When I write, it is usually toward a specific end. Typically, that end is publication. It is a rare occasion that I would write something without intending for the world to read it. Rarer still, to write for a contest. Contests often have guidelines to follow. Rules.
I don’t tend to worry about rules much when I write. If I did, I wouldn’t be free to switch gears from fantasy to horror to drama to thriller and back again. Ask a person on the street what Stephen King writes, for instance, and they will tell you “horror.” But King doesn’t follow the rules. He writes whatever strikes him and, while that may typically land his imagination in scarier places, he’s also written detective stories, noir, coming-of-age tales, and much more.
Not being prone to follow the rules (Who exactly decided on these rules anyway? No one can seem to tell me.) is where the comparison to King must end. My readership is small. My name unknown but to a few. Still, I’m not one to lock myself into a genre or a specific framework. The muse is always driving the car. I’m just along for the ride. Which is why it’s an odd thing indeed that I wrote a story specifically for a contest. But I did. And a story came.
I won’t keep you guessing. I didn’t win the contest. I don’t even have any comments on the thing. My effort resulted in little more than a collective shrug. And that’s okay. Once the story came, it was all I cared about. Creation at work in my tired brain and working its miracles through my fingers and past the keys to form a world and a life of its own. The Author of all stories offering me a taste of His own handiwork…the chance to breathe life into a couple of a people in a run-down apartment.
It’s been just over a year since I wrote that morsel of fiction. I’ve decided to share it with you because, in all humility, I believe it’s worth reading. Not because I wrote it but because it captures a bit of grace and, perhaps, the hope that we can see beyond ourselves to consider those around us. Not as “the other.” But as fellow travelers through this difficult land.
