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Words How many people could walk into a room, sit down and write a short story in a couple of hours? For the 16 entrants in the short-short story contest, presented by the North Shore Writers' Association for the second year at the recent arts symposium, the task was even more challenging. Each writer had to incorporate two of the three words "pebble," "fierce" and "umber" in their work and use "A February Day" as the theme. After a blind selection process, the judges were surprised and pleased to award the first prize to Colleen Heinrich, who also won last year's contest. Here's her entry, as written against the clock Daylight Savings by C o l l e e n Heinrich she thought. She fingered the long flat key while she waited. The red signs flashed, " 7 minutes." How could an electronic device possibly know how much time each person would take to transact their business? How could it tell if you had bags of coins that needed to be sorted, counted, deposited, invested and exchanged into foreign currency? How much time did the machine allow for this? Finally it was her turn. The white light flashed on the counter straight ahead. She cleared her throat." I need to get into my safety deposit box," she said. "Right this way," said the teller, opening a section of the counter and admitting her to the area leading to the vault. The massive steel door stood ajar, all oiled interlocking mechanisms fiercely protecting the vault's contents. The teller took Helen's key and unlocked the number #703. She handed the long flat box to Helen. "Do you need a room?" "Yes please." Once inside the room Helen locked the door and opened the box. She spread the black velvet scarf out on the formica counter and one by one she opened small glassine envelopes and dumped the contents onto the scarf. Stones, pebbles, gems, cut and uncut cascaded onto the velvet. Turquoise, amethyst, aquamarine, periodot, garnet, emerald, diamond and topaz tumbled on top of one another. Each February 6 on her birthday she would add one or two new stones to her collection. She used to keep them at home in a brandy snifter on a table under a southwest facing window where they would collect the light and then H elen joined the long lineup in the bank. "This must be payday or the last day to buy RRSPs or something," would refract and project colours onto the surrounding white walls and ceiling. Helen would sit and play with the stones, polishing them with a clean square of old flannel so her fingerprints wouldn't dull the shine. Then she was robbed. The burglar had taken her TV set, herTimex watch, a gold chain and $27.63 from her purse. He had overlooked the brandy snifter full of gems. But it had frightened Helen and she had brought them here to live in the oiled steel vault in a long flat drawer where she could visit them. She carefully replaced them in their envelopes and into the drawer, adding a new green tourmaline from her purse. She gave the box back to the teller. As she left the teller watched her, "I bet that old woman has nothing in her box," she said to a co-worker. "I looked up her accounts and she has no money." Helen heard her and smiled to herself. She knew she had captured the light from a southwest window and stored it in the coloured prisms and when she most needed it, on a cold grey February day, she could always come in and make a withdrawal. M a r c h I A p r i l 23