Some stories withheld at the request of respective authors.
Commended
The Screaming Piano
by Vicky Ellaway-Barnard
My grey hairs scream when I pluck them out. The first time I notice this is when I yank out a thick, wiry one lurking at the back of my head. It bellows in F#.
I jump, peering out of the grimy bathroom window to see what made the sound, but there’s nothing there. I look back at the hair held tight in my tweezers. It lies there, doing nothing.
I target a wispy one sticking out at the front next, and that’s quieter – a whispered shriek in D that makes my skin prickle deliciously. When I flip my parting over to the side there are several grey hairs of varying length and one by one I pluck them all out, the anticipation building as I narrow in on each one. A screeching G. An A that squawks. A D# that roars and rollicks as I tug on it, trying to get the best purchase.
I line them up in size order along the sink. The shortest one gives off the highest pitch, the longest one the lowest. The thickest one resonates with a woody timbre and a wispy barely-there one floats like an echo above the rest.
I pick them up, cradle them as I take them back to my room.
Physical Geography from Hull—who has the room next door—lends me a magnifying glass. They start asking questions, but I make an excuse about music practice and walk off before they can object.
Back in my room, I rub the rock dust off the magnifying glass and peer at the hairs one by one, marvelling at being able to now see exactly what’s happening. The hair root is a small innocuous bead until I touch the hair. Then, a mouth gapes open for barely a second, emits a scream, closes and disappears again. It’s fascinating.
Creative Anthropology from Manchester—the one on the other side of me—lets me have a roll of double-sided sticky tape. They’re less keen to talk and I’m grateful. I run a length of the tape along my bedroom wall, and I stick the hairs on, shortest to longest. I lie in bed, tugging each one, practising an incomplete scale. C D D# F# G A B.
The next morning I comb my hair for more greys. There are three. Another D#, an E and an F. I stick them alongside the others and begin my composition for the day.
By the end of the first week I’m most of the way to two full octaves.
Then one day, roughly a month later, Physical Geography from Hull passes me on their way to the bathroom. They point out my thinning hair and when I look in the mirror I notice they’re right. There’s a circle of scalp now visible above my right ear. I’m annoyed that my mother was right. She always told me not to pluck out my grey hairs as they’d never grow back.
I start wearing hats.
By the end of the first term, my head is completely bare and my compositions are astounding. But I need more volume, more range.
I scour the shared bathroom floor, especially after Creative Anthropology from Manchester has been in there. Their hair is luscious, silky smooth and hip-length. I prise up the drain and pull out long strands. But their screams are weak, like they’re content with their lot, like they fell out on purpose. I discover it’s the freshly-plucked ones that scream with force.
I go online, find one of those fetish websites where people seem to make money off selling bits of their bodies. I put out a plea for fresh grey hairs, roots intact. But when they arrive, one set is clearly coarse horse hair, another is sewing thread, and the third looks like a pile of offcuts from the hairdressers’ floor. None of them scream. None of them can join the piano.
I realise this is something I need to do myself. I start taking empty sandwich bags to lectures, assessing the specimens in front of me, sitting behind the most enticing and, whilst bending over my notebook pretending to scribble, I lean forward with my tweezers and pluck. When they look round in irritation I wave my pen like a baton and apologise.
Back in halls, I shut myself away in my bedroom and stick the new hairs to the sticky tape piano. They add resonance.
The piano grows. By the end of second term it stretches the entire way round my bedroom. I’ve reorganised each note to give enough space for all the grey hairs. Each hair lasts roughly two weeks before it needs to be replaced. There are only so many hairs I can gather during a lecture. Even with a few toilet breaks thrown in to change seats, I’m only averaging three or four hairs an hour. I need a new plan.
But then one morning I overhear Creative Anthropology from Manchester say they’d bashed their head on the stairs in Oceana last night and was only now feeling it because the Tequila was wearing off.
And I berate myself for how much time I’ve wasted.
They’re surprised when one evening I join pre-drinks. Physical Geography from Hull seems delighted – they hand me a beer, which I pretend to swallow. Creative Anthropology from Manchester swishes their locks and my heart beats faster as I think I’ll hear you soon.
The club pounds, people sway and shove, and I am in my element. I move from group to group, at first weighing up my target. But it’s too dark, the lights flash. So I go at random, snatching handfuls from strangers’ heads. Most of them barely notice. Some give me a wotcha or a swat. I only brought one sandwich bag and it’s quickly full, so I slip out. Go back to my room to look at my spoils.
It’s a mixed picture. Lots of browns and blacks and yellows, and even some pinks and blues. But they’re there, the greys. Nestled in the sandwich bag. Twelve of them. And when I add them to the piano they’re astounding, rich, full-blooded.
I go out every night, mostly with Physical Geography from Hull and Creative Anthropology from Manchester and the others on our hallway, but also sometimes alone. After that first time, I don’t bother with pre-drinks anymore. I say that I have work to do, which is true, but also I don’t want to waste time talking when I could be composing. So I drown out their chatter with my music, and when I hear them start to pack up I slip out of my door and join them on the walk into town. Sometimes they notice. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, it gives my evening structure, and I get in faster as part of a group. I stuff bag after bag with snatched hair, my head thrumming with the new compositions I’ll create.
The end of first year means recitals. But I’m not nervous – I’ve been preparing for this all year.
The week before our final performances, I hit the clubs hard, hopping from one to another, filling bag after bag. As dawn breaks each morning, I sit in a mountain of multi-coloured hair and I sort, searching for the greys, testing them, pronouncing them worthy and adding them to the piano. As I sort, I compose.
In the daytime I attend every lecture I can, scouting for the notes I’m missing, those that need bolstering.
I barely sleep.
The day of the recital, I transfer the sticky tape piano onto boards, fold them carefully, carry them over to the hall. We’ll have ten minutes between each performance to set up, acclimate to the space.
Our names are drawn at random; I’ll be one of the last. So I stand in the wings, listening to my fellow students play at being virtuosos. They’re repetitive, boring; their pieces standard, conventional. Cellos that moan. Timpani that rumble. It’s all so predictable the instruments can’t even bear to raise their voices.
Not so for my piano.
When it’s my turn, I unfold my boards across the stage. Take my time arranging microphones in front of each note.
Behind me, the audience shifts in their seats. I can hear the lecturers whispering, and I grin. No one is prepared for what’s to come.
I turn, take a bow. Announce my name and piece.
Music Theory from Worcester. Sonata in Solitude.
And I begin.
The first movement is mournful, pulling on only the wispiest hairs. They shriek softly, raising a prickle at the base of my neck. I move slowly, float across the stage, allowing time for the audience to hear and feel every note. I move from G# up to B, the minor third, then D#, the perfect fifth. The music dances around me, wailing loneliness, screaming artistry. I hear a member of the audience exhale.
The second movement gets bigger, bolder. I stride across the stage now, tugging on each note, piercing the recital hall with shrieks and yells, the chords rising. I use a foundational minor progression. G# to C# to D# resolving back to G#. The music screams, challenging the audience to really listen, to understand what’s being said.
The final movement, the third movement, crashes through the recital hall with yells in G#, imploring the audience to howl along with the melody. I run from note to note, tossing my hat to one side, my bald head glinting, sweat beading down in front of my ears. I no longer care for my appearance; my audience should see what I have sacrificed for my art. I strike a D# chord, the notes shrieking out, congratulating me on what I’ve created. The music builds to E major and I hover, hover, hover, waiting and, with a gentle release, I stroke a B major chord that settles across my sweat-soaked back.
I pause, panting, the final note still sounding in my head.
I look to the audience,
and they are silence.
Highly Commended
by Alan C Williams
“What are you doing there?”
He ignores me. Perhaps he didn’t hear. He’s looking inside our trailer in the centre of the Kaleidoscope whilst I stand there in the sparse forest, at last placing my bag of equipment on the ground.
“I said, what are you …” and he turns. I recognise him immediately, despite his neatly trimmed beard and longer hair. He’s staring back at me and I realise that it’s inevitable we’d meet here. What else can I expect? We are both experts in the study of butterflies and this … this is one hell of a butterfly collection.
He waits, then decides to approach me. I imagine it’s awkward for him, too. The mother of our daughter. The wife who killed her.
All around us, the sky sparkles with the myriad colours of their wings in the morning sunlight. The Kaleidoscope is in full flight.
“Hi,” I say at last.
“Hi, yourself,” he replies. “I thought you might be in the caravan thingy. Saw you on telly last night, so I knew you’d be here.” He leans forward to kiss, although I turn my cheek. His lips touch there instead. I sense his disappointment.
Steve steps back and indicates the wondrous scene with a sweep of his tanned arms. “The numbers are amazing. Any idea what’s happening?”
“If you want a scientific explanation, I can’t give you one. We’ve been monitoring atmospherics, weather, solar activity, geographics … even lunar changes and chemicals from the plants themselves. It makes no sense. There’s nothing special about this locality that might explain why there are so many butterflies.”
“Maybe there isn’t a rational explanation, Rachel. Have you ever considered that?”
“Rubbish! Things like this don’t just happen.” Lowering my voice, I continue. “Look, Steve. I’m busy. I’m surprised you even want to talk to me, considering what I said to you the last time we met. I have my work. I believe in what I’m doing here. I don’t need distractions anymore.”
I walk to the bank of machines on the ground near the trailer to check read-outs, dismissing him. He walks up to my side.
“So … What do you make of it all? How large an area does it cover?” For some irritating reason, he persists. That thick skin of his is clearly still there.
Reluctantly, I face him once more, uncomfortable at his closeness. Still, we were happy once. He deserves my courtesy at least.
“About four square miles, according to the data that I’ve collected. It’s static though … Centred around this particular spot and there aren’t any signs of change.”
“Enough about the butterflies, Rachel. How are you?”
I stare at the ground. Even though the insects are darting around from plant to plant, I notice that they are avoiding us. In fact, they’ve been bypassing all the spectators who have made their way here to witness the phenomenon.
He’s waiting for my answer.
“Still alive … Still missing her … Still ….”
“Feeling guilty? You shouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault, Rach.”
“So you keep telling me. Nothing’s changed.”
We’ve had this argument before. Too many times.
He insists that I didn’t kill her. I know I did.
End of.
“I’d better get back to my team. They’re still setting up.” My Research Assistants from the Uni are professional. They don’t need me. Any excuse, though. “I apologise for earlier but you do need to move on with your own life … without me. However, it’s been nice to see you again, Steve.”
I turn to leave him again as I did five months after the car accident. I ran off from him and our memories, trying to bury myself in my work in the Midlands. I didn’t want to return here when I was asked yesterday. Since I was the ‘expert’ on Lepidoptera and this was the largest Kaleidoscope of butterflies ever seen in Britain, my boss told me I had no choice.
“Wait, Rachel. Just for a moment. Have you noticed what’s special about this place, sweetheart?”
I glare at him, impatiently.
“I’m not your …”
He interrupts me, kneeling to open his rucksack. Inside is a laptop along with large plastic containers. “There’s a Priam’s Birdwing in this capture jar. And a Ulysses Swallowtail in the other one.”
He never wanted us to separate. Delaying tactics. The Birdwing is Australia’s largest butterfly at seven inches wide. It simply can’t be here, living in England.
“No way. They’ve never been here. Too cold.” Nevertheless, my curiosity is piqued. I walk towards the table. Steve’s as expert with butterfly identification as I am. Still, I’m the one with the Master’s. Our joint fascination with these marvellous creatures was how we first met.
“You’re right!” I say after a moment’s examination. It’s pretty hard to mistake a Birdwing. I’ve never seen such robust specimens. Their dazzling colours glisten in the bright Yorkshire sunlight.
We stare at one another. This is more than a simple congregation of butterflies … Much more. It’s then that I hear a child’s laughter over the cooling westerly zephyr and background whispers of other people far away. The sadness enshrouds me once more.
“I miss her so much.”
“So do I.” There are tears in his eyes. “She would have loved it here.”
We hear the child again. Enjoying the experience with her parents? And yet, it sounds so much like Katie, skipping through the wild flowers when we took her on our many butterfly quests.
She loved the freedom and had a special affinity for the tiny creatures. I remember them flocking to her whilst she asked them endless questions about their adventures. Her ‘fairy friends’ she called them.
Our recollections are interrupted by the excited arrival of Petra, one of my Assistants.
“Prof. There, you are. Could you help me with this one? I can’t identify it from the keys or data sheets.” Britain is home to more than fifty-nine species of Lepidoptera. Even so, it shouldn’t be that difficult to narrow down the search.
She realises too late that she’s interrupting and stammers an apology.
“No problems, Petra. This is my Steve, my … husband. Now. Let’s have a look at this mystery beastie.” She shows us the delicate creature in the large capture jar, watching for our assessment. Our interest changes to incredulity. I recognise its markings immediately. So does Steve. This Kaleidoscope has changed from ‘unusual’ to something far beyond.
“It’s a …”
“Extinct since nineteen forty-one, I believe.”
“And then it was only found in California.”
Petra senses our amazement. “Are you saying that extinction isn’t forever?” she half-jokes.
Immediately, Steve turns to his laptop, which is online with a small satellite uplink. He’s the expert on exotic species. Moments pass as he accesses databases used by specialists like ourselves. Furtive glances between the live specimen fluttering happily and age-old photographs and paintings confirm it.
“Glaucopsyche xerces … The Xerces Blue. It’s conclusive. I thought it might be its cousin, the Silvery Blue but it’s not.”
“Steve. Do you understand the implicat …?”
“Is everything all right, Professor?”
“It’s fine, Petra. Can you leave the specimen with us?”
“Okay. There are others. Strange butterflies. I saw some that I have not seen since I was in Europe, an orange white one called a Lapland Fritillary. This … Kaleidoscope. This place, Professor. She is very special. No?”
I agree before giving her specific instructions for the rest of my team. They’re professionals and don’t need me hovering around them. They will be recording their findings meticulously with videos and cameras. None of the remarkable creatures will be harmed or killed for so-called collections. My team know my cardinal rules on conservation.
“Come with me, please,” Steve asks. “Let’s take a walk.”
I decide to join him. We thread our way through the midst of the Kaleidoscope. For the first time, I can see beyond the detached world of my Science. Steve indicates the spectators, some of whom are sharing their picnics with the insects. Butterflies flock to honey-smeared slices of bread, whereas others prefer saucers with rotting fruit brought especially for the occasion. Young children, teenagers and adults of all ages join in the experience.
I recall the girl I once was, as I begin to gingerly emerge from that chrysalis where I’ve hidden for all this time. Nevertheless, it’s only when I see the Swallowtail that I sense my face lighting up like a child’s on Christmas morning.
“It shouldn’t be here, yet it is. They live in Norfolk because the larva only feeds on Milk-parsley and there’s certainly none of that around here,” I explain in my best lecturer tones. Seeing Steve’s expression, I apologise. “Sorry. I’m preaching to the converted. Will you forgive me?”
Steve takes my hands in his and kisses them.
“Always,” he replies.
As we saunter along, Steve reaches over and clasps my hand in his, swinging them back and forth in an exaggerated way. It was like old times when we had gambolled through the fields as children.
Returning to my van, our wonder is augmented by the arrival of another Xerces alighting delicately next to the captured butterfly. Two impossible butterflies together. A male and female.
Is this what it’s like to witness a miracle?
And then the giggling and laughter returns … Much closer this time. Steve notices it too as we silently listen.
I release the captured butterfly. The two once vanished creatures touch delicately.
Steve is by my side. He feels it too.
The magic.
“I should have stopped Katie from undoing her seat belt, Steve.”
“She was always doing it.. She never liked to be confined.”
“She was so happy out here in the countryside … chasing her little dreams.”
We look away from the Xerces to the fields and trees around us. Something is happening. The other butterflies have stopped flying around. Every spare space is dappled in rainbow colours of dozens of species. All of them are perched on flowers, on leaves and branches, or simply resting upon equipment, scattered around the small clearing.
They’re waiting. A momentary slow stretch of their wings is the only sign of activity.
But for what?
“Katie …?” I ask.
There’s no answer.
“Are they waiting for us, Steve?”
“For us? No.”
We turn to the pair of Xerces Blue. A mating couple. And we both understand. A new chance for something once thought gone forever.
Suddenly, the two butterflies rise slowly from the wooden table. I feel my heart soar with them, taking my guilt about the accident off to the heavens with them. As if in unison, the other Lepidoptera fly to join them in their special moment. The sky pulses with meandering wings.
It’s a celebration of life.
#
Afterwards, I sit with Steve on a log, sipping coffee from the flask he brought with him. The Kaleidoscope will continue for a day or two but the Nexus is over. And we saw it.
I turn to Steve and kiss him.
Properly this time.
I’ve missed Yorkshire. I’ve missed him. I’ll resign when I return to the north and re-join my husband here … where I belong.
“I’ve been thinking. Is it too bizarre to believe that our little girl somehow enticed us here to share this miracle with her ‘friends’? She’d realise that it would bring us together once more.”
I thought about Steve’s idea for a moment.
“Maybe. Or possibly she brought them here for us. A gift?”
Someone once speculated that The Garden of Eden was situated here, in Britain. I laughed at the time. Now I’m not so sceptical.
There will be widespread repercussions from this special day, this Kaleidoscope, but for me, I’ve found a reason to live again, knowing that our daughter has found her peace, too. Right now, we’re content to sit and talk and watch the butterflies dance under the midday sun.
3rd Prize
Heartbreak Ends at 6:50pm
by Hanna Retallick
Your best friend got engaged today. She dropped by before work to tell you because she couldn’t keep it in any longer. Thinking it must be a delivery, you flung open the apartment door and there she was.
BAM! No warning.
We’re engageeeeed!
Her shrieks of delight needled your eardrums. She threw her arms around your waist. You held onto the doorframe, lest her swinging hug topple you. All you could think was that you were still wrapped in your towel, wet from the shower, and her face was in your soggy hair, raspberry shampoo residue clinging to her foundation.
When she was done telling you everything, she said she was heading to her new fiancé’s family to tell them and she’d have to let you know about later, okay? You were so surprised by the good news that you didn’t know what she meant. Had you been thinking of having a girls’ night out-out? Or a trip to the cinema? Or an evening walk when the sun was giving up for the day? No idea. It’s like that sometimes, isn’t it, when a huge revelation pushes another thing out of your mind. As she told you all about the proposal, that very thing kept happening, push push push, every word giving a little shove to the one before. It’ll come back to you; it always does eventually.
And then she was gone.
And now here you are, clinging onto the towel that has started to slip.
And what is it you’re supposed to be doing?
Well, what you’re not doing is going to your fiancé’s family to break good news, because you have no fiancé or fiancé’s family or news of any kind, good or otherwise.
Chores. That’s the one.
It’s a good thing it happens to be Saturday; this way, you have as much time as you could possibly want to process the good news while you do your Friday night dishes, fold and put away last week’s laundry, and write your to-do list for the next few days.
But first, you dry your hair with the hair drier she laughed at back in university. It sounds like a lawn mower, she’d said, the first time you used it in front of her. Like my dad’s old lawnmower, that’s how it sounds, she said. You told her it was your aunt’s, or used to be, back when. Works great, bit rusty, bit loud, but. Then she quickly said she loves lawnmowers – especially the old loud worn-out ones. You thought she was mocking you, and she was in a way, but it didn’t seem cruel the way she said it. She clearly wanted to make you smile. And you did.
You switch off your hair drier, run your hand through your frazzled straw-like hair. Should have sprayed it with heat protector. Your scalp feels like it’s burning and despite the silence of the room, your ears pound… and what’s that ringing noise? We’re engageeeeed!
You grab the hairband from your bedside table and throw your hair into a messy bun, giving up on yourself for today; she’s the only person who’s going to see you anyway, and she’s seen you much worse, let’s be honest. She was your warm place in freshers’ week, the other one who partied but never drank, the other one who loved to dance and laugh and be silly but wake the following morning without a headache. That didn’t stop mascara streaking down your cheeks though, or your messy hair frizzing up until it had doubled in size.
Enough now.
Quit thinking.
Time for chores:
- Dishes
- Laundry
- Hoover
- Plan next bloody week…
More jobs pop to mind. Each completed chore prompts a new one, leaving the to-do list as stagnant as your mind is frenzied. He and you were always into lists, weren’t you. That was something you bonded over. She was more, well. Anyway. He lived across the hall from the two of you, but you met him first, in the shared kitchen. He’d brought his whiteboard and was writing his shopping list in red marker pen. Perfect pullet points; perfect lines. Like this:
- Carrots
- Parsnips
- Potatos
He forgot the ‘e’ in potatoes. You pointed it out to him immediately. He said he knew but was thinking about something else, and the next time he wrote it, he left the ‘e’ out again, and then again, rinse and repeat. A joke, he clarified. Sure. You started to add food items to his list, deliberately out of alignment, to wind him up.
- Chocolate
- PotatoEs
Now that’s a joke. Like setting them up. Biggest joke of all. They were such a mismatch, and you never believed in the opposites-attract thing, did you? So, what were you thinking, that time you knocked on his door to ask if – and no worries if not – he would like to – it’s silly, so we’re cool either way – he would like to come over for snacks and drinks and, like, a game of Uno with you and your roommate. You’ll like her, you said. He looked at you hard and deep. You both lingered in it too long. And then he looked away, said, sure, why not, I’ll be over in a sec. Something happened right then, like a cord breaking.
Now you’re dusting something that doesn’t need to be dusted and isn’t on your list but suddenly seems important. You reach around the back of the TV with a damp J-cloth; you could get electrocuted doing that. Might happen, could easily happen. The thought sends a little jolt through you, like, well, an electric shock.
You wonder if that’s how it felt for her, seeing him walk into the room for the first time. At first sight. Her glancing up from the sofa, where she sat cross-legged with a big tub of sweet and salty popcorn, placed carefully so that her short shorts wouldn’t reveal too much. You hovered nearby, twirling a glass of red wine, leaving the seat free beside her. It wasn’t free for long. Neither were his eyes. Or his heart.
You’ve done about all the cleaning you can think of. You perch on the edge of your sofa, not wanting to disturb the yellow cushions, placed carefully like diamonds. It’s as it should be. Everything is. Test results conclusive. Funny really, how things go. From sweet and salty popcorn to an animated card game to more wine to lingering goodbyes to fancy a coffee sometime to so what are we then to graduating power couple to getting updates on Insta stories to her appearing at your door with an explosion of good news about Newborough Beach yesterday evening just as the sun was setting.
He’d walked along next to her; hands dug deep into the pockets of his black raincoat, protecting him from the sea breeze. She glanced at him, wondering why he was so quiet and why he barely looked at her and why he wouldn’t hold her hand. The sky was a riotous haze of orange, but neither of them mentioned it because sunsets die with inadequate words. She flinched when a herring gull swooped overhead and then started to chuckle, finally catching the eye of her beloved. Despite him intending to do it when they reached Llanddwyn Island, her favourite place in the whole world, he found he couldn’t wait. His hand left the safety of his pocket and grabbed hers, and then she could feel it in her bones what was about to happen, and he revealed the small box, which he forgot to open before tugging his trouser up and kneeling down, and…
But you’re imagining most of that, because all she told you this morning was, It was at Newborough Beach just as the sun was setting, and he knelt down and said will you marry me and just look at it, how gorj is that ring though?!
You’re imagining the tears pouring down her face. Of course, she would have cried. She’s a crier, a makeup destroyer. That reminds you…
When she hugged you, your hair had left little streaks on her cheek, which you should have pointed out but didn’t. This niggles, the feeling that you broke the Girl Code. You picture her pulling up to his family’s house. In the glow of her good news, perhaps she didn’t check her face one last time in the car mirror and she greeted her future in-laws with a ruined face. They won’t mention it though, not during afternoon tea, nor as they raise their celebratory glasses of champagne, because why would anyone care what state her makeup’s in when she is so radiantly happy? Her mascara could be running down her streaky cheeks, like during our nights on the dancefloor. Who would care? Not them. Not him. She’ll sit with one arm wrapped around his shoulders at the dinner table, as she always does, dinner fork in her left hand, stabbing at her food and… and… before she knows it, it’ll be 6:50 and they won’t have even got to dessert.
And that’s when it hits you: When she said I’ll let you know about later, okay? she meant she’d let me know if she could come round to watch Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. It didn’t occur to you at the time, not because the good news was ringing in your ears, rendering you temporarily stupid, but because Michael McIntyre has never been a maybe. It’s an always. It’s our thing. Was.
This makes perfect sense though, being with the future groom on one of the happiest days of their lives, swimming in the joy of the news.
Gripping a drink and snack, you collapse onto the sofa not caring about the cushions anymore, turn on the TV, stretch out your legs. There’s plenty of space for them tonight. You usually tuck them underneath you and place your fluffy blanket across your lap and hers. You’re too cold; she’s too hot. The blanket’s just a comfort thing for her, but for you, it’s. It’s what holds you together.
You glance at your phone. 6:40pm. Ten minutes until Michael McIntyre’s Big Show.
Nine minutes. She’s not here.
Eight minutes. Tick tock, tick tock.
Seven minutes. You loved her first.
Six minutes. You loved him first.
Five minutes. You loved them first.
Four minutes. You set them up deliberately.
Three minutes. You are so, so happy for them.
Two minutes. You will eventually believe that.
One minute. She’s not here.
It’s a good thing you’re alone really. You are at a loss to express your feelings. It’s best to fold them up in the fluffy blanket, let them float on top of your hot chocolate, leave them to nestle in the bowl of McCoy’s ridged salt and vinegar crisps. They’ll be safe there. She might not trust these are happy tears that suddenly spring from your eyes; she might think you’re not okay. Why wouldn’t you be?
It’s 6:50pm.
It’s the happiest time on the happiest night.
It ends right here.
2nd Prize
Revivification
by Dianne Bown-Wilson
Arthur Gebble had no memory of the accident that caused his life-changing injuries. His subsequent knowledge came from the medics who drip-fed him facts and opinions amid the plethora of other interventions they inflicted upon his battered old body. All he recalled was the rough embrace of tarmac as he lay in the road.
‘A cyclist,’ tutted Sister Baldwin. ‘Hit you full-on. Happens far too often these days.’
‘But the wheels of the bus caused the real damage,’ said the doctor, whose name Arthur couldn’t retain. ‘You’ve a remarkable constitution for a man your age, so eventually, you’ll recover from most of your injuries. But unfortunately, you’ll never walk again.’
Never walk again. That was unambiguous. Arthur had already pondered what it would take to reclaim full mobility at age eighty-six and reached the same conclusion.
He shrugged, ‘I’ve always preferred indoor pursuits.’
‘Good man,’ said the doctor. ‘You’ll still be able to do plenty.’
Arthur forced a smile and watched him retreat, raising his hand in farewell.
In subsequent weeks, from that same spot, he observed the comings and goings around him, contemplating what his future would now amount to. As a pragmatic sort, he accepted he’d no longer be able to live in his house in Arthingworth Road, where he’d happily spent the past sixty years. Not all of them alone, mind. For a long while, over forty years, there’d been his lodger, Charlie—two confirmed bachelors in a state of glorious domesticity. Fortunately, The Grim Reaper had called swiftly and decisively one night three years ago, which meant Charlie hadn’t suffered. That was kept for the one who was left.
He’d been lonely since then but kept the icy shards of isolation from shredding his soul by burying himself even more deeply in words, re-reading all the volumes he and Charlie had enjoyed, often reading passages out loud as they used to every night. Just before the accident, he’d nearly finished them all – Austen through to Zephaniah (they shared an eclectic taste); perhaps it had been an omen?
Now, the thought of being shipped off to an old crocks’ facility was abhorrent. Expecting he’d have some warning of physical or mental decline, Arthur had always sworn to himself that he’d opt out entirely before he’d submit to that. Now, fate had literally thrown him under a bus and curtailed his options. As soon as he was fit enough to be discharged, he’d be bundled up and delivered to one of these old codgers’ zoos as swiftly and conclusively as a freshly-plucked Christmas turkey.
‘Every cloud has a silver lining, it seems,’ said the doctor during one of his visits. ‘I don’t know the extent to which you’re aware of it, but in recent weeks, the country, the world, has been suffering the impact of a deadly new virus. Many have succumbed, the elderly in particular. The upshot is that whereas previously we would have had difficulty finding you a bed in a good local nursing home, now there’s space aplenty.’
Arthur said nothing. Although he sensed the physician’s anguish, the air of suppressed panic which had surrounded him throughout his stay had bypassed him emotionally. He knew the facts, but he was a package now, an object that had things done to it. It was no longer his place to worry or think or be afraid.
Eventually, as predicted, Arthur’s physical condition improved, his wounds healed, but mentally, he was broken. Lying in the road, he’d hoped he was about to be released from his mortal ties, freed at last to go and join Charlie. If only that had happened. One of the indicators of his depression was that he no longer wanted to read. When the nurses asked at the start of his stay how he usually passed his time, he told them he’d always loved the written word, devouring books and newspapers as greedily as cream cakes and creating and consuming crosswords with the relish of a bon viveur. Now, his appetite had vanished.
Arthur had the misfortune (or good fortune – he couldn’t decide which) to have been born in the nineteen-thirties, predating the rise of regional accents, and television programmes in which actors spoke like real people. Throughout his childhood in Leeds, his mother had impressed upon him the value of ‘book-learning’ and ‘speaking proper’ in her campaign to protect her only son from an inevitable life of stasis and poverty. ‘Mind you listen well at school and drink in them big words they spout,’ she’d say. ‘It’s words will save yer, nowt else.’
Wanting to make his mother happy, he followed her advice and, from his first day at school, revelled in hearing new words and fresh stories and, best of all, gaining the power to create his own through learning to write. There was a certain irony in the fact that Arthur’s first encounter with a dictionary was looking up what the word dictionary meant in a weighty, leather-bound volume in the town library. Later, he’d do the same for the words irony and encounter.
As soon as he’d mastered the fundaments of literacy, he’d asked his teacher about ‘this library thing’ she’d mentioned (which sounded so unlikely he suspected she’d made it up) and followed her instructions about obtaining a card. Eureka! It was the start of a passionate relationship that steadily led him towards a long and enjoyable career, culminating in a senior position within the civil service, crafting government speeches. It amused Charlie when, at parties, Arthur would introduce himself as ‘A consummate logophile with a predilection for sesquipedalian adjectives’. Fortunately, he retained an aptitude for self-deprecation, so a wink or wry smile invariably accompanied the statement.
But that was then. Now, trapped in his hospital bed, he couldn’t engage with anything printed, whether newspapers, novels, or even the illustrated gardening guide someone had left behind. They must have me down as a pretentious liar, he thought. Voracious reader, indeed! Even that wasn’t enough to motivate him to focus on a page. Something in his mind had been dislodged by what he’d experienced, seemingly irrevocably. Words had become irrelevant.
Eventually, D-Day (Despatch Day) arrived. Two uniformed people in masks bundled Arthur and his wheelchair into the back of a van, dropping him off twenty minutes later.
Sunnyside. Superb Assisted Living for your Sunset Years pronounced the sign at the bottom of the driveway leading up to what once must have been an impressive Victorian mansion. Arthur considered how formerly his mind automatically would have concocted a better slogan, avoiding the profligate use of the letter S.Now he suppressed a sigh.
The following days passed slowly; like an ailing animal, he existed but failed to thrive. The staff were kind and efficient but busy and palpably worried about the ongoing virus. The residents were a mixed bunch on a scale ranging from ‘mentally sound but physically frail’ to ‘completely out of it’. They were friendly in the main – indeed, several made welcoming overtures, but Arthur’s response was offhand. ‘Give him time,’ he heard one of the staff whisper to an ancient chap who seemed distraught when he declined his offer of a game of cards.
Arthur felt guilty, but what was the point? What was the point of any of it?
Nevertheless, wallowing alone in self-pity was not permitted, so he was hoiked from his room for breakfast every morning and then directed toward the lounges. After sampling them all and assessing their inhabitants, he plumped for The Yellow Room, where no one was fully present, regardless of the occupancy level. There, he was left alone and found he could largely ignore the wailing, random chattering, and restless wandering of those around him. Certainly, he preferred it to the pressure of being with those who were still mentally agile and keen to interact.
That said, one individual, Mrs Dennison (as he’d heard Mrs-Wilkerson-the-Manager refer to her, although the carers generally called her Gladys), was not so easily disregarded. Somehow, her brain appeared to have regressed to her school days, and she spent hours reciting simple sentences of the sort Arthur recalled from when he was learning to read: The cat sat on the mat. Mary and Jane go on an outing. Look Jane, see the dog run. Her incessant, monotone chanting was as hypnotic as a mantra. He listened to it for several days before something within him snapped.
He wheeled himself over to where she sat by the window, stopped directly before her, and took her hand. ‘Gladys?’
She continued her muttering.
‘That’s very good, Gladys,’ he said with an encouraging smile. ‘But I think a young lady as bright as you could try something more challenging. I bet there are lots of words you know how to spell. What if we try some?’
Gladys raised her head, fell silent and stared at him blankly. He wasn’t sure if she understood. In that moment, he saw himself as he might have been had he not received such excellent medical attention and what he might yet become if he didn’t pull himself together. Come on, Arty, he heard Charlie say. You can do better than this.
He looked Gladys straight in the eye. ‘What about your name, Gladys Dennison – can you spell that?’
‘G-L-A-D-Y-S-D-E-N-N-I-S-O-N,’ she said without pausing.
‘Very good. And what about some things you enjoy? Holiday?
‘H-O-L-I-D-A-Y’.
Lemonade. Biscuits. Sandwiches. Picnic… On that first day, he sat with Gladys for over two hours, conjuring up words he felt may have happy associations for her. He was intrigued to find that not only was she able to spell them, but doing so seemed to make her relax. She even started talking, falteringly but lucidly, about those recollections. By the time the carers announced lunch, he’d even managed to make her laugh. For the first time since his accident, he felt connected to something real.
That afternoon, Arthur asked the carers for paper and a pen and spent several hours noting down the words he’d asked Gladys to spell the previous day. He also compiled a list of other words to which he felt she might respond positively, grouping them into categories such as Family, Children, Hobbies, Seaside.
‘We all have a past, don’t we, Gladys?’ he asked her when he resumed their interaction the next day. Her muttering stopped again, and she looked at him, frowning before her face cracked into a smile.
‘I like you,’ she giggled, and in that moment, he saw the woman she once must have been.
He thought about the other residents. Look at us: old and on the scrap heap but not worthless. He knew nothing about them, nor they about him, but they’d all have a story to tell. ‘Lean in, Arty,’ he heard Charlie say.
Maybe this was a way he could reconnect with the world.
The overworked carers quickly approved: perhaps he might try it with others like Gladys? As days passed and word of his experiment spread amongst his co-residents, some expressed their admiration. One, a soft-spoken woman called Carol, asked, very politely, if he might consider holding a Spelling Bee for them all? Or perhaps some sort of word-based quiz? Oh, and was it true he’d been an English professor?
Arthur thought about his party piece descriptor and decided to leave it for another time. He shook his head. ‘Mere civil servant,’ he smiled.
In the following days, a new enthusiasm seeped into Arthur’s brain like sap rising in the spring. A renewed sense of purpose, motivation to move forward – that was what he was experiencing, but what on earth wasthe word for it? Try as he might, it wouldn’t come to him; it taunted him like an itch.
Finally, he accepted he needed help. ‘Do you, by chance, have a thesaurus?’ he asked Mrs-Wilkerson-the-Manager, and fortunately, she did.
Revivification. That was it! A warm glow of satisfaction coursed through him.
Arthur Gebble was back on form.
-end-
1st Prize
THE GAZE OF PICASSO
by Michael Ranes
‘Your face is a portrait shouting to be painted.’ Marco smiled.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that mean?’
He made a gesture near her cheek, sketching the air. ‘Deep. Intriguing.’
‘Oh, get away. I’m nothing special.’
‘Special? No.’ His eyes lit. ‘But beautiful, yes.’
Marco and Sophie are sat in a coffee shop in Piccadilly. She wears jeans and a red leather jacket — young, fresh-faced, striking. He wears all black, his greying hair pulled in a tight ponytail. They met at a gallery earlier and Marco had asked to paint her.
A biography of Picasso lay on the table between them.
‘If I let you paint me, you aren’t going to do that cubic squares and blobs stuff are you?’ Sophie pointed at the image of Guernica on the front cover of the book.
Marco leaned back. ‘Cubism is not blobs and squares, it’s the soul of a person bursting through, showing character in the form of shapes. An explosion of different views of the same person in one painting, if you like.’
Sophie looked at him with suspicion. ‘I don’t like. What I see is squares and blobs and the face under like some monster machine with eyes in its forehead.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘And that’s not me. Not even on a bad day.’
Marco’s eyes darkened, but he smiled. ‘A portrait must capture the essence of the person. They should spill into the heart of the viewer. This is what I want; to paint the beauty of both the light and the dark inside you.’
Sophie looked him, trying to read his face. He wasn’t flirting anymore, which unsettled her more than she expected. ‘Anyhow I heard Picasso painted his lovers normal to show their beauty, but painted the wives he didn’t love anymore as angles. Made them ugly.’
Marco hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Love is a cosmetic. When it fades, faces change.’
There was something ruthless in the way he said it — not cruel, just honest.
They fell silent. She sipped coffee and looked at the table. He watched her, waiting.
Eventually, she looked up. ‘Marco, I want you to paint me – you’re talented and I’m flattered – but can you just paint me normally?’
He took a sip of coffee. ‘So, you prefer me to draw you? Show your face exactly as it is.
She nodded, ‘Yes.’
Marco traced his eyes around her face. ‘Each pore and freckle. The nit and the grit?’
Sophie thought. ‘Well…you could improve it a bit. Cut out small defects.’
‘Smooth them over, you mean? Show an idealised version of your face?’
‘Not idealised. Made a little better. Like I do with makeup.’
‘So, you want my painting to be as one of your selfies? Filtered to perfect untruth.’
She was not sure what this meant. ‘Yes. I guess.’
Marco’s face hardened. ‘No. I’m not a photographer.’ He picked up the biography. ‘I thought I could immortalize, your face,’ he said, ‘but I’ll find another.’
Sophie felt the weight of his words settle in her. He spoke with finality like he’d already wiped her from his thoughts. As he reached the door, she called after him.
‘Okay, okay lets do it, but what’s so wrong with showing myself at my best?’
From the door his gaze locked on hers with fierce intensity. ‘Simple. It’s not art.’
***
Sophie stepped into Marco’s studio and a world of linseed, paint and light. The space was a reclaimed warehouse in Clapham, with leaning canvases, workbenches spattered with colour and scents hanging thick in the air.
Marco stood behind an easel lit by a skylight. He was painting intently; his brush a dancer. Watching him absorbed, Sophie felt an intruder but he sensed her presence and came to a still, placing his brush gently back in the easel tray.
‘Sit,’ he instructed, motioning to a chair in the centre of the studio. ‘Just be yourself.’
Sophie settled in, smoothing her jacket. ‘That, I can do.’
He studied her intently. ‘This morning I began sketching you from memory. Your face was clear and the red of your jacket was my anchor point.’
He picked up his brush and the whisper of paint kissing canvas teased the air. The strokes flowed easily. Light pooled on the picture as her features formed —the curve of her jaw, the tint of her skin, the glint in her eyes.
He briefly stood back to assess. It was good. No, it was more. It was her. He gave a short smile, then stepped forward again, brush in hand.
Sophie felt relaxed and found her voice.
‘When did you start painting?’
Marco didn’t answer right away, unsure whether to speak or paint.
‘When I was a child,’ he said at last. ‘My mother said I saw the world differently.’
‘And do you?’
His gaze flicked up, meeting hers. ‘I see faces and people differently, yes. But not other things in the world, things which don’t matter.’
She swallowed. ‘And what do you see in me?’
Marco hesitated, his brush poised. ‘Too much. That’s the danger,’ he said, lifting his hand behind him. ‘That’s why he is there. To remind me what’s true.’
Sophie followed his hand.
And there is was. Behind Marco, high on the wall.
A portrait of Picasso, angled to look directly at her chair. It was in the shadows, so she hadn’t noticed it before. Now though, it was all she could see.
The eyes penetrated her.
She looked away – to Marco at the easel, to the stacked canvases with their ghostly figures and unpainted corners – but the gravity of the portrait pulled her back, its stare seeping into her until she was drowning, pulled down into inky depths again and again until, finally, she ceded and the Picasso’s eyes penetrated and filled her like an insatiable, merciless lover.
She closed her eyelids.
‘No,’ Marco’s shout was sharp. Then quietly, ‘please, your eyes must remain.’ Sophie shifted in her seat and opened her eyes. The brush stopped. Marco set down his palette.
‘Stretch your legs,’ he said without looking up, ‘a ten minute break.’
Sophie stood and paced a circle round the studio. She glanced to the portrait looming on the wall. It followed her as she paced and she hugged herself, pressing her arms tight against her body to keep herself from spilling out.
‘You don’t like him watching you,’ Marco said, voice quiet, almost amused.
She forced a laugh. ‘It feels like he’s… peeling me apart.’
Marco wiped his brush on a rag, slow and deliberate. ‘It’s the gaze of Picasso,’ he said softly. ‘Lesser artists paint the mask. Picasso painted the cracks beneath.’
Sophie’s vision blurred and she was suddenly in front of a mirror, age thirteen, dabbing concealer onto the red slash of a birthmark above her temple, her mother’s constant voice in her ear, half-pity, half-disgust, ‘Smile properly, Sophie, your mouth droops when you don’t’
She blinked hard, shaking herself free.
Marco watched her, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth — not mocking, but knowing. ‘You wanted to be painted,’ he said softly. ‘Not copied.’
Sophie said nothing. She sat back down, staring at the blank space just above the easel, willing herself not to look up. But the gaze was there, unblinking, merciless, pinning her to the chair and she understood: whatever sits on the canvas will not be the girl in the red jacket, it’ll be the girl who thought herself safe behind it.
***
The next day, Sophie returned for the second and final session. This time, no hesitation at the door. Something in her had quieted overnight. Not calmer exactly, but steadier.
Marco looked up from his easel and gave a nod.
‘Same chair,’ he said, motioning. ‘Same self.’
She gave a crooked grin, sliding off her coat. ‘No promises.’
She glanced up as she took her seat, searching the shadows above. The portrait was there. But today, the gaze didn’t claw at her. It watched; calm, patient.
Marco worked in silence, the brush ticking across the canvas.
Sophie watched dust float in the skylight, tracing invisible currents only the light could see.
After some time, Marco stepped back. His head tilted, as though measuring something. ‘You’re different,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Tired?’
‘No. Softer, less… arranged.’
She frowned. ‘Not such a fake, you mean?’
He didn’t answer. He looked at her in a new way — not as an artist but as one person seeing another. It was brief, though. The clinical gaze quickly returned.
‘We’re close now,’ he said, eyes narrowing on the canvas.
In late afternoon, as the sun began to drop shadows, Marco placed his brush on the easel shelf, wiped his fingers on a cloth and stood behind the easel, hands resting on the frame, eyes steady on Sophie. ‘I’ve finished,’ is all he said.
Two words which quickened Sophie’s heart. She swallowed. ‘Let me see.’
Marco hesitated. Then slowly turned the canvas to face her.
Sophie gasped.
It was her. And yet…
Her face was there but fragmented, her features pulled into multiple perspectives. One eye watched from a higher angle; one mouth – for she had two – curled sharply in a jagged smile, while another lay jelly-like over her shoulder, the lips stretching to the ground like spilled paint. Her hands seemed to stretch and reach, as if caught in a movement, frozen and endless.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Marco smiled. ‘That means I got it right.’
Sophie lingered on the portrait. The longer she looked, the more she saw. Contradictions in herself, the confidence she wore like armour, the insecurities she hid just beneath it. It was disturbing. And yet, she couldn’t look away.
‘This is how you see me?’
‘This is how you showed yourself.’
For so long, Sophie had controlled the image she presented to the world, ensuring it was right, listening to those who criticised, listening to her own doubts. But here was something real. Not pretty, not beautiful — but raw and totally honest.
She sat with Marco studying the painting brushstroke by brushstroke, until she knew every sinew and curve of her fragmented face, broken, sliced, but somehow truer than any mirror.
By the time Sophie headed for the studio door the sky was dark. Picasso’s face bore down on her but his eyes were gentle, as if sated, his hunger gone. She looked up and nodded approvingly before wrapping herself against the cold and stepping out.
Four weeks passed.
Then Marco called to say the portrait had been selected for an exhibition and could she attend? She said yes before he even finished the sentence.
***
The gallery hummed with footsteps and whispers. Sophie stood behind a column, watching the tide of visitors gathering around Marco’s painting. Around her.
In the exhibition room – framed and isolated by a single downcast light – the portrait had changed. Its colours sharper, its wildness filling the canvas. Shards of leathery red sliced through softer tones of peach and copper; an eye larger than life, caught the light like a pool of mercury; a gash of blood slivered down one side of her face; a smiling mouth lay at her feet, another slid into her neck; the curve of a jaw cradled inside a geometry of shadows.
Snatches of conversation floated across the air:
‘Raw.’
‘Unnerving.’
A woman in a black dress stood transfixed, whispering to her companion: ‘It’s like… you can see her bleeding, almost.’
Sophie touched her collarbone, feeling echoes of Picasso’s eyes. She stepped forward, weaving through the crowd, until she stood face to face with the painting.
A memory rose through her skin. Her mother’s voice:
‘Smile properly, Sophie, your mouth droops when you don’t.’
The words no longer stung. She smiled and whispered.
‘Yes, mum, it does. And it’s a work of art.’
END