Year of the Pig writing contest rules and regs for April : )

Okay, on to round two. Your challenge this month is to add on to the story below. You can add

exactly 100 words

or

exactly 200 words

or

exactly 400 words.

You can also feel free to change the title of the story to suit your focus. Don’t forget to paste the original entry as Chapter One of your piece, then add your Chapter Two below that.

Here we go:

Ornithological Rhapsody sans Dove or Rats with Wings

Rudy knows people, and,

because he knows people,

Rudy loves birds.

It is not enough to say that he likes, admires, envies, and adores all

birds — he LOVES them,

wants to marry them,

wants to BE them.

Most especially, he wants to join the lyrical thrush family,

the robins he admired back then,

the shamas he favors now.

But he loves them all —

woodpeckers, barnswallows, eagles, parakeets, budgies, Hartz Mountain

warblers — kid-time favorite comic book: “Blackhawks”.

These days he goes for the high-flying morning flocks of screeching

green parrots and the solitary, tree-skimming, side-gliding white owl

after dark.

Kentucky cardinals, koleas, cowbirds, chubby flocking majiros, silly

geese, and potty-mouthed Donald Duck. Rudy loves all birds.

But Rudy hates doves.

Rudy hates doves for the reasons we all hate those nasty, sneaky,

louse-ridden, sidewalk grifting, shoplifting shitdrippers.

Well, OK, maybe not the official Peace Dove with the olive branch. Of

course not. And not Dove soap, ha ha. But none of this pigeons in the

grass, alas, guano. Huh-uh. Pigeons in the grass can bite Rudy’s

okole.

So he’s standing there like Mr. Clean, arms crossed, proprietarily

admiring his ironwood tree, when he thinks he detects movement at the

bottom of his stairway.

Coo-coo kachoo, there IS movement: fucking doves. Two fucking doves.

Two doves fucking in that awkward, jerky, grabass way doves fuck,

right in his own front yard.

And now he really hates doves. He’s furious. Fucking doves. He’d like

to wring their twisty little necks. Sucking doves!

Rudy catches his breath. “Olive branch,” he thinks. “Peace out, bra.”

He grins, claps his hands hard, makes them sting like rifle shots,

like shotgun blasts. Feathers fluster, flutter, and fly. But not far.

Definitely not away. Like recalcitrants, like people. Like doves.

By participating in the Bamboo Shoots community, you agree to the following rules:

1. We reserve the right to remove content that promotes hate or gratuitous violence. Be respectful and courteous to others.
2. All contest challenge entries must be submitted by the designated
3. Enter as many times as you like using a trigger/prompt (this page).
4. Contest Challenge entries can be prose (including short stories, nonfiction essays, or whatever you write), poetry, or plays -- or any type of hybrid writing you dream up.
5. Every entry must have a title -- unless you choose to enter a haiku, in which case you can simply enter the word haiku in the title section.
6. All content/entries should be original work. You retain ownership of your entries; however, we may ask to use them elsewhere on the site or on social media to help promote Bamboo Ridge and/or the Bamboo Shoots online writing community.
7. Winners will be announced with all possible speed after the end of each month. Winners receive 10 Bamboo Bucks credit to spend in the BRP online bookstore. Bamboo Bucks have no monetary value outside of the online store.
8. Entries may also be selected for publication in the regular Bamboo Ridge Journal. If your piece is chosen, the editors will contact you via the email address on file.
9. Please note that you need not enter the contest challenge in order to post on Bamboo Shoots. You may post other writing if you choose. We welcome that here:  Click this link to go to Shoot da Breeze.