Dear all,
Here is another short story competition entry I can now blog as the time period for selection has passed. Check out the competition on the link below. The maximum word count was 1000 and this time the criteria was for 'descriptive fiction writing' and an optional photo prompt, which I sort of used...
Here is another short story competition entry I can now blog as the time period for selection has passed. Check out the competition on the link below. The maximum word count was 1000 and this time the criteria was for 'descriptive fiction writing' and an optional photo prompt, which I sort of used...
Creative Competitor
http://creativecompetitor.com/creative-writing-competitions/creative-writing-competitions-2016/descriptive-fiction-writing-competition-april/
Weekend Filters
A narrow slit of light remains and floods the unwanted
outside world, inside. Bobby has misjudged the alignment of A4 papers. Now the
dust and who-wants-to-know-what-else flying around in the air, normally
invisible, is twinkling and shimmering as if his bedroom were a large Snow
Globe cracked open. But Bobby’s used to it and dismisses thoughts of the
unavoidable gulps of contaminated air. He moves back to the computer and prints
out five more sheets, enough for another column. The cha-cha-cha of the printer
doesn’t take long. Some Sellotape. Gentle pressure. Job complete. Every square
inch of some bright spark’s 1956 post-apocalyptic dream, the eight towers of
his so-called community, with its hundreds of concrete precast panels, are shut
out. And with it, a grey that in the entire world was only out-greyed by the
political will that had allowed it. Bobby stood back from the window, more
relaxed now that his floating dead skin is obscured, and was pleased with his
work. His bedroom was now a backlighted wonder. For the next three hours until
the sun goes down he would be basked in a tricolor of blue, orange and green.
His head cooled by storm clouds, his trunk heated by the fire of a tropical
sunset and his legs and feet enlivened as they walked within lush grass on a
rainforest’s edge. This weekend was for wildlife! The adventure could begin! The
computer speakers masked the dull, rumbling traffic and shrill engines and
beeps of mopeds and cheap motorbikes that shook his room morning until night
with the tweets and calls of exotic birds and the panpipes and flutes of
soothing indigenous melodies. Bobby was an explorer!
As Sunday nears its end and the shop shutters below him
crash shut Bobby hears his mother call out. Bath and bed! That’s the way. The
weekend has disappeared as quickly as his daring energy; the tiger hunts and Ayahuasca
experimentation; the treks, and ruin explorations. But it was the best escape
yet. It would take some beating, but already he was excited by next weekend’s
potential. The social housing complex fills his view again and the rainforest
fills his bin. Bobby soaks in the bath and visualizes his next journey. He has
been thinking of ‘The Future’ for a while now. He is not convinced his
Photoshop skills match his ambition but with the right layers and filters, more
online tutorials and a small amount of begging his mother for a new cyan ink
cartridge, he may just pull it off. Next weekend his bedroom will be on the
fifth floor of a mega metropolis skyplex, the post-nuclear-common-year 235, in
a city that is only known by the name history books list as Goshogawara. Bobby
supposed there might be some grey, but it will be a better grey.
Have a great weekend all,
R.G Rankine
