Twelfth Night Writing Contest:

The Winning Stories!

Congratulations to the winners of the Twelfth Night Writing Contest!

FIRST PLACE: “Venetian Ladies with Dark Green Faces,” by Russell Barajas

Venetian Ladies with Dark Green Faces

Before becoming Dark Green, our faces were cast and polished and mounted high to watch over our canal.

Now we’re sinking and tides have swollen, licking our mossy cheeks. Over centuries salt-weeds have climbed, wrapping ever tighter, our drowned mouths silenced by oily waters amid the trash of a collapsing city.

When these ears and eyes are at last doused by rising seas, we’ll learn to observe things underwater. Come to know each barnacled hull and gassy motor churning the silt, the seductive swish of a gondolier’s stick. We’ll envy the tourist’s manicured hand trailing the surface, red nails glinting like fish food.

In the tidal murk, we’ll spy on the sunken dead. They’ll glow—a shaft of sun gracing a moment, stabbing between buildings to reveal picked white bones nestled amid lost possessions.

For now, our Dark Green Faces still peek above the waterline, brows forever furled, bronze nostrils inhaling an ambrosia of roasting meats, of bread dipped in olive oil. Of sweat and sweets.

Before becoming Dark Green, we were Bright Gold. Doges, redolent in their splendor would pass beneath smiling, their pulses quick at the sight of us, their lives so pitifully short.

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-What I loved: This story drew me in with its beautiful, dreamy atmosphere and lyrical language and the unique perspective of the watching ladies. While a micro, this lovely piece evoked the long, slow passage of time as the silent women watched centuries go by. The world view somehow felt both global and intimate.

SECOND PLACE: “Welcome to ‘The Choice is Yours!’,” by Jessica Klimesh

Welcome to The Choice Is Yours!

Sorry she was selected, Raquel shuffles onto the game show stage, distractedly fixated on a snag in her sweater; she’s never been good with choices.

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Behind door #1 is a beginning of the contestant’s choosing, anything from a new job to a new flower pot, with only a few restrictions.

Behind door #2 is a random ending of the game show host’s choice. This could be an end to a streak of bad luck, the termination of a relationship, or simply the end of the game.

Behind door #3 is a booby prize.

Raquel, of course, has no idea what’s behind which door. She only knows she has to choose.

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She tugs at the loose thread, not expecting it to keep going, for her sweater to completely unravel, row by row, until it’s just a mess of yarn on the floor.

Well, the host prods, what’s it going to be?

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Raquel finally chooses and, behind the door, finds a new sweater, an exact replica of her old one. It even has the same loose thread.

Best not to pull at it this time, Raquel thinks to herself.

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-What I loved: This story won me over with its quirky, deadpan satire of game shows and the anxiety of choice. The game show felt like a metaphor for life, with opportunities for prosperity and excitement--a new job!--or for tragedy and disappointment--the end of a relationship--hidden behind random doors, and no real way for our poor protagonist to know what the future will bring ... except that new sweater.

THIRD PLACE: “Taking Aim,” Liz deBeer

Taking Aim

Balancing myself on two branches, I consider aiming blindly. But better to be accurate. To plot the projectile’s trajectory. A piercing screech from a teary toddler interrupts me, ceasing only when its mother stuffs a sandwich in its mouth. Involuntarily, I lick my lips watching dark jelly oozing from the bread, a blob plopping on the patio, tempting me to abandon my mission. Glistening like dew drops at dawn, the amorphous mass sings a siren song, sending shivers down my spine. I shut my eyes to the sweet seduction, willing myself to concentrate. Gazing down, I consider the distance, the angle, the curves, the surface. Then I begin to execute my mission, bouncing branches up and down, leaves crackling like a campfire. Several pairs of eyes search for the sound’s source; even the sandwich-eating kid stops chewing. I jump up and down, dropping a dwarf coconut precisely in my target: the cleavage of the woman lounging below. She squeals, shoots upright, shakes the small coconut at me as I slither down the tree, rushing over to the jelly glob to reward myself. Cell phones take aim as I swish my sage-green tail, satisfied that my scheme is being memorialized.

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-What I loved: This flash stood out for its rich atmosphere and use of the unique, cheeky point of view of a nonhuman character. That point of view is revealed slowly through a subtle accumulation of details, from the narrator's obsession with the spilled jelly from the child's sandwich through the final triumphant swish of a "sage-green tail."

HONORABLE MENTION:

“Straddle Options,” Scott MacLeod

“One Last Track,” Russell Barajas

Thanks to everyone who entered!