Writing The Otaku Prose Contest Final Round (Vicky VS. Anomaly)

[Mykul]

[CENTER]Welcome, one and all, to the conclusion of the

[SIZE="4"][FONT="Arial Black"][B]OTAKU PROSE CONTEST[/B][/FONT][/SIZE]

Today we gather to see who will win the right to call herself Otaku's "Master of Prose." Will it be...

[SIZE="4"][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][COLOR="Red"][B]VICKY[/B][/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/CENTER]
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/29zpitk.png[/IMG]

[CENTER]or will it be...[/CENTER]

[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][CENTER][B][COLOR="Navy"]ANOMALY[/COLOR][/B][/CENTER][/SIZE][/FONT]
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/107nptz.jpg[/IMG]


[CENTER][SIZE="1"]The only way to find out is by voting! All OtakuBoards members are allowed to vote except for Anomaly and Vicky. Voters, please clearly state which competitor has received your vote. Also, be sure to explain [I]why[/I] you voted the way you did. [COLOR="Red"]The deadline for voting is Monday, May 11.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER]


[FONT="Courier New"][SIZE="4"][B][U]The Challenge: ...[/U][/B][/SIZE][/FONT]
There is no challenge. The only requirement is that each contestant must submit a piece of [I]prose[/I] before the deadline passes. The master of prose must be a master storyteller, not just an individual skilled at completing themed tasks. Long or short, happy or sad, give us your best.

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Red"]Your pieces should be in by Friday, April 24.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Vicky]

[size=1]So I guess I could have wrote something about what the hell this is about, but I'm not going to. I'm tired now and you can make of it what you want; we'll have different opinions, we'll see different things. But there you go. Not my best, but at least somewhere near there. [i]Somewhere[/i].[/size]

---

[center][b]Breath. Smile.[/b][/center]

[font=lucida sans][align=justify][I]I wish that I could paint the scene I see or draw, in words, the colours of the sky; create that exact, that quality of light, the silver pearl, opalescent edge to cloud as day slips slowly down behind the tree and casts in silhouette the scene close by. But of the words I know, not one can quite convey the dusk blue sky that’s shallow ploughed and furrowed through with dying day’s stark, cold, pale, winter sunlight, gleaming like white gold. I wish I…[/I]

The last days of my life were tragic and strange. It was not my apartment; there was no undulating smoke around from my bad habit nor bookshelves piled from my amazing empire I had written and sold. There was no R.E.M. playing in the background, nor a computer screen in my face with the cursor blinking at me telling me I had left him on again and fallen asleep without finishing the paragraph I was adding to my creation. It was nothing like that when I woke up this time because I didn’t wake up truly; my only movements were a smile and a breath.

My brother was in front of me with my mother, but not my father, because he had died. I had missed the funeral, they told me, because I was asleep. I had been like this for months and they never left my side, they said. They said I had brain damage and they asked me if I could understand. I could understand, but the reply…

They never got one. I could hear them but I couldn’t move. My body had betrayed my, the words that I had mastered were still in my head and I knew if I would have woken that my nerves would be too slow to keep up with my writing, too weak to even move my fingers and dance like poetry prose… they knew it.

I wanted to write them an SOS. I wanted to the write them a goodbye note. I wanted to write them [I]anything[/I], just for them… I couldn’t.

And their faces, when they looked at me, was like pity for a paedophile; of sheer disgust and shame alongside my mother’s gaping mouth just dying to say ‘I’m sorry, son’.

[I]I’m sorry too, mum.[/I]

[center]*[/center]

This is how it goes, now:

We’re all on this bus. Everything is moving past so fast and it smells like death and terminally ill; some people are crying, some are laughing, some are sniffling into their shirts and others are grinning to enjoy the ride. Lights go by outside and the place is pulsing even though we’re all sitting still; the bus is breathing, alive.

The walls and the lights outside are moving by too quickly for me to know where I am. It goes from light to dark in a matter of seconds; you can see the sun rise up from concrete messes and then fall with a plunge of bright orange dust behind the hills. Then the stars shine out to say hello and I put my palm flat against the cold window even though my nerves still feel slow and dead, to wave back to the stars, because I think if I shout – if I [I]could[/I] shout – they won’t hear me.

My reflection in the window isn’t what I was used to. I still wear that hospital clothing and my frame is horrible – skinny and like a skeleton snaring - eyes in hollow holes, skin pale and that dark red hair was gone replaced with a gruesome scar in the shape of a bear’s bite. I try a smile but only one side moved and I didn’t understand why.

The bus stops for a moment and opens its doors with a pneumatic [I]hiss[/I]. My head follows two men walking on with very gentle faces and gentle hands as they each tried to shake the driver’s frozen fingers but are declined. One of the men is wearing a dark black coat and a hat, his skin a soft mahogany shade almost and his face wrinkled but still so new and smiling. His friend, slightly lighter in his skin tone, doesn’t smile as much, and keeps these beautiful blue orbs focused on me when he sees me looking. They sit down in the seat in front of me and the bus continues to move.

I sit there numb, I think, staring at the back of these two heads, at double dark hair and vaguely registering the movements outside, black and grey blurs with coloured lights dotted throughout the tunnels we’re now driving through instead of collecting people from the outside world. To where, I don’t know. And why? I could surely guess.

Then the two men turn around almost at the same time. My eyes widen slightly and the darker man smiles at me – this large, yellow grin – whilst his friend simply breathes some terribly hot devilish breath on my face.

I ask them, without moving my mouth because I cannot speak, where we were going.

The Smile shakes his head and says he doesn’t know.

And then I ask him why he was here.

Well, obviously, he says, for the same reason you are.

I blink and question him as to what that reason is.

The Breath then joins in. He says it was because we’re dead.

I know that. I stare at the Breath’s bright orbs and watch his lips twist into the slightest little grin. He extends this hand to me and it felt as if it wasn’t really there to my eyes, just like something floating out of the sleeve. I look at it and back up to him.

What’s wrong?

Nothing, I reply to him meekly, I just can’t.

Paralysed. That was what the Smile says to me with his big saurian grin. You died without being able to move, he adds.

I agree and tell him it’s true; I died as a vegetable. The two listen to me intently and soon enough I forgot I was on this raging insane bus journey to nowhere. The Smile looks and the Breath blows out life on my face with each word I slur to them.

That’s terrible, the Smile admits, it really is.

As the conversation grows deeper I told them what I used to do. I was a writer, I said, and I built an empire on what I had written and sold. I used to be Cockney Chris, a loud mouthed, obscene Londoner whose only depth was in his writing… and even that no one ever saw.

I did it for entertainment, for money - I tell the Smile and Breath - I didn’t really do it to make myself happy.

The Smile turns his head slightly to the side and asks me what I mean. I just shrug and say I don’t know.

You achieved more than us two, the Breath starts with a sigh, we’re nothing. We ain’t got a thing to leave behind, he says.

I smile and remind them both that, having died in a coma, I could barely move and was betrayed by my own body. I couldn’t even begin to build an empire in any kind of afterlife without my working fingers. Without the magic I abused and squeezed every bit of fortune out of.

But your head, the Smile begins, still works. You still have it all up here, see?

His large paws taps on my weak skull and my head falls back a little because I’m too weak to keep it straight against even the slightest wind. I look out of the window again, still faced with the tunnels flying past far too quickly for my eyes to register; I close my eyes and sigh.

I’m glad, anyway.

I only mumble that to them in shame. I can’t see their reactions but I hear the Breath sigh again and I feel in my instincts the Smile’s grin fade. They know what I mean; they know I am glad to be dead.

Well, young lad, you can sell as much as you like. Everyone else can get lost because they haven’t got you; they [I]can’t[/I] buy your dignity.

That was the Smile’s voice because it doesn’t feel hot. I open my eyes lazily to him and realise again how ill and old the bus smells. How it reminds me that I had never, ever, at any point in my life, imagined myself here. I never noticed how sad dying was as you watch the people weep, some smile, and jump onto the bus… a few extending their hands to the dead cold driver and nods to say ‘I’m ready’ and others collapsing until another weary passenger picks them up. I’m not used to any of this…

They’ll have me soon, won’t they? I ask.

Where d’you think we’re going? The Breath replies coldly.

Heaven. Hell. Afterlife.

I hear the Breath laugh - Well, probably - was all he said in return.

Wherever we’re going it isn’t fair. None of us here got a chance to say good bye. Look at all the people on this bus; some look like they’re ready, but none of them look complete.

The Smile still keeps that grin as he speaks the sentence upon his kind and smooth face; the bus rocks and his face moves with it.

We’re all here now and we don’t know where we’re going. I mean, we could have had anythin’ in life, right? Not anymore. So if you had a final wish, what would it be? You never know, we might’a get it.

The Breath’s voice was so different like a separate part of the Smile. I nod to him.

The Smile tells us that his wish would be to have been able to make everyone he loved in his life happy. To make sure that they all knew they were loved, so when they died hopefully they wouldn’t end up in pieces on the bus like everyone else. The Breath, on the other hand, says he wanted to make everyone he disliked suffer, as a final courteous revenge. Like polar opposites of something, they were.

The Smile prompts me: And you?

I turn again to the window at the reflection that stares back hollow and dead to me. I realise that, like everyone else, I was missing something. Even if I was ready I still wasn’t complete. I search my head for some kind of good, full answer to his question but there was nothing. There was nothing in my eyes, no words, for every time I spoke no muscles around the mouth could move and my voice seemed only in my head. I didn’t even know how I was speaking to the two dark toned men.

I search my eyes and let the first thing that came to mind be my voice. For the first time in the whole journey I open my mouth and the words, in a cracked voice but my voice none the less, came out in a fluent sentence that belongs to Cockney Chris, not an insecure fool in a body that had betrayed him.

[I]I wish that I could paint the scene I see or draw, in words, the colours of the sky; create that exact, that quality of light, the silver pearl, opalescent edge to cloud as day slips slowly down behind the tree and casts in silhouette the scene close by. But of the words I know, not one can quite convey the dusk blue sky that’s shallow ploughed and furrowed through with dying day’s stark, cold, pale, winter sunlight, gleaming like white gold. I wish I didn’t linger and let myself die. I wish that I could show everyone how it feels to have the soft powder sand between your aching toes on a grand white beach of blue and white – to have all that in your imagination without ever really touching it – in words instead of Polaroids or phone shots.

I wish I had one last story to write and I wish I could tell this to the rest of the world. Tell them how suddenly, when my voice came back, the corvine black tunnels outside faded into the bus and each soul was sucked right in. Wrinkled hands rose to the air and crippled legs stood up to face a final dessert. I wish I could make you understand why I thought their minds had been replaced by images of bougainvillea plants instead of the darkness because of the sheer joy that came over their faces showing true dignity and real empires for the new frontier.

And nothing quite comes close, dear reader, to watching the darkness engulf the two people who talked to you through this journey. Nothing comes close to seeing that yellow set of teeth still before you when all around in dark, and the blue orbs of his friend still there too. There’s no words to quite describe what it feels like to be staring into the face of death…

…and there are certainly no words to explain why I ‘m laughing and why I feel so alive.[/I][/font][/align]

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[FONT="Garamond"]Sorry for the delays... twice. ANYWAYS. Here it is. I enjoyed writing it. I was stressed about it, but I enjoyed it.

[B]Taciturn[/B]

It smelled of fire and new life, the day we buried my stepmother. My Father and I took a walk around the park near the cemetery, still in our good suits. It was halfway between the light and dark, and the clouds sat suspended in the lighting of the dusk, perpetually frozen, perpetually perfect.

“Curious,” my Father said, to nobody in particular.

“What is?” I asked. He didn’t reply, as was his custom, so we walked on in silence, as was ours.

My Father showed all the physical signs of grieving. He was frailer, thinner than when my stepmother was alive. But emotionally, it seemed, he was the same man. If he was sad, you’d never know it. He was still withdrawn but good natured, thoughtful but with a good sense of humour. Although I had seen it before, I still found it hard to accept that it was his way of grieving. It had seemed to empty to me, at the time. It still did. Though I finally knew better.

When my Mother left us. That was the last time I’d seen him like this.

I was young, so young, but I knew it was for good, when she’d walked out our front door.

I was 7 years old when she left. I trailed her around the house the whole morning, as she gathered her favourite things; plate of china here, an ornament from my grandparents there. All the while she sang in her not quite pitch perfect, but sweet dulcet tone. She picked me up and swung me around, smiling and laughing and pulling me in so our noses touched.

“I love you, Dylan.” She said quietly. And I believed her. She had meant it, in one way or another. Even if it was the wrong way. The way that let her walk away from us.

“Love you, mama.” I had said back, and I had meant it. I stared into her dark blue eyes and the world grew still for a moment. Then she laughed and broke the spell over both of us. I grinned and she gave me a kiss on the forehead and placed me back down on the floor of her room.

I sat myself down quietly to watch as she prepared the finishing touches. She checked her makeup for the third or fourth time before putting it away, and then she sprayed herself with a little perfume.

“Mommy’s going to leave this here so you can always have her scent even when she’s away, okay?” I nodded gravely.

She zipped up her suitcases and held them in one hand as she extended the other one out to me.

“Walk Mommy to the door, sweetheart.”

“Okay.” So I did. I walked my Mom to the door the day that she left my Father and I.

I think even she believed that she’d come back one day. For a while we got post cards and the odd phone call. And every time we did, my Father looked alive. He held out for a long time after she left. Because it was stretched out over a long period, so were the changes in my Father. He acted the same but he was slowly wasting away and as I got older over this period, I began to resent him for never showing any outward emotions towards my Mother. While I grew up and grew rebellious and wanted more, he offered less and less. More answers, more attention, always met with what felt like indifference.

I wanted him to feel what I felt and it enraged me that he seemed to feel nothing at all. I should’ve noticed that all the physical change was the manifestation of his grief. That it was destroying him in such a literal way. But I was young and stupid, so I didn’t. For years after, we lived in the same house but in different worlds.
My Dad tried his best to do whatever I asked of him but it wasn’t enough because I didn’t see it. Because of his silence through it all, I took it to be acquiescence, or a peace offering. I never took his actions or gifts as an offer of love, or even thanks because I meant so much to him through it all. I always took them as face value, shallow and meaningless, like I felt I was to him.

I acted out wherever I could, as often as I could. I attracted and was attracted to the wrong kinds of people for a myriad of wrong reasons. One of the things I remember most is that look he would give me when he came to bail me out of various sticky situations – it was always one of understanding. Never anger, never disappointment - only a look of seeming solidarity, even apology.

I was almost an adult when he met Maureen. She was plain and kind, with a motherly quality that I sorely missed and had needed for so long. I was indifferent to her, like I was about anyone my father met. They were all the same, I told myself, over and over, and they’d never stay. And they usually didn’t. So I couldn’t see, it at first, those subtle changes that told me that yes, this was for good.

My Dad slowly filled with a quiet and intense love. While I had been the love that kept him tethered to reality, my eventual stepmother filled the void that I never could. My Father’s eyes were lighter; the sorrow had ebbed away to make room for joy. And I saw it in his smile. Throughout my youth after my Mother left, when he had smiled, he knew his smile had to count for two, so though they were always sincere, they were always deeply sorrowful. Finally, my Father could smile for himself.

“Do you want to head home, Dad?” I asked, as we rounded the corner and came into view of the cemetery, once again. My Father looked thoughtfully towards the little mound in the corner that marked the spot where my stepmother was.

“Yes. Let’s go home.” He said as he looked at me. And he smiled a sad smile just for him.

It was okay – because this time he was ready.


[/FONT]

[Mykul]

So, two great submissions...would anyone like to vote? :rolleyes:

[Rachmaninoff]

I find it interesting that both entries ended up focusing on death and loss. Both works had things about them that I liked better than the other entry. You guys like to make it hard when it comes time to picking just one. For this I'm going to give my vote to [B]Anomaly[/B] since it stuck out in my mind the most. Great work, both of you.

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"][FONT="Tahoma"]And here the one that struck me as being the most memorable was Vicky's entry. o_O Couldn't say why though I just know that it was the one that made me think the most since the approach it took was different.

Anyway, I'm going to vote for [B]Vicky[/B].

Good luck you two!

[SIZE="1"]And yes I know I just tied things... don't look at me like that. >>[/SIZE] [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Mykul]

In hopes that we'll get more than two votes, I'm extending the voting deadline to Wednesday, May 6. If you're reading this...please vote!

[chibi-master]

Both were wonderful entries, really. It's a shame I have to vote for only one...:animedepr

Well, my vote goes to [B]Vicky[/B] in the end. Her entry sent me spiraling into a sobbing frenzy for no explained reason. Who knew it would hurt so much to cry for a guy called Cockney Chris?!:animecry:

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]I'm not good at critiquing so I'll leave that to the basement kitteh. That and I'm totally lazy. I really liked the descriptions in Vicky's entry where I really liked how well I could relate to the emotions in Anomaly's. And though I know this is going to tie things again, my vote will be for [B]Anomaly[/B]. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Mykul]

I'm extending the deadline one more time, and I'm hoping that we'll get some more votes in. The last day for voting is now Monday the 11th.

[Nomurah!]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="hotPink"]I like both, though I hate having to read off the computer screen, I took the time to do so, and whilst my eyes are in pain, I think it was slightly worth it, indeed.

Down to the point.
[B]Vicky[/B] won this one for me. I love the darkness to it.
That's about it from me, sirs.

[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Sabrina]

[FONT="Tahoma"]Though I like the descriptions and outright weird feel to Vicky's entry, I found myself connecting to the emotions of the events in Anomaly's entry more. Since they are both nicely done, I will be using that as the deciding factor. My vote goes to [B]Anomaly[/B]. [/FONT]

[Haku877]

I have to say I loved the piece of both of them, but this one was more "Reader-capturing" I wanted to continue more, it had an artistic feeling to it, great piece of work. I could really connect. That's Why my vote goes to [B]Anomaly[/B]

[Nathan]

[FONT="Arial"]Vicky, your entry had a very odd and unique take on death. It was oddly dark and memorizing since it made you glad you weren't there.

Anomaly, though your piece was a pretty common take on loss and change, it still drew me in with how the setting seemed so realistic.

For this challenge I will be giving my vote to Anomaly. [/FONT]

[Mykul]

Voting is open until midnight. Keep it coming!

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"][FONT="Arial"]I will be voting for [B]Vicky[/B]. It just had a slightly unsettling darkness to it that really stood out. Anomaly's was easier to relate to, but I liked the odd vibe of Vicky's entry a little better. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Mykul]

[CENTER][B][FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"]ANOMALY WINS![/SIZE][/FONT][/B][/CENTER]

Congratulations, Anomaly, you have won the title of prose master. After a trial of several months, you are triumphant.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this contest, voters and writers alike. You all did bang-up jobs! Congratulations especially to Vicky, our runner-up.

Join me later today in the main thread, where I will be presenting Anomaly with the prose medal.