Old Made
by RKT

Comment:
My only 9. You tricked me about the overlay! (or lack thereof).

Truly, you were mightily robbed here.

I'm also almost shocked that this didn't get a Posthumous ribbon, considering his glowing comment. lol.

*edit* Also, for the record, I didn't submit a DQ request, AND I didn't see any kind of validation stamp of any kind when I commented.

Message edited by author 2009-03-16 01:38:42.

Leaving home with Mr. Bear II
by Dirt_Diver

Comment:
What the limits of the human spirit are, and what it can endure before breaking utterly, few can guess or know. For everyone it may be a little different. A little less, a little more.

On one life-changing day in mid-July, little Kevin was to discover that sometimes the limits of the human spirit were practically endless. For on that day, a disaster struck the world, destroying much of the human population over-night. Kevin's parents were an unlucky statistic, succumbing to this tragedy in the wee hours of the morning.

However, despite all the ills and tragedies that could have fallen upon himself, when he found himself alone, he discovered something deep inside his young and fragile self. Something that took over, that persevered. Little Kevin survived.

So it was, in the days to come, that Kevin took up his favorite toy that had become a talisman to him, and started on the road, and there he was found some days later by a roving band of survivors and was adopted as one of their own.

In the years to follow, he would grow into a great and beloved leader of men, and his legend was born.

On Top of the World
by CorySmith

Comment:
Of all the nightmares and disasters and cataclysms and extinction level events that all of humanity could have devised in all of their many years on the earth, none of them, not one, could have prepared them for the true end, when it came.

For out of the deepest, darkest depths of the universe it came. It came without warning, and when it did, it spelled the end of us all.

Yet how could we have envisioned such an end? How could we have foreseen that when the human race was extinguished, it would be extinguished by the cutest damn giant duckling that ever was?

The Opportunist
by goc

Comment:
Little Jimmy was the eldest of his siblings, and as such found himself in the position of caring for them now and then. He would help feed them if his mother was too busy fighting a flock of crows. He would admonish them if they got into too much mischief. He would teach them all that he knew, and he would do everything that a bigger brother could, for he took his responsibility seriously.

Indeed, so it was that on cold dark nights when their mother was late coming home from hunting, he would even tuck them in, kiss them goodnight, and then begin a heartfelt singing of their favorite lullabye.

Autumn Lake
by Penny Lane

Comment:
As it floated there, in that time and space unmoving, it lamented its place in life, and pondered the inevitability of death.

It floated along, as if on glass, so slowly that not even the most observant creature of the woods would mark its passing, but as surely as the tide wears down the cliff-side, it moved.

It remembered its time among its brethren, there on the tree of its birth. It remembered the winds and the rains. It remembered the laughter when they all were green. It remembered the joy when they had all began to shift in color and wore their new coats proudly. It remembered the sorrows of watching as one by one his friends and companions all let go of their perch in the cooler days, and drifted off to the ground, towards a fate none knew.

Then his own day had come, and a breeze had caught him, and had taken him far from that place, so he was denied a reunion on the forest floor. Denied and sent to float on this accursed and silent water.

He missed them all so dearly. He wished he had never began as bud, for what was the joy of life if it was ripped so unceremoniously from you? Such were his thoughts as he continued his agonizingly slow journey towards whatever end fate had wrote him.

So it was that his journey came to an end one day, and he bumped against a distant shore, and was suddenly scooped from the water with a cry of joy from a human child. Thus it was that he found himself borne from that place to another, while being gently placed among pages of wax and paper along the way. He found himself suddenly thin, and shapely and feeling vigorous as of old, and when they reached their destination he was incorporated, with others, into a grand montage, and hung high on a wall for all to see.

And so from out of despair came a renewed sense of being, and hope, and joy, and he learned in that time that perhaps not all fates had to end in sorrow.

Gasoline
by Gunnsi

Comment:
... and it suddenly became clear to the Mayor of that small burg that perhaps it was no longer sufficient to have a Volunteer Bucket Squad.

He sighed. So much for his Morning Donut budget.

Flight without wings
by C-Fox

Comment:
He sat on the branches opposite. For all his life he had been scared. Scared to do anything. He had been the last to learn to climb. The last to leave his mother's side. The last to hunt on his own (something he still had much trouble doing, and usually tricked others into doing it for him).

But now he was trapped. There was fire consuming the forest around him, and his only hope was to leap to the trees on the other side of the river. It was a mighty jump. A heroic leap. Everyone else had tried and made it, but now here he was, in the last tree, with flames threatening all around.

All his life he had been scared, and he was terrified now. They called to him, but he cowered. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't. He would burn here and it would be a fitting end for his fears and cowardice.

Then, crashing down right beside him came a burning log, and it made such a noise, and sheered the branch beside him clean off.

He panicked.


He jumped.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner…
by Imagineer

Comment:
She collapsed upon the sodden sand, tears streaming from her eyes, sobs breaking from her throat, her body going limp, giving up, and sorrow owned her.

She had left the house, running for her life, for her sanity, and had not given thought to where she was going. She ran blindly, wildly, and had somehow ended up here, on this lonely stretch of sand so far from where she had started.

Her sobs continued, as she hung her head and lamented her life, when suddenly she noticed a movement from the corner of her eye, and quickly looked up, suddenly ashamed to be caught there like this by some stranger, and then gasped.

For there, rising out of the water, came the figure of an elderly man. She blinked tears away and swiped at her eyes, believing herself to be having some kind of hallucination, but no. He remained, and now he was standing on the water, and was walking her way.

She remained there on her knees, and gaped at this insanity. How? How was there an old man coming towards her after... he did not just rise from the water did he!? That was impossible! Yet he had, she knew he had. She didn't know why, but she knew that it hadn't been some hallucination of a crazy crying woman, it was real.

So she kneeled, and watched him come strolling towards her, leaning on some kind of walking stick, and a great big smile plastered on her face, and he came, and as he did it seemed that her cares and her worries and her fears were simply swept away. His smile became infectious, and she returned it in kind. As he reached her, his eyes shining with an unnatural kindness and empathy, he lowered his hand, and cupped her chin and lifted her face so that she looked right into his eyes with her own.

Then, he nodded his head, and blinked, and laughed a small twinkling laugh that seemed to drift away on the breeze and then he was gone. Just like that, without a sound or any measure of his passing he was gone. Yet left behind, a feeling that penetrated her very soul, and left her feeling happier and more joyous and calm than she had ever felt in her life.

And so she stood and walked off into the day, whistling a little tune and basking in the wonder of the miracle on the beach.

15/15
by wei1108

Comment:
It was the greatest new sport on the planet, and everyone came to see. For genetic research had led to the creation of a new breed of man. A breed that gave the illusion that they were moving faster than the eye can see, and the world was enraptured by them.

They had created the BlurMan, and sport would never be the same.

nature's jewels
by tate

Comment:
She had worked so hard, and had finally gotten everything arranged just so. It was to be her finest moment. Her grandest accomplishment. She just knew, she had that magic feeling, that everything was going to go her way this year.

For days she had slaved, getting every droplet just right. Just so. For days she had carried each and every drop of water for yards and yards across the open grass, from the puddle down the way, and had placed them ever so carefully, not even nudging her web in the slightest.

Now, it was done, and the Arachnid Days Fair was mere hours away, and nobody had a better display than her! Nobody!

Then, she heard it, and a sick feeling grew in the depths of her stomach, for she knew that sound. A buzzing. Faint at first, but growing louder by the moment. A buzzing, and a whisp of wind announcing its presence. No! Not now! Not...

... before she could react, it slammed into her web. Into her masterpiece. Into all her hard work. It hit that web and the droplets scattered in a rain of liquid and destruction, and she screamed.

It was all in ruins, and as the judge of the web-decorating event passed by, he merely shook his head and wrote one single line on his form, a line that said:

Fly caught in web. Cliche. Uninteresting.

And she sobbed.