1984

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

The confused cuckoo clucked his final cluck, before collapsing back into his cabinet-clock.

Felix Barnaby Archibold Berrycloth was drawn away from his book... Something was wrong, it wasn't the thirteenth toll that had alerted him. What had actually turned his head was the confused inanimate cuckoo that inhabited the clock hanging on the wall opposite the fireplace.

Felix raised his arm, held his hand like an eagle catcher, and gave a short tuneful whistle. The latch of the cuckoo clock cabinet swung open and out flew the cuckoo. Soaring straight over to his master and landing on his outstretched hand, the cuckoo tilted its head in a way only birds can.

“13? Why did the clock strike 13 times, my dear bird?” Felix asked conversationally.

“For that, I do not know the answer,” the cuckoo tweeted, “but I can tell you something is terribly wrong.” Felix did not look shocked nor concerned by the bird talking or by this news in which he brought, Felix gestured the bird to continue.

“We have an issue Master, another of our Order presented a task to willing reciprocates.” The bird paused, mainly for effect, but also to draw breath allowing for him to carry on his tale. “The task presented was accepted and quite amazingly interpreted in so many different ways. This is the problem we have, Master, there are too many strong entrants for the task. How must one choose three winners from nineteen near to perfect entries?”

Felix, the leader of the Order, thought this over, he came up with multiple solutions immediately but realised not all would work, he decided to ask the cuckoo a question. “Why does there have to be only three winners?”

The cuckoo with its limited bird facial expressions, somehow looked shocked. “Well, Master, three has always been the way; Gold, Silver and Bronze. Fourth and fifth place do not, and have not ever won medals.”

Felix waved his hand dismissing the cuckoo’s answer, “Pish posh bird, rules change all the time, this can be one of them. What other issues are there? This can’t be the only one.”

“Well you see Master, there is still the issue of whittling the entries down from nineteen to thr.. Five.” The cuckoo corrected himself, and cocked his head again.

Felix took his thumb and forefinger and pulled on his long goatee, “Which member of our Order has created this task?”

“Liam Storm, Master. He has recruited the help of his lovely lady, but they are struggling.” The cuckoo was growing impatient, it had been out of its clock verging on too long.

Felix was not an unkind man, “Thank you for your warning dear bird, you may return to your resting place.” The bird nodded in what Felix assumed to be gratitude, and it left Felix’s hand to gracefully fly back into its home. Felix had come to the conclusion that there was no answer to the bird's questions. He had no answer to send back to Storm through the cuckoo network.

It was just going to have to be a problem that Storm would have to workout for himself.

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Hi all,

I cannot thank everyone enough for the interaction with this challenge, it blew up a lot more than I could have hoped, and I have noticed that there are a few entries that have listed other entries as their reason for knowing about the challenge.

As stated by the cuckoo and Felix Barnaby Archibold Berrycloth, this was a very, very difficult challenge to judge, and not only that, partly due to the difficulty in judging, and partly due to the amount of entries, I am expanding the winners to five as opposed to three.

The updated winners prizes are as follows;

1st: $6

2nd: $5

3rd: $4

4th: $3

5th: $2

Onto the good stuff, I will be tipping at the same time as posting, but as I found out last time, there isn’t a custom tip amount, and I can only do them in implements of $1/2/5. So some of these tips will be in multiple instalments, apologies for that.

1st: Midnight at the Carnival - Antoni De'Leon

A very eerie piece with an unforseen twist. I thought the world building in this story was brilliant, and I was hooked from the start. Sensational short story which had everything in it.

2nd: Deal with the Devil - Rachel Deeming

Rachel has put together a brilliant tale of family drama, the short story manages to showcase a long history in such a short time. Excellently written.

3rd: Quiet the Bells - Shaun Walters

Shaun has written a masterful dystopian short story, where everyone is chained to a specific routine. I especially loved the line: “The chimes tell you when to wake, when to eat, and tell the sleeping how long they have left to dream.”

4th: Haunting Hour - Donna Fox

"Oh... Gerald" A fantastic humour filled short not-quite-horror story. The sheet won me over completely and I was grinning all the way through reading this.

5th: Ohhhh nooo, what a terrible shame, but it seems I have accidentally got a joint 5th, whatever are we going to do? Guess we’ll just have to reward them all.

Incense and Iron - Matthew Fromm

An excellently written vampire story with an unexpected twist, very much enjoyed reading this one, and the style in which it has been written.

Subtle Shift of Shadow - Teresa Renton

An amazing love story, I was on the edge of my seat, and it left me on a cliff-hanger. Brilliantly written and a well deserved spot on my leaderboard.

Neuro Master - Kenneth Cruz

I'm a sucker for a superhero story, and this one I loved, considering it was also for the Epic Beginnings so only had a 300 word count limit, this story had a lot packed into it. Only thing with this is you haven't set up stripe, so I can't tip you. Please let me know in the comments when this is sorted and I can tip you the money after that.

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Quite obviously, I have desperately struggled to judge this challenge, as the winners pool doubled… and then some.

I hope you all enjoyed this, I certainly enjoyed reading every single one of them.

Thank you for taking part, and you can find all other entries on my original post that you can find here.

Liam Storm.