Here are the finalists for September's Strong Scene Contest. Please vote to the right for your favorite Scene. The winner will receive a $25.00 Amazon Gift Card. Congrats to all the finalists.
A- Ross Cavins
Bobby counted off a hundred, then four more hundred, and made a show out of sliding the chips into the pot. One of two things would happen now. Either it would spook Blue or embolden the man to dig in.
The two players stared at each other, reading faces, trying to pick up the slightest hint what was going on in each of their minds.
"Well?" Bobby said, looking Blue hard in the eyes. He kept his face blank, raising his left eyebrow a hair, daring Blue to do something, playing to the man's ego. "Shit or get off the pot." It was his best poker joke.
Blue counted out four hundred and pushed it in the middle, then shoved in another four hundred right behind it, staring at Bobby the whole time. "Four more to you," Blue said.
Bobby pursed his lips together, narrowed his eyes, and bent the edge of his cards up so he could see them again, pretending he was considering what to do next. It was all part of the game. He slid a thousand in chips out, saying, "I'll raise."
Blue's mustache twitched and he gave Bobby the hardest look of the night. It was coming. Bobby could sense it; he could feel it on his head, like peppermint ants were having a family picnic up there, all of them scurrying around to make sure everybody got some food.
"What you got over there?" Blue said.
"It'll cost you to see."
B- Robb Grindstaff
Getting through security took longer than Glenda expected. Sure, lots of former blonde beauty queens pushing two infants were terrorists. The carry-on, the briefcase, and diaper bag. Double-wide stroller which security scanned and patted down for hidden compartments. The screening by the TSA lady behind the curtain.
“What’s this?” TSA lady lifted a small, hand-held device with a suction cup on one end.
“It’s my breast pump.”
TSA lady crinkled her nose and put it back.
“These liquids are more than three ounces.”
“They’re milk for the babies. The sign says I can bring more than three ounces of milk for the babies.”
“Ma’am, the sign also says the milk has to be in the original containers.”
The stress of the past two days, getting the babies and her packed for an overseas flight, traffic snarls on the way to the airport, and now this. The stupidest woman on the planet delaying her further while her flight called for boarding.
Glenda began unbuttoning her blouse.
“What’re you doing, ma’am?”
“Showing you the original containers.” With a flourish, Glenda ripped the blouse open, letting the last two buttons fly, and dropped the flaps in the front of the nursing bra.
C- Suzanne Senden
Clara stood in the desolate field as the chilly December wind whipped about her. The fields were barren now. Broken corn stalks, once so full of potential lay scattered the wind tossing them about as it played in the ruins of the harvest.
She felt that the land was a metaphor for her life.
She sighed, her frosty breath enveloping her for a moment before it faded.
A light snow began to fall.
She loved the smell of snow, a cold dryness that tickled her nose. Usually the frigid fragrances of winter wafted on the wind long before the snow began to fall. She looked up as the flakes fell from a flat, leaden sky. She had heard someone call it Winter’s Communion if you put your tongue out to catch the flakes.
She could hear the chunky flakes as they plashed into the earth, landed on her shoulders and nestled into the hair.
Snow began to accumulate in the rutted furrows, transforming the land covering the broken stalks, making them over into something fairy tale wondrous. Soon the bleak land would be covered in a beautiful mantle of white, transforming everything.
If only her life could transform as easily.
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