S.M. McCoy
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02:39:55 pm on May 16, 2012 |
Tuesday Tales WINNER 40!
Challenge #40
By entering, every contestant agrees to shamelessly promote and praise the winner on twitter.
For all discussions about this challenge use hash tag #TuesdayTales
I am happy to have this week’s Tuesdaytales Judgemasters take over:
@SusanUtley
Susan Warren Utley is a co-founder and editor at Haunted Waters Press, an independent publisher located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She is also a writer and poet. Her writing and works can be found at http://www.creativeprocrastination.com . Visit Haunted Waters Press here http://http://www.hauntedwaterspress.com
Also previously judge of Tuesdaytales 8, Tuesdaytales 21
WINNER
Diane Dooley
@DianeDooley
Mother, Geek, Author writing Sci Fi, Horror and Romance.
Carina Press, Decadent Publishing. Short Stories: http://tinyurl.com/bnwl62h
“I am honored to be invited back as a guest judge for Tuesday Tales. Stevie, you were full of surprises this week. First, with the rocket ship and rearview mirror photograph and then with the increased word count. I think it was the combination of both that inspired so many wonderful stories. Again, another difficult week to be sitting in the judge’s seat. I actually had a top seven this week and after a considerable amount of internal debate, I narrowed it down to two. I didn’t flip a coin, but it was literally that close. In the end, I chose Diane Dooley’s (aka @DianeDooley) Monster as the winner of the week’s Tuesday Tales. It was fun, inventive, and well written. In under 300 words she made me feel empathy for an unsightly alien creature. Congratulations Diane. With your permission, Haunted Waters Press would like to feature your story in the Summer 2012 issue of From the Depths.”
TUESDAY TALE:
Monster
by Diane Dooley
In hindsight I should never have gone searching the galaxy for him. I should’ve stayed on the space station, safe in my hazy half-dreams of imminent rescue. I wish I’d never tracked him down; never injected him with that scant twenty measures of truth serum.
He had never loved me. The pain of the truth had ripped a scream from my body. But at least then I had a heart. Now it’s a tumor. Inside my chest it pumps out only bile and bitterness.
Twice I saved him, breaking him out of two jails at the cost of my own freedom. But still it wasn’t enough. He offered his eternal thanks and his friendship. I took it, grateful for even that.
He travels the stars with someone else now. Her he loves, though she has never sacrificed for him the way I have. The scars of the wounds I bore for him remind me of how ugly I am. His wife, of course, is perfect. “The most beautiful woman in the universe.” That’s what he called her, as the serum had its brutal way with him. And with me.
I’m on Earth now and I think I’m dying. The gravity pulls me down, lays me low, defeats me every second. Nobody is kind; no one cares. I’m a scarred monster from outer space, after all. They examine my body with morbid interest, excited for my eventual autopsy, these stumpy little creatures all dressed in white.
Here I lie, watching the wet fall from the dark sky, the clouds obscuring the stars. My heart thuds slowly, releasing beat after beat of sadness and pain. I’ll die here, then, on this blasted floating rock.
I don’t even care. It’s my own fault. I should never have gone searching the galaxy for him.
HONORABLE MENTIONS!
The following entries were among my top contenders and deserve an Honorable Mention for making my decision so difficult. If you did not name your story, I gave it a working title:You Had Me at Hello (Best Use of Word): Serial Illusions by Raymond C. Morris aka @iwrite
Didn’t See It Coming (Best Surprise Ending): Taxi Driver (working title) by Miranda Kate aka @PurpleQueenNLBreaking All the Rules (Because I Can’t Stick to Just Three Honorable Mentions) Disappeared by Wakefield Mahon aka @WakefieldMahon, Take a Ride with Death (working title) by Bob Mahone aka @Computilizer, Hitching a Ride (working title) by Aaron Beyer aka @agbeyer, and Seriously Twisted (not a working title, just seriously twisted) by Rebekah Pastupak aka @postupak**See you all next week!
~GlitterLady
You can check out all the rest of the entries of Tuesdaytales week 40 HERE
OR check out the archive of all the tuesdaytales to escort you to your tuesdaytales needs HERE
GLITTERWORD 
S Jayanth 3:27 pm on May 16, 2012 | # |
Congratulations, Diane Dooley.
I too would have picked her story, ‘Monster’ as the best one.
Aaron Beyer 3:33 pm on May 16, 2012 | # |
Nice! Thanks for sneaking us in on the HMs Susan (I like the working title you gave mine too)! Congratulations to Diane, that’s a beautifully written piece of flash fiction there.
superhappyjen 6:09 pm on May 16, 2012 | # |
I guess I wasn’t the only one who looked at that picture and immediately thought “alien love affair”. Of course Diane’s is far superior to mine. Congratulations!
Miranda kate (@PurpleQueenNL) 7:19 pm on May 16, 2012 | # |
I didn’t even see the spaceship! LOL – saw the rearview mirror, and the theme and knew immediately the piece I wanted to use – as this was adapted from a short story written a few years ago. The title for me would have been ‘Rearview Mirror’. But Ioved the winning tale, after reading several of the entries, I knew I had stiff competition! Congrats to all!
Diane Dooley 2:33 am on May 17, 2012 | # |
I’m absolutely delighted! Big thanks to Stevie, Susan and my fellow flash fiction warriors. It’s an honor to have my story picked from such great field of entrants.