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Prompt One

MIDWEST REGION | First Round

The House on Park Ave.

Dan Leonidas

The Ohio State University

Neither Claudette nor Stube knew that anybody was home at the Park Ave property until ten-thirty in the morning—three hours after they arrived at the place and, along with the rest of Johnny Green Thumb’s crew, got to work on the lawn. Stube saw the man first, while he was weed-whacking the grass along the front porch’s lattice work.  He was looking directly...

...Stube sounded less confused than irritated now, and she could picture him starting to pace the Bar’s parking lot faster, mosquitoes humming around his head, the dim sound of country music and drunken laughter floating out of the squat wooden building and mixing with cricket song.  “You don’t sound right.  Did that piece of shit touch you?”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Claudette said.  She saw St. Claire wasn’t grinning anymore—he was looking at her with a blank face—and she turned away from him, faced the industrial-sized stainless steel stove.  “I’m just saying that there’s been a change of plans.  The whole thing kind of fell through—so it’s a no go.”

“You mean you’re not bringing the douchebag down here?”
 

“Mm hmm.”

“Did he try anything?  I swear to God, Claudette—tell me if he tried anything. Because I’ll come to that house and lay him out in his precious fucking mudroom if he tried anything, and I don’t care if it gets me arrested.  Or even fired.  I swear—just tell me.”

“Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine,” Claudette said.  She turned back around and saw that St. Claire had stood and come around the island.  He was watching her with narrowed eyes, clearly suspecting something—though what, she couldn’t imagine.  “Everything’s fine.  For real.  I’ll see you later.”  She clicked the phone shut and...

The Future Hat

Joe Vanderhyde

Kansas State University

“Life only makes sense backwards, but we have to live it forward.”
Søren Kierkegaard

Sixteen years ago, I woke up, and Daisy had dematerialized, and without her there I didn’t want to put on The Future Hat and try to discover how the world would end anymore.

We had been chosen for the beauty of our hippocampuses.  And out of the two of us...

...with the worn-down heavy metal of The Future Hat still resting on my soft soft skull as the Fuel Cell Generator thump, thump, thumped forward.  It looked like the world had ended for me already and that The Reverse Big Bang was more idiosyncratic than anything else.  I didn’t know what to do, so I kept doing what I had always done—I kept looking forward.

Last week, while looking at Future Me, the red alarms of the Future Future Room went off, and Future Me sat up straight, pressed the Future Future Hat closer to his right ear, like he could hear something, and so I tried harder than I had ever tried in a long time to reach closer, to see what had caught Future Me’s attention.  And I could hear something like a whisper coming through Future Me’s earphone. No don’t worry about it.

“Mm hmm” was all that Future Me could mutter his tongue restrained by his Tongue Immobilizer. Don’t worry about it everything’s fine.  My moonbeam, my piecrust, my 2+2=4.

“Dayzzzee? Nz Zt Uu?” Something melted away from the outside of me when I heard her name like all the pores on my skin had opened up at once.

Shhh—You don’t need make sound now.  Just open your ears...

Prompt One, Midwest Region, Round 1.

"The House..." by Leonidas [43.5%]

"The Future Hat" by Vanderhyde [56.5%]

Go to Round 2