Short Story Competition Final '14

[Scheherazade]

Here are the stories you have been voting for during 2013. Vote for your favourite and help us elect the best story of 2014.

Discussion of the stories, to avoid influencing the outcome of the poll, are not allowed.

If contributors would like to ask questions, they should email us at [email protected].

Please note that the authors agree to keep their identities secret when they enter the competition.
Those who breach this rule will be disqualified automatically.


Good luck, everyone! :)


Competition Rules (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18200)
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Note: This poll will close on January 1st, 2015.
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[Scheherazade]

Fame

She keeps looking at me, expectantly, in the rear view mirror. One eyebrow cocked in an amused way, but if it’s a joke I'm not getting it. I press some buttons on the sat-nav for something else to do. There’s no need to consult it really. I know these streets like the layout of my own bedroom, not that I see much of that these days. Ferrying rich drunken people around London all night in a posh cab tends to impact on the old sleep.

I smother a yawn with the back of my hand and catch her eye again. Now she seems to be almost nodding at me in an encouraging way. I'm obviously missing something here.
“Up to anything special tonight then, love?” I ask to break the tension.
“Oh you know, just going to watch a film.” She grins now as if I have made a funny and she is playing along. So that helped, I involuntarily roll my eyes.
“Well, least you will be indoors out of this rain. You wouldn't want to get that fancy frock wet.”
“No, quite.” As she tips her head back to laugh there are little tell-tale silver scars glinting along her jaw line. She’s had work done I wonder how old she is.

Just like this one, I'm used to my fares being a bit mysterious. Hired mostly for my discretion, I often pick them up from the seedier parts of town and drop them off in the more glamorous ones or vice versa. The bold ones enjoy their true baser passions early in the night before hitting the hotspots to be “seen” in the right places later on. While others have to be steaming drunk or high before they have the balls to go slumming it.
I wonder what this lady's story is - a toy boy tucked away in a cheap motel surrounded by lines of coke seems most likely.

“Still, this weather is good for me, keeps me busy”. I find my self chirping. It seems especially busy tonight. Clearly something is going on in the city centre this evening so I sweep around a back way I know to try to cut through some of the traffic.
She lets out a sigh and I can almost see her wishing she was still with Mr Young, naked and handsome in the sleazy hotel room.

“There’s some champagne on ice in the back there for you, if you want it.” I offer, hoping to cheer her up a bit before she hits the party and presumably meets with some poor sap of a husband – probably a rich sugar daddy.
“Yeah, thanks.” She mumbles and then pours herself a glass before saluting the city streets ironically.

Another sigh.

“Well we’re nearly there, better get my game face on I suppose” She raises the flute to me and then chucks the bubbles down her neck. “Cheers”. Next she fishes a compact from her purse and dabs unenthusiastically at her face, before snapping it shut and chucking it back in the bag.

We finally inch our way into Leicester Square to find it packed. There are crowds cordoned off to either side and a red carpet leading up to the theatre. I pull up and move around to open her door. As she slips out she gives me a winky smile and stuffs a big tip in my hand.
“Thanks for being so cool about this” she seems to say, but most of the words are lost to me, buried beneath the roar of a thousand screams.

As my passenger begins to move along the carpet, two frantic aids run up and begin fussing over her. One puts up an umbrella and the other mouths “Where have you been?” A question she shrugs off with one graceful shoulder.

Now it’s a different woman, all reluctance gone, she glides down the carpet generously lavishing attention on her fans. Looking up I am stunned to see a giant movie poster of my fare arm in arm with Johnny Depp above the theatre entrance but before I can find out who she is, I am being bundled towards my car.

“Come along now you've had your few minutes of fame” a hefty security guard grunts as he’s pushing me away.

Oh well time to get back on the road – I must remember to google her if I ever get home tonight.

[mona amon]

I voted. :)

[YesNo]

I voted also.

[Sancho]

Ta-dah, Sancho voted.

Thanks for the stories, everybody.

[Scheherazade]

That calls for candy canes all-round!

http://www.myamericanmarket.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/CANDY_CANES_PEPPERMINT_BUCKET_DISPLAY__60_candy_ca nes__400.jpg

[Scheherazade]

Yet once again, we have a tie!

More votes needed, folks!

[Scheherazade]

Congratulations to Bluehound, who is the winner of Short Story Competition 2014!

Thank you all who took part by sharing your stories and voting.

You can now submit your stories for the 2015 competition.

[Bluehound]

Ahh wow, thanks, that’s great.

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage people to re-engage with this competition, it used to attract many more stories and voters.

It is really fun to enter your stories and have them voted on, it’s a real buzz.
Maybe we could try to encourage others more, I know we can’t discus the stories directly for fear of revealing the secret identities, but perhaps we could have a thread where people add suggestions for themes, genres or ideas to stimulate the grey matter of potential entrants (sometimes a story can be born from a random collection of four or five words)?

Just a thought. Anyway, thanks again and Happy New Year.

[YesNo]

Congratulations, Bluehound!

I agree that more of the prose writers here should take advantage of the opportunity this contest offers them.