Winners Announcement
Greetings, flash fiction friends! We are pleased to announce the winner(s) of Microcosms 215!
This week, we are pleased to continue with “The Karen Cox Prize for Entertaining Short Fiction”, brought to you by Alert Terminal Warehouse.
Announcement
Be sure to check out MC 100micro2 – our first ever quarterly contest! Submissions are open through 31 December 2023.
MC 215 Flash Fiction Contest Winners!
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Without further ado, it’s time to announce the winner(s) of MC 215!
Community Pick
It’s a tie! Huge congrats (and bragging rights) go to our Community Pick:
Great job, Eryn!
Community Pick Entry
As a reminder, here is the story that won over our community!
Iced Rage
Ice Sculptor/Retail Hell/Poem
***
I am a maker of beauty
Not frippery
But a frieze of frozen delight
Sculpted statues standing tall
Cold to the touch
Inspiring awe
I am an ice sculptor
Know my name
Remember me always
Yet today I am in Purgatory
A frozen fiery hell
Surrounded by bells and memes
Electric laughter
Spinning heads with chattering jaws
Underpaid drones in velour hats
And here I am
Casting beauty or trying
Setting iced pearls among swine
Yet I embark on my impossible task
Herculean
Just as Prometheus reached out
To teach the savages the secrets of fire
I reach out
I, the Sculptor
To teach the swine in shops
The beauty and secrets of ice
I cast, chipping, eyes forward
Ignoring the plastic chatter
The drones, clattering by
The ice calls me and I answer
Statues grow under my chilled fingers
Iced faces that gleam and glisten
Arctic foxes tumble with angels
A glass sleigh awaits its princess
And slowly the hell chills
As I weave the hard plastic into
My own tundra tableau
And fur bedecked retail slaves
Find their space beholding art
As they, too, freeze in bewildered awe
At last, the chatter is silenced
And I, the Sculptor, stand back
To gaze on what I have made
Winter Wonderland. Wondrous.
Judge’s Pick
And the Judge’s Pick, and winner of this week’s $25 Karen Cox Prize for Entertaining Short Fiction, is:
Drumroll, please!
Congrats! Please contact us for instructions on how to accept your prize and also let us know if you’d like to judge MC 220!
Here’s what judge Lily Finch had to say:
I enjoyed Alias Jones and Jones (AJ Walker) but my pick is My day at Buc-ee’s (NC8387) as the judge’s pick.
Please note that the choice was difficult given the well written stories and the different modes for delivery. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to judge.
-Lily
HUGE thanks to Lily for judging this week!
Judge’s Pick Entry
As a reminder, here is the story that won over our judge!
My day at Buc-ee’s
281 words.
New Employee / Mistaken Identity / Western.
User: NC8387
No, I am not open to derivative works at this time, thank you. (non-experience)
***
My day at Buc-ee’s.
It was a mistaken identity. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. However… I couldn’t explain that to them now, that I’ve got a gun to my face. The first thing I had to do, was make sure, I was safe. That’s for certain. The second, to wack this guy’s gun out of my face.
How?
Do?
I?
Do?
That?
Period.
I eye the counter next to me, working at Buc-ee’s was phenomenal until these guys came along. They were a tough gang of boys that I’d never seen before. However. I had to do something about it.
“Hey, guys?” I asked. “How, ‘bout… you let me go and I, don’t call the cops?
“Sure?” the Guy asked. “Do— that, and I’ll blow your fucking hands off?”
“Okay— okay,” I said, calmly lowering my hands. How ‘bout, you give that to me?
“No can do, Sir,” the Man, said. He kept his guard up, the entire time, as I looked for an scapegoat, as the boys snickered.
Damn, I thought. How, about, you give that to me? Am I an fucking idiot?
The Boss cleared his throat, “we, don’t want any trouble.”
He, said, meekly.
“Sure, and—then, you’ll call the cops?” the Boss asked, filled with thug—life syndrome.
“Alright’,” my manager said. “I know what you want.”
“Snickers?” the Boss asked. You’re not you when you’re hungry, my boss replied.
Bang!
My boss fell to the floor with a thud. Damn, I hate my job. I thought to myself.
The guys left. They. Broke a couple of game stations on the way, with their metal—bat. I shook my head. I, knew, exactly, what, to, say.
“I’m quitting.”
Please help us congratulate our winners, especially in comments and on Twitter!
See you for MC 217, coming right up!
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