It’s been a month, so that means it’s time for another contest. For the last contest, I submitted a weird photo and asked you to construct a five-sentence scary story based on it. This time I have located a similarly strange photo, from this Flickr site. I don’t know the photographer or anything about the photo…I just discovered it by searching for “weird” on Flickr.

Here’s the photo:

Your job for this contest? Compose a five-sentence romantic story (or story snippet) inspired by whatever is happening above. Like last time, it has to adhere to five particular rules:

Rule #1: It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject of the photo.

Rule #2: It has to reference verbatim any phrase from “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight,” by The Postal Service, which was playing when I started this blog post. (If you need to slightly alter the wording to fit the story, that is allowable.)

Rule #3: It also has to use the name “Ruby.” Just because.

Rule #4: Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less.

Rule #5: Your story must be about love, relationships, or otherwise romantic in tone. But not vulgar or overtly sexual.

The winner gets a free signed copy of Pocket Guide to the Bible. (If you win and already have a copy, then we’ll figure something else out.)

The contest lasts until 9 am central time tomorrow, at which point I’ll choose my favorite five-sentence story. To get things started, my sample submission is below.

———–

He didn’t know why. Maybe it was the simplicity of her sleek and colorful appearance. Maybe it was her name, Ruby–so old-fashioned yet so at odds with her choice in casual wear–or maybe it was how she seemed so out of context in that gaudy apartment complex. Regardless, he knew his love for her ran deeper than the Alaskan snow. So when he tracked her down in the frozen wasteland north of Anchorage, he was elated at (probably) having found her…yet intimidated by the task of identifying her among the rest of her bobsledding-for-cancer-awareness team.