Hilobrow Contest

SHOCKING UPDATE: I DID NOT WIN THIS CONTEST.

Saw this today:

http://hilobrow.com/2010/01/26/hilo-micro-fiction-contest/

Wrote this in response:


In Europe, I toppled tanks and burned holes through reenlisted castles for this country. I was made to murder young men. Brave young men died screaming at me, a monster. They are no longer on this earth because I am.

This country turned me red. Radiation of some kind. There were 12 boys in an empty steel room before the flash. I thought I was reflecting the red hot walls. I left smoldering foot prints in ash as I was ushered out by billowy plastic men. They'd only asked for volunteers and I blindly gave myself to them. They never said why. They created this.

I became rumors and blurry photos. Then I was unlikely newspaper clippings. And, suddenly, I am a ticker tape parade, a brief moment where I am only real enough to call a hoax. Just a moment. And then the ticker tape landed on my shoulders and smoldered and curled behind me. I am pulling a trail of smoke through the downtown silence. I stood stunning the celebration of frightened onlookers. A grand celebration transformed into the serenity of a snow globe. I felt shame. It was my first moment. My first act upon this world. Shame had shaken you from me.

Power is living the way you choose. I gave it away willingly and then had it taken from me. Now I will take it back. I am sorry for what I must do. Prepare yourselves. I am no longer yours.

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Neat experiment - I've never written any scifi. Tried to write that as if it were a fifties type villain. Also - hard to write only 250 words, but useful. I write too many usually. I wrote that and then spent a few hours tinkering with word choices and trying to express as much as I could with as little as possible. Reads a little stunted. I don't think I'll win, but it was fun.