# April 2018 - Literary Maneuvers - The Floor Above



## bdcharles (Apr 5, 2018)

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*

*The Floor Above*​

The winner will receive a badge pinned to their profile and given a     month’s access to FoWF where you’ll have access to hidden forums and use     of the chat room. 

This is a fiction writing competition, and the prompt for this month in '*The Floor Above*'.  Pick your own title, write about whatever you want, in whatever prose  style, as long as it's related in some way to the prompt. 

The Judges for this LM are *moderan*, *MousePot*, potentially *Blackstone *and ... *you!* Sign up for judging by PM or in the coffee shop. If you want to judge and I left you out, send me your scores by the     deadline. If you're listed here and don't wish to judge, let me know at     once (please).

All entries that wish to retain their first rights should post in the *LM Workshop Thread**.*

All Judges scores will be PMed to* bdcharles*

All anonymous entries will be PMed to* bdcharles*


*Rules*





*All forum rules apply.* The LM competition is considered a creative area of the forum. If your story contains inappropriate language or content, do _not_ forget add a disclaimer or it could result in disciplinary actions taken. Click *here* for the full list of rules and guidelines of the forum. 
*No Poetry!*     Nothing against you poets out there, but this isn’t a place for your     poems. Head on over to the poetry challenges for good competition  over    there. Some of us fiction people wouldn’t be able to understand  your    work! Click *here* for the poetry challenges. Play the prose-poem game at your own risk. 
*No posts that are not entries into the competition are allowed.* If you have any questions, concerns, or wish to take part in discussion please head over to the *LM Coffee Shop. *We’ll be glad to take care of your needs over there. 
*Editing your entry after posting isn’t allowed.* You’ll be given a ten minute grace period, but after that your story may not be scored. 
*Only one entry per member.* 
*The word limit is 650 words not including the title.*     If you go over - Your story will not be counted. Microsoft Word is   the   standard for checking this. If you are unsure of the word count   and   don't have Word, please send your story to me and I'll check it   for you. 




*There are a few 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 Workshop *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 wish to    have the  story published one day. Note: If you do post it in the    workshop thread,  you must post a link to it here in this thread    otherwise your story may  not be counted. 
You may post    your story anonymously.  To do so, send your story to the host of the    competition. If you wish to  have us post it in the workshop thread  then   say so. Your name will be  revealed upon the release of the  score. 




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

Judges: In the tradition of LM competitions of yore, if you could send     the scores one week after deadline it will ensure a timely release of     scores and minimize the overall implementation of porkforking. Please     see the *Judging Guidelines* if you have questions. Following the suggested formatting will be much appreciated, too. 

*This competition will close on:*Thursday, the 19th April at 11:59 PM, GMT time.​
Scores would be appreciated by te last day of the current month, at the latest, pretty please. 

Click here for the current time.


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## Blackstone (Apr 6, 2018)

The Floor Above - Blackstone
643 words​
Every man of a certain age knows there are some things you don’t tell a woman, no matter how true they might be. Gerald Kinney could think of many. One came whenever he heard Gracie walk on the floor above where his bed was: _Boy, _he'd think, _she sounds like a heifer._

_BUH-SQUEE-BUH-BUH!_

But it wasn’t her fault no more than it was his. It was the house mainly. It was an old house and the floorboards clamored like the headboard of a whorehouse during shore-leave. Gerald knew it. He had been a sailor once, a long time ago, long before Gracie. The USS Gilmore, ‘66 to ‘68. A war he’d seen no action in besides a couple glimpses of smoke spires on hillsides somewhere south off Quang Tri Province. Then, just as now, he had been below.

_BUH-BUH-SQUEEE- BUH-BUHBUH-BUH!_

No pneumonia back then, though. And no laying in bed getting woke by endless stomping.

_BUH-BUH-SQUEEEE!_

But now, now there was pneumonia and Gracie waking him up sure as shit didn’t help with it. Up and to the right the slit window where the ground ended beckoned as Gerald lay thinking about his disease. His bones ached like a Monk’s nutsack, but there was no coughing today. Come to thinker it he had not coughed in a while. That was good, very good. He would tell Gracie that the next time she came to check on him. Perhaps she would let him come upstairs, even just for dinner.

_BUH-
_
It was the coughing that had been the reason for the basement, after all. Back when he’d started keeping her awake. She had wanted  the bedroom for her _appointments_, so she finally told him. She had made up the bed in the basement. Gerald was unsure exactly what those _appointments_ were. Either way, as every man of an age knows, there were some things you don’t tell a woman. One of those things being that ever since the basement he no longer felt quite right about things.

_BUH-SQUEEEE-BUH-_

(‘Cause of that damn noise...)

_BUH-BUH-BUH!_

It quietened but Gerald did not go back to sleep. Instead he lay looking up at the tiny slit-window. It was snowing. He could not see the snow, only the sky, a fat gray snow sky. It had not snowed when he had first moved down to the basement...or perhaps it had. He couldn’t be sure. In truth, the kind of truth that gets put away and disregarded, Gerald Kinney was aware he had not actually left the bed in a terribly long time. He was unsure exactly how long. Only that the more he thought about it the more sure he was it had not been snowing then. That sky had been the blue of the South China Sea. 

Upstairs he heard the front door click. 

 “You ready?” a stranger called, an appointment. He heard Gracie's mumble. The door clicked again and silence returned. Gerald felt his eyelids suddenly heavy. As he drifted off he found himself remembering that day he had first moved to the basement. Gracie had been there that night, he remembered, and she had been crying. For some unknown goddamn reason. Must have been something off TV, but it had bugged him still, that crying. 

Outside a car coughed.

Gracie had said something that night before she left. Something about being sorry, that she would see him again when he was well enough, and mumbled something that sounded unpleasantly like a prayer. Finally she’d touched his cheek and left, still mumbling, still crying, all for no damn reason. That, Gerald realized, had been the last time he had seen her. Back when the sky was blue still. A very long time ago.

_I’ll tell her the coughing’s gone_, Gerald thought. _Next time she comes down here I’ll tell her._


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## -xXx- (Apr 7, 2018)

here


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## SueC (Apr 9, 2018)

*                                                          Upstairs *
                                                                       (648 wds)



As the old woman, Bea, stood and stretched, she looked down at the chair next to hers, an identical forest green wing-back, and smiled.

"I'm heading upstairs to bed now, Bobby. Are you ready?" She continued smiling as she slowly made her way down the hall past me to her solitary room on the main floor. She turned and wiggled her fingers goodnight in my direction, then opened her door and stepped aside to let her husband, who had been dead for twenty years, go in first. 

"I know, dear," I  heard her say as she went in. "The stairs are difficult for you aren't they? Well, maybe next year we'll get one of those contraptions where you can sit down and ride your way up." Then she would giggle as if Bobby had given her a humorous response, maybe something a little risqué. The door would close on her saying, "remember that day when . . .?"

Was there, I thought to myself as I watched her go, any brief moment of time in her long day when she realized the truth about Bobby and the stairs? In some way, I hoped not; in others, I thought it sad that her loneliness for Bobby had left her so at sea.

I folded the linens and checked meds for morning. I took my break in the kitchen. The night was going fast for a change and before I knew, it was time for rounds. I was on my own; the flu had caught us all off guard, but it had been a quiet night so far.

I worked my way down the hall and then I was at Bea's door; I opened it quietly and walked over to her bed. She was laying on her back, and as I gently felt under her nightgown to be sure her sheets were dry, she opened her eyes and started talking.

"Sister, get out of the way so I can see him comin' up the stairs! He's going to be so excited. Said he wanted a girl, and ain't she just beautiful. He'll fall in love again, I just know." There was a pause then; her voice changed a little, became softer. "Bobby, oh Bobby, just look what we made, will you? Yes, you can hold her; of course, you can hold her! Count those fingers and toes for me again, will you? Oh my, I can't get over the sight of her."

I could see in the shadows that she had tears on her cheeks. I pulled up a chair to sit and listen to her tell Bobby the story. "You were already in the field. . ." 

I took out a pen and wrote as much as I could. It was almost two hours before she stopped talking and she finally fell back into a deep sleep. I tiptoed out and finished my rounds.

Before I left in the morning, I slipped the pages I had written into an envelope, with Bea's daughter's name on it. I dropped it off at the nurses' station. Despite her daily visits, Bea's mind was no longer set in reality, but I knew the pages I was giving her daughter might briefly bring back the mother she knew.

I realized then the significance of the stairs and how the rooms on the floor above, in Bea's mind, held all the hopes and dreams, and sometimes sadness's, of life. It was where she and Bobby had held each other at night. It was where they had created their children and the very room in which those children had come into this world. And when Bobby was dying, still holding onto Bea in their bed, she had never really let go of him. 

In her mind, as long as they could climb the stairs together at the end of a day, he would be with her always.


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## Birb (Apr 10, 2018)

Never Go Upstairs
650 Words (this one was hard! I had to delete some words)

My mom kicked me out of my room last year. She let me have the big guest room next to the kitchen, though. Besides, every morning since then mom has made me my favorite blueberry pancakes.

One morning, while I was eating breakfast, there was a really loud crash from upstairs. I looked over at my mom, already knowing what she’d say

“Oh, that’s just your father sweetie, he can be such a klutz sometimes.” It was so automatic. Every time I heard a thump upstairs she’d say the same thing. Mom would always give me ice cream or food though afterward though, an I already heard her whipping up more pancake mix.

“Hey, mom…” I asked. “I miss dad” She stopped mixing and set the bowl down, then knelt next to me.

“Yeah...I do too, but dad is working on a really important project. You know that he doesn’t like to be bothered. Remember what I said last year?”

“Never go upstairs?”

“Never go upstairs, ” She gave me a quick smile and grabbed the bowl “Now, you want more pancakes, right?”

Her smile was contagious, I couldn’t help but give in.

“Yeah...but will I see dad again soon?”

“Sooner than you know it.”

I still kinda missed dad, but my mom gave me a calendar and said dad would let me go up and visit during Christmas. That was only three months away! She also gave me a big red marker and said if I crossed the days off they’d go by really fast.

Sometimes, mom would let strange men into the house, people I’d never seen before. She would take them upstairs and I wouldn’t see her until the next morning.

Whenever I asked she told me they were dad’s friends. I never see them leave.

The thumps have been happening more recently now, and the house smells like vomit. My mom brought a pest control guy to the house one day and right when he walked in he said it smelled like something died in here. My mom told him about the thumps and he said it must’ve been a raccoon or something that got caught in the walls. He told her it was a quick fix. My mom sent me outside to play.

At about sunset, my mom came out and asked if I wanted to get ice cream. On our way to the ice cream shop, I asked about the pest guy. My mom gave me a weird little laugh and told me he had gone home. I guess I just didn’t see him when I was playing.

That night, I heard more thumps upstairs. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on up there. I know that dad didn’t like to be bothered, but surely he’d forgive me just one time?  I crept out of my bed and over to the stairs. I hoped dad would be happy to see me.


“Hey….mom?”

The smell of blueberry pancakes filled the kitchen.

Yes, dear? Your pancakes are nearly done if that’s what you were going to ask.”

“I went to see dad last night.”

The entire world stopped. Mom stood with her back to me for what seemed like forever. Each second felt like I was being smacked, tears began to well in my eyes. Was she mad at me? Only when the smell of burnt pancakes filled the air did she speak.

“Oh, what did you see?”

“I well...There were a lot of men up there.”

“Yeah?” Her voice sounded like the pancakes burning in the skillet.”

“Why were they hanged up on the wall….why weren’t they moving?”

----


I rang the doorbell again...what was taking this lady so long?  The woman who answered looked really tired, but she was a single mom.

“Oh, are you the new babysitter?” She asked. “He’s upstairs. Would you like to meet him?"


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## Deleted member 61744 (Apr 12, 2018)

*Make-Believe *
(645 words)

“The ceiling is made of rice pudding,” said Grandpa one day. Both Anne and John had been getting very bored at his house; it was old and creaky and didn’t even have a TV.  They were also certain that it did not have a rice pudding ceiling.

“Yes, it does,” said Grandpa, “and the people who made the rice pudding live on the floor above this very ceiling."

“There is no floor above,” said John, “just the attic where the old things are stored.”

Grandpa laughed. “Well John, I am a very old thing. If there _was _an attic, I would be kept there. But as I’m here, we know there’s not.

“Anyway, there are three humans that live on the floor above. Well, maybe not _humans._ They look like humans and they talk like humans, but they’re different. See humans can eat all types of things -apples, cheese, carrots- but these three can only eat rice pudding. Everything else tastes like dust to them. Except for dust, which tastes like rabbit droppings.”

“Yuck!” said Anna and John together.

“That’s why they make rice pudding. The oldest not-quite-human is May. She has fingers as green as grass and grows the rice plants for the pudding. At first, we had a few problems because the rice kept growing roots right through the ceiling. It was very annoying having to mow the ceiling as well as the lawn. So now she grows the roots between the walls.”

“You can’t mow the ceiling!” said Anne

“No, it was rather difficult,” Grandpa agreed. “It’s a good thing we don’t have to do it anymore, though the roots do make the walls quite wobbly.”

Grandpa’s walls were indeed uneven and not at all straight. But then so it was with most old houses.

“Who are the other not-quite-humans Grandpa?” asked John, who had quite forgotten to be bored.

“The second is Kebel. He is old and wrinkly as oak bark. His job is to get the milk for the rice pudding. He doesn’t like me though because I wouldn’t let him keep a cow up there. The floor above is much too small for one I’m afraid.”

 “But Grandpa, you can’t get milk without cows!” said Anne

“Yes you can!” said John. “You can get it from goats and sheep.”

“Very good John,” said Grandpa. “And also, from clouds.”

“That’s impossible!” they said.

“Don’t worry, the rice pudding tastes just the same. Besides, the clouds don’t mind. They’d have to turn into rain otherwise, and rain is tasteless and a lot less fun than milk. They much prefer being turned into milk.”

Anne thought Grandpa was being silly but did agree that if she were a cloud she’d much prefer to be turned into milk.
​
“The last not-quite-human is called Eve. She is small and shy, but very sweet. So sweet that she can spare some for the rice pudding. It would taste very plain otherwise. Eve also loves spinning. She spins so much that she mixes up all of the milk and rice and turns it into a great blob of rice pudding.”

“Does she spin this fast Grandpa?” asked John, and he ran around as fast as he could. It made them feel dizzy watching him.

“Almost. It would be better if she did. But she spins so fast, that she always makes too much. So, I put the extra on the ceiling. It looks just the same as any ceiling, so nobody notices. Don’t tell anyone though. I don’t want them eating it!”

John and Anne promised not to. They had more questions, but then Mum came to get them. They didn’t want to break their promise, so they stayed silent. 
Before they left for home Grandpa whispered,
“Next time you’re over, you can play with them. It’s always fun to play with May, Kebel and Eve.”


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## bdcharles (Apr 13, 2018)

The Spare Room
(Anonymous entry)


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## bdcharles (Apr 18, 2018)

(anonymous entry)
*Floor Above*


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