You have plenty of time to take up my latest challenge. I’m off on my hols for a couple of weeks or so; this means you have until 3rd September to post your entry. And why not have a go at my latest flash fiction competition too? There are cash prizes so it’s certainly worth a go. You can read the previous winning entries to get an idea.
Now onto the latest weekly challenge. As it’s got to last you three weeks, there are three challenges. Have a go at one, two or all three!
Challenge one: Write a limerick.
Traditional limericks have five lines, where the first, second and fifth lines rhyme, with seven to ten syllables in each line. The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other and these lines have five to seven syllables in each line.
Challenge two: Write a ten-word story using the following words:
- Fuddy-duddy
- Yipee
- Cummerbund
- Oblong
- Fairy
Challenge three: Write a story or poem about autumn.
I look forward to reading them when I’m back 🙂
***
For last week’s challenge, I gave you two choices:
Option A: I gave you a story opening and the challenge was to continue the story from that point.
Option B: For this choice, I had a story ending for you and your challenge was to write a story up to the ending.
Here was your opening and your ending:
Option A:
I look around at my colleagues with envy.
“Are you ok,?” Shirley asks, stopping her filing for a moment and looking straight at me.
I nod my head. Blink a tear away. Force a smile. Shirley starts filing again. How can I tell her? How can I find the words to say how I really feel?
Option B:
I was wrong. I thought finding a ghost would be exciting and fun. At the very least I thought it would be scary. But it was more than that. So much more.
All three entries chose the first option:
Keith Channing wrote a story which keeps you wondering how it’s going to end:
An error of judgement
I look around at my colleagues with envy.
“Are you ok?” Shirley asks, stopping her filing for a moment and looking straight at me.
I nod my head. Blink a tear away. Force a smile. Shirley starts filing again. How can I tell her? How can I find the words to tell her how I really feel?
Looking around, no-one else gives any sign that they have noticed. No sense of outrage at the fact that of the eighteen people who make up the complement of this office, only seventeen are present and productive. Seventeen men and women working; heads down, eyes focussed on computer monitors, beavering away like the well-ordered, single-minded corporate drones they are. I envy their uncomplicated little lives, even as I secretly despise them for that very condition.
I turn my gaze back to Shirley. Still filing as though it were all she lived for; absolute dedication.
What Shirley and I did last night was wrong. Not legally, not even morally in the accepted sense of the word, but wrong nonetheless. It represented an extreme error of judgement on both our parts. For goodness’ sake, we are mature, responsible adults; at least we are supposed to be. We are both married. To other people. What ever possessed us to do what we did is beyond me. But do it we did, the inevitable; the one thing that could go wrong; did, and now we have to live with the consequences.
I suppose, in our defence, it was almost inevitable. We spend a lot of time together, and we have become quite close. The mistake was probably not so much what we did, as making the initial decision to visit a bar and down a few drinks on the way home from work. We should have known that it wouldn’t stop there. We should have anticipated that we would do something stupid.
How stupid? How does driving a dodgem car in the local fairground sound? Not bad? Add in alcohol, and the car becomes a lethal weapon. After a heavy impact, I ended up in hospital with a splinter of something in my eye. At least that sobered me up, but it was supremely awkward to explain to my wife why I was brought home from work four hours late, and by a woman she didn’t know.
“Yes, Shirley, I’m fine, thanks,” I say, “but I’d prefer if you stop filing your nails and get on with some work!”
Geoff Le Pard is just brilliant:
I look around at my colleagues with envy.
“Are you ok,?” Shirley asks, stopping her filing for a moment and looking straight at me.
I nod my head. Blink a tear away. Force a smile. Shirley starts filing again. How can I tell her? How can I find the words to say how I really feel?
‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’
I’ve tried to be brave but I can’t go on. Somehow I manage to say, ‘Could you ease the filing drawer open, Shirley; Somehow you’ve snagged my testicles inside.’
Jane Basil can’t stop her dark side coming out. Thank goodness she can’t!
***
Esther Chilton 
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