GBA(s)FC Winners Announced

The first thing I feel I need to mention is how many of the stories received votes and how close the voting came out. Often only a single vote meant the difference between one award and another, or winning an award or not. This was an extremely close one, which shouldn't be a tremendous surprise to those who read the entries.

I also want to say that almost every entry received one or more votes, whether through Reader's Votes or in the somewhat weightier Author's Votes.

There were simply too many entries of quality for this to be an easy home run for anyone. I hope everyone who submitted a story is proud of his or her entry. If not, you should be, whether your name appears below or not.

Authors should check their stories to make sure that I have entered the names and links correctly. I also want to encourage you to comment on all of the stories now that voting is closed. I know Basest in particular was frustrated by his inability to congratulate some of the other writers.

Winners are as follows:

Reader's Choice Award:
Entry #1—Little Swallow, by Brian ($20)

Writer's Choice Awards:
1st Place: Entry #18—Pigeons by SilverTiger ($20)
2nd Place: Entry #13—Coppelia by Catherine Edmunds ($15)
3rd Place: Entry #43—Eye Exam, 2208, by Emarie ($10)
4th Place: Entry #8—Harry's Pipe Dream, by Mary Cassells ($5)
5th Place: Entry #34—Untitled, by Miss Understood (Badge Only)

Maht's Choice Award:
Entry #14—If (A Study In Foresight), by Minx ($20)

Honorable Mention: (no monetary prize, badge to come)
Entry #4—Miss Ping, by Shameless
Entry #28—Snake Failure, by Peg
Entry #44—FotoRama, by Sundry

Winners can claim their badges from the post of their story, or email me and I'll send you one. Monetary prizes (which will appear in the form of Amazon.com gift certificates) will go out sometime next week.

This was a great contest, and I certainly learned a lot and made a few new friends (I think). I hope everyone had fun, and I especially hope that those who did not win an award understand that a vote or two here or there could have made an enormous difference. I encourage all of you to enter again when I next host one of these things.

I'll probably do a final post-contest wrap-up in the next day or so, but for now I really require some sleep.

Thanks again to all who entered—and all who voted—for making this contest such a success. This was so much more work than I imagined, but it was also a lot more rewarding.

Last chance to vote in the GBA(s)FC

Voting for the GBA(s)FC closes tonight at midnight. While all politics are local, this deadline lives solidly in CST (GMT -6:00). 44 stories await your greedy eyes if you click the contest badge at right.

Winners will be announced Thursday.

So exercise your civic duty. It's not too late.

Hokey smokes, folks! 44!

Voting is now open for the GBA(s)FC. In all, 44 entries found their way into my inbox, which is an astounding turnout, as far as I'm concerned. I had set my sights on 20 as my potential goal, my arbitrary measure of a successful contest.

Getting 44 entries was beyond even my most optimistic hopes. Thanks eternally to all those who sent in a story, and in doing so, made this reclusive misanthrope quite excited and happy.

I hope the (44!) writers had fun composing their entries. I know I've had fun reading them.

So now we enter phase two, the all-important voting process. Here's what you do:

1. Read all the entries. Everyone clearly worked hard to compose something, and they are all deserving of your consideration.

2. a. If you were not an entrant, decide which story you like best and vote for it in the comments of that story's post. Do not vote for more than one entry, or your vote will not count. Anonymous votes will not be counted either, as there is no way to monitor them. You will have to use a screen name. The Reader's Choice winner will have their results checked against Site Meter data to try to ensure that no funny business is going on. Do not vote via email, as this will confuse the hell out of me.

2. b. If you entered a story in the contest, please select your five favorites and rank them in order of preference (1 is best, etc.) and send your choices to me via email using the address you used to enter the contest. Do not vote here on the site, and do not vote for your own entry. Identify stories by their number, as not all of them have titles, and it'll also make it easier for me to tabulate the results. I was initially asking for three choices from all the writers, but voting for five will give me the option to add a winner or two to the Writer's Choice categories.

3. Complete steps 1 and 2 by midnight CST on February 14th (the end of the 13th). I'll probably put another counter in the sidebar in the next day or so to help people remember the deadline.

4. Check back on February 15th for the list of winners and the unmasking of most of the entrants. There'll be links to the author's websites (those that provided one, anyway) so you can get to know them a little better.

Writers should also check to make sure that their posts have comments enabled at this point, and let me know if it is still disabled. You can also keep an eye on your post's comments if you like slowly torturing yourself over the course of the days that voting is live.

I'd also like to ask anyone who wanders in here to encourage your friends, families and readers to come and vote.

That's it. Easy-peasy. Have fun reading the entries!

GBA(s)FC Entry #44

FotoRama
by Sundry

"Why the hell would you take a picture like that?" Micah holds the photograph by one flimsy corner and squints at it.

I look over her shoulder at the shot. It's a list of names next to stained apartment house buzzers. "Someone famous lives there?"

"Famous and what?" Micah says. "German? Italian?"

"French. Look at all the extra Ts and Es."

Besides which, the architectural details in the same batch. Micah's been working here for three years, but she hasn't learned much beyond refilling chemicals and unwedging jams.

Me, I've been all over the world in photographs. I've made it my business to learn the difference between Prague and Paris by the faces of the buildings.

"I don't know," Micah points a violet fingernail. "Look at this one: Aribi. Or that one: Aliotti."

As if America is the only county in the world people immigrate to. The address beneath the panel of names is 33 Rue de L'Ouest.

Hello?

I crack my gum in her ear, turn around in the close quarters of the FotoRama kiosk, and pull down a box of deposit envelopes. I do wonder why, if you could go to Paris, you'd bring a shot like that back to pass around the office.

If I could get there—if I could get anywhere—I'd ask people to point my sleek new digital at me while I did kooky poses by serious statues. I once processed batch of the same San Francisco landmarks everyone shoots, but with this wild female dancing all around them.

I hope whoever was photographing her loves her for that, and doesn't yell at her for never taking anything seriously; not even Alcatraz, which is probably the most serious thing on the whole west coast. Because there she was in Cell Block A, pointing like John Travolta, the flash glinting off her hair.

It made me want to be her.

"Pack these for me, okay?" Micah says, handing me Paris. "I'm taking my break."

It's better than counting envelopes. The manager only wants fifteen to twenty-five out at any given time. He's from back east, where they have Humidity. He's sure the envelopes will seal themselves if we let them sit out too long. He's forever sticking pictures of snow in my face and saying, "Now, that's weather."

Like 120 degree Santa Ana winds aren't just as impressive.

Micah heads for the 7-11, where she'll fray a movie magazine and cruise the cashier for way more than her fifteen minute break.

I flip the lock behind her and turn to the machine. Instead of ejecting the flash card, I run a second batch. Absolutely forbidden.

My breath fogs the printer's chrome trim as I lean over the assembling images. I need the names handwritten next to the buzzers in round, uneven cursive. I need the cracked storefront lettering, the eggs in a wire basket.

I need to be this other way of seeing; need it suddenly, like my breath and bones.

GBA(s)FC Entry #43

Eye Exam, 2208
by Emarie

When I got assigned to the Ministry for Disability Services, I was overjoyed. I’d pulled 10 years of Janitorial and I‘d gotten so the sight of the vats of disinfectant and anti-viral serum made me sick.

I tried to put a brave face on it, but you can’t fool the machines. My morale readings kept dipping a little at every review, and when my new assignment came through I was three points shy of mandatory mercy killing.

I know there’s a stigma attached to Disability Services. It doesn’t have the prestige of Janitorial, but the job meant more money and clearance for interstate travel. I’ve always wanted to visit somewhere else.

You get used to the work fast. I was assigned to vision screening, and unlike in the mental acuity or patriotism departments, the testing is straightforward.

Hacking was an issue with computer test, so we use an antique eye exam. If you pass, you go home. If you fail, the euthanizing is done in the most orderly, respectful fashion. It’s touching, honestly, and most patients are grateful to us.

I’d been on the job six months when she came in. Most of the patients are referred by their families and most of them fail. Of course, we get healthy people flagged out of spite by x-husbands or disgruntled neighbors. Less often, a patient will just barely pass and we’ll issue a provisional certificate which has to be renewed every two years. We don’t issue many renewals.

This particular day, I glanced at the next file on my desk and saw the patient has had her certificate renewed five times. That’s unheard of. I called her into my office.

She was beautiful. I can’t begin to describe it. She stood there in my dingy office and she almost seemed to glow with it, this perfect, useless beauty. And I knew at once that she was blind.

I’d never seen a blind person, (they say there are a few in the rebel zones) but the way she turned her whole head toward my voice while her lovely brown eyes flitted randomly betrayed it. She must have been using a sensor chip because she made her way to the exam chair without trouble.

She covered one eye and read the exam chart from top to bottom. Then she covered the other eye and did the same.

“You memorized it,” I said.

She laughed. “That’s impossible.”

She was right. The chart is highly classified and nobody without political clearance could get a hold of one, much less somebody with a provisional eye cert. Not unless…

I won’t tell you the crazy ideas I started to entertain. Corruption was stamped out in the purges; everybody knows it was. Nobody would run the risk, not even for beauty like that. Would they?

So I did the only thing I could think of. I issued her a permanent certification of visual fitness. But I tell you, my hand shook as I wrote it.

GBA(s)FC Entry #42

Untitled
by Cavan Terrill

"Vision!" cries the blind man.

He's walking towards me (not the defeated shuffle you'd expect from an old man with plastic bags around his feet and a cardboard sign draped over his tattered jacket, but something proud, upright). I look down at my own feet (last year's fad, scarred with salt stains) and hope he'll walk right on by. There's another man beside me, waiting for the bus. Fortyish. Suit. Immaculate hair that looks like it's been welded to his scalp.

The blind man slows as he reaches the station. Can he sense us here? Does he smell the presence of other people? He's mumbling under his breath, but when he finally stops in front of the businessman, his words become coherent. The cardboard sign he wears has the word 'vision' scrawled on it.

"Vision!" he cries again. "What do you see?"

"I see myself not giving you any change."

"Yes, but what do you see?"

The businessman sighs. "Sorry."

The blind man remains where he is. His gaze is fixed directly onto the face of the businessman. It's uncanny, and more than a little unnerving. I'm trying to make myself as small as possible, folding myself into the crevices of the bus station.

"Look, buddy, I don't have any change. Why don't you just move it along now?"

I see a bus coming and strain my eyes to see which number it is. I'm feeling around in my pocket, making sure my pass is at the ready. The bus approaches, stops. It's not mine. The businessman boards and I think about trailing after him. The bus leaves and it's just me and the blind man. The silence, the anticipation of what he'll say is spooking me.

I'm expecting standard sandwich-board material. You know, "The End is Nigh" and all that. Hellfire. Brimstone. Those are the kinds of visions these guys have, aren't they?

"What do you see?"

And he's looking at me. Straight on. Filmy white eyes looking directly into mine. I'm shuddering inside, looking at his eyes, at his clothes, at his feet. Knowing I shouldn't, but doing it anyway.

"Uhh...a bus stop?"

"Yes. What else?"

"I don't know. A road. Buildings. The sky."

"Yes. And what do they look like?"

I shrug, glance around the corner, hoping that my bus will be here soon. "You know, like they're supposed to. A road's flat and long and black and goes off into the distance. Buildings are tall boxy things. The sky's blue. A few clouds."

He never takes his eyes off mine while I'm talking. He stares intently. He takes a deep breath.

"Yes," he says. The word rides on his exhalation, one syllable stretched out interminably. Dissolving meaning.

I can see parts of myself reflected in his eyes. My face glinting off the corner of his eye.

My bus pulls up. His eyes firm on mine.

GBA(s)FC Entry #41

One More Week
by Fallentrees

At night, when he couldn’t sleep, Vincent searched the Internet for painless and quick ways to die.

“I won’t end up like my father,” Vincent told his wife on a daily basis, more as an angry declaration than a concern.

But he couldn’t rely on her to be around when the time came. He had 20 years to catch up to his father, and his wife’s health was already fragile. If amyloid plaque stippled his brain before that—even if he noticed the slightest change to his speech or memory center—he would be ready.

He wondered why his dad didn’t simply give up and die. Vincent would, if he were in the same situation: diabetes, failing heart, deteriorating brain, day after day in this narrow nursing home bed, staring at old family photos. If Vincent were him, he would rip off his own nitroglycerin patch and speed up his demise. If that didn’t work quickly enough, he would find a friend or relative to give him benzos and booze. Fall asleep and let the nurses collect his Superman sheets, give them to someone who believed in superheroes.

This evening, his father was an inverted shadow atop his blanket: colorless and vague. He tried hard to see the man his dad used to be, so tall and muscular, a golfer’s tan and eyes as green as tiny seas. But there were the larynx and throat, rising from a deflated neck. The human framework that was nearly invisible for 80 years now rising like a phoenix through dissolving flesh. Vincent resented it. How could he hate bone structure? The sternum and clavicle taunted him.

“Why am I here,” his father coughed. “Everyone is sick.”

“You’re here to get better.”

“No, take me home.”

“Just one more week, dad, ok?”

A few minutes later, they had the same conversation. Vincent hated lying to his father, but the promise of one more week—approaching freedom—calmed the old man down. This “week” would last the rest of his father’s life.

After dinner, Vincent helped him into a new pair of pajamas. The papery cotton couldn’t hide his materializing bones. He swore the ribcage was growing; his shoulders looked like billiard balls.

How could anyone this thin be alive?

He tucked his father under the blankets and turned on the news. They sat through reports on two high-speed car chases, four murders, and the discovery of a deformed newborn in nearby Turner Woods.

“No regard for life,” Vincent’s father said, suddenly.

“Who?” Vincent sat up. Was his father referring to him?

“People don’t appreciate it until they start to die. Then they see.”

His dad traced the bridge of his own nose with a skeletal finger, fascinated at its slope and design. Rediscovering his face, his life, with a child's wonder.

Vincent turned off the television and watched his father’s profile, glimpsing the soul beyond his bones.

GBA(s)FC Entry #40

Untitled
by Jacqueline Parker

I fell into a fishbowl.

In my dream the water was violet. Violet like the sky between the sun setting and the night rising. It tasted like cotton candy. I tried to drown myself, but I couldn't. I swallowed as much sweet candy water as I could, held my breath but I didn't sink I didn't panic I didn't get lightheaded the way I guess you're supposed to when you feel the last ounce of life leave your veins. I wanted to feel, for that one moment, as serene as I thought I should feel as careless as I was entitled to feel. To know what it's like to control your own fate, yet to be so out of control… to get yourself to that point and cross that line jump off that fence knowing you can't go back.

I swam upward but never broke the surface; I looked around and saw that I never moved. The same plastic seaweed still sat in the neon fishbowl pebbles that had developed some residue on them from weeks months years of neglect. The stupid rocks had grown complacent in their waiting in their silence.

Out of nowhere, three eyeballs were staring at me. It was at that moment my own self-consciousness struck me: I was fully clothed. And I wished to God that he could make me The Little Mermaid like I always wanted to be when I was a little girl. Make me Ariel so they'd stop staring. Did they want tricks? Want me to swim circles for them? Did I look like a dog? I would amuse them on my own time, if I felt so inclined. A sense of exhilaration passed over me and I gaped back at the Eyes. I nursed my triumph on the inside, the victory of resistance. But they didn't stop staring. I was angry suddenly. And I was angry at Seaweed who hadn't said a word since my arrival! It was his fault, he should have done something! I cried and yelled at Seaweed and the tears felt like nothing to me nothing like the relief crying should give. It caused a physical pain and my eyes throbbed. The heat and burn from the pain washed over my body and I screamed so loud I thought the Eyes could hear me until I remembered the Eyes have no ears. I looked at the Eyes and they were red, Seaweed was red. The water was crimson like blood and it burned through my skin. I could see each finger and hand and foot and toe disappear like it was never there. My head disappeared, I felt it, but I could still see. I saw my chest disintegrate and leave a cartoon heart floating in the place where my body was. And my heart sunk lower and lower until it hit the pebbles. My invisible eyes blinked and when I opened them again my heart was gone. It was a tiny neon rock like the rest.

GBA(s)FC Entry #39

If We Leave It Alone
by Liz

Della pushed the basement door open. "Mama?" she called. She opened the door wider to let the light from the staircase spill into the kitchen.

It'd been an hour since her mother, Rita, had come home from the post office.

"What I tell you kids about cleaning your room?" Rita had shouted. "I work all day, walk a mile from the El, and then come home to this?" Her head shook as she yelled, "Get the trash bags."

Nine year old Mason had gone to fetch them, leaving Della to face the sting of Rita's belt.

"All those toys," Rita swept her arm in an arc, "since you can't keep them off the floor, they're trash."

The whiplash of the belt supervised the bagging of the toys. Mason had hesitated as he'd reached for a Batman figure given to him by a father he'd only met twice. "You'll get yours," he'd mumbled.

"What'd you say?" Rita's eyes were slits, her hand a frenzy of movement as the belt moved across their backs.

"No, Mama, he didn't mean it," Della pleaded.

"Get in the basement!"

"Please!" Della screamed, her tears dried by fear as Rita beat them down the staircase and shut the door.

Mason felt along the wall for the light, his hand finding the switch and flicking it. "You scared, big sis?"

"Mason, don't," Della choked out. "If we leave it alone, it'll leave us alone."

"Maybe I wanna see it again. Maybe I don't wanna be left alone."

Finally, Della's fear had sent her scurrying up the stairs. Mason's laughter followed her, making her eleven year old legs rocket into the living room. The television's flicker illumined her mother's bulk sprawled across the couch. One hand dangled to the floor, the belt an inch away. Rita's eyes were shut, but Della knew her mother wasn't sleeping.

"Mama?" she said, her voice frantic, "Mason's talking to something in the basement."

Rita's hand reached for the belt. Her eyes didn't open. "I told you to stay—"

"Mama, listen to me!" Della shouted. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes glimpsing a dark silhouette behind her. "We, we saw something and it got to Mason and—"

"I don't care what you saw down there!" Rita was off the couch in a flash.

Della raised her hands to block the blow that never came. Her mother's arm was frozen, her face contorted with fright.

Then everything went black.

Later, with their mother helpless in a hospital bed, the doctor gently told Della and Mason, "Your mom's lucky she survived falling down those stairs."

"Does she remember anything?" asked Della.

"No," The doctor shook her head. "Do you?"

Della knew something dark and cold had rushed past, something that had smelled of damp and rot. It had looked like her brother.

She shivered under Mason's watchful gaze. The welts from the belt ached under her clothes. Rita would never beat either of them again.

"No," she exhaled. "We didn't see anything."

GBA(s)FC Entry #38

Justice is Blind
by Paul Liadis

It began the night of my retirement dinner, when in a rare lapse of judgment I accepted the Danger Phone, giving the team a direct way to contact me in case of extreme emergencies. I should have just said thanks for the watch, nice working with you, and disappeared quietly into the sunset, never to be bothered again. Instead, not two weeks off the job I found myself on my way to the Hall of Heroes in danger of missing my noon tee-time.

Ah, the Hall of Heroes. Not my ideal retirement destination. To put it bluntly, the place smells like a very fragrant bouquet of flowers at a malfunctioning sewage treatment plant. Ever since we agreed to start referring to the janitor as Power Lad, the once proud hall was in disarray. Power, even titular power, can go to one's head.

When I was still working, they called me Ocular. My entire life I have been able to see things no one else on Earth could, able to, with the naked eye, see the heat signature of any living creature and most objects long after they have departed. I am able to tell, even days after a crime, how many people were at the scene. Not only that, I have never lost a game of "Guess who cut the cheese?" It's a blessing and a curse, I guess.

As I approached the once proud Hall, I could nearly see the cartoon stink lines radiating from the building. I held my breath and strode to the door. "This better be good," I thought to myself.

Entering the Hall of Heroes, I neatly avoided stepping on an empty pizza box, but my foot found a half empty can of grape soda squirting purple goo on my new loafers. Some of the heroes were sitting on the couch, hanging their heads in shame. Rat Guy stared straight ahead in disbelief, looking like he was just discovered professional wrestling is fake.

As soon as they saw me, the heroes rushed to me like a starving man to a Chinese buffet. "Big emergency?" I asked, finally realizing why I was summoned.

"We tried our best," said Danger Lass avoiding eye contact.

"Stand aside please," I answered.

I slowly approached the couch, thrust my hand beneath the cushions, groped around for a few seconds and held my hand high in the air. A tear formed in Rat Guy's eye, slowly running down his furry cheek. Danger Lass gave me a hug. The rest stood silently in awe. I rolled my eyes and flipped the prized chunk of plastic to Bendy, who cradled it like a newborn baby. I glanced at my watch, realizing that it would take a miracle for me to make it to the country club on time. As I was about to walk through the door, I turned and said, "Next time you lose the remote, check the couch before you call." To see things, you have to be willing to look.

GBA(s)FC Entry #37

A Small Punishment
by NMJ

Mona lay face down on the bed, pressing the pillow into her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the image coming, a white flower closing in a speeded-up film. When Steve had told her he was leaving, she’d felt herself shrinking like the flower.

A routine would be good, it would help take her mind off things, she knew that, but she’d given up on the nine to five for now. She had an Amnesty International calendar in the kitchen and ticked off the days. She’d read an article about a Japanese artist, known as ‘the bread man’, who travelled the world with bloomers tied to his head. Mona understood the attraction of wearing bread round your head, it would act like a giant car bumper, protecting you from shocks.

Sometimes she couldn't stand the things around her. Harmless things like her hairbrush, the kettle, the pattern on the shower curtain – all of these could unleash a terrifying uneasiness in her. Sometimes these things didn’t bother her, but sometimes she had to focus on them and they became unbearable. And now she couldn’t even pick up a magazine without awareness of the act – seeing herself bending down to pick it up. Everything had too much significance when you were on your own.

If anyone phoned who didn’t know, she’d say, Steve doesn’t live here anymore and she’d give them his new number. They’d dial the new number, and Mona’s twin sister would answer, saying, Hang on, I’ll get him, sounding just like Mona.

Only last year, they’d gone to France for their honeymoon. Steve had taken a black and white photo of her in the water with her back to the camera. Mona’d been squealing and laughing, the waves slapping against her like a small punishment. He’d blown the photo up and hung it in the hall.

Now she would sit on the sanded floor, hugging her knees, staring up at the grainy woman. She was desperate for the woman to turn round and tell her that everything was going to be okay. The grainy woman didn’t know that her husband was fucking her sister.

The night he’d left, Mona had curled up in the bedroom cupboard amongst what was left of his clothes, his ties licking her face. She’d cried so much she’d felt she was peeling away from herself. She’d cut off her twin’s head in every photo she could find, scattering her smile on the floor like treacherous jigsaw pieces.

Today, she’d thought of going to a matinee – there was a good French film showing - but she could see herself sitting in the cinema with popcorn, and the preview was terrifying, so she’d turned back. By the time she’d reached University Ave, she was crying and the speeded-up flower was shrinking inside her head again. She’d cried boo-hoo-hoo all the way home to their conveniently situated two-bedroomed flat with gas central heating and attractive roof-garden. Offers over £200 000.

GBA(s)FC Entry #36

Photo
by Nathalie Boisard-Beudin

How beautiful is Magdalena on this picture…

He picks it up, his hands trembling slightly. His sister. He whispers softly “Lella...”

His voice has a catch, as is some hurt animal is hiding in his throat, growling in pain, slowly agonizing over that last “a”.

Seventy years later, the pain is still there, lacerating a corner of his heart.

His eyes slowly fill with tears.

Lella is oblivious to all this.

She looks over her right shoulder, to the view outside the picture frame, slightly detached and smiling.

She knows that she’s pretty: she sports a brand new dress and the photographer is teasing her gently, the old flirt. She’s fifteen.

She’ll never get any older.

In the 1930’s, at the sanatorium of Nereto, on the Abruzzi hills, tuberculosis still kills hundreds of persons each year.

It will eventually claim one of her sister and her father too, but she does not know that yet. As she does not know that, in exactly 10 years’ time, somewhere beyond the Alps, a young French writer will pen his most poetic story around that disease, making water lilies bloom in the chest of his heroine.

A very graceful, even lyrical – if painful – death awaits Madgalena, but on that day, the 17th December 1936, she smiles.

She has all her life ahead of her.

GBA(s)FC Entry #35

Pacha Deluxe
by Elizabeth Hammond

On the director’s call of “Cut”, Pacha Deluxe dropped the cane and strutted past her male co-star’s red behind into the dressing room.

She needed to shower – Pacha was big on exfoliating.

An hour later Anna was soothing her skin with moisturiser in front of the mirror. Her face looked different without the thick make-up and lipstick pout.

Anna needed to go to the museum again.

She’d been a shy kid. But she’d had a dream - to be an actress. Being on stage, speaking someone else’s words, Anna felt free, outside of herself.

After school she applied for a drama course. She was rejected – not enough experience. She was working in a newsagent’s when she saw the ad for actresses to audition for a low-budget film. No experience needed - nudity required. Anna got the part. Pacha Deluxe was born.

And now she was earning stacks of money, so what was the problem?

That painting in the museum, The Cry, said exactly what the problem was.

She’d started going to see the painting every day. Afterwards, she’d close her eyes it was still there. It was getting hard to think about anything else. She had to have it.

Stealing it was so easy, it felt right. She took a hammer, smashed the fire alarm, hid behind an Elizabethan wardrobe while everyone was evacuated, cut the painting from its frame, rolled it up, hid it under her coat and joined the exiting crowd.

What happened afterwards didn’t feel right though. It turned out The Cry was famous and valuable. The museum offered a reward, a million pounds. The press reported that the police were investigating an international art smuggling ring. But the letters pages troubled her.

‘After seeing The Cry I made the decision to leave my abusive husband’, one woman wrote.

‘The Cry helped me seek help with my alcohol problem’, wrote a man.

‘That painting inspired me to clean up my act and work for a career in art”, a young artist wrote.

Anna had been blind. The Cry wasn’t only important to her – many others, all struggling through life as best they could, needed it too.

Anna approached the museum reception desk and unrolled the painting.

The Cry was back in gallery the next day, lit by a multitude of flashbulbs. Once it emerged that the thief was Pacha Deluxe, the papers offered Anna heaps of money for interviews before the trial, but they wanted photos, and Pacha wasn’t around anymore.

It was a year later when the prison governor allowed Anna out for the night. The tag around her ankle didn’t exactly complement her evening dress, but as she stepped onto the red carpet outside the cinema, the photographers turned from the immaculately groomed actors and actresses and snapped away at her like a river of hungry piranha.

‘CAMERON DIAZ IS PACHA DELUXE’, read the banner above the entrance.

“Wonder how she likes it”, whispered Anna.

GBA(s)FC Entry #34

Untitled
by Miss Understood

Martin’s mouth plunged onto her cheek, his nose nudging hers sideways, his unshaven face scratching against her skin. Startled, she pulled away, and wiped the damp spot with her finger, forcing a smile as he sank back into his chair. She had a sudden urge to reach for his tie and straighten it.

“You’re even more beautiful in the flesh,” he remarked, his tone resembling that of one whose lips were more than comfortable with such statements. He had a peculiar accent too, not quite the one she’d envisaged.

“Thank you.”

He beckoned to the waiter, his thumb and finger snapping together a little too quickly; his eyes suddenly sweeping across to the bar and lingering there for a moment too long. She turned, glancing over her shoulder. A woman. She should have guessed.

He poured the wine – a full bodied red – which he’d ordered. She’d have preferred a white…

As he spoke, his eyes seemed incapable of holding hers for more than a second, before they flickered and dropped, and she toyed with the pendant hanging from her neck, turning it over in her fingers in an attempt to conceal her cleavage.

“Angela is a real gem,” he was telling her, gesticulating annoyingly and exposing the fake Rolex strapped around his wrist. She studied the thick hairs on his arm, cascading over the back of his hand. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Perhaps his hands hadn’t been visible in the pictures he’d e-mailed? She couldn’t remember now. And who the hell was Angela anyway? Her mind swam with thoughts, scrolling through the abundance of letters they’d exchanged. Oh. The secretary. That was right. She felt a twinge of sympathy in her chest.

Martin sipped his wine, his little finger extending as if he were drinking tea from a too small, china cup. She tried to focus on his words, but they became lost, blurring together into a monotone stream. She imagined tedious Sunday afternoons, his voice rattling through the dull rooms of his apartment. Lowering her eyes, she ran them along the length of his legs, settling on the large space which lay between his shoes and the bottom of his pinstripe trousers. White socks? Jesus! She swallowed a little too loudly.

“Roxy?”

He reached for her hand, his pallid, sticky fingers engulfing her own; his over-long nails curling inwards.

She could see it…her eyes screwed tight under cold, alien covers. His clammy hands probing her crevices… his breath on her face, hot and urgent. The unrelenting thrusting… his sweat pouring onto her breasts.

She looked up.

“Martin…excuse me for a moment?”

Her chair legs scraped across the floor and he watched her, smiling, as she disappeared into the bathroom.

Cursing, she unfastened the latch and opened the window, squeezing her body through the tiny gap. When her feet made contact with the car-park, she ran.

Back inside, Martin’s fingers curled reassuringly around the condom in his pocket.

GBA(s)FC Entry #33

Untitled
by Ian Shaw

Dewdrop lake always felt like home for Michael. The view from Beauty Rock, a hilltop at the southern edge of his family's old property was his center. From spring to fall of his youth, he would sit there, staring. The cranberry bogs wrapped to the west - an interlocked flow of bramble broken by beaver dam. The water's evening calmness disturbed by the dam's designer arcing across the surface in an echo of the stars shooting across the dusky night. This was Michael's calm. His completion. The tuned note of the days he played. He would have spent his summers there forever if the cottage hadn't transacted, loved but too isolated, accessible only by boat and too demanding of care, out of the family.

Like the loss of any loved one, that ache lingered long past adolescence into adulthood and finally age. Subsequent owners had historical interest, so they allowed Michael to periodically rent back the cottage, some years to marvel at how little had changed, other years to bemoan how much. Finances made it impossible to ever repurchase the cottage, as did the distance from Chicago to the outskirts of Ontario. But even across all those miles, and all those years, it called.

***

"You don't have long," Dr. Sariek said. There was sadness in her eyes. Sorrow. Concern. Twenty-three years of oncology had developed the demeanor required to deliver such messages with as much comfort as she could. It never got easier.

"I'd guess four weeks."

Michael had known. He'd felt worse each day as the chemotherapy had progressed. Weaker. Sicker. Four weeks could be a release from the darkness six months prior's "inoperable" reeled in but still not what he hoped for. Dr. Sariek was patient with her patient's grief.

"Have you thought about what you want to do?" she finally asked softly as Michael shrunk, sighing in sorrow.

***

James was in Michael's cancer support group. James looked to be a lucky one. After months of treatment, his good days equaled bad. His presence at the meetings imbued others with hope. It could happen. This was where and who Michael could ask.

"I'd be honored," he told Michael.

Their eyes teared; James' sourced in sorrow, Michael's in relief.

***

Arrangements made, permissions secured, the trip was double what Michael remembered. Neither had endurance for more than a few hours sitting. Michael's energy waned with body while will navigated. Only James' teetering recovery allowed him to steer the Chevy so long, as Michael coughed in the passenger seat, energy exiting his body by the mile.

***

The trip in, always physical, was nearly Michael's end. They stopped every few feet for him to rest. Each step up would mark a mountain's summit for another man. Michael leaned on James every moment, James practically carrying him while afraid for his own footing. They climbed as high as they could. They turned west.

"Do you see?" asked James, unsure how far away his friend was.

"Yes . . ."

GBA(s)FC Entry #32

The Gift
by Reading the Signs

Think of a cubist painting, or the effect you get playing with transparent pictures. It comes from my mind, it’s what I see inwardly, but it’s as real as people and things in the physical world. Around you as we speak, for instance, there’s a man in a grey suit, sitting at a desk with a bundle of papers. Red ribbon. They’re legal papers. Something to do with a house. I see daffodil. Small birds. You’ll be selling your house in the spring and getting another one.

I used to think everyone had this other way of seeing and just pretended they didn’t because it was more polite. So when my father went out for cigarettes and a pint of milk I thought they saw him at the telephone kiosk telling a woman he couldn’t wait for the next time, and knew that the woman was called Margie and she was younger and prettier than my mother, and that one day he would leave us to live with Margie in a flat with a balcony by the seaside. I thought everyone could see all that, but it was nicer to pretend they didn’t. I always knew what I was getting for birthdays and Christmas. They told me about my great-grandfather who had the Gift. They called it that but made it sound like an unwanted one that you couldn’t get rid of. A kind of burden. You have to learn how to tone it down. It’s like adjusting the volume on your TV. You can’t switch off, but you can make it so you don’t have to pay much attention.

And now there are colours around you and they are all different shades of red. Yes, sometimes the pictures are in code, hard to read. Red is for danger, seeing red, anger, red rag to a bull. Blood. There’s blood on your hands and you’re washing it off, no, someone else is. There’s a lot of blood and you’re asleep. You’ve had an operation and the surgeon is washing his hands. And now the red is fading, it’s fading quickly. Everything is white but it’s not winter, I can see roses. You are white and very cold.

I don’t go out much. It’s tiring for one thing, seeing double all the time, living a double life; because the things you see are often not what people want to hear and I never tell lies, it’s the truth or nothing. They keep coming though, like you, wanting to know about the new career and promotion, let’s say, or if life is going to get better, richer, sweeter, and they don’t know – how could they – that next week, next month, the car will skid out of control, there will be an accident, a rush to hospital, emergency operation. Then the pictures stop. Remember the Cat Stevens song - “And everything emptying into white?”

GBA(s)FC Entry #31

Poppy's Ruby Morn
by FIP

"Poppyyyyyyyyy!!! Traffic's bad. Get your butt up already."

Mom’s muffled voice ricochet in my head before I realize it’s NOT a dream. Shit! Why can't I get up like a rooster? Is God having fun with me? He already did it... by letting my ditzy mother give me a la-mo na-mo like "Poppy". Had she been high on heroin when naming me? I can be stuck in “Limbo”, “Lido”, mud, whatever. But I'll always be stuck as “Poppy”. These thoughts keep me company long enough to see me out our creaky front door., out on time thanks to two tricks. One: Laid out my cleanest clothes the night before. Two: Stashed a couple of crinkled bucks for breakfast at my local Dunkin's. Dough for donuts. Not healthy but efficient. Heading to my icy car on a cold morning, I am thinking — that thinking ahead has it's merits and it should not stop at two steps. Betrayed by the genes given me by "Ma Ditz", I realize sadly that preparedness seems to stop at the door. FINI! Done. Over.

Unlocking my car, dubbed "Ruby", I decide to try planning. She needs an oil change. Mental note to self: schedule a stick dip and some "slick" or she'll quit on me. Of course, Ruby’s a girl. Messy inside but hip and pretty sporting a gleaming red coat. She even has handles that get fondled before entry. “Poppppppy,” I think, “No more seductive thoughts.” Leave that to men. According to The Female Brain, by Dr. Brizedine, "85 percent of twenty- to thirty-year-old males think about sex every fifty-two seconds and women think about it once a day." With my one-a-day thought out of the way, I settle into my familiar routine. I can already see what surely must be the ONLY person who can NOT drive and MUST have waited just for ME and she's sneaking in front of my car without signaling??

What did my friend, Shelly-the-eternal-student, say? Oh yes. "Existentialism". I am guilty. Expecting nothing less than being first place in an occassionaly dangerous lane, I wend my way, in front of a twit who fades away in my rearview mirror. Who knows I am victorious? Me! Me and Ruby, Kierkegaard-style. Perfectly rude in my imperfect world, passing the usual spate of milestones and familiar billboards to "another day, another dollar", I try to recall the ride between Fulton and the Kennedy Expressway. I've traveled this route too many times. Now, only the bad driver is memorable.

Out of Dunkin’s drive-through, past a stoplight, a right turn, then a left. Quietly I wonder if a new routine or better planning might change things. I started the day with "Poppyyyyyyy! Traffic's bad!" Should've known where my day would take me. Ditzy, Dunkin's, Ruby, and the daily “stupid-ass-driver". A predictable morning routine, Ruby’s and mine. After parking my car and releasing the handle, I glance in the mirror to say, “Lookin' good, girls.” I plan. “Plan on keeping you. S’later, Rube.”

GBA(s)FC Entry #30

Untitled
by Ms. Baroque

"Ow! Ohohohohoh..."

"What? What did I do now?"

"Who said it was you! I just banged my toe." And she bent down and nearly wept with it.

"Oh for God's sake," he said. "We're late, you know what my dad's like, it won't be worth it. Come on, Lardy." His affectionate nickname for her. It was better than "wide load." His mother was nice.

"Do you mind! I can't even walk, I'm a cripple, and all because of your stupid hideous ugly chair," and she whacked the chair as hard as she could.

"What, you couldn't look where you were going?"

"I did look! DUH! I just didn't SEE it!" She sounded lame and she knew it. She was lame.

Tears leapt in all directions. She gave the chair another whack and sat down on it, crying hard. It was an ugly chair, made of some almost orange wood, and its covers were some kind of scratchy material with strange hairy bits sticking out. It was the colour of his mother's tights.

Its feet - which supported a little mechanism that made it like a rocker - stuck out an inch or so beyond where you might think, but nothing could be done: it had to stay where it was so he could sit in it and watch the football, the cricket, the snooker, the rugby. She covered her face and bawled. She wasn't fat, and her toes had been cold all morning with the heating off and no more change for the meter, and she always looked where she was going, and his dad would have thought the whole toe-stubbing episode was pretty funny. He was always one for a joke.

"Oh Lardy," Gus sang in the other room, "the trouble I've seen... Oh, Lardy, the trouble I've seen!" He came in, grinning, then stopped. "Oh, Lardy," he said, and stooped down. He cupped her toe in his cold, thin hand and held it still.

***

The station was noisy with echoey hubbub. In a cavern, in a canyon, and her shoes were number nine. Her toe throbbed in its boot and her eyes had that puffy, just-cried feeling. She knew they'd feel like it all through her father-in-law's birthday lunch.

She held Gus' hand as he pulled her towards the platform, feeling panicky and fragile. A couple of foreign students milled around at the top of the concrete stairs.

"Don't trip," said Gus, and started down. He was eight inches taller than her. Straining to stay together, a human train, they manoeuvred to the bottom, where there seemed to be a little clearing.

A girl, dark-haired and angry, stood there at an angle to her boyfriend. He shouted Spanish that made her stand crying, silent, rigid-faced. Mascara ran down her cheeks.

Gus tugged, the train was coming. Suddenly the Spanish girl spoke: "Mario, you are full of shit!"

Years later, even after they had split up, they still liked to talk about the Spanish girl and Mario.

GBA(s)FC Entry #29

Mirrors
by Kyklops

For some reason, lately he'd become obsessed with mirrors. When he was alone in a room with a mirror he would find himself absently gazing into it. Simple, routine things like brushing his teeth or shaving, tasks which used to take up a perfunctory few minutes of his day, now seemed to last for hours, and he frequently found himself rushing to work or other appointments because he was spending too much time staring into the mirror. His wife began to notice his odd behavior, but didn't comment on it. She thought he was obsessing about the vicissitudes of middle age, worrying about his receding hair and encroaching wrinkles. She empathized, but was unsympathetic. Welcome to the club, she thought. His young daughter didn't notice anything at all odd about his behavior. She liked looking into mirrors too.

In fact, there was nothing particularly vain or narcissistic about his obsession with looking into the mirror. No, it was more like he was looking for something; however, he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was that he was looking for.

He had a dream. He had just finished brushing his teeth before going to bed, and once again he found himself gazing into the mirror. He studied his face. He looked closely at what was in the background behind him on the mirror's surface. Somewhat irrationally he began to wonder about what might lie beyond the reflective surface of the mirror. When he found himself hefting his ceramic shaving mug there was no turning back. He threw it at the mirror. To his profound shock, the mug smashed through the mirror, taking large shards of glass with it. There was some kind of dark space on the other side. The next thing he knew, he had cleared away all the edges of the shattered mirror and was slowly poking his head through what had once been its surface. He could barely believe his eyes. The other side was like a large corridor, with no apparent floor or ceiling. As far as he could see—left, right, up, down, were what appeared to be windows. In each window was a face. He could see thousands of faces, and it dawned on him that what he was seeing was thousands of people gazing into their own mirrors, each one oblivious to all the others (including him). He found this sight unbearable, repulsive. He became angry. His anger turned to rage, and grew to such a proportion that, by a sheer act of will, he smashed all of the mirrors in the corridor. When he looked again, he saw thousands of copies of his own astonished face staring back at him...

As he emerged from sleep to this side of consciousness he felt a presence, a soft breath on his cheeks. He opened his eyes to find the dark, inquiring eyes of his daughter staring at him. Looking into those eyes, he saw a small reflection of his own face. He smiled...

GBA(s)FC Entry #28

Snake Failure
by Peg

We didn’t mean to catch snakes, but alfalfa spread like an invitation down to the creek.

"Quick! The pan!"

It was ours after Mom burned popcorn in it. Flames pushed against the cupboard overhead, smoke filled the house, and she threw the pan out the back door. It clattered against the patio, metal on stone ringing in the November night. Always the scavenger, I squirreled it out of the trash. It was handy to haul mud and scoop up tadpoles. I wore it Johnny Apple Seed-style through the woods with a foxtail to chew on, and felt almost male.

"Quick, quick, quick! I got one!" Tom danced from foot to foot keeping a wriggling garter snake stiff-elbowed away from himself. I held out the pan but he grimaced--"No, you'll never keep it in there! It'll crawl right out! On the ground! Turn it over!"

Its tail looped serene. Tom squeezed behind the head and its mouth opened, tongue sniffing the air.

"Don't hurt it!"

"I'm not hurting it! Look, when I put it down, you slap the pan over it."

"What if I miss?" I backed away.

"You won't miss--slam it down fast--Come on!"

"What if I hit it?" I stepped away again. "What if I cut it in two?"

"You get that pan over this snake and then sit on it hard." He stretched his whole body like he was lighting a fuse. When he dropped the snake I smashed the pan onto the alfalfa and dirt and squatted onto it.

Had I decapitated it? Was it laying there bleeding? The stale scent of cooking oil and burnt corn rose from the pan. On the right, next to the heel of my sneaker, came the head of the garter, slithering, nosing, curling against the battered aluminum. Thoughts tumbled like clothes in a dryer while my lungs filled: Can't get up, it'll crawl up my jeans leg. Can't sit here, it's coming up the pan. Can't crush it: sit still.

Billy had another one. Even as I yelled I was amazed: they thought I'd get up and let them put another snake under me like a brood hen sitting on eggs. Dad bolted out of the gloom. I couldn't stop screaming until he grabbed me up.

"What are you kids up to?" I breathed Brylcreme and motor oil, tightened my arms around his neck, and listened to the tone of his voice.

Billy dropped the snake. "Nothing."

"You leave the snakes alone. They're right where they belong. Leave em alone now." Tom tipped up the pan and shook his head. The snake was long gone.

It happened before I could stop it: high and safe, carried home, big girl of almost six years, while the boys trudged home on their own power under the fresh stars. I could almost see then that it was over.