Our first finalist

By On August 30, 2011 · 20 Comments · In Featured, Past Contests: Rules & Winners, Vampires Suck!

Good evening, to those of you in our hemisphere, and good what ever time it is for everybody else.

We have our first finalist for our Vampires Suck! contest, and that would be Jenny Rostrom

Like all finalists, she is required to use exactly 314 words, and to include the sentence in her work “I was scared then-the monster was in my belly”

Let’s see what she did with it…

All That We See or Seem

by Jenny Rostrom

“You can take it, dear. Just take the pill and this’ll all be over, that easy.”

I looked down at the plastic cup, the single yellow pill rattling inside with the shaking of my hand. They’ve been saying for days that I’m crazy, I thought, but I’m not, I’m not. A nurse with a thick beard and thicker neck stepped up behind tiny Nurse Romney. My mouth was dry; I tightened my right hand on the edge of the sterile, white bed.

“Let’s do this the easy way, all right?” I felt no desire to find out what the hard way would be, but I knew this huge nurse wouldn’t have any qualms about making sure I found out.

Nurse Romney finds your excuse a little hard to swallow. But perhaps there are Mittigating circumstances

Maybe I just take the pill, and throw up when they’re gone. The thought made me anxious. What if I couldn’t? What if they didn’t leave? What other choice did I have?

I slowly brought the cup to my lips and threw my head back, swallowing the bitter little chemical cake dry. It seemed like only seconds before nausea rose, biliously warm in my throat, but I forced it down again. The nurses still stood just in front of me. I squeezed my eyes shut to ward off the dizziness. I was scared then—the monster was in my belly, dissolving slowly, mixing, churning.

“There’s a good boy,” I heard Nurse Romney say. I pressed my palm to my forehead to find it clammy, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, and opened my eyes to stare at her, to will her to leave before it was too late.

This time, she was alone. “What,” I muttered bitterly, “you don’t need him here anymore?”

Genuine confusion creased her brow. “Who?”

“The other nurse, the one who was here to scare me.”

“Nobody was here but me, sweetheart.”

I could hear him laughing, inside me.

 
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  • Anonymous

    Ahhh – the let the madness begin!  What a great look into the mind of madness, great description of the fears, feelings, and paranoia that permeate the psych ward. This is one of those stories that I always say, “Dang, I wish I’d written that.” Good job, Jenny!

  • Anonymous

    Ahhh – the let the madness begin!  What a great look into the mind of madness, great description of the fears, feelings, and paranoia that permeate the psych ward. This is one of those stories that I always say, “Dang, I wish I’d written that.” Good job, Jenny!

  • http://www.alongthewritelines.blogspot.com Derek

    Good fiction like this always reflects an element of truth.

  • Anonymous

    Jenny,
    When I read the line you had to include in your story, I thought, ooh, if I was writing, it would be something medical. You did a great job with that very subject.
    Blessings, pd

  • Diane Cresswell

    Ok Jenny you got my attention.  The path of madness takes on many flavors.  Spot on as the Brits would say with your perception and writing.  One of the things that I have noted in my experiences of this world and other worldly is that madness may not be madness at all, but a highly developed psychic sense.  And of course our lovely psych masters do not allow for this into their system of diagnosis.  So with your story – makes me wonder if the young man was really paranoic or paranormal in reality.  Great story.

  • http://wmadvantage.tumblr.com Chuck

    Jenny that was great! Now if only he could do something about the monsters in his mind.

  • http://wmadvantage.tumblr.com Chuck

    I remember when I saw the ads for Charlie St. Cloud I thought to myself “he’s so guilty over the death of his brother that he goes mad and starts hallucinating him? Awesome!” Then I read in a review that it was actually his brother’s ghost, I became disappointed, and didn’t watch it. The paranormal can be fun, too, but personally I prefer crazies. :D

  • Anonymous

    Have to agree with y’a Chuck. Though I do have a healthy respect for the paranormal, Give me a full-blown paranoid schizophrenic, a basket of hot wings, and a Miller Lite and I got the Superbowl in a hospital room.

  • Diane Cresswell

    Was that you in my room?  Actually I was down the hall with all the other crazies trying to figure out which ones were ghosts and which were real!!!  Could have used the hot wings to help me decide! 

  • Jenny

    The headmonsters are usually the sneakiest kind ;)

  • Kyle katz

    The first line peaked my curiosity.  Your description of the bearded nurse and thicker neck was distorted and out of context enough to lead me to believe, something else was in the mist. That clue lead me to carefully read every line slowly as not to miss anything. You really did set the pacing of this tale. You have described perfectly my indigestion woes when I eat foods that don’t like me!

  • Jenny

    Thanks a lot, I appreciate the comment and hearing this interpretation, especially since I didn’t think of that myself

  • Jenny

    It might have been a little obvious, haha. As for the compliment, I’ll take it :)

  • Jenny

    For me, it’s somewhat personal because for a time I intended to get into psychiatry. I was always conflicted on the subject of medication because I didn’t want to…chemically alter the mind of someone who I’d perhaps misunderstood or who could have been helped through more natural means. I know that, if given psychiatric medication, I myself would have difficulties convincing myself it was ethical to take it.

  • Jenny

    Why, thank you, that’s quite generous

  • http://charismaticmegafauna.deviantart.com/ StrongLikeSeamus

    Great stuff, Jenny. It’s the little details that really hammer things home in your writing, I think.

    Also, mindghostnurse is Tyler Mane in my mind.

  • http://charismaticmegafauna.deviantart.com/ StrongLikeSeamus

    Great stuff, Jenny. It’s the little details that really hammer things home in your writing, I think.

    Also, mindghostnurse is Tyler Mane in my mind.

  • Jenny

    I had to look up who that was, now I’m totally glad I did. And thanks for the comment :)

  • Jenny

    “foods that don’t like you,” eh? I question what you’ve been eating :)

    Thank you so much; as always, I love finding out what in particular people liked and didn’t like!

  • Dallas G

    Ok probably the best ever. I think I was literally scared as I read this!