[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

alchemist33

I think so.

At this point, I'm going to relinquish the belt. This new-story-every-2-or-3-days lark is a young man/woman's game. It's been a good run (W4 D1) but I've been neglecting the Magnum Opus and I really need to have the first draft by Christmas.

So, adieu, and let the next two do battle.

slavetothegrind

Don't forget to let us know when your opus is finished, i would buy it blind no bother!

It's been a pleasure reading your stuff so far.;)

pickarooney

FeetMagicII - consider yourself banned from The Arena.
Dean09 and hous to fight it out for the vacant spot?

Has anyone kept a tally of the most wins in a row?

hous

Ok...I'm in, theme is mirror

hous

Peaked too soon.....

pickarooney

24 hour clock doesn't start on this until Dean09 has accepted the challenge.

hous

whoa, sorry....mis-read earlier, thought alchemist was still on...

El Guapo!

pickarooney wrote: »

Dean09 and hous to fight it out for the vacant spot?

Me??
I already had a go last week and didn't do too well.
I think there's other people waiting to have a go before me again isn't there?
I'll give it another bash if there's nobody else in line but I wouldn't wanna skip anybody, especially since I didn't put my name up.

pickarooney

Sorry, looks like I can't follow this thread either!

Who's in with hous then?

coffee_cake

pickarooney wrote: »

FeetMagicII - consider yourself banned from The Arena.
Dean09 and hous to fight it out for the vacant spot?

Has anyone kept a tally of the most wins in a row?

if anyone beats me ill start playing again :pac::pac::pac:

El Guapo!

pickarooney wrote: »

Sorry, looks like I can't follow this thread either!

Who's in with hous then?

I think Me-skywalker mentioned something about entering.
Or Maybe Harrythehat since it was a draw?

pickarooney

bluewolf wrote: »

if anyone beats me ill start playing again :pac::pac::pac:

How many did you rack up?

coffee_cake

pickarooney wrote: »

How many did you rack up?

i haven't the foggiest, i wasnt counting

ill go back and have a look

coffee_cake

only 5, seems very few for all that mad effort :pac:

Mrs.Doubtfire

In the queue please.

JaneHudson

What about if the challenger posts their story when they challenge? Could that work? It eliminates the risk of pranksters and flakes challenging and then not putting up a story.

pickarooney

JaneHudson wrote: »

What about if the challenger posts their story when they challenge? Could that work? It eliminates the risk of pranksters and flakes challenging and then not putting up a story.

Not a great idea IMHO. It gives the challenger an advantage in that people have an extra day to read his/her story and the champion an advantage in that he/she knows what he/she has to beat.

harrythehat

So what's the craic now mods? I'm happy to throw my hat in again but don't mind at all if someone else wants the opportunity first!

pickarooney

Might as well make it Hous v HarryTheHat on the theme of Mirror.
MrsDoubtfire if you wouldn't mind contributing a few more posts before challenging, just to avoid suspicions of hit and running, that would be cool.

harrythehat

She stood in front of the mirror, afraid.

It was 67 days since the accident.

Everybody she knew thought how lucky she was to be alive, and in her head she knew that they were perfectly correct. Lucky, that was what she was. She didn't feel very lucky, but she never articulated this to anyone, there was no need for them to know.

She had spent the first 12 days in a medically induced coma. The doctors said it was better that way, gave her body more of a chance to cope with the dual traumas of the car accident and the fourteen hours of life-saving surgery she had gone through in the aftermath.

You would think, in these circumstances, the physical pain of getting through each day would be nigh on impossible. In fact, it was the pain inside that was beyond endurance. For nobody but herself knew that her car had not spun off the road in some kind of freak accident, as was reported. Nobody knew that it was entirely deliberate, and that her biggest regret about the whole affair was that along with everything else she had managed to **** up, she couldn't even get killing herself right.

On day 39, John the orderly told her she had beautiful eyes. She assumed he was trying to cheer her up, for she was even more forlorn than usual that day. With all the bandaging on her face and body, and tubes sticking into her, her eyes were about all he could get a clear view of. They were beautiful though. Murky grey-blue and full of sadness. He did his best to make her smile, just to see them glint, however briefly.

On day 42 he stayed for an hour and a half after his shift ended talking about everything. He caught her up on what was going on in the real world, argued with her about music and made every excuse in the book to stay a few minutes longer. And he did stay a bit longer, every day after that.

Gradually, her sense of self came back. Not the self that had ploughed off the road at 80 miles an hour. The self that had been vibrant, young, carefree. As she gently made fun of his accent he would caress her. They fell in love before they even had the chance to realise what was going on.

Now it was D Day. The tubes had been removed. Time to take off the bandages and see how the scars had healed. She stood in front of the mirror, alone. Frozen. Scared.

Would he still love her when the bandages came off?

Would it be enough to stop her from doing the same thing again?

Mrs.Doubtfire

pickarooney wrote: »

Might as well make it Hous v HarryTheHat on the theme of Mirror.
MrsDoubtfire if you wouldn't mind contributing a few more posts before challenging, just to avoid suspicions of hit and running, that would be cool.

Sure np

hous

He looked in the mirror and didn’t like what was staring back at him.

His jaw had lost its definition and rounded with age and the hair at his temples was now peppered with grey as was the stubble that was rapidly softening as the days dripped off his calendar.

The mirror had started to cloud over again, and so he ran the back of his hand over the condensation. He had carried out this wiping action three times already. Was he hoping upon each wipe of the mirror that a different self would emerge through the mist?

If he was running his own narrative he would be quick to point out that as he stood with hands gripped around the lip of the basin, towel taut at his belly, grey blue eyes a faded sketched impression of the once icy wit that danced within, it wasn’t the superficial aesthetics that had him so enraptured but the belief that if he had managed his lost years with a more considered validity he would not be standing there on that day.

It wasn’t that he disliked his children, only the shards of character traits scooped up from his own gene pool. Identifying his own idiosyncrasies as a collection of repulsive flaws, the result of an egocentric life, made it difficult to find endearing the same flaws duplicated in his offspring and so his relationship with his sons was stilted with more unsaid than spoken.

They irritated him, he found their bourgeois suburban lives undeservedly privileged and he resented the fact that every bead of sweat and every ache in his lower back was endured to provide a synthetic veiled existence for his boys.

He likened them to being adrift in a shallow sea of imperatives, none of which adding depth or colour to the pin board of appointments nailed to the kitchen wall. He often found himself actively refraining from asking them the ‘what keeps you awake at night’ question do they wake with a jolt when they feel that familiar stab in the gut? Do they turn away from themselves in the small hours so the dread is left to fester like a cancer?

“We’re on top of the world” they would reply, on their way to the gym for a thirty minute session sandwiched between children’s tennis lessons and hair appointments. Tick, tick, tick go their clocks. But there it is waiting for them he thinks a little smugly. Those hours of darkness are fast approaching.

He looks at his reflection in the mirror and is horrified to see that his face is contorted with bitterness “They march to the stench of money, power, cars, stuff” his mirror image rants drowning on its own spit. “Artists write about beauty and love in a way that tugs at your soul and you think yes! As long as the artists continue to beat as the heart of the human race there will always be hope for its paralysed limbs. Then they sell their songs to a beer commercial and you’re left humiliated as your knees buckle under the weight of your naivety” only when he released his grip on the basin did he become aware of the ache in his fingers and then the burning rise of bile.

He turned away from his reflection instinctively and clasped his splayed hands to his chest, the source of his pain. Just before he fell to the floor his eyes flashed up to the shaving mirror hoping to catch one final glimpse of the man he should have been but it had already misted over for the final time.

me-skywalker

Just because the thread is called The Arena it doesn't mean there needs to be so much death in the stories. jaja

alchemist33

Yikes, I'm glad I left the arena. Two very well-written stories and nothing to choose between them. I was wondering where hous's was going, then I found out and it all made sense and put all that fantastic musing into place. Harry's was excellent too, the last line introducing the little bit of doubt and wonder that made me, by the breadth of a hair on a fly's backside, vote for it.

hous

Thanks for those that voted, and Alchemist for the feedback on the story, i do have a bit of a rambling style...its a bit stream of consciousness esq.

what happenes now is voting closed?

pickarooney

Congrats hous. Now you wait for your first challenge

Mrs.Doubtfire

Challenge made. Theme: "The River."

Antilles

Mrs.Doubtfire wrote: »

Challenge made. Theme: "The River."

I see nothing suspicious about this at all. :rolleyes:

hous

in on it, will post later....

hous

Antilles wrote: »

I see nothing suspicious about this at all. :rolleyes:

dont understand what that means?