2007 Results
Dept. of English & Comparative Literature\
San Jose State University\
One Washington Square\
San Jose, CA 95192\
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2007 Results#
Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them \"permanently\" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee.#
Jim Gleeson\
Madison, WI
The winner of 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Jim Gleeson, a
47-year-old media technician from Madison, Wisconsin. Purportedly
splitting his time between living in Madison and living in his own head,
Gleeson claims to be working on a self-help book for slackers,
\"Self-Improvement Through Total Inactivity.\"
2007 is the silver anniversary of the Contest that began at San Jose
State University in 1982, making Jim Gleeson the 25th grand prize
winner.
An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the
memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl
Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple:
entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary
novels. Although best known for \"The Last Days of Pompeii\" (1834),
which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression
\"the pen is mightier than the sword,\" and phrases like \"the great
unwashed\" and \"the almighty dollar,\" Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel
Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the \"Peanuts\" beagle
Snoopy plagiarized for years, \"It was a dark and stormy night.\"
Most entries are submitted electronically through the Contest\'s Web
site:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/.
There is also a collection of previous winners being published in August
by The Friday
Project.
It will be available through Amazon.com.uk.
Runner-Up#
The Barents sea heaved and churned like a tortured animal in pain, the
howling wind tearing packets of icy green water from the shuddering
crests of the waves, atomizing it into mist that was again laid flat by
the growing fury of the storm as Kevin Tucker switched off the bedside
light in his Tuba City, Arizona, single-wide trailer and by the time the
phone woke him at 7:38, had pretty much blown itself out with no damage.
Scott Palmer\
Klamath Falls, OR
Grand Panjandrum\'s Award#
LaVerne was undeniably underdressed for this frigid weather; her black,
rain-soaked tank top offered no protection and seemed to cling to her
torso out of sheer rage, while her tie-dyed boa scarf hung lifeless
around her neck like a giant, exhausted, pipe cleaner recently discarded
after near-criminal overuse by an obviously sadistic (and rather
flamboyant) plumber.
Andrew Cavallari\
Northfield, IL
Winner: Adventure#
As the hippo\'s jaws clamped on Henry\'s body he noted the four huge
teeth badly in need of a clean, preferably with one of those electric
sonic toothbrushes, and he reflected that his name would be immortalized
by his unusual death, since hippo killings are not a daily occurrence,
at least not in the high street of Chipping Sodbury.
Tim Lafferty\
Horsell, Woking, UK
Runner-Up#
\"This is no time for safety,\" Lance Steele thought to himself as he
raced in hot pursuit of the evildoer through the cold night along the
narrow road winding through the desolate twisting pass, the smell of
burnt rubber rising from the macadam and the occasional spark bursting
from the gravel heaved against the titanium guard rail, and he wished
that he had remembered to turn the oven off, and that he were not on
foot and wearing his new Florsheims.
P.C. Burchard\
San Diego, CA
Dishonorable Mentions#
Miss Cardinal mused over the singularly decadent manner in which Master
Hammond consumed the steak and kidney pie and was reminded of the
practices of certain cannibalistic tribes with whom she had lived during
her travels in Borneo, not New Guinea, although New Guinea is certainly
nice this time of year, despite the fact steak and kidney pie is rarely
served there, at least not the kind made from sheep or cows.
Brad R. Frazer\
Boise, ID
Agent 53986262.9 was strapped precariously to a giant Chinese firework,
the fuse slowly shortening like a noodle getting slurped into someone\'s
pursed lips, and although he knew he was running out of time and still
had no plan for escape, all he could think of was the song about the
Muffin Man and how the word \"polyurethane\" made it sound like the
material was made out of multiple urethras.
Allison Kelly\
Great Falls, VA
Winner: Children\'s Literature#
Danny, the little Grizzly cub, frolicked in the tall grass on this sunny
Spring morning, his mother keeping a watchful eye as she chewed on a
piece of a hiker they had encountered the day before.
Dave McKenzie\
Federal Way, WA
Runner-Up#
Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was Polartec 200 (thanks to gene
splicing, a diet of force-fed petrochemical supplements, and regular
dips in an advanced surface fusion polymer), which had the fortunate
side effect of rendering it inedible, unlike that other Mary\'s organic
lamb which misbehaved at school and wound up in a lovely Moroccan stew
with dried apricots and couscous.
Julie Jensen\
Lodi, CA
Dishonorable Mention#
Out of a hole in the ground popped a bunny rabbit which had a long thick
orange carrot between its teeth and a big splotch of mud on its back
that had dried into a dirt clump the size of a tumor.
Veronica Perez\
Palm Springs, FL
Winner: Detective#
I\'d been tailing this guy for over an hour while he tried every trick
in the book to lose me: going down side streets, doubling back, suddenly
veering into shop doorways, jumping out again, crossing the street,
looking for somewhere to make the drop, and I was going to be there when
he did it because his disguise as a postman didn\'t have me fooled for a
minute.
Bob Millar\
H�sselby, Sweden
Runner-Up#
She\'d been strangled with a rosary-not a run-of-the-mill rosary like
you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a
quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue
of \"Nuns and Roses\" magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls,
rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of
rosary that said, \"Get your Jehovah\'s Witness butt off my front
porch.\"
Mark Schweizer\
Hopkinsville, KY
Dishonorable Mention#
What shocked Juliette as she entered the room was not that there was an
escaped convict under her coverlet snuggling with her best teddy bear,
but that there was a knife through his back, \"And who,\" she wondered
out loud, steadying herself against the faux-taffeta wallpaper, \"would
stab a teddy bear?\"
Katie Alender\
Studio City, CA
Winner: Fantasy Fiction#
Lady Guinevere heard it distinctly, a sharp slap, as if a gauntlet had
been thrown, and yet it was hardly plausible that she, perched
delicately on the back of her cantering steed, should be challenged to
ride faster, since protocol determined that Arthur should ride in front,
then she, then Lancelot, for that was the order prescribed by Merlin,
ever since he invented the carousel.
Celine Shinbutsu\
Hino City, Tokyo, Japan
Runner-Up#
Hiram had been a three-toed dragon, well on his way to a promotion to
Imperial five-toed dragon, when he accidentally choked on the pink
chiffon scarf of Princess Chloe\'s hat, and his coughing set the new
oaken parapet, on the old stone bulwark, ablaze, thereby earning a
demotion to Troll 3 -- now his only responsibility was to keep billy
goats off the bridge.
Michael L. VanBlaricum\
Santa Barbara, CA
Dishonorable Mention#
At Elvenheim there was great joy, in that the legendary Ring of the
Nordlings had been retrieved from the evil Sudlings by the hero Bill
Baggydrawers, who it must be said looked nothing like a hero, at least
none I\'ve ever seen, and the Ring had once again been placed on the
middle finger of the left hand of the Elvenking, who did rather resemble
a king, even if his buck teeth made him look for all the world like a
great rabbit.
Wayne McCoy\
Gainesville Fl
Winner: Historical Fiction#
Samson looked in the mirror and, when he saw what a fantastic haircut
Delilah had given him, he went weak at the knees.
Neil Prowd\
Charnwood, ACT, Australia
Winner: Purple Prose#
Professor Radzinsky wove his fingers together in a tweed-like fabric,
pinched his lips together like a blowfish, and began his lecture on
simile and metaphor, which are, like, similar to one another, except
that similes are almost always preceded by the word \'like\' while
metaphors are more like words that make you think of something else
beside what you are describing.
Wayne McCoy\
Gainesville Fl
Runner-Up#
The highway coiled up and around the mountain like a snake ready to
strike because it was being harassed by one of those annoying guys on
\"Animal Planet.\"
Brent Sheppard\
Morganton, NC
Dishonorable Mentions#
Marilyn\'s main feature was her mountainous breasts, with an associated
sharp ravine of cleavage--the breasts not awesome like Everest, but
like one of the Highland peaks near Balquhidder, where the notorious
outlaw Rob Roy spent his last days.
John O\'Byrne\
Dublin, Ireland
There was a numbing chill in the air--harsher than a localized
anesthetic, far less jarring than your average epidural, but still
effective at creating that tingly sensation which often precludes a
general lack of feeling in one\'s extremities or sometimes leads to
uncontrollable drooling if administered within the confines of a
dentist\'s chair.
Randy Wilson\
New Albany, IN
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, not even a sharp
knife, but a dull one from that set of cheap knives you received as a
wedding gift in a faux wooden block; the one you told yourself you\'d
replace, but in the end, forgot about because your husband ran off with
another man, that kind of knife.
Lisa Lindquist\
Jackson, MI
The inebriated sailor cast himself into the safe harbor of the diner,
and once he had run aground in one of the orange Formica booths, without
a nod of recognition or greeting brought the distracted waitress into
the present by ordering in a voice both blustery and belligerent the
vegetable soup, an unctuous amalgam of the kitchen\'s leftover odds and
ends sunk in a sulfurous sea of brine.
Jack Mac\'Kie\
Naples, Florida
The car headlights were pale--like a struck match viewed through a
piece of smoked glass which you think you remember using to watch a
solar eclipse around the time Alison and the children were still living
here, which would have been the year before you got the job at the
all-night bakery, twenty humid summers ago--because the alternator was
faulty.
Richard Preddy\
London, England
His feelings for Lydia became a jumbled mess, like when the pen slips
out of the hole on a Spirograph wheel, ruining the drawing you have been
working on for hours, or possibly, the pen running out of ink during the
process, snagging and tearing a hole in the 110# cover rated vellum of
his heart.
Russell Wren\
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
She had curves that just wouldn\'t quit, like on one of those car
commercials where a stunt driver slides a sexy new sports car around
hairpin turn after hairpin turn while some poor musician, down on his
luck and having been forced to sell out his dream of superstardom for a
lousy 30-second ad jingle, sings \"Zoom, zoom, zoom\" in the background.
Amber Dubois\
Denver, CO
Her hair was the color of old copper, not green with white streaks like
you see on roofs and statues where birds have been messing, but the kind
you find on dark pennies from back in the nineteen-forties or fifties
after God knows how many thumbs have been rubbing Abe Lincoln\'s beard.
Michael A. Cowell\
Norwalk, CA
Stanley frowned, his brow wrinkled like the furrows of a newly ploughed
field in the far reaches of East Anglia, England\'s prairie, when the
mighty Massey Ferguson has just completed its traverse of God\'s good
soil in the heat haze of a late August afternoon, and wondered for the
umpteenth time where on earth he had left his reading glasses.
Pamela Hibbert\
Crowthorne, Berkshire, England
The moon rose in the east, a thin, yellow sliver like a fingernail
ripped off with a jagged edge that goes to the quick and hurts like the
dickens, making Selena wince as she looked on from Dirk\'s strong
embrace and, recalling the last time she clutched at something so hard
she broke a nail, brooded as she remembered that tomorrow was her annual
pap smear.
Kathleen Luisa\
Falls Church, VA
Karl awoke with a start, his heart pounding away like a drum, not a well
mannered tympani such as one might hear in a Boston Pops rendition of
\"Also Sprach Zarathustra\" but rather more like a snare drum in the
hands of Terry Bozzio during the time when he was performing with Frank
Zappa.
Christopher D Brunkhorst\
Oxford, NJ
Winner: Romance#
As her quivering lips met his, and her eyelashes fluttered softly on his
sweating cheek, Dr Robbins reflected, \"I didn\'t realize she had upper
dentures . . . in fact, her slippery plastic palate reminds me of going
down a waterslide that hasn\'t been properly chlorinated, as evidenced
by the distinct nitrous and sulfurous emanations, or could it be sinus
trouble?\"
Philip Bateman\
Kenilworth, South Africa
Runner-Up#
There was a pregnant pause-- as pregnant as Judith had just told Darren
she was (about seven and a half weeks along), which was why there was a
pause in the first place.
Tracy Stapp\
Santa Ana, CA
Dishonorable Mentions#
She clung to the memory of their love like those tiny bits of used
tissues he always left in his pockets, which mostly ended up in the
dryer lint basket although enough of them welded themselves to her
favorite navy blue, polar fleece pullover, rendering it as permanently
flawed and unappealing as his name tattooed on her butt.
Pamela Patchet Hamilton\
Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada
He held her desperately in his arms and stroked her silken hair, and as
he drew her full red lips to his, he ravenously smothered her with lots
of smooches.
Bill Kerschbaum\
Ann Arbor, MI
Ruthanne felt as though she was frozen in time, staring into Steve\'s
eyes, deep turquoise pools of Tidy-Bowl blue, reflecting back the deep
passionate love that Ruthanne felt in her heart because Steve certainly
didn\'t feel anything, being in a coma as he was, so what Ruthanne had
reflected back to herself was what she herself felt, bouncing off
Steve\'s eyes, because there was absolutely zip going on behind those
eyes.
Linda Morgan\
Manassas, VA
Winner: Science Fiction#
What a pity Dave was too young to have seen \"2001: A Space Odyssey,\"
for he might have been able to predict what would happen next, when the
ape standing next to the big black slab picked up the tapir bone.
Ann Medlock\
Lenah Valley, TAS, Australia
Runner-Up#
\"So that was your Earth emotion \'love\',\" gasped Zyxwlyxgwr Noopar,
third in line to the holo-throne of S-6, as he hosed down his trunk and
removed the shallots.
Mike Bollen\
Brighton, UK
Dishonorable Mention#
Racing through space at unimaginable speeds, Capt. Dimwell could only
imagine how fast his spaceship was going.
Gary Smith\
Florissant, CO
Winner: Vile Puns#
I was in a back alley in Fiji, fighting desperately and silently for my
life, fighting desperately for oxygen, clawing at the calm and almost
gentle pressure of the fabric held over my face by implacable, ebony
thighs when I realized -- he was killing me softly with his sarong.
Karl Scott\
Brisbane, Australia
Runner-Up#
The droppings of the migrating Canada geese just missed the outdoor
revelers at the inaugural Asian math puzzle competition, marking the
first time that dung flew over Sudoku Fest.
Kevin P. Craver\
Lakewood, IL
Dishonorable Mentions#
He was often found lurking behind the bakery, begging for scraps and
practicing his rap, which is why he was known locally, as the synonym
bum.
Ed Harrison\
Lyman, ME
Upon discovering that his chief executioner Dr. Szekely had been
secretly releasing prisoners, Vlad the Impaler ordered him to be
skewered on one of the good doctor\'s own fiendish spears, when
suddenly, not recognizing the type of wood that was slowly advancing
through the screaming victim, the nutty Romanian ruler quipped \"What\'s
up doc?\"
David K. Lynch Topanga, CA
A rather youthful Billy Joel was fascinated when he entered the Green
Room at the Tonight Show and saw a group of matronly nuns hastily
applying hair color to the noggin of the show\'s next guest, Neil Young,
whose agent offered an explanation from the corner of the room: \"Only
the good dye Young.\"
Joe Wyatt\
Amarillo, TX
Determined to slip the leash, Everett reflected upon his folly, for he
had followed the dusky Doberman of his desire into the kennel of lust,
telling himself that here, at last, was the perfect pedigree for him,
only to learn that she was a Bichon wheels.
Frank Kahren\
Danville, CA
Winner: Western#
The easy and comforting roll of the saddle was second nature to Luke,
and as he gazed off into the distant setting sun, he wondered whether he
had enough change for one more ride at the supermarket before he had to
return to the home.
Glenn Lawrie\
Chungnam, South Korea
Runner-Up#
Slim pulled the branding iron away from the yearling\'s seared flank and
looked up to see Tuffy Edwards, the boss\'s daughter, trotting towards
him on her sorrel mare, Brandi, wearing absolutely nothing but tight
blue jeans and a green tank top---her gi-normous, heaving,
unrestrained hooters resembling nothing so much as a pair of fat
Charolais heifers trying to beat each other through a loading chute.
Syler Womack\
Eustace, Texas
Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions#
A par on the final hole would clinch the U.S. Open for the in-form Tiger
Woods but, in truth, this mattered little to Herbert Cruddle as a
gigantic wave swept him over the side of his floundering shrimp trawler.
Terry Drapes\
Taipa, Macau
Morty, a dedicated track and field athlete, was disqualified and charged
with animal cruelty after giving Viagra to his 20-foot boa constrictor
and using the snake to pole vault.
JL Strickland\
Valley, AL
Nothing looked good on the two young celebrities, Scarlett Johansson and
Kiera Knightly, as they posed on the cover of a fashion magazine, with
their lips the color of a Big Ben Hybrid Teas Rose, and flawless
complexions, but they could not compare to the one with Jennifer Lopez
with her smoky gray diaphanous blouse, high heels, and a black leather
belt that would leave a nasty red mark if she were to spank you with it.
Wayne Spivey\
Huntsville, TX
The stench would have been too much for most people to take, but Karl
was used to it, having served as a Mess Specialist on board the \"U.S.S.
Constitution,\" an aircraft carrier that launched planes off its deck
like so many maggots off a hot skillet.
Lupe Amezquita\
San Jose, CA
His hat fit his head as snugly as a manhole cover does the thing it fits
into. Steve McAllister\
Austin, TX
The small boat pitched violently upon the heaving bosom of the ocean,
causing Johnson to reflect that, although he generally liked bosoms, he
was getting really tired of the ocean\'s bosom, and wished that it would
at least drop from a 44D to a 34B.
Mr. William J. Harvey\
Midwest City, OK
As master luthier Francesca turned the night-black ebony tuning pegs of
her latest creation, a flamenco negra guitar with glowing palosanto back
and sides, she thought about Vicente, his manly left hand soon caressing
this same fretboard in an outpouring of mournful tarantas and
siguiriyas, and at that very moment her g-string snapped.
Jim Holman\
Gresham, OR
Joshua was as dumb as a bunny and not at all like the egg-carrying one,
more like the one who has never gone to middle school, or even the
schools at either end.
Patrick Baker\
Caledonia, Ontario, Canada
The poetry teacher\'s bullet-riddled body lay sprawled on the verandah
floor like a patient etherized upon a table.
Michael D. Bess\
Nashville, TN
There was only one thought in Kurt\'s mind as his trembling hand and
timid fingertips edged closer to the neck of Annabelle\'s silk blouse,
his heart pounding ever faster in syncopation with her panting breaths,
gentle cries coming from her slightly-parted lips, her pleading eyes
wide with a primitive emotion--if only he\'d kept a tighter hold on
that gerbil.
Jonathan Blay\
Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada
Clark Kent, in his alter ego known as Superman, the Man of Steel,
huddled deep into the doorway to escape the pelting Spring shower, well
knowing that wearing wet clothes for any length of time would give him
surface rust, which he would have to remove by bathing in dilute
phosphoric acid, and then sanding with 400-grit wet-and-dry sandpaper.
Roger Bond\
Whittlesea, Victoria, Australia
Allison sipped her tea as she thought about the Isabella Rosselini
types--tiny, fragile, etiolated, willowy creatures of ethereal beauty
whose delicate spaghetti-strapped sundresses seemed to hover about a
quarter of an inch above their skin, while Alison\'s sundress cut into
her flesh at the straps and bound at the waist or it ballooned out like
the muumuu it really was.
Katy Brezger\
Dowagiac.MI
Hector had just met Sabina minutes before, and yet there they were,
knees touching, faces just inches apart in the dimly-lit room, and her
gazing deep into his eyes, which should not have been a surprise to
either of them given that she was an ophthalmologist and he was a boxer
whose left retina may have become detached the night before when \"Mad
Dog\" Washington clocked him with a vicious right cross.
Ray Campbell\
Redwood Shores, CA
It was pleasant for Zandra to remember the beach at Cannes where she and
Jean-Yves had lain, his pianist hands touching her in patterns of the
Rachmaninov he\'d played at Languedoc, to recall the scent of his
lavendar mosquito repellant, his deep laugh when she\'d said: \"Tu es le
premier homme pour jouer la musique classique sur mon estomac,\" and his
reply: \"C\'est dommage, Zandra.\"
Ellen Diamond\
New York, NY
Maurice slathered on the cherry colored lipstick continually, like some
transvestite from a low-budget, 70\'s rock opera, and plotted his next
escape attempt, as he watched carefully once again while the
absent-minded guard turned the knob to his prison with such ease, and
cursed his Creator for giving him a luscious, silver, hairy back, but no
opposable thumbs.
Cale Dempster\
North Las Vegas
Miles Otterman thought he could get away with carving his initials on
the old oak tree in the town square - and he just might have if Sheriff
Mitchell hadn\'t recognized his MO.
Terry Drapes\
Taipa, Macau
If you think that the resemblance between the characters in this book
and any person living or dead is only coincidental, you\'re just not
trying hard enough.
Janina Eggensperger\
Conway, AR
\"Send an ambulance; I\'m glistening profusely . . . bosom heaving . . .
luscious, ripe orbs threatening to burst the seams of my black lace
bodice . . . . pulse galloping apace like a knight\'s sleek steed . . .
exquisite pain radiating down my graceful, alabaster arm, shooting
upward to the finely chiseled jaw . . . I shall swoon---oh, my
address?\" the romance writer gasped into the phone before collapsing.
Linda A. Fields\
Framingham, MA
It was dark that night, dark as the hood of a black \'77 Firebird and
with the same glossy feel as rain had washed the Big Easy, but New
Orleans did not seem any cleaner, just hot and sweaty like the back of a
French Quarter stripper.
Marc \"Zeke\" Kossover\
San Francisco, CA
Everything about Randy proclaimed him to be a man\'s man, though neither
in the sense of being the kind of man women are drawn to and men want to
be nor in the homosexual sense, rather, in the sense of being a highly
efficient and well-compensated valet.
Barbara Lauriat\
Oxford, England
Jake entered the small suburban bank, his face as cold and frozen as
Theodore Roosevelt\'s on Mount Rushmore while at the same time his
sweaty hands clenched and unclenched nervously in his pockets like one
of those fast motion movies of flowers blooming and dying, to open a
savings account.
Frank Leggett\
Sydney, NSW, Australia
As the budgies and parrots descended upon him, Rolf began to regret his
decision to wear an outfit made entirely of cuttlebones; unfortunately,
this was the first of many a fashion faux-pas resulting from Beatrice\'s
none-so-sensible advice.
Ella Meumann\
Lenah Valley, Tasmania
Cooter--prone to deep cogitation when troubling bouts of constipation
resulted in long-winded visits to the loo--reflected sentimentally on
the oft underrated pork rind, envisioned its golden \"pigmentation,\"
its pleasingly rough exterior where marriage of deep fryer to
fat-rendered skin hath borne progenies of crispy bubbles, deceptive in
their parchment-skinned fragility-in reality a coordinated cacophony of
crunch hitherto unmatched in the snack world.
Leslie Muir\
Atlanta, GA
It was a dark and stormy night, although according to meteorologists
since the lightning density on the satellite imagery for the area was
only about 0.5 strikes per square mile, it wasn\'t stormy, and according
to members of the American Society of Cinematographers because the
lights from the city reflected off the clouds and created about 13
lumens of light, it didn\'t really fit the technical definition of dark.
Steve Petermann\
Plano, TX
My tongue moistened my parched lips and my stomach started to churn as I
hungrily admired Leslie\'s hair, which loosely resembled my great aunt
Betty\'s daughter Cornelia\'s famous tuna casserole--brown, dry and
crisp around the edges, yellow and creamy in the center with just a hint
of grease spilling out over the top.
Paula Price\
California, MO
With \"Bambi\" eyes and an angelic face made for singing \"The hills are
alive\" while traipsing across an Alpine meadow, Heidi Weissbrot seemed
as pure as driven snow to older folks around Peach Blossom, but among
boys her own age, there was a nasty rumor that her purity was more akin
to snow driven to the river in dump trucks after being scraped from
roads and parking lots.
Tom Rohde\
Minneapolis, MN
The crater of the volcano glowed red against the black sky, looking as
if God had taken a drag of His cigar - if He smoked - which of course,
He didn\'t.
Wendy Spoelstra\
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
John lay in the morning dew next to his sleeping love as the pink hues
of the sun rose over the rolling hills, illuminating a tender scene
where for the first time satisfaction had come for a happy couple, who
had fought all manner of obstacles to come to this one glorious moment,
defiant in the face of Montana\'s repressive bestiality laws.
Dan Stuart\
Burlington, VT
\"I love the library,\" Hilary said for no particular reason except to
hear her own soft voice among the myriad of books which contained
characters as familiar and recognizable to her as the neighborhood bum
she passed everyday, who looked like Ted Danson when he dressed up as
Dracula in Three Men and a Little Lady.
Jessamyn Sudhakaran\
New Boston, OH
When Marcel sank his dentures into the tarte frapp�e aux moules
demi-tantalis�es � la proven�ale to be suffused not with a pot-pourri of
gilded remembrances of infancy, nor with vignettes of past hurly-burlies
on the chaise longue, but with a bland m�lange of ephemeral insipidities
of quotidian contemporaneity, \"That takes the biscuit,\" he thought,
Madeleine\'s forgotten the salt, again.\"
Graham Thomas\
St Albans, Hertfordshire, England
The Archbishop, imprisoned for ten years in various palaces where he was
called \"Traitor\" instead of Christoph, returned home amid cheers of
those who knew his happiness and stature soon would be cut short by the
sword of the Black Knight, who was actually quite pale since sunlight
doesn�t penetrate armor, chain mail, and woolen underwear.
Mary Ann R. Unger\
Ewing, NJ
Dane worked the Spyrograph furiously, first red, then green, then red
again, and finally blue; the pattern he sought was in there somewhere,
and the correct combination would open the doors to a euphoria only
known to dogs getting their stomachs scratched and parakeets viewing
themselves in the mirror.
Matthew Warnock\
Elgin, IL
\"I\'ll have a pack of cigarettes please.no, Marlboro 100\'s . . .
lights please, in a box yeah, no, wait, give me a soft pack, no, not
those, the ones right above them, no, no, right next to those, yeah,
wait, make it two packs, no wait, how much are they . . . no, one pack
will do me, and a lighter please, no the other one, yeah, that one will
be fine,\" he said quickly.
Shane Spears\
Blytheville, AR