Prose competition 2024

@Ponderable said
As everybody imagined anayway the boring one (#3) was by me. I mostly had written to have something in hand I didn't manage to write another one...

Any way thank you all writers and readers.

@Ponderable said
As everybody imagined anayway the boring one (#3) was by me. I mostly had written to have something in hand I didn't manage to write another one...

Any way thank you all writers and readers.

@Ponderable said
As everybody imagined anayway the boring one (#3) was by me. I mostly had written to have something in hand I didn't manage to write another one...

Any way thank you all writers and readers.

@Drewnogal said
Mine was the one that made Rookie’s eyes glaze over after the second line 😵‍💫

I thought his critiques somewhat harsh. No more green thumbs for HIM!

-Removed-

@Bish

I think that in previous competitions we didn't know who were the writers until after voting, and if remember correctly they didn't always come forward.

@Torunn said
@Bish

I think that in previous competitions we didn't know who were the writers until after voting, and if remember correctly they didn't always come forward.

@Bish said
I was a little confused by that part.

@Ponderable said - only 4 entries this Christmas so we weren't going to vote - so I went ahead and said which one was mine.

Something Christmassy I wrote a couple of years ago.


A Christmas Burial

There was a man dwelt by a churchyard where bodies were buried by the ounce, corpulence carried a heavy price, in this sleepy village I can’t pronounce. A grieving wife came to ask the man, as the churchyard’s undertaker, for a seasonal discount burial, for her husband the portly baker.

“He’d gotten fat on Christmas pudding,” she said with pleading tone, and with mince pies by the dozen ballooned to twenty stone. On my meagre widow’s pension your prices are alarming, surely there’s a cheaper deal, cremation or embalming?”
The undertaker shook his head, accompanied by a frown, “I charge for flesh on the bone, I bury six feet done. If you want to save some pennies, we can bury him in part, happy to do the butchering, remove the brain and heart.”
“But what to do with the rest of him, Gerald was such a lovely man?”
“Can chop him up straightforwardly, put him in the van. I’ll take him to the gristle mill, grind him to a paste, can profit from your husband’s corpse, none will go to waste.”
“There’s profit in such horror?” the wife was quite excited, “we can use the funds for the wake, you are of course invited.”
“They’ll be undertones in the body’s flesh of the puddings and the pies, a perfect mince for Christmas, and we can pickle both his eyes.”
“I presume it’s all quite legal, to feast upon the dead, a pâté made from Gerald may work on wholemeal bread.”
“He’d be lovely on a cracker, “said the undertaker with a wink, “and we can liquidize his bladder, make a splendid festive drink.”

Now the funeral was well attended, had a special Noel theme, and the food served at Gerald’s wake went down like a dream. The stollen was spectacular but the mince pies were the star, full of Gerald goodness, washed down with Advocaat. The widow raised a solemn toast, before the mourners ate their human jellies, and satisfied they all went home, Gerald in their hearts and in the bellies.

-Removed-

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