Firstly, apologies for the delay in getting this posted. I could go on about how we’re about to launch a book and things have been a bit hectic but you don’t want to hear that. You want to know who won the flash competition on the theme of ‘Symbiotic’. We had a really enjoyable evening a few weeks ago when the judges and some of the shortlisted authors joined us on a webchat to read out the stories and discuss what worked well.
We’ll start with the Highly Commended entries:
- After I Helped Her Cheat In Spanish by Emma Raymond of Richmond, N. Yorks
- Symbiotchic by Ron Harper of Sutton Coldfield
- That’s What I Said by Joseph Hutchinson of London
- The Muse by Samantha Palmer of Stoke
Top Local Writer was Linda Cooper with Tying The Knot.
Third Place: We Too, another entry from Joseph Hutchinson.
“Well written with lots of space in the story and structure for the reader to fill in the gap, it trusts the reader to do the work. Dialogue works well and is realistic.”
We Two
We will be like the crocodile and the crocodile bird she told me the first time she stayed over. She explained how the bird fed itself by cleaning the scraps out of the crocodile’s teeth.
Which one will I be?
Hmm she said, running a finger along my jawbone. Isn’t it obvious?
We planned to have an only child named after a flower. Indigo for a boy. Bluebell for a girl. The woods and fields would be their kingdom. Each morning, they would depart shaggy-haired and half-naked, returning at dusk to our crumbling, tree-cloaked farmhouse, laden with puffballs and owl pellets and ferns.
We were inseparable back then, me and her. Long weekends quarantining in sordid bedrooms. Entangled beneath mosquito nets in Bali, Zanzibar, Rishikesh. Even when we went out, it felt like we were alone. We’d knock back our tequilas, oblivious to the barroom hubbub. Kiss, unaware of the tie-loosed waiter stacking chairs.
We stopped talking about our flower child, gradually, inevitably. The last time it came up, I was kneeling by her bedside, breathless and teary after a frantic search of A&E. I ended up promising her everything then. Marriage. Freedom. Happiness. I think deep down I knew she couldn’t hear. We hug. She backs away, pressing the rolled-up notes to her lips.
I don’t know what I’d do without you, crocodile she says.
What do I get out of it? I ask her. Now that I’m cleaning my own teeth.
She throws me her old snaggle-toothed grin.
My undying love.
Back upstairs, I can’t resist a final peak from behind the spare room curtain. She has whipped the smile off, rejoined the man in grey tracksuit bottoms waiting opposite. And, together now, they are marching with shambolic purpose towards the main road.
Second Place: A Good Sense Of Humour by Catherine Ogston of Perth.
“Flowed really well, neat paragraphs told the story usefully. Tense worked well, clean writing, e.g. “took a knife to slice the bones open”.”
A Good Sense of Humour
Tara had never thought of herself as a funny person but she and Jack laughed all the time. They had their phrases, their private jokes, their sayings that made other people frown in puzzlement. He would start a familiar joke and without missing a beat she would land the punchline. It was shooting-fish-in-a-barrel easy.
Tara wondered if Jack had made the other woman laugh. She had never asked that in the ending of it all conversation because there were other things to worry about, like had he really done what all the evidence pointed to and when had it started and why he had done it. He had no answers for her; he didn’t see the need for honesty.
Tara spent a year without laughter. Then she met someone else and there still wasn’t much laughing. They didn’t have that crackle between them, though there was kindness and even some adventure. But when she dreamed, it was about laughing with Jack. Upon waking she would wonder if he was busy making a new woman laugh. She looked at her wrinkles, because life was passing her by, rushing with inordinate speed over her and at her and through her.
One day Tara ran away. She drove until she found a cottage hidden in a valley. She locked the door and tried to remember what it was like to be happy, to laugh easily. She picked at the green moss that had grown over all those memories until she could see her bones, clean and white. The memory of the laughter was buried deep down in the marrow and Tara took a knife to slice the bones open and let the laughter out. It didn’t hurt. It made her feel alive. It made her feel something again.
First Place: Eidhnéan by Adam McNally of London (who managed to join our webchat from a yurt in Cornwall, which was another first)
“Well crafted into a whole story, had beginning, middle and end without tweeness. Thoughtful details (calling character Evie not Ivy). Deft prose, economic, punctuation used well. Worthy winner.”
Eidhnéan
He sniffed. He only sniffs when he’s pissed off.
‘It’s coming over the fucking windows, Evie,’ he said. ‘It’s lights on all the time now – fucking waste of money.’
I held up the mug so it covered my face and took another sip of tea – too cold. I’d told him already what I thought. That I wanted the ivy pressing up to our house, pushing green into every crack and holding us. I loved the rustle in the night winds, just beyond the curtains, and the wet taste of dew I caught when I breathed in the smell of morning leaves.
But he had stalked our little front room that morning, barking about brickwork damage, wasps, and how much better Number 7 looked, with its new white render and parking where the holly bush used to be.
Later, there was a ladder, gloves and a mask. I reminded him again that Gran planted it when I was a girl, but he was already climbing, so I went inside. I sat on our bed, watching as he ripped the fronds from the window frame. His shadow passed over me as he climbed and new light touched my face – it was to his liking now.
Then, he heaved somewhere above me, and I heard bracken tear, a stone scrape, and him, yelping as he came into view, falling with ivy and brick still in his grasp. Afterwards, they said he was lucky with a broken leg – the shrubs broke his fall. Concrete would have killed him. Turns out the ivy couldn’t go – it was holding everything together. Still is. So he went and I stayed put. Growing.
Thanks so much to all that entered and also to our lovely judges, Anne Howkins and Lucy Grace. If you missed out this time then why not try our Short Story competition (deadline of 10 October) on the subject of “Another Disappointment“. Hmm, how apt (he says, as someone who missed out himself) 🤣
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