My old job had a very clear hierarchies and a right and a wrong way to do literally everything, seriously they had manuals and instructions for anything you would want to do, and as it turns out writing is not like that.
Sure there is good and bad writing, but as long as it has some substance behind it you can make almost anything work. Bad metaphors tend to make a full circle from trying too hard and rounding the corner to being so bad that they’re good. I wouldn’t put the line “They ran to each other like maggots jumping in hot grease.” It doesn’t work written and it hits a strange part of the readers brain but if the whole story is written to be crazy and outlandish like that, suddenly the mental image lands and my minds eye can see the little larva incredibly motived to get out of the grease and I’ll be damned if those lovers in my minds eye aren’t running pretty motivated as well.
Speaking of motivated, I had set up this year 2025 as my year to submit work to contests and “get my name out there” -2024 me was overly ambitious- I had the day dream that winnings would fund the website and pay reading fees while I submit more work. However as I often do, I jumped in head first not knowing what I was doing and early this year I found myself on writingbattle.com a fun website that gives writers a pitch of genre, character, object and a 1k word count limit. Then you are fed to another “house”, a group with different prompts, and you get what the website calls “Oodles of feedback”. Now that some time has passed and I’ve reread what I submitted I still don’t hate it. I’m not saying that writing battle is a bad place but I have a hard time keeping up with online communities because, well I have a life, and paying a group to tell me that I’m a writer doesn’t tickle me the way I thought it would.
Anyway, I pulled Genre: Time Travel Romance Character: Gambler Object: Battery. What I came up with is “Deadman’s Hand” below. Go give writing battle so business, its a good place even if it wasn’t for me. Let me know what you think below I’m still making the switch from paying people to read my stuff to maybe getting people to pay to read my work.
Deadman’s Hand
The dealer must have changed decks, and Tyler hadn’t noticed in his drunken grief. Cards get smooth and flaccid after a couple dozen shuffles but these seemed textured as he hyper fixated, laser focused on the feel of them against his finger tips.
“Sir, the blind is to you.” The dealer quipped, trying to stay professional but on the verge of cutting Tyler off.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He slurred and dropped too many chips into the pot. The dealer flipped the superfluous chips back to him, rolled his eyes, and stifled a huff as the Stranger across the table adjusted his shirt cuff and stacked his chips with a manicured hand.
“Long night?” He questioned Tyler, a mirror opposite of him, straight backed, dignified and sober to Tyler’s drunken hunch.
“Huh?”
The stranger patiently repeated himself, “you look like you’ve been through it. Have you had a long night, friend?”
Tyler felt his eyes swell and took a shaky breath before he overshared. “Yeah, man. My ol’ lady died the other day but she didn’t have life insurance. Just left me with all the debt and,” Tyler performed the faux pax of counting his chips at the table. Spread 600 dollars over the felt earning him another eye roll from the overworked, exhausted dealer. “Looks like 800 dollars in the world. Bitch left me with nothing.”
“Surely it isn’t that bad,” The Stranger began, “she must have left you with a lifetime of love and memories.”
Tyler scoffed and the dealer turned the river card, the last of his cards in the dealer’s hand had to be completed by the player’s cards. Tyler sloppily folded the corners of his cards to see the ace and eight of spades, with the ace and eight of clubs in the snooty dealer’s hand Tyler had two pair. Aces over eights spades and clubs.
The dead man’s hand. The Stranger noticed Tyler’s apprehension.
“Fuck it.” Tyler stated as he went all in the 600, not 800 that he had.
“If we’re going all out, friend, let me add a way you can fix your oversight.” The Stranger took an obnoxiously large automatic watch out of his pocket. The springs and gears worked with a rhythm that almost hypnotized Tyler’s booze soaked mind. “With this you can have all the time you could want. Go back and get your insurance if you want to be small minded about it.”
The dealer injected, “we don’t allow outside bets”, sounding bored with these two. The Stranger winked and added the watch to the pot. Tyler tossed his cards and the Strangers added his, “Two pair beats king high,” the dealer wiped the pot to Tyler who grabbed his winnings and headed to cash out and the parking lot.
Later standing in the snow and slush, his hands trembled with the cold. Dumb from drink and the beginnings of frostbite, he looked at the watch. The skeletonized structure showed the inner workings and a faint green glow lit his palm in contrast to the harsh streetlight.
“Weird looking toy,” Tyler mumbled to himself turning the watch over in his aching fingers. The crown and single pusher were the only features other than that green glow. Thinking it would start the stopwatch function, he clicked the pusher with a satisfying snap and a screen appeared on the face. A small layout, a battery indicator and a number showed “2001” before the ground dropped out from under him and his stomach lurched into his throat. If there had been anyone to see Tyler disappear from that lonely parking lot, all they would have noticed was a sloppy drunk vanish with an audible if not underwhelming “pop”.
Tyler found himself in a football field in summer. The heat of the sun and the sudden warmth stung his armpits under his shirt and winter coat. On top of the hill before him stood his high school. Proud and tall like it had never been demolished in 2015, like Tyler knew it had. He had done the temp work to tear it down. Suddenly feeling very sober he started moving his snow boots toward the group of people in front of the building. The place Tyler had been the best version of himself and the time he always wanted to go back to.
He left a trail of shed winter gear behind him as he stumbled toward the girl’s soccer team on the sideline between him and the school. His wife had played soccer in high school, they both had been so young and full of hope for the future. He could have picked her out of any crowd but here, with her hair up, curls fighting against her headband, his wife, his Jennifer stood out in her element.
Seeing her like this again. Her at her best before he had dragged her down with the world and money and vice, here he remembered why he had loved her. She was beautiful and he could see both the woman she would become and the young person she was then, wide eyed and hungry to see the world. A light in her eyes that he had helped kill by the end. A change that happened so slowly that he barely noticed until now. Memories of his past but her future flashed before him. Their wedding day, the birth of their son, the picnic in the orchard all those years ago, ripped tears from his eyes as he collapsed to his knees sobbing in front of her. A dirty man in out of season clothes kneeling to the girl who’s life he would betray. Before he could collect himself enough to speak to her the watch chirped and showed “battery” on the screen. Grief and love vaulted to horror as the man Tyler became disappeared in front of the girl to be his wife with an underwhelming pop.
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