Rules and Regs for the September edition of the Great Bamboo Ridge Year of the Dog writing contest : )

Okay, we’re on our way. This month you can continue with any of the stories posted. You have the five story choices below. Pick one, write part three, 100 words. Post with the original title as your title. Please make sure to include Part One and Part Two when you post your Part Three. This will help anyone reading the story to follow what’s happening from the beginning. Mahalo : )

* * * * * Story Number One * * * * *

Dat Buggah Ma Fadda (Part 1)

“So what da buggah said?”

ma madda asked afta

ma fadda dropped me off.

“About what?”

“About what?” she said,

mocking me. “How about

what he promised fo pay

me in child support?

About what?

How about what he owes

me for trowing one brick

tru my windshield?”

She sat at the table looking

out da window, her eyes

neva looking at mine.

I always hated wen she

brought him up.

Even yeas afta, wen

I tot she wen foget him

longtime already, she

go, out of da blue,

“Dat buggah was one

real piece of shit

I tell you.”

Dat Buggah Ma Fadda (Part 2)

I neva saw ma fadda

trow da concrete brick

true da windshield of

ma madda’s cah

but was obvious wen

I wen come home from

school an wen see da

brick laying on her dash

dea must have been

plenny angah, plenny

violence fo lodge da brick

halfway true da glass.

Ma madda could do

dat to one man, drag

her finganails true da

chalkboard of his back.

She wen leave da brick

like dat for days an den

wen call all her friends

fo checkom out.

“Imagine driving around

town wit dat!” she would

say, an everyone

would laugh.

* * * * * Story Number Two * * * * *

Part 1

So what da buggah said?

Coach said, “Can try again if I like.”

You see. Can.

No use. No can. I no can.

Remembah da book, you used to like? Da small choo-choo train pull da whole line of cars up da hill. All da big trains tell “No use.” Or “No can.” Or “No like.” Da small train da only one try um. He tell himself, “I tink no can, I tink no can…”

Ha, ha! Uncle, da train went tell himself, “I think I can. I think I can…”

Yeah, yeah. You get um. Can! “I tink no can. I tink no can…”

Part 2

Before time, I used to play basketball.

Not!

Wit da Triple H boys.

What Triple H means, Uncle?

Hot, Hung, and Horny! Nah, nah, nah. Hung Huk Hui, Chinese Youth team.

All da other teams call us Triple Too: too slow, too short, too Chinese.

Ho, da mean!

Was true: we was short, slow, and Chinese. But mostly we was junk. But you know what? We show up for every game. Nobody hog da ball. Errybody play. Every game we hear teasing: “too, too, too.” But only make me tink of da litto train: choo, choo, choo. Tink you can?

* * * * * Story Number Three * * * * *

Nighthawks – Chapter 1

When you wish hard enough for something, you might get it. It was getting late, and I moved over to a barstool to tell her that I was in the mood for her. She looked at her watch, took my hand, turned it over, then rested her chin with her other hand and looked at me with a troubled look. I gave her a quizzical smile and asked if she was a palm reader and what did she find. She lit a cigarette and then took a long hard swallow of bourbon from a glass marred with lipstick and told me with a whiskey/cigarette voice what she read from my palm.

Nighthawks – Chapter 2

While waiting for her reply, the last call bell broke the silence, and the “leftovers” raised their brown stained fingers from the water-marked bar for one more. Downside the bar, a glassy-eyed strawberry blond with a scrambled egg hairdo gave me the once-over with a toothy smile, and for a moment, I thought this was my lucky night. In my excitement, I forgot about my future and stood up to check out tonight’s maybe. Before I took my leave, she held my arm tightly and whispered hoarsely in my ear, “My friend, you have no future – you used it up.”

* * * * * Story Number Four * * * * *

There goes the neighbors

“That’s the way it goes,” Dad remarked. “Sooner or later come our turn.”

Mom and Dad had just returned from a graveside memorialization for a recently deceased neighbor at the Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery. It was a private affair; a somber circle of family and two neighbors gathering to commemorate a man who was a husband, father, grandfather and a good neighbor to us for over forty years. Word of Mr. Masaki’s passing spread quickly through the neighborhood. There was no obituary.

“Mr. Hidoi stopped by yesterday,” Mom blistered. “He named all the neighbors who died, then snickered saying that your father was next!”

——————————————

That was five years ago. Dad turns 86 years old this year. He is planning his last pig hunt on the Big Island this summer and is registered to run in the December Honolulu Marathon. Even he, however, didn’t think he’d live past his 57th birthday. That was the age his father was when he succumbed to a hemorrhagic stroke.

My then 58-year-old sister accompanied him on his last hunt. “Yeah, well, had to make exceptions for him last year when he went hunting,” she explained. “He had gout so bad he couldn’t walk without a cane. I …”

* * * * * Story Number Five * * * * *

Dat Buggah, Ma Fadda

“So what da buggah said?”

ma madda asked afta

ma fadda dropped me off.

“About what?”

“About what?” she said,

mocking me. “How about

what he promised fo pay

me in child support?

About what?

How about what he owes

me for trowing one brick

tru my windshield?”

She sat at the table looking

out da window, her eyes

neva looking at mine.

I always hated wen she

brought him up.

Even yeas afta, wen

I tot she wen foget him

longtime already, she

go, out of da blue,

“Dat buggah was one

real piece of shit

I tell you.”

Part 2

I finish reading. Nobody in the class says nothing. Mrs. Larsen is staring at me, mouth open, her eyes wide. Finally she says,

“Ah, well, ah,” she swallows. “That is quite a powerful poem, Peter. I, ah, love your use of pidgin. Rings so true. Vivid word choices.”

I love this poem. I always tell my students we never ask if a piece is true, but I have to restrain myself here. If it’s at all true, I . . .

I know what she’s thinking. She wants to ask me if it’s true. Go ahead, ask me. Come on.

* * * * * Story Number Six * * * * *

Part One

“So what da buggah said?”

“So what da buggah said?” Rudy the barber asks me.

“Some bullshit about Denise and Chris.”

I’m waiting for a haircut. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Christopher Andaya enter. He’s dark, looks real Hawaiian.

“Chris, whas’up?”

Suddenly he pulls a knife, comes at me. I grab my gun inside my jacket and shoot him three times, but instead of dying, he turns around and staggers outside. I follow.

I say, “Chris, you’re supposed to be dead already,” and boom, he goes down. I flip him over.

His face looks weird, his eyes all glassy, looking up at me like I’m God.

Part Two:

“Hey, Chris. No ack. We bot’ know dis not no real gun. Don’ go Deadman’s Gulch on me.”

“You mean Old Pali Road?”

“Yeah, wotevahs. Wit’ one trunkload of pork.”

“An’ da cah when stall.”

“An’ no staht.”

“Bumebye dey trow away da pork.”

“Hey, if dey when turn da cah aroun’ an’ head’m back down da mountain . . .?”

“Not.”

“What?”

“Dey gif da peeg to somebody goin’ da uddah way.”

“To town?”

“Whatevahs.”

“K’den, bra. Bra, you doing OK?”

“Yeah, no. Nevah bettah.”

“Den gif back da gun.”

“Dis not no real gun.”

“Gif’m to me, Chris.”

“Firs’, da shiv.”

* * * * * Story Number Seven * * * * *

I WISH I HADN’T WISHED

When you wish for something hard enough, you just might get it. Then

comes the part about how hard you thought about what happens next, as

in being careful what you wish for. Jiminy Cricket says nothing about

which star you should wish upon, nor about possible evil consequences

of choosing poorly. How about the venerable first star I see tonight?

Does that imply a filter, a guarantee against bad choices and evil

consequences? Suppose you say you’re bored stiff and wish something

interesting would happen? By interesting you mean? Who cares? Nothing

could be worse than this. Let’s give it a shot: I really wish

something interesting would happen. Oh-oh.

Part Two

Wisharama in Wishitopia in G-flat minor

How old were you when you realized “I wish I knew” does not

necessarily mean you want to know?

What it more likely means is that you don’t want to take the time to

find out. Or it’s not worth knowing. Or you’re too lazy. Or . . .

Or maybe you do know but telling would take too dang long. Or you

don’t want us to know. Or . . .

How old are you, anyway? What makes any of this the least bit scary? (Isn’t it?)

I wish I knew. I wish, really wish, you’d think hard about it, then

let us all know.

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