Please vote for the story you like best by December 31st.
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Please vote for the story you like best by December 31st.
Happy Endings
“And then they lived happily ever after.’ I stressed upon each word, waiting for that spark of wonder in Shana’s big blue eyes.
Those eyes.
For a moment, Shana did not say anything. Then it appeared, her smile growing wider with each passing moment and reaching her eyes. She raised her hands in the air and did a little pirouette on the spot all the while shouting, ‘That is so wonderful Papa! Wonderful! Wonderful!’
That smile.
Ever since Shana could understand my stories, she had been my first critic. She was silent for only a moment but in that time I had grown very anxious. Did she like the story? Did she enjoy it? But then with each little spin and leap of her, my heart opened up to embrace the warmth spreading around it, petal by petal, like a mexican daisy opening up to sunlight.
Her face lit up with an unadulterated joy that was so infectious. I had begun grinning. And so had Shana’s mother Zoy who she was hugging right now. ‘Wasn’t it wonderful, Ma?’
Wonderful. She did not know many other words.
‘Yes it was sweetie, yes it was’. Zoy said, running her fingers through Shana’s hair. Then she looked at me in a slightly incredulous way, more playful than mean, and mouthed, ‘Dragon marrying an elve, really?’
I shrugged and mouthed back, ‘That’s what the kids like. Happy Endings.’ She shook her head ever so slightly, the smile though never leaving her face. Shana had settled herself on her mother’s arm and dug her head into the bosom by now, seemingly getting ready to sleep again.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with a strong gush of love that I felt for the two ladies in white. Gosh, I was so lucky.
So much white.
Zoy kissed Shana’s head and said, ‘Come on sweetie. No more sleep. It’s time for school. Come on.’
‘But it’s so comfy here.’
‘Shana...' It was gentlest of admonition but Shana straightened up immediately. She got down and went to pick up her bag. Shana could not stay quiet for long and always had to say something. As she passed by me to fetch her bag, she said, ‘Papa, it really was very comfy there. Maybe you should try it sometime.’ Zoy and me burst into laughter together. Shana looked nonplussed for a second but then chimed in with her artless laugh.
As they were getting ready, I resumed working on my latest novel for children, ‘The Magical Storm.’ Now that I had Shana’s approval, the final chapter should be a breeze. I suppressed a giggle.
After about 15 minutes, I showed them to the door. ‘Goodbye Papa.’ I bent down to kiss Shana on the cheeks. ‘Goodbye sweetie. Now don’t trouble your mother too much and I might dedicate my next book to you.’
Zoy had always been modest in front of Shana. But what followed today was the best goodbye kiss I ever had.
I was still grinning like an idiot as the two got into the white car.
Just before entering, I heard Shana ask, ‘Maa, what’s decitate?’ The grin turned into an outright guffaw and I stood at the door chuckling until I finally saw the car disappear around the corner.
The door closed, not to a thud but a cacophonous crash. I felt the latest bout of laughter stop midway and all of a sudden I was choking, as if someone had punched me in the throat. My coughs mixed with the reverberations of the crash that were growing louder by the second. I could feel the sound waves bouncing off the walls and mixing into each other. I felt the stampede of sound running over me. I slumped to the ground, dragged myself into a corner, closed my eyes and pressed my palms deep into my ears. ‘Oh god, please make this stop. Pleaaase.’
In response, God laughed. No, it wasn’t God. It was this big white empty house cackling and laughing at me.
I lay in that position for what may have been a minute or an hour. I was not only trying to keep the sound away but also trying to avoid sleep. It was only morning, wasn’t it? Hadn’t Shana just left for school? But I felt sofatigued. I slowly opened my eyes as the noises finally ebbed away. Along with the sound, the lights had gone dim as well.
I could see the computer shining in the darkness. I needed to start writing. The novel won’t finish itself. Suddenly a delightful image came into my mind. A fat book opened in the middle, hovering in the air, with a hole in either of the pages and a geeky spec going over the two ‘eyes’. The right page held a pen in its hand. The book was writing a book. HeeHee. The kids would love this.
‘Isn’t that a lovely image, Shana?’ I thought to myself. But I may have said that out loud, because Shana had appeared besides me and was doing an amazing little pirouette in her shiny white dress and was saying, ‘That is so wonderful Papa! Wonderful! Wonderful!’
Wonderful.
‘Aww sweetie. Come on, give Papa a hug’. But Shana didn’t respond and walked away. Walked through the door. ‘Shana…’ But she was gone. I wanted to go after her but couldn’t really get up, only managing to half stand. My lower half was dragging me down. I looked down and saw a faceless labourer squatting on his legs near mine, wearing a torn vest around his chest and a white torn turban around his head, holding a brick in each of his hands.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked him in half amusement, half terror. A lipless hole on his featureless face moved, ‘Why, filling in your legs with bricks of course, sir.’
‘Of course… Of course. Carry on.’ I could hear my voice trailing off. The room seemed even darker now. The only source of light was the computer. I could hear it beckoning me in that silky voice of a seductress. I had to finish the novel.
Just two more pages.
My eyelids very getting heavy. They were made of lead. Each time they closed, instead of seeing that absolute nothing, I could see a faint light, more vivid than anything besides me. But then I would quickly open them again. I did not want to sleep. I knew the consequences. Nightmares as vivid as reality. Terrible horrible nightmares.
I beat my head against the wall. ‘I would not sleep.’
Bright light.
‘I wouldn’t sleep.’
White light.
‘Wouldn’t sleep.’
Blurry light.
‘Sleep…’
Vivid bright light.
I was lying on a bed. It took me some time to realize that I was in my room. I had a terrible headache but that would soon be the least of my worries.
Even through the half open eyes, I could see the room brightly lit by the beaming rays of sunlight that marched in through the windows and bounced off the plethora of beer bottles on the ground. I had slept for majority of two days. I looked at the clutter of capsules on the side table. Eight triazolams hadn’t killed me. Maybe ten would.
Why not take all of them?
Even through the pain (ugh, this pain - someone was drilling iron rods into my brain. Who? That worker in the torn vest?)
Even through the pain, that thought had a strange allure to it but was marked by a bad aftertaste. Like a medicine (Triazolam?) left in the mouth for too long. Or a smooth wave crashing up on a rock.
Crashing.
I jumped in my bed, sitting upright now. Spilling the tablets off the side table in the process.
It wasn’t the wave crashing on a rock. It was a white car. And then it wasn’t a rock. But a big monstrous truck that banged into the car headfirst, dragging it across the road, sending off mad sparks and dust flying off around it.
I had just closed the door and then opened it again on hearing the crash. Even as I ran towards the remains of the car, I knew. Shana and Zoy were gone. Just like that. Poof. Gone.
A couple of workers from a nearby construction site were drawing their bodies out by the time I reached the crash site. Even though I knew, I hadn’t expected to see what I did. They weren’t only dead, they were mutilated. Features wiped off their faces.
Those blue eyes were all red now. The fair faces, all purple and bloody.
The headache was overwhelmed by an absolute emptiness. Someone had thrown off all my entrails off a cliff but not without stepping and stomping on it before. I had begun to shiver and sweat. I wanted to bury my head under the pillow, close my eyes, shun off the silence. The air around reminded me of their laughs.
But their was an easier way out. I dragged myself off the bed and let myself fall on the floor. The capsules were littered all over the floor. Five of them hadn’t killed me. Neither had six. Nor eight now.
Why not take all of them?
I took a sachet and started tearing out the capsules.
One.
Yes, why not? I could have taken the whole sachet in the first try.
Two. Three. Four. Five.
But I wasn’t thinking of killing myself then. Not at first. I just wanted to sleep… for a really long time. I wanted to avoid the world, to avoid the look of pity in their eyes.
Six. Seven.
Then I had seen Shana and Zoy while I slept. I was living with them again. My realities had switched. I could not imagine them when I was awake, no matter how hard I tried. But they always waited for me in the dreams. The dreams had become my truth and my life a nightmare.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Then the dreams turned rogue and life only got worse. I wasn’t living in either of the worlds, only suffering in both. That is when I wanted to kill myself.
Why not take all of them?
Another Satchet. Rip. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
There was that allure of being with them again, for however short a time before the dreams turned into nightmares. But was that it? If only I could just take all of them, I would be with them forever.
Fifteen.
I could end this right now. All the pain would be gone. Forever.
Sixteen. Seventeen.
I was lying to myself. There was something fundamentally wrong with this.
Eighteen. Nineteen.
…
Twenty.
And then, even in that state of disharmony, with my mind and body oscillating between dazzling pain and nothingness, I had my answer. I heard my voice call out in the distance, ‘That’s what the kids like. Happy Endings.’
I felt a level of clarity that I had not felt ever since their death. I knew what I had to do. I looked at the computer. I had never managed to finish my novel. Just two pages left and I never managed to finish it. Shana loved my stories. She loved this ending. An ending that I never actually managed to write. My thoughts had become too muddled all this while, too blurry.
But right now, I knew each and every word that would go on those two pages. I dragged myself to the chair and opened the file. My fingers fumbled. My vision a little foggy. But after half an hour of turmoil, I completed it.
I had closed my eyes several times after their death, hoping that I’d see the two when I opened them. But was never successful. That is why I started with the pills.
But something deep down told me this time it would be different. I closed my eyes. After a while, I could hear a few joyous squeals. When I opened them, sure enough, I could see Shana doing that little dance of her, her radiant smile reaching her blue eyes. ‘‘That is so wonderful Papa! Wonderful! Wonderful! Would you tell me some more stories now?’
‘Of course sweetie, of course. But first, I need to change a tiny little something.’
I went back to the beginning of the novel and added the dedication.
"Decitated: to my wonderful daughter Shana and my wonderful wife Zoy"
Only Connect
The last thing I expected yesterday was a blast from the past, but there it was, barreling out of a huge link of a city-wide drugstore chain just as I was going in. We literally bumped into each other.
“Bananas! How the hell have ya been?”
It took me less than a parsec to place him. “E. P. - is it really you?” The years had been unfairly kind to my erstwhile college roommate. Not a single gray hair as far as I could tell. Only his barber knew for sure. “Jeez, I feel like a jerk for not keeping in touch.”
“You and me both, ‘Nans. No excuse these days with all the social media. But back in the day we were really tight, ‘member?”
“Totally. I’m still half-wasted from our final binge over graduation weekend.”
“One for the record books! So. Are you still at Chase?”
“Uh-huh. What about you?”
“IBM.”
“I’m glad you’re regular, but where’re ya working?”
“Ya know, I almost thought I’d make it to noon without hearing that line.” E. P. checked his watch. “Too late. What d’ya say I treat ya to lunch?”
I shook my head. “Gotta take a rain check. Way behind schedule today. I only have enough time to duck in here and get a sleep aid.“
“Insomnia, huh? You got a prescription or--“
“No, actually the battery in my smoke alarm went dead. The thought of the building burning down is keeping me awake at night.”
“In that case I’ll let you go,’Nans. But we really gotta get together and rehash old times, you know?
“No doubt. Meanwhile, give Steph my love.”
“Uh – I’ve moved on.”
E. P.’s wince instantly vanished; he’d already “moved on” to a different topic. “Oooh! I forgot to tell you - I bought a house! It’s up in Wappingers Falls. You gotta come up.”
“Sure thing, Bro.”
“Call me.” He handed me his card. (Maybe it’s still in my pocket.) “Don’t forget.” We exchanged one of those awkward half-hugs before he blended into the anonymous crowd.
In mid-town at midday, the store was packed, increasing the challenge to manoeuver through those famously narrow aisles, select the desired product, and complete the transaction. So much for running a quick errand. It didn’t help that I was clueless as to the whereabouts of the 9-volt batteries.
Nearly getting rear-ended by an senior citizen’s shopping cart, I sidestepped behind a heavyset woman bent over to study a row of pastel-colored laundry detergent bottles on a bottom shelf. My thoughts jumped back to E. P., in my memory a perpetual undergrad wearing a graphic tee-shirt with some sexist slogan, like “No Fat Chicks.”
He had fabricated a persona as a ladies’ man with discriminating tastes, specifically for fresh crops of candidates just north of the jail bait line. He did little to discourage the campus rumors about the legendary staying power of his erotic performance, hence his nickname “Extended Play.” Yet the liaisons themselves had the life expectancy of fruit flies.
Except of course for Stephanie. They were never an official “couple,” but she was E. P.’s default girlfriend, his Plan B. It’s possible that Steph never knew about E. P.’s caddish behavior (though that seems unlikely) or she had an infinite amount of forgiveness embedded in her DNA. After a series of brief liaisons, E. P. would always return, and she would take always him back. The on/off arrangement had gone on for years.
I began to feel that I’d been wandering around the store as long as Steph and E. P.’s dubious alliance had lasted. I could have asked somebody to show me where to go, but the only employees in sight were manning registers for long lines of customers who’d successfully located their items. The search continued as I passed a long rack of greeting cards intermittently broken by shoppers looking at the printed artwork, reading the message inside, replacing the card, and opening another.
A greeting card aisle is the last place on earth you’d find a guy like E. P. Neither of us were big on sending Christmas cards, the last-ditch effort before people drop off the so-called radar for good. At school we’d been as close as brothers, getting inside each other’s heads during late-night bull sessions. If one of us was pissed off, you can be damn sure the other knew about it.
One night after seeing E. P. dump his latest victim, I let him have it. “What are you doing to these poor kids? Settin’ ‘em up just so you can knock ‘em down? It’s like playing Whack-a-Mole.”
“Eh. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. I’m just testing the water. Checking out
the merchandise.”
“But you always find something wrong. You’re way too picky.”
That was true. According to E. P., this one’s nose was a little too long or that one’s eyebrows were too thick. So and so’s laugh was irritating. The chick talked too much (or too little.)
“So? What’s wrong with that?” E. P. scratched his one of his underarms and yawned. “Why can’t I have what I want? Why do I have to ‘settle’?”
“It’s how life runs, Bro. We’re all human. Nobody’s perfect. While you wait for the perfect, you might lose something good.”
He popped a beer open with a snap that bounced down the entire corridor of the dorm. “For instance?”
“For instance Stephanie.”
“Good old reliable Stephanie. Faithful as a puppy.”
I was convinced that I’d probably covered every square inch of the store without discovering where the batteries were hiding. I could go home empty-handed and worry all night, or I could wait on line and ask for help. The latter option meant that once I grabbed the battery, I’d have to wait on line a second time to pay for it, but the noon hour was just about shot anyway, so what the hell.
In what appeared to be the shortest of the queues, the clerk had finished scanning the purchases of the granny who’d almost rammed me with her cart. I hoped that the lady wouldn’t suddenly produce a fistful of coupons or spend an half-hour rifling through her purse for a couple of coins.
I was standing behind two middle-aged businessmen. Ahead of them was the shopper on deck. Appearing a bit aloof or rapt in thought, she looked a grad student. Maybe her mind was preoccupied with possible solutions to a convoluted equation or an accurate translation of a passage by Henri Bergson. She was dressed not particularly stylishly, but wore nothing that would embarrass her mother - jeans, a jacket, and a soft woolen scarf the color of the sky (maybe Mom herself had knitted the scarf.) As far as age, her tier lay a notch or two above the preferred demographic of E. P.’s college conquests. She looked “old enough” yet still young. I could detected an aura of experience about her, but she still seemed fresh and relatively unscathed by the world. She could be married, hitched to an up-and-coming commodities broker or some assistant D.A. Bottom line: it was a sure bet she was already taken. “All the good ones are gone,” as E. P. used to say.
I heard her say “Thank you” as she took the plastic bag and her credit card from the clerk, and I followed her with my eyes. It must’ve slipped her mind that the exit door worked automatically, for just as she raised her hand to push it, the door flew open. When she shook her head and laughed, I almost fell in love.
I received directions in accented but perfectly understandable English and went down the appropriate aisle for the sought-after item, which up to this point would never have been discovered by the most assiduous of explorers. Henry Hudson could have found the northwest passage to India in less time than it took me to come across a 9-volt battery in a frenetic 21st century “inconvenience” store.
In the moment that I finally stood in front of the rack of batteries, a strange image popped into my brain. After so many years, I can’t remember much of my education, not even course titles or professor’s names, but yesterday for some bizarre reason I recalled a textbook page from an art survey, a gut course I’d taken to amp up the credit hour tally. The photo depicted a metal sculpture of modernistic, impossibly thin figures walking toward another. They made me think of parallel lines eternally running around the globe and never, ever touching.
The Boy from the Clouds
Hestia pulled her veil closer over her head as the other women, laughing and mocking, threw herring bones and tried to pin bloody chicken feet to her gown. Once past the throng, she caught her breath and slowed her pace as she ascended the stone steps to the top of the hill. At the summit, the ruins of the parecclesion stood silently behind the palisades that crowned the mount. Hestia approached the circular stone sanctuary and positioned herself behind the open doorway. She faced into the wind, enervated from her exertions but exuberant at having reached the peak. She took a draught from the flask she carried, containing a drink made of fermented barley and mint.
A strong breeze had been blowing all day. It blew tiny wisps of clouds like cotton under the deep blue sky so close to the earth that Hestia jumped up to try to catch one, but it was beyond her reach. As she stood in the threshold of the doorway, she felt the breeze on her face and heard it whistling through the gaps between the stones. She felt a kind of warmth in the breeze and a kind of substance, like soft, powdery particles. It felt good. She let fall her veil and shook loose her hair.
The breeze blew in rhythmic gusts like breaths. The powdery material that floated against Hestia’s cheeks grew clumpier. It felt as though feathers were gliding past her. She turned. With her back to the wind, she could see more clearly. Yes, white, ethereal material like dandelion parachutes hovered in the air all around. Just behind Hestia, in front of where a wild grapevine had entwined itself around one of the fallen longitudinal stones, the feathery substance was clumping together in mid-air, creating a sort of small, billowing, cloudlike form just above the ground.
Hestia watched in fascination as the cloudlike form took shape and gathered substance. It took the figure of a boy, a small boy who appeared to be five or six years old. Hestia clapped her hands in delight. He was the cutest boy Hestia had ever seen, with wispy soft hair, smooth white skin, eyes that mirrored the deep blue sky, and a dimple on his chin. He stretched out his arms and gazed on his hands with wonder. He touched his face and felt the fluffiness of his hair. He looked at Hestia and faltered for words.
“What… Who… What am I? Who am I? How came I to be here?”
Hestia laughed and clapped her hands again.
“You are my boy! The boy that I always wanted! The boy that I have dreamed of! My darling boy! My own! My very, very own!”
The boy smiled at this. “Are you my Mama?”
“Yes!”
Hestia knelt down, and the boy ran to her. He was so light in her arms! They held each other tight while the white feathery particles that still lingered in the air vanished one by one with a tiny, streaking flicker like so many shooting stars.
Wiping away tears of happiness, Hestia stood up, took a step back, and looked upon her darling boy.
“We have so much to do, you and I” she smiled. “We must go down the hill to our home in town, get you some clothes, prepare the hearth, and bake you some bread to eat… oh, so much to do!”
“I will go with you, Mama,” the boy said taking hold of her hand.
On the way down the hill, Hestia veered off the main path of the stone steps to follow a footpath leading to a nearby vineyard. Rows and rows of lush, twisting green vines strung between tall, wooden stakes sparkled in the sunlight. Under the shade of the leafy foliage hung, heavy dark purple bunches of grapes gravid with nectar.
“You must be hungry,” she said. “Here. Try this.”
“What is that?” he asked holding out his hand.
“It’s a grape.”
He took it into his mouth. His eyes expressed pleasure at the taste.
“Oh, silly boy! You’ve eaten the seed!” Hestia laughed.
She bit halfway into another grape and showed it to the boy.
“See? This is the seed. You can take the seed and plant it in the soil like this. Then you give it a little water every day, and after some time, a new plant will sprout. The plant will grow, and from this one seed, another vine and many more grapes will come. We call it ‘abundance.’ Here. Take the rest of these. We will eat them along the way.”
“Abundance,” repeated the boy as he ate another grape, this time removing the seed from his mouth and inspecting it closely. “I like that.”
At the edge of the vineyard grew a line of tall juniper trees, and behind them various smaller trees, scrubs, and shrubs. From the trees came a trilling, melodic sound.
“What is that?” asked the boy.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” asked Hestia. “It’s a nightingale. Come. Let’s go closer.”
The song increased in volume as they passed between the juniper trees. They walked slowly so as not to disturb the bird. But alas! They approached too near. A sudden fluttering sound succeeded the trilling, and they glimpsed a streak of light brown color diving for cover into the farther vegetation. Just as suddenly, they heard another bird flutter off – this one had been very near, almost at their feet.
“Oh, look at this!” cried Hestia in an excited whisper. “Their nest!”
The boy bent down next to Hestia. There, in a small circular nest made of twigs, fibers and leafs, lay five smooth, glossy olive-brown eggs.
“Inside each of these is a baby nightingale,” Hestia said. “In another week or two, they will hatch. They will bring new life and new beauty into the world.”
“Am I new life?” asked the boy.
“Yes, you are.”
Before they reached the line of juniper trees, they heard another sound coming to them from under some brambles not far away – a squeaking, whimpering sort of sound. They followed the sound to a large fallen log, under which a shallow burrow had been dug out. They crouched down slowly a few paces away from the burrow and peered inside.
In the semi-darkness of the den Hestia and the boy could make out the shadowy forms of eight newborn kits clambering over their mother, who was licking their fluffy fur in turn.
“Look how tiny they are!” whispered Hestia. “They must be only a few days old. What a lovely family!”
“What is a family, mama?”
“A family is a group bound together by love and affection.”
“Are you and I a family, Mama?”
“Yes, we are.”
The boy crept closer to the den.
“They are fluffy – like me,” whispered the boy.
“They are beautiful!” cried Hestia.
“Am I beautiful?” asked the boy.
“Yes, you are.”
Hestia and the boy stood up and walked past the line of juniper trees.
“But I am different, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“What makes me different, Mama?”
“Because… because you have come to me by magic.”
“But the seed. The seed that grows into a new grapevine. And the hatchlings still inside the eggs. And that family of foxes. Isn’t all of that also magic?”
Hestia was silent. She didn’t know how to answer this question.
“But those things. They are all real, are they not, Mama? And I am not real, am I?”
“You are! You are!” pleaded Hestia. “You are the essence of all that is real!”
The boy pondered for a moment and then replied, “Yes. That’s right, Mama. I am.”
And he smiled with satisfaction at this thought.
Then the boy cocked his head pensively and asked, “Is the world so full of abundance and new life and beauty, Mama?”
“Yes, it is,” said Hestia.
She smiled, but she was troubled by the turn of their conversation.
“Now, come with me. Let us return to the road that will take us to hearth and home. We have much to do.”
As they followed the footpath leading away from the vineyard to the rocky trail leading down the hill, a slight breeze began to blow.
The boy stopped suddenly.
“Mama!” he cried.
Hestia turned to look at him.
He was standing facing into the breeze with his arms stretched out in from of him, the palms of his hands facing up. The breeze picked up strength. A part of his hand and some wisps of his hair blew away. The wind grew in intensity.
“Mama, what is happening to me?”
Another piece of his hand blew away, and his arm disintegrated into fluffy, feathery particles. His legs transformed into swirling cylindrical forms of white powder. He was blowing away.
Hestia stood transfixed, watching, helpless, tears dropping from her eyes like rain.
“My boy! My darling boy!”
The boy was fast disappearing. His face lingered, floating, smiling, beaming in the air.
“Don’t be afraid, Mama. Don’t be sad. The world is filled with abundance and new life and beauty, but this – you and I – we were not meant to be.”
And then the face dissolved into a thousand pinpoints of light that blew up and away into the sky.
Hestia pulled her veil close around her head and descended the steps into town alone.
I voted. :) Can't wait to see the final result.
I voted.
El Sancho voted
Same here! :nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
And el candy cane for each voter!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...98daa0b67e.jpg
I voted as well. Thanks for directing me Scher. All three were good reads. I wish I had the time to stop here more often.
Thank you for making the time, Virgil. It is always nice to see you here. :)
... Thank you !Quote:
And el candy cane for each voter!
All three stories were worthy; it was a difficult choice.
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
Oo I don't know...
Geez this was a hard choice...
Thanks for the message Scheherazade!! :)
Thank you all for voting. It is very close so please keep voting!
Voted. Say thank you to Sher for guiding us all here. Wait now for candy cane. Or chocolate. Or 2016, whatever comes first :-)
Going once...
Going twice...
6 each. A 3-way tie. This is probably the closest I have ever seen this contest go. :D
Indeed! Will extend the voting period for another 3 days so the tie will break by then, hopefully!
Please keep voting!
Everyone's a winner ?
I have voted.
Can we consider the contest ended now?