One of the things that we love most about editing Trifecta is the variety of responses we get to our prompts. This week's word decay again showed us how versatile our contributors are and as always, choosing our top three was no easy task.
First place this week goes to Aidan Donnelley Rowley, over at Ivy League Insecurities. Her story His Secret tells of a man who 'waited and watched for things to decay'. It's dark and it's bleak, but it's powerfully and beautifully written.
Third place goes to Trudging Through Fog. The note at the end of Christine's entry states that she struggled a bit with her piece, but that it eventually 'grew into something she liked'. It certainly grew into something we liked and she hints that it may be an excerpt from a larger story yet to be written. We hope she writes it and when you click over and read, I think you will too
This weekend's prompt is a return to the 33-word formula. One of the earliest Trifextra challenges asked you to complete a story of which the opening five words had been given. And that's exactly what we want you to do again this weekend.
Complete the following story in 33 words:
'It wasn't the first time.'
(The five words are not to be included in your 33 words)
First place this week goes to Aidan Donnelley Rowley, over at Ivy League Insecurities. Her story His Secret tells of a man who 'waited and watched for things to decay'. It's dark and it's bleak, but it's powerfully and beautifully written.
The man. He stood there. On the street corner. Waiting for the light to change. The sky spat. The others fumbled for umbrellas. But he just stood there, getting wet. And when the light changed to green, he walked.
As he walked, he realized something. That he was different. That he was interested in things that scared the others. He found beauty in destruction. The others reveled in achievement and arrival, the coming together of things, but he celebrated the fraying of edges, the rotting of cores, the bugs attacking a greasy bun left to shrivel on pee-soaked pavement.
He saw an image of cancer cells once. They were lit up on a slide, neon in their pernicious power, forming ominous shapes and squiggles. A metastasis, the man in the white coat said. And it was a bad word, an ugly word, a word he should have despised. But to him, it had a secret cadence, an unexpected appeal.
He would never tell the others. That he revered the ruin of people, the rubble of what was, that he delighted in the bruising of skin, the undoing of things once done. That he found integrity banal, sturdiness a chimera, certainty a farce. That he roamed around in the rain waiting for days to decay, for things to fall apart.
In second place is De Jackson's poem Dancing in the Rubble. Her opening stanza immediately draws the reader in and the rest of the poem is crammed with beautiful imagery. Often, we highlight a favorite line from our chosen pieces, but nearly every line here was a favorite.
Third place goes to Trudging Through Fog. The note at the end of Christine's entry states that she struggled a bit with her piece, but that it eventually 'grew into something she liked'. It certainly grew into something we liked and she hints that it may be an excerpt from a larger story yet to be written. We hope she writes it and when you click over and read, I think you will too
This weekend's prompt is a return to the 33-word formula. One of the earliest Trifextra challenges asked you to complete a story of which the opening five words had been given. And that's exactly what we want you to do again this weekend.
Complete the following story in 33 words:
'It wasn't the first time.'
(The five words are not to be included in your 33 words)
