Today I wrote my entry for the WynLit 24 writing competition. This was my first story marking the commencement of my sixth year entering this monthly event hosted by Wynterblue Publishing Canada.
My story today is titled
Running On Empty.
This story is a fictional fantasy fiction. Because I'm hoping it may find its way to the short list in the judging I don't want to publish the entire short story on my blog but I will share an excerpt from the story and hope it will pique your interest so that you will want to read more
Once the judging is completed I will post
Running On Empty in its entirety for your enjoyment.
So here is a short excerpt from the story I wrote and submitted today.
excerpt from Running On Empty
Gerry
had become my best mate and it broke my heart when he passed. That night, after hauling the logs to the
mill, I drove my old truck home to the small townhouse where I lived with my
wife, Laura. I was two weeks away from
pay day and my old truck was running on fumes.
It seemed to me that my whole life was running on empty.
We were luckier than some to live in
an end unit which meant we had a private driveway. I backed the truck into the
dirt drive and parked. Laura was a
stickler for clean floors. She had me
better trained than our old dog, Max, used to be so I knew enough to always
come into the house using the back door.
I missed Max. He was a faithful
and a loving pet but the day came when Laura insisted he had to go. “I can’t stand the dog hair all over the
place and his muddy paw prints are driving me up the wall.”
It
hurt to let the good fellow go. I found
consolation when another good friend offered to take him in. I missed living with Max but appreciated the
evenings when I could drive to my friend’s place and visit Max for a while.
From
the day of our wedding twenty-four years ago Laura kept a tidy house. From the word go she made it her life’s
passion to break me of all my bad and messy habits. Boots off before I come in the back door;
cigarette smoking outside in the back yard no matter what the weather; and if I
make a mess I better be quick to grab the broom, the cloth, the vacuum cleaner
or whatever it took to clean up that mess.
Laura had always been the same way
with the kids. Together we raised two boys, Raymond and Reuben, who couldn’t
wait to get away from home when they started college in the nearest big
centre. Today their dorm rooms are a pig
sty and they are ecstatic in their sloppiness as they study subjects they will
never, in my opinion, be able to use in real life. In
spite of their sloth both boys have somehow developed an air about them; almost
an arrogance. They look down on me and
Laura because we have no college diplomas hanging on the wall.
Laura and me, we didn’t have the
money and we couldn’t afford to pay the boys’ way through school. I figure by the time they are both ready to
haul wood they will be snowed under by student loans. Both boys say they will never drive
truck. Ray has his mind set on working
as an accountant for the government and Reuben tells us he plans to teach
literature. Good luck to them with their
highfalutin dreams and goals. I used to
have some dreams myself but that was a long time ago.
I always enjoy the challenge of the WynLit 24's. To learn more about this you may want to check out the website of Wynterblue Publishing Canada at http://www.wynter.ca
