I Need Your Vote! Short Story Teaser

For the next few days until the ending of the competition you're going to see me asking for your vote and support, there's a very good reason why.

The winner gets featured for a month along with their book/blog to be promoted.  I don't have a book to promote, but I do have a 3,000 word short story written and edited up for all of you.  As thanks for enjoying my stories, as well for voting to helping me win.  

Here's the link in case you weren't able to vote yet:  http://awritersgallery.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/m-a-barr-maskara/#comments

Rating it 1-5 stars will count as a vote, no need to do any kind of registration.  If you enjoy the story feel free to share it with friends and family as well.  

Like any other post of mine I'm not going to leave you without entertaining you for a bit.  So let me give you a small portion of that short story.  If you like the intro, you'll like the rest of it.   

It's about dreams.  How we kill them, and how we make them come to life.  

*picture is originally from http://sapsiwye.com/dramatic-silhouette-photography/

“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly…”

                                                                              

                                                                             -Langston Hughes

When You Wish Upon a Star...  

             I sit at my drawing table, staring at the empty glass in front of me and the nearly finished bottle of whiskey beside it.  The hushed busy noise of artists that once filled the studio has been replaced with a deafening damning silence.  Their tables’ line up hauntingly in front of me, their ink stains the only reminder of the artists that once bled on them.  I remember watching them pack their belongings into boxes earlier that day— pouring what’s left of the whiskey into my glass and wondering if they feel as hollow as I do now.  Scattered drawings and storyboards line the walls: our children that didn’t get a shot at life, our fantasies that didn’t get to sing or dance, our stories cut short before they even began.  I reach down opening the bottom drawer and pull out another bottle of whiskey, hoping to find an answer to… well… shit.  I pour myself another glass filled with smoky, sweet amber lies.

            I stand swaying just a bit, down my glass, and pick up three things:  my precious bottle of whiskey, a pack of matches, and a metal waste basket.  Staggering to the center of the studio I prepare my pseudo funeral pyre— grabbing some sketches off nearby desks, crumpling and throwing them into my waste basket.

            “Clarabelle.  Horace.  Clara.” my voice cracking just a bit as I pour whiskey into the basket after them— a farewell toast for the dearly departed.  My hands shake as I light the match and toss it into the basket.  I take one big swig and finish what’s left in the bottle as the fire rises; smoky black tendrils sending their fictional spirits on high to wherever cartoons go to when they die.  I collapse sitting on the ground, letting the empty bottle roll away.  I try to rub the frustration, the anger and the weariness from my face with both hands… maybe… maybe if I just keep my eyes closed, all my problems will go away…
  

                              …just… just let it all go…

    …give up and admit…

            … Dreams can die…

To be continued...  Be sure to vote to read the rest!