Thread: Justice is Blind-LM 05/02/2010

Justice is Blind

The time has come for yet another Literary Maneuvers competition. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pen or otherwise devise 500 words (or less) that tell the story embedded in the picture below:

Submissions may only be posted in this thread or in the thread provided in the Writers’ Workshop (you must provide a link to your submission in this thread if you opt to use the Writers’ Workshop). Everyone is welcome to participate. Note: Judges are welcome to participate but their entries cannot receive a score.

Submissions will be accepted until midnight EST, May 16 (2 weeks)
Judging period: May 18 - May 25
The judges for this round are Kat, KangtheMad, Sam W, and moderan. Judges will submit their scores to me via pm and I will post them without the names appended. Judges, if you have any questions about scoring, please refer to LM adjudication. If that doesn't answer your questions, my pm box is at your disposal.
Results will be posted on or before May 25.

Please do try to refrain from commentary in official threads. Thanks!

05/02/2010 LM- Justice Is Blind

http://www.writingforums.com/showthr...=1#post1352120

My First One.

Cool, the first one...Darknite, you could have simply linked to the version in the Workshop, to preserve your first rights.

Slide Into Oblivion

Damn, she's hot, thought Ben, slowing down to smile and nod at the obviously western girl sitting at a sidewalk table drinking a coke. Her eyes widened, and her gaze dropped from his eyes down his sweat-stained tshirt and dirty cargo shorts, down his skinny legs to his battered feet in his battered flip-flops, then back up to his face. She stared at him with pity and revulsion before self-consciously looking away.

Ben stopped, caught in a strange moment of reverse deja-vu.

Then he broke away, walked down the street and turned the corner. He fumbled inside his fanny pack for his travel journal. Ben hadn't written in it for weeks. But he knew the entry he wanted. He leaned back against the grimy wall and opened the journal to the second page.

Bangkok, Day Two.

Busy day. Sightseeing. Visited temples, saw reclining Buddha. sipping a cool drink at the Oriental, people-watching. a young westerner just walked by, dirty, vacant look in his eyes, skin and bones, wearing sandals, feet covered in open sores. poor guy. looks like he stayed here too long.

Ben glanced down to his own feet. Fuck! He could have been describing himself. He thumbed through the journal, reading bits and pieces.

. . .

Having a blast, extended stay, moved to Vientiane to save money.

. . .

Discovered Pat Pong. My God, the women! So beautiful. and so cheap. I may never leave.

. . .

Chiang Mai. Opium. ‘Nuff said. Betel nuts, not so much.

. . .

back in Bangkok. found a room: 25 baht a night. Score! In a place locals call the cave - an alley below street level, down some stairs. just an empty room with a sleeping mat, no toilet. But for 25 baht who cares. Will stay at Vientiane once a week to shower.

Ben was still staying in the room. He hadn't been back to the Vientiane for a long time.

met pakpao, a prostitute living here in the cave. beautiful, worth the extra baht.

. . .

extended stay again. plane ticket good til fall. Will be back in time for start of semester

. . .

pakpao has opium. love this woman!!!

. . .

eating for 15 baht a day. more money for sex and drugs!

. . .

Ben flipped to the back of the journal. Inside the back cover was a flap which held his passport. And his plane ticket, good until September 15th. He found a newsstand, grabbed a paper and scanned the date. September 15th. Fuck, that was close. He wasn't going to end up like that guy he saw. He could still get home.

He hurried back to the cave and retrieved his backpack. He just had to find a tuk-tuk and get to the airport.

As he reached the stairs, there was Pakpao, standing in her crib. Her face in shadow. She raised a hand and beckoned to him. Inside was heaven, sex and forgetfulness.

Ben hesitated.

Justice is Blind
(440 words)

The tall stone building, once beautiful mosque, now aged ruin, looms over me as I stand shadowed beneath the arch. Outside, the sky is a steel cage, letting loose a roaring lion that is the rain. I watch it tumble down from the heavens, the cold atmosphere sharpening my senses. It wasn’t always so cold here. It was once warm, very warm. I find myself brushing my hand over the rough stone of the arch, a thousand memories winding their way through my veins and riveting before my eyes:

Eid. On this holy day, the mosque resembles a kaleidoscope with a plethora of swirling colors. Elaborate rugs are lined up on the floor and hung up on the walls. Women are wearing bright shawls and outfits, and even the men have decided to dress up for the occasion. The luminous noon sun shines in through the windows, making everything look more brilliant. Transformed, it is no longer simple mosque, but glorious palace. People are making their customary noon prayers, the men on one side, the women on the other…

Baap kneels over his dark blue prayer rug, his voice rising as I run around him in circles, throwing rice at his head. As soon as he is finished with his second rak’a, he grabs me and pulls me right up to his angry face and demands to know if I have any shame. I stare at his enraged eyes, deep brown, but subtly tinted with mahogany, before I peck him right on the mouth. Surprised, he flinches and lets me go, and I run away laughing mischievously…

Maa is wearing a scarlet red shawl over her head. The color brings out the gold undertones in her tawny skin. Her silky black hair comes loose and falls out of her shawl as she leans around the doorway, her dark eyes narrow with indignation. She shouts in her high, shrill voice for me to come in and make my prayers. I giggle and run away from her. I want to play outside…

They were all inside the mosque that day when the bomb went off. The women, the men. Maa. Baap. All of them except for me. The explosion didn’t destroy the outside of the building, just the inside. Hollowed it out.

I don’t feel anything, even when I remember so clearly. There is no sense of loss, no sadness, no pain. My heart, once filled with vivid colors - the different shades of love for my family, for Maa, for Baap - is now nothing but a black shadow. Empty.

The rain continues to roar mercilessly.

http://www.writingforums.com/showthr...=1#post1354686

http://www.writingforums.com/showthr...=1#post1354784

And hey! We have an entry from brand-new member PigHeaded:http://www.writingforums.com/showthr...=1#post1354782
I'm sure you'll all join me in welcoming pigheaded to the group...thanks for stopping by, Jerry. I hope you enjoy the competition and the company.

LM Justice Challenge (491)

Olive Branch
by ppsage
Repainting the new cement-housed Athena Parthenos
in Knoxville consumes annually 75 liters of gilt.

The Needle's Eye

From the warm side of her mother's cloud, the daughter of ocean-tempest macrames trails into mountain firs. With great herd animals Sawe'uh knots winter's garb, girdle and veil, peplos and migramah. Elk herds descend from summer ridges on ribbons of recrossing pathes, tying weaver knots around hemlock boles and salal islets, the way lacy shawl fringe frames a desert woman's eye. The gathering elk move in fitful alertness, tawny necks stretching high. Meeting at blind junctions they startle, like bumper coaches rebounding in corn maze.

Hunting people steal onto the track. With immense vessels looming and fading on every side and with hidden crackling in the thick understory on every side and with sometimes panic crashing into fresh paths, the innumerability surrounding them dimly emerges. Finally, they only crouch foursquare and spy for the charge-from-any-quarter.

When the stampede comes, nature's twitchy temper stretches Sawe'uh's girdle to the limit and its delicate interstices collapse and only a few lucky souls pop free of the knots.

Torman of the Hammer lands above the trees, where iron and white lead can be burned from the earth. He piles rocks into the Kaaba of his escape and smoothes the wall to white innocence; he blows his forge and pounds out the iron frieze of his devotion and, for bait, girds post and lintel in adamantine macramé.

Bit by bit he unstrings Sawe'uh's loom, string by string, herd and forest, mineral and ridge, pulling finally the very thread of air into his temple.

But the daughter of water-in-air and of blowing-from-the-deep is not herself admitted.

Sawe'uh stands outside, like Athena Polias on Acropolis patio, the true sky-dropped olive palladium of sacred nature not admitted. Sawe'uh stands outside while ensconced inside like some parthenogenetic goddess her upstart avatar garbs in humanity's lavish rapine.

Sawe'uh stands outside, in the small dawn niche. The rising Day-Star puts her increasingly into shadow and little-by-little she escapes human sight, slipping back onto breeze and becoming the cloud which was once her throne.

The Desert's Ship

"Looks like all noble savage crap," the editor said. "You've got a hundred words left. Thought you'd planned going meta-fiction."

I'd been there before and I was desperate for a sale. The gel-prism popped out when he dropped engram. I snatched it and shook it under his nose.

"It's not the philosophy of history you're manufacturing here," I slathered. "Pure and simple and nostalgic and feelie feelie feelie. You know it. My code's good."

He smiled then. Not with his mouth. Or maybe he did but who could tell under all that walrus. All I caught, just a certain gleam, like a tiny red LED through the eye socket of a plastic skull. I felt like pulling his knotted web out through his nose and prisming it permanent but instead I just said okay and asked how much less.

Sahara Glow
By Kathleen Main
499 Words

Lucy King looked different to her family.

The youngest of three, she was not slim like her sisters, nor pale like her parents. In the family photos taken at their cousin’s wedding she looked like a home stay student from a far off land. She was chubby, and lazy, and her skin had a Sahara glow. When her sisters went for a jog she’d sit at home on the couch eating, and watching day-time TV. At dinner she'd be the only one lumping butter onto her veggies and she always went for seconds.

Lucy would stand in front of her bedroom mirror in her underwear, poking her flabby bits and wondering why she didn’t belong. One day her sister came barging in on her doing this.

"I need something really baggy," she'd say, "Can I nick this T-shirt?"

Lucy was furious. Lucy was confused. Lucy wanted answers.

She must’ve been adopted, so she set about looking for her real parents. Her investigation started and finished with Facebook. She searched for similar looking people to her that might be friends with her parents, with no luck.

She knew from video footage her dad had shown on her twelfth birthday that she'd come out of her mother, so her mother couldn’t have had an affair. It must be Dad, Lucy thought. Cheating, sneaky Dad.

One day when the family was due to go out for a luncheon, Lucy feigned illness and stayed at home and went investigating.

First stop - Her father's desk.

Lucy couldn't believe how quickly she found evidence. She should be a detective, she thought. He had a National Geographic in there, about the women of South Asia. Lucy flicked through the pictures and found her - the woman he'd cheated with. She was brown, like Lucy. She was mysterious and beautiful, standing in a shaded doorway. She was shapely, like Lucy. She wasn't sure exactly how this led to her being so different, but she was sure this was it.
Perhaps, she thought, her Dad caught this woman's genes. Lucy wasn't stupid - she knew how these things worked.Her family got home and she accused them of the treachery. No matter how hard they tried to convince her otherwise, Lucy was sold on her version.

***

Sometime later Lucy was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a plain white room, playing with her hair. She could hear her parents talking to the man in the white coat.

"She eats far more than the other girls,” they must be talking about the lady in the picture, thought Lucy.

“She’s very delusional. Quite convinced she looks like that naturally.”

"Well, she's been fake-tanning and dying her hair black since she was eleven. We don't know how to stop her. If she doesn't, she goes into a coma-like state for days. She screams when she sees her pale skin." Lucy wasn't sure who they were talking about now, though she felt sorry for whoever it was. Pale skin was disgusting

http://www.writingforums.com/showthr...54#post1355154

Originally Posted by ppsage

He smiled then. Not with his mouth. Or maybe he did but who could tell under all that walrus. All I caught, just a certain gleam, like a tiny red LED through the eye socket of a plastic skull. I felt like pulling his knotted web out through his nose and prisming it permanent but instead I just said okay and asked how much less.

I doubt this will win you points with a certain judge.

Closed to submissions.