A twist of lime, s’il vous plaît.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently, creative writing, not my usual blogging, diary entries, what have you. I actually feel really good about it. My continuation of Anderson’s Little Mermaid is coming along apace, and today I just received a notification for the 2007 CBC Literary Awards Competition, and this might be a good entry in the fiction category. Of course, there is no guarantee I will get on the short list this time, but if I don’t keep entering these things, I’m no farther ahead.

Here is a piece I wrote for another online competition, this one at WritersC0.c0m, in a category dealing with love, and every month a new challenge is set. This time it they wanted a short piece, 250 to 1,000 words, describing a man going off to war, and what happens between him and his lover during the hour before his bus comes. Many of the entries were quite mushy. I am too old for sentimental drivel, let’s face it, and I wrote this instead:

Don’t Sit Under the Chestnut Tree...

There was nothing for it, Marshall was going off to war and Deanna had made up her mind weeks ago that she wasn’t going to cry, that she would be strong, that she wouldn’t make a fuss. After all, if Marshall loved his country more than he loved her, she should at least be glad that he wasn’t running to the arms of another woman, although sometimes she wondered if this whole going-off-to-war thing weren’t in some way the same thing.

Things hadn’t been great the past while. As a matter of fact, Deanna had been considering ending the relationship right up until Marshall got the letter telling him he was drafted. She realized that giving him back his ring and telling him she had changed her mind would not be a good idea just then. After all, he was going to be fighting for her freedom as well as everyone else’s and she owed it to him to give him something to hope for. Maybe her feelings would change with him gone. You know, they did say that distance made the heart grow fonder, although she had always subscribed more to the saying: Out of sight, out of mind.

“Give me a kiss, Deanna,” said Marshall. The bus station was crowded and Deanna was feeling a bit shy about a public display of affection, but there were lots of young men in uniform and they were all hugging and kissing their wives and girlfriends, so she figured it was all right if she let Marshall kiss her this time. She stood up on her tiptoes, lips pursed, head tilted backwards, and he bent down and gently kissed her mouth.

Suddenly Deanna felt lightheaded, maybe because of the pose she was in, her neck stretched to its full length like that, and she started to faint, everything going black. She didn’t feel the hard bus station floor as she landed on it, nor the bench as her head made contact with a loud crack. In fact, she didn’t regain consciousness at all until after Marshall and all the other soldiers were already gone, their bus having arrived and left while she lay inert, the general excitement ensuring that she didn’t receive medical care until it was already too late and she awoke with partial amnesia, the events of the past year totally erased from her memory.

|

<~~~ * ~~~>