[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

My father was a very practical man, so there was no Santa Claus in our little house in Colorado. My Christmas presents, surely some remnant of my mother's influence, spent the month of December, and sometimes November if it was prudent, just sitting on the shelf in our kitchen. By some sort of Christmas miracle, these presents were always wrapped, albeit in the same plain brown wrapping paper that was used to cover my school books so they could be resold at the end of the school year. Being confined to a wheelchair, there was never any danger of me climbing up for an early peek, but even if I had been able, the presents would not have been worth climbing for.
The climb itself, on the other hand, would have been quite the adventure.
Every year, usually around September, when I was back hating school and my father would cast about for something to cheer me up, lighting on a cliche, he would ask me what I wanted for Christmas. It had become almost tradition that I would ask for a bicycle, and he in turn would smile and call me a "little bollocks", and following this exchange, I would spend the next few weeks dropping subtle hints about some present he could afford - invariably a book. I liked books, and this year's, if he'd taken the broad hint, would be a large and generously illustrated version of the new book in the "Walking with Voices" trilogy, as I had been very obviously and repeatedly reading the second installment every evening for weeks, and had even helpfully bookmarked a cheap hardback copy on Amazon. At first, I got the impression that my father was a little disconcerted by the word "walking" in the title, as though that might somehow upset me, but when I explained it was about the adventures of a schizophrenic psychopath making his way across the United States, gutting people, he seemed to cheer up a little.
On this particular afternoon, while I was already on Christmas holidays, and my father was covering as many other shifts as he could until Christmas Eve, I found myself bored and wondering where the trilogy's protagonist might venture to next. I could not decide how I felt about Utah. I did feel mischievous though.
I could not reach the shelf with the sweeping brush, but there was a ridiculously long chord on the blinds in the kitchen, and channeling my inner McGyver, Mary Poppins and Indiana Jones, I fashioned them into some sort of contraption which I was able to use to hook the chord around the back of the parcel so I could drag it towards the edge of the shelf.
The book was a little heavier than I had expected - perhaps the extra little bit of weight was guilt, but this was counterbalanced by the fact that the book was by now lilting precariously on the edge of the shelf and I was probably saving my father's life by removing the threat of this Damoclean tome lest it fall on his head. He would understand. And so, with a final gentle tug, the book came toppling down and landed with a thud on the countertop.
Except, it wasn't one of those satisfying or dull thuds you read about, but one with sickening undertones of crunched glass. I clenched my eyes shut and just sat there for a while, the tears coursing down my cheeks. It seemed my father had not ordered me the third book in the trilogy after all. Fortunately, he was stabbed just outside our house on his way home that night, so I didn't have any explaining to do. Anyway, might you have a copy?

Only three votes? I thought both were great ...

Thanks Ficheall. I probably would too.

I'm not being hard on myself - sometimes stories just don't work.

As to what was in the package.. I think the original plan was that it would be a laptop which the father had evidently scrimped and scrived to save for, then I thought that would be ridiculously cliche, so I decided to make it actually be a book which had just fallen on a glass, so that despite the protagonist's fears everything would turn out okay in the end, but that's a bit of a non-story. I toyed briefly with the idea of the book actually falling on his father's head and killing him, but that would have been ridiculous. So in the end, the suggestion was supposed to be that it was something valuable, and the slight twist of the father being killed would surprise the reader and absolve me of finishing the story. Whether the father was killed by the psychotic killer in the book, and whether the protagonist was the same killer, I had not decided yet. So your guess is as good as mine, really :P

I liked your story Mr E. Funilly enough, if he just changed himself, I think he'd be happy.

I'm up for a round if anybody wants it

I'll open the floor, guys. I have something on every night this week. Could have a bash at the weekend if there is an opening then.

Go on then

I'll go again - give us the cue.

Can we give this one 48 hours? I am meeting some friends for a drink tonight.

Yeah that's fine with me, TP. Happy Christmas.

I'm with family this week and not inclined to sit in front of a laptop for few hours. Home at the weekend though? If that doesn't suit, next week is cool too.

If you're bored waiting for Mr. E, the http://www.jamesonfirstshot.com/ competition asks for you to write a brief screenplay to win an opportunity to work with Kevin Spacey and the divine Maggie Gyllenhaal. Unfortunately its due date is Jan 4th, and the theme is unhelpfully twee - "your story should be around the great and/or unexpected things that can happen when you fear less and invite life in."

Yep let's do it! Someone throw up a topic and we'll go 24 hours from when we both accept