Competition entries

Heather Wallace

Look Smart

Father loved looking smart. He constantly told me "you must always be well turned out my boy." During National Service, it was drilled into him to keep his kit in A1 order. A butcher by trade, he enjoyed doing part-time modeling photo shoots for the seasonal men's ware advertisements. As payment, he was allowed to keep one of the outfits he modeled. We rarely knew what he kept. When he was arrested for multiple murders over many years, we learned he had hacked people to death when he was 'well turned out' and then burned the blood stained clothes.

Shaz Jones

A Soul Rewinding

Warm sand at Cottesloe made it bittersweet to remember Paul lovingly clanking his wrench on freezing copper pipes teasing out a few more drops for my morning wash in Bristol.
I hadn’t seen him since I flew out of Heathrow twenty-five years ago.
He kept leaving messages on the answering machine. And wrote a few times.
Unrequited.
The love songs mix tape he sent was also one-sided, forcing me to rewind it all again.
Until the cassette player died (dusty decades ago).
So when the tape unraveled now why did my soul too?
Spotify wouldn’t do that to me.

Barry Divola

Forget Inc.

She left on a Friday. On Monday he made the appointment.
His head was shaved. His mind was made up.
She broke his heart in seventeen places. He needed her out of his brain. The operation took an hour.
He came to in a bright room that rained rose petals and piped the sound of waves through hidden speakers.
A nurse with the face of an angel showed him a picture of a woman.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“No idea.”
“Good,” said the nurse, smiling like a real estate salesman.
“And who am I?” he added.
The smile disappeared.

David Allan-Petale

The Only Warm Place

He wanders into the book shop with no purpose in mind but to browse. Just him and the girl behind the counter eating an apple, nose stuck in a book. Something crime to judge by the cover font.
Rain quickens outside. There’s the feeling of being draped with a wool blanket, warm and dry in a wet place. On a shelf he spies a tome on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, CLOSING SALE: $19.99.
‘Bargain,’ he says, paying the girl, the book under his arm. He walks into the city with cold air on his face, the light and heat receding.

Jay Chesters

The Big Adventure Starts Here

Breathless, I scan the letter for the words.

There: Delighted to offer you- I’m in. Full scholarship.

I’m getting off this godforsaken farm.

We argued and I broke Dad’s heart, swore I’d never be like him. Sure, I’ll always be a farmer’s daughter, but Cherie the cello and me? We’re going places.

Outside, Dad is arguing with a coyote-faced man. Must be from the bank. I open the kitchen window to shout my news and hear “...foreclosure.” Dad sees me and I panic.

Touching the letter to the gas stove, it blooms: yellow, orange, black.

We’re in this together now.

Jeimer Ng

Mona

The art gallery exhibition is next week and I have nothing but my love for her to display for all to see. I handcraft a frame capable of holding her chaos and beauty all at once. My agent says it does not fit the theme of the collapse and rebirth of empires, but I can't think of anything more fitting.

Lee Reader

The End

Instinctively, he looks into the man’s eyes. Squinting, sunglasses reflect the shadow of licking sunlight. The band of his middle tight and bladder pressure intense. His ear needs scratching but where is his hand? Mum could help, she would know what to do wouldn’t she?

The glare is getting brighter and rolling towards him in waves. Focusing on the man, trying to speak to him, but nothing, as if abandoned by his humanity, his senses, his mind.

Crack! Boom! A cascade of warmth down his legs and all around him is fracturing. A howling shriek the final piercing sound.

Rosie Sitorus

My mother’s tongue

My mother speaks a tongue that doesn’t know my soft palate or my alveolar ridge.. She’s in my dreams, the only place her heart beats now, talking to me like she’s sat here in my room, orange streetlight and flickering trees painting her cheeks. My monolingual ears crest the neverending fricatives and leave me only with more questions.

Why didn’t you teach me? Ik deed.
Why won’t you speak English? Kun je geen Nederlands leren?
Didn’t you love me enough? Meer dan wat dan ook.

Nocturnal heat wakes me, sodden, as my consciousness chases the echoes of my mother’s tongue.

Ali Hitchcock

My Little Boat

The rocking always spirited me into a dreamy sleep. It's one of the reasons I loved my little boat. The rocking and the cosiness. This room is cosy but not snug as a cuddle like my little boat.

I could hoist the anchor and sail along for a better view of the sunrise or head to the rivermouth to watch the sun dip into the sea. This room faces a courtyard. My days are no longer marked by the sun's movements.

I thought I'd stay on my little boat forever. My days will end in this dreary nursing home instead.

Bonnie Christian

Is that you?

She’s been marking tracks around the lake, searching.
The dragonflies dart by, madly. Hello? She whispers.

A turtle trudges across the grass to the water.
Is that you? She calls.

The wild poppies, tall as she is, sway across her path.
Come back, she cries.

People tell her she will visit, make herself known.
Where is she?

Maybe she will come during a storm.
Like the one that poured on the day she arrived.

Maybe she will visit when the sun peeks through the clouds, glistening a ray of hope.
Like on the day when she had to say goodbye.