In February, the wildly creative Laird Sapir launched the first WikiRandom Writers Challenge. The object of the challenge is to write a 3-sentence story based on a prompt generated by clicking the ‘random article’ button on Wikipedia. The prompt must be used in one of the 3 sentences of your entry.
To quote Laird, “the winner will receive adoration and praise, a nifty badge to display on his/her website, and the judge’s mantle for the next round of the challenge, which they will host on their blog in July, on a day of their choosing.”
Previous WikiRandom challenges and entries can be read and savored on the blogs of Laird Sapir, Sara Walpert Foster, Ellen Gregory, and Jodi Lea Stewart. All are highly entertaining bits of flash fiction, and delightful reads. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
I was honored to be announced the May winner by Jodi Lea Stewart, and am hyped to host the June round of the challenge.
Forrest is bug-eyed with excitement at the prospect of reading and judging June’s entries.
(I acquiesced).
Repeated readings of Lord of the Flies have left him hungry for new material and he’s hoping you’ll feed him a virtual buffet of creative offerings.
Photo by Brian Gratwicke / Flickr
So without further ado, your prompt is: into thin air
We hope you’ll hop all over it like Forrest on fruit flies.
Just post your 3-sentence entry in the comments section before noon on Friday, June 29th. The winner will be announced on Saturday evening, June 30th.
Have fun and please feed Forrest! He needs to build strength for the mud wrestling event that follows.
I followed the footsteps down the marble hall, and carefully crept down the 3 steps that led to my great aunt’s bedroom. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of my great uncle’s shoes, stepping into the closet, and vanishing into thin air. Louisiana’s ghosts have always been restless.
****WINNER****
Congrats Laird, this left me wanting to read more … and Forrest hiding in the trunk of a very large tree!
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As she wandered the streets of the medina in search of the perfect gift, her gaze fell on the silver medallion tossed among the the cheap trinkets and costume jewelry being sold by the old blind woman. She reached out a tentative hand to touch it but drew it back in surprise as it rose up off the table, spun like a child’s toy top, and then vanished into thin air. The old blind woman smiled and said, “Ah, yes. You must be the one.”
She unfolded the heavy, green, army blanket and lifted up the timeworn violin, her grandfather’s before he and his brothers lost their futures to Hitler’s gas chambers. The old musician who brought it to her had always planned to find the family and give them the part of his dear friend that he was able to keep from being destroyed. The granddaughter plucked a couple of the strings, relieved that when the vibrations stopped, the man-she-never-knew’s voice did not fade, as she expected it to do, into thin air.
“And the star-crossed lovers clasped hands and stepped off the ledge, dropping into thin air,” Melody said, her eyes closed and a dreamy smile on her face.
Pat swallowed the first three things that came to mind, keeping her lips pressed together to fight back the smirk. “It’s great, but you can’t end it with a big ol’ cliche like that, unless you want the audience to throw shit at the screen.”
These entries are all phenomenal! Soooooooo glad I don’t have to choose this time – it’s unbelievably hard to pick a front runner from this crowd. I will try my best to write one in time for the contest deadline. You are all a bunch of creatoids!
Elaine, I need to proofread before I post. Here are corrections i hope you can substitute for my earlier entries. Thanks.
At 21,000 feet I was definitely into thin air. The biting, cold wind stealing my strength and coordination as I lunged for the ledge. My fingers grasped the edge, then slipped…
She left so quickly it was if she disappeared into thin air. The love of my life for the last nine years was gone. She left a hole in my heart so big the wind whistled through it.
Someone please turn off my brain. This is addictive. Here is another.
The taste was so fleeting it seemed to vanish into thin air. Gone! Ephemeral and delicious.
I love this one!
Hope evaporated into thin air. Black despair filled my soul. I awaited my fate.
He clicked into his snowboard, jumped down the shoot gaining speed. Within five seconds flat, at the elevation of ten thousand feet, he is propelled into thin air all the while his body twists and turns as if an eagle in flight and returns to the icy hill like a gymnastic landing on his feet. The crowd roars, he has won, he is off to the winter Olympics!
Will this work? This is the first time I’ve played this game. LOL!
ooh! i like this!
Please note: These three lines are not contest winners, but are from my contribution to “The Octopus Knows,” Part 15, to be posted later today: *Just a little cross-marketing…;D*
“Quick…where’s the gunbrella?” Ninja gasped.
“It’s supposed to be on the ledge, but I don’t see it now!” Simon yelled.
“Are you both insane – it didn’t just disappear into thin air!” Marguerite shrieked.
Okay, here’s a go. Probably more nonfiction than fiction!
You know those delightful right-out-of-the-oven warm, oatmeal with walnuts and chocolate chips cookies that my husband made when he was being sneaky-quiet in the kitchen when I was upstairs working on my blog, the cookies that were cooling on the wire rack that I try to avoid under penalty of extra pounds and higher blood sugar count, the ones that needed extra cold milk which I ran to the store to get? They vanished into thin air. And no one owns up.
Well, that one vanished into thin air before I finished! Oh well. Not everyone gets to avoid wire racks!
Thank you to everyone who entered and made June’s WikiRandom Writers Challenge such a … challenge! Forrest and I have matching headaches after our struggle to choose a winner from all the fabulous entries.
*We sincerely apologize but the mud wrestling event has been temporarily postponed due to an over-medicated frog*
Really? I won? What???? Thank you, Elaine! I can’t wait to host the next round!!!
Congrats, Laird! I won’t tell Forrest the part about it being true. He might never come out of that tree!
Have fun with July’s challenge and I look forward to reading all the amazing entries!
Awesome entries to choose from – and Laird’s a worthy winner. Sorry I completely forgot to enter this month… Had the prompt percolating through my mind during the week, but ultimately got distracted. Roll on July!
I know the distraction factor well. It’s many-tentacled – sort of like Ninja