Micro Bookends 1.01 – Results

I hope you are all enjoying your weekends. I’ve certainly enjoyed reading your stories. I’m delighted with how you’ve all embraced the bookends concept and come up with some great interpretations. It didn’t make judging them easy though. How do you decide between a story that makes you laugh, one that makes you cry, and one that blows your mind with its cleverness? Here are my thoughts on your excellent stories:

Clipped Wings by Brett Milam

Public speaking really is a traumatic experience. Look at poor Micah puking in the toilet before his speech. But he’s a determined lad. He wipes off that puke and strides towards the stage. Past the sports trophies and awards for the smart kids. I get the impression that Micah is neither – athletes don’t have “pudgy, freckled hands”, smart kids don’t need “a comforting blanket”. But he must have done something right because the crowd love him. I think he’s going to do alright.

First and the Best by Varsha

I wonder if First has a brother called Second. A clever title and use of a name as the opening bookend. “You’re going in first, First”, I can feel our hero cringe when he hears this ‘joke’ for probably the millionth time. But First has a trump card, he can sing. He just needs the courage to do it in public. “Resolution seeped into his veins” and he gets up to do his thing. A star is born, the first of his kind. Nice ending.

Equality by Amy Wood

I live in Oxford and have always found it to be tolerant of most things, so I was very surprised to learn that it is anti-mutant. I wonder what Cambridge thinks about mutants… I digress. I really liked this fun story. Sara, who considers herself too mutanty (loved this) to be the figurehead for mutant acceptance is giving a very important speech. Sara reminded me X-Men’s Mystique. She’s very mutanty too. Raph was talking to her trying to calm her down but all she wanted was for him to lick her face with his forked tongue. That calmed her down nicely and she gives a great speech, securing the future of mutants in the city of dreaming spires for years to come. Lots of fun.

Amplified by Rasha

These are the kind of criminals I can get onboard with. Breaking into auditoriums and nicking the sound equipment so the people can hear rock music as it was meant to be heard: LOUD. A bit like Kevin Bacon in Footloose but better. Poor Alex has been caught a few times but he believes in his cause so much that he can’t stop. That last line is too good: Heavy Metal Larceny. No, not nicking copper cable from railway signals. Bringing loud music to the people.

The Alternative Ante-Natal Class by Avalina Kreska

What an opening line! Poor Steve, making inappropriate jokes to get him through this nerve-wracking situation. I feel nervous for him. No one likes public speaking, but when you have to speak in front of a hall full of naked women that does complicate things a bit.

RISE by Brian S Creek

I love the butterflies dancing the cha cha – a perfect description of pre-speech nerves. And when the speech is as important as this one you can forgive the nervousness. I also liked the image of the full room looking like too many chess pieces on a board.

The Wedding Party by Karl Russell

I was hoping someone would get Gloria Gaynor in there. Thanks! I think we’ve all been to parties like this where the drink flows a little too freely and inappropriate things are said. To be fair to Martin he did try to push his thoughts aside, but out they came in truly comedic fashion. I love that both of the bookends were references to song titles. Sadly, this story was one word over the upper word limit so is ineligible for an award. Pedantic? Of course, but where would we be without rules?!

Untitled by Stella Turner

I like to think this chap is Martin from Karl Russell’s story. His mother certainly thinks he’s a bit of a wild one. It makes a nice change for a mother to imply her son is not good enough for the women he’s chosen. But let’s give him some credit. He’s finally put his inappropriate thoughts about Jess to one side and has found the girl of his dreams, Lisa Born! Very clever to use a name as the bookend.

Untitled by Marie McKay

“The large lady who, as always planted herself in the middle of the auditorium”. Yes, I’ve come across a few of these at the cinema. It’s all progressing as you would expect until “let’s all join hands and contact the living.” Ah. A very clever reversal. J is sitting on the sofa (beige) and is about to get a big surprise. “Would anyone like to go through to him?” I love the idea of ghosts getting the choice of who to haunt.

Untitled by Casey Rose Frank

A young girl is involved in a contest. She wants to win. “First place, first place” she chants in her head. Good for her. A bit of competitive spirit never did anyone any harm. Oh, wait. This is for the gratification of the pushy mother for whom “only a trophy makes it worth all the money she spends on my ‘career’, angry slashes of red manicured air-quotes over this word.” Wow, this is a great line and I can picture the mother so clearly. The girl has tried her best, her performance was textbook. But she doesn’t win. Instead the “blonde girl with the easy demeanor” wins. What will the mother say?

These Go To Eleven by Image Ronin

Anything that has a This Is Spinal Tap quote as the title is okay by me. You know as soon as Vince “prodded his screwdriver into the nest of cables that fed the mixing desk” that something was going to go wrong. Still, we root for Vince because we see a little bit of ourselves in him. Ourselves that really should have gone on to conquer the word or gone “touring with Maiden” but instead are looked down upon by people like the compere “comprised solely of gin and ego”. Lovely description. Of course the inevitable happens and Vince blows up the equipment and himself.

Sapient Surrogacy, Inc. by Nancy Chenier

I really like the way the subject of the story, the surrogate, does not actually feature in the story. Instead we get a monologue from the malevolent auctioneer. This is a lovely creepy tale. You get the surrogate’s discomfort from her squinting into the lights. You get that the “patrons” aren’t entirely comfortable with what is going on, otherwise why protect their anonymity? Even when the surrogate is asked a direct question we only learn the response through the auctioneer. This is a very clever way of squeezing a lot of story into a few words. There’s even a bit of comedy: “save your receipts for … laser hair-removal, the odd dark-truffle craving”. Then we get the killer last line: “It’ll progress more or less like a normal pregnancy-right up until it’s born.” Lovely, creepy writing.

The Contract by Rebekah Postupak

Hiakai (means hungry in Maori!) is in a waiting room much like any other. There is a “first come, first served” system like many waiting rooms. 16 hours without a bathroom break or anything to eat? Either this is the accident and emergency department on a Saturday night or something weird is going on. Then an unseen being (when it finally found its voice 😉 ) speaks. “IS THE FIRST SYMBIONT PREPARED?” Okay, something weird is going on. The heroin rushes to her fate. Suddenly “first come, first served” takes on a new meaning. But wait. She doesn’t go to her doom. She is “transformed. Born.” A lovely sinister tale.

Three Reasons by Holly Geely

A sweet little story this. A little girl is performing in a recital and her big sister has turned up to support her. But big sister is not comfortable for three reasons. 1: she really needs the bathroom (her bladder “had expanded to an unhealthy size”). 2: she is going to be late for coffee with her new girlfriend. 3: the recital is in a church and she doesn’t like churches. The little sister takes the stage and big sister forgets her discomfort because “her little sister was the most important thing in the world”. Very sweet. But there is more depth to this story. I want to know why big sister does not like churches. Does reason two have anything to do with it?

The Winning Stories

3rd Place

Tragedy of Love by Grace Black

What a lovely yet sad little story. Audrey recounts her first love and how she got over it and got on with her life. Then the greatest thing that can happen to someone; a child. Indeed, “an emotion too large for the simple reduction of four letters.” Beautiful. You get a glimpse of the mother-daughter relationship – “counting by twos and tying shoes”. Then the heartbreak. Lilly couldn’t cope with the loss of her first love and takes her own life, the “end of life for one, and the end of living for the other”. It finishes with a haunting last line, “she’ll never forget the day Lilly was buried or born”. Outstanding.

2nd Place

We Will Fight Them With Speeches by Mark A. King

A very clever title referencing both Churchill’s famous speech and the fact he was one of the great speech-givers, inspiring the British people and soldiers during the Second World War. I can picture the young boy sitting, listening to news of events that don’t really affect him, probably waiting for the music to start up again. ‘Wireless’ made me laugh – my granny still calls it that! Great comparison between the harsh sounds of war, “metal machines of death”, versus the rhythmic sounds of music, “strings on wood”. It gets better: “shook up by self doubt” and “hounded by a black dog” refer to the depression that Churchill suffered from, and sets up the reveal: the young boy is a five-and-a-half-year-old Elvis. A fantastic story.

Winner

Live From the Foundation by Ed Broom

Bob Hope presenting the 1954 Nobel Prize for Physics. How on earth did you come up with that? A clever title, a hilarious opening line (always open with a joke right?), then the physics jokes just keep on coming. I think you could have gone on churning them out all night. I was a scientist in a previous existence but I had to look up some of the references. I would advise you to do the same (a quick guide and a few links below) to truly appreciate the cleverness of this story. And Max Born as the closing bookend was great. Excellent job. Enjoy Ed’s story below, but first a cast of characters:

Bob Hope – English-American actor and entertainer

Niels Bohr – Nobel Prize-winning physicist “for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them”.

Robert Oppenheimer – father of the atomic bomb.

Enola Gay – the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.

Werner Heisenberg – Nobel Prize-winning physicist “for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen”.

Max Born – 1954 Nobel Prize-winning physicist “for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction”.