# June 2013 - LM - The Last Good Day



## Fin

Announcement: Before the competition begins, there are a couple of things that need to be said. There's been a change to the way we will be determining word counts. If your word count reads 650 or below in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, your entry is eligible to be judged with a score. If you have no access to these, you may send your entry directly to me and I'll send back your word count. Also, some of your styles are different and in some cases MW and GD will give you an entirely inaccurate word count. In those cases, you may send me your entry directly to me and I'll personally check the word count and if it remains 650 or below, I'll add a 'seal of approval' to your entry. 

Final thing that needs to be said is that this month's competition will be a blind challenge. The thread is locked because to post your entry, you'll have to send your entry to me via PM and I'll post it without your name. If you wish to have your story posted in the workshop thread, let me know in the PM. Not even the judges will know that you wrote the story. Your name will be revealed when I put up the score thread. 

And now we begin. . .

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*​The Last Good Day​
*Reminder of the prizes awarded to the winner.*

The winner will receive a forum award which will be pinned to their lapel by Sam himself. Also, the winner will be awarded with a one month free subscription to the forums (FoWF) which will give you access to additional forums and use of the chat room where there’s a growing community!

So, do your best!


*Our prompt for this month's competition is:*

*The Last Good Day*

In 650 words or less, write a story where the prompt above is in some way included in the story, such as the theme; object; setting, etc. So there should be many ways to connect to the prompt.


*The judges for this round are:*

*Pluralized*; *Lasm*; *Moderan*; *Rustgold*
A click of a judge's name will take you to their profile.

(To the judges, send your scores to *Fin* via PM - and if we could aim to have them sent within a week after the closing date, that would be ideal)


*Now a recap of the rules:*


The word limit is 650 words not including the title. If you go over - Your story will not be counted.
You can no longer edit your entry after posting. There will be a 10-minute grace period, if you want to go in there and edit a typo or something, but you should approach this as if you were submitting your work to be published and paid for. When you submit, that should be your final work, the work you are happy with.
Creative Board rules apply here as well. Entries with language must use a disclaimer.
Of course, there can only be one entry per member.
No comments in this thread, please - Only competition entries (and links to) to be posted in this thread.
Also, please hold off on "liking" stories until the judging's done.


*There are two ways to post your entry:*


If you aren't too concerned about your first rights, then you can simply post your entry here in this thread.
You can opt to have your entry posted in the *LM Workshop Thread* which is a special thread just for LM entries. You would put your story there if you wish to protect your first rights (in case you want to someday submit the work to a magazine or something). *Take note: If you have elected to put your entry there in the Workshop thread, you must copy the link into the main competition thread or else it will not be counted.*

Everyone is welcome to participate. A judge's entry will receive a review by their fellow judges, but it will not receive a score.

*This competition will close on:*

Tuesday, the 18th of June. To avoid confusion, the thread will close at 11:59pm (Tuesday Night) LOS ANGELES, USA time. GMT/UTC-7

*Good luck, everyone!*​


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## Fin

*A Dog-Eared Page​*


He picked up the book and turned to the last dog-eared page. It was just over half-way through the book. He’d stopped reading six months ago at a place where there were no chapter breaks, or scene breaks. Just two pages of unbroken text with scattered paragraph indents. He didn’t remember putting the book down, but he remembered the time—ten-thirty-seven P.M. Nor could he remember what the story was about. Something about time travel? The names printed on the pages rang no bells; the style seemed alien.

It amazed him now—as it would continue to amaze him in the years to come—how quickly and brutally time can be divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’. It is a line of demarcation invisible from ‘before’, and unmistakable from ‘after’. “There should have been a sign,” he said to the open book. In his mind the image of a road sign reading NO OUTLET formed.

He closed the book, making sure the dog-ear was still turned down, and replaced it on the nightstand. He sat down on the edge of the bed. The room around him was the same as it had been on that October night. Except for the slanted polygons of April sunshine crawling across the carpet with Copernican precision, nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

As he allowed himself to drift back to that last good day, his heart began to pound within the hollow drum of his chest; a remembered echo of life before. Memories hung in his mind like exhibits at a gallery—each one framed and separate from the others. The spaces between the frames were as blank and unremarkable as the walls of the Louvre. He remembered the warm-oil feeling of a humid afternoon breeze moving over his face as he’d climbed out of his car after work; an amber warmth worthy of Matisse, or Van Gogh. The workday itself was as vague and nondescript in his memory as a framed motel landscape (Kinkade?), but he remembered the soft caress of the wind well. He remembered the evening meal also; tacos (as spicy as a Pollack), and he even remembered the Seurat-like floral print on the blouse worn by the woman who came by after supper and picked up the table he’d auctioned on e-Bay. With his wife, he’d watched Survivor that evening, and some cop show, then they had gone to bed and started to read like characters in a Rockwell print.

By that time his son had already been dead for four hours.

It had been a typical end to a typical day in the time of before. It had been a good day—from the bent, razor-edged perspective of after, all days then had been good days. But now he’d come to the last exhibit in the gallery of before; a gaudy, Warhol-like multi-media monstrosity depicting an alarm clock with glowing neon numbers reading 10:37, and a soundtrack of a ringing phone.

He picked up the book again, opened it to the last dog-eared page, and began to read blurry words he would not remember.


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## Fin

*Lilium*​


In a field of white he stood alone.

Only, he wasn't alone. There was a feeling in the air of someone else. Someone he missed dearly hovering just out of sight.

On the edges of his vision flashed glimpses of a woman, but all he could catch was a hint of her perfume as he spun to lay eyes on her properly. Always she was gone as he turned, returned to the corner of his eye once more. The beautiful woman would not stay where he could see her.

Although he could not make out her face, Grey knew she was beautiful. She had always been beautiful. What fresh torture was this that he’d forgotten her face?

With a cry he stopped his spinning about and sank to his knees, there was no point in chasing something that he could never have. Hot tears rolled down cold cheeks to land on the field of white, snatches of memories long gone decorating the floor with barely familiar settings. It was a field of wild flowers. Lilies. This field had meant something to woman he could only catch glimpses of.

A hand came down on his shoulder softly, kindly.

“Why are you crying?”

Grey didn't turn around. She’d disappear if he tried to see her face.

“I let you die.” He breathed heartbreaking truth.

Lily. That was her name. If he could remember that then why could he not remember her face? Fresh tears fell to the flowers beneath him.

She smiled. Lily smiled. Grey had no way to know, but he could hear the beauty of it resonating in the air. The love of his life was smiling at those tears. It was that kind smile that promised to make everything better. He could still remember that.

“I never blamed you.” Her voice was gentle, but each word drove a spike through his heart. He did not deserve forgiveness.

Unable to contain himself, Grey turned. He had to see her face-


With tears in his eyes, Grey woke to find Rachel cradling him as though he were a small child.

“Why are you crying?” She whispered, using a thumb to wipe a tear from his cheek.
_
Because nothing goes right anymore. Not since that day. That last good day._

That is what his heart begged to say, but he kept the truth inside. Rachel didn't need that kind of hurt piled on. She didn't deserve any such thing. Long since had she reconciled that Grey would not love her the way he loved Lily, she needed scant reminders.

“It’s nothing, just a dream.” He breathed heartbreaking lie.


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## Fin

*Shelter
​*


Two-blinks stared up at the ceiling the way he had been for the last week. Scratch-knock was finally giving out. Its spinal column had begun to show through the rotting flesh at the back of its esophagus and the vertebrate were beginning to sag from the ceiling. It would probably hold for another day, but Two-blinks and Blink-nod would be gone before then. It wouldn’t do for the whole place to suddenly collapse on them in their sleep.

                Blink-nod put her hand on Two-blinks’ shoulder. _Tap tap_, said her foot, and she gestured to toward Scratch-knocks mouth.

_Tap tap_, Two-blinks agreed sadly. He took Blink-nod’s hand and together they walked through Scratch-knocks insides to its mouth. Weaving between the rows of razor-sharp teeth that lined its jaw, they collected the corpses of fish and eels that had been unfortunate enough to wash in with the tide. Blink-nod ran a finger along one of Scratch-knock’s fangs, moving her foot through the liquefying gum tissue with a forlorn _swish_. Two-blinks embraced her.

                It was a hard thing, letting go. Scratch-knock had perhaps been the best home they’d ever had. They’d known when they first found it beached on the shore that it couldn’t last forever, but they made it theirs anyway. Back then it had been a magnificent beast of the deep, eyes wide and white and built for finding prey in the darkness. Two-blinks still remembered the way its lure glowed in the sand, welcoming them.

                They took their meager findings back into Scratch-knock’s stomach and boiled them in the last of the bile, which was now no more than puddle. It seemed everything was going, slowly but surely. There had been signs for the last month and they’d tried their best to ignore them, but when areas of Scratch-knock’s skin had worn so thin that the sun was showing through, they could not.

                Two-blinks chewed his eel slowly, glancing now and then at the sagging vertebrate above. _Scratch tap, tap_, said Blink-nod’s fingers against Two-blinks’ thigh. He ignored her and she withdrew her hand. They both knew there was little use in denying the inevitable. There would be no second Scratch-Knock. Perhaps there would be a cave or a nice place next to a boiling hot-spring, but nowhere as hospitable as this.

                For the last two months Scratch-knock had given them food, shelter, a warm place to sleep, and thousand things beside. Two-blinks was not sure if he quite remembered how to live outside anymore. It was not something he wanted to think about, but everything around him reminded him of what was to come.
_Slap_, said his fist against the wet tissue, _Slap_. Blink-nod did not agree with him, but when he left she followed.
They paused at Scratch-knock’s teeth to collect extra food and then stepped out onto the beach. The sand felt strange beneath their feet, not at all like the tissue they’d become so used to. The tide was cold, the water thin and uncolored with bodily fluids. The world was wide, and it was empty.

Two-blinks stared back at Scratch-knock for the last time. It was now only a shadow of its former self, brown and sagging, its eyes withdrawn deep into the black recesses of its skull. Its scales were strewn about the beach like dead leaves.

Two-blinks passed one to Blink-nod, then took one for himself. She stared down at it, and then at Two-blinks. _Scratch, knock_, said his fingers against the scale’s hard surface.

And then they left.


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## Fin

*Postscript, after the row...*​


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## Fin

*If You Get Born Into This World, You Will Die.




*​It's not how long someone lives, it is how well they die that counts. With dignity or kicking and screaming and fighting all the way.  


 Blood. A slow moving puddle on granite flagstones, oozing over little flecks of quartz glinting in the flickering candlelight. The muted sounds of  a storm outside the cathedral an aural backdrop to the end of a man's life.  


 The sound of steady gunshots come by air and through the stones his left ear rests against. Only they are not what they seem. A pair of emerald green, steel soled, stiletto heeled shoes on the end of  sheer-black, stocking clad legs comes into view. He can see no higher than half way up the black, side-split, pencil skirt.  


 There is a metallic click, then the acrid smell of a cigarette. A deep breath. “Don't worry.” A warm contralto with a hint of Dutch. “I haff called an ambulance.”


 There is a long pause.


 As if in slow motion, a bloody knife falls to the ground, the clatter wringing echoes from the dark corners. “Zhe bad mans will not be bothering you again.”



 Then the legs go away.


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## Fin

*First Bad Day​*


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## Fin

[*Horizontal Slice*​


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## Fin

*Summer Love'n
Language Warning*​



“You let my marshmallow fall in the fire… again.”

“I’m sorry" I said, "it looked a little burnt, and I want to make you the best s'mores you’ve had all summer.” I didn’t look over because I knew she would have her pout-lipped face turned towards me, and I'd be overwhelmed with the feeling to kiss her. If we got caught kissing, our last night together would be cut short. I couldn’t let that happen.

“You’re so sweet. I’ve been looking for a guy like you all my life. Now I have you, but soon you’ll be taken away from me.” The shakiness in her voice made it obvious what she felt was real.

I leaned over towards her, concentrating on yet another marshmallow, and whispered, “Remember, at midnight, meet me down by the lake at the old oak tree. Okay?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world" she said. "It might be the last time we can be together for a long time.”

“You need to quit harping on about things like it’s the end of the world. Let’s enjoy the time we have together and just let the future happen. We’ll have the memories of this summer the rest of our lives, and no one can take that away from us.” I choked up a little.

******

From lights out until almost midnight, I couldn’t stop staring at my watch. We normally had a camp counselor in our dorm each night, but since this was the last one, they were all out having a bonfire of their own to celebrate the end of summer. That made it a lot easier to sneak out of the cabin and down to the lake; however, I still had to worry about being spotted by wondering, drunken counselors looking for make-out spots. I finally made it to the lake. I was the first one there, which made me uncomfortable. Is there a worse feeling in the world, than being a twelve-year-old boy waiting at midnight to see if a girl will show up or not? My stomach certainly didn’t think so. 

About ten minutes after midnight I heard a rustle in the bushes. I prayed it was her and not a pair of horny counselors. I peeked around the edge of the tree to see the outline of a young, beautiful, awkward girl stumbling towards the water.

“Shit! My shoe is stuck in the mud!”

“Keep it down or they’ll hear you,” I whispered. “That is you, right?”

“You? How many girls were you expecting to show up?” 

I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not, but I joked anyway, “well, I asked four in hopes that at least one would actually show up. Which one are you?”

“I guess the one with the lowest self-esteem; lucky for you I have a horrible father.”

She finally made her way over to the tree where I was sitting comfortably on a rock. It was an old oak, facing the lake that had a large hollowed out area at its base. It made a perfect spot for two hoodlums like us to hide in the darkness. The sky was the clearest I had seen all summer, and the reflection of the moon on the lake’s surface lit up the land like it was day. We could see the numerous carvings in the tree of lovers’ immortalized feelings. I broke out my Swiss Army knife, and soon our initials, surrounded by a heart, were chiseled into the ancient wood. "WL + AB". We both stared at my artwork for awhile, and sat quietly looking out over the lake. After a few minutes she nuzzled up against me. I could smell the perfume on her that I really liked. That’s when we had our last kiss, and what would become the last good day of summer.


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## Fin

*The Marvelous Monday of Marcus Shunt*​


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## Fin

*Abdul*
​



He laughed out loud and muttered to himself “The last good day!” and laughed again. Abdul was a preacher at a mosque located in Bella village Gulmarg in Kashmir. He was about 90 years old and perhaps the oldest living person in the locality. 
He walks into his barn and tells his sheep –saifu and kaifu. “Today, I am going to give you a treat! I will take you grazing to ‘purana’ hill”. It was summer time the valley was in full bloom. The road to the hill was lined with beautiful pink Himalayan balsam flowers. Fruits like peach, apple, cherry and almonds were in full bloom, filling the air a beautiful fragrance.  The sheep ran along the path with carefree abandon and Abdul settled himself on the hill top. The hill was carpeted with lush green grass, surrounded with mountains and a panoramic view of the village. He shut his eyes to soak in the serene surroundings and starts humming an old kashmiri folk song. His whole life flashes past him, his carefree childhood and education in ‘madarsa’(Islamic school). 
The solitude suddenly feels poignant as he looks down and realises that the houses that dot the valley are all empty. He gazes a little further and sees empty football court and house boats on the banks of the lake. Although, he had been living in this ghost village for last six months, it still seemed like yesterday when the first batch of residents left. It was right after the bombing at the ‘Noorjahan’ hospital. The news reported it to be a low intensity attack as the casualty was lesser than what the valley was used to. But it was enough to shake this sleepy village and the simpletons who lived there. This was a warning by the militants, either comply or leave. Most people chose to leave, it was an easy choice. They had seen and heard far too many stories of people in other villages living like hostage in their own homes.
But Abdul stayed back stoically; he respected their decision and as part of his last service to them, promised to take care of their homes in their absence. As there was hope that someday they would all return to their homeland. He had decided that he would patiently wait for that day. Alas! This was not to be, the army decided to flush out the militants, who were deeply entrenched in the valley. They asked Abdul to leave too, as they did not want him to get caught in the cross fire. Today was his last day, he bid one last goodbye to his village and as he started to walk, his heart felt heavy. What about the promise he had made to his people, who would look after their homes? He could not bear to see his village getting caught in the cross fire. Suddenly, something struck him and in almost in a split of a second he turns around.
The prime time news channel reports a news flash “Today at 8.30 PM a body has been recovered in Gulmarg valley, which the army confirms is of Abdul Ghulam a local priest”.
Abdul had never broken a promise, he immortalised himself to ensure he can protect his village forever. Even today after twenty years, the residents can feel his presence. 
The little children who were intently listening to the story sit motionless staring at the eighty five year old local priest Zafar. He breaks the silence “Alright, end of story, all of you go home straight from here, otherwise you know what will happen, either army will catch you or the militants!”.


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## Fin

*Paradise​*


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## Fin

*Time, Like a Present*​


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## Fin

*The Last Good Day



*
​
  [FONT=&Verdana]The doctor said it was time. As if it would make the decision to end my sons life easier by pointing out its inevitability. The words cut deep and laid open a wound of guilt. 

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]The machines that breathed for him, cleansed his blood, and nourished him also gave me hope. My mother kept saying that he would live or die according to God's will. Hundreds of candles burned and a thousand prayers given for a miraculous healing. But when the night came and the doctors told me it was time for a decision I was alone. God was nowhere to be found.

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]When they shut off  the machines the room went silent except for the tick of a clock on the wall. Like a thief stealing away the moments I had left with my son with every tick. I wanted it to start running backwards to that day when my son was lucid and truly present. When we talked about his dreams and I could hear his laughter. His last good day.

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]I remembered how he told me he wasn't afraid to die.

[/FONT]

  I didn't respond. I couldn't. I was always preaching about how we were beating the disease but there was nothing I could say.

  He told me of the day when he was ten and climbed so high in the oak tree behind our house that he couldn't climb down. How I calmly climbed the tree up to him. He was petrified but he told me he felt safe. That he could climb down because I was there with him. 

  [FONT=&Verdana]He said he was sorry and he knew what was going to happen soon. And he felt the same way he did when I came to him in that tree. That he was safe. That he was free.

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]Fear was the one thing the disease couldn't control him with any longer. 

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]In the hospital room last night, all I had was the warmth of my sons hand and the fading rise and fall of his chest. I should have felt peace because the pain would be over. No second liver transplant, no dialysis, no internal bleeding or frantic trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night. No more living in a hospital for weeks. All I could think of was his warm hand and that ticking clock. How time was racing to the end and I was so ashamed and frightened that I couldn't stop it. 

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]                                                                                        ***

[/FONT]

  [FONT=&Verdana]The sun rising through the hospital room window is glorious and terrible. We fought so hard for more time but it's spent and I have to face the day without him. I don't want to look out another window and not know he's out there somewhere. Yet I envy my son. In his frailty and weakness he gave me something priceless on that last good day. He gave me his fear. As I watch the glow of day brighten I have that much. I know he found peace.


[/FONT]


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## Fin

*Love Me Not*​


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## Fin

*Apathy*​


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