^The Authors’ Atrium

Next month’s contest prompt is up. One word: Inheritance.

Usual rules. Fifteen hundred words or fewer, posted to the Shelf under the contest tag, entries open until the third Friday. Voting is anonymous and starts the morning after.

Winners will be announced a week later.

Please read the whole rules post before asking me a question the rules post already answers.

I’m looking forward to this one.

I’d like to go on record with a prediction. Seventy percent of the entries will involve a dead grandmother and a house nobody wants to sell. The other thirty percent will involve a key.

That’s not a prediction. That’s basic math.

Probability is a mathematic discipline. But it’s easiest to just bet with the house.

For the record, I like a one-word prompt. Nobody gets to tell me what the story is about before I’ve found it. Last month’s had three conditions and a bonus condition, and I spent more time satisfying the conditions than writing.

I felt satisfied when the voters noticed your effort.

I came fourth.

Yes. Out of four.

I have analyzed the word from several angles and have come to a decision point.

“Inheritance” is not a neutral word. It’s never simply money, or a house, or a pocket watch. It’s whatever the dead hand over to the living whether the living asked or not, and if time has taught us anything, it’s that the sins travel along with the silver.

May I ask whether an inheritance that is refused is still an inheritance?

Interpret it however you like. That’s the point of the one word prompt.

Clarifying question. Do curses count as an inheritance?

Er, I suppose?

Poe has just confirmed my thirty percent.

Hawthorne plays the spoiler as outlying datum. Damn.

Also, I’ll be sitting this one out. You can all inherit my silence.

Twain.

Fine. I’ll enter. But don’t blame me if it’s 100 words about the inheritance and 1400 on the subject of the death tax destroying generational wealth for the lower classes.

I only read the original post and started writing. Already bagged my limit, then came and read the comments.

Twain, you jackass, I wrote about a dead grandmother leaving a key. Now, I have to scrap it and start again.

I’ll be cashing in my winnings and flying to Rio on the red-eye.

Amended. I was looking forward to this one.