# April 2013 - LM - Bubbles



## Fin (Apr 1, 2013)

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*​*Bubbles​*

*Reminder of the prizes awarded to the winner.*

The winner will receive a forum award which will be pinned to their lapel by Baron 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 a there is a steadily growing community!

So, do your best!


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

*Bubbles*

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:*

*Bad Craziness*; *Moderan*; *bazz cargo*; *WechtleinUns*
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.
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:*

Sunday, the 14th of April. To avoid confusion, the thread will close at 11:59pm (Sunday Night) LOS ANGELES, USA time. GMT/UTC-7

*Good luck, everyone!*​


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## Dictarium (Apr 4, 2013)

Not sure why I'm linking, I'm not going to ever get anything published. S'pose I'd just like the opportunity if it ever arises: http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1619270


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## thecostumedanceparty (Apr 6, 2013)

Had no idea what I was thinking when I wrote this, or why I even think about entering it, but here it is nonetheless: http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1619876


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## Pluralized (Apr 6, 2013)

Come Fly With Me (650w, Language, Absurdity)


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## The Jaded (Apr 7, 2013)

Last Stand - 520 Words


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## J Anfinson (Apr 7, 2013)

*Champagne Dream (524 words-Some language)*

Champagne Dream
By Jacob Anfinson



It was almost closing time when I stepped into Frank’s Tavern. The light from the overhead fixtures was turned down to the lowest setting, both to provide a solemn atmosphere and (not that Frank would admit it) to save money.

As I headed to the bar I passed an old man sitting at a table. He had his head in his hands, staring into a glass of something clear and bubbly. Champagne, I reasoned, but why would he be drinking champagne alone?

Frank stood at the bar polishing one of the display glasses. He finished wiping it clean as I sat down and hung it on the overhead rack. “Want a beer?”

“You must be psychic,” I said.

He nodded and passed me a bottle of his special home brew. “You look like you’ve had a hell of a day.”

“I had to work a double shift,” I said. “My replacement didn’t show up.”

He grimaced. “Been there, done that. Matter of fact, I’m looking at a long night right now.”

I took a drink of the beer he’d passed me. “What makes you think that?”

He inclined his head toward the old man. “That’s old Lester. He comes in here every year on today’s date. It’s his anniversary.”

“And that’s a problem, how?”

Frank turned his gaze to the old man, and I could see the pity in his eyes. “Lester’s wife passed away a few years back. They used to come in here on their anniversary and celebrate with champagne.” He took a breath. “Even after she died, he’s kept coming. It’s a special night for him.”
I looked over at the old man, who had stopped staring into the glass long enough to bring it to his lips. Some of it spilled down his chin. He was obviously drunk.

“I can’t tell him to leave either,” Frank went on. “It just wouldn’t be right. It means everything to him that I let him stay as long as he wants. And I couldn’t take that from him.”

“Wow, I don’t blame you,” I said. “It sounds like he misses her something terrible.” We continued to look at him. The old man appeared to be watching the bubbles floating up from the bottom of the champagne; his eyes glazed over. I wondered how drunk he planned to get.

As we watched, a smile formed at the corner of his mouth, and he stroked the glass tenderly. Tears rolled from his eyes and splashed onto the table, and I felt a stabbing pain in my heart. Nobody should be left alone like that.

Working a double shift gave me the next day off, so I stayed with Frank to keep an eye on Lester. The old man sat at the table until dawn, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but mostly just staring at the bubbles, as if lost in another time.

I didn’t need to know what he was seeing in the glass. You don’t need to be psychic like Frank. The old man was longing for what he’d never have again.
For what could only be a champagne dream.


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## Staff Deployment (Apr 8, 2013)

Abandoned Building


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## Inchidoney (Apr 8, 2013)

http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1620292

My Bubbles Burst. {Contains Adult Subjects }


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## Jon M (Apr 9, 2013)

Clean​


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## namesake (Apr 9, 2013)

http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1620938

The Escape from Fences Made from Trade Robots to Workers


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## KRHolbrook (Apr 10, 2013)

Three in the morning and I couldn't sleep, so here's what I came up with: Reflection.


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## Circadian (Apr 10, 2013)

*Pretend*


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## Gargh (Apr 10, 2013)

If...

http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1621219


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## moderan (Apr 11, 2013)

Judge Entry:http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1621411


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## FleshEater (Apr 12, 2013)

The Open Road (487 Words)

http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...3-lm-bubbles-workshop-thread.html#post1621708


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## PiP (Apr 12, 2013)

* The Soothing Magic of Bubbles*​


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## bazz cargo (Apr 13, 2013)

Satisfaction. 356 words
 By
 Bazz Cargo (Judges entry. Just for fun).

 A clanging, banging, knocking sound issued from the old barn. Then a burly figure rolling a large wooden barrel emerged from the broken doorway into the late afternoon sun. He pushed it through the muddy yard until it reached a point where the view over the foothills and mountainous backdrop was sufficiently breathtaking. There, on a low flat topped stone oven he uprighted it. The head of the barrel had already been removed and the bunghole stoppered so when he carefully placed the end of the ingenious length of pipework over the lip and the water from the cold mountain spring gushed in, it did not leak out again.

 While it was filling he attended to lighting a fire in the oven beneath. Soon the hogshead was full and not long after it was beginning to warm.

“Billybob?” The yell came a long way to the young man's ears. All the way from out-of-sight and a rickety old rocking chair  on a porch in front of a dilapidated old farm-shack.

“Yes Ma?” yelled back  the burly young man.

“What youm doin?”

“I'm takin a bath Ma.”

“A Bath? Taint youm birthday ?”

“No Ma.”

 “Why youm takin a bath if it aint youm birthday?”

“Cos.” There was a slight, embarrassed pause. “Tomorrow I'm goin into Jackson and doin me some courtin Ma.”

“Weel dang me for a Cootie. You know them fancy city girls aint for the likes of us.”

“No Ma. But there aint no-one round here but you, me and the farm animules.”

“They'll want curtains and a door on the outhouse. You see if they don't.”

“Meybe. We'll have to see.”

The water tested warm enough so Billybob skinned down to his long-johns and carefully climbed in. He had a bar of carbolic to scrub with and jug of moonshine hanging on a pole next to the bath for sustenance.  

 Dusk pases quickly in the mountains. Soon there is a stunning display of stars and a quarter moon. A frog chorus and a firefly ballet  complete the picture. What woman could resist such beauty?

 Billybob swigged his hooch and giggled as he farted big gloopy bubbles.


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## Rustgold (Apr 14, 2013)

Bubble Project
By B.D.Branch 638 words​


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## Kevin (Apr 14, 2013)

*Zenuba- 650 words (languge warning)*



“Hold this for me, would you?” She hands him the strap to ‘lunch’. “You have that look on your face again.”

She bends in and lifts their son out of the carrier in the back seat, shutting the car door with her hip.
“I think that’s everything. Come on, Bay-bee boo-boo. We’re at the park… 
Have you got the blanket?”

“Right here, Dear. I hope one of those dogs doesn’t pee on it.” 

“It’ll be fine. We’re going to have a nice day together, aren’t we, Boo-boo… and why don’t _you _just try to enjoy it, Mr. Grumpy?”

“Great.”

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Okay, then… Look-ee! Someone’s blowing bubbles over there. 
See the bupples, little man?”

Saying nothing, he follows, ten paces behind…

_Oh gawd, not ‘bupples’. I hate it when she says that, especially in that voice. Kid’s gonna grow up talking with that stupid baby-voice. _

_  I hate this park. There’s nothing natural about a lawn. We spray water on it; we mow it. People let their dogs run around and crap on it. It’s like a big… dog… crap-box. _

_She’s right: I hate everything: My job, our condo, my life; I even hate her. Why did we have a kid?  Eighteen years. What did I do?_

_Hey you, hey lazy-ass! Get your fucking dog. Geezus.That’s two ‘almost fights’ in five minutes. What idiot brings their attack dog to the park, anyway? _

_And you over there: Pick up your trash! That’s a great thing to teach your kids, jerk-off. _


The judge stops reading. “Oh, another one of these. Echh.”

What?

“Another ‘thinly veiled, introspective/autobiographical piece, where the writer/protagonist is so angsty, bored or full of melancholy.’ Nothing new. Not much happens, just the suffering ‘ar-teest’, and the more suffering reader.”

Hey! Stuff happens; there’s a transformation-


“Lemme guess: He figures out his life isn’t so bad after all…The End.”

And I suppose you’d rather something more exciting? Something like…

_“Peering through the yellow atmosphere, he hoists his Pluton-4000 laze-gun, and squints, using the areola of the evil creature’s single, sagging moob as a bull’s eye. Then he remembers that its wafer-thin brain sits just below its beak and inside the green wattle which flaps in the gentle Zenubian breeze…”_

“ Oh, go ahead, make fun. I’ll have you know that Sci-fi is highly respected literature and it’s …scientific! Many technical advances have only been proposed _first_ in Sci-fi.”

_“Lowering his ray gun, Spock Skywalker wishes he could take off his dilithium crystal, bubble-helmet, and wipe the spittle from the inside with his hanky…”_

“Listen, I’ve got a lot more of these to go, so can we get on with it? Fucking writers…I swear to gawd.”

Easy. You’re the one who stopped. I’m just trying to ‘write to my audience’.

“No, you ‘wrote’ me stopped, and now annoyed. Nice one. Now try writing me reading again. Un-duh-lay!” 


 His backside is getting sore. He stands up, thinking that he should’ve brought the foldout chair like she’d said. He wonders how much longer this is going to take. Nonchalantly as possible, he reaches down and adjusts his package. “Ah… my poor _juevos_.”   

In the distance he can see his son alone on the grass. His wife is at a nearby trash bin.  That dog, the aggressive one, is trotting, stiff tailed, _toward their unprotected son._ It’s too far away for him to yell. He starts running. He can see his wife is running too.
She won’t get there first.

“P-kawrr!” says the dog, as his wife boots it hard in the ribcage. The dog slinks off. 

He continues running. His eyes blurring, he stumbles; almost falls.

“You okay, Dear? You look winded. Well, he’s getting tired and I’m ready to go. How about you?”

Breathing hard, he nods. He steps forward and hugs them both. 

“What? Here, get off; you’ll get me all sweaty. What’s come over you?” 

“Uh, nothing Dear.”


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## NathanBrazil (Apr 14, 2013)

Cleaning Day


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## Foxee (Apr 14, 2013)

The Hookey Effect (649 words)


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## Lewdog (Apr 14, 2013)

*"Under the Sea"* - 650 words (Suggestive Language and themes)

http://www.writingforums.com/lm-cha...lm-bubbles-workshop-thread-2.html#post1622291


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## Leyline (Apr 15, 2013)

*They Eventually Live In The Metropolis* (650wds, mild adult language and mature themes)


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## spartan928 (Apr 15, 2013)

Boiling Point  6549 words - language, some mild violence


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## Fin (Apr 15, 2013)

Competition over.


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