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March 2020 Micro Fiction Comp Results

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March 2020 Micro Fiction Comp Results

Once again, thank you to Gail Aldwin for providing this month’s prompt. Gail is a Dorset-based writer of fiction and poetry. Her short fiction collection Paisley Shirt was longlisted in the best short story category of the Saboteur Awards 2018 and her novel The String Games, about a child lost on a holiday in France, is available through her website, gailaldwin.com.

Thank you to everyone who entered and/or voted. We had 154 votes and it was very close between several stories. The prize fund this month is £234.

 

First place winner: Reclamation by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

Read Reclamation

Second place: Carousel by Joanne Withers

Read Carousel

 

April’s competition launches on Monday, 6th but if you can’t wait that long join us on Twitter (or Facebook) for a live flash comp on Thursday, 2nd April. It’s free to enter and very much focused on letting go and inspiring new ideas. We had a fantastic reponse with the last one, so hope you’ll join us for more fun!!

Carousel by Joanne Withers

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Carousel

Joanne Withers

8:35
“She’s been around eight times; I don’t know what to do. No-one’s coming to collect her…”

 
8:27
Tears fall backwards as I spin, the lights and sounds are sickening; electronic disco noise, kaleidoscopes of red and gold.
 
8:19
I catch glimpses of mothers waving, laughing as their children reappear, quickly snapping photographs. Where is she?
 
8:11
She tightens the harness, places teddy in my lap and smooths my hair. ‘Always know I love you,’ she mouths as the ride begins.
 
7:00
I beg her to take me, we haven’t been anywhere since Dad died. He always loved the fair.

 

***

About the author: Jo Withers writes short fiction from her home in South Australia. Recent work has appeared in Reflex Fiction, Ellipsis Zine, Milk Candy Review and Molotov Cocktail. One of Jo’s pieces was also chosen for inclusion in Best Microfiction 2020.

Reclamation by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

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Reclamation

Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

They took our passports and drove us to the edgelands where thirty square metres of wasteground were transformed into a yellow-boarded car wash. We sponged cars for thirteen hours a day, our flip-flopped feet – calloused from the coastline route – soaked in chemicals.
 
When the boss left, we’d go to the only other place around – a disused fairground, and smoke the butt ends dropped on the forecourt. Our dreams became bound to the abandoned dodgems. One day someone would see their vintage worth and retrieve them. We were sure of it. We had to be sure of it.

 

***

About the author: Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is a freelance writer in the field of educational publishing. Her creative writing appears in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual, the Bath Flash Fiction anthology (TBP 2020) and the anthology ‘From Syria with Love’ (Indie Books).

March 2020 Micro Fiction Shortlist

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March 2020 Micro Fiction Competition Shortlist

We received lots of great stories that made creative use of the prompt so well done to everyone who got longlisted last week and an extra well done if you made the final ten. Special mention to I’ve got you in my sights, Hayley Pringle which we really liked but didn’t quite have room for below.

Thank you again to Gail Aldwin for providing our bumpy prompt. Gail is a Dorset-based writer of fiction and poetry. Her short fiction collection Paisley Shirt was longlisted in the best short story category of the Saboteur Awards 2018 and her novel The String Games, about a child lost on a holiday in France, is available through her website, gailaldwin.com.

We received 117 entries and so the winner will receive £234, in addition to a free entry to the annual Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize. The runner-up will get a free entry too, plus both stories will be published in the Flash Fiction section of our website.

Voting is anonymous so please don’t tell anyone what your story is called.

Voting is now open until 23:59 on Monday 23rd March. Winners will be announced on Tuesday 24th.

Enjoy these great micro fiction stories and then vote for your favourite in the poll at the end of the post.
 

Carousel

8:35
“She’s been around eight times; I don’t know what to do. No-one’s coming to collect her…”

8:27
Tears fall backwards as I spin, the lights and sounds are sickening; electronic disco noise, kaleidoscopes of red and gold.

8:19
I catch glimpses of mothers waving, laughing as their children reappear, quickly snapping photographs. Where is she?

8:11
She tightens the harness, places teddy in my lap and smooths my hair. ‘Always know I love you,’ she mouths as the ride begins.

7:00
I beg her to take me, we haven’t been anywhere since Dad died. He always loved the fair.

 

Fairground Attraction

Katy likes coming here and so, despite the dereliction, we sometimes sneak in on our walks.

I kissed a boy once, in this very spot. I don’t remember his name, if I ever knew it. He was older than me and smelled of nicotine and hot sugar. He tasted of wondrous sin to me. I watched him watching me and felt my heart beat a tattoo to the dodgems’ blaring Relax as I accepted his invitation – the slightest nod away from the crowds.

I like coming here too.

“Katy darling, time to go. Mummy will have dinner ready for us.”
 

Feral

Found by hunters she was a snarling wolf child with a muddied face and matted hair.

Now, she’s a biologist tracking packs where others refuse to go.

The man she didn’t marry said she’d always be feral.

In the ghost city of Pripyat, where the half-life lingers and the wolves thrive in the lack of human contact, she explores the abandoned theme park.

She crouches, runs her hand over dusty prints before rising to sniff the air.

Throwing her head back, sunlight warms her silver throat as she howls into the absence and waits for them to return her call.

 

First & Last Date

‘I won’t hit you. Promise.’

We rushed towards the yellow cars, giddy from too much candyfloss.

It felt strange, pulling a seatbelt over your head. No signs of danger. Old speakers bashed out a song I’d never heard, although it was probably a hit. Others bopped along. Lights pulsed purple and blue.

Years later, we walked past the same spot. The fair was derelict now. Dead like lots of things. Dangling, broken steel. Damp ground-swollen like bruises. I kicked at twisting weeds. A breeze rattled through the dodgem shed; carrying his words from our first date.

 

Learning to Drive

Dad called it her bumper car.

The paintwork on the driver’s door was a firework of scrapes. She’d been shunted one day when she’d tried to slow down. Hurried along on several others.

“You go at your own pace, pickle,” he said.

She agreed.

But six months on, the front wing was crumpled; remoulded into foreign shapes, like fingerprints in dough.

She was swept along, racing, until there was cider. Cigarettes. Steam on the windscreen.

And first love. Fast: just a little too fast. Leaving tiny specks of blood – fireworks, fingerprints – fading to rust on the back seat.

 

Luck

There’s not much left of the carnival. Muddy bumper cars, faded signs, a few tall metal frames.

Her childhood quietly rusting away.

She can still see the flashing lights, taste buttered popcorn heavy on her tongue, feel the thrill of the night ahead.

All gone now.

A left-behind game coin lies in the mud, a token of better times.

She remembers the coin pushers. Remembers putting in coin after coin, pushing her luck night after night, always hoping for that golden rainfall that never came.

Even then, the game was rigged.

She pockets the coin anyway, and walks back home.

 

Reclamation

They took our passports and drove us to the edgelands where thirty square metres of wasteground were transformed into a yellow-boarded car wash. We sponged cars for thirteen hours a day, our flip-flopped feet – calloused from the coastline route – soaked in chemicals.

When the boss left, we’d go to the only other place around – a disused fairground, and smoke the butt ends dropped on the forecourt. Our dreams became bound to the abandoned dodgems. One day someone would see their vintage worth and retrieve them. We were sure of it. We had to be sure of it.

 

Selective Memory

Choose your lens wisely.

Rose-tinted bathes memories in a deceptive glow. You’ll recall breaths of candyfloss, sun-kissed skin, frissons of pleasure. The funfair…

Gold-tinted sparks fizzes of joy, thrills, screaming laughter, dares. This intensity may smother reality.

A smoky lens muddies edges, softens blows, obscures detail. Is that blur a tear? What happened?

A smudged lens… Spit. Polish with your cuff. See how little is discernible in the murky beyond.

A clear lens exposes paint-flakes along rusted cracks, stagnating pools, weeds still weaving their tendril traps around your ghosts. Childhood fame headlined in “Deadly Dodgem Dare Devastation.”

Go for gold.

 

Ten Years After the Pandemic’ Symposium – The findings of the first trip into the outside world

‘Slide 311 – Photo of an abandoned fairground.’

The audience leans forward.

The breath catches in my throat. We met on the bumper cars. You made a beeline for me, your eyes sparkling with the lights of the fair.

I twiddle my wedding ring on my finger.

‘As you can see,’ the speaker drones, ‘nature is reclaiming the land. In the face of destruction, it is a time for regrowth.’

Regrowth. The word echoes in my ears.

‘Slide 312 – Looking to the future.’

Chest tight, I slip off the ring, cradle it in my palm, place it in my pocket.

 

Under the Willows

— Dad?

He stalls by the dodgems: pyjamas the same dark rust as the corroded paint; drizzle coating his bathrobe and slippers.

“Katie-cat?”

Above me, teenage willows whisper their secrets. I wonder if he hears them now; if that’s why he comes.

— Just a few more steps

Then he shuffles round with hollow eyes and I know we’re both lost, just in different ways.

They’ll find him. They always do, now they know where to look.

But they’ve never found me.

— I’m still here Dad

Nothing but earth and roots and bones, but I’m here.

Just a few more steps.

 

 

If you can’t see or use the voting panel below, you can cast your vote on this link: https://form.responster.com/wBbh8w

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

March 2020 Micro Fiction Longlist

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Thank you to Gail Aldwin for providing this month’s prompt. Gail is a Dorset-based writer of fiction and poetry. Her short fiction collection Paisley Shirt was longlisted in the best short story category of the Saboteur Awards 2018 and her novel The String Games, about a child lost on a holiday in France, is available through her website, gailaldwin.com.

We received 117 entries and so the winner will receive £234, in addition to a free entry to the annual Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize. The runner-up will get a free entry too, plus both stories will be published in the Flash Fiction section of our website.

The final ten will be published next Monday with public voting opening at the same time.

All readings and votes are anonymous so writers if you are on this longlist, please do not tell anyone which story is yours.

Thank you to all who submitted and congrats if you made the longlist!

Longlist:

  • After the Great Mutation
  • An Afternoon’s Drive in Aftermath Town
  • Berlin 1936
  • Beyond the Amusement Park
  • Candy Floss
  • Carousel
  • Daffodil Yellow
  • Fairground Attraction
  • Feral
  • First & Last Date
  • Floating Away
  • From the Top of the Ferris Wheel, I Can See Chernobyl
  • I’ve Got You In My Sights Hayley Pringle
  • Learning to Drive
  • Luck
  • Neglected
  • non-Reactor 4
  • Reclamation
  • Scrap Heaps and Forgotten Places
  • Selective Memory
  • ‘Ten Years After the Pandemic’ Symposium – The findings of the first trip into the outside world
  • The fun in funfair
  • The girl who ran away with the fair
  • The Lies Of Summer
  • The Moon That Saw Him Buried
  • The Skirt
  • The Year I Got My Braces Off
  • Under the Willows
  • Waiting for Lucy
  • When the Rot Sets In
  • Why we don’t talk about the theme park
  • Wrapped in rust
  • Wreck
  • Yellow Skeletons
  • Zap! Zoom!

Enjoying our Flash Fiction comps? Check out our new Flash Fiction Memberships, tailored to suit the flashing enthusiast. And as an added bonus, sign up in January and you will receive our entire back catalogue in ebook free of charge!

February 2020 Micro Fiction Comp Results

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February 2020 Micro Fiction Comp Results

Thank you to everyone who continues to support our Monthly Micro Fiction competition, whether it’s entering, voting or commenting on social media!

Thank you to Ali Thurm for providing our lighthouse prompt and inspiring so many brilliant stories! Retreat West Books will publish Ali’s debut novel One Scheme of Happiness this Thursday! You can get your copy here or find out more on our website here.

We received 324 votes this month. The winner will receive £260.

Once again, thank you to everyone who entered and congrats to the writers long or shortlisted.

 

First place winner: Goodbye to all that by Dan Thomas

Read Goodbye to all that

Second place: Significant Notes on Lighthouses by Joanne Withers

Read Significant Notes on Lighthouses

 

March’s competition launches next week on Monday, 2nd.