ANNOUNCING THE UNOFFICIAL MHR ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS CLICHES CONTEST

The Unofficial MHR Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest

Submit one micro flash (under 500 words) or poem (under 500 words) to madhattersreivew@gmail.com, subject line: Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest.

We gotta raise some money in order to continue publishing our out of this cyberworld mag, so I'm asking for $3.00 per piece to enter (via paypal to madhattersreview@gmail.com) if you want your entries to be considered for publication. Send no money if you simply want me to post your stuff on my blog here, at my whim and wish.

One absolutely atrocious poem and one absolutely atrocious fiction/whatnot will be chosen by an undisclosed judging committee of one, two, or three (whomever we can get). There may or may not be Honorable Mentions. MHR reserves the right to decline from publishing any entries if none of them meets the abyssmal standard set by the undisclosed judging committee. Editors of MHR (past, future, and present) may not enter the contest. Barking dogs, spitting, forni*at**g, and sm*king are not allowed.

Deadline: January 1, 2008

Here's a sample of an AAC fiction.

Satisfaction

By Carol Novack (original version published in Skive a long time ago)

We walked along the beach, holding hands. The sun was descending into the sea, offering a rosy fingered, late summer sunset that promised an autumn of shiny red apples and colorful, dappled, falling leaves. Nicole and I had met only hours before and already we knew that we were destined to be together forever. Her long golden hair gleamed in the rays of the sighing sun; her hand was feverish in mine. She stooped to pick up a clam shell and smiled as she brushed off the tiny dots of ancient mountains.

“Oh, Maurice,” she exclaimed. “This will be our first shell. We shall keep it on the mantelpiece and guard it as a legacy to our grandchildren.”

I smiled as I gazed into her blue eyes, the color of the western sky back in Arizona, where I was raised. I thought of those days of hardship, my poor, skeleton of a mother, cook, laundress and tender of pigs. And my salesman father, with his callous hands and birch canes. I remembered his sour whisky breath, how he’d return from his trips, cursing. Me and my six brothers and sisters would attempt to flee the minute he entered the house, bellowing for his dinner and his whiskey. Mom would stand by the door, meek as a mouse, her tongue caught by Tom, the housecat.

“Oh mamma, oh mamma,” I would plead, “don’t let the dog in, please, oh mamma.”

I would crawl on the ground and clasp her spindly legs in my arms. But she wouldn’t listen. She’d brush me off like a fly. Like she was in a trance, she let the dog of my father in and gave him whatever he wanted, which never satisfied the old man. Nothing satisfied him. So he killed my mother one day. But they could never find him.

Nicole sensed that I wasn’t altogether there, by the sea. She squeezed my hand so hard I had to laugh. And then suddenly, without warning, she stripped off her nifty Ralph Lauren jeans and diaphanous, gossamer Calvin Klein top. I gazed at the bursting brown bud nipples of her opulent breasts as she pulled me down onto the warm sand. A gull screeched happily as we kissed deep and long as eternity. I knew then that I was nothing like my old man. I was satisfied as the sun disappeared beneath the pounding waves.