Congratulations to the August winners:
The World's Most Famous Colorist, by Mat Z.
A True Tale of a Complete and Total Idiot, by Gabriel F.
A Trail of Dew, by Mirza W.
Baby Angels, by Betty Dobson
The Members' Picks for the August Period are...
The World's Most Famous Colorist
New York, NY
Avi sits on the hard, wood floor of his workroom.
In front of him are twelve loaf-shaped tins, each filled with a different substance: sand, soil, sugar, salt, flour, crushed aspirin, pebbles, faux pearls, plaster, grated white cheddar, and two different white paints. For ten minutes, Avi smokes and stares at the tins, moving once to spill some aspirin and salt into the sugar bin.
Avi is a colorist, charged with finding a new kitchen white for a client, a paint manufacturer. For inspiration, he's toying with food ingredients. As the idiot hack reporter misquoted him, the new "sensibility," is about home cooking, discernable texture and homegrown basics. And white - white is all about relaxation, calmness and inner peace.
"Ugh... "
Avi puts out the cigarette in the soil. The combination of cigarette ashes and soil, though, are interesting. And while ash will hardly add appetite appeal for a kitchen white, it might work well for that fat paper guy in the Middle West, Midwest, or whatever those states are called.
America is ridiculously large.
To be clear, Avi Hirschel is not just any colorist. He is the world's most famous professional colorist. It's an unofficial designation he has held since an absurd but fateful speech given to his alma mater: "From Miami Vice to Pottery Barn: How Color Affects Culture." The trades were there, of course, but so was Vanity Fair doing its series on specialists. Avi quickly became the flavor of the month. Which, with more than a little help from his partner Mark, a publicist, has kept his visibility high - and the work rolling in.
In addition to the five jobs he has this month, Avi is on retainer with several high-profile decorators, interior designers, an ad agency, a public relations firm and an eccentric rich widow on the Upper East Side who relishes having a colorist on call for large parties. Mark suspects the window meant to hire a hair colorist and is simply too embarrassed to correct the gaffe. Each spring, as well, Communication Arts, a design journal, invites Avi to predict the hot colors for the following year.
Color, of course, is a peculiar construct. At last count (and who counts), there are over seven million different colors. Thousands of whites alone. And white isn't even, technically, a color.
Someone has to be in charge.
What has replaced color prediction, however, as the assignment he dreads most, is a speech he must make next week at a high school in Brooklyn. Avi must explain the beauty of color - to a school for the blind.
The speech should (and will) possess his attention. But, as he starts to scrub the bathroom floor, he is thinking of an even more stressful event: tomorrow's arrival of Shula Hirschel. Mom.
***
Green symbolizes a healthy lifestyle.
Eleven years ago, after his West Bank duty, Avi came to New York with his best friend Shai. Military service is mandatory and stressful, and Israelis who afford so, travel abroad before returning for university. The plans were to first make money and then travel out west. To Vegas and, of course, the Grand Canyon.
"Open space. Safe space," Shai would dream.
Shai's American cousins in Queens put them up, and his uncle gave them work at his busy Manhattan deli.
Slicing pastrami, busing tables, Avi couldn't believe the prices.
"You want us to make less?" his uncle reacted. "It's New York. You'll learn."
Within days of arriving, Avi knew he wouldn't leave. Modern and gruesome New York mesmerized Avi. The metal, the chaos, the volume. He felt immediately at home among the forward, yelling New Yorkers. And not until they arrived in New York, arguing about which clubs to go out to, did Avi admit to his oldest, closest best friend that he was gay. It was an awkward moment, as the meaning of what Avi had shared settled with pensive, sensitive Shai.
Gather Members Respond:
Jessie Voigts says: "Mat - what an excellent story! wow! i am still stunned, and thinking. thank you for this - i'll be thinking of this story (and colors) for a long, long time."
A True Tale of a Complete and Total Idiot
Glastonbury, CT
Welcome to the narrative of my shame. Before I begin, though, I think it's important to know a little bit about me. Let me introducing myself. My name is Gunther Kilby and I'm a writer. Perhaps you've heard of me? I used to be famous. I've written two novels, a collection of short fiction - one of which was adapted into a movie that happened to star a certain actor by the name of DeNiro! - and more than a few articles in various well known and widely circulated magazines.
After my second book of short stories was published - and lauded by numerous critics for its, "...wonderful attention to detail, subtlety of its many diverse characters, and Kilby's knack for making the outrageous not only seem plausible but apropos." I was given the opportunity to go to South America to do a cover story. Non-fiction wasn't really my forte, but I was young and adventurous and didn't want to pass up the chance.
In '97, at the ripe old age of 27, I hit my professional peak by winning an Inky (shorthand term for an Inkwell Award, very prestigious, very important) for that story. It was about a tribe called Tehaneshu (pronounced ti-HAN-EE-shoe) located in northern Chile. Fascinating people, really, with an incredibly rich and unique culture in which its leaders are not chosen by age, gender, or family lineage but rather, the leaders are found from the balance of married couples. Their philosophy dictates that only those capable of successfully raising a family can successfully govern their people. If you would like more details please read the story published in Corners of the World (issue 132, Feb. 1996, pg. 44).
Yeah, I used to be cool. But now, not so much. On the mantle above my fireplace sits a series photos of me that eerily mimic - or mock, depending how you look at it - that famous picture in every high school kid's Biology book depicting the evolution of man. Except instead of showing a hairy little chimp turning into a sharp looking man in a three-piece suit, mine is pretty much the reverse. The photo on the far left shows me as a young man with thick black hair, a wide smile, and a perfectly fit body - showed off by the tight tee-shirt and shorts I wore - leaning on the bike I used to perform my job as a sandwich delivery-boy in the city. The next picture is a few years later, just after my first book, and my cheeks are a bit fuller, the slouch of my shoulders a bit more pronounced, and the tight tee shirt I wore in that photo only showed off the paunch I had begun to develop. Over the course of the next five pictures I've traded in too much of my hair for sixty pounds I don't need and a full-blown gut. I swapped my form-fitting tee shirt and shorts for a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of wrinkled Dockers that were probably two years out of style. I replaced my dependable 10-speed with a bag of Doritos. No, the only thing that I can say that I like about my own personal Darwinism was the addition of a small piece of gold around my finger, between pictures four and five. I got married and I'm quite convinced that she is the best thing that anyone could ever say about me.
Her name is Heather. Ah, my sweet Heather.
Gather Members Respond:
Mary L B. says: "I read the comments before the article; I thought that people must be exaggerating the finesse and humor of the story. After I read the story, I wanted to repeat each and every positive comment already made! Gabe, please provide an encore----soon."
A Trail of Dew
London
All of us are carrying something--placards, banners, flags, countenances. I have a white headband. Although I find myself in the front flank again, I stay calm. Resolute. The police are pushing back a small crowd that has gathered to watch us. There are no women among the onlookers, only men: some not so earnest office-goers who have stopped on their way to work; a few students biding their time while they have nothing better to do; and the customary policemen who watch and ogle in turns, bemused at the horde of women they have to both protect and control.
In the middle of the headband, on my forehead, is an outline in black. No picture. All the demonstrators are women because they have come to protest against the continued disappearance of their men--sons, brothers, husbands, etc.
Our group is an NGO. It's called the association of the parents of disappeared people. We have a lawyer as well, who looks after all the paperwork and issues statements from time to time. All of us have files, big fat things full of reports, clippings, memos, letters-to-the-president, signature campaigns, and case histories and so on. They have gained considerable weight over the last few years, what with each dharna or demonstration bringing its own pieces of paper. It eats up quite a bit of my time.
The city is going on about its hurried business, eager to finish yet another anxious day and return to a deathless evening at home. People don't die in their beds anymore. This dusty, old, stressed city. We have gathered by the gates of the civil secretariat, an odd-looking, big block of grey floors with countless windows, bereft of any character or shape that you can possibly remember. Ugly. It must also be one of the most protected premises in the world, probably second only to nuclear installations in India and Pakistan. What scares most people off in addition to the omnipresent security are the spiked gates and the sinister admission procedure they enclose within. You get wrinkles by the time you manage to set foot inside the compound. Sometimes I feel like tearing at this oppressive mechanism with my hands, pulling apart into shreds the high gates of officialdom. As if, as if the end of all problems were locked inside this concrete vestibule of authority whose chaperons sit in big offices attended by panting, obsequious errand boys. People who mock us, beat us with the stick of the law. Endlessly layered barricades, prison-like walkways on the sides with at least two SLR totting army jawans occupying every square foot or so, machine gun nozzles overseeing your every move from discreet angles. The only open channel in the middle of this barbed-wire jungle is the circuitous path meant for official cars, for authorised vehicles only .
All eyes seem to look in my direction. It makes me uneasy and every two minutes I find myself looking down at my feet. I always wear canvas shoes to these events. Bata. It takes some getting-used-to to be an active protestor, especially when you have a stake in the proceedings. I do not mind the pushing and shoving of the police as much as the prying eyes of the onlookers. Scores of amused eyes, smug in the knowledge of being on the fence; makes me squirm. But then, at the same time, it's important to have people present at a demo, as many as possible.
I can't shout slogans for long. I look at my feet and think, try to recollect and remember, an act easy and tough in turns. It's been more than ten years now.
Gather Members Respond:
I am Magi - Nicola K. says: "Mirza, this is an impressively written but harrowing account of the Kashmir tragedy - it deserves far wider reading than I think it will get. But don't give up, whatever you do. 10 stars from me."
The Gather.com Editorial Staff read each and every story submitted to the competition and after much debate and deliberation, they narrowed their choice down to one winner.
The Editors' Pick for the August submission period is...
Baby Angels
Halifax
Sweetapple was Halifax's man of mystery. Not that anybody ever tried to solve that mystery. Most folks stayed clear of him, just because he looked different. Nothing new in that. I always figured he didn't care whether or not people liked him. Any man dressed like that had no interest in making friends. He was alone by choice.
As far as I could tell, his only social contact came from riding the Metro Transit system. Transfer slip by transfer slip, he eased from one route to the next, touring the city for the price of a large cup of coffee. The veteran drivers, used to his eccentricities, were the most accommodating. It was the newer ones gave him grief.
"This is an in-bound bus, sir. That's an out-bound transfer. You have to pay to go back."
Made no difference to Sweetapple. He was just as happy to walk. For an old guy, he was in pretty good shape--lots of lean muscles and just a bit of a potbelly. His only real problem was his right leg. All the pieces were there; they just didn't work properly. Somewhere along his way through life, he'd seen action. The kind that leaves permanent reminders. For Sweetapple, that meant using a cane for the rest of his life.
Seemed he couldn't afford a real cane, but he made do. That's the first thing anyone noticed about him, that golf club. A driver, or whatever it's called. The fatheaded one. Someone had drilled a hole through the club and into the shaft, then stuck in a blue-handled screwdriver. Made sense, really, as a way of keeping his hand from slipping. On my cynical days, I pictured him using the screwdriver to hunt cats in dark alleys.
I met Sweetapple during one of my outgoing, adventurous, can't-stop-me-now days. I'd followed him to the Public Gardens. This after watching him pass in and out of my peripheral vision for almost four months. It took me that long to work up the courage to talk to him. What was I worried about? Panhandling? Cooties? A blue-handled screwdriver?
He leaned on the rail of the pond, tossing breadcrumbs to the swans. With each motion of his arm, he glanced over his shoulder at me as I approached. I got the feeling that he was more scared of me than I was of him. Imagine. And me all of five foot three. Even at his age, he'd be more than my match.
"Excuse me," I whispered, then cleared my throat to try again. "Excuse me. Sir?"
He put his hands in his coat pockets and grumbled, "Ain't got no change. Go away."
Caught off guard, I could only stare: first at his scraggly beard, then down at my clothes. To be honest, I didn't look much better than he did. My shirt, though tucked in, was a couple sizes too big for me--a souvenir from my last boyfriend, Kenny, and the only part of him I kept. I could see my socks through the holes in my jeans. And my baseball cap was still backwards from when I'd stopped a few blocks back to shoot my next masterpiece.
The Nikon should have tipped him off that I wasn't just another street person. Of course, for all I knew, he probably thought the camera was stolen. Or maybe he was just plain crazy. Whichever. I flicked him a half-hearted goodbye and headed back to the main gate.
I hadn't gone more than three steps when something hit the back of my head. It didn't really hurt, but the shock was enough to make me curse. Crumbs. He hit me with a bag of breadcrumbs.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I yelled as I turned around. He was standing so close that my nose brushed across the rough lapel of his coat.
Gather Members Respond:
Jose Wolfster M. says: "Betty, this is super writing, excellent way to draw someone in and keep them there. I loved it, twists and turns like Jessie says and what a way to keep one drawn in. Excellent writing one of your best!!"
To continue reading these winning stories, check Amazon.com/shorts in the upcoming weeks. There you will find your fellow Gather members' winning entries, along with many other engaging stories, all of which can be downloaded for $0.49 each!
Once again, congratulations to all the winners! But, the competition isn't over yet. Continue reading, voting, and commenting on the great September entries by clicking here - new stories are added daily! Also, don't forget to get your submissions in for the month of September. Simply email your 2,000-10,000 word entry to amazonshorts@gather.com, along with your full name and word count, and your submission will be posted to the competition within two business days.
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Comments: 16
ugh. as avi would say.
God bless.