Retrospective Writing Contest Winners Announced

We received many great entries for this contest and just whittling it down to a few finalists was tough. Both Michael Arnzen and Jeremy Shipp commented on how difficult it was to choose a winner! The winning stories are posted below.

The 100 Jolts prompt winning entry was "A Delicate Touch" by Kendall Giles

100 Jolts prompt: Take one of the lines from "Stabbing for Dummies" (from 100 Jolts and/or Audiovile) and use it as the opening sentence of a new story. You can alter the point of view to suit your need. The tale must build to an outrageous conclusion, and fall under 1000 words. If you don't have your copy of 100 Jolts handy, use this line: "Knowledge of the circulatory system can save time."

The Sheep and Wolves prompt winning entry was "What Gets My Goat" by Joshua Rainbird

For the Sheep and Wolves prompt: The story "Those Below" helps the reader to understand and sympathize with the plight of zombies. Write a story (1000 words or less) about another traditional monster, and make sure the reader comes away from the story with a new understanding of these misunderstood beings.
(Those Below can be read here.)

A Delicate Touch
by Kendall Giles

Cutting is drawing a line. I knew that well enough--Grandpa'd told me so time and again. He'd also said, "Pay no mind to the squeals and screams," and "They gonna flinch and buck and shake," and "Get your design onto the skin, line by line, one cut at the time." These are just some of the artistic words of wisdom he taught me over the last two years. Today, my sixteenth birthday, is when I'm to bring together all I've learned and practiced in order to create my graduation piece, my masterpiece. And Grandpa even said that if the piece turns out well, he's going to contact some galleries about showing it.

No, this isn't prissy art done in some fancy studio. My grandfather doesn't sit around in front of an easel, waiting for inspiration to strike like some kiss from God, dabbing at the canvas with little paint brushes. That's static art, art for children, lobotomized art. Rather, Grandpa's art is truly cutting edge, and that's the art he's been teaching me out in one of the stalls in his barn. Art on the cutting edge of life and death.

"Today's your big day," Grandpa tells me. "I know you'll make me proud."

For my first lesson Grandpa started me out on a pig, which is a perfect beginner's easel, their flanks broad and smooth. But I quickly learned that when you cut your lines into the flesh of the canvas, the canvas often squeals and tries to get away. This is what makes our art real--the artist needs solid technique to carve on a canvas that can scream and run.

"I made you some lemonade," Momma says. She walks over to our stall, carrying the drinks on a tray. "Such a pretty day."

Grandpa showed me how to hobble the canvas with leather straps and hooks, though in the beginning of my studies we'd sometimes also have to stun the canvas with a mallet. But even with the hobbles, getting my design onto the pig with the knife had its challenges. Until shock set in, with each cut the canvas often twisted and bucked.

"Just put the drinks on that bench," says Grandpa.

A worse problem for me though, in the beginning, was all the screaming--the cries often broke my concentration. This is bad because, unlike with studio art, you can't wait too long to regain focus and get back to carving, especially if you are near the end of your design--the canvas might bleed out before you are done, and then everything will have been for naught. The cuts have to be made when the canvas is living, otherwise it'll look fake. Also, if you wait too long between cuts the blood flow obscures what you've done, so you need to keep a towel handy to wipe the area clean every so often. Pretty soon you develop a rhythm--two cuts then wipe, two cuts then wipe.

"Remember, if your knife is sharp," Grandpa says, "then your line will be true."

On that first day, with my first cut the pig squealed like the cries of a child scalded with hot oil, all high-pitched and braying. Grandpa applied the hobbles real tight, so the sow just kind of bucked and jumped, throwing her head up and down. The canvas then twisted in a strange way and fell over. But Grandpa knew how to get the pig back on her feet--like he was picking up one of those really big motorcycles that had fallen over. Grandpa reached under, turned her head with his shoulder, lifted and drove with his legs, and on up came the pig. At this, she seemed to calm down a little. I think the hood helped too in that respect, because with it on she couldn't see me, standing there with my knife and towel, ready to finish what I'd started. Or maybe shock had set in.

"Time to go get Sarah," Grandpa tells Momma.

But today I am to graduate from working on just pigs. Already there's a row of my art hanging in a cluster on a wall of the barn. After finishing each carving we'd skin the canvas off the pig then nail it onto a wooden frame to dry before hanging. For today though Grandpa said I was ready for a new type of canvas, one that he said would require a delicate touch.

Today, my day. All my family is here. Momma's looking proud and has her camera out, and Grandpa's standing behind the hobbled canvas. My sister Sarah doesn't want to be here, though I can't blame her.

"Show us what you can do," Grandpa says.

I've already put the hood on the canvas, but the screams start even before I make my first cut. However, in the last year I've learned a couple of techniques to help keep my mind focused, so soon I'm able to completely tune out her cries. Now it's just a matter of making my cuts, drawing my lines, on a canvas twisting and heaving.

I use solid technique and fall into a zone--two cuts then wipe, two cuts then wipe. Soon the passion of my design emerges beneath a curtain of blood.

But then the canvas collapses in front of me and I'm momentarily flustered. Grandpa rushes to help--reaching under, turning her head with his shoulder, and lifting and driving with his feet, like I've seen him do countless times.

"Now come on," Grandpa says, "I done stood your sister back up, so you better hurry. Just remember, with this canvas you'll need a delicate touch."

About the Author

Kendall Giles is a writer living in central Virginia. He has an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University. Previous publications have been included in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature Journal, InYo: The Journal of Alternative Perspectives on the Martial Arts and Sciences, and more than a dozen
academic journals and conferences. For more info visit www.kendallgiles.com.

What Gets My Goat
by Joshua Rainbird

A one-bedroomed maisonette on the Gruff Street was pitifully inadequate.  I tried to get him a house near a river, somewhere quiet and secluded away from the net twitching sticky-beaks with their neighbourhood watches.  But the council, being the council, reminded me of the best practice guidelines for fairness and equality, one size suits no one, no exceptions, and all that codswallop.  After all, Morten wasn’t exactly neighbour-of-the-year material, something that I thought would strengthen not weaken my argument.  But, oh no!  He’d served his time in Wormword Scrubs, a model prisoner by all accounts.  Whilst the other scrotes were rioting for more soap on a rope, young Morten was impressing the governor’s missus by blanket stitching his way through the prison’s mailbag order.

Yeah, a blackleg lag, just doing his bird, or so the authorities thought until one of the lifers intimated that the peace and quiet of solitary confinement was well suited to his psychological profile, hardly the arena to prepare him for the big wide world.  So there he was, up before the beak and clobbered with a five year transfer to Ford Open Prison with not even a sniff of parole.  Cruelty to animals is not taken lightly, the homily went.  Listening to the judge, anyone would have thought them goats were innocent.  Say, what you like, suits and ties and neatly trimmed beards don’t disguise the fact that them brothers were in league with the devil.  Greedy little wannabees.  They were never satisfied, even when they had hollowed a pound of flesh from him they debated whether it would’ve been juicier if taken from the other side.

‘How the lowly have fallen,’ their brief bleated in falsetto.

Pushed more like.

Poor Morten. You had to feel for the lummox. A three inch thick skull may not leave much for the old grey matter. But he was the best damn night watchman a man could ever have, even if he did take the odd catnap during the wee small hours.

Yet, despite all his misfortunes Morten had healed at an extraordinary rate.

‘After all, it was only flesh wound,’ he grinned. ‘No harm done.’

‘Thank heavens the law no longer permits red hot pokers,’ was all I could say.

‘So, you come to see him? Am I right? ‘Cause he never answers when he’s in.’ Over the fence a gnome with a fat mouth smothered in Nutella - or what I hoped was Nutella – balanced on a weathered sofa parked on the lawn. A limp half-eaten sandwich flapped in his mouth as he spoke. ‘You one of them social workers?’

‘Are your parents at home?’ I replied.

His head bobbed down behind a blue and white cow print cushion. All I could see of him was the tip of his scarlet hood. Moments later a single middle finger periscoped up.

I knocked on the door, ever so softly.

There was no reply.

Creaking open the letter box I heard grumbles and the trill of a computer jingle logging off. ‘Morten? It’s me, Mr Ridley.’

The porch shuddered as feet stomped indoors. A whiff of spices tickled the insides of my nostrils as a bloodshot eye peered through the letter box. I held up my ID badge. A chain rattled, the door unlatched, and through the gap I saw Morten stoop his sage green head under an arch. Looking over my shoulder I noticed the gnome was tip-tap-tapping on a mobile. He squatted cross-legged on the arm of his sofa. We exchanged furtive glances. He stuck his tongue out at me. I slit my throat with a finger. He sank behind the cushions.

‘Nosey blighter, isn’t he?’ I said in a stage whisper as I entered.

Morten was at his sink shaking drips out of a buttercup yellow teapot. ‘Noisy, too.’

I slipped off my shoes. Terracotta tiles chilled underfoot as I tip-toed to the kitchen table.

‘I blame YouTube, Mr Ridley,’ said Morten flicking a switch on his kettle. ‘There’s no privacy anymore. Who needs Big Brother when there’s a webcam in every household? Will camomile do you? It’s good for the nerves.’

I nodded.

‘The neighbour’s into The Prodigy,’ said Morten

‘Drum and bass fan, eh?’

‘I know he don’t mean any harm but it ain’t much fun, Mr Ridley, having Charlie Says booming out at three in the morning.’

And that’s when I was worried. For all of his cheeriness and goodwill, if there was one thing that Morten couldn’t, wouldn’t tolerate it was noise. He’d tried everything: relaxation tapes; Hopi ear candles; acupuncture; acupressure; you name it, nothing worked, not even wedging two packs of cotton wool in those great green lugholes of his. Just the sound of a pin dropping must’ve been like a crashing earthquake, let alone the clatter of stiletto heels on cobblestones. God only knows how he put up with twelve hooves prancing over his bridge. Especially when that little arsey one with the precocious gob used to Riverdance, like Michael Flatley, each morning, on his way to the cheese factory. The spiteful little creep.

‘So how do you cope?’ As I stirred my spoon created a silent whirlpool in my teacup.

‘Well, I’ve met this girl, Mr Ridley. She lets me sleepover.’

I raised an eyebrow. Surely, Morten was fated to be a singleton.

‘We met in one of them chatrooms. Her name’s Thandiwe.’ He passed me a picture. Squashed against his photo-booth smile was a bespectacled woman – short-sighted, I guessed - crowned with dreadlocks and dressed in a nurse’s uniform. ‘She’s from Rho… Rhodeesh…’

‘Zimbabwe,’ I said, stealthily laying the teaspoon on my saucer. ‘Quite a looker.’

‘My African Queen.’ Morten grinned. ‘As quiet as a mouse. Well, she has to be working in a nursing home. She’s perfect, Mr Ridley, me being such a light sleeper. I hardly hear her footsteps when she returns after a night shift.’ Two sugar lumps plopped in Morten’s teacup. ‘And her curried goat and sadza is to die for.’

About the Author

Joshua Rainbird is a British writer living in a ramshackle two-up, two-down terrace house on the South Coast of England. A writer of short stories and film reviews he also finds time to paint, sculpt and work in a local hospital. Josh's first short story "Intracranial Biomodem" was published in January 2007 by Pantechnicon e-zine. His lifetime ambition is to visit the concrete cows in Milton Keynes.