How delightful to be a winner of the Shuswap Lake International Writers’ Festival Cheesy Suspense Quick Write Contest. 😀
These are a fun part of writing conferences. The committee prepares an opener, and participants can create a 80 word or less ending to the story in either prose or poetry.
OPENING: It is a wild and stormy night on Shuswap Lake. No one in their right mind should be out in this. Wait! What was that? A lightning flash caught a movement on the beach! Who, or what, could it be? Whatever it was seemed to be pulling something heavy towards the water. The next lightning flash showed only an empty beach. Maybe I should investigate…
MY ENTRY:
The heavy thing splashes
Like manuscript ashes
While that thing on the beach
Is extending its reach.
In the storm a crowd gathers
And houseboat slosh lathers
The shore, when another bright flash
Shows the victim making a dash
From the whole Shuswap Watershed commission
wielding a thick anti- Smart Centre petition.
Who’s the guy fleeing the party?
I would swear it was Marty…
Apologies to those who are not local and are missing the humour! 😉 Marty is our mayor and voted for a WalMart Smart Centre to be built in a sensitive Watershed area. It’s a bit of a hot issue in the Shuswap these days! This entry should have won me a gift basket of gouda cheeses apparently. Unfortunately, since you had ‘to be present to accept your prize’ and I was having dinner with a publisher when they announced the winners, I get the accolades but not the yummy prize. 2nd place Brenda Melnachuk got to take home the cheese. Well, I may get a better prize out of a wonderful evening. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Shawn L. Bird 