Family

By Ryan Keogan

FIRST PLACE in the October 2026 Competition

I feel one with my family, together.

There’s movement building. Shoulder to shoulder. Everyone gets ready. For what? Nobody knows. We crowd round, close enough to blur. A big, dark-grey mass.

I feel my siblings go. The air below me is free. There’s nothing holding me anymore. I have to go. It’s building.

I get released with a drop along with thousands of my relations. We are all racing to meet the dark. It’s getting closer and closer. There are other gatherings around us. We are not alone. My brothers and sisters will follow after me.

The speed at which the black below me is coming to meet me feels like it’s getting faster. The wind threatens to send me sideways, but I am too heavy to be persuaded. I’m falling, flying, head first.

The floor isn’t as black as I thought.

I can make out colours now. Green.

The green has shades, a texture, it is the colour of something, not just a flat block. I try to make myself faster, to beat those around me, to be the first to reach the green.

I see those before me hit hard against the ground, gathering again in masses, in groups. They fill whatever they can. I will try to aim for one of those. Others are streaming down the sides of black shapes.

I’m nearly there.

I instinctively brace for impact, but I wouldn’t have dropped if I couldn’t survive the fall.

The thundering of drums rush to meet my ears. We are hitting everything.

The shapes become clear as I hit the side of a tent. I crawl down. I spot a pool of family and head for there.

I look in at another family, a different type of family, as I slide down their window. They sit around inside the tent, passing shapes between themselves, smiling.

I roll down and meet the others, and we gather again in our own little space on the floor.

Judges’ comments: Shifting the perspective to the raindrop for this scene was so delightfully surprising! There’s such a sense of dynamic movement, anticipation, kinship, interconnectedness through the piece. The mirrored metaphor of ‘family’ for both the rain and the humans helps take the reader into a feeling that’s new and exciting, inviting us into a perspective we’ve likely never considered before and stays with us long after we’ve read the final word.