Fortnightly Writing Competition - THAT'S AN ACTUAL PLACE? (winner announced!)

[Fitz]

Ahoy, fellow travellers and explorers of imaginary worlds! The time has come for another

Fortnightly Writing Competition

THAT'S AN ACTUAL PLACE?

Hands up if you've ever heard of Kalisz and/or have an idea where that is? Where's Timbuktu and what's living there like? Topeka, anyone? There's a song by that name, by Jon Gomm -- who actually visited said Kalisz two years ago (and with whom I had a drunken conversation). Aaaaanyway... The song evokes a certain mood and brings nice images to my mind. I know nothing about the place, nor do I have any general idea of where it is (somewhere in the US is all I can tell) -- but the music makes it sound nice. So if I ever tour the US (say, promiting my alien erotica series "256 Shades of Gray"), I might stop by!

THE CHALLENGE:
Think of a place that you know close to nothing about. A place you only heard the name of or saw a single photo of. Heard it mentioned in a song? Do you have any idea what it is: a tropical island, an African village -- or a city halfway across the globe? No? GOOD! If nothing comes to mind, you might go ahead and write about the aforementioned Kalisz. What do you THINK it's like? Don't research it. Just let your imagination run wild. You can make everything up: the geography, the climate, the weather, the local customs... Is it a fun place to visit -- and why? You tell us! Convince us that this is the place to go if you're looking for, say, adventure... Or good food! Crazy food? Parties? Cultural events? Sights? Or maybe it's one of those places where you'd want to stay forever, because it's nothing like where you live. Stir our imaginations! Write a story of exotic romance, daring excursions to dangerous places -- or a mellow diary of just wandering about, marveling at the views and talking to people.

Go -- and be sure come back by May 21 (or May 22 if you travel counterclockwise around the globe), with a handful of imaginary tickets to lands unknown!

[Baron]

There's a song by that name, by Jon Gomm -- who actually visited said Kalisz two years ago (and with whom I had a drunken conversation).

Did the fact that Mr. Gomm's guitar is held together with duct tape come up at all in this afore-mentioned conversation? 

[Fitz]

No, it did not. The general wretched state of his guitar -- caused by him scratching at it constantly (as a part of the musical style of choice) -- made all questions redundant. But I think the title of one of his album -- "Don't Panic" -- might've been his way to convince himself it's not a cause for concern

[WHAM]

Does it have to be a real-world location or can I go to a fantasy realm I've heard of but have never seen in images / video / writing?

[Fitz]

I say go for it! It reminds me of how Osamu Tezuka found inspiration for his 1949 manga "Metropolis" (which was made into a brilliant anime in 2000): in a single image of Fritz Lang's movie by the same title, and with only a vague idea about the premise.
Besides, if the contest entries were to be judged solely by their strict adherence to the topic, it'd be someone else you'd be talking to right now, because I tend to have my way of doing things

[Baron]

Six days to go, and I finally have a song-inspired idea.  Stay tuned....

[Sinitrena]

Wanderer through Shadows only known to Men

The wanderer had lost his way. He had slung a rifle over his shoulder and tied the gunpowder to his belt and walked away from his group in the morning while the mist obscured the landscape. He only wanted scout for an hour or even less but apparently he wasn't a very good scout because by now he had walked for at least three hours. In the morning he walked for half an hour and then turned back but he couldn't find their camp any more. Not for the first time he cursed hie own stupidity. They had servants and guards, they even had a local guide. There was no reason for him to scout at all, but the devoutness of his Brothers got on his nerves and he needed time for himself. They always prayed. Granted, they were monks, he was a monk, so it was par for the course, but sometimes enough was enough.

Even as the sun rose, the fog did not dissolve. It was difficult to tell where the sun was, or even what time of the day it actually was. Dark clouds hung deep and heavy in the sky and fir trees obscured the view further. He might be walking on a path of brown needles and cones that was once cut into the forest or he was just imagining that there was more room between the trees. From time to time, air roots crossed the path and the wanderer stumbled and cursed. He was constantly walking uphill in a slight ascent, although their camp was at the foot of the mountain, where the treeless plains became forest and where a small stream flowed into a larger river. But the wanderer didn't notice that he was obviously going the wrong way. Step by step he walked further away from the other monks and step by step the forest became darker and denser. The fog, that never went away, concentrated even more. Soon he wasn't able to see his hands in front of his eyes any more. The wind howled and rustled the branches and shadows danced where little light fell through the crowns of the trees.

The wanderer shuddered from the dampness that penetrated his brown woollen habit. Part of him thought he should pray, but he never was a particularly religious man. There were other reasons that made him shave his head into a tonsure and enter the cloister. But this forest was scary and could make any man pious.

Again he stumbled over something but this time he didn't hit the ground like before. He stretched out his hands to protect his face but there was nothing to protect it from. Instead he fell and tumbled down a steep slope.

*

When the monks had finished their prayers for Prime, they noticed that one of their own was missing.

“Where did Brother John go?”, Michael asked no one in particular but mostly received just shrugs as an answer. Brother John was their newest member, though he wasn't a young man. There were rumours that he was a husband and father when tragedy struck and he became a monk. Some pitied him for it. There were also rumours that John himself was the reason of the tragedy and at least Michael pitied him for this even more â€" not for the rumour but for John might have done. It was the right decision to enter the monastery â€" there was at least hope for his soul.

But because of his past and because he only said his vows a year ago, some of the Brothers objected to take him along on this mission. They were a long way from home. They had travelled east by horse and on a boat on one river or another for weeks to reach the vast wilderness they were in now. Even here lived some people and it was their task to bring the word of God to them. But John wasn't very religious or very knowledgeable of he Bible. As a matter of fact, he was more of a liability than an asset,though Michael was sure this mission could save not only the souls of the savages but also the soul of John.

“Took a rifle from me this morning.”, one of their guards was saying now, chewing on a piece of tobacco, “Said he wanted to look around some. Should be back by now.”

They shouted his name and searched their camp and all around, they walked along the river upstream and downstream for a few miles but John was nowhere to be found, though they did find some footprints in the mud.

“Not go there.”, their guide, Chan, said, “Dead wake.”

Michael stared at him for a moment and then shrugged. The only men who died and walked afterwards on this earth were Jesus and those he and his apostles resurrected, like Lazarus. Everything else was just local superstition. And so he ordered the monks and the guards and the servants to follow the trail.

*

The wanderer couldn't remember what happened to him in the next few seconds or even minutes. His head hurt and his vision was blurry but he noticed that the fog was less dense in the canyon than on the path where he had walked before. He looked up to where he had come from and tried to stand up but fell again immediately. His leg hurt, his leg couldn't support his weight. It was bloody and broken, a piece of bone sticking out of it.

He sank back down, cursing and screaming for help. Of course, there was no help and the wanderer could do nothing but try to wound a piece of cloth around the leg and wait. He tried to see where his rifle had fallen and found it about ten metres up the slope. There was no way to reach it. There was no protection and no help. Crestfallen, he let his head fall back and looked around, trying to get a better understanding of his position.

The slope he had fallen down was rough brown soil and it would have been possible to climb it, if it weren't for his broken leg. The chasm he lay in was about three metres wide and a shallow, tranquil stream purled peacefully through it. A bit to his right, slightly obscured by a curve in the chasm was a waterfall and a few fir trees were scattered around. The other wall of the chasm was steeper than the one he had fallen down and bare rock instead of soil. Here and there were recesses in the cliff that looked like mouths of caves and at other places someone had rammed wooden beams into the rock. On the beams and in the mouths stood wooden blocks that looked suspiciously like coffins, though the wanderer doubted anyone would put the dead here. That was just sacrilegious, but on the other hand he didn't have a particularly good opinion of the natives here, who were all savages and cannibals in his opinion. There was a reason they had come to evangelise them. Maybe they put their dead here to cook them later or something.

His head hurt and he was cold. He felt his temple and found blood there. He knew that he couldn't survive for long like that but he wasn't able to stand up either. He didn't want to die in a graveyard, however strange it was.

The sun sunk deeper and deeper very fast, or so it seemed to him, and soon the canyon was dark. The wanderer closed his eyes for a moment to fight the pain and when he opened them again fog had gathered down in the chasm too. He didn't see the stream any more or even his own hands. When he squinted, he thought he saw a shape where the cliff must have been but other than that it was just shadows and fog. The wind still howled and heavy raindrops started to fall on his shoulders and shaved head. The stream still purled along peacefully but more and more this sound was drowned out by wind and thunder and rain. But the wind brought other sounds as well. There was the cry of some wild animal, the scream of a woman and laughter in the dark. It started out as a snicker and then became a chocked laugh from up above.

“Who's there? Help! Help!”, he screamed but there was no answer. At least not a verbal answer. He thought he saw a shade move in the dark, though he couldn't say it it was human.

“Who's there?”, he called again and this time the laughter became louder and distincter.

“I am the wife.”, someone called down from one of the coffins.

The wife? “What wife?”

“The wife who did nothing wrong.”

The fog thinned out and the rain eased up. The next moment, candles flared up up on the cliff and illuminated faces that still lay in shadows. There was a woman with stringy black hair over her eyes who wore a white dress that looked like a nightgown. She was obviously the person who had spoken just yet. A few metres higher up stood a muscular man. He had a naked upper body and a face that shone red in the candlelight. He spoke next.

“I am the fist that stroke her dead.”

A chill ran down the wanderer's spine. Creepy, he thought and sat up straight as much as it was possible through the pain.

“You can't hurt me, demons. I am a man of God.”

Again they laughed, loud and shrill now, and then the half-naked man jumped down from the beam he had stood on, nearly ten metres up the cliff. He touched the ground with a splash and a thud but straightened immediately, the candle still in his beefy hands.

“I am the wife, suffering long.”, said the wife from up above.

“I am the feeling of pain and of dread.”, the man answered her, though he was obviously speaking to the wanderer.

“Who are you? What do you want? You speak my language, you understand me. I am a good Christian...”

New laughter interrupted him and other candles flared up in the wall.

“You are the wanderer, lost in the dark.”, all of them said together and laughed again.

*

“Not good go there.”, said Chan.

“Why not?”, Michael asked for what felt like the thousandth time. It was difficult to get an answer from their guide, partly because he didn't know their language very well and partly because he obviously didn't want to talk about the valley they were walking through now. They had lost the trail of Brother John some time ago after reaching a place where his footprints criss-crossed, and had chosen the valley as the most likely way someone lost would take. In the valley flowed the stream they had first seen the evening before where they had put there tents. It was not a logical decision to go upstream but all morning and even into the afternoon a thick fog lay over the forest and it was at least possible someone mistook the direction of the stream.

The further they walked, the more Chan begged them to turn back. He never said more than that the dead might awaken if they went there. When asked for details, his answers were vague, as if he himself wasn't exactly sure what lay ahead. Some of the servants and even some of the monks began to grumble but Michael stayed strict and reminded them that one of their Brothers was missing.

“How do the dead walk the earth here?”, Michael asked the guide, “In what shape or form? Are you talking about ghosts or revenants?”

Chan only stared blankly at him. He knew he shouldn't have expected any answers, not just because Chan was afraid to answer but also because he probably didn't understand the questions.

Michael thought for a moment and then asked: “What do they look like, the dead?”

Chan shrugged. “Like dead … not long.”

That didn't help much, but at least it was a start. “And...”, he started to say but Chan wasn't finished talking.

“Not always come.”, he said, “Only when reason.”

*

The wanderer shuddered and wrapped his habit tighter around himself. Whatever he said, whatever he asked, these strange figures just kept on talking in a detached and still menacing voice and laughed whenever he tried to threaten him.

His head hurt. His leg hurt. He felt dizzy and disoriented even without the people and the fog that changed from dense to thin and back in a matter of seconds, always revealing whoever was speaking to him. There were at least twenty of them standing on the beams and in the caves, but only four seemed to talk directly to him. There was one who called herself wife, and a daughter and a son, and a man who called himself the fist and the pain and the blow.

The woman had joined the man on the ground and the candle illuminated her empty eyes. He recognised her, he recognised her now. Caroline was younger than him and beautiful when she was alive but she was also useless and an awful wife. She didn't obey him and never gave him an heir, only a daughter that died when she was jut one year. She was as useless as her mother and stood now in the mouth of a cave and looked down at him.

“I am the daughter who lived in fear.”, she said, “I am the daughter that drowned in the stream.”

“The daughter who lived for a year.”, Caroline said, accusing him.

“I did nothing wrong!”, he said, pressing his flat hand against his bloody temple. The longer he lay there in this chasm, the more his vision blurred. He felt sick to the stomach, not just because he was haunted by ghosts, but because his head hurt so much. He wanted nothing more than to sleep but the ghosts were so loud and the wind chilled him to the bone.

“You shouldn't have cried so much! The child was worthless anyway. I have a right to punish my wife! I did nothing wrong!”

Suddenly, all the voices and the murmurs of the wind stopped. The gorge was completely silent for a few seconds and the candles ceased to flicker. Then they all screamed and started to talk over each other.

“Wanderer, lost in the dark...”

“Daughter, who lived in fear...”

“Wife, suffering long...”

“Son, who died in the womb...”

The last one was louder than the others and soon all movement and all noise stopped again. They looked at each other. They looked at him. And then the burly man whispered: “Son, died in the womb...”

And the woman repeated it louder together with him: “Son, died in the womb...”

And other voices added to the chorus and other ghosts fell from the graves on the wall.

“Son, died in the womb... Son, died in the womb... Son, died in the womb...”

“No!”, he screamed, “No, it can't be She wasn't pregnant. She wasn't, I would have known... I...”

*

They had stopped for the night. A few miles ago the valley became narrower and narrower and turned into more of a chasm. There was just enough room for the stream to flow down the hill and for two man to walk abreast. In this small gorge it became dark sooner than up above and they had just enough time to erect their tents, ignite some fires and say their prayers before the fog came. It didn't disturb them much. It was just fog after all and they didn't need to walk that day any more, though they did start to think that they would never find their missing Brother.

The next morning, the fog soon dissolved and they began their fruitless search anew, walking alongside the stream.

Chan had ceased to beg or complain this morning and when asked why he pointed upwards and said: “Not come. Safe.”

Michael looked up as well and saw the coffins mounted to the wall. He shuddered but ignored any feeling of dread, until they heard a soft whimpering up ahead on the trail.

They ran around a curve and found John lying on the trail. They hastened to him.

“Brother John?”, Michael said and knelt down next to the fallen man, “Brother John, are you all right?”

He obviously wasn't, for he didn't open his eyes or reacted to Michael in any other way, though Michael realised that he spoke words and didn't just whimper.

“I am the father I never shall be.”, he said.

“What was that, Brother?”, Michael asked and moved John's head around to the other side. Blood crusted his temple and his forehead was hot.

“He is the son who died in the womb.”

Michael shook his head. “He's delirious. He hurt his head pretty badly.”, he said to no one in particular.

“No.”, said Chan, “Dead come.”

Michael shook his head again. “There are no ghosts or other such things. That's superstition. Brother John's just hallucinating.”

“Mine was the blow that made me free.”, John murmured, “And here now I lay and have found my tomb.”

“The wanderer, lost in the dark.”, whispered the wind.

----------------------------------------------------------

Notes: The Hanging Coffins are real and the place I know nothing about that inspired this story. The rest of the scenery - the chasm, the stream, the fir trees - are complety made up though. And so are any hints of a local religion connected to them. I only saw one or two pictures of these coffins some time ago and remembered that they were somewhere in China (all in all also a place I don't know much about). So this story is supposed to take place in China, although I admitt that it's not really specified in the story itself. Apparently Hanging Coffins exist in China, the Phillipines and Indonesia, according to wikipedia (additional pictures)
Most of the opinions stated in this story are not my own. I certainly do not believe that the people who had these funeral traditions were cannibals or savages.

[Baron]

It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, and I just hit town and my throat was dry....
                                  -Johnny Cash, A Boy Named Sue

GATLINBURG

   Basin County, Nevada.  A broad swath of scrubby nothing 200 miles from anywhere.  When it rained the land turned to mud and the air turned to flies, and when it didn't -which was most of the time- everything turned to dust.  Along the barren mountain slopes that bounded the county the dust drove like a sculptor's chisel to carve improbable channels through the rock.  In the expanses of the sagebrush it would be whipped up by swirling winds to wreak devilish mischief.  On the bumpy trail it would linger, billowing but still, at about the height of a man's face on horseback.  And in town it would rise like a filthy plume, besmearing even the heavens while pointing out to weary travellers for miles around the way to the centre of the ass-end of nowhere: Gatlinburg.

     K.W. leaned over in his saddle and spat.  The dust sizzled briefly where it hit the ground, and then a noxious fly emerged from the very spot to circle his head.  K.W. scowled.  In his estimation, this place was the geographic equivalent of the bottom of the world's deepest cesspit.  It was about as far in life as a man could slide without leaving the world entirely, and though it might not be quite low enough to qualify as hell officially, it was mighty close.  Kind of like purgatory, except without the upside.

   â€œFly botherin' you?” Scab asked.  Scab was as dumb as the spit K.W. had just sown on the trail side, and a damn bit uglier than the back end of the mule he was riding.  An easy measure of his reckoning capacity was the fact that he insisted on being called Scab, a nickname he'd earned in the hardscrabble guano mines back home.  He was kin of some sort, as K.W.'s momma had once recollected in one of her bouts of sobriety, but no one could ever figure exactly how.  All K.W. knew was that they were as good as brothers, for they'd been watching each other's backs for as long as he could remember.  Dumb, ugly, smelly, and reckless: Scab was all of those things rolled into one, but it didn't really matter.  A fraternal bond was not something to be taken lightly, and in this rough and tumble world of lean times and tough breaks, the sad fact of the matter was that the bond was pretty much all either of them had left in the world.

   â€œI'll get that sunuva bitch,” Scab drawled, drawing his pistol and levelling it, as best he could from his bumpy perch on the back of a burro, just to the side of K.W.'s head.  “Now don't move now,” he said confidently, closing an eye and cocking the trigger.

   â€œDon't you dare-!” K.W. shouted, but the shot cut him off.  Fortunately for K.W. (as for the fly) Scab was just about the worst shot west of the Pecos.  K.W. had seen a trained prairie dog at the Silver County Fair shoot straighter, even though he had no stereo vision with which to aim nor any opposable  digits with which to pull the trigger.  Shit, the kickback from that pistol had flung the little critter six yards back into the roaring crowd, but he'd still hit his mark.  But by far the safest place to be if Scab was gunning for you was right where he was aiming.

   â€œGot 'im!” Scab crowed, breaking into a gap-toothed smile before realizing that the fly was now buzzing around his own head. 

   â€œNeed some help?” K.W. asked, unholstering his own pistol.

   â€œNo, no, Kay-dubya.  I got this figured,” he said, as he turned the gun towards his own head. 

   â€œNow wait just a second-” K.W. started, but again the gun shot interrupted him.  He stared in disbelief through the billowing dust at the now empty saddle of the mule, and in a matter of seconds he was down on the ground, grabbing at his cousin's limp body.  “Scab!” he called, racking his brain for the man's christian name.  Was it Adelbert, or something like that?  Fat lot of good the name “Scab” would do on a tombstone, not that he could afford one anyway.  K.W. lifted his cousin's head and contemplated the good of praying for such a no good low-life as he, wondering if there was any point in trying to stem the flow of blood from his head wound.  At least it might keep the flies down....

   â€œDamn, Cus!” Scab moaned, pushing the astonished K.W. away.  “I pass out for just a sec, and you're all over me like a five-cent-piece ho on payday!”  Scab sat up, scratching his head as if he were trying to make some sense of what had just befallen him.  K.W. never did get a good enough look to say definitively, but if he had to draw a conclusion he would have said the bullet passed clean through the man's skull without ever hitting a thing.

   Of course, life with Scab had always been like that.  As they rode the long dusty trail into town they turned to swapping tales of the good ol' days, like the time when Scab had put a cork on a scorpion's tale and lowered it down his throat with a bit of fishing line to catch the beetle he'd sworn had flown up his nose (when he pulled the line back out, all that came up was the cork).  And that time they couldn't afford the dentistry bill when one of his molars came in all abscessed, so they figured on pulling it out with a bit of piano wire stretched across the railroad.  Yeah, they'd shared some good times back in the day.

   But of course all that dwelling and nostalgifying got to dredging up rawer memories of their true purpose on this journey, and that got them clammed up good and tight once again, so they covered those last few miles in silence, alone with their thoughts (or what passed for them, in Scab's case).  And even a man with half Scab's intellect could have made some money wagering that they were both thinking about Delianna.

   Dela, as she'd been called in the camp outside the guano pit where they'd all grown up, had never been a pretty girl in the conventional sense.  She had big teeth, and a small jaw, with wild curly hair that you'd need a bridle to tame.  And her personality was not exactly convivial, owing to the fact that her family life most resembled a trainwreck colliding with a coal mine explosion.  Basically she was just ugly and messed-up enough to give young K.W. and Scab the time of day, which as good as counted as female companionship as far as they were concerned back then.  Over the years they'd both come to think Dela was pretty swell.  The fact that she'd cast off the shackles of conventional social mores and had become an inexpensive prostitute didn't hurt either.

   But the strange thing about desperate men and desperate women is that they mix about as well as nitro and glicerine.  Hearts were lost and heads were busted, and before anyone much knew the facts of who had paid whom to do what in farmer Rankin's ol' pig trough there'd been a jealous shootout and and a string of murder charges.  What followed was a drunken blur of bank heists, railroad banditry, opium dennery and a briefly yet implausibly successful itinerant kite vending business.  Through it all you'd have needed a score card to tell the match ups, which would have been trying on the cohesiveness of the group if any of them had had their heads screwed on straight at the time.  Whether out of sheer exhaustion or lusting after a better life (with a new Stetson hat and a bag full of empty promises), Dela had finally skipped the gang with the last sack of loot and a longshot dream.

   What followed was a story of catharsis and woe, as the two cousins had stumbled from town to town, trying to figure where their girl had run off to while living on the lam one step ahead of the law.  They sobered up more from poverty than by design, and heard enough evidence in two show trials and a botched lynching to piece together enough of the relevant facts.  Among the sordid details and frayed nooses they'd come to two important realizations.  Firstly, it turned out that they both did truly love Dela, despite all her shortcomings and backstabbings.  And secondly, that all clues pointed to her winding up in the only squalid little shanty town that'd have her: Gatlinburg.

   So here they were now, with the sun sinking low on the dusty horizon, staring at a faded wooden sign announcing the town's name.  The broad, rutted street ahead of them led between rough-hewn saloons and brothels, populated with the occasional indigent forty-niner bedding down for the night on a soft mattress of his own vomit, and the odd bullet ridden corpse of a draw-speed silver medallist.  Gatlinberg: where the men were tough or dead, and the women drunk or just plain crazy.  Gatllinberg.  God's backed-up toilet after an asparagus and corn roast.  Gatlinberg.

   K.W. and Scab rode slowly down the middle of the street, eyes scanning from left to right.  Once in a while a bar-fight would spill through a window onto the street, but they continued resolutely onward, their shadows stretching out like their necks would if the marshal ever caught up with them.

   â€œTell me again about the plan,” Scab said, hand slipping down to his gun handle as one street fight got particularly close.

   â€œWhat, finding her, or afterwards?”

   â€œAfter.  How's it gonna play out?”

   K.W. stopped his horse, and turned to face his cousin.  “We find her, and we ask her to choose.”

   Scab stared back, a little less blankly than usual.  “Between us and them?” Scab asked, nodding towards the mine-hardened men beating each other into fleshy pulp in the street.  “Or between you and me?”

   K.W. tipped his hat, but said nothing.

   â€œWhat if she chooses wrong?” Scab asked.

   â€œFor at least one of us, I reckon that's a pretty certain outcome.”  There it was, out on the table like a deuce from the bottom of the deck.  K.W. had known from the moment that he'd hatched this scheme that it wouldn't turn out pretty.  But somewhere in his lovelorn heart he felt that cutting the deck was worth the shot, even if it more than likely would result in losing big.  Scab was just now working through the odds, and the expression on his face told K.W. that he didn't like how the deck was stacked.

   â€œI reckon at least one of us is bound to be pretty put out,” he said at length, still stroking the handle of his pistol.

   â€œYeah,” K.W. replied.  “But I always figured we'd be gentlemanly about it.  Owing to our long history and kinship.  You know, 100 paces in the street, instead of a cheap shot in the back.  If it comes to that.”

   Scab scratched his chin, trying to churn through the possibilities.  He had to know how bad of a shot he was, and that the chances of beating his cousin in a fair fight were next to zero.  On the other hand, he also had to reckon on the fact that he was essentially an unkillable human cockroach, who might just prevail through sheer brute bullet-absorbing force.  Whatever passed through his mind, or whatever was left of it since that afternoon, he nodded back towards his cousin.  “If it comes to that.”

   K.W. turned and nodded towards the last brothel in town, a dilapidated grand-dame of a place that seemed to drip vomit from its peeling paint.  At least, K.W. hoped it was vomit.  “I reckon that's the type of place she'd be holed up,” he sighed.

   â€œWell, let's settle this.”

   They both dismounted and walked side by side up the creaky steps and through the swinging doors.  In the dank reception room, decorated with peeling wall-paper and dead flowers, they were met by a fat old madam.  Her nose was turned up, and her ears stuck out of her head such that it looked like someone had put way too much makeup on a pig in a dress.  She glared at them through eyelashes so heavy with mascara that her eyelids twitched at the effort of holding them aloft.

   â€œWhat'ya after?” she grunted, looking them over.  “Penny Tuesdays don't run in the summer months.”

   â€œWe're not here to see Penny,” Scab started, but K.W. waved him quiet.

   â€œLet me handle this,” he said.  “We've come a long way to find an old flame.  We're here to see Dela Horstang.  She might be going by the name of One Helluva Dela, or maybe Starlene Brightcakes, or even the Half-Crown Down.”

   â€œOr sometimes Post Hole Dell,” Scab kicked in.

   â€œYeah, maybe that too,” K.W. conceded, trying to gauge the madam's reaction.  If she recognized any of the aliases, however, she showed nothing through the mask of makeup.  Or maybe the makeup was too thick to reveal any expression at all?  This might get expensive if they had to go through the rank and file of the resident prostitutes to find their lady.  They'd have to sell the horse....

   â€œThin little minx,” Scab spoke up.  “Got more teeth than a herd of sheep, and just about as organized.  And she got a lip like a can of whoop-ass.”

   â€œOh!” the madam exclaimed.  “You want to see Sharkbite Sherry!  That'll be fifty-cents each, cash on the barrel.”  K.W. and Scab exchanged the briefest of glances, before fishing in their pockets.  Amidst the horseshoe nails and broken buttons they were able to put together their bottom dollar.

   â€œRight this way,” the madam entreated them.

   They slowly climbed the stairs, still side by side, each with his hand on his gun now.  They might come to shooting each other by the time the evening was through, but at this moment they both knew that the greater threat lay in an itchy bed above them, wearing garter socks and nothing else and more than likely packing two shotguns for protection.  The madam stopped at the first door on the landing.

   â€œHere we are, boys,” she announced with all the flair of a pig's fart, and opened the door.

   K.W. and Scab almost climbed over each other to be the first through the door, only to nearly fall backwards at the stench within the room.

   â€œHoly shit,” Scab exclaimed, covering his face with his sleeve.  “She's dead!”

   K.W. scrunched his face, but peered long enough to confirm that it was in fact Dela, legs splayed wide and locked there with rigor mortis.  He turned to the madam for some explanation.  “Why didn't you bury her?” he demanded.

   â€œI ain't payin' extra for no Y shaped coffin,” the madam spat.  “Besides, she still pays her rent.”

   An old gentleman stopped behind them on the landing.  “Hey, how long's the line up tonight?”

   K.W. shook his head in disgust and stalked off down the stairs and into the street.

   â€œHey!” his cousin called after him.  “Are we going to do this or not?”

   â€œWhat?!?”

   â€œShe ain't choosing nobody in her condition,” Scab stated flatly.  “So, the way I sees it, the winner gets the prize.  You wanted 100 paces, right?”

   K.W. shook his head at the futility of it all.  Scab was not what you'd call a discerning man, but now he was plumbing a new low.  And yet, as K.W. turned it over in his mind, his reasoning did have an ironic logic to it.  Hell, without her two-timing, throat-slitting, tongue-lashing personality, Dela'd be all the more attractive....   Two minutes later, through the squeaking of the rusty bed springs, the old gentleman heard two more shots go off in the night.  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked and a line of drunken red-necks sung arm-in-arm.  Gatlinburg.


   

[Fitz]

Gather 'round by the fire, weary travellers! It's voting time! My apologies for being late, but I've been to places, too.

Our contestants this time, in order of entry, are:

Sinitrena: Wanderer through Shadows only known to Men
Baron: Gatlinburg

Voting will be by category.  Sadly, since we only got two entries, you can only vote once per category, for a total of six votes.  The categories are:

Best Character: You find one or several characters extra believable/captivating/magnetic/unique, etc.
Best Plot: The story arc was well-organized, coherent, and well-executed with appropriate pacing; basically the best story.
Best Atmosphere: This is all about feeling: did the story evoke strong feelings due to excitement/humour/intrigue/wonder/emotional intensity?
Best Setting: The best background world or milieu for a story; a place brought to life.
Best Word Choice/Style: The technical art of combining words in clever or gripping ways.
Best Holiday Destination: Which of the places would you pick -- just for a week's vacation, for the adrenaline-raising thrill factor, or to stay there forever -- based only on the story?

Every vote counts as one point. Whoever receives most points wins. Voting is open untill Wednesday, May 28, midnight PST. Trophies will be acquired from souvenir shops and presented here shortly.

[Baron]

Voting is fun.  More people should try it!   

Best Character: Sinitrena!  I thought John was a puzzlingly complex character.  He had many bad qualities: selfishness, impulsiveness, false heartedness (becoming a monk despite not being a believer, marrying a wife he did not really love), and of course he was a wife-beater and a bit of a racist bigot too.  But he is pitiable, too, since he seems not to understand that he is the author of his own misery (at least until the end), nor that he seems to be more useless (relationships, scouting, being a monk...) than the people around him that he writes off as useless (his wife, the monks, the natives....).  It's hard to get into the head of someone so incompetent, but I thought Sinitrena did a good job.
Best Plot: Sinitrena! I liked the format of switching back and forth from Brother John's narrative to the group's perspective, and the build-up to the revelations at the end was clever.
Best Atmosphere: Sinitrena!  I thought this was the strongest quality of your story.  The creepy, surreal vibe was very compelling.  At times I wanted to look away, but could not!
Best Setting: Sinitrena!  For someone who often creates whole worlds for her short stories, I was impressed in this one how the world was drawn in to the immediate locality: a couple trees, a stream, a cliff, a path, all shrouded in a stifling fog that shut out the world beyond.  In the case of this story, less was actually more. 
Best Word Choice/Style: Sinitrena!  I thought the dialog was realistic, and the descriptions of the locations, especially the canyon, were well done.
Best Holiday Destination: Sinitrena!  But I wouldn't really want to go there.... it's too scary!  Maybe if my friends Ray and Egon come along to watch my back.... 

[Sinitrena]

Voting is fun.  More people should try it!   

I so agree! Come on, guys, vote!

Best Character: Baron - Neither K.W. nor Scab are likeable characters, but Scab makes for a great comedic character. He's too stupid and untalented to shoot straight but also too stupid to hurt himself. A bit like drunks and toddlers: They don't hurt themselves when they fall.
Best Plot: Baron - I certainly did not expect that Dela would trun out to be dead. That's a great idea, though a bit macabre. I think it would be better to mention the reason for Scab and K.W. to be in Gatlinburg slightly earlier in the story. On the other hand, it's not a particularly long story, so it doesn't really matter.
Best Atmosphere: Baron - The drab atmosphere of a western town at the end of the world, where no hope and no actual future exists comes perfectly across.
Best Setting: Baron - Dust and heat and no hope. Perfect place for this kind of dark, morbid and still humoristic story.
Best Word Choice/Style: Baron - This is defenietly the strongest part of this story. I exspecially love all the analogies: "her family life most resembled a trainwreck colliding with a coal mine explosion"; "Gatllinberg.  God's backed-up toilet after an asparagus and corn roast.  Gatlinberg."; "Her nose was turned up, and her ears stuck out of her head such that it looked like someone had put way too much makeup on a pig in a dress." and others.
Best Holiday Destination: Baron - Would I want to go to Galinburg after this description? I doubt it. Its just too dark and disgusting. But I assume it would be a great place for riding into the sunset or something like that. Neither Baron nor I exactly wrote a holiday destination...

[kconan]

Best Character: Baron - We never really met Del, but I felt like I knew her.
Best Plot: Baron - I've never heard of two curmudgeony coots fight over a dead prostitute...so kudos for originality.
Best Atmosphere: Sinitrena - Both very creepy and well detailed.
Best Setting: Baron - I'm a sucker for old West shantytowns.
Best Word Choice/Style: Baron - Cool analogies abound!
Best Holiday Destination: Sinitrena - Since I like my continued existence and am not into necrophilia, Gatlinburg is out...Though I'd be interested in a brief wander through the shadows.

[miguel]

Wow, though decision. Great stuff Sinitrena and Herr Baron.

Best Character: this got to be Baron's Scab. Sergio Leone would be proud.
Best Plot: Baron. It's just more my kind of thing.
Best Atmosphere: Sinitrena. Really well written, I felt all the chills I had to feel. It was sad and uncomfortable as it should.
Best Setting: Baron. A Western is a Western so I'd always chose it. But Baron did a great job and I was immediately in the scenario from the beginning.
Best Word Choice/Style: Baron. It's like he wrote it thinking about this category. Sinistrena's style was just different, not worse in any case.
Best Holiday Destination: Sinitrena. I wouldn't take my wife to Gatlinburg! Ever! Also, I like the mountain outdoors.

[Ghost]

I thought it would be much easier when there's only two entries... boy was I wrong

Best Character: Sinitrena
Best Plot: Baron
Best Atmosphere: Sorry, that's a tie. Both are really well-done on the atmosphere level.
Best Setting: Sinitrena
Best Word Choice/Style: Baron
Best Holiday Destination: Baron

[LostTrainDude]

Really good job, guys!

Best Character: Baron - K.W. and Scab can be both a deplorable and funny team!
Best Plot: Sinitrena - Especially the ending: how Chan knows the truth while the other monks don't.
Best Atmosphere: Sinitrena
Best Setting: Baron - You took your time in describing everything, and I thought I could taste the disgusting dust of Gatlinburg, pestled by Penny Tuesdays' dirty shoes!
Best Word Choice/Style: Sinitrena - I find that the dictionary was both simple and efficient.
Best Holiday Destination: Sinitrena - Somehow it feels that the place described in your story could become a "That's an actual place?" on its own

[Stupot]

Character Sinitrena for Brother John. I would like to learn more about him.
Plot Sinitrena. Though Baron's was close behind.
Atmosphere Sinitrena for the creepy factor.
Setting Baron. Cool setting, well delivered.
Word choice Baron. It was a delight to read. (Not that sinitrena's wasn't also, but this had something extra).
Holiday Sinitrena. I can imagine busloads of morbid tourists coming here and I want to be one of them.

[Fitz]

Wow, you guys are ON FIRE! I haven't seen such heated voting in a WHILE! Kepp the votes coming!

[Ponch]

Gah! Too many categories! Voting shouldn't be this much of chore! Why do you hate democracy, FWC AGSers!?!

Character Sinitrena
Plot Baron
Atmosphere Sinitrena
Setting Baron
Word choice Baron
Holiday Sinitrena

[Fitz]

The tribe has spoken -- and wow, what a heated voting session it was!

And so...

...the winner of this Fortnightly Writing Competition...

...having garnered just ONE vote over the other contestant...

...iiiiiiis...

BARON!!!

Congratulations! Here is your trophy:

- a golden postage stamp from Farawai!

Sinitrena, for Your devotion to the Rakyat, please accept the tribe's token of gratitude:

- a silver postage stamp from Farawai!

[miguel]

Congrats to both, great stuff!

You can send me that sandwich now Baron. No mayonnaise, please.