Year 2, Week 30: Results!

I enjoyed the different takes on this week’s prompt.

 

First Runner Up:

Sara Codair with Solicitation

An interesting and fun read. Check for sneaky typos (interested instead of interest). Great use of dialogue.

Y2W30 Winner:

Bill Engleson 

with Dress Code

I enjoyed the stand-off over high heels.

Though, I was a bit confused as to who was telling the story. You can strengthen that by perhaps telling it from the no-nonsense Mavis’s point of view (adding her own beliefs as she watches Cleo remove her shoes and gradually revealing the information oddly left there in the middle about Mavis and the previous manager). And beware clichés – too many in a piece can cause a reader to skip over paragraphs.

“Damian grinned. Then glowered.” Loved this.

Dress Code

“Like pain? Try wearing high heels. In fact, I’m taking the damn things off.” With that, Cleo leaned against the pillar, back jacked her right foot, yanked off her patent leather discount refugee from hell, tossed it to the side, repeated the process for her left foot, heaved the offending instrument of torture, and then stood there fierce, proud, and securely flat-footed.

A calm look swept over her, a glow of gloriously attained abandon.

Damian Demeter, our new Manager, looked frazzled. Gran would have said he looked fit to be tied. For sure he was tongue tied.

Stonewall Consolidated Insurance Inc. had helicoptered him in a month ago to transform our district office. His pinstriped emergence had set the tone from the get go. Dark days were upon us.

Maybe things had become sartorially slack, at least by traditional business standards. His predecessor, Charlie Raible had been a charmer, efficient, direct, but an easy-going man to work for. Charlie believed that a modern workforce needed gestures of comfort and solicitude to induce stability. The company’s medieval dress code rankled every one except for Mavis Truett, who’d run the claims department since the release of Double Indemnity. Well, that was an old office joke, but Mavis was a lifer who bridled at Charlie’s compassionate approach and likely was the one who caused his downfall.

“Ms. Lambert,” Damian finally broke the stand-off, “If you don’t want to obey Stonewall’s dress code, you are free to depart.”

Damian had slapped Cleo with a stinging gauntlet.

You could have cut the tension with a knife if we were allowed to have them in the office.

Cleo was a smart cookie. I sensed her calculating the odds.

“I’m out of here,” she declared.

Damian grinned. Then glowered.

Maybe, just maybe, his dictatorial days were numbered.

That’s it for this week. Until Saturday… keep writing!