The Iron Writer Challenge #73 Summer Tournament Final

You know me as an author. Mostly comical, sometimes serious, but always… an author.

I don’t dabble much in poetry for a few reasons. One, I have this strange feeling that poems should, somehow, someway, rhyme. I have no idea why I sometimes see a jumble of words that don’t rhyme being referred to as ‘poetry'. Just correct me if I’m wrong, thanks.

And the second reason… I’m no poet, fair and simple. Thank you very much.

Why bring poetry in all of a sudden? I’m getting there.

Thanks to the unexpected win I pulled over the heads of fellow Irons Dani J Caile, Jordan Bell and Suzann Smith in The Iron Writer Summer Tournament Preliminary, I was pulled into the Final. Ergo, I was given yet another Challenge to do, one that I never asked for. Sigh.

As always, the elements were four… but this time, it seemed a bit too easy. Judge for yourselves. They were:

A lost key

A travel brochure

A thermostat

Dessert topping

  

Down Lanes and Over Stiles

After all the tense nights of nocturnal studying (three of them, specifically the ones just prior to E-Day), the worry filled days of emotional breakdown (two, to be exact. E-Day itself, and the day before), and the hard work that went into preparation (no comment on that line), you would think that now, on this side of the Dreaded Day of The Exam (that's the E-Day you were scratching your head about), I would have some free time to myself.

Give me a second to catch my breath while you go along and re-read that to see if it makes sense.

See, bottom line, I deserved a break. Oh yes, I did. The tension, the panic, the three hour and twenty minute torture of sitting in once place and writing on the same subject without pause… surviving something like that calls for a week of relaxation, with nothing but movies, cartoons and writing.

  

My mother, however, as most mothers are wont to do, did not see it that way. It turns out that, unlike me, she had actually noticed the growing pile of papers and strewn clothes accumulating around my room over the last week… and the only reason she had kept her peace was because she didn’t want me to use the ensuing conflict as an excuse in case the exam went south.

What I want you to take from that last line is how resourceful I can be when occasion warrants.