Something Wrapped

[Rouge]

Hey guys! So, this is the contest that I was talking about in my sig. I’ve been thinking hard about this for the past couple of days, and I think that this is a good prompt; it’s both general and restricting at the same time.

Your prompt:

Write about something wrapped

This can be anything, and anyone that knows me well enough will know that I want you to take that to the next level and try to be as clever as you can, along with beautiful, flowing writing. I haven’t thought of a deadline yet, but it will probably be sometime around January 18th or so to give you an idea. This story can take place at anytime, and it can be about Christmas, even though there is another Christmas contest going on. To make things clear, I am not competing with Shaun for a Christmas Contest, because this is not a Christmas contest. :P

Rules:

Word Limit at 5,000 words. (I don’t want to read anymore than that, and you all know that I love short pieces.)

You need to use the prompt; I don’t want something completely ridiculous showing up in my PM box because someone was too lazy to click the spoiler button. :p

Turn your piece in by the deadline, whenever I post it. I will not take anything past then.

Send your piece to my and the other judges’ PM boxes by that deadline so that we can get results back to you quick-like.

Judges:
Me
Amour
miss_smiley
Iridescence

Other than that, I think this is enough information for you guys to get a good idea of what I’m asking for. Sign up now!

Contestants:
Simmi
Im-All-For-Believing
Emberwood
Majyk
acceptance
Quietus
jcsk88

P.S. I would really like at least five or six people to submit. Anything less and it’s just not really a contest. :/ So please guys, for me, and for the forum, get involved and submit. =D

P.S.S. Amour (And probably Iri too) will be giving me an example because she really wants to write a story for this anyways, so one will be posted here whenever she's finished. Continue to watch this post for updates. ^^

[Mercy]

I wouldn't mind being a judge, if you need one.

[Rouge]

I wouldn't mind being a judge, if you need one.

I sent a PM to three people. One said yes, and I haven't heard from the other three. If one says no, then you're in. ^^ WRITE SOMETHING THOUGH FOR REALS. >.<

[Im-All-For-Believing]

Heck yeah, I'm in! :)

[Emberwood]

I'll do it!
xD

[Rouge]

Eeeheeeheeheee <3 Yayyyy! MY INFLUENCE IS WORKING! ^^^^

[Simmi]

I haven't even read the stuff yet, but I'm in.

(psst, I want my name first on the contestants list >.>)

[Rouge]

I haven't even read the stuff yet, but I'm in.

(psst, I want my name first on the contestants list >.>)

You should read it. ^^

AND done. XD

[Simmi]

Yes! Score!

And, I read the rules and shtuff. *thumbs up*

[Im-All-For-Believing]

(psst, I want my name first on the contestants list >.>)

Grr, Simmi, you stole my place! Y'know, I'm so close to shaking my fist right back at you right now. Ohhh, I am so mad. :mad:

Grr.

*Ahem*

........ *Shakes fist* :O:O:O:O


:P

[Fiction]

Actually, Adri, I don't think I'll be able to partake. Count me in out.

[Rouge]

Actually, Adri, I don't think I'll be able to partake. Count me in out.

. . . I don't know if you're serious or if that's sarcasm. If you're serious, then I don't know why you posted. If you're being sarcastic, then ha ha. I'll put you on the list. :p

[Fiction]

No, first I decided that I would but then decided against that. Sorry! =O

[Rouge]

No, first I decided that I would but then decided against that. Sorry! =O

xD okay. ^^ If you change your mind, let me know.

[Quietus]

I'll think about maybe doing it... If I can come up with a good idea, and if I can actually write something, for once.

[Rouge]

=) That makes me soooo happy. Please think of something. ^^

[Quietus]

Y'know what Adri (Tsuki, what have you), sign me up for this. I think I'm on to something that'll also be a change of pace for the normal things floating around here.

[Rouge]

Y'know what Adri (Tsuki, what have you), sign me up for this. I think I'm on to something that'll also be a change of pace for the normal things floating around here.

:hug: yay! =D

[jcsk88]

I just might be on to something... you can count me in.

[Rouge]

That's it? No one else? D;

[miss_smiley]

Well, I would, but I'm judging...
Kind of against the rules... :P

[Rouge]

Well, I would, but I'm judging...
Kind of against the rules... :P

This is very true. XD

[Iridescence]

Oh, and Tsuki, I change my mind about submitting as an example. I'll stick with just judging. ;)

[Rouge]

Oh, alright. ^^

Also, guys, we can haz submisshuns? I know the due date is a ways away, but I'd feel more comfortable with more than one submission in my inbox. :S

[Majyk]

My story is almost done--I started in a few weeks ago, so I just have to re-read it and put the ending in place (though I don't think it's that good).
I'll try to do that soon for you. (:

[Chocolate Hamburgers]

Is it too late to join? I have no idea what I'm going to do, but this sounds interesting. Does it have to be a story? And is there a minimum word limit?

[Rouge]

Nah, there's still time. There's still a few weeks before we judge.

So, go for it. ^^

[Rouge]

I've gotten two submissions. We're judging next week.

Please don't make me cancel this. -.-

[miss_smiley]

Hear, hear! (But Tsuks... we have three... >.>

<.<)

[Rouge]

Hear, hear! (But Tsuks... we have three... >.>

<.<)

I've only gotten two--Emberwood's and Jcsk's. Ember's was two PMs... unless I missed one, or someone didn't send it to me... Hm. I'll go check and edit.

EDIT: Lied. I've gotten Majyk's too. Tehe. I'd probably remember better if I'd read them. :p

[buttonbit]

I'll take part, I think...
Yeah, sounds good. Count me in, then.
xD
Is Jan. 18th still the deadline...??
And if I've missed anything like the competition already being over or something, please know I feel like a spoon if so.

[Rouge]

Probably sooner than the 18th since that's when I'm going back to college.

I'll let you know tomorrow when the deadline is. Have them done and submitted by Friday. That's safe.

Judge Saturday?


(If it takes longer to judge, I'm sorry. It's hard to get people, like Smiles, and me and Amour and Iri who are all in different timezones together at once. Apology in advance.)

[Im-All-For-Believing]

Hey Tsuks, are the results going to be announced soon?

[Rouge]

I was waiting on Iri's response, but seeing as it's been over a week, I guess I'll announce now.

Actually, I realized I can't because I deleted all of the submissions in my inbox. When I get them from Smiles or Amour, I'll post it.

[Im-All-For-Believing]

Okay, cool. :)

[Amour]

You need us to send the actual entries, Adri?

[Rouge]

Yes, I trashed them like a stupid person. T___T

[Amour]

Haha :P
I almost deleted them a million times

[Rouge]

In second place:

Untitled, by Jcsk2130897592318571...er, Jerry. (I don't know how many numbers. :p)
I know I’ve been running on borrowed time. As my ma and pa told me all those years ago, I was supposed to die before I turned sixteen. Of course, they told me after the procedure that made me better. It wouldn’t have done me any good to live my days with a ticking time bomb counting down to the hour of my death, would it? Well, as things stand, I’ve exceeded my expiry date by thirty good long years now, and I’ve not regretted a moment since.

Sure, it sucked to have to stand by and watch them undertakers lower pa into the grave. Oh, don’t feel sorry for the laid-back fella. He enjoyed every second of his fifty-eight years, tending to his flock. No, he wasn’t a pastor, and certainly not a priest! Flock as in sheep, not people. I was thirty-two when he had that gigantic coronary – two times older than I should’ve been with the poor hand life had dealt me.

Sorry, where was I again? Oh yeah, the bad times. The next all-time-low was when ma caught the flu that killed off millions of others. She was a strong lady, my ma. Nasty bug really brought her down, but it couldn’t take her out. She lived to fight another day, but a fifty-five-year-old lady just can’t beat a two-hundred-horsepower engine running at eighty miles an hour. They called it a tragedy, that one, but I live by the code “If it’s time to go, it’s time to go, and there ain’t no way you can ever say no.” I was thirty-six the day she went six feet underground. Okay, I’ll stop boasting about how far I’ve come from the time I cheated death. Bad habit of mine, hard to change, but you gotta admit, it’s quite a feat!

The peculiar thing about these funerals was this: I had actually managed to outlive my folks. That was something no one in the neighbourhood had expected, and something I owed to the generous heart of a man named Felix Greatman. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t his heart, but his son’s, Frankie Greatman, that had granted me a second lease of life. But senior Greatman was the one who’d given the permission for the op to go ahead, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What’s that you say? You’d like to hear how I got junior Greatman’s heart? It’s a long story, y’know. Put simply, I was born with a heart condition – a hole between the left and right compartments so the good and bad blood mix? I’m no doctor, so I can’t give you the details, but I know I felt like crap in my younger years. I run a little, I get tired. I climb the stairs, I nearly pass out. That was no way to impress the girls. But getting fresh with the ladies was the least of my worries when the bloody organ – no pun intended – really acted up. I’d probably have died of excitement or exertion anyway. Those were trying times for ma and pa, especially when things got so bad that I had to be hospitalised for months on end.

Taking care of me became ma’s full-time job, and pa nearly had to sell the farm to pay the doctors’ fees. I know I spent my fourteenth and fifteenth birthdays in a ward, though I reckon I didn’t even have the strength to blow out the candles on my cake. Heck, I don’t think I even ate my cake, but ma must have baked it anyway. I don’t remember much after that. I probably fell asleep a lot.

And then there was the tunnel and bright lights.

You probably won’t believe what I saw in that vision, but I swear to God it was real, though I really wouldn’t recommend having a go at it yourself. It was all nice, warm, and comfortable, and for a while I didn’t feel tired at all. I walked down that tunnel, shielding my eyes, and I met a boy inside it. He looked about my age, maybe slightly older and taller, and I asked him “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t say anything in reply, so I thought he was deaf and started signing things to get my message through to him. But all he did was wave at me, as if he wasn’t interested in what I wanted to say. Then he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around, and strangely I didn’t resist. I felt a gentle push at my back, and next thing I knew, I was back on the hospital bed, respirator on my face, an IV drip in my arm, layer upon layer of bandages over my chest. Of course, there was also ma’s very-concerned face hovering inches above my nose, but I’d already grown so used to it that I didn’t pay her much attention. I vaguely remember pa’s voice in my ear, telling me I was going to be fine and something about a “great man”. Only later did I learn that “Greatman” was a name, not a reference to a person.

You see, Frankie Greatman was eight years old when he’d had a terrible fall. The doctors all pronounced him brain-dead, but his father insisted they keep him alive in the hopes of gaining him back one day. And so they did, for ten long years, nourishing him thorough feeding tubes and changing his diapers daily. This lasted until one fateful day, pneumonia laid claim to Frankie’s fragile body. Felix, broken and weary with sorrow, could stand to see his son suffer no longer. He’d finally decided to let Frankie go, in as dignified a manner possible. He signed the papers to withhold treatment and have all of Frankie’s organs donated, and as luck would have it, Frankie’s heart became my anchor to life.

And that’s how I came to have a Greatman’s heart inside me. That’s why I take care of Felix as if he were my very own father. I bring him the newspaper, I buy his groceries; I even walk his blasted mongrel for him! It’s not because I feel indebted – God forbid it, no! It’s because he gave me the greatest gift that anyone could possibly ask for. A gift not wrapped in fancy paper decorated with a ribbon, but something wrapped in flesh and bone, decorated with bandages and sealed with goodwill. He’d given me a beating heart, adding years to what would otherwise have been a short and miserable life.

Felix is eighty-two now, still hale and hearty, going strong. Perhaps it’s reward for touching the lives of five people in dire need. Yes, I’m not the only one Frankie met inside that tunnel. Four others were pulled back from the brink of death, and we’re all just grateful to be alive. So thank you, Frankie, and until the day we meet again, I’ll live this life for both of us.

And, in first:

The Making of a Wrap (In the Eyes of the Knife) by Im-All-For-Believing

[Content removed on 27/12/10 by request of the author]


Congratulations, winners. ^^

[Im-All-For-Believing]

Aww, you picked my story? Thank you guys ^^

And wow, Jerry, yours was really good. It made me want to laugh (only at certain bits, of course) and cry and just... It was seriously brilliant, and really clever. Well done! :)

[Amour]

Grats, you two. :)

[jcsk88]

I didn't know about this until smiley caught me on MSN :P. Thank you judges and participants! It's been fun...

And I'm-All-For-Believing, your story was really original. Very refreshing take on the theme :D. Congrats! You deserve the top spot!