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

xxxxxscattered in

xxxxxxxxxxx our wake: breadcrumbs for anyone bold enough to follow.

Our footfalls echo over sun-baked ground. We’re abuzz for boys wearing cut-off shorts and for stolen cigarettes we’re too chicken to try.

Come September, on opposite sides of the county, we’ll 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 summer’s end..

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This story won first prize in the May Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: KEELY O’SHAUGHNESSY is a fiction writer with Cerebral Palsy, who lives in Gloucestershire, U.K. She’s been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and has been published by Ellipsis Zine, Complete Sentence, Reflex Fiction and Emerge Literary Journal and (mac)ro(mic), among others. Find her at keelyoshaughnessy.com or on Twitter @KeelyO_writer