Well done to all who made the longlist and congrats to the writers of our shortlisted stories. Please honour the spirit of the competition and vote for the story which you think is the best – not the one you’re guessing your friend wrote! And if you’ve been shortlisted remember to celebrate anonymously đ The prompt this month was “Catch”.
Vote for your favourite from these 10 fab stories to win the surprise People’s Prize. Our judging team are busy re-reading to choose the winners of the cash prizes. Voting is open until 23.59 (UK time) on 23rd May 2022. Results will be announced on Tuesday 24th. Good luck everyone!
Catch of the Day
Chips and Scraps : Sharing a bag on the way home from school. The bus shelter smelt of fags and wee, but when you kissed me, you tasted of salt and vinegar.
Hand Battered Cod and Triple Cooked Chips : We thought it would be ironic for a wedding breakfast. You spilt ketchup on your rented suit, but we laughed anyway.
Plaice and Chips Twice : Every Friday for twenty years.
Large Chips : Bought near the hospital after your scan, left uneaten.
Tesco Fish and Chips for One: I scrape them in the bin. Now youâre gone, Iâm not hungry.
Always Playing Catch-Up
1970s: Placenta around throat. Intervention from midwife. Slap! Blue skin turned pink, alive, âscreaming your lungs outâ (Mother).
1980s: Didnât see glass door. Tears, gashes, copious blood â âotherwise no harm doneâ (Father).
1990s: School trip to Greece. Pitching ferry. Man overboard! Rescued by lifeguard. Pride dented, but âlucky to be aliveâ (Headmaster Staniforth).
2000s: Late for work. Missed train. Took car instead. Later, âWorst rail tragedy for a decadeâ (Huw Edwards).
2010s: A momentary loss of focus, busy junction. âAn inch to the right and …â (Dr Sharma).
2020s: A blot on the page. Black on white. âAt lastâ (me).
Anti-gravity
He is kissing the filigree of white lines on the inside of her wrist and she pulls away and reaches for the bottle. Itâs been a month now and she never lets it go longer. Heâs starting to make plans, talk about their future. Like they all did. There are some children with a teacher, in the park across from them. They are playing a game, blindfolded, where they partner up and one has to fall backwards and the other has to catch them. Let me in, he whispers. But he doesnât know what happened last time she did that.
The Secret to A Maze is to Keep Turning Left
The corn is at its tallest where we enter.
Buttery silk tassels catch in our curls. Arms outstretched, we twist off the lower leaves as we run,
leaving them
xxxxxxxscattered in
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxour wake: breadcrumbs for anyone bold enough to follow.
Our footfalls echo over sun-baked ground. Weâre abuzz for boys wearing cut-off shorts and for stolen cigarettes weâre too chicken to try.
Come September, on opposite sides of the county, weâll pin up identical Polaroids, XOXO inked in their frames, our closeness a glossy, laminated memory.
Spiralling towards the centre, we race to outrun the shadows at summerâs end.
The Lock Box
The small once-shiny box lies at the bottom of the wardrobe, dusty among the discarded shoes, belts, old train tickets, receipts for things long since used, forgotten, misplaced.
Inside the box lies a curl of auburn hair forty years old.
She doesnât know what to do with the box now heâs gone. Her time is limited â she knows this. She canât leave it behind for others to find, to become used, forgotten, or misplaced. She canât ask people to remember what they donât know, what theyâve never known.
And the box catch is rusty now, corroded by time and tears.
Catch the Drips
A bright light spills dark shadows over my new-bornâs eyelids. Her weight is nothing, a floating lightness.
They are all present â grandmothers, great-aunts and sisters alike, living and dead – to see me breast feed for the first time. My neck prickles under their collective, anticipatory gaze.
Everyone has a tip:
âCareful with the head!â
âWatch the nipple!â
âCatch the drips!â
My mum tells me – with treasonous pursed lips – that I am too tense.
The baby shrinks in my hold, disappearing with hunger â
I wake.
In the dark quiet, I can hear the beat of her unborn heart.
How to Catch and Keep a Kiss
You blew me kisses from the front doorstep, stooped in your dressing-gown, as I left for work. Iâd mime catching them like a cricket fielder, shouting, âHowzat!â and reached into the air. Youâd grin.
When your illness made you weaker, the same ritual applied, with a backstop catch at the bedroom door. Your smiles muted by pain.
These days I keep those kisses in a jar. When I wake in darkness, hollow with missing you, they glow like fireflies. I unscrew the lid, they fly about me fluttering, until I feel them gently settling on my skin with a âshushâ.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Lipstick But Were Too Afraid to Ask
The lipstick was in the air before the word had left my sisterâs mouth.
âCatch!â
My panic raced and arced in unison with the gift. This precious gift. I watched it rise and fall towards me. And I saw adolescence. New decisions. Fear â all looming up behind.
Ham-fisted, it fell through my sausage fingers to the ground.
For a beat, terror hit. I thought she would be furious, sad. Maybe she would walk away â turn, head shaking, brows down. Perhaps.
But I should have known.
My sister simply laughed and laughed. Stayed nearby. Comforted me.
And then threw another lipstick.
Rainbow
It always snags on my sweater; strands of wool pull free like candy floss. My mother told me to return itâwhy would I want itâhe said keep it with sarcasm imbedded in the words like shrapnel. I saw a rainbow in it the other day when I tilted it toward the sun. While looking at the rainbow I saw a tiny reflection of my eye, red from all the crying. He came to the door, he did not have a key anymore, and I slipped it off and threw itâlightlyâin the air and he caught it.
CATCH
The soldier stops, ruffles her hair. She forces a giggle and steps back a few feet.
âPlay with me!â
She throws him her green ball. He throws it back.
To and fro. To and fro.
She lets the ball slip from her fingers and it bounces away, exactly where she wants it to. With two skips sheâs there at the half-ruined wall â the hiding place.
She picks it up. Itâs heavy, but sheâs been practising with lumps of concrete.
She pulls the pin. Counts to three. Throws it with both hands. Dives behind the wall.
This is for her father.
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