Entries, Featured, Wingnuts: Contest Entries
Tiffany Monique has a Jaded past! Our contest continues.
May
Literati! New to our site is the brilliant Tiffany Monique, with her entry to our current contest Wingnuts. (http://www.awordwithyoupress.com/2013/05/04/wing-nuts-our-new-contest/
Her wingman as she sleazes into the bar is Dean Koontz. Here is a bit about the lad:
Koontz was born on July 9, 1945, in Everett, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence (Logue) and Raymond Koontz.[3][4] He was regularly beaten and abused by his alcoholic father, which influenced his later writing, as also did the courage of his physically diminutive mother in standing up to her husband.[5] “In his senior year at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, he won a fiction competition sponsored by Atlantic Monthly magazine.[6] After graduation in 1967, he went to work as an English teacher at Mechanicsburg High School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.[3] In the 1960s, Koontz worked for the Appalachian Poverty Program, a federally funded initiative designed to help poor children.[7] In a 1996 interview with Reason Magazine, he said that while the program sounded “very noble and wonderful, . . . [i]n reality, it was a dumping ground for violent children . . . and most of the funding ended up ‘disappearing somewhere.'”[7] This experience greatly shaped Koontz’s political outlook. In his book, The Dean Koontz Companion, he recalled that he:
realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I’d once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters.”[7]
And here is Tiffany’s story:
Jaded
by Dean Koontz–OOPS! I mean by Tiffany Monique!
Before I had a chance to inhale, the room went blinding yellow.
Jade Hoang.
Skulls and dragonflies, power lines and candles. His favorite jacket. I’d know it anywhere. And it was here, with him inside it.
Crap.
And of course, it’s the one time I come to a bar. I’m supposed to be mourning my recent breakup. With Jade. But I don’t drink.
Crap.
“Did you see who just walked in?”
My wingman Dean. Koontz that is. His job tonight was to make me look good. He was doing that, no question, considering his age and I-love-my-dog-more-than-anyone-at-this-bar vibe (present company excluded of course). He is not the bar type, but he came out for me. And now that my own personal napalm bomb walked in, Dean turned into my emo-defense. His glasses hid his mischievous humor from the rest of the bar, but not me, and he gazed directly into my eyes, calling me on the carpet, and instantly bringing the bright yellow of shock back to the normal low-lit shades of the bar.
“I saw.”
“And now?”
And now? And now? My stomach has already jumped up in my throat, my body went on high alert (stupid Judas of a body), and I am standing in all my finery with my most obvious facade. Jade knows Dean. He’d see through this in nanoseconds. Am I gonna have to wing it? I turned to Dean.
“Check?”
“Check.”
Not tonight Jade, not tonight.
Dean Koontz (the one on the left) shares one of his golden moments
You can read more from Tiffany here:
With words, song & love,TiMo
I love the easy flow of this flash. It’s one of the things that endears me to a story. It tells me the author’s got what it takes to jump on the story train and ride it smoothly to its destination. Great, Tiffany!
I did all that? Cool! Thank you!
Indeed, you did all that. Like watching the roller coaster ride from above, hearing and seeing the characters in the cars survive the fun. Nice.
Tiffany, Sal is correct about how smooth your writing is. Each time I have read your story it becomes more vivid in my imagination. I really like your line, “(Stupid Judas of a body)”. I’m sure we all can relate to feeling this way. Dean Koontz was one of my husband’s favorite authors.
Blessings, pd
Thanks for that. I’m reading the contest entries now, and I’m so inspired to write more. Loving it!!!
Great story Tiffany. I hated for it to end! Dean Koontz is my favorite author. It was a wonderful, smooth story…
Thanks. I’m so jazzed and had such a good time writing it, I think I am going to submit to the limit! Plus the other submissions are all just darling!
lovely write here, Tiffany. Thanks for your comment : ) Jack