Dreaming big in the big city

Esquire magazine recently held a call for submissions for original works of short short fiction. The criteria? Stories had to have a count of exactly 78 words in honour of Esquire's 78th birthday. Ten winners would be chosen to win a trip to New York City to attend a fiction workshop, and then one of those writers would receive a writing scholarship for next summer. I decided that this contest contained too many good good things for me to pass up, so I accepted the challenge. It was intriguing and fun working on stories that short that would make sense being that short and I came up with a few possibilities before settling on a favourite.

Well I just found out that my submission was not one of the ten finalists in the contest so I thought it should at least get published here:

New York TenaCity

Otis stepped trepidatiously out onto Madison Avenue, He scanned the crowd, removed his tattered fedora, and tipped it onto the sidewalk. A leather strap secured his saxophone against his body as he wrapped his fingers around its neck, raised the mouthpiece towards his lip, and took a deep breath. Suddenly, he was jostled by a dapper executive. Determined, he regrouped and proficiently weaved Ellington, releasing a smile when he heard the clinking of coins collecting in his hat.

...thanks for reading!