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Photo: Todd Louiso, John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity.

The Sudden Death Read-Off is as cruel as T.S. Eliot’s April. The second the Yucch-meter reads a badly-written sentence or steps into a plot gap, the contestant is Out.

#1 eyeonthesparrow did not survive the first sentence, a feat considering that the first five words were prescribed. Wordy and pretentious.

#2 The Rei lost us at the first sentence, also a feat. Awkward construction.

#3 Hibernates lost us at “He greeted me and said they had a last minute agreement to have a reunion.” Who are they and why have they decided to have a class reunion at that very minute? We can extrapolate who and what the writer means but it is too tedious.

#4 Pokemon lost us at “B is currently committed with D.” From the choice of preposition it would appear that they are sharing a room at a psychiatric hospital.

#5 pulsar lost us at “a whack in pure ill-tempered form.” Corny.

#6 herpderp lost us at “I look beyond my face and I see the sunset, dirty, peaceful, slow and obscure.” Four adjectives in a row that do not improve our understanding of “sunset”.

#7 hulyongmanunulat lost us at the first sentence (Is this some kind of record for LitWits?): “April is the cruellest month… yeah, as I looked up on the calendar hanged on my cabinet and thought silently.” We envision a calendar with a noose round its nonexistent neck. In our limited experience people think silently, which is why it is remarked upon when they think out loud.

#8 roseriver. We read the entire thread out of a horrible fascination with other people’s murky lives, but the required first sentence is too obviously tacked-on.

#9 theOrbiter. Finally, an entry to read to the end. It is the definition of that great Tagalog word, “masalimuot”. We appreciate the writer’s use of Imelda Papin song structure, viz. “Lunes, Nang tayo’y magkakilala/ Martes, Nang tayo’y muling nagkita/ Miyerkules, Nagtapat ka ng yong pag-ibig. . .”

#12 wachs lost us at “He just lost one patient due to a car accident but it appears he is cool with it.” Sounds like the patient fled the operating room and ran into a car but otherwise he’s fine with being dead.

#13 angus25 lost us at “The smoke rising from the ash tray spiraled ghostly; the bluish smoke from the pair of cigarettes languidly rose in a mating ritual, moving their torsos and limbs seductively at the slightest quiver of the calm air before finally submitting to each other’s arms and vanishing at the same time.” We had to run to a mirror to see if our hair had gotten permed (nakulot) without our knowing.

#15 kindler. Ah, a lyrical prose poem thingy. We’re not in the mood.

#17 marionette. Oy, family tragedy. The plot justifies occasional heavy-handedness.

#18 cochise_miz. The Yucch-meter senses a recent viewing of High Fidelity directed by Stephen Frears, starring John Cusack, Iben Hjele and Jack Black. We approve of author’s taste in movies.

#19 Cacs. The Yucch-meter likes connecting cruel April to tax month but using a historical atrocity to lend weight to a flimsy story is cheap and facile.

The winner of LitWit Challenge 5.4: April is the cruellest month is. . .

cochise_miz, for the only entry in this contest (that we read to the end) that ends on a cheery note. Just because you start with that line doesn’t mean you have to keep up the cruelty till the end.

Congratulations, cochise_miz! We’ll alert you when your prize has been delivered to National Bookstore in Rockwell.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.