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4 Responses to “ The Weekly LitWit Challenge 6.1: Let’s try another sequence. ”

1. # 1 stellalehua Says:
   June 22nd, 2011 at 10:06

   Throwing down the gauntlet here as the first entry… but be warned: This is sappy enough to be embarrassing, and the inconsistent English/Welsh syntax makes the whole thing worse. For the sake of the Yucch-O-Meter, please, let this not be the only story here. :'(

   ==========

   I can hear you thinking, all the way from your grave.

   Heart and soul, the coaches said: that’s how I always played footie since I was old enough to kick a single ball. I was a goalie – still am, in fact – and I never stopped playing all the way up to uni. But football is no way to make a living, you’d say. Only the pretty boys like Becks get the big money, and blokes like me would be lucky just to take the scraps.

   You told me not to make the same mistake that you did, when you tried and failed to be a sculptor. Maybe I should think about being a doctor – or a lawyer, or an engineer… something that would bring more than a hot meal to the table.

   When the time came for me to specialize, I chose something that I thought would count. “An audiologist,” you said back then. “What are you going to do, cure deaf people?”

   Not really, I said, but I wanted to get an idea of what it was like to help people, and make them believe in miracles again. I made the molds and studied everything about the human ear until I can test anyone’s sense of hearing on the spot.

   But audiologists aren’t miracle workers, Tad. Remember when we took Mam to London, and we had to stop under that twisted old tree to sit down? We thought it was beautiful, because she could hear the birds chirping and us talking to her. We had no idea that she could hear everything else that day too: traffic, leaves rustling, babies crying, couples bickering.

   The children who got the cochlear implants in my studies had it worse. We had to take out as many as the ones we put in. We hope that they’d hear music for the first time; they only found buzzing and screaming.

   By the time you figured out that the ear-doctor thing wasn’t working out for me, Tad, it was too late – but not late enough to realize how I would take back all the faith I’d lost, even if it meant that I would never have a single hot meal for the rest of my life.

   Too bad we couldn’t have that conversation long enough before you left. All we had to make up for it was to make your headstone a little more artsy-like… except for the part where it looks like you’ve been trying to tell us to bugger off.

   So then, in the end, I chose the pitch. Not for the money or the fame, but for the three words ringing in my own ears: Cymru am byth.

   And now I hear that I’m more than a goalie now, Tad – I’m a miracle worker.

   The audiologists – the real ones, not people like me who never finished – took out Mam’s hearing aid last month. She’ll probably go deaf again tomorrow at the game, or go crazy from all the screaming around her. But she’ll know exactly what to say when that flag comes up, and she’ll make sure you can hear it loud enough to break the rocks on your grave.

2. # 2 nomad Says:
   June 23rd, 2011 at 19:54

   The blame for the vandalized graves—23 corpses divested of their ears across seven memorial parks—naturally fell on grave robbers, who, the rumors said, must have been after the precious jewels that adorned the lifeless ears.

   Yet something nagged in this explanation. Why, for instance, were the ring-encrusted fingers of the corpses overlooked? And why were some of the ‘victims’ men, older men to be precise, hardly the type you’d expect to have punk tendencies—men, so their kin said, who would sooner have themselves pierced down there than in their ears?

   And how, the scandalized society matrons demanded, could the city’s gated and guarded memorial parks be so molested, even as those public cemeteries were left untouched, where the plebeian dead slept their eternal sleep just like how they lived their provisional lives: on top of each other (finally getting in death, the crueller ones muttered, a taste of ‘condo’ life)?

   Other theories were mooted, the most daring of which was suggested by a little known clairvoyant, who credited the bizarre crime to the vengeful spirits who had dwelt in an ancient tree that grew on the psychic earlobe of the city, who had been disturbed when the tree was cut down and uprooted the month before to make way for a new mall. The soothsayer was suddenly everywhere, her face splashed across TV channels and newspapers. Everyone wanted to know which part of the body their respective localities occupied in the psychic realm, and the cheekier ones speculated on the macabre scenario that would have resulted if the old tree that was cut had been on the psychic boobs or dick, instead of earlobe, of the city.

   But the sudden celebrity of Madam Earring, as she had come to be nicknamed, was cut short a week later when a large, unlabelled package was left at the gate of the largest TV network, and when opened, revealed a stinking mural sprouting with ears of all shapes and sizes, in various stages of decomposition, although a few looked miraculously well preserved. Beneath each ear was scribbled the name of one of those people in high places in the government, military and industry whose names kept cropping up in relation to various shady deals that were being unearthed in connection with the bidding out of multimillion dollar projects. And at the bottom of the frame, someone had scrawled “The Harvest of Ears” in ink that strangely resembled the color of blood.

   At the same time that the mural came to light, strange banners materialized all over the city: in MRT stations and university halls, on movie screens in the middle of a film and on sports stadiums. The banner bore the image of a blood-red creature that looked like a dragon. Each one came with a different slogan: “Expect this ear-reverence to continue, for as long as the voiceless are unheard by you” or “The bloodthirsty beast of justice shall next crave, a harvest of ears not yet in the grave.”

   There were no claims of responsibility but the anonymous campaign had the desired effect. Soon, those who had profited from the under the table deals in question were denouncing each other, turning in their resignation letters, and clearing out of the country en masse. For the first time in years, the city became orderly and peaceful, purged of the sleaze and corruption that had dragged it down like a dead weight.

   To this day nobody knows who was responsible for the harvest of the ears. In fact, the episode had begun to fade in the memories of the city’s amnesiac people, most of all in the minds of those in high places in the government, military and industry, so that the few who do remember the frightening incident sometimes whisper among themselves that the beast of justice would soon be on the prowl again.

3. # 3 girlfriday0104 Says:
   June 25th, 2011 at 05:19

   Here’s my take :)

   (picture 1)
   Tara looks down on her pair of ears. YES, her own ears, glistening in wax and oil.

   (picture 2)
   She just made them, and now her eyes were glistening too: of her going back to her last visit to Mother’s grave, which was a pity arrangement of stones with a cross without its arms. Someone from the neighbouring slums decided that her mother’s cross would serve more purpose as a huge roof prop for the monsoon season.

   (picture 3) “Mother,” she says, “I missed Kuya’s soccer match today.

   “I know you’ve always been proud of him, but I hope I deserve a little pride from you today,” clutching her winning entry from her recently-concluded art performance exhibit.

   “I’d like a little sign that you are proud of me. Please, please please,” praying with her eyes closed.

   (picture 4)
   The cemetery was awfully quiet. Even the trees stood still, waiting, like her.

4. # 4 theSubmarine Says:
   June 26th, 2011 at 02:29

   Was supposed to write a murder story or a violence-filled one but I think that’s what people would initially think of. Either that or I’m a psychopath. Hmm…
   ~~~

   Dear Mother Willow,

   And all I have are memories, lodged deep in my temporal lobe. I’ve come full circle and for some reason, I feel it’s respectful to write this. We first met while watching a football match at this very raucous stadium. I bet a week’s salary on that penalty shot and my striker blew it. I was pissed mad I threw my stale hotdog in the air and thought of my money. My food fell the same time a curse was heard from a sailor. She looked around the area and saw me with my mustard-stained mouth staring back at her. She charged up the bleachers and slapped me accurately – smack at my ear. I bellowed in pain and saw how beautiful she was I offered my other ear for her taking. She laughed and I offered my sincerest apologies. Just like that and we clicked. Heck, gravity brought us together.

   One cold June day we were walking and saw you, I kid how you looked like from Pocahontas. She laughed; she always buys my cheap jokes. She gave me a pair of those lavish earphones for my birthday and told me I can use them to shield my ears when she goes amok for some reason. I thanked her and we hugged then she told me we can’t be together anymore for some reason. Just like that, she walked away and I was left with you, Mother Willow.

   That was a year ago and I’m back at this stadium, the crowd went frenzy but I can’t hear anything. Watching another football match without her isn’t the same anymore. I went here afterwards, resting my back on you when someone approached me. The girl asked my name and when I retorted she nodded and gave me a CD and an envelope with a sad smile. I played it and heard her story, everything. She cared enough to explain why she left me then and there without warning and when I opened the envelope, it was an invite with a specific time and date that instructed me to go somewhere I dreaded. There, I stood from afar, watching them lower her casket down the cold earth.

   Sincerely,