Fortnightly Writing Competition - That's criminal! - WINNER ANNOUNCED

[Sinitrena]

It's criminal how very few entries there were for the last writing competition, so to make up for that, I want you all to write stories (or poems) that involve any kind of crime. It could be about a detectiv solving a case of identitiy theft, about a group of thieves planning a heist or about a family grieving their murdered family member - just to give you some general ideas.

Please commit (or solve) all crimes until the 27th of August.

[Atelier]

I haven't entered for ages, so I'll have a go this time.

[JSH]

Or not. Sigh, so little time.

[Sinitrena]

Anyone going to enter this one? You still have a bit more than a day to finish your entries (and if you need more time I'd be happy to extend the deadline) Just, please, someone enter, pleas. Pretty please? 

[Atelier]

I'll write something tomorrow, would say a one day extension be ok? I don't like the prospect of winning by default though

[Ponch]

Win by default, you say? Hmmm... I must come up with an idea... and soon! 

[Sinitrena]

I'll write something tomorrow, would say a one day extension be ok?

Sure, no problem. I'm eagerly waiting for your entry. And for yours, too, Ponch.

[Ponch]

"The Little Mechanic"


The wings stitched on the back of his leather jacket weren't wings at all, but rather double F's, one mirroring the other, spreading out from shoulder to shoulder. Below them the motto "The Few. The Free." The leather creaked as he moved, rising from the old wooden crate he sat on to cross the room and look out the window at the gathering storm clouds.

"That's not the same old jacket, is it?" she asked from the table where she sat near the toolboxes. "I tossed mine years ago. You can't be dumb enough to still have yours, right?"

Venn Cody refocused his eyes to look at her reflected in the glass. Small and pretty.

"You know me, Cassie. Nothing's changed."

"Everything's changed. If what you said were true there'd be more than just the three of us left, Venn."

"Two."

"Three. Don't forget about Rath. He may be no good to anyone anymore, but he's still one of us. But now he lays in bed all day, looked after by a bunch of dumb nuns. Can't move more than his eyes. Or so they tell me." She focused on her work so the tears wouldn't come. "Been better for him if he'd just died in the ambush like the others instead of being all crippled and useless like he is."

"And you're blind. You think you're no good to anyone too?"

"Always been blind, Venn," she smirked. "That's why I gotta take the nun's word for it that he can't move no more than his eyes."

"As I remember you telling it, you weren't always blind, Cassie."

"Went blind when I was three. Close enough to 'always,' if you ask me." She sighed, and for a moment her hands paused in their task. "All I remember from before is my mama's face singing to me while we shared a bath… and the sun, that day it was all swallowed up by that damned sand storm before it took my eyes and came so near to choking me to death."

She swapped the oily rag for a polishing cloth and returned to work.

"Since then it's been one big black nothing, Venn." She chuckled wistfully. "But I ain't one to complain."

"You never were."

"Oh, if the baton men come knocking at my door while you're still here, I suspect you'll hear me do some complaining."

"No one knows I'm here. If they did, I wouldn't have come anywhere near this place."

"Ha! As if anyone else in this hole could fix up that shitty old bike of yours!"

"This town's a little better than a 'hole', Cassie."

"Maybe. But it don't beat the open road," she said, holding up the barrel of the pistol to more easily work the cleaning rod through. "And that's still a shitty bike you got there."

"It saw me across The Drift, didn't it?"

"Can't believe you'd ride all the way here from Watermark on an old Palomino with no mechanic." She fitted the barrel to the frame of the pistol with skillful fingers. "Damn suicidal, that's what that is. And who goes out into the desert carrying a gun with three bullets in it?"

"Had a lot more than three when I left the gorge."

"Oh." Softly. Her fingers faltered in their work for a moment. "Yeah. Of course. That was a dumb thing for me to say, wasn't it?"

The wind moaned softly against the corrugated steel walls of the workshop. It conjured uneasy feelings in her and she shivered.

"It's never easy out there," she whispered, remembering. "I don’t know how you made it across, all alone. But I'm glad you did."

"It's been good seeing you again, Cassie."

"I'd say the same, if I could." The edges of her lips quirked in that same old wry smile. Her hands returned to their task.

"I'm glad you made it out of that mess, kid." He wasn't used to talking this much. The words weren't coming easy. "All this time, I thought I was the only one left."

"Wasn't easy," she shrugged. "I was starting to think you never got my telegram."

"Porter sat on it until the job was just about done, I think. Wanted to make sure he got as much work out of me as he could before I split for greener pastures."

"Greener pastures? Ain't much green about Waypoint, Tommy Camino." The way she emphasized each syllable of his old alias made it clear how much she delighted in teasing him with a private joke.

"Porter saw the telegram had come from a garage. I guess he thought Mr. David Wu was trying to hire me on as a welder." He dug around in his pocket for his last pack of smokes. "Which would have been quite a trick since I knew Mr. Wu had died from a bullet in the gut a few years back."

"He didn't die. He wasn't much good for walking long distances after that, but he didn't die."

"He survived?"

"Yeah. I stopped the bleeding and he stuffed my jacket and goggles in an oil drum and covered for me when the baton men came knocking. Told everyone I was his poor sister's orphaned daughter. He hired me on and even left this place to me when he passed last year, if you can believe that," she smiled wistfully.

"Good. I always liked him."

He took the last cigarette out of the pack and lit it with a battered old lighter.

"Starting to feel kind of bad about shooting him now."

"You should. It wasn't him that sold us out," her brow furrowed. "But you know that now, I guess. Is that Tommy's old lighter?"

"Yeah, it's his. It's almost out of fuel. I keep thinking it'll run out any time now, but it never seems to."

"Got some butane laying around here somewhere." The slide was returned to the pistol and she cycled it a few times to check the action.

She got up from the workbench and padded across the concrete floor of the garage on bare feet. Rummaging through one of the many, many toolboxes scattered about, she produced a small cloth bag.

How the hell does she tell all these boxes apart, he wondered and took a drag on the cigarette. He flicked the ash onto the floor where it landed in the middle of the dried remains of an old puddle. The tiny ash pile sparked and popped. He stomped it flat.

"This place is filled with fuel and oil and all manner of exploding things, Venn Cody." She returned to the table and untied the bag. "I know times are tough and all, but I don't want to meet my end in a fiery explosion today because a certain jackass didn't know how to use a damned ash tray."

He stubbed the cigarette out on the sleeve of his jacket. Lots of old burns there already.

"Yeah, yeah. It's out now. Will you sleep better tonight?"

"That depends," she said, spilling the contents of the bag out, carefully corralling the tumbling bullets with her other hand. She picked through them, feeling the bottom of each with her thumb, setting aside the ones that Venn's pistol would chamber. "Will you be staying here with me another night?"

"You missing me already, Cassie?" he asked, coming around the table to stand closer to her.

"My bed's missing you," she laughed. "But if anyone asks, I'm saying that I'm just a poor blind girl being taken advantage of by a mean, old outlaw with a scary gun. 'I was practically his prisoner! Oh! He made me do such awful things!' that's what I'll tell them."

"Like old times. Right?"

"Hell yes! Only better. You never bedded me back then, Venn. Though God knows I made my intentions clear enough," she giggled.

"I was with Gabrielle, Cassie. You knew that." His features darkened involuntarily at the thought of her.

"I knew." She leaned back against his old leather jacket, tilting her head back and smiling. He cloudy green eyes twinkled. "I just didn't care."

"You were also thirteen years old," he admonished, patting her head affectionately.

"I knew what I wanted, Venn Cody!" she said with mock indignation, her free hand sliding down the inside of his thigh. Her laughter echoed in the empty shop. "God, looking back on it now... You must have thought I was shameless."

"Thought? Hell, Cassie, I knew."

They laughed. Tomorrow she would tell him the secret she had been keeping, but for now she took comfort in his arm slipping around her while the blowing sands howled in frustration at the window, unable to reach her this time. She wasn't a little girl anymore.


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EDIT: Fixed a few typos. Turns out "toolbox" is one word. 

[Sinitrena]

All right, that was more than a one day extension. I hoped for some more entries, but it seems nobody else is going to enter.

Ponch wins by default. Congrats.  Go ahead and start the next round (and hope for some more participants)

[Ponch]

Ponch wins by default.

Well poop. I was trying to stop Atelier from winning by default but my clever scheme backfired somehow. 

Oh well. Hooray for me. I'll try to come up with a theme in a day or two. 

[Atelier]

Woah steady on, I've been away all day But no, Ponch is the winner anyway cos I managed a lot but it's disjointed, as bits are missing from the middle and end. Ponch's is better too!

[Atelier]

I vote that Ponch should be sent to the abattoir unless he starts a new round soon.

[Ponch]

Whoops! 

I'll have something up tomorrow evening.