Winners

First Place Winner:       Judy Hauser

                                       Olympia, WA

Second Place Winner:   David Goguen

                                        San Francisco, CA

Third Place Winner:      Emily Rontondi

                                        Stoneham, MA

Winning Entries:

First Place Entry:

The Red Boot

After this, nothing would ever be the same.  The red boot changed everything.

Around lunchtime, the Wynoochee bloated up and spilled over its banks, belching up silt and spitting out scraps like chicken bones.

The early thaw and a thug of a rainstorm turned the river’s current into a torrential broom, sweeping along twigs, trash and odds and ends of nearby farms.  The turquoise hood of a Chevrolet and Toby Preen’s missing toilet seat joined the parade of potpourri.

Leading the procession was the end of a mystery.  One red boot, braided into the river’s current, bobbed, twisted and weaved around the flotilla of riffraff.

My brother was the first to spot it, and he hurried us along the spongy bank to get a better look at his best friend’s boot and to attempt a rescue from its looming plunge over the waterfall a half-mile downstream.

Finding the boot changed everything.  Shrinking strands of hope spun a sobering knot of reality.  Ricky Tate hadn’t run away.  If he had, the river had his boot.

Search dogs, misdirected to the highway above by the scouring downpour, were given “atta boys” and sent home.  Volunteers, numbed and wet, sat along the east bank while divers were brought in.  Pacing loved ones knitted together like a spindly ball of yarn.

Ricky Tate’s boot could not be saved.   The tangle of twigs, the turquoise hood and Toby Preen’s toilet seat embraced the boot as one of their own, and like a caravan of Gypsies, skipped over the falls.

Second Place Entry:

Last Summer

     After this, nothing would ever be the same. Even as the boy bowed his head, contemplating puddles on the redwood deck and ignoring his family’s chlorine-soaked shouts, he stole squinting glances at the bedroom window of his grandfather’s house.

     The boy and his grandfather were identical dots skirting each end of an 80-year timeline, frustratingly dependent on the same people. Now their faces bunched into the same dramatic topography. The boy scowled because now the pool meant only pink skin that would peel before his new teacher mastered the pronunciation of his last name, while in his room the grandfather frowned in distress at the new effort necessary to call up vague rumors of what were once easy facts. He turned over last fall’s school photo to relearn the boy’s first name.

     Tomorrow morning will bring the boy’s last treading on the night-cooled hardwood floor, another country from the wall-to-wall carpeting of home. And on the indifferent driveway the grandfather will palm the child’s head affectionately before releasing him to a seven-hour sentence in the back seat, to clusters of gas stations on I-95 marking the progress of summer’s emptying. But tonight, the ice in his grandfather’s highball glass will give him up like a cowbell in the hallway, and the warbled melody of the ice cream truck will prompt a last ritual race outside: the boy listening behind him for the slower hiss and delayed clap of the screen door as his grandfather calls his name and catches up.

Third Place Entry:

Epiphany

     After this, nothing would ever be the same.  She looked down at the old man, withered and suffering. She could still sense an air of conviction about him, although his eyes were closed.  The look absolved her and she knew she would be able to carry out the task.
    The monitor beeped steadily in the corner.  Life still coursed through the old man’s body but she had been doing this job for too many years.  She knew better.  The body had a way of letting you know when it was too worn down and eternal sleep seems like a more attractive option than having to muster up your energy just to keep your heart pumping.
    She leaned over and softly kissed the old man’s head. His eyes did not flutter which told her the medication was doing its job.  She took comfort in knowing that he was not in pain now.  It had become an all too familiar companion during his days spent in this bed.   There had been nights when her call button had been sounded and she would run to this room to find the old man crying silently.  These were the moments when it was at its worst, like a lion challenging its prey.  Most days he quietly endured. His was a silent, selfless dignity.
    The monitor continued to beep as a green, jagged line continued to pulse across the screen.  She looked at it for a minute and wondered, although he had asked her to, if this act would make her a murderer.