Today we get to ogle – (yes, ogle!) – another winning tale from the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK 2024 Short Story Competition. Enjoy this one from third-place getter, UK writer Sue Barnard –

Dylan’s face had turned a pale shade of old sock. It was faded, threadbare and discolored by years on end of being laundered to within an inch of its life. He stared at the card in his hand as he wandered through to the kitchen, where his wife was making coffee.

“What do you make of this?” Sarah peered at the invitation and her jaw dropped.  “What?  Who in their right mind invites a vicar to a Clown Workshop?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Sarah shook her head as she handed him a steaming mug, then her face creased into a smile.  “But why not give it a go?”

“What?  You must be joking!” “No more than whoever it was who sent you that invitation.  Maybe someone thinks you need a bit of fun in your life. Who knows – you might even enjoy it!”

“But—” “No buts!” She squeezed his hand.  “Just go for it, darling.  It’s only for one day.  And you’re only middle-aged once!”

Dylan felt decidedly middle-aged when he arrived at the workshop.  To his horror, most of the other clowns appeared to be far more skilled than he could ever hope to be.  

With hindsight, he realized it would have been more sensible to try his hand at preliminary juggling in the garden rather than the lounge.  He made a mental note to buy a replacement for Sarah’s favourite vase.

He peered around the room.  What on earth, he wondered, can I ever hope to learn from this?  He was on the point of turning round and heading for the exit, then he thought of Sarah’s words.  Yes, she was right – perhaps he did need a bit of fun in his life.  

A young man smiled at him as he took a cautious step forward.  “First time?”  Dylan nodded.  “To be honest I haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to be doing.” “Don’t worry.  We all have to start somewhere.  You should have seen me on my first day.  But you’ll be amazed what you can do by the end…”  

The following Sunday, Dylan paused at the foot of the pulpit steps and turned to face the congregation. “Sometimes,” he began, in a serious voice, “life sends you an unexpected challenge.” Instead of climbing into the pulpit, he reached behind it and pulled out a unicycle.

“One thing I learned during the course of this challenge is the need to have a sense of humour.  A sense of humour is a sense of balance.  So, let’s see if I have a sense of balance and you have a sense of humour.”  He grinned, mounted the unicycle with the ease of a seasoned performer, and rode backwards and forwards along the aisle.  

The congregation roared with laughter.  As Sarah watched from her customary seat in the front pew, it suddenly dawned on her that Dylan might one day figure out exactly who had organised that invitation.  

Her face turned a pale shade of old sock… 

Before we depart the question of balance altogether, there’s this…

My brief – what you might term ‘short stretch’ (sorry!) – and ungainly foray into the alternate universe that is yoga classes looked for much of the time not dissimilar to this – only I’m pretty sure I would have been wearing a t-shirt and the person to my immediate left would usually not have been stripped down to their underwear.

Ready for your HAPPY DAYS hit? Then you’d better go ahead and click HERE.

Last week super-chameleon man-hero Dylan underwent the surgeon’s knife and came out all… Rusty.

This week, in equal second-place getter’s Tycho Dwelis’s bullet-riddled saloon saga, Dylan trespasses onto a scene visited by none-other than the Angel of Death himself. He’ll forever wish he hadn’t.

Enjoy Steady yourself for…

Dylan’s face had turned a pale shade of old sock. His hand lingered on the saloon door and the whole building creaked as he stared into what he had hoped to be abandoned space. A dry wind was blowing dust down the road and past his feet. Shelter was shelter, but what his eyes beheld had turned his stomach to rot. All color drained from his face as he realized why the place had been deserted. 

A man, who some time ago, had been shot straight through the forehead, slumped over the counter, whisky bottle still in hand. But he wasn’t the only one. The saloon, from the door to the stairs, from wall to wall, may as well have been a sea of corpses. Bodies piled together in such a dense mound that Dylan couldn’t even see the floor. 

“I reckon I should’ve camped by the creek,” he muttered to himself. No job in Corpus Christi, no matter how good, was worth this. 

Dust-covered planks creaked beneath his boots as he crept into the saloon, tiptoeing between bodies to get to the bar. A worm of thought wriggled into his head. He couldn’t get rid of it. He needed to know what had happened before settling down in an unfamiliar place. For a brief moment, he imagined what it must have been like when the town pulsed with life.

Now, it stood as a sepulcher for memories etched into its wooden bones and blood that had long since soaked into the floor. Some of the dead had fallen in this room, gunshot wounds in their chests, but others had been dragged from elsewhere for some unholy reason. 

The door swung open on its own and banged against the wall. Dylan’s hand instinctively twitched for his six-shooter but froze as he found himself alone. The smell of decay choked up his throat. Despite his unease, he approached the poker table anyway.

The players had stopped mid-game, the cards in their rotting hands a snapshot of the moment when death had claimed them. One hand was a royal flush. Dylan’s fingertips hesitated over a stack of chips. It was then that he spotted a dusty gold bar under the table. 

He suddenly understood. Weeks ago, a poker game had begun. A high roller entered the saloon and waged a bar of gold that now lay unclaimed. The tension escalated, palpable and electric, and then… the stakes were higher than any amount of gold. Someone snapped. A stolen glance. The flicker of a hidden ace. 

A massacre.  

Dylan’s eyes scanned the saloon. The bullet-riddled walls spoke volumes about the sheer number of shots that had been fired, each hole telling the story of a life cut short. And still… his eyes fell onto the gold bar on the floor. The thing that had caused so much death had been left behind. 

Dylan turned to leave, spurs clinking. Some things were better left with the dead.

Next week, it’s wobbly unicycles all ’round as we discover the charm and effervescence of 3rd-place getter Sue Barnard’s –

Click HERE for your HAPPY DAYS hit.

U.S author Dianna Webb penned an edgy hot-ticket of a story – complete with a side-order of Hollywood glam – to take out equal second place in SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK’S short story competition.  

Here’s her story…

Dylan’s face had turned a pale shade of old sock. Packed in the very ice in which he died, he lay beneath my scalpel on the edge of nothingness…or perhaps eternity.

I watched my surgical team blowtorch the solid frost and cut away layers of shredded Moncler ski gear. Audible gasps orbited the operating room as the horrifying wreckage of his famously perfect body was revealed.

Dylan’s reckless stunt jump down a mountain at 60 m.p.h. ended in a canyon, his torso impaled upon a jagged stone with one saving grace – the custom-designed helmet kept his glorious visage eerily intact. His pacific blue eyes stared back at us as we gawked in awe.

He was the gold standard, sporting a heroic jaw and a tousled gilded lock over his mischievous brow. His sensual mouth proved just full enough to play the lover, the Greek God, the endearing outlaw.

Dylan’s iconic cockiness and tragic self-depreciation enthralled millions of fans over three decades. He had dodged bullets, survived shipwrecks, nuked Nazis, rallied an asylum, and aged backwards! 

Denied the luxury of onscreen death in 100 movies, The Studio weighed the risks. Unfortunately, Dylan’s contract forbade use of AI. His departure left five massive films in varying stages of production with millions on the line. His career had to continue.

Rusty Reid, Dylan’s longtime body double, had no clue he would now be playing his hero for the rest of his life. My scalpel balked at this daunting task. Why had I agreed to such an extremely risky procedure? Money. This endeavor would net a private island level payday, life-altering compensation no honest surgeon could accrue in a lifetime.

I’d subtly tucked Dylan’s fabulous face for over a decade. The Studio loved my work and today they definitely wanted me to get to it. A rap on glass from the observation balcony of the operating theater broke my guilty trance. I glanced up at the sinister ‘fixers’ hovering over their iPhones. I felt a distinctly threatening chill. 

I gave the nod.

Poor Rusty made his drugged entrance on a table pushed parallel to Dylan’s. Like sous-chefs, a second surgical team replicated my incisions of Dylan with precision on Rusty, gently detaching his face, delicately laying it on a sterile plate.

I lifted Dylan’s face from its corners. As if a rubber mask, I securely fit it on Rusty. After patting it down, I secured veins and nerves with wisps of a high-tech laser. The other general surgeons positioned the perimeter and ears. An ocular surgeon stepped in to finish the job. Lastly, ice packs were applied.

Under Rusty’s face, Dylan’s luminous pacific blue peepers, angelic and seductive, were forever lost. Dylan was now in the netherworld, void of his glorious past as a beautiful swaggering young actor of effortless charm, inexplicable luck, outsized worship, and dumbfounding wealth.

The God complex is a curse with room for only one Supreme Being. Imposters pay the ultimate price.

Next week…the bodies start stacking up higher than a New England leaf pile in equal-second place getter Tycho Dwelis’s tow-cable taut Western thriller –

If it’s HAPPY DAYS you’re wanting, then go click HERE

Ha-ha-ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages…

It is my proudest, most triumphant and blissful pleasure to deliver to you today the names of the winners of the 2024 SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK Short Story Competition. Can I please get a whoo-hoo!

Thank you to everyone who entered. You waggish word-warriors channeled your sentence sparkle and tier-one adjectives in unique and highly entertaining ways. Storytelling sugar-highs were aplenty.

But there can be only one… er, make that… three, winners. Please join me now in welcoming them to the stage –

And why exactly are those by-now crispy rock dinosaurs KISS introducing Anne Wilkin’s winning short story?

When you lose yourself in this simply-told and simply brilliant 500-worder, you will, I promise, understand why.

Enjoy the charm. Enjoy the quirk. Enjoy the ‘limited edition’ ending. Enjoy –

Dylan’s face had turned a pale shade of old sock. He’d expected maybe acne wash, undies, or aftershave. But what he got was Maree 5.0. 

“Happy birthday pet! She cost a bit, but I thought you could do with some help,” said his Mum. “With what?”  “You know, the kissing.”

His brother and father contorted themselves laughing.  “Come on, we’ve all seen you practising in the crook of your elbow, with an apple, in the mirror, on–” “I wasn’t!”  “Whatever. The point is, Maree can help. She’ll teach you, give you confidence, improve your game.” “MUM!” 

Dylan stormed off to his room, with the head of Maree under his arm. He was not and never would be using Maree 5.0. Two hours later (just because he was bored) he had programmed Maree to speak English with a French accent, plumped up her lips to mega volume, turned them a lovely shade of pink, and made her eyes blue. 

“Vould you like to kiss me, monsieur?” she asked. “I vould like to kiss you, vewee much.”  Oh, what the Hell, Dylan thought. He leaned in and gave her a peck. Surprisingly, her lips felt very soft, but perhaps a little too big. He’d adjust that later.  

“Oh, nice monsieur. But can I suggest you brush your teeth, and we try again. My mouth sensors detect a halitosis rating of 5.0.” Christ, thought Dylan. Is my breath really that bad? After a thorough tooth brushing he tried again, but Maree advised him his lips were too dry. He tried again with ChapStick. Maree told him he was too quick. He took his time and went in for a longer smooch. 

“Nice work, monsieur. That kiss has a rating of 2.0. To improve your rating I suggest…”  Maree rattled off several helpful tips. And he tried again, and again, and again. After an hour, his kiss rating had risen to 5.0, but Maree told him there was still plenty of room for improvement. 

 “Having fun, sweetheart?” called out his Mum from behind the door. “No!” he yelled. Although, he kinda was.   After one week, Dylan had learned to kiss like a pro. He could kiss romantically with Maree’s face cupped in his hands. He could kiss passionately, with his lips travelling to the nape of her neck, and he could French kiss, his tongue an urgent probe of desire. After a particularly intoxicating kissing session in the afternoon, Dylan earned his first 9.0.

“I think… I love you,” he whispered into Maree’s ear. And then she died. “Maree!” He turned her on and off again, but there was no flicker of life. He scoured the instruction manual but found nothing. There was one last thing.

One last kiss to give – mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He tilted her head back, pinched her nostrils and exhaled. The kiss of life. Maree’s blue eyes flashed instantly.  “10.0,” she said, as her systems rebooted.

Next week, our equal second-place getter Diana Webb hits us right between the eyes with a gulp-worthy story a ‘cut-above-the-rest’.

Like LESSONS IN LOVE 1.0, by pure coincidence, this piece of story-telling brilliance happens also to feature a pair of pacific-blue eyes. You won’t want to miss –

Before we leave the land of robot love and automated kisses altogether, for the theater-buffs amongst us (SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK took in a performance of GASLIGHT last week that went off royally… not to mention creepily!) there’s this…

If you’re looking for your HAPPY DAYS hit, it’s right HERE

The winners of the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK Short Story Competition will be announced soon.

That’s soon as in VERY soon.