# Literary Maneuvers January 2022: Speaking to the Wind



## Harper J. Cole (Jan 1, 2022)

*Literary Maneuvers January 2022: Speaking to the Wind*
Introduction
Let's speak to the wind! What story whistles through your mind this month?

650 words max., deadline 23:59 GMT / 18:59 EST, Saturday, 15 January
If you win, you'll get a badge pinned to your profile, plus the chance to enter our Feb 2022 *Grand Fiction Challenge*, which carries cash prizes.

Judging

There are four judges this month. Joining *VRanger* are *robertn51*, *Matchu *and *TheChristianWitness*. If you'd like to volunteer, please let me know via PM or in the Coffee Shop. If you wish to know more about scoring, take a look at the NEW JUDGING GUIDE which also includes a template to use for your scoring. Please use this template for consistency.

Additional

All entries that wish to retain their first rights should post in the LM WORKSHOP THREAD.

*All anonymous entries will be PMed to myself and please note in the PM whether you want your entry posted in the workshop.*

Please check out our Rules and Policies for extra details on the LM contests.

Everyone is welcome to participate, including judges. A judge's entry will receive a review by their fellow judges, but it will not receive a score, though some judges are happy to let you know their score for you privately. Please refrain from 'like'-ing or 'lol'-ing an entry until the scores are posted.

Judges: If you could send the scores no later than* January 31st,* it will ensure a timely release of results. Much later than that and I will have to post with what I have. Again, please see the Judging Guidelines if you have questions. Following the suggested formatting will be much appreciated, too.​


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## VRanger (Jan 1, 2022)

*The discussion about Anonymous Entries is now in the Coffee Shop.*


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## Birb (Jan 3, 2022)

Welp, here we go. Good luck Everyone!

The Long Road


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## ChicagoHeart (Jan 8, 2022)

Untitled

The wind howls with cheerless tones that tug away at whatever you hold dear. When the fighting ends and you lie awake in the dark and you think you might get some rest, the wind howls and steals your peace.

You don’t want to press your hands against your ears anymore now that the shouting is over. Your wrists are stiff, and your cheeks are still warm from the heels of your palms pushed into them. You want quiet but you get a terrible lullaby. You get the wind, howling, singing in those high rushing tones that don’t worry you so much as distract you. And part of you is thankful for the distraction as you fall away to sleep.

When we were little, my brother would come running to my bedroom when our parents went to battle. We huddled together in my bed, silently willing the shouting to stop.

My father liked the confrontation, he liked to get my mother angry. “Who do you think you are?” He loved to mock her. “Miss high society? You think you can do better than me?”

Mother never backed down though. Sometimes we heard her threaten to shoot him and we held our breath waiting for the gunshot but all we ever heard was glass breaking or sometimes heavy thuds as someone or something collided with a wall or fell to the floor.

We never saw a clear winner or loser the next day. If it was a school morning, we’d get ourselves up in a dead quiet house, eat a breakfast of cereal or toast, and head down the farm road to the bus stop. If it was a weekend morning, we woke early and spent the day pretending to be famous explorers, traipsing through the acres of woods where we lived.

On the best afternoons, we came home to the cinnamon-sweet smell of Texas chocolate sheet cake cooling on the counter mingled with heady aromas of my mother’s spaghetti sauce bubbling away on the stove- signaling they’d made up and we’d be having dinner together.

Other days, we arrived home to an empty house, and we made peanut butter sandwiches for dinner in front of the TV. Mother would come home long after we’d put ourselves to bed. Dad wouldn’t be home for days or sometimes a few weeks.

Occasionally, we were whisked away to a motel for the weekend, where my father would explain we were on holiday just the three of us, and we could swim in the motel pool all day if we wanted. He’d bring us vending machine lunches and Whataburger for dinner. We wondered why mom never came with us. “She only likes fancy vacations,” Dad would say. But there was no fighting at night. There was no lonely wind in the aftermath. We fell asleep to the hum and roar of highway traffic.

When we got older, I had a small tv in my bedroom. I’d turn it up and we’d watch whatever we could tune in to, making loud comments and laughing deliberately when it helped to drown out the ugliness coming from the end of the hall.

Mom and dad got older too, and the fights lost energy, becoming snide comments and dirty looks in the daytime.

By then, I was conditioned to lay awake at night until the house was silent but for the snores of my father or my mother grinding her teeth.

The wind had become a soothing friend. I’d focus on the gentle rustle of an evening breeze brushing through drifts of autumn leaves outside my window. I imagined the wind’s soft whistle was a voice asking to carry me away. Sometimes I answered back. “Yes, take me with you.” Away from this place, I thought. To soft summer breezes on a friendly porch, and cold gusts off the lake at grandad’s cabin. “Take me with you.”


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## Ken11 (Jan 9, 2022)

Memories In The Wind
written by Ken11


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## biograph1985 (Jan 9, 2022)

Afternoon Everywhere

"You realize that Americans mispronounce 'Australia'?" her father asks. "It's spelled like you would say it if you were Australian. 'Austr-ah-lia', not 'Austr-ay-lia'." Sharon peers at her father and then replies, "I'm sure there's Australians who say 'Austr-ay-lia', too. Why are you thinking about that, Dad?"

Her father gives it a beat then replies, "Not much else to think about in here... hey, could you close that window? It's getting chilly."

"Sure." Sharon closes the window but lingers. The pane is dirty, the buildings in view are dirty, the sky is dirty, the world is dirty. Everything rests under a slim film of grime. Sharon pulls herself away to look at her father. Robert is 63. Years of living at the ash-end of postwar promises have left him in this hospital bed. There's a film of grime on him, on his organs, on everything.

"What are you reading?" Robert asks, casting a glance at the book poking out of Sharon's large purse.

"Uh, Speak to the Wind by Newsome O'Connor. It's about being spiritually in touch with nature, and how that helps your relationships." She seems vaguely apologetic, knowing her father can't relate. "Not Louis L'Amour, huh? I always liked him." Again silence.

"Hey, Sharon, could you get me some water? It takes so long for these nurses to answer." 

"Sure, Dad."

Sharon fills her father's cup in the bathroom sink and brings it back to him. "Thanks."  He breathes into the cup before taking a slow sip. 

Robert's wife Marsha walks into the dimly lit room and Sharon is happy that the stilted conversation is interrupted. "Hi Mom!"

"Hi Sharon. How is everyone?” Marsha asks her husband. 

"Just what you see," Robert replies. "I hope they can get me out of here before too long..."

"Oh honey, it'll be fine," Marsha assures him. "I spoke with Pastor Frank just before I came over. He'd like to see you."

Robert grimaces. "I hate to bother the Pastor," he mutters. "Can we just tell him I'll see him at church?"

"Oh Robert, he called the house and asked if he could see you."

Robert shifts in his bed. "I just hate to take up his time, he's busy."

"Dad, this is part of his job. Ministering to the sick and all that," Sharon contributed.

"Look," Robert says after a lengthy silence. "Thanks for coming up, but I'm tired. Come back tomorrow?" Robert hopes his feigned enthusiasm doesn't sound it. They look at him. "All right, darling," Marsha replies, kisses his head and starts for the door. Sharon too kisses her father and they both depart. Robert exhales and fumbles for the TV remote. A dense click and the cathode ray burns into focus.

The local news begins with the story of the murders of two homosexual men in Clemons Park the previous evening. The anchor talked under a light drizzle of an area in the park known for "homosexual cruising". The young men's bodies were discovered about 50 yards away from that area. They had suffered blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds.

Robert had no sympathy. Nor had he sympathy for the reports of inner city gun violence, nor the plight of refugees in any number of countries around the world. He thought about his daughter and that dumb book of hers, and the fact that she hadn't had a long term relationship in five years. He wondered if "relationship guides" would be around if Hitler had taken over Europe.

He experiences his own leaden body and thinks about the younger generation and how their spirituality consists of being "part of everything" or something. He knows that dedication to Jesus Christ is all that's required for salvation and it perturbs him that others don't see it.

Nestled in his assumptions, locked in his prejudices, he forgets this day, forgets this life and forgets speaking to the wind.


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## KatPC (Jan 9, 2022)

Mirae


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## piperofyork (Jan 11, 2022)

*Aeolian*


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## Travalgar (Jan 11, 2022)

*Helping Wings*


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## Harper J. Cole (Jan 11, 2022)

*Audio Fae*


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## NajaNoir (Jan 11, 2022)

https://www.writingforums.com/threads/lm-secure-thread-january-2022-speaking-to-the-wind.196636/post-2381155


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## Harper J. Cole (Jan 12, 2022)

*Where is the snow now?*


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## Harper J. Cole (Jan 13, 2022)

*The Mountain*


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## epimetheus (Jan 15, 2022)

The wind that didn't blow


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