Get someone else to do it for you

(by Sarah Armstrong, Colchester, UK)

John sauntered into the bar with the same ease that he walked through life.  He ignored the woman who started to hyperventilate when she saw him.  He didn’t have time to acknowledge them all, much as it pained him.
He sat down opposite Fidel and sighed.  Fidel’s single, thick eyebrows curled like an anxious caterpillar.
‘I don’t know why you think you’re better than me, John FK,’ Fidel spat.  ‘You know Jackie is really in love with me but you bamboozled her with your wit and charm.’
Kennedy glowed with self-consciousness, ‘She was free had to make her own choice.  I am sorry for your sake that she chose to be with me but we all have crosses to bear.’  He wiped away a single glistening teardrop, and then pointed at the distracting mass of crying women dragging their pert bodies towards him across the dirty floor.  He couldn’t pleasure them all, and Marilyn had asked him to keep his strength up. Determined not to look downwards, he raised his head with the fortitude he was bred with, the fortitude of one resigned to their genetic heritage.
Fidel shook the table with his jealousy and blew a putrid plume of acrid, grey, stinking cigar smoke across the table, ‘As you have stung my heart so will I sting your eyes.’
John coughed politely.
‘I wish I could help you to become a better person, and more attractive,’ sighed the president, as he glided away, ‘but I can’t.’
Fidel shouted after him, like a madman, ‘One day, in Texas probably, I will be revenged on you, Kennedy, and Jackie will be free to marry me!’

7 comments:

  1. There were many absolutely wonderful entries to this competition, but this particular piece of semi-historical conspiracy-theory-laced fan fiction really stood out for me. Thanks to everyone who sent me something to read – I might well use other entries in future. What a talented bunch you are...

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  2. Joel: it'd be great if all the entries were published somewhere.

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  3. i made my own Ocean Colour Scene best of mix today

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  4. Thanks, Luke. That's, uh...

    Hi, Felix. Yes, that's a good idea. I've got a couple of pieces I'm planning on using as guest columns at a later date, but I'll definitely look into something more comprehensive.

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  5. "I've got a couple of pieces I'm planning on using as guest columns at a later date"

    Any of them mine? :D

    I'd like to know what you thought of what I wrote, but I suppose everyone does.

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  6. Whilst I spend a lot of time in my day job giving people feedback on their writing and don't want this blog to become yet another venue for that, I will say that I enjoyed the piece you submitted. I particularly liked the use of "interspersed" as a dialogue tag and the clumsy, confusing transition into metafiction.

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