It was another difficult decision over which I heartached for one week.

Here, in no particular order, were the finalists:

She sat down exhausted.

— Shannon Murray

After a lifetime of incubation, she now carried the fatal disease.

— Scott

The Ark lay in shadow, its golden angels covered in thousands of years of dust.

— Victorai

She stepped into darkness, and the sickening crunch of dried bones made her cringe.

— Bethany

But the winner was Dave Zoby, whose entry reads thus:

Macon, Ga–The Ark of the Covenant was a flimsy, earth-worm colored thrill ride that lifted a rattling chain of cars above the lid of fall foliage, flinty hills to the west, glimpse of river like a wet snake; Laura sat beside her husband, Reverend Doug Brown, as the cars trundled upward link by link, and said to herself that when this was over she was leaving him and her idiot children once and for all, his forthcoming pleas and death threats be damned.

— Dave Zoby

Congratulations, Dave.

And my thanks to you all.