This year at AWP, Third Coast hosted our first Dice & Draft Bookfair Contest. Contestants rolled four dice, randomizing the genre, setting, character(s), and an item that should appear in their poem or story. Submissions were judged not only on the quality of each piece, but on how creatively authors used the prompt they rolled on the dice. Editors selected two winners, one poem and one flash prose piece. Congratulations to Chris Mikesell for his poem, “Smudge,” which was written in response to the following prompt:

Horror (Genre), Space (Setting), Senior (Character), Weapon (Item)

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Smudge by Chris Mikesell

[The following was found written on the walls of the lavatory in the senior officer’s cabin of the derelict ship U.C.S. Cavalcade. The computer’s memory was wiped, including NavHistory. Other than United Commonwealth Syndicate labeling of catalogued equipment, no other writing was found in the craft. The first four entries were written in ink. The fifth is believed to be blood, MedSci Division identification pending.]

The stars are backward. 
I, alone, bear witness to 
the final terror.

Our mission failure 
began with trusting the [smudge]. 
Beady-eyed bastards.

Ship’s hull breached. We drift, 
drift at the mercy of the 
merciless cosmos.

I hear them coming. 
I try to stay conscious, but 
the void whispers peace.

U.C.S. vermin: 
Our warnings go unheeded. 
Don’t make us [smudge] you.

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