Tale of The Week 5 - The Winner

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Juvenal continues his triumphal march with this instant classic.

Congratulations!



Tale of the Week 5

Gaza Coffee-House Parting

Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah sat outside his establishment, head hung low with an air of despondency. At intervals he addressed passers-by in desultory fashion on the quality of his services, with no success. Gaza was a small town and his girls, no beauties, were now known and loathed by his whole clientèle.

After a particularly rude brush-off, Hakim stood up in disgust and walked right out of town into the wilderness. After hours of circular thoughts about his problems he happened to look down and saw something glint.

Carefully clearing the rubble away, Hakim found that he had discovered an old battered oil lamp. Suddenly excited at this exemplar of childhood stories he gave it a good hard polish with a corner of his robe.

With a blaze of sparks and a cloud of acrid smoke the Djinn appeared (coughing). Hakim, fearful of being tricked, blurted out “I wish my girls were irresistible to men!”

The Djinn, nonplussed, abandoned his prepared speech and disappeared back into the lamp, the words “You got it bub” echoing in the rapidly dispersing cloud as he departed.

Hakim ran back to Gaza. A large queue of foreigners had already formed outside his premises. He noticed that they looked angry and carried much weaponry, so he ran down the line shouting loudly that this was Happy Hour and all prices were halved.

All proceeded well through the rest of the afternoon as Hakim’s purse grew ever heavier, but the queue was growing faster than customers could be satisfied and soon circled the whole town.

In the distance, Hakim saw a large contingent of Poles start a fracas with the Germans ahead of them. But then they seemed to come to an agreement and both groups turned as one and made straight for town.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Hakim made a run for it. The last thing he saw as he raised the sail of his skiff was the pillar of smoke as Gaza was sacked.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Care to comment? Anyone?

[Keeper of the Keys]

I'll coment so you don't feel lonely um there you go.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

I'll coment so you don't feel lonely um there you go.

By comment I meant commenting the winning story.

[Juvenal]

Well, I've got to say, I was really impressed.

There were lots of paragraphs (which I like) and a good scattering of interesting words, such as "nonplussed" and "desultory" and "clientèle".

In fact I liked "acrid" so much I have used it again for week 6.

On a more serious note, Tale of the Week is such a good format that people should be falling over themselves to contribute. After all TWCenter is a hotbed of ideas and just one idea is enough to generate the required 300 words (although I don't yet have any ideas at all for the current picture ).

Come one and all and help us celebrate TotW!

[Yojimbo]

Well, I've got to say, I was really impressed.

There were lots of paragraphs (which I like) and a good scattering of interesting words, such as "nonplussed" and "desultory" and "clientèle".

In fact I liked "acrid" so much I have used it again for week 6.

On a more serious note, Tale of the Week is such a good format that people should be falling over themselves to contribute. After all TWCenter is a hotbed of ideas and just one idea is enough to generate the required 300 words (although I don't yet have any ideas at all for the current picture ).

Come one and all and help us celebrate TotW!

funny story! I like how you noticed the boat in the background and used it in your story. I love to write ill be trying next time when its open