Keep It Brief: Enter Our Short Story Contest!

Our Beijing Stories contest, in association with the upcoming Bookworm Literary Festival, rumbles on. We've received around 30 submissions so far across TheBeijinger.com, Twitter, Sina Weibo and email, but we still want more. The contest has a little over one week left to run, so get your 140-character masterpiece penned and posted before you turn into a literary pumpkin at the stroke of midnight on March 7. For inspiration, read on to check out the most recent submissions.

First, submissions posted directly to these blog posts (here and here) on TheBeijinger.com (author's username in bold) ...

Helga Tiger
I walk past Lao She’s memorial, Mei Lanfang’s house, Qi Baishi’s museum. Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies in Beijing.

I Am Jack's Black Lungs
I Am Jack's Reduced Personal Space
I Am Jack's Spit On The Ground
I Am Jack's Excited Taste Buds

orangeleg
A spaceship from the future lands in Beijing. Inside is someone who looks Chinese. But he speaks with no words and proffers only one message before he dies: "Less more need..."

A Beijing horse walks into a bar, sees the bartender is a donkey who is about to pull out a shotgun. Runs out and dials McDonkey SWAT.

Boss-Town
Splintered chopsticks cracked the flesh; it hissed and bled grease and reused oil. And there it died on his plate.

Amid the forced proximity he became a hostage to her eyes. Then another stop, another crowd piled on and he lost sight of hers.

MichaelNesbittHaggarty
As the old woman from Gaomiaocun sat in the spring sun looking into the baby's blue eyes, she realized that events of 50 years were both profound & an exercise in futility.

Next, stories posted to us on Sina Weibo ...

@LuHai_Liang (Disclosure: Luhai is interning for the Beijinger and is not eligible to win this contest)
An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman walk into a bar. Then a Welshman hurriedly runs in and says stop the joke, you've forgotten me! The rest of the participants glare at him before all involved dissolve into a giant, quivering question mark.

Pulp Joke-tion: A horse walks into a bar, but before he has a chance to utter a word, the barman pulls out a shotgun and shoots him in the face.

@林卓枢
11:30am. Central, Hong Kong. Top of tower. Mountains visible. IM pei eye level. Slurp water. Swivel chair. Deep breath. Door opening. Pause. "I've been expecting you." chair swivel. "get out of my office." back to hostel

Hong kong. 10am. Coffee shop. Suits. Construction. Calming tea. Marc Jacobs. Old hands. Hair gel. Slumping shoulders. One smile. Chinese man.

10pm. 12 beds and three on the floor. 500rmb/month. Cockroach on wall. Spider in toilet bowl. Puce smudge. Empty lemon air freshener. Dinner is ready. Mi fan x5. Lay down. Look up. Think of cockroach. Hear a scream. a woman. It's dark. Time to sleep.

@ginger_煎饺
In 2012 I moved into hutong, and then a rat, a dog, two squirrels, and a family of bugs moved in with me, most of them uninvited. Now that the drum tower area is going to be demolished I feel sad. It was the quietest and happiest days of my life.

Here's what we've had from Twitter ...

@Jonathan_Heeter
Absinthe, Korean Girlz, Broken Sandals, guitar, old Yugongyishan, Makisupa Policeman. Good times in pre Olympic Beijing.

@sashaastiadi
Never whine in China. When your apartment's heater is not warm enough just sit naked and blast your hair dryer like a boss.

And last but not least, mjoz sent us this by email ...
The 104 chugged, exhaled to a steamy halt in front of me. I'll just walk. So what if I'm in heels; I'd have to cross the footbridge anyway.

Feeling suitably inspired? So what else do you need to know?

• You have 140 characters to play with. Whatever you can fit inside that maximum limit is kosher.
• Your stories must be about Beijing. We'll leave you to work out how much Beijing that means to you but you'll need to be able to argue your case, my friend.
• You can submit them: in the comments section of this blog post (and any subsequent Beijing Stories posts), by email, on Twitter (@thebeijinger, hashtag #BJS) and on our Weibo (@the_beijinger, hashtag #BJS#)
• You can enter as many times as you want but you can only win one prize.
• The top three, as decided by ourselves and our friends at the BLF, will win prizes from the BLF
• The closing date for entries is midnight on March 7, 2013

As ever, we wish you the best of luck.

Photo: Wagar.org