Pageant Question: What do you feel contributes more to character development: success or failure?

"Failure is not an option!"  Sargent Slattery heard the low murmur.  "Who said that?" he growled.  Scanning the newly enlisted men, his eye caught MacDermett, looking at his poorly polished shoes.  "MacDermett."  The recruits didn't dare speak or look, but they subconsciously separated themselves from the targeted Private.  "Repeat what you said, so the rest of us may enjoy your wit and witticism."

MacDermett was constantly tired, hungry and bruised.  He had not volunteered, and if it weren't for the current desperation of the military for warm bodies, he would never have been drafted.  MacDermett was small and, when he entered the training, horribly out of shape.  He was much smarter than the average recruit, which was lead to much of his unhappiness.  MacDermett cleared his throat and squared his shoulders.  "I said, 'Failure is always an option.'  Sir."

Pageant Question: How do you feel about women being drafted?

Marianna had to give birth in the trench.  She'd hidden her pregnancy, even from herself I think, right up till the last two months when denial wouldn't work any longer.  It was a muddy, bloody mess even before her water broke.  The enemy chose that night to surge on our position, and we were in the worst battle I'd seen in weeks.  Nobody noticed when Marianna first went down because they were too busy with their own lives.  I had at first assumed she'd been shot, like so many of the others we were pressing into the mud, but when I saw she was scrabbling to get her pants off, I knew; the baby was coming.

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Outside, the insistent groan of an airplane, the volume passing believability and crossing into a little thrill of fear.  Knowing it's probably from the nearest base on a training loop, but waiting for the down-the-scale whistle of a bomb, or, perhaps, of the plane itself.  Picturing a path of destruction as it plows through houses and parked cars and fire hydrants.  Explosions rocking the neighborhood, windows shaking in their frames, car alarms adding to the cacophony.  Wondering what you would do if it was the first wave of an invading army.  What would you grab?  How self-sufficient and brilliant would you be as the hero of this apocalyptic adventure?

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The world as we know it was destroyed in three days.  Less than half the time some people say it was created, and much less than it took to actually create it.  Humans have always lamented their smallness, some more than others.  Those who lamented more often strove to gather power.  They wanted to change the world; well, they did.  Would they be remembered forever, the way they wanted?  Would their children and their children's children carry on their name and their legacy?  Nope.  And why would anyone want to be remembered with such hate?

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The city streets were quieter than anyone could ever remember hearing them.  It was impossible to tell how many people were in their homes this evening because the lights were out and all the curtains drawn.  Lights normally powered by the city hadn't been on in more than a year, but when the sun went down, no one else put their lights on, either; it was easier this way.  There had been warnings, first on television, then announced in the streets, then with the short-lived sirens, to turn off lights.  People obeyed once a quarter of their city had been bombed into oblivion.  The sirens stopped working after just a week, but by then everyone knew not to light the dark.  Lights became targets.  Targets became rubble.