Reginald Marsh Short Story Challenge - My Entry

This is my entry in Patti Abbott's Short Story Challenge based on a painting by Reginald Marsh. Patti will be posting her own story and links to other entries by other bloggers on PATTINASE today. She will generously be donating five dollars for every entry, to the Union Settlement, a Social Services Agency in Harlem in need of funds.

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White Dress, Red Buttons.

“These heels are killing me. I feel like I’m standing on a slant.”

“You’ll get used to them. Stop fidgeting. Mind over matter.”

“I miss my boots and fatigues.”

“Boots and fatigues were not the norm for women in 1936.”

“How did they stand it?”

“Women of this era wanted to be stylish and appealing.”

“Stylish, hell. This is murder.”

“It’s the damned girdle I find bothersome.”

“Threw mine away. I thought the books said there was some big rubber shortage.”

“Not big enough, apparently."

“Well, it was take it off or stop breathing. I definitely need to lose five pounds.”

“I can stomach a little discomfort. It’s only for a few more minutes anyway.”

“Very funny. I hate all this standing around.”

“Don’t keep checking your watch, you’ll attract attention.”

“Oh crap, here come those two coppers who were giving us the eye.”

“German. Remember to speak German.”

“Stop hissing, I remember.”

“ Good evening, ladies. But not a good night for loitering. Be on your way now. No trouble.”

“We’re not loitering. We’re waiting for our boyfriends.”

“You’ve been standing here for a half hour. Maybe your boyfriends aren’t coming.”

“ Has it been that long? They must have been held up at work.”

“Don’t think much of a man who’ll keep his girlfriend waiting.  Maybe you’d like to come along with us. Kurt, do you think these young ladies would like to come along with us?”

“Yes, I do, it’s dark and the streets are always crowded with ruffians at this time of night.”

“We can take care of ourselves.”

“ Can you? Maybe we’ll just take a look at your papers. Kurt, do you think we should take a look at the ladies’ papers?”

“Yes, I do. One can’t be too careful these days.”

“What is that, a lipstick?”

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“Why did you do that?”

“I don't like being leered at, especially by an ape whose breath smells like sauerkraut."

“The stun flash is only for dire emergencies. Now what?”

“With all these people milling about no one will notice.”

“They’re police, Hal. They’re not moving. Somebody is bound to take notice.”

“Let’s walk over to the other side of the lobby. Casually. Act casually.”

“They’re falling over.”

“Pretend we don’t notice.”

“They’re drawing a crowd.”

“I hear an ambulance.”

“This is a very noisy city. I noticed that right away.”

“I can’t think how people stood it.”

“I’ve just had another thought. You think those cops are pick-ups?  Sent by Morley?”

“Doubtful. They didn’t identify themselves. Plus, the odor of sauerkraut. Too much verismillitude."

“What if…?”

“Stop worrying. I triple-checked our calculations down to the second."

“Do you think this clamor will stop him showing up tonight?”

“He’s eaten dinner here every night this week and according to the books, he’ll continue to do so for another three weeks.”

“That was before you froze two cops in mid-sentence.”

“I wish those ambulance attendants would get them out of here, they might start coming around.”

“It’s not easy to lift large frozen produce.”

“They’re leaving. Blend into the crowd. It's just another few minutes."

“They’re rounding some of them up for questioning, Leo, we can’t let that happen. At this rate we’re going to have all kinds of incidental damage.”

“Tomorrow night it will be something else. We can’t freeze them all. It’s only five minutes till zero hour.

“I wish you’d get over your use of quaint colloquialisms.”

“I pick them up from Morley.”

“Morley is a brilliant British eccentric. British eccentrics are allowed leeway.”

“What do you think he’ll do to us?”

“If we make it back? Sticky duty. Ten years in the outer districts. Snail smugglers.”

“I hate snail smugglers. The smell…!”

“Actually, I’m surprised we’ve been allowed to get this far. Somehow I expected Morley to come barreling through the portal with a couple of nets.”

“Do you think he suspected?”

“Probably. He's always on the look-out for travelers trying to fix things."

“Why didn’t he stop us?”

“Morley has his ways. We may have fallen in with his own plans.”

“I haven’t seen anyone we know - yet.”

“The shift override won’t fool him or the portal for long. But he'll still be 27 minutes behind us."

“I wonder if we'll be remembered for this.”

“They might never know any of it happened. We might not happen."

“We’ll be unsung heroes.”

“I’m not interested in being a hero. I’m interested in stopping a maniac."

“The crowd is clearing, here comes the car.”

“Get ready. Right on schedule. That’s the thing with these Nazi fellows, according to the research, they were always on time.”

Adolf Hitler stepped out of the automobile, brown-shirted bodyguards in place forming a phalanx. A woman was seen to pull a red button off her dress and fling it in their direction followed by a hellish, fiery explosion.

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Note: Painting by Reginald Marsh (1898 - 1954)

Okay, here's the problem...

I've written a short story for the Flash Challenge. Challenging myself, I suppose since we seem to have lost all the potential short story writers along the way. Well, except for Sue H. and Joyce. (Can't wait to see what they've come up with. And if you think I'm not intimidated, you'd be wrong.)

Okay, what's the problem? Here's the problem: I originally set the limit at 1500 words. But fellas' and gals I just can't do it. I couldn't come up with a solution to the mystery in less than...say, about 2500 words or so. I've tried and tried and tried again and I can't cut another word. I apologize in advance. Hey, it's my challenge, if I want to break the rules, I suppose I can. I was never in the competition anyway. It was hard enough just to think the thing up. Ha!

If any of you are writing anything (any size) for Monday's reveal, please, I beg you, use as many words as you you like. STOP COUNTING! All bets are off! Write the story as you NEED to write it. Tell it in the best way in the best length you can. Just so long as it's, basically, a 'short story.' The whole point of this thing is to SOLVE the initial mystery which, you can read about here.

If you CAN do it in 1500 words, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

...and A Friendly Reminder That the Short Story Challenge...uh, short stories, are due February 14th.

Link to the Short Story Challenge Details. There are several posts there one after the other, please read them so you'll get the whole flavor and idea of what inspired the challenge to begin with.

The pressure's on! Hey listen, do what you can. We're all friends here. If you only have half a story by the end date, submit that. At least you participated. The point is to get you writing. I'm still trying to get beyond the first paragraph concerning the emu. And I still have to design and execute the winning artwork for the badge. The winner will get a a scanned copy of the art to post on their blog or hang on their wall or whatever else they can think of to do with it. (If the winner is in this country, I may send the original art out as well. I'm thinking about it.)

Depending on how many of us contribute, we will vote on the story we each like best, tally those votes and I'll name the winner. Here's how we'll work the story posting thing since I didn't use the ubiquitous Mr. Linky - I read the instructions and couldn't figure out head nor tails, so no linky. Hopefully, there will be enough of us entered, to make voting viable. You will each send me your vote once you've read all the stories.

The Be-All and End-All:

February 14th or 15th, you each post your story on your blog, then email me that you've done so. I'll go check it out and pick up your link which I will then post on my blog. I would like all the stories posted no later than the 15th so I can round up all the links as you alert me to them and post them all together on my blog so we can each go back and forth to each other's stories. If that makes no sense to any of you, please let me know. Thanks. It's up to you if you want to post all the links, additionally, on your own blogs.

The reason for the 14th/15th variation is because of the different time zones.

Even if you didn't indicate you were participating from the beginning, you are still eligible to join in. It is NOT necessary to use up all the 1500 words as indicated in the rules - that's more of an outline than anything else. It'a all easy-peasy around here.

Short Story Challenge

My first design EVER on my computer. I can hardly believe it. Don't even ask me to repeat it, I just did it hit or miss. (With a hint from my daughter to use the 'paint' thingy.) Sometimes I amaze even myself. Okay, so it took me the better part of the day. For an old technophobe like me, it's a miracle. Ha! If you reduce it, it should fit somewhere on your sidebar or wherever. Link it back to this post and we should be all set.

Okay, so those of you (five so far, but who knows what the future holds?) who are joining the Short Story Challenge should be able to copy this badge to broadcast the fact to all and sundry. So far I don't think we need a Mr. Linky but if we should at some point need to utilize it, I'll figure out how to do it down the line.

Here's the basic Challenge:

Write a short story of 1500 words or less that solves or explains the Mystery of the Giovanni Boldini Painting discovered recently, after 70 Years in a dusty un-lived-in apartment in Paris. (Use any genre you like.) Make up your own title. Read the outline of the actual story here then fire up your imagination and write what you think might have happened. Change the names of the people involved, of course, we don't want any law suits.

Intrigue in Paris. It should be a lot of fun to write.

The deadline is February 14th. What happens then? We'll post the stories on our blogs, link them to each other, read them, talk about them and marvel at our ingenuity. We'll vote on the Best All-Around Story, Best Title and Best Solution. Not sure about any prizes yet, maybe just a Prize Badge for your blog. The satisfaction of a job well done. Plus, we'll all have another story to add to our writing portfolios. Input on this (or any part of the Challenge is welcomed.)

Well, Sue H over over at her blog, I Refuse to Go Quietly has come up with a winning idea for a prize. I'm going to design and illustrate an Award for the short story contest myself, something which the winner can keep on his or her blog for as long as they like. I'll do the artwork in the 'real' world, scan it and then we'll be good to go. I will, of course, exempt my own

story from the competition, though I will contribute one - I gotta' have some fun too, after all.

Sue's idea of a yearly challenge is also a good one, I think. This is the FIRST Challenge I've created so there might be bumps along the way, but in the end I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Any questions or suggestions, of course, feel free to email me.

If you enjoy writing AND a good puzzle, please join us. There's plenty of time to get creative between now and Feb. 14th. So far, there are five of us going forward, a few more wouldn't be amiss.

A Challenge To Our Imaginations

Remember that incredible news story I posted on my blog a few days ago about the recent discovery of an unknown Boldini painting (worth millions) - in an apartment in Paris that had sat uninhabited for 70 years? The rent paid every month? Read it again, here. I am still very struck by this story. Aren't you? I mentioned at the time that someone should write a novel or screenplay or whatever about this VERY mysterious occurrence. I still think it. Wouldn't it be fun (at least for those of us who enjoy writing) to weave a tale about that apartment and that painting?

So how about it? I was thinking about a contest, but then I realized that it would entail more work than I can do at this time, also if I ran the contest I couldn't enter my own solution. And that would never do.

Well then, how about a Challenge? A fan-fiction Challenge. I know there are many actual and would-be short story writers out there and I can't imagine that if you read about the Paris apartment, you didn't immediately start thinking - what happened here? There's definitely a story waiting to be told.

I've never created a Challenge before - so I'm treading carefully. How's this sound? Any one of us who feels like writing a short story (1500 words, no more.) can do so - we'll set a time limit, say by February 14th Valentines Day - it is a romantic story after all, not that your story HAS to feature an actual romance.(I know, I know, it's the Holidays and who has time to write? Well, this gives you January and part of Feb.) When the stories are done, we'll post our individual stories on our blogs, then link them to each other. We can even vote on which was the best story, the best solution, even the best title. Then what? I'm stuck on that part of the deal.

Don't really want to get into the whole thing of giving prizes, this Challenge is all about fun and creativity. But fellow blogger and writer, Sue H came up with a great idea: the 'prize' can be something cool to post on your blog's sidebar. I'll design and illustrate an actual prize badge, scan it, and the 'winner' can place it on his or her blog for as long as they like. How's that? Sue even suggested we make this a yearly thing, with a different theme each year. I kind of like the idea. So I'm thinking it over.

I just thought it might be fun, not to mention, intriguing, to have several brains focused on what is, admittedly, a very mysterious incident and see what each of us makes of it. At the end of the day, we'll each have written a good story to add to our writing portfolios.

If any of you are interested in this idea, please post your comments, yay or nay, and we can take it from there. If you think I'm merely spinning my wheels or off my nut, you're welcome to say that as well - but nicely.

Note: I believe the photo at the top of this post is one of the actual apartment. Is that a stuffed emu or an ostrich? Are you kidding me? This place is a treasure trove for the imagination. There are definitely stories here just waiting (for 70 years), begging, to be told.

Amazing Art Mystery

The word 'amazing' really does fit this story - it is no hyperbole. An apartment in Paris left untouched and unlived in for 70 years - the rent paid every month. When the apartment was finally entered, treasure was discovered amid layers of dust. Among other things, a painting that sold at auction for over 2 million euros. Surely there's a novel here somewhere. At the very least a mystery. A movie? Read about the discovery here.

What do you suppose could have kept the original owner of the apartment away for 70 years? Why was the painting, attributed to Giovanni Boldini, kept entombed in dust for that length of time?