As selected by Catherine Ogston – see link for her judge’s report.
3rd Place
A Box Office Hit – N.K. Rowe, Newark
There have been punches that he never saw coming but this right hook glides in like it’s in slo-mo. He pulls his head out of danger and blocks the sequel. The bright metal DING-DING of the bell announces another intermission, a chance to gather his breath, rest his leaden legs and receive cosmetic attention from his corner. A touch up of vaseline here, a swab of cotton wool there, while he’s getting instructions from his trainer. None of it is going in, of course. All of the preparation, rehearsing with stunt doubles, it’s all muscle memory now; he’s being directed by his subconscious so it’s damn lucky he’s a natural fighter and not some phony just playing the part, following a round-by-round choreographed script.
All his life has been leading up to this, his one shot at the title: name in lights, fame and fortune. Images swirl in his battered brain of sparring as a kid with his dad, before things went sour. Violence was always prowling, just off camera, until a parental punchbag scene: a messy backstory in need of an edit.
His flashback is interrupted by Hair and Make-Up: they push his gumshield back in… ‘places, everyone’… and the metal clapper rings out again.
His dodge-weary thighs haul him up from his stool for the final round. He’s gone the distance, it’s do or die. His gaze pans, locks on his opponent and he pulls everything into focus for the big finale.
Then the twist: a blockbuster smashes into his face delivering flashes of light and dark as he jellies into a corrective stagger. Punch-drunk on a cocktail of jabs served by leather-fettled fists, the contender’s performance has fallen from Fresh, lurching towards Rotten.
He doesn’t see the upper cut that brings down the curtain.
Fade to black.
2nd Place
The Dancing Shoes – Suzanne Fairless-Aitken, Hexham, Northumberland
The hand bell rings, demanding attention. I am summoned. I climb the stone stairs one last time to serve her. Outside, a blackbird sings as if it might burst.
Opening the door, I see her rise from crumpled sheets. She smiles, then kneels to pray. Unquestioning, I kneel beside her, as I have for twenty-seven years.
Her marriage took its toll, but this daily ritual gives her strength. Her husband once covered his “little bird” in trinkets, before trading them for gambling debts. I have always been at her side—servant in public, confidante in private.
I lace her whalebone corset tight. I lift the crinoline over her petticoat, the structural bones fanning out like an accordion. I hook it gently onto the corset, building a domed cage around her. I slide her favourite embroidered satin slippers onto her feet, the ones she wears for dancing. I lift the dark emerald dress over her head – its brilliant scarab sheen barely passes for mourning wear. I tie the delicate, lace fichu to her chest as to modestly cover her décolletage. She wears no bonnet today; her steely eyes are wide open to face her accusers. I wrap the dove-grey, muslin shawl around her shoulders like a shroud. She tears the pearl earrings from her ears and presses them gently into my hand.
A knock signals the priest for last rites before she is led to the Newgate Prison assizes.
She ascends the gallows platform. In a dress that blots out the day, her skirts rustle above the silent mob. The silken noose loops like a choker around her throat. “I love you,” she mouths before the black sack covers her face.
The floor falls away beneath her satin slippers. A bell shape swings and she dances once again.
1st Place
Saving Souls – N.K. Rowe, Newark
Jacob can’t see anything outside the boat, beyond the soft yellow glow from his shuttered lamp. The smoke-thick fog wafts around him, obscuring the lights from the shore and the stars from the sky. He pauses his slow, methodical rowing and listens.
Eventually, after a minute or two, he hears the clang of the bell on the buoy, shifting in the gentle swell to warn sailors of the nearby rocks. The bell, so recently installed by port authorities; the rocks, that so bounteously distribute riches to Jacob’s clan.
It had been Martha’s idea. If the bell was muffled then the rocks would still provide for them.
And so Jacob finds himself just offshore, rags and rope by his feet in the boat, listening for the buoy. On a second clang, he pulls on his oars and rows several long strokes and pauses, waiting for a third sounding. When it comes, he turns his head, confused. He must have passed it in the roiling darkness.
A bell’s clapper strikes in the invisible distance, but surely too far away to be the buoy?
Jacob ships his oars and calms his breathing. It’s just a matter of concentration and persistence. He closes his eyes and relies on his other senses, body feeling the bob and sway of the boat. He smells the familiar tang of salt and seaweed and listens for the bell.
He hears a faint scraping and tapping, like fingernails on wood.
Jacob opens his eyes wide and sees a skeletal hand gripping the starboard gunwale. A rag-wrapped shoulder and then a skull appears. Jacob springs up and backwards in fright only to topple over the port side, pulled down into the sea by the bony fingers of vengeful victims of the rocks.
The bell tolls once more.
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