Every year, during Dog Days Festival--
when a cut won't heal and the mockingbird
don't sing--I would enter the Hemingway Write-Alike
Short-Story Contest. In my entry, I would say that the judges
bought a keg of beer, gave the prizes to their friends, and sat around
laughing at the entries, or throwing them into a big trash bin, unread.
One year that got me an Honorable Mention. Close, but no cigar.
Cigar-making used to be an industry in Key West until Vincente Ybor
moved it to Tampa, and Ybor City. El lector would read Spanish
newspapers and Don Quixote to the factory workers.