Heart Writing Battle

Has it been a year since I posted? I definitely need to get better with this.

I just competed in the Heart Writing Battle. I competed in Writing Battle last year for the Winter Flash Fiction contest and enjoyed the peer-judged competition. I’m also in the 2025 version, but that one is still being judged, and I won’t find out until next week how I did. This year they also introduced three professional judged battles and the first one up was “Heart”.

”Heart” included four possible genres – Drama, Comedy, Romance, Rom-Com – all of which I thought I could do well enough. I got Drama, with the additional character prompt of “Mysterious Stranger” and object prompt of “Sewing Needle”. We’re allowed to redraw our genre once, and up to six times for the other two. I decided to stay with drama, though I’m stronger in the other two, because I thought Mysterious Stranger was something I could work with. I redrew the sewing needle and got “Wallet” and kept it.

What I came up with is more dark than I usually go, but I liked it. It got decent feedback from other competitors (we can share our story). I’m looking forward to the professional feedback.

When we battle, they separate us into genres first, then separate each genre into a handful of ‘houses’, and for the first eight rounds, you battle other stories head-to-head in your house. Three strikes, you’re out. If you have six or more wins, you move out of the house into the first post-house round of 64 and it turns into a tournament bracket situation – one loss and you’re out.

I got out of my house into the 64 and they rolled out the winners of each round after that today every 15 minutes. I advanced to the next round where there were 32 of us. But I lost this round, so I guess…quarter-finals? I’m not sure, but out of a beginning of 307 stories, I was briefly in the top 32. I guess that’s good.

Anyway, here is my story – Drama / Mysterious Stranger / Wallet. Enjoy!

Was I Worth It?

It looked like a well-worn, well-loved wallet. I turned it over in my hands, running fingers over the faux leather. There was a raised texture there, pebbled like alligator skin. Bi-fold and a graying black, with crushed corners and frayed edges. The stitching was sticking out in places. I frowned at the smudge of blood my fingers left on it.

Soon, but not soon enough, blue and red lights would be swirling in the air while scowling and serious-faced cops would be stalking around the scene – taking pictures and wrapping the area with yellow plastic tape, like a horrific Christmas present. I sat, frozen. They would want my picture, too. As well as the cooling body next to me.

Who was this person? I looked and made mental notes because my mind wasn’t ready to process what just occurred. A man in a rumpled suit, which I had noted before. That was his briefcase tilted against a trash can on the near corner.

Before.  He had a nice smile and nodded pleasantly at me when he stepped up to the pole holding a sign with the bus schedule. The pole had peeling red paint, chipped and discolored. It looked like it was bleeding in the light and misty rain. I nodded back to him, committing nothing more. I didn’t want to hold a pointless conversation with some stranger at the bus stop. 

The bus was late, like always. Nothing new. I scrolled on my phone, annoyed slightly when the man started to hum some song I didn’t recognize. I think I rolled my eyes, because don’t people realize how annoying they are? My thumb scrolled more aggressively through Instagram and I felt my jaw clench.

I looked from the man to the stalled car nearby. One wheel was up on the curb and a smudge of blood, matching the pool in which I sat, decorated the bumper. Everything was still and quiet. Shouldn’t there be more? A scream or two at the very least. Not just the faint beat of my heart.

I turned the wallet over again with the thought that I should open it and find out the answer to my question. Who was this man? Something stilled my hands, but I don’t know what. The blood? The silence? The way my mind felt clouded and clear at the same time? All of the above?

Where were the police? Shouldn’t they be here? I should go to the hospital. Other than a few bruises, I think I’m fine. Not like the man next to me, with a twisted leg and broken body. What kind of person would do that? Jump in front of a stranger and shove them out of the way? 

I’d taken the wallet from his pocket, though I should have left it for the police. If they ever come. I had a thought that I should call them. Or the emergency number. 9. 1. 1. Why couldn’t I open it?

Did I want proof I wasn’t worth saving? That this life taken deserved to live, while I didn’t? Did he have a family? Did he have a girlfriend or boyfriend? Did he have a good job, loving parents, a social life? I had none of those things. I didn’t even have a cat. I had no one who would miss me, so why was my life worth sparing?

What if he was working on a major project? Or the cure for cancer? Or working on a big case to free a wrongly accused man? All I did was menial labor at a factory. An honest job, but I wasn’t saving the world or righting wrongs. How could my life measure up to another? Should I even compare? What makes someone more valuable than someone else?

I should be the one lying there in my own blood. Not sitting in his. It must have been quick and painless, so right now my life would be blank. Which, to be honest, wasn’t much different from my living life.

Why would this man do that? Why step in front and take the brunt of the out-of-control car? Why did he think I was worth saving? I was nobody. A stranger at the bus stop who barely acknowledged him, who stood scrolling mindlessly on my phone. Did he see something in me? It couldn’t have been intelligence, a kind heart, a family, a successful career, a future.

Answers might lie in this worn, leather wallet I keep turning in my hands. At least a name. At least a key to unlock who this selfless and dead man was, but I couldn’t pry it open. I didn’t want him to have a name. Having a name made him real. Real meant he had an identity. Having an identity gave him a life. A life meant something I could measure against mine.

I’m sure opening the wallet was unnecessary. There will be investigations, news reports, interviews, perhaps a trial. They will make me sit in a chair with a kind-faced and sympathetic-seeming therapist to talk about it. I’ll learn his name someday. Perhaps a partner or child will stand in front of me, searching with accusing eyes to find what this man saw in me. Maybe they will be kind and tell me about him. Maybe they will speak with sour tongues and curse me. I don’t know.

Opening this small square of leather won’t matter.

They could tell me his name. They could tell me about his life. He will always be a stranger to me. Twenty minutes after he ceased to be and gave me my life, the wallet is pried from my clinging hands by a pretty, female officer whose face changed from red to blue in flashing lights, speaking words I couldn’t understand before a medic shoved his way in.

Was I worth it?

I’ll never know.