~Wordsleuths - Voting Thread~ *OPEN* - Page 4

So many amazing entries 👏

My votes:

Microtales: 4, 8,10, 23, 39

Minidrabbles: 2, 8

Ficlets: 9,10,15

Wow👏

Firstly congrats to all the participants and hosts. Superbly creative ideas and amazing writing talent here . I liked so many and then for some I had to read twice and also Google up a bit to get a better idea of the context. Selecting was tough but here are the ones I vote for:

Microtales 4 12 20 21 23

Minidrabbles 1 15

Ficlet 5 17 26

Wonderful stories

All the best to writers 👍🏼

My vote:

Microtale Number 4, 12, 18, 28 and 30

Mini drabble Number 3 & 18

Ficlet number 9, 17 & 21

What an absolute treat it was to read your amazing stories!

Take a bow, all you wonderful writers! Good luck! ❤️😊

My votes go to:

Microtales: 12, 21, 29, 38, 44

Mini drabbles: 13, 17

Ficlets: 12, 25, 26

Wonderful entries by everyone❤️

1. Amidst the sindoori smoke enveloping the pandal, and his own growing despair, a golden tooth flashed! Chipped. Feluda’s hand reached for the killer’s collar.

5. As Kiriti stopped playing the ektara, he heard the clapping and realized he wasn’t alone. He had bewitched the crowd. He had finally done it.

11. Checkmate, my worthy contender. You were too quick to underestimate my intellect.” Mitin Mashi never loses sight of her mission. Bullseye hit once again.

20. His footprints had traces of red clay. This was odd. Bankura was far away. Unless he was a potter. Of course! Case closed.

39. "What is the Murderer's alibi?" "Eating Rosogolla, he claims" "Turns out, even the sweetness of Rosogolla couldn't mask the bitterness of his crime"

4. Ayesha was in a panic. The earrings her grandmother had brought for her from Bangladesh were missing. She had searched her whole room but there was no sign of them.

Just then her phone rang. "Hello?" She answered.

It was Aishwarya on the line, her best friend.

"Listen Aish, can I call you later? I have an emergency right now! My earrings are missing!" Just then she remembered Aishwarya's brother was a detective. "Wait! Could you send Arjun over?"

Arjun only took a few minutes to reach her, only to point out that she was wearing the earrings all along.

7. “Byomkesh she loves you. Don’t let her go!”

“No Colonel. I have chosen the life of loneliness. She cannot be burdened by it. Let her be free. Let her wander. Being with me will only hold her down. Let her fly and soar. Let my sorrows not hold her back and let her happiness not come from me.”

Colonel Sarkar chuckled, “Love has made you a poet.”

Byomkesh shook his head, “No. Life has made me a pragmatic. Love will only slow me down.”

Then he went back to his pipe and paper.

2. Based on Prompt 4: https://i.imgur.com/18SV9At.png

Aman was a blank canvas. You could take charcoals and draw lines on the canvas, and that would be his new identity. Creating new identities was an occupational hazard of being a spy for the Indian Army, and so was meeting people and walking out of their lives without leaving behind a trace.

Nanki was a slate with marks of old pain drawn in red paint. Trusting new people was a hazard to her heart. The last time she trusted someone, he sexually abused her, and they told her that she had a sexual vibe. She was thirteen.

But when they met near the Holwell Monument, Aman knew he had to break her heart. When they met, Nanki knew he would break her trust and shatter it to pieces. But Nanki had never met someone like Aman, so enigmatic, so beautiful. Aman had never met someone like Nanki, so destructive, so beautiful.

Some couples aren't destined for happily ever afters. Their stories are left incomplete.

7. Based on Prompt 7: https://i.imgur.com/oCyRxtE.png

Benoit stared at the portrait by the Bengali artist. The brush strokes around Harlan's lips were like a mystery. You couldn't tell if he was smiling or frowning or hiding something in plain sight, like the portrait of the blue orange against the blue background. But on close inspection, you realize that the artist intended on orange against an orange background because there are silvers of orange peeking.

The portrait made Benoit curious, just like the man himself. It was like Harlan was writing a mystery beyond his grave.

And the silvers of orange were the lies his family wove. The blood on Martha's shoe peeked at him, challenging him, asking him to solve the mystery. The hole in the donut, the orange against the blue. It needed fixing, but what filled it? The identity of the person who hired him to solve Harlan's apparent suicide.

Harlan looked at him which was at him smiling as if telling him that he was asking the right questions. And Benoit knew that! He was a goddamn detective, for Heaven's sake!

25. Based on Prompt 1: https://imgur.com/XRNYtjc.png

“So what do you see?” Byomkesh asked.

Kiriti turned to look at Byomkesh. His questioning gaze led Byomkesh to respond, “You’ve been looking at that painting for 5 minutes.”

Kiriti turned back to the painting, “The birds. They are so free. I wish we could be so free.”

“You fail to see the man in the wing suit also soaring free.” Byomkesh joined Kiriti, looking at the painting.

“I saw him. But you do not see that the sailboat is floating towards him. It will pull him down and cage him.”

“No. The sailboat is motionless. It is his. He has left it behind as an anchor for when he wants to return.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“The same way you are sure that it will imprison him.” Byomkesh turned to Kiriti. “Isn’t art subjective? It shows you what you want to see. You look at this painting and you see death. I look at it and I see life and hope.”

Kiriti turned to Byomkesh. “I see death because I know that is what to come.”

“It doesn’t mean you should stop living. Kiriti, you need to leave the past behind. It is called the past because it is past us. We cannot change it. We can only learn from it and move on. Let it go.”

Kiriti sighed and turned back to the painting. “I guess just like that boat stands strong against the waves, I have to as well.”

“Yes. Yes you do

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