The winners were announced yesterday. I was lucky enough to end up with an honorable mention, which is pretty cool. I’ve enjoyed entering this contest twice now, and it is fun to see how a single image can conjure up so many unique stories.
http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2007/11/winners-announcement-restless-dawn.html
Here’s my entry, titled “No Margin“:
The plastic filter muffles the elder’s heavy breathing. His pale eyes are thumbprint smudges behind the glass panes of his mask.
“I remember when sunsets meant romance, not retribution,” he says, vocal cords creaking from acid-clawed scars.
I am disoriented by how organic everything is beyond the threshold. Mold instead of plastic. Dirt instead of steel. Bones instead of fiber optic cables.
“The trees grew green,” the elder says. “Not black. You could have sex without spending two weeks in a decontamination center afterwards. Swimming in a lake didn’t sizzle your fat like bacon.”
He shoves me outside, far enough so it’s useless to try and fight my way back in.
“Birds sang. They didn’t scream.” He gives me a last, baleful glare from within the airlock. “I ache for the world, but not for you.”
The door irises shut, hissing as it seals. It will not open for me again.
I press a hand to my stomach, noticeably swollen beneath the orange webbing of my biohazard suit—new life within me, waking to a dead world.
Unplanned. Unacceptable. Unforgiven.
I watch the sky burn, and wonder how far I can chase the sunset before the oxygen tank runs out.
###
Congratulations to all the placers, as well as the other honorables, and the Reader’s Choice winner.
I see that smile.
Yours was way, way better. The one that won had some predictable laughs and fizzled towards the end, if you ask me. (You didn’t, but there ya go.)
Mir
Thanks for the kind words, Mir. You ought to enter the next one. It’d be great to see what you come up with.
Never ascribe to luck what hard work has achieved. It’s not healthy. Here’s a pat on the back for you – good job!