You all gave your best in Week #22, the 2nd edition to be hosted in the @bananafish realm! Master @raj808 took you through the sweltering streets of Bangkok, making you measure with a history of ghosts and paranormal activity. Many exorcism and ghostbuster scenes flourished in your story endings, with clever gimmicks, stories of perdition, and well documented traditions from all over the world.

@marcoriccardi here, humble bananafish squire, holding the workstation in place of our incomparable demiurge @f3nix. As you know, today we're going to concentrate in one post both the awards and the week #23 story, but the winner proclamation post will return very soon by popular demand!

Many thanks to @raj808, whose masterwork story was rich in setting details and full of hints to develop in a lot of different endings; if this wasn’t enough, he also donated 5 of the 8 SBI up for grabs.

What's boiling in the bananafish kitchen (the news!)

• Thanks to the generosity of @randomwanderings and the @curie team, we have a donation of 64 STEEM to use as a reward for this and the next weeks! Thanks to this boost, for the next two months minimum, the contest's pot will consist of 4 (four!) SBI for the 1st classified, 2 SBI for the 2nd place and 2 SBI for the popular vote: a total of 8 @steembasicincome shares every week!

• Everyone remember to use the #finishthestory tag for giving further evidence to your worthy contributions.

• The bananafish is growing steadily! If you want to have a bigger part in this success, delegate a portion of your SP: you can sit at the bananafish Round Table with the core team and get the account posting key! We have 7 delegations so far. Our proud bananafish knights are: @brisby, @calluna, @cyemela, @marcoriccardi, @maverickinvictus, @raj808, @f3nix.

• We also welcome every new add to the voting trail. The more are in the trail, the higher will be the upvote value for the contest entries! If you want to sustain this project and make it grow, being part of our core team, here's how to delegate and add your account to the bananafish voting trail.

Before proclaiming the winners, here are some thoughts about @raj808’s first half of the story. First, let me clarify that the contest is not “guess how the author finished the story”: the scope of the contest is that of fostering each participant’s creativity and all we do here is to practice, train our imagination and push forward our writing skills. You all know the criteria for the awards, which are originality and content, over all. The refinement of vocabulary and style come slightly later.

Alright, let's cut the chatter, brave storytellers, the winners of the 8 @steembasicincome shares are:

• @oivas: first place. He receives the 4 SBI prize, thanks to his amazing idea of the “Astral Flip” and the way to avert it learning to control the dreams; in his story there are the themes of the changeling, or the double (doppelganger) from an alternative world, the symbolic value of the mirror and of the act of mirroring. His ending is written in a simple and fluent style, very effective.

• @dirge: second place (for the second time in a row!). This is the Week #22 author’s choice and grants one of the 2 SBI prizes. @raj808 appreciated the twist, the fine dialogues, and the way the demon is possessing the protagonist for debts owed.

• @seesladen won the popular vote for the second time in a row! His portray of a third-eye driven, psychoanalytic self-investigation caught the attention of the other participants. The other 2 SBI prize is for him!

@agmoore, @calluna, @cyemela, @giddyupngo, @marcoriccardi, @maverickinvictus, @misterakpan, @nancybriti, @opiman, @sarez, @stever82, @theironfelix: thank you all for making this edition fantastic with your awesome contributions!

And now.. let's dive into today's story!

About the author: @f3nix, the creator of the Finish the Story contest and the “father” of the bananafish, returns in the control room, delivering to you one of his distinctive and fine stories, permeated by a surreal vein.

Even the clouds smile

The bedroom was a sealed Fort Knox. An old black fan stood in a corner: the last bulwark of defence against the terrible heat of that day of August. The heat from its engine was exceeding by far the supposed cool that it should have been producing from the movement of the scorching air.
"... I’m going down to the store to help mum."
"Recently, the young dandy is getting his ass busy."
"You could do something too, every now and then," Santiago thought, managing to keep his mouth with a bridle at the very last moment.
"There is an article on the International on how bad news are preferred to positive ones and their effects on society," he chose instead to answer.
But the 15:00 news were now efficiently irrigating the paternal synapses and absorbing his whole focus.
"After 3 months from their first appearance, the research on cumuloids continues by the international expert pool led by Dr. Venters. All the analyses confirm that their molecular composition is not different from that of any other type of cloud: minute particles of condensed water and / or ice crystals. In the meantime, yesterday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the resolution requesting the member states of... "
"Chemtrails were not enough, eh Tiago?"
"I do not know, I try not to look at them. Those faces in the sky might also be harmless but they frighten me," Santiago cut short.
The quasi-dialogue would have certainly not produced anything positive in its prolonging, thought the twelve year old son. On board of his Zanella Motoneta, Santiago darted away from home, heading for the beach.
Down there, among the umbrellas reserved for the guests of the Los Reyes hotel, there were Vicky's deep black eyes waiting for him. Maybe today they could have been alone, maybe there between the waves or under the umbrella, he would have finally told her words that, for long days, had been banging in his head like the ocean’s backwash.
He still thought of those enigmatic clouds, the cumuloids, whose immense faces had formed and flaked in the skies for months now. With no exception, their eyes were covered and they displayed a subtle smile, similar to that of those Greek statues he saw in one of the rare occasions he opened his school books.

"What an idiot." Two rosy dawns light up on Vicky's cheeks to contradict the apparently cynical exclamation.
In front of her, two hearts drawn with a wooden stick on the sand of the shore with their initials inside. Tiago floundering.
A sharp cry pierces the silence. Dazed looks of the two twelve-year-olds jumping first on Vicky's younger sister, then, through the kid’s expression of terror, bouncing on the celestial vault behind them.
A cumuloid, alone, stands out clearly in a fake turquoise sky like the wing of a theatre stage. There is no trace of a kouros smile on the gargantuan cloud, which now seems about to drift on the sea shore. The ivory jaws widens deformed, vomiting a myriad of other faces. Distorted mutations depart ferociously from the obscene atmospheric funnel just to pierce back the smooth nimbus’ face, devouring its ephemeral flesh.
Time slows down around Tiago and Vicky, holding hands together without even realizing it.

Things that please the Bananafish mighty god!

• use the tag #finishthestory.
• vote, vote, vote your favorite story!
• Try to post your story the earliest possible and not at the last moment.
• Sustain, comment and upvote each other as a true group of friends and fiction lovers.
• Respect the 500 words limit.
• Post in your blog instead than in the comment section.
• help our contest & workshop to grow by giving it some visibility.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

For those that want to join the fun, here is how this contest works:

1. You receive an unfinished fiction story or a script.

2. You finish it with your own post or a comment in the comment section. A limit of 500 words is recommended.

3. YOU WIN! 8 @steembasicincome shares to the writers with the best ending.

It's so simple and, most of all, we'll enjoy our fiction ideas!
Nothing is mandatory here, but voting and resteeming is highly appreciated!

PROCLAMATION OF THE WINNERS POST RETURNS!

The results for Week #22 will be out on Tuesday 7th August, 1:00 PM, GMT -7 (Pacific Daylight Time).
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Submission deadline: Monday 6th August, 12:00 PM, GMT-7 (Pacific Daylight Time).

If you like this contest, SUSTAIN THE INITIATIVE and SPREAD THE GOSPEL! I'm grateful for your resteeming and word of mouth. The purpose of this initiative is to enhance creativity while distributing wealth and create a fiction workshop of friends. Everything helps to make us grow together!

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