Prediction Winner

Giddy up and get those hosses on the run. I'm off to the pub and thar's rum to be drunk. Actually more like a sedate white wine and orange juice, but even so...

Excellent Prediction entries this week, though the numbers have dropped a bit. Seems there's a lot of poorliness going round at the moment so big hugs of good health going out to all.

OK, enough of the niceties and over to the matter at hand. To summarise:

• In David's Lights Out a manipulator uses the narrator to exact revenge without getting blood on his own hands.
• The victims in Ellie's story ebb and flow against the cliff in hope of capturing their killer, in Waiting for the Fall.
• Mimi told a tragic but touching tale of assisted suicide in Letting Go.
• A girl in the throws of deluded adoration takes the final plunge in Sandra's Bastard.
• Antonia has the strangest of creatures learning the even weirder ways of the world in Alien Invasion.
• Diana's back, and she's carrying blades, in Chris' Moonless Night Sonata in D.
• A flight from hell severs its passengers' heads from their travel-weary bodies in Sue's Delayed In Transit.
• Twisted matrimony sees Melenka waiting for for her ex-lover's cast off in Wed.
• A victim of abuse escapes to the Land of Liberty but will never forget her tormenter in AJ's Slowburn.
• The Gods are angry and looking for breakfast in the guise of a fat coach driver in Col Bury's Moody Bastard.
• Erin's murdering weregirl hides her evidence within her scent and under her nails in The San Francisco Slayer.
• My story A Lonely Soldier He tells of one ghost waiting for another, above and below the crumbling cliffs of Sussex.
• Grumpy and thirsty, Anthony's character sees his own face in a dead girl's pram then turns on the boring girlfriend in Nursery Crimes.
• Aidan runs a painful race, planning his revenge through the agony in Crosscountry 2038
• Smugglers take no prisoners in the rush for whiskey barrels for the Abbey in Kim's Holy Water.

Diverse and varied themes made the Prediction a challenge to judge but my winner this week is the poignant and dignified Letting Go from Mimimanderly. Congratulations Mimi, a truly touching read.

Runner-up is Melenka with her matrimonial poem Wed, I loved the delivery and the final twist. Well done Melenka.

I can't finish without a special mention for Anthony's concept of his antihero seeing his own face on the doll in the pram. Tony - the graphic is just for you ;)

Back tomorrow - I'll be waiting...

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Listen to Laurita Miller - February Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales - 
February 24th

Welcome to Laurita Miller's second Femmes Fatales entry, Consumed. It's an appropriate title as according to Laurita's blog she has been consuming the old vino lately. If you are considering a wine trip or a tasting festival she has some very sensible advice - in vino veritas.

Reaction to Laurita's earlier short, Red was excellent. I'm sure you will enjoy Consumed just as much. The delivery is vocal and clever, and the whole piece is full of Laurita's unique style and dark, teasing prose.

I - for one - absolutely love it.

Consumed by Laurita Miller

She worked from dawn ‘til dusk on the farm her daddy left her, trying to coax milk from emaciated cows and crops from the dry, cracked earth. Only destitution thrives here.

She wanted better things, fine things. Instead she suffered a solitary life, chained to a ramshackle farmhouse, unable to keep a farmhand long enough to bring in the pitiful harvest. They seemed to disappear as fast as they arrived, leaving her to take care of things on her own once again.

She said she was meant for great things, remarkable things, and she was right. She said nothing ever happened here, nothing worth staying for, and she was right about that too.

Nothing ever happened here, until that day Jim McNally found those indentations behind the remains of her barn, six of ‘em, and the whole town came out to see the other remains, the ones that lay beneath the soil.

They would have asked her about it, but no one has seen her since that night the farm burned to the ground.

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Bio:
Laurita Miller enjoys writing in the dark and walking through revolving doors. Her work has been featured at Gloom Cupboard, Six Sentences, Flashes in the Dark, The New Flesh, Yellow Mama and has appeared in several anthologies. She blogs here: http://ringkeeper.blogspot.com/

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