The next Post Of The Week will be announced on Sunday evening.
Please note that nominations for next week cannot be accepted until then.

1. Birdie: en paz descante
[nominated by asta]

“Our pocket parrot, Rory, passed away of a heart ailment nearly a year ago. She passed in the winter, six-inches into a two-foot snow. I wrapped her in a couple absorbent paper towels, stuffed her in an Earl Grey tea tin and tucked her next to the ice trays in my freezer.

“Look at the way her eyes bug out!” Marty pulled her out every time a friend visited. “Go ahead. Touch her. You can make her toes move.”"

2. The Cloudcutter Chronicles: Round Two
[nominated by Guyana-Gyal]

“Sometimes you don’t even realise relationships are over and maybe because they’re really not. They’re probably like a half read book that you will return to later, or even like a completely devoured and well enjoyed book whose pages you might want to flip through again. The point is, you’re not always aware of the transitions that take place, while they are actually taking place. You’re not always pontificating over the subleties and nuances that you may have missed.”

3. Edvaard Moonke: In Praise Of… our Armed Forces
[nominated by Ariel]

“Nope. They are too bright and perceptive to fall for that kind of trickery. They joined because they wanted to make a difference. Like the gallant Great War soldier, guided by the romantic image of charging at an enemy machinegun turret armed only with a single-shot rifle and bayonet, they wanted to combat the forces of evil. They are also intelligent enough to understand that their superiors know best, and it is not up to them to question orders, however amoral or irrational they may appear.”

4. The Overnight Editor: There’s a time machine on Kingley Street
[nominated by peach]

“Ow. Next morning - afternoon, whatever, they’ve been fucking about with the clocks this weekend - proper fucking headache, like a jubilee clip tightening round my skull. Teeth ringing and all sensible thought lost in the screamsplitting fissure between the two halves of my brain, fizzing and arcing hot white and angry like two hemispheres of enriched Uranium.”

5. stuff what I have written: loyalty in the national sporting arena
[nominated by James]

“But that’s international sport for you, it brings the people of the world together and then actively encourages them to dominate and humiliate each other, the ‘other’ being defined by a seemingly arbitary line across a map which defines the nationstate you happen to be born in. It’s amazing the passions that these arbitary lines can induce.”

6. ’til the cows come home: Go.
[nominated by Bob]

“One year ago tomorrow, Halloween morning, I was exhausted. My brother and sister slept on the floor of the lounge. My mother did her best to sleep half in and half out of my father’s bed, holding him for one more night. I was sore from spending the night on a hospital room chair - pretending to sleep but unable to take my eyes off of my father, because I thought as long as someone was looking it wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t just keeping watch over him, but over everyone. I knew I was about to inherit a massive responsibility in a role with expectations I’ll never be able to live up to.”