex, the vampiric queen of beauty that had first set his heart into a timbre, put a cigarette on those luscious lips. She struggled to find a lighter and Mark found his time to shine.

‘Here. Let me give you a light’, he clicked his fingers to summon fire and gave her a wink from under his fedora, ‘M’lady’.

‘Never been called a lady before’.

‘A woman like you deserve to have all honorifics showered upon you like mountain dew-‘

‘Dude. I’m a, you know, Dude’.

Mark laughed. When Alex didn’t, Mark frowned. When he ignored the long hair…oh.

‘But…you’re as pretty as a woman’.

‘Yeah, Anna Rice got that part right. She erred on most though. Dude, you thought I was a woman?’

The Succubus looked at Mark with new respect, ‘That is the most gender normative thing I have ever seen’.

He and Alex did get a tad awkward, but, after a few pints, they were the best of friends.

Although, the succubus did threaten to steal his hat if he called her ‘M’lady’ once more.

My hat goes off to you, The Pooka, but my fedora also goes off to you, GalwayGuy2 - educational, as well as funny.

Both stories were great, but I laughed a lot at GalwayGuy2's story. Did you mean to crack all those funny jokes? The Mountain Dew one, was really subtle, and boy George, I laughed so hard I cried (just kidding.)

echo beach wrote: »

As always so difficult to choose. I enjoyed Galway Guy's take but found it a little too 'busy' for a short piece.
The Pooka focused on a strong central character and a very simple but effective plot line and that swung it for me. I would like to know what happens next. Maybe you could open a new thread to post the conclusion or just let us use our imagination and finish it for ourselves.

I might be breaking forum decorum by replying to a critique, but I'd just like to point something out.

The part in bold is completely true. I mention it because it explains what I meant by 'better written' in my own critique. Pooka's story flowed. Mine was a bit 'this happened, then this happened, oh, and this happened again.' I liked it, but, I guess, I tried to fit too much in.

Agent Weebley wrote: »

My hat goes off to you, The Pooka, but my fedora also goes off to you, GalwayGuy2 - educational, as well as funny.

Both stories were great, but I laughed a lot at GalwayGuy2's story. Did you mean to crack all those funny jokes? The Mountain Dew one, was really subtle, and boy George, I laughed so hard I cried (just kidding.)

Yes I enjoyed playing around with words there :P I liked the 'thimbre' word.It's poetic, doesn't really make any sense, but is very close to the word 'timber'. Heh, into a piece of wood. A little bit durty, but I did have a bit of a giggle at it.

Throw out the challenge when accepted give a theme/title and go from there
Your post could be construed as throwing out the challenge

Sure - first interested 3rd party, fire up a topic, and we'll go 24 hours from when we've both accepted!

I'm ready.

Thanks, DK.

MISS A TURN

Lucas Hodge had long felt envious of one very particular subset of Manhattan society: the (often elderly) gentlemen who made daily excursions to Central Park’s chessboards to compete before a modest crowd of appreciative onlookers. An entire community seemed to have built around this custom, a feat which Lucas hoped to one day replicate amongst his own socialite coterie – though even in such a relatively elitist circle as his, the royal game was seen as that bit too egregious, the scantest suggestion of a match resulting in inevitable wisecracks: “Hey. didya hear? Two guys were playin’ chess and one of ’em says: How’s about we make this interestin’? So they stopped playin’ chess...”

But games were Lucas’ livelihood and – he’d go so far as to say – calling. He was a senior developer at Hasbro (admittedly a touch more ‘commercial’ an enterprise than he would have liked), where he’d been tasked with finding ways to keep the company relevant in the face of consoles, the Internet and the general, relentless scourge of modernity. Little wonder, then, that he thought of little else – or so Sandra Hodge, who saw constant proof of just that, told herself. But then, she had fallen in love with, had married this eccentric, creative genius; she couldn’t very well turn around now and complain about these same attributes.

“Most other games,” Lucas’ latest treatise typically began, “have at least some element of luck to them. Chess, however, is pure skill – if unevenly matched, it’s conceivable you could play 1000 games in a row and lose all 1000. Yet it has that stigma: a snob’s sport, a ponce’s pastime...”
And so, Lucas set to work designing a whole new game; one like chess, but more...accessible – whilst, of course, retaining what made the original so special. He also hoped to bridge the gap between ‘high’ and ‘low’ board games, ‘fixing’ both in the process: where chess comprised two competitors, to the natural exclusion of everyone else, most others were supposed to bring people together but more often than not led to bitter quarrels and family feuds. Wholly misdirected anger, though understandable enough: when one couldn’t blame one’s loss on one’s own shortcomings but rather on the vagaries of fate (chess involved taking responsibility for one’s performance), it was only natural to lash out at those present.

Did he not owe it to the ‘old-school’ gaming world to eradicate this well of discord? He had a family himself; indeed, was it not for young Alice and her future schoolfriends that he was toiling so hard on creating this perfect chimera? Lucas knew what he had to do, what gave chess its ‘edge’: that magical fusion of chance with skill, probability with proficiency – but how to transpose this into the spin of a die, the whim of a card, the placement of a de facto snake or ladder?

Sandra would hear him muttering to himself: “6 factorial times n to the power of...”, and then he’d tweak something or add some new feature and the process would continue.

And then one day – long, long after first embarking on the project that had come to consume him – Lucas emerged from his study and shakily announced: “It’s...it’s finished. I’m ready to submit.”
“Well done, dear,” Sandra intoned from the stove.
“Ooh, will you play it with me, Daddy?” Alice Hodge asked excitedly, looking up from her homework.
“Now, honey, don’t be silly; you know it doesn’t work like that,” Lucas answered matter-of-factly. “It’ll have to go into trial mode first, beta testers and so on... Anyway, I’d imagine the ages will be strictly 12 and up, and you’re only 7–”

There followed an odd pause.

“9, Daddy. I’m 9.” Though she tried to hide it, it was obvious the girl was crestfallen.
“9?” Lucas repeated, sounding genuinely stupefied. “Oh. Slip of the tongue.”

As their daughter disappeared into her room on the pretence of fetching a textbook, Sandra turned to stare at him; her eyes held reproach, mixed with something else.
“Y’know those guys you’re always on about, in the park?” she said stiffly. “Well...you’re closer to ’em than you’d think.”
“You knew that going into this,” Lucas replied, his manner suddenly brusque. “That’s the chance you took.”

As his wife finished preparing dinner, Lucas gratefully returned to his designs; at least here, he reasoned to himself, he made the odds.

I do believe the pooka holds onto the belt for now, but I'll be back :P

Me too - sorry.