Learning To Lose

As a child, Pedro was taught that winning was all that mattered. Yet at the same time, his teachers insisted that when he lost, he must do so with dignity. This was a contradiction.

If winning was all important, his response to defeat was at best meaningless. In truth, conciliation towards failure must be evidence of his disregard for the first lesson.

As an adult, Pedro finally understands. After vanquishing his enemies in battle, hand-to-hand combat, or preemptive surrender, he finds it distasteful when opponents act sullenly towards their new master. Dignity is another word for capitulation to your betters.

Midnight

Nancy Botkin loves midnight. She stands on the porch, wind whispering. She watches moon drifting. Luminous, motherly, never leaving. A new day awakens. Possibilities rise.

She imagines a father who doesn’t burn her stories. Crinkling creation. Flames consuming.

A father who doesn’t demand her to clean. Buy booze.

She conjures leaving. Like Mama, selfish, enviable. Going wherever whims call.

Nancy can’t imagine the shape of winning. What a miracle truly feels like.

Dad always emerges, demands she get inside. She slinks in, weary, unable to find words. Leave me alone.

She hides pieces of dreams, waits for the next night.

From Guest Contributor Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State's MFA program in fiction. The recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train, he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as 50 Word Story, Molecule Lit Mag, The Write City Magazine, and Agony Opera. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.

Winner

I enjoy winning. I am competitive by nature.

The trouble starts when winning becomes the focus.

To be honest, for me the trouble starts when winning becomes everything. Winning for the sake of winning, I describe as the ultimate step.

Especially when I am in a room full of other people who are winners, or think they are winners.

Damage happens. I know the masochistic irony of what it is like to win, and lose, simultaneously. In private, as I tally the losses, my self-loathing grows.

Yes, in my case it is a sickness. My doctor has diagnosed ‘Auction Fever.’

From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. Barry's other stories may be found at Cyclamens & Swords, 50 Word Stories, 101 Words, and of course here at A Story In 100 Words.