Restless Dawn

So Jason Evans is holding another flash fiction contest. If his beautiful photograph pulls 250 words from you, you might want to head on over to his blog, and take part in the fun before 11:00 p.m., November 14th.

And if you're a shameless mercenary, then yes, there are prizes (of course, you now disgust me, and I will refer to you ever more as Blog Prize Whore). Amaz(on)-ing prizes, fine. But better still, you might win a copy of the photo itself.

I really do encourage everyone to check out Jason's blog, The Clarity of Night. It's a lovely, shady spot in an overheated blogosphere.

Here's my entry, titled Homecoming:

I was meant to fall in love that night.

Homecoming Dance was my shabby canvas, a Zuckerman twin my silkier muse. Chloe Z., who claimed to be a reincarnated goddess, rubbing henna onto her hands, her hair, her calico art. I condoned this crazy for lissome legs and musical ankles, which, granted, I’d only peeped through shredded stockings and the eyelets of combat boots. The skin underneath? As wanton as a waning moon, winking across the crowded night.

I gunned the Firebird down the country road, cursing myself for being late on such a night, for such a girl. Her corsage, a weak carnation, quivered on the passenger seat, along with empty bottles and a box of rubbers.

It was autumn. The leaves were a cheap confetti, tumbling through the air.

Rounding a curve, something darted across my path. I slammed on my brakes, tires skidding, until the hood smacked something (white) and shuddered into silence.

I stepped out of the car.

Afterward, I stepped back in.

Rumors followed that Chloe was pissed. I couldn’t care. High school was a fucking fairy tale by then, without the tra-la-la ending. I drove on, down other roads.

But sprawled under this calico sky, I remember another harvest dawn. And how I shivered atop the stiffening grass, dully absorbing that autumn is Nature’s last ejaculate, before the rigor mortis of winter, and spring’s rebirth.

I was meant to fall in love that night.

But for those tumbling, tumbling leaves.

Stained henna, stained with blood.