I am a sucker for some competition. There is nothing I love more than flexing my narrative skills under self-inflicted duress. Which is why my favorite competition to compete in is the NYC Midnight challenges. I prefer to do the “Flash Fiction” matches, just because it forces me to not procrastinate which I enjoy doing more than I should, but I won’t say no to their short story competition.

The way that they work is that they assign the contestants a genre, a scenario, and character. Sometimes they change it up and they have an item that must appear somewhere in the story. Regardless, the writer is tasked with creating a piece including these specific parameters.

For this year’s round one I was given: Genre – Drama; “Sold out”; Grandmother. With these I wrote the story below, which got me into 4th place! Now the top ten move onto round 2! If you stick around after the story you can read what the judges said about my entry.

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“Life of Cards”

Virginia had been dealt death many times in her life. First, it was her father who had passed when she was only six years old. She was left in the care of her stepmother, who felt no obligation to keep her. So, instead, she turned her over to the foster system.

            “I’m sorry, Ginny,” she had said, trying to muster up the most sincere tone, “but I can’t take care of you and my kids. I have my hands too full. This is all I can think to do.”

            Virginia was left perplexed as to why it was even a question, but at the time, she knew it must be something only adults knew.

            For eight years, she hopped from home to home until she was handed a card of life. It came to her in the form of love when she met the man who would take her away from it all. She saw Robert for the first time while visiting with a friend, sitting in the living room in a wing-backed chair with her legs draped over one of the arms.

            “This six-foot boy with broad shoulders and slicked-back hair strolled in. He was so handsome,” she recounted years later to the two children she would have with Robert. “He thought he was a quiet, gangly nerd, but I was smitten.” She paused and smiled, lost in the memory. “He knew how much I needed a hero and rescued me.”

            “Mom, you don’t think it’s odd that an eighteen-year-old boy would be attracted to a fourteen-year-old girl?” Patricia had asked.

            “Oh, phooey,” she said, waving a hand to wipe the stench of this sentiment from the air, “I’m telling you this now, as an adult. I know how and what I felt. Just focus on the romance of it, Pat.”

Love kept turning up in the deck of her life for what felt like years on end. It was met with adventures and successes in her husband’s home construction business. She had almost forgotten about it until everything shifted, and the dark cards kept coming up. One by one, she was handed death when she lost her son in Afghanistan, then again when her husband was taken from her by a heart attack while gardening, and then once more when her daughter passed in the delivery room.

            The birth of her grandchild, Owen, even though it was accompanied by the loss of one of her greatest loves, was her saving grace. He was what gave her her daughter back. He was a “double-whammy” she needed to keep playing.

            Owen’s father chose to not participate in his life, even when given the option.

            “Listen, Mrs. Sticklin,” his voice was even more cold over the telephone line, “This isn’t for me. I give everything to you. He’s yours. I want no part of it.”

            “I’m familiar with that feeling,” she said, choking on the words. “I will ask nothing of you. Nor will I lie to him about why you’re not here.”

            “I could care less,” he spat and disconnected the line.

            Virginia cringed at the miswording of the phrase.

            Good riddance, she thought. Clearly, he isn’t playing with a full deck.

            Virginia knew she wasn’t prepared to be a mother again, like most women at fifty years old, let alone as a single parent, but she refused to relent. Much like she had promised not to abandon or give up on her children, she refused to do so to the one remaining link to a life long gone. She swore to do whatever she could. No matter what.

            The early years of their life together were like gliding onto a well-worn track, and Virginia found the know-how to get it done. Late nights of tears, diapers, and snuggles went by in the blink of an eye. Owen was walking and talking with his own strong opinions and interests that seemed to change daily.

            Then, one summer night, everything shifted again. Virginia was sure this was the flashpoint that caused the worst of all Owen’s obsessions.

After Virginia had finally tucked him into bed, she retired to the kitchen table to play a game of solitaire. She pulled out her well-worn cards from a drawer, shuffled them up, and set up the game board, licking her thumb as she went. Before she dealt out the first three cards, she studied the ones before her, building her strategy.

            Deep in thought, she hadn’t noticed Owen stroll into the kitchen in his mint footy pajamas.

            With a tiny finger, he tapped her on her arm, sending a jolt through her body and causing her to fling out her arms, nearly tossing the cards clutched in her hand.

            “Good, Lord, Owen,” she said, grabbing at the stitch in her chest with both hands, “don’t scare grandma like that.”

            “My tummy hurts,” he said, his little arms wrapping around his midsection.

            “Are you sure?” She asked, “It wasn’t hurting a second ago.”

            Her grandson nodded as he rubbed his right eye with his small fist. She knew he was just trying to get out of going to bed.

            Virginia scooped Owen into her lap and wrapped her arms around him as she played the game before them. He sat silently as she whispered her moves into his right ear.

            “And now, we have an Ace!” she said, taking it from the draw pile and putting it into the home row.

            “Yay!”

            The game wound on into the night until she reached where she could no longer make a move. The cascade of alternating suits blocked the cards she needed to finish the game.

            “We can’t win them all,” she said.

            “You didn’t win?” Owen asked, looking at the state of play before him.

            “Nope,” She said, “that’s why we shuffle and try again.”

            “Can I play? I know I can win.”

            Virginia laughed.

            “I’m sure you would,” she hugged him, “but it is way past your bedtime.”

            She put him back into bed, tucked him in tight, and kissed his forehead.

            The next day, he was bent on learning to play. In his first few games, he would cheat without knowing, but Virginia quickly corrected him, and he would follow her instructions.

            “You have to play by the rules, or a win isn’t real,” she said.

            Owen nodded and then haphazardly gathered the cards into a pile to shuffle them.

            Soon, when he had grown bored of playing alone, he begged her to teach him another game. The only one she knew by heart was Rummy, which they would play multiple times a day at the kitchen table. She loved watching his eyes look intently at his hand, his little tongue wagging between his lips. The wheels were spinning hard in his head. He was always working things out.

            On the first day of first grade, Owen took his deck of cards to school to tempt the other kids to play with him, but he couldn’t. They were only interested in Pokemon.

            “What’s poke-e-man?” Virginia asked him when he came home from school.

            “It’s a card game,” he said, his eyes lighting up, “you have these little monsters that fight each other.” His gestures were broad and fast as he explained it.

            “Can you get me some?” He asked, his blue eyes pleading.

            Virginia pursed her lips together, “I’ll see.”

            Owen searched the internet on his iPad to further assist his endeavor to acquire pokemon cards. Whenever he got something new and “notable,” he would show her. By bedtime, she was tired of hearing about it and couldn’t be bothered.

            “It looks like some new ones are coming out soon!” he whispered to her.

            Virginia chuckled.

            “Go to sleep, love.”

            The next day, when Owen was in class, Virginia found a local hobby shop to make sense of the information she had been shown the other evening.

            “Well, you came on a good day since the newest set just came out. Unfortunately I’m sold out.”

“Sold out? How is that?”

The proprietor rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Scalpers. They come here, buy everything, and sell it online for crazy prices.”

Virginia groaned, “Well, we’re just starting.”

“In that case, you’re going to want to get a deck,” he replied, pointing to the shelf behind him filled with colorful animated boxes. Each had some elaborate fantastical name for what lie within.

            Virginia nodded, her eyes studying the selection.

            “This is too much. Just give me whatever you need to play.”

            “The two-player starter?” he said, grabbing it and holding it up for her.

            “Sure, might as well learn,” she answered, shrugging.

            When Owen got home from school she surprised him with the set. He threw his arms around her and then studied the box.

            “Does that mean you’re going to play with me?”

            Virginia shook her head with an uneasy smile, “I’m sure going to try.”

            She marveled at the game’s strategy and loved watching him grasp the nuance of the rules. He would move each card from one space to the next, studying his cards and licking his lips.

            He is made for this, she thought.

            Once he had a firm grasp and over a hundred wins with his grandma, Owen entered tournaments and went after all the sought-after cards. He was a shark. Determined and ruthless. She would play the game online at night to stay ahead of him. However, no matter how much practice she put in, Owen was always one step ahead.

            “Thanks for playing with me, Grandma,” he said after another round of complete and utter annihilation.

            “I try,” she said.

            Owen just smiled.

            That night Owen came to her complaining once again about his stomach.

            “Grandma, it feels like it’s twisting my guts,” he said, “can we go to the doctor?”

            Still in her robe, they rushed to the emergency room for answers.

            “Everything is going to be alright,” she said in the bustling waiting room.

            However, after nearly twelve hours in the emergency room with an innumerable set of blood tests, CT scans, and X-rays, whatever she may have wanted the answer to be, there was another card waiting to be dealt.

            “I’m sorry to tell you this,” the doctor said, with a twitch of his mustache, “But it appears he has intestinal cancer. I wish I could tell you more, but this is beyond my expertise. We’ve referred you to the nearest children’s hospital.”

            Virginia went numb. The room around her seemed to spin, and what she heard was drowned out by a high-pitched whine.

            “Are you okay?” The doctor said. He went to grab her arm, but she held up a hand.

            “This is just a lot,” she assured him.

            She was furious with herself for not listening earlier.

            Virginia and Owen’s lives morphed into doctor’s visits and hospital stays. Try as they might to get rid of the cancer, it seemed to pop up somewhere else unexpectedly and always more aggressive than before. They needed a surefire way to get rid of this.

            The only thing that made sense for Virginia was to keep playing games with her grandson to distract from the chaos of sickness. She would always play with a smile, determined to let him win no matter what. To her utter dismay, her winning became much easier and more frequent. The treatments were taking his sense of awareness away. She would watch him make moves that didn’t quite make sense.

            There is no strategy here, she would think.

            Late one evening, as Owen lay in the hospital bed, connected to IVs and a heart monitor, Virginia watched his frail, small body breathing. With all the deaths in her life, she had never been here, in this moment, struggling to understand or do something. Death had always come to her like a thief in the night, stealing from her what she loved most.

That I could handle, Virginia thought, but this is something else entirely.

            The next day came, and she was determined to do something she had some control over. She knew that the next set for Pokemon was coming out and intended to get him all the packs she could find. Hell, she might even buy him a box. Just to bring some joy into his life.

            She tried three different stores but was only met with disappointment. As a last-ditch effort, she went to the nearest department store and made a B-line for the trading card section, but there was nothing but metal shelves and empty hooks before her. Virginia’s heart was in her ears.

            She went immediately to the register.

            Maybe they haven’t put them out yet, she thought.

            “No, I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re sold out. He just bought everything we have,” the clerk pointed to a swarthy man walking out the automated doors, carrying four full bags.

            “What!” she screeched.

            Virginia ran out of the store after the man and grabbed his arm just as he was about to step off the curb.

            “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

            “Excuse me?” the disheveled man asked, squinting at her behind his glasses.

            “Why did you buy all of those cards?”

            “It’s none of your business!”

            “It is indeed my business!” she shouted. She could feel the tears forming beneath her eyes, “You don’t understand. You come in here and buy up all of this stock for what? To sell it at some jacked-up price? My grandson is dying. All I can think about is bringing him some modicum of joy in the face of death, and here you are, being some foul creature who turns kids’ toys into some sick investment! You couldn’t leave just one? It had to be all of them? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

            The man stammered over his response, his head jerking around on his neck as he looked at the scene unfolding around him.

             Virginia started to cry.

            “How could you do this? Just be—”

            Frazzled, the man held up his right hand, holding two bags, “Here, take these.” He shoved them into her chest, looked around, and shuffled as fast as his worn sneakers could carry him back to his car.

            Virginia hugged the bags into her chest and cried harder than she had since she lost her daughter. She hurried back to her car with her new treasures, double-checking the contents to make sure it was even the set she had wanted. Her challenge had won her thirty-six packs and a stick of old spice deodorant, which she quickly discarded before handing them over to her grandson.

            “Grandma!” Owen said with a big smile, “This is awesome! Thank you!”

            The boy tore into the silver wrapping with all the excitement she had seen him have the first time she had bought him a starter set.

            “I can’t wait to add these to my decks,” Owen said. “I got some real good cards. I’m going to win!”

            Virginia smiled with damp cheeks.            

“I hope so.”

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JUDGES FEEDBACK:

”Life in Cards” by Joshua Hensley –    

WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY –

{1894}  Virgina’s explosion in the parking lot felt very realistic – she’s under a lot of stress, and a random breaking point over game cards was a great way to show this. The connection between her and Owen is strong, and using the games as a way for them to spend time together was a nice touch. Their dialogue also felt natural and conversational.  

{2115}  I’m really impressed with the scope of this story, which covers some weighty themes and quite a large period in Virginia’s life. I like how vividly her different family members come through—those who have left her life, like her stepmother, her late husband and children, but especially the grandson whose caregiving duties keep Virginia vital and active into old age. I like the gentle thread of cards and games that ties in with her resilience and the “cards” she draws in life. Good job raising suspense and tightening pacing as cancer gets closer with the grandson’s diagnosis and the dramatic scene in the store with the card purchase. And I love the open note you end on! 

{2333}  I like how much of Virginia’s life is included in the story. Knowing just how much death and loss Virginia has experienced across her lifetime helps us understand fully how upsetting it is for her to learn that her grandson has intestinal cancer. Also, it heightens the urgency of her hunting down Pokémon cards for Owen.  

WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK –

{1894}  Consider cutting some of the backstory offered. While the descriptions of death after death add depth to Virginia’s suffering, the true start of the story seems to be when Owen starts wanting to play games with his grandmother. What would it look like if the story started here? A quick line or two about why Owen’s mother’s death could set up their lives together. This could also cut the volume of the story – having too many highly intense pieces in one story can cause the reader to feel removed from the characters. Consider keeping the main conflict focused on Owen’s illness.  

{2115}  My main question is, should at least a few of the particulars of the Pokemon game come through, the way we see some of the details of her Solitaire game? Should we see some of the names of the cards she and her grandson seek? That might make the pathos of this story feel even more grounded and authentic. 

{2333}  Clarify the statement at the top of p.3. The author says one summer night, everything shifts, and Virginia is “sure this was the flashpoint that caused the worst of all Owen’s obsessions”. It’s unclear what the author is trying to say with this statement. As written, it reads like the worst thing about this moment is Owen’s interest in card games, and not the stomach pain that may or may not be the first sign of his intestinal cancer.