X: Results: Struggling With Decline

Hey, Survivors. Everyone showed up, and these were a great time (they were fittingly depressing, but ultimately hopeful. It’s Oscar season at Casa de Leche!).

Enjoy. I regret that I’ll be losing one of you in a day and a half.

Brooks Maki, nibbish and his Vogons

Shadows in the chamber couldn’t dance in candlelight as weak as this. Instead the darkness sat quietly, mourning the man laying in the luxurious bed before it. He still breathed, but he was dead all the same. The doctor had diagnosed the king with The Sickness earlier this afternoon. Knowing what previous monarchs had gone through, the doctor had become depressingly accurate with his timetables, and he gave this patient two months to live. He would be the latest in a long line of rulers to succumb to this affliction, but only for a short while, soon The Sickness would claim his successor as well.

His nephews paid their respects later in the week. Their expressions of sympathy were justifiably hollow and insincere. The king had been ruthless in dealing with their fathers during the war for succession that he had won less than a year ago. He tried to remain magnanimous in the face of their sullen stares, he knew that soon they would be tearing each other apart for the right to die in this bed.

“There is no end to this is there?” He sighed aloud when they had bowed out of the room. He hadn’t expected an answer to his rhetorical wondering, but, as always, the king was never alone. The nurse looked up from the sheet-adjustment with genuine sympathy. “Not unless you still believe in the Panesia Flower, your highness.”

The Panesia. He had nearly lost his bid for the throne because of that legend. In a kingdom where the majority of reigns could be measured in months, an heir that could cure The Sickness and guarantee longevity would be an unstoppable force in any succession. He had searched what felt like the entire kingdom looking for any scrap that confirmed even the existence of such a thing. In vain, of course. Children dreamed of being the one to find the flower. Kings did not. His opponents had amassed considerable influence during his quest, and it had been a close and bloody thing when he returned to make his claim on the throne.

He smiled at the nurse. “Such a convenient non-ending to my reign would be welcome, but I fear it’s unlikely.” The nurse held his gaze and meaningfully straightened the sleeves of her uniform. In the instant before the sleeve fell back into place, he glimpsed an ‘R’ in elaborate script inked on the inside of her wrist.

His son, Robyrt, had disappeared toward the end of the war. The rumor among the most gullible in the streets was that he was on the same quest that had nearly consumed his father, searching for The Cure. The king, and most people in the know, believed Robyrt had been kidnapped by one of his rivals. Either way, no one had heard anything from Robyrt for the entirety of the current reign. The nurse must have been one of those believers in his son’s noble quest. The king sighed.

After a prolonged period of fussing and adjusting by his various attendants, the king found himself alone with the unmoving shadows. His thoughts drifted to Robyrt, giving thanks that his son wouldn’t have to participate in the bloody aftermath of his death.

“Father, you should have more faith in legends.” One of the shadows detached itself from the wall, as Robyrt regarded his father for the first time in over a year. Clutched in his hand was a delicate flower, petals a brilliant orange and split into a V-shape that every child memorized as they dreamed of the glory of being the one to present it to the king.

“My son. You have found it! Where? No. It doesn’t matter, we must call the doctor. This will change everything.” The king felt hope, something that had died with his last rival in the succession war, rise again in his chest. He couldn’t take his eyes from the flower in his son’s hands. Finally, he broke the hold that plant had on him and turned his gaze up to meet his son’s eyes. The king had seen genuine and pretend sympathy over the last few weeks. In his son’s eyes he saw neither.

“It will change everything, father. But not for you.”

K: I have to say, “dying king” was one of the ideas I thought might be presented here. I like the concept, but this does feel like a great deal of exposition before the payoff. Peppering in dialogue and character throughout probably would have allowed this ending to have the punch it deserved. 2

DK: I’m afraid to say, even though this is the kind of setting that usually hits me strongly, something about this one didn’t draw me in as much as most of the others. I’m not sure if it’s the characters just didn’t feel as formed or what. 1

Will Young, I’m With Stupid

The MonSter does not live under the bed;
No, it exists within your head.
The MonSter slowly messes with your brain,
And fills your future with worry and dread.

The MonSter caused excruciating pain,
To an extent you could not feign.
Then it gave you symptoms much like the flu,
But has not yet forced you to use a cane.

The MonSter will not get the best of you,
You will continue to fight through.
You will not succumb to rational fear;
You will work to bid the MonSter adieu.

The MonSter makes your future unclear,
and attempts to pierce your veneer.
The MonSter scares you about the unknown,
and causes you an occasional tear.

The MonSter sounded much worse on the phone,
And led your mother to bemoan,
A diagnosis sounding tough to beat,
Its latent harm could not be overblown.

The MonSter will be kept very discreet;
You will always stay on your feet,
And will force the MonSter’s complete defeat,
And will force the MonSter’s complete defeat.

K: I like the idea here and I don’t want to discourage creativity, but the meter isn’t pretty at times and it gets redundant. 1

DK: This is a really cool idea on this one that would deserve a much higher score if this wasn’t a forced curve. I like the commitment to form and the willingness to try something different. 2

Matt Novak, nibbish and his Vogons

“Mr. Terry?” The door was open and the man knocked on the frame. “I’m with the agency.”
His hair waved effortlessly across his head and he stood straight and tall. These damn kids kept getting younger. It was all I could do to keep myself from leering. A wonder he’d made it past those bloodthirsty nurses.
“Hmph.”
“Mr. Terry, the agency sent me.”
“You must be Irene’s boy. My papers are there. Take them to Irene, she’ll get my pension straightened out.” I waved dismissively at the dresser, feigning disinterest.
“I’m here about Cobblestone.”
I wondered if the novelty would make up for his lack of experience. He hadn’t ever been with a man before. I could tell it. Some senses never leave you. Pretending not to hear him, I continued my old man act.
“First they put me out to pasture, now they won’t give me my pension? You tell Irene…”
“Sir, I don’t know Irene. I’m not an accountant. I’m an agent. Like you were.”
“Were?!” I raised my voice. I threw my cane. I pretended to be mad. “Dammit, I’m a hero!”
“I’m sorry sir.”
I couldn’t woo ‘em like I used to, but I was still a hell of a fiddler. Good to see the strings were tuned on this one. I kept going.
“I put in my time! I spent years undercover. I did whatever they wanted!” It was all true, but it made for good theatre. Living your story keeps you from being found out. I had lived it well for years. East Germany. Estonia. Prauge. Heinrich. Vedran. Nikoli. Nikoli had been the hardest.
“Sir. I’ll ask someone about your pension. But I need to know about Cobblestone.” His focus seemed oddly unshakable, but I could sense a tension in him. My perception was still keen.
“Screw the pension! I want my life back!”
I took a step towards him and stumbled without my cane, surprising myself with the detail of my performance. He rushed towards me, catching me at the elbow. I was in top form.
“Give me a minute,” I said, catching my breath as he helped me cross the few steps to my bed. We sat there for a while, my hand resting on his knee. There was a longing in the silence, not for the boy, but for a simpler time.

It hadn’t really been simpler, I had to remind myself. Sharing a flat with Nikolai wasn’t easy. The time we had together we spent mostly in silence, Nikolai, stealing away from his family, me, bunkered down in an alias. We both knew who the other was, though we never spoke of it. Someday, one of us would be gone. We made the most of our time, of our love. I never let him see me cry.

The boy coughed.
“Sorry,” I apologized. How long had I been lost in thought? “What did you say your name was?”
“Didn’t.”
“Right. The, um… the agency.” I patted him on the knee. “Bring me my cane there, would you?”
He stepped over toward the cane, bending at the knees to pick it up. I had hoped for a more gratuitous view. Taking the cane, I stepped towards my dresser and grabbed my papers.
“You give these to Irene and she’ll… wait. You’re not here for my papers.” My memory jogged. “Well, what the hell are you here for then?”
“You’re to debrief me on your Prague mission.”
“That was 40 years ago. What the damn hell does the agency want now? They cleared me. Twice.”
“It’s being revisited.”
The boy was too professional. I needed to knock him off his game if I was to get anywhere.
“Fine. You have the file?”
“No. I must have,” he paused, “forgotten it.”
I saw my opening. “You know I can’t tell you anything without it.”
“I just need confirmation that you were the Cobblestone agent.”
“You know I can’t do that.” He looked conflicted, like he couldn’t decide what his next step would be. I decided to help him out. “Unless… you were to provide some quid pro quo. A name perhaps. For starters.”
“You want my name?”
“For starters.” I stood my ground. Snaring the rabbit is easy, but you have to move slowly if you’re going to tame them.
“First, Cobblestone.”
“Then you’ll give me what I want?” I stepped towards him.
“Anything.” He was finally playing the game.
“Yes,” I smiled, “I was Cobblestone.”

There was something of relief in his eyes as I spoke the words, and something of regret when I’d finished.
“My name is Yuri Marek.”
“But that was Nikoli’s…”

He had looked so much like his father. I should have seen it. Smiling, remembering. A tear rested on my cheek. I closed my eyes.

K: Should I have seen that coming? Well, I didn’t, even though Nikolai was mentioned multiple times and therefore obviously had long-lasting significance. The biggest criticism I can come up with is that the spelling of “Nikolai” is inconsistent. 4

DK: This is very well-done. I feel like I know this guy and his struggle, and there’s a really tense situation that’s built into it too, which doesn’t let up. The ending really made me sit up and take stock as well. 5

Beau, nibbish and his Vogons

Dr. Eugene Westphal sat forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. He started to speak, paused, and then made sure he was looking the Chief of Staff directly in the eyes. “So you’re firing me.”
“Of course not,” said Dr. Marcus Jansen, leaning back. “I was hoping you’d consider taking a spot on the board.”
Dr. Westphal’s left eye twitched, the usual sign he was holding back. “You know I don’t belong there. I’m a surgeon, dammit, not a paper pusher. Besides, those bastards are the reason why we’re sitting here, right?”
Dr. Jansen sighed. “It’s not just the board. You’ve been making mistakes, Gene. The sponge you almost left inside Mrs. Hansen. The cut on Mr. Cartwright you started in the wrong spot. The…”
“I’m quite aware of my performance. If we’re going to sit here and count surgical errors I’m sure I’m still miles ahead of most of my residents.”
“Gene.” Dr. Jansen sat forward again, clasping his hands on the desk. “We’ve known each other for almost forty years. I consider you a friend. And as your friend, I have to be honest with you. I think your memory is slipping. And I don’t mean dementia, Christ no. But these past few months I’ve…”
“Fuck you, Marcus. And fuck the board, too. ” Dr. Westphal rose from his chair and headed towards the door. “I’ve got a little girl’s life to save.”
Dr. Jansen hung his head, hands still clasped.
********
Clara Carthon was eight years old. She was bright, eager, and had the jump-rope record at Edgerton Elementary. She also had a mitral valve that was leaking blood into her lungs.
“Needle driver,” called Dr. Westphal. The surgery was progressing smoothly. Clara’s heart had reacted to the bypass machine with ease. The mechanical replacement tested perfectly. All that was left were the sutures and her transition off the machine.
“Doctor, her heartbeat is increasing. Blood pressure dropping.”
“Shit!” He handed the driver back to the nurse. “There’s massive clotting in the CBP circuit. Increase Heparin to two-hundred!”
“You sure?” said the nurse. “All the way up from ten?”
“It was at ten? What the hell? No, it should have been one-hundred.”
“So, you…”
“One-hundred! Now heads-up people. This could be touch-and-go.”
Though appearing calm to the lay observer, the surgical team worked desperately for an hour and a half. The clot dissolved and the patient’s vitals slowly returned to normal. Transition off the bypass machine went without a hitch, and after closure, the patient was transferred to recovery.
Furious at his team, Dr. Westphal washed up in silence. Ready to lay into the next person who opened their mouth, he glanced at Clara’s chart and noticed the pre-op orders he had written this morning:
HEPARIN: 10 units/mL
His heart sank.
********
The nurse entered Dr. Westphal’s office, appearing guarded.
“I apologize if I was harsh with you in the OR,” he told her. “It was entirely my fault, the Heparin. I missed a zero.”
“Doctor Westphal” the nurse choked. “I’m sorry. Clara isn’t waking from the anesthesia. Her vitals are fine. We think it’s a coma.”
He sat motionless, afraid to breathe.
“I thought you should know before we tell the family.”
“No.” He couldn’t look at her. “I’ll tell them.”
It only took a minute to reach Clara Carthon’s family in recovery, but it was the longest walk of Dr. Westphal’s career. He’d delivered worse news than this, many times. But this time was different. As he approached, he could sense the family’s apprehension, as if he were holding a scythe at his side.
“Your daughter’s new valve is working, as is her heart. Unfortunately, she is not waking as soon as we expected.”
Dr. Westphal could feel his chest tighten.
“We’re afraid she may have slipped into a coma.”
The words hung in the air like a fog, growing more dense the longer no one spoke. His left eye twitched.
Clara’s father was the first to break the family’s stunned silence. “What do you mean, coma? It’s just temporary, right? She’ll wake up? How did this happen?”
Dr. Westphal usually offered generalities and platitudes in response to this question. Today was not usual.
“Your daughter’s blood clotted during the surgery. While this is always a risk during this type of surgery, it could have been attributed due to an order I…”
“Mr. Carthon? Mrs. Carthon?” Dr. Xiong interrupted. “Your daughter is waking up now. You can see her if you like. She can’t talk just yet, but she appears to be alert and oriented.”
“Oh thank God!” screamed Mrs. Carthon, hugging Dr. Xiong.
Dr. Westphal watched as Clara’s family hurriedly followed the surgical resident. He should have felt relief. He wanted to feel relief. He felt nothing.
“Dodge a bullet?” he heard behind him. It was a kid in scrubs. He didn’t recognize him.
“Here,” said Dr. Westphal, placing his name badge in the intern’s hand. “Give this to Dr. Jansen.”
“Sir?”
Dr. Westphal walked towards the exit, his head bowed to the floor. His eye stopped twitching.

K: Using a young girl in this way to tell a story is obviously going to work on me, Mr. Bastard. The story works pretty well period, though, and it feels honestly medical without feeling dull, which is a nice trick to pull off. 3

DK: Straight-forward, but effective. The twitching is a solid recurring touchstone. The clinical language is kind of a double-edged sword; I appreciate the way it heightens the realism, but it also holds me off of getting to know the character as closely, I found. 3

Shawn Ashley, SPOILER ALERT!

The heat of the spotlights beat down, his sweat poured under his shirt into the waistline of his perfectly pressed pants. Surprisingly, his hands were dry as they flew over the keys. He didn’t notice the sweat or the lights, of course. The way the crowd listened intently to every note. His concentration was focused; unparalleled. That’s what they expected, what they deserved. People paid top dollar to watch him perform and he would not give them anything less.
He was hitting the crescendo, the magical part of the song, the part in which he would soar.
His finger slipped. He hit the wrong note.
He continued as only a professional would, but he felt the room start to spin all around him. Spots danced before his eyes. FUCK.
Seven more minutes and the song was over. He stood, the crowd erupting into applause, but all he heard was his defeat. Smiling, he exited stage right and did not do an encore.

Thomas jolted awake, his heart pounding in his chest. That night continued to haunt him.
That note, that fucking note. Why did he miss that one note?
He tried to shake off the memory. He grabbed the bottle of wine next to the bed and took several large gulps. He hadn’t been able to play since. He cancelled show after show, with no real explanation to his fans. Even though most people already knew concert pianists were eccentric and moody, the tabloids made him out to be a Prima Donna, insane.
He looked over at the body laying next to him, another young man he picked up randomly. Perfect body, warped moral compass…exactly how he liked them. Now, disgusted, he wanted him out.
He shoved the man’s leg off of his own and got up, taking the wine with him. He headed for the kitchen as his cell phone rang.
He picked it up and saw that it was his agent. “Fuck me,” he breathed as he answered. “George, what’s up?”
“You’re awake?” George asked, with a mountain of sarcasm. His income had really taken a beating over the last few months and he was pissed about it.
“What the fuck do you want?” Thomas asked.
George laughed. “I have something for you.”
Thomas saw the young man move on the bed in the other room. He hoped the young man left on his own and that he didn’t have to kick him out. “I’m not doing a concert right now, George, I’m too fucked. I have no inspiration. No concentration. I can’t do it.”
“No one wants you to do a concert anymore. Not sure if you understand that. People are over you. Think you went crazy. They’re over it.” George paused. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Cary Ames needs a mentor and you are going to be him.” George had that finality in his voice he used when he was closing a deal.
“The fifteen year old prodigy?” Thomas asked.
“That’s the one.”
“Forget it. Fuck him. I’m not a teacher. I’m nobody’s mentor. No.” Thomas watched as the young man tried to sneak towards the door without being noticed. Good, he thought. Get the fuck out.
“You have no other income, Thomas. Besides, he’ll be there at noon,” George replied.
Thomas scoffed. “That’s in ten minutes.”
“So clean yourself up. And kick out whatever prag you picked up last night,” he said and hung up.
Thomas was just getting out of the shower when he heard the doorbell chime. When he whipped open the door, he was surprised at how dainty the young prodigy looked. Very feminine, long eyelashes, bright reddish lips.
“You’re late.”
“Yes,” the boy replied. “Three minutes.”
Thomas glared at him for a moment, then held the door open for him and brought him to the studio. “Play me something.”
The boy sat down and started to play. Phillip Glass’ Metamorphosis I. Thomas was about to stop him, to tell him to play something classic, not American…but he couldn’t. He was overtaken with the way he played. The phrasing, the melodic way he made the notes come alive.
Something started to burn within Thomas. Something deep in the pit of his stomach. He could taste it. And it tasted like jealousy.
Instantaneously, he knew that he would never touch the piano again.
Cary played on and on and as he did, Thomas could feel the jealousy grow within him. He also felt a strange desire for the young boy.
He sat beside him at the piano as the prodigy finished. The boy turned to him after the last note lingered for a moment, no questions in his eyes. The boy knew he was very good.
Thomas knew he was going to destroy him.

K: This seems like the evil stench of Shawn Ashley (if it isn’t, I mean this phrase as a compliment). The characters are well-drawn, the lead is extremely complex and still feels real and the payoff was strong. Love it. 5

DK: Almost seems like “struggle with decline” inspires people to think “old homosexuals”. I really like this subject matter for showing this guy’s decline, and the anger and jealousy he feels are palpable throughout the piece. 4

David Larson, SPOILER ALERT!

At its Cold War heyday, MI5 was the premier counter-espionage and counter-terrorism machine. And we had top agents with a license to kill, for heaven’s sake — one of them was me!

About the time I was hired, fresh out of the military, we had agents everywhere. I signed on during the tail end of Hollis’ term (sorry, Sir Roger Hollis’ term) as the Director General, and let me tell you, we had clout, and we had the money to get things done. When I needed to wine-and-dine four couples at the poshest club in Stockholm while other agents searched through their homes, why, by golly, we just did it! I did acquire quite the taste for the flavour of caviar.

I can’t talk about anything specifically, you understand, but it was fascinating and sometimes dangerous work that took us to exotic places where we met up with some pretty nefarious characters. I loved it! And somehow in the middle of all this I managed to get married. Now, I’m no womanizer, but some of that goes with the job. I had ongoing relationships in Leningrad, Copenhagen, Mainz, Sao Paulo, uh, and Johannesburg. Ah, yes, Johannesburg…

I was able to reach the upper echelons of the espionage game in the mid 80’s, but things had begun to go downhill in a hurry by then. The defense initiative in the States became so big that countries like England didn’t even try to keep up. Budgets were slashed, and many of our younger agents in the Service were let go. The money was no doubt going to “more important” items, like The Bennie Hill Show on the Beeb. And the damn bureaucrats had us pushing paper so much, I barely had the opportunity to brandish my Walther PPK at all any more. I made my last covert overseas trip during this time, and I got to watch The Wall fall in Berlin…from the eastern side, ha ha.

In 1998, they took away our license to kill (and my Walther!), leaving us with only a license to lightly interrogate, at best. Bastards in Parliament had no clue the number of lives I’ve saved and state secrets I’ve secured, while they sat on their arses and debated the price of Earl Grey in Stropshire!. It was about this time that I slipped the disc in my back, probably due to inactivity, what with sitting behind a desk for so many hours a day. I could only work part-time then.

Finally, in 2003, MI5 disappeared completely. The whole Security Service organization was folded into the Parking Violations Division of the Metropolitan Police. All the old chaps were either dead or gone. My dear wife Mathilda had also recently died as well. I couldn’t take it any longer, and I finally retired.

The folks here running Elizabeth Lodge are okay, but damn stubborn about their No Alcohol policy, though. The next administration meeting will be my seventh attempt to get it overthrown.

I sure hope my daughter brings the grandkids next time she visits me.

K: Putting James Bond in an old folks home is a pretty swell idea, but I had to infer in was Bond solely from the “licence to kill” crack, and didn’t get it from the feeling of his narration. I wish he’d still come off as suave and smartly manipulative. 1

DK: I’m not going to be surprised if I’m on my own in assessing this way, but despite the quantity of great jokes here (“license to lightly interrogate” is a favorite) this feels a little more like a recap of someone’s history than a story in his present, struggling state. It’s good, but it lacks some of the narrative momentum that many of the others have. 1

John Wreisner, nibbish and his Vogons

“…And so you see, with the passage of time, the weakness in the limbs and atrophy will lead to dystarthia, dysphagia, perhaps psuedobulbar –affect manifestations…” The doctor spoke in an even cadence as if he was explaining features on a new car. My wife leaned forward on his broad cherry-wood desk, her hands clasped together as if she were kneeling on a prayer rail during mass. I suppose she was, in a sense. I just looked out the window at the broad expanse of lawn outside the hospital. It had been mown diagonally and from up here it looked like an abstract painting done in greens and yellows. It was late summer and the grass was dying. So was I.

It had begun innocently enough; almost a year before we’d sit together in that young doctor’s office and have him spell out in smooth salesman terms the apocalypse that was happening to my motor neurons. I had been stumbling over things with increasing regularity, once taking a tumble down the basement steps that led to an emergency room visit and seven stitches in my upper lip. I fatigued easily, and found buttoning shirts to be an exercise in frustration that was almost childish. More than once I grabbed the oxford cloth with disobedient, dumb hands and tore the shirt open in anger, the two or three buttons I’d managed to fasten clicking uselessly to the floor.

By mid-winter the tremors in my hands were significant enough to alter my handwriting, make eating soup impossibility, and lead to the shameful purchase of Velcro shoes. My wife attempted to confront all of these miniature catastrophes with a stoic humor, but her fear was palpable. One morning over breakfast, I raised a cup of coffee to my lips and most of it ended up on the newspaper folded in my lap. I began to cry and left the room so she wouldn’t see. When I returned she was refilling my coffee cup, this time with a bendy-straw, the kind children use.

“We should go see someone” she said, her face blank with the secret surety that my illness was fatal, progressive, irrevocable. “It could be stress. It could be a pinched nerve. It will at least assuage our fears.” I knew she was speaking more to herself than to me, the internal dialogue becoming external by way of self-assurance. My father had endured two years of the same worsening symptoms until he started the engine of his Ford Taurus with the garage door closed. My wife had helped my mother make the funeral arrangements. I knew she was trying desperately to dismantle the reasoning leading her to believe that she’d soon make mine, and it was an obviously lopsided battle. I said nothing, sitting down at the table and drinking my coffee through the straw. A snowplow passed outside, the low rumble creating concentric ripples in my coffee cup.

After the doctors appointment (during which my wife’s fears were confirmed and mine were addressed in a sort of emotional shorthand, neither the doctor or my wife seeming to be capable of absorbing the finality of the diagnosis, words dropping with dull thuds like shovel-full’s of dirt on a coffin lid) we went shopping for the bric-a-brac of bodily decay. A bed rail, to sandwich between the mattress and box spring and facilitate my uneasy waking. An alarmingly expensive biphasic cuirass ventilator to assist my breathing when the muscles that control this simplest of acts revolt and conspire to suffocate me. Liquid dietary supplements, loaded with calories, for when swallowing becomes difficult, if not nearly impossible. By the time I am unable to eat solid foods, I’m told, I will also be unable to speak. My memory, acumen, personality, and intelligence, however; these will all remain horrifically untouched. I will be trapped and rotting and aware of each second. I will sit, mute, on my new shower chair or perhaps my new toilet riser while my wife bathes and feeds and dresses me like she did our children.

I want to say that I put my affairs in order and took long walks and ruminated on the fragility of life and the importance of loved ones. What I did instead was go to a sporting goods store when my wife was at work and purchase a twelve- gauge shotgun. I hid it in the garden shed underneath a heap of bed sheets that my wife used to cover the plants when there was a danger of early frost. I might not use it. My body might deteriorate to the point where I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger, or even walk to the garden shed. Nevertheless, its inert presence, lying heavily under the sheets, like a serpent in torpor, comforts me. I’m dying.

K: Hot damn. This man’s condition unfolded in a heartbreaking manner, and this line – “My memory, acumen, personality, and intelligence, however; these will all remain horrifically untouched.” – is one of the toughest to take I’ve ever read. I felt for this guy all the way through. I had no idea what to expect out of a challenge like this, but this one alone makes it worth it. 5

DK: This is pretty powerful, and the strength of the language does a lot to buttress that power. I’ll be very surprised if I don’t know who this author is by now, but I think in this case the strength of the prose again did just a little bit too much to create separation from the subject and his situation than I got from the ones that hit me the hardest. 4

Andrew Rustleund, I’m With Stupid

Jack had done what he came here to do. Now, it was time to get the hell out of here.
Easier said than done, Jack reminded himself. Easy for her. As easy as changing a lightbulb, she had said. What did she know about easy? Where was she now? If he listened closely enough, Jack could almost hear her voice, floating on the breeze, a breeze so steady in its whirring-pulsing, it could only be made by a machine… Are you about finished?
The steel was cold on his hands, and though he had wore his hiking boots, the metal seemed to transfer its icy grip to his stubborn feet as well. They say the first step can be the hardest, and goddamn it if they weren’t right.
How many steps was it? Jack hadn’t bothered to count on his way up. Hadn’t occurred to him to count. The way up was cake. Hadn’t she promised him cake when it was all over? Yes, she must have. Cake was the only thing that could have enticed him on this crazy mission in the first place.
He had put it off for weeks. Meaning to get around to it eventually, but always finding some excuse. Not now, I’m not… ready. How could you not be ready, she nagged and nagged and nagged. There are just things that a person would need: goggles, flashlight, helmet, pliers… eventually she had bought it all until he couldn’t think of anything else anymore. A man has his limits.
She said it was this darkness between them. It was really the darkness that bothered her, not just the fact that he procrastinated and procrastinated and procrastinated. One Wednesday evening, after she mentioned the darkness again, Jack had just lost it and screamed: You can do something about it too, you know? There’s two of us here, you know? You know?
Doing it was supposed to be the hardest part. That’s what she thought it was. The doing it part. No. It was the after part. The after part was the hardest. Jack knew it then, and by God, he knew it now.
He knew she wouldn’t understand, so he had visited the doctor by himself. No need to get her involved yet. Not until he knew whether anything could be done. It was the Dix-Hallpike test that finally clinched it. They even gave him a fancy trick to use when things got really bad. But how the hell was he supposed to perform the Epley maneuver up here?
Can’t. The word had definitely entered Jack’s vocabulary. Must. He liked that better. Jack would be damned if he spent the rest of his life up here. If anything else, to show her that the darkness was gone. So Jack started down.
One. Two. Three. Counting helped. Four. Five. Jack gritted his teeth, gripped the metal harder. Six. Cake. Seven. Diane…
The ground had never felt better. Better because it was his ground now. He owned it, he had conquered it. Been to the top and back, and lived to tell about it. Calmer than he had felt in months, confident, Jack folded up the ladder, threw away the lightbulb, sat down, and ate his cake.

K: Believe it or not, I called it when I said “Struggling with decline.” It’s still delivered strongly, and still elicited the smiles throughout that it was going for. Why “Jack and Diane,” by the way> Is the song stuck if your head? 3

DK: This also really does deserve a higher score than it’s getting, it’s a clever twist and I laughed out loud when I got to the end. It’s not as emotionally powerful as some, but it isn’t intending to be, so that shouldn’t be a detriment. Just blame the forced curve and/or my mood, I guess? 3

Colin Woolston, SPOILER ALERT!

A bell rings.

Sitting on a street curb in Overland Park, Kansas eating a wax paper wrapped hot dog is a man for whom the world has greyed. He sits, a rueful complacency emanating from his dull blue eyes, and completes his meal. A stream of schoolchildren passes and, like to a rock in a swift stream, the children flow around him and eddy in small, staring clusters after they pass. The slower ones stare longer but most look away quickly. He knows the children sense his pain more readily. He begins to fear that it could infect them. A single bead of sweat forms in his right armpit, and falls onto the inner seam of his periwinkle Arrow dress shirt. He feels its decent and impact, but does not react.
After his meal David Staten rises and looks down at his briefcase. He could leave it. The documents inside could make life difficult for several people at his firm, if they were made public. The thought pleases him for a moment, but then guilt sets in and he berates himself silently.
David is not a bad person. He makes decisions in life based on what is the right thing to do at the time, and each time he has maintained his integrity. He has never had a speeding ticket. He has never cheated on his wife. He did well in his studies. He followed his dreams when he was young and compromised when he matured. He stopped believing in any god years ago, but still prays in the off chance that if there is a god, he doesn’t want to be rude.
He had been a musician in college. He played piano, and had played well in a jazz ensemble. The lead singer had been a radiantly beautiful redheaded woman with a soulful voice that attracted small crowds of lonely men and daring women to their shows. David would sit at the bench and, as his fingers stroked the keys, the smoke and the desperate laughter would fade. Only the notes were, and everything else was not. When viewing the timeline of his life, that section was brighter than others. He had had purpose and direction.
David, on his walk back to his office, looks at himself in the reflection provided by the mirrored windows of a high rise; his hair coiffed, his clothes pressed. He looks into his past. A series of well-intentioned mistakes and compromises. A love here. A success there. He cannot reconcile that a life so full of love and work for what is right could look so much like a failure when observed from a distance. What misstep had he taken?

A phone rings.

David has lost time again. He remembers sitting down at his desk and opening his laptop. He remembers that he had a presentation to review before the next morning. He looks at the time on his phone. He has lost two hours. He answers the phone and it is his wife, asking for an errand to be run. He says he will, and he says he loves her, and he hangs up. He has forgotten something. Something in his wife’s voice.
He rises and without taking his coat or his phone or his keys he walks out of the office and back to the building where he had stopped to see his reflection.
David has lost time again. It is dark now. He is still standing at the window, but his reflection is gone. He has seen this window a thousand times. He has stopped or watched himself as he passed a thousand times. He has forgotten something. Something in the window that was not there in his reflection. His breath catches. He has stood in this very spot on countless days, but at night? Not that he could remember. On the other side of the window, where his waist would be in his reflection, stands a Mason and Hamlin 7’6” concert grand piano. David cannot breathe. The sidewalk is moving underneath him, as though he were in an ascending elevator on old cables. He falls against the window, heads turn. David forces his legs to move, his lungs to expand; he walks to the door of the building, into the lobby of the hotel and to the piano, and sits.
The warm darkness comes, and David breathes.

A note rings true.

On a bench in the lobby of a hotel in Overland Park, Kansas sits a man for whom the world is full of color. A stream of tourists and businesspeople flow past and, like to a bend in a wide river, pause and eddy in clusters about the marble-tiled lobby. The slower ones just stop and stare, but many smile at a warmth they had forgotten.

K: This ending is plainly gorgeous. This is one of those rare challenges I feel I should be reading again immediately to really get the impact, because the ending was powerful and moving. 4

DK: This one really got me. I think this is an example of using a reference to a person’s history to really support the progression of their story in the moment. The imagery, the descriptions of David’s state of being, all really sold the effect of the ending to me. 5

Bret Highum, I’m With Stupid

He was born in 1945, the second son in a Norwegian family in southeastern Minnesota. He grew up on a farm, using workhorses for field work, raising pigs and milking cows. He grew up with Roy Rodgers and Gene Autry, and had a half-broken horse he and his older brother liked to try and ride. He ended up with a chunk of flesh and bone the size of a golf ball missing out of his shin after his pony kicked him when he was 12.

Freshman year of high school was 1959. His parents needed him on the farm for chores, since his brother had graduated and gone to college the year before, but they let him play football and run track. His junior year he was the starting fullback until he tore his hamstring, an injury that was beyond the medical capabilities of the time to repair and one that still causes him to limp occasionally.

He graduated high school in 1963, and tried college for a year. Didn’t like it. He joined the Navy so he wouldn’t be drafted into the Army for Vietnam. They made him a naval corpsman (medic) and attached him to Marine recon team Dutch Oven. Other than taking a Vietnamese pig captive and falling forty feet to the ground while rappelling out of a helicopter when his carabiner link failed, the war was uneventful. Other than some black-and-white photos and some stories, the only legacy of his time in ‘Nam is a balky back.

He tried college again, this time at the University of Nevada, after getting discharged from the Navy. He graduated with a geology degree. Then he promptly went to work as a cowboy. Riding, roping, branding and fencing were his life’s dream. He proved to be as capable at cowboying as he was at every other task he’d attempted, and this would be his career for most of the next twenty years. His body collected scars and aches from being tossed, trampled, bit and rope-burnt.

In 1976, he was dumping a load of trash at the Fallon, NV landfill when a girl caught his eye. Being amazingly brazen, he followed her to her house and asked her out. The first of their three children was born in December of 1977, and he and the girl from the landfill are still happily married today.

In 1988, after the ranch he was working on in Oregon was sold for a tax break, he couldn’t find another job in time to meet the mounting bills. Pulling up stakes, he moved his family back to the familiar bluffs of southeast Minnesota, and became the hired man for a family friend’s farm. He got a desk job as well, working for a company that helped find jobs for displaced workers. Even though he was still milking cows once or twice a day, sitting behind a desk for forty hours a week put twenty extra pounds on him. He missed the open air and disliked the stresses of an office job.

In 1993, his days of cowpunching long behind him, he and his family found a forty acre farm for sale and squeezed their finances to purchase it. With relief, he quit the desk job and for the first time he was his own boss, milking thirty Jersey cows and then putting up a greenhouse with 880 hydroponic tomato plants. His health improved as his activity increased and his stress decreased.

His kids graduated, moved on to college and started their own families. The wear of milking twice a day and all the picking and pruning wore him down as he aged into his sixties. He switched over to a small beef herd and sold off the greenhouse, and started milking and doing chores part time for a neighbor. He works with kids forty years younger than him, and holds his own.

He’s a wrinkled, wiry man of sixty-seven, shrunken two inches from the 5’9” he was in his thirties. Long years in the sun have given his skin a permanent bronze cast, and though his hair is very thin, it’s still as black as it was in the pictures he has from Vietnam. His hands are cracked and rough, the joints swollen from years of freezing and hard usage. He moves slowly, his stride a rolling gait from the damaged knees and stiff back. He’s fit enough he could pass for being in his early fifties, but I remember him as the tall cowboy riding herd and I can see how much he’s aged and slowed.

When he plays with his grandkids and their eyes light up with joy, my children and I see the same vibrant, strong man that I remember from thirty years ago.

K: I’m not sure how much our protagonist declines here – he seems to be very good at dealing with adversity. This sweet recollection of the man’s life was fun to read, though, so I’ll forgive it to some degree for the sidestep. I wish I could give this one (and a lot of them) more points. 1

DK: This, again, really doesn’t deserve this low a score. I love the ideas and descriptions here, and I wish some of them could have been woven more into a story with more narrative thrust. Again, maybe this is my own issue and it’ll get balanced out in the end. 1

Peter Bruzek, nibbish and his Vogons

I have seen so much in my time.

I’ve witnessed countless civilizations rise and fall. I’ve seen the far reaches of what a million generations deemed the edges of existence, and light years beyond them. I’ve watched creation itself burst forth with sights to glorious to imagine, only to wither and die when its season was through.

That was in eternity past. It’s been so long since the warmth that I can scarcely remember it. All that remains now is darkness and a cold that permeates everything. There is nothing left to see, and my seemingly eternal life has finally been spent.

It is finally time.

Gathering what precious little energy I have left, I prepare myself. My death will be the gateway to the birth of a new creation.

“Let there be light.”

K: I love the twist, and the length, I think, for this story is correct. However, because this week was so damned strong, an incredibly clever premise that’s over quickly just can’t hold up to some of the emotional resonance we’ve had to this point. 2

DK: I’m not going to say it’s too short, cause it’s not. It sells what it sets out to sell in an effective amount of space, but it doesn’t really draw me into its protagonist or the circumstances like a lot of the others here do. 2

——————————————————————————————–

SPOILER ALERT!: 4.5/1/4.5 = 10/3 = 3.33
nibbish and his Vogons: 2/1.5/4.5/3/4.5 = 15.5/5 = 3.10
I’m With Stupid: 1/3/1.5 = 5.5/3 = 1.83

It was a tough time for Bret and Will to get these scores. They were certainly good – but man, what a week…again.

Remember, IWS, that you can’t vote for Will because of that solo Immunity he’s been hanging on to for a while now. In other words, Bret and Andy only have one real vote, but I’ll be asking for them, as obvious as they seem.

They’re due on Tuesday by noon Central. And dudes? Well done sticking around as a threesome for this long. I don’t want any of you to go away.

Cheers, Survivors.