2011 Flash Competition Winners
First Prize: The Fall by Martin Sorrell
THE FALL
isn't the problem, it's how you greet the beach. If you don't do it nicely you get back the kind of greeting that ends up leaving people dead.
Charm is the way. I've got more of it than anyone. In absolute spades, everybody says. I've overheard them.
"The most charming person you could hope to meet."
"And that smile."
"Would charm the teeth out of your head."
So here I am on the descent, my charm and my famous smile flying off in all directions. For the occasion I've been quite specific. I've said, I shall wear the Dior frock and not the Gieves & Hawkes three piece suit you'd expect. My thought is, that will definitely surprise anyone on the beach who looks up.
Forty metres down, my spin radiates the glow that makes the universe go right.
A hundred and forty metres down, I see the tide's coming in, but no matter, no matter at all because something else I've always yearned to do is sit on the floor of the sea for a good while, a few weeks maybe, and become the beloved of the world beneath. My thought is, what greeting will I get from the plankton, the fronds, the squadrons of sea-horse, the silent fish?
What if there've been jumpers before me?
But enough of questions, I'm almost there.
Greetings!
Second Prize: Changes by Sujata Bristow
It was three in the morning when the mirror spoke to him. He’d been staring into it for hours, seeking some answer from those dark, shadowed eyes. If you looked for long enough, you started changing into something else. He thought maybe he could hold on to the change, somehow crack open his sixteen-year-old, acne-scarred skin and crawl out, damp and soft, until his wings dried and he could fly free. But it was a bitter winter night; no butterfly could live out there. And all the mirror said was, ‘Well, that’s your life over then.’
Still, somehow, it went on. Clare grew rounder and more beautiful, and stopped coming to school. His essay on global warming won a prize, a place at the world climate change summit in Boston, in September. He was there when the call came, two weeks early, edging along a campus path through overgrown shrubbery dripping with autumn mist. He had to leave at once.
There was a journey like a dream, a taxicab through rain-wet, empty streets, a hospital full of harsh lights and busy people. And then, suddenly, a small room warm with candlelight, and Clare gripping his hands and staring into his eyes. No more changing, now; he was her anchor in the wide, stormy sea. And then, at last, he was aground, holding in his arms his damp and wrinkled daughter, fresh from the ocean, just beginning to dry.
THE FALL
isn't the problem, it's how you greet the beach. If you don't do it nicely you get back the kind of greeting that ends up leaving people dead.
Charm is the way. I've got more of it than anyone. In absolute spades, everybody says. I've overheard them.
"The most charming person you could hope to meet."
"And that smile."
"Would charm the teeth out of your head."
So here I am on the descent, my charm and my famous smile flying off in all directions. For the occasion I've been quite specific. I've said, I shall wear the Dior frock and not the Gieves & Hawkes three piece suit you'd expect. My thought is, that will definitely surprise anyone on the beach who looks up.
Forty metres down, my spin radiates the glow that makes the universe go right.
A hundred and forty metres down, I see the tide's coming in, but no matter, no matter at all because something else I've always yearned to do is sit on the floor of the sea for a good while, a few weeks maybe, and become the beloved of the world beneath. My thought is, what greeting will I get from the plankton, the fronds, the squadrons of sea-horse, the silent fish?
What if there've been jumpers before me?
But enough of questions, I'm almost there.
Greetings!
Second Prize: Changes by Sujata Bristow
It was three in the morning when the mirror spoke to him. He’d been staring into it for hours, seeking some answer from those dark, shadowed eyes. If you looked for long enough, you started changing into something else. He thought maybe he could hold on to the change, somehow crack open his sixteen-year-old, acne-scarred skin and crawl out, damp and soft, until his wings dried and he could fly free. But it was a bitter winter night; no butterfly could live out there. And all the mirror said was, ‘Well, that’s your life over then.’
Still, somehow, it went on. Clare grew rounder and more beautiful, and stopped coming to school. His essay on global warming won a prize, a place at the world climate change summit in Boston, in September. He was there when the call came, two weeks early, edging along a campus path through overgrown shrubbery dripping with autumn mist. He had to leave at once.
There was a journey like a dream, a taxicab through rain-wet, empty streets, a hospital full of harsh lights and busy people. And then, suddenly, a small room warm with candlelight, and Clare gripping his hands and staring into his eyes. No more changing, now; he was her anchor in the wide, stormy sea. And then, at last, he was aground, holding in his arms his damp and wrinkled daughter, fresh from the ocean, just beginning to dry.