[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

coffee_cake

orange you going to lettuce in!

me-skywalker

Lettuce in and you'll find out!!


*years old one*

Ben Moore

Who are we waiting for here, Alchemist or Carter?

Ben Moore

Hi that last post came across quite blunt, apologies.

I am very interested in this topic, especially with the Fish Flash Fiction competition now open for entries.

I would love to take part to have a practice run!

pickarooney

I make it as follows:
STTG is/was officially champion. Carter is first challenger but has not taken up the option. Alchemist33 issued a challenge which was missed or ignored by STTG.

Technically Alchemist33 has taken the title by default and Ben Moore is first challenger.

If it's all right, I'll PM the four involved with a deadline so this can get going again.

alchemist33

I'm still in then. Sorry about not replying there to Ben (and thanks for the PM, Pickarooney). I'd been checking in daily after posting but my enthusiasm had waned after the first week's lack of response.

So I'm happy to be challenger to slavetothegrind, or one of two challengers to a vacant title, or whatever. If there's two challengers, we can use the aforementioned theme (I'll admit it - I've written half a story) or another one.

slavetothegrind

no in fairness alchemist we'll stick to the box as you have invested time and effort and i have been tardy in the extreme.
Gimme till this time tomorrow and i will get something together.

That is if this is not too late and acceptable to all parties?

Sorry for the delay in responding i have been online but negligent.:o

alchemist33

In that case, COWABUNGA!

See you back here tomorrow, sttg.

slavetothegrind

indeed my usurping friend:p

slavetothegrind

Simon West was a happy man today. It was his last day before two weeks of annual leave. The other staff at the Hennigberg Research Facility were amused to see him smiling as he normally wore a worried stressed out look, just like his fellow professors.
Working there did that to people. It was a US government facility ostensibly to research chemical effects on crops but actually there for far worse reasons.
Simon had known roughly what he was getting into when approached but could not know exactly until he accepted the terms. His sense of national duty drove him to sign on and help his country, his fellow American.

Much of the last two years he has regretted that decision but he struggled on in the vain hope that he might make a positive difference in some way. He made a difference alright, enough to give him insomnia and a prescription drug addiction.
The work was too important and too advanced for him to consider leaving, not to mention breaking the contract would land him in prison.

At last he had finally wrangled some holidays after a very successful recent test on a new product, this made him very happy. He had recently worked out a plan to rid himself of the stress working in “the box”, a name the staff bestowed upon the concrete structure they worked deep within. He had come to a realisation about his work and his part in helping his fellow humans that gave him a warm sense of good feeling. It reminded him of that injection in the dentist’s chair, one minute you are in agony and the next you cannot believe how good it feels to have no pain! Intoxicating!

It was time to leave, he strode purposefully and contentedly to the departure zone.
He smiled at his co-workers and shared a comment or two as he made his way.
He was met at security by a new man he had not met before. He told him he was randomly due a thorough check.
A Cat 1 search involved a full stripdown and invasive instrumental cavity search and full body scan. His clothes were also scanned and electronically sniffed for hundreds of chemicals he might have secreted therein. None of this perturbed the professor; he was thinking of his holiday schedule and smiled through most of it.

As he left the building he glanced back and his smile flickered for a second but then returned with renewed vigour. He started his car and headed for the airport.
Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta is the world’s busiest handling over 45 million passengers in a year. It was the obvious starting point.

Simon estimated it would be about four hours after ingestion before contagion became active. Tests had shown that microscopic contact with the bacterium had 100% likelihood of infection. The bacterium had a lifespan outside the body of about 10 hours at 20 degrees and longer in the cold. The breakthrough with this particular strain was the inability of conventional means to detect it until infection had progressed beyond possible recovery.

Arriving at the airport he checked his watch, it was six hours since he had taken the dose.
He scanned the airport map in arrivals and proceeded to tour the toilet facilities in the airport, touching every door handle in sight. He travelled all the escalators rubbing the handrails as he went. Upon reaching congested areas he caused himself to sneeze achieving the equivalent of an airburst transmission.

Simon West had reasoned out his existence and found the answer deep in his troubled mind, and medicine cabinet. He was the creator of the end of humanity, it was only fitting that he deliver it himself. When you realise you have the abilities of a God the force of that realisation is an adrenalin rush no pharmaceuticals can equal. Certainly there is nothing that can replace it. For now, in this moment Simon was God and it felt spectacularly good.

alchemist33

He pressed the doorbell, hoping to God that she wasn't in and somebody else could do it. But, no. A blurred shape appeared behind the frosted glass and the door opened.

"Jimmy?" She squinted in the morning sun, the light almost hiding the discolouration around her left eye.

"Marie, I have some bad news. Can I come in?"

"Sure." She stepped aside and gestured him in, more with resignation than apprehension. She pointed him towards the sofa and sat down on the armchair opposite. "It's about Frank, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." He breathed an inward sigh of relief. She'd cleared the first hurdle for him. "We found his car overturned in a ditch this morning, on the road back from McQuillan's. He was already dead when we found him."

She sighed. "I’m not surprised. I told him -- every time -- that he should get a taxi back. I told him until...well, he didn't like being told."

"I know." He remembered the last time he'd been in this house, after another call from Marie. Frank had hit her, again, while drunk, and they had taken him away. But she'd taken him back, again, and the cycle continued. And that wasn't the only time he'd seen him in action. "That time I got him for running a red light, and he broke the side mirror on the squad car."

"Yes, his colour blindness, he always said."

"Yeah, I knew it was just an excuse." He regretted it immediately, speaking ill of the dead. "Listen, is there anything I can do? Anywhere I can take you?"

"No, but I'll call my sister and see if she'll come over. Do you want a cup of tea, or coffee?"

He held back from his standard negative response. This was different. "Tea would be fine."

"Good." She smiled, showing a little of the woman she had been. "I'll call from the bedroom. You go on into the kitchen and look after yourself."

He put the kettle on and searched around for the teabags. Nothing. He opened a cupboard and a white plastic box fell out. He caught it one-handed -- still got it -- and put it on the counter.

It rattled, full of boxes of tablets, but he could see something wasn’t right. He picked up one bottle which was almost full with yellow and green capsules, but topped off with a layer of yellow and red ones. The label showed it was Frank's heart medication and the bottle beside it contained Marie's sleeping tablets -- the yellow and red capsules. Marie's tablets had gotten mixed with Frank's. Dead, colour-blind Frank.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and pushed the box back into the cupboard. It didn't fit properly, as if someone had shoved it in there hastily, maybe just a few minutes ago.

"Did you make tea?" She'd changed into a sleeveless blue dress, showing more bruises on her arm, and her step seemed somehow lighter..

"Was just about to, but the station called." He held up his phone. "I have to get back. Did you get your sister?"

"Yes." She was hesitant, as if sensing a change in the atmosphere. "She'll be here soon."

She led him to the door and he paused there while his mind raced. She stood silently, close enough to touch, and he wondered for a moment if that was what she wanted. The fading black eye seemed so much lighter now, as if the new dress was making it go away.

"Goodbye so," he said and backed away. "Someone from the station will be down later."
She nodded and shut the door. He took two steps towards the car, thinking about the pills, the bruises, and the new woman in the house. The way things had fallen, he had a choice.

His phone rang -- the Sergeant, wanting to know how he was getting on. "Okay," he said. "Except we have a problem..."

alchemist33

I wasn't waiting for you to post, slave. Honest I was just coming home!

Two stories involving pharmaceuticals - who'da thunk it? Nice ending there.

pickarooney

Well worth the wait for these two. Alchemist33 by a nose for me.

JaneHudson

It was a close one and the standard was good but I went with the one that had a smoother narrative. The story unfolded naturally from the moment the policaman knocked on the door, while the scientist story had a lot of back-story written in.
I do think that the theme of 'the box' was tenuous in the box of medications that contained the more important jar of pills so the other story stuck to the theme a lot more.

slavetothegrind

well done alchemist!

Good job.;)

alchemist33

Thanks, slave. But we have hours left, surely?

slavetothegrind

i can hear a portly lady crooning in the distance....:p

Mr E

I was reading STTG's story thinking 'we have a winner'.
Then I read alchemist33's.

Good job to both, but it's Alchemist by a nose for me....

alchemist33

So have I won? Woohoo!

Thanks for the votes, folks, and the challenge, sttg. I'm sure you'll be back.

pickarooney

Bring on the Ben

Ben Moore

Sorry i missed the voting but I went with the winner before reading the other posts.

Both very well written!

So do i come up with a topic, I'll just pop back to the rules for a tic and i'll be back in a moment.

Ben Moore

Next theme: Still Motion

alchemist33

Are you sure you shouldn't be in the Photography competition section?

Have at you!

Ben Moore

On his way home he asked the taxi driver to stop at the off licence.

“No problem Bud.” The toothy Nigerian parked and tapped the steering wheel as he listened to the Cheryl Cole song on the radio. “Hmmm mm mm Cheryl, hmm”

Minutes later jumped back in with a bottle of bourbon and a litre of cola. The taxi brought him home.

Phil struggled with his box and bottles up the four flights of stairs to his flat. Even though the mess was exactly the same as he had left it that morning, everything had changed. He dumped the box in the corner and picked up a glass he has left on the top of the television and filled it from the bottles.
Four glasses later he was lying upside down on his couch, his mobile was ringing on the floor several inches from his head and he was shouting.

“Can’t talk. Leave me alo...”

His phone stopped ringing.

“Thank you.”

He shut his eyes.

The next morning he signed on in his local welfare office and then went straight back to the off licence.


* * * *


The next few months were much the same. During the small windows of sobriety he would turn on his computer and scan websites, sending off a few emails. On the days he felt adventurous Phil went to the cinema but invariably fell asleep and was woken by an usher whose face clearly objected to not just his presence but also his stench.

“Big mac, a large fries and a diet coke”

Phil enjoyed the different reactions he got. At the end of six months he was banned from every cinema in the city. He took to wearing disguises that sometimes worked. On the days that it didn’t work he would harass the local Xtravision until that closed down.

Another six months passed and one evening he was on his way home from being thrown out of the local library when he checked his balance. The figure was so low that he had to support himself on the edge of the atm.

Within a few hours he was at home scraping the weeks-old beard off in hot shower. The fridge was neatly packed with his friends, the bourbon and cola. Phil did not drink a drop that night.

The next morning he walked with purpose through the glass door of the welfare building and joined the queue. Finally, he arrived at a hatch and the middle aged man on the other side looked at Phil’s crumpled clothes and bloodshot eyes.

“Have you been looking for work?”

“Freelance market research for Jack Daniels. But I’m not getting paid.”

Phil coughed and the rattle echoed through the large hall behind him.

“I’m afraid we will have to cut off your benefit.”

After a brief argument he was escorted from the premises and returned to his flat to face his landlady and her imposing brother. He managed to grab a few items of clothes and the important contents of his fridge before leaving.

Phil took big sips from his bourbon as he walked the streets of his city and eventually found a spot between two industrial bins. It was a cold uncomfortable night. He had found a new home. The last remnants of his cash went on more booze to keep him warm. But eventually he fell into a long sleep and was found almost dead by a passerby. They took him to a hospital. The doctors tried to save him.

For an instant Phil woke up.

“There’s still motion”

Then he was gone.

alchemist33

Terry set the still motion sequence to run one more time. The child, his belly swollen with malnutrition. Famine. The teenager with his stump in the air, his forearm hacked off by paramilitaries. War. The old man, skinny and listless from dysentery. Pestilence. And the girl, maybe about fourteen; a close-up of her dead face, eyes staring. Death.

The Four Horsemen would be his best exhibition yet, and hopefully the most lucrative. The product of six months in war-torn Africa, it had almost cost him his life on more than one occasion, but it had all been worth it.

And yet…the sequence wasn't right. These shots were to form part of a still motion montage on a screen at the front of the gallery. It was the first glimpse of his exhibition for the punters and it had to be perfect. Something was wrong with the shot of the girl. It was her eyes. They were lifeless -- he knew that -- but something like defiance shone out of them.

She'd certainly been defiant at the time, he remembered. She'd fought the group of men like a lioness, which was probably why they'd made their fun last so long before shooting her. It was why he'd had to wait so long too, hiding in the bushes until they had left, before he could creep into the village and take the shot. He'd even amazed himself with his bravery, but he knew at the time that that photo could make him a household name.

No, out she came. Defiance wasn't what he was looking for. He needed victims, not people who fought back. In its place, he inserted a picture of a dead mother and baby from another village and sighed in satisfaction. That was the one.


****

"Well?"

"Orders by the bucketload, Terry."

He grinned in satisfaction. He'd just spent three hours schmoozing and glad-handing the city's wealthy elite, people with more money than sense. It seemed their appetite for vicarious misery knew no bounds.

"I think this calls for a celebration."

"Right you are," Marcus said. The portly gallery owner dimmed the lights inside and locked the door. "There's a good pub just round the corner." He pulled down the shutter over the entrance.

"That'll do." Terry looked at the screen in the window again. The still motion had done its job, as it would do for the next two weeks, displaying the best of The Four Horsemen twenty four hours a day.

"Coming?"

"In a minute." He smiled, seeing his own reflection backlit by a burning Land Rover.

"I'll keep a seat for you." Markus ambled away, whistling tunelessly.

The familiar images sped by; the hungry child, the one-armed boy, the sick man, the woman and -- What? They were gone, the woman and child. Instead, the dead girl stared back at him, her image fixed on the screen. Her eyes peered into his, and for a moment it was as if he saw his own soul, exposed to the world: as black as the pictures he took; as diseased as the old man; as starved as the child; as dead as the girl.

He staggered back in shock and the car struck him, throwing him up into the air to land head first on the footpath with a sickening crunch. He felt paralysed, unable to move, as darkness closed in from the periphery of his vision before engulfing him.

The last thing he saw was the girl's face. She was smiling.

Ben Moore

Well done Alchemist, nice angle and well written!

alchemist33

A little time left yet, Ben, but thank you very much.

By the way, I'd be quite happy to have any feedback from anyone. I'm always looking to improve.

Ben Moore

OK I have read it again and I feel it might be improved (though it is very good as it sits) by having him live with her memory as opposed to getting killed at the end.

I love the fact that his choice of staying still 'motions' her her death, another layer to the title!

alchemist33

So, the blood's been mopped up and more sand applied to the arena. Who's next?

DonnieScribbles

I'd like to (tentatively!) put myself forward...

A theme of smell? I've been thinking about something....