Author: Molly

By David Sinclair

 It was one of those long, still summer days of youth.  So hot, it seemed as if the air itself was softly smouldering.  In the afternoon, we walked from Richmond to Hampton Court, enjoying the coolness of the river and then wandered in the Palace gardens, relaxing in a languorous, comfortable companionship.  When we came to the maze the shaded tranquillity of the tall passages of green laurels tempted us within.

We choose our path randomly at each junction.  Hand in hand, we were simply happy to be lost together.  Eventually we stumbled upon a clearing where a bench welcomed our arrival. As we sat, I laid my head against my partner’s shoulder, sleepy from the day’s heat.

I awoke to soft voices, fluttering past like butterflies, ardent in the heavy air.  The woman,  her gown a delicate brocade of gold, had pearls that caught the sun like drops of water.  The man, tall and severe, wore a dark doublet and rested one hand on the hilt of a fine sword.

“My sweetest Anne, you must no longer delay.”

Cheeks pale as ivory, she nodded and her surrender was as graceful as it was absolute.

A rustle of the laurel leaves signalled a sudden breeze, cold and unexpected. It chilled me to the bone. The couple turned, his arm on her waist, as their forms dissolved in the green corridors of laurel.

I asked my love if he too had seen them, or if the hollowness in my chest was mine alone.  But he said nothing, only softly pressing his lips against the nape of my neck. The gesture was so gentle, so intimate, it seemed like the loving caress of an executioner’s blade.

I have returned many times to those same twisted paths but have never seen that couple again.  And in the hot summers yet to come, I know that I will return many times more.  I will be glad though, should I never come to find them.

Judge’s Comments: There is some beautiful writing in this clever time slip story which left me with a sense of wistfulness. Beautifully done in very few words. Well done.

By Eleanor Marsden

THIRD PLACE in February Competition

She readjusted her vantage point until everything was in view, reassured that he couldn’t see her through the tangle of leaves.

 Silhouetted by the blanket of snow, he cut an impressive figure. He was darker than she’d remembered, with more of a haughty countenance, standing quite motionless as he surveyed the landscape. It was all his, she knew, right across to the far woods skirting the fields. The knowledge sent an imperceptible thrill across her skin. He looked powerful; she could see in his dark eyes that he was uncompromising. Defiantly masculine… She imagined being close enough to see herself reflected in the depths of his gaze and a tiny, almost imperceptible note of longing escaped into the air.

 He shifted on his long legs to face her. She felt the down on her skin prickle and a blush creep over her chest in a reaction that had nothing to do with the biting chill. It was almost as though he could see her through her hiding place, through to her very core. For a moment she considered emerging into the daylight, imagined his reaction: would he fly to her, calling her name… Or perhaps not; perhaps now she was nothing to him… What if he had forgotten her entirely and would not welcome her intrusion into his closely-guarded privacy? Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest as she saw him move in her direction. 

‘Oh, look!’ The woman caught her husband’s arm and gestured towards the window. ‘There, in the ivy: another robin! That same feather bent sideways; wasn’t she the one that nested with Bob last summer?’

 In the garden, the resident robin puffed up his chest and swooped in to greet his coy, returning mate.

A great set up and a great tongue in cheek story, I knew they weren’t humans, although I didn’t guess they were robins, despite the clues. A lovely original twist. Well done.

By Rachel O’Neill

SECOND PLACE in February Competition

‘Ok, ok. Thanks for that. Fabulous read through.  I’m super excited and hope you are too’. Peter closed his script and beamed at his cast.

 I caught the eye of the actor who would be playing Anthony, a little grizzled, stocky, a twinkle in his eye. Nice. As the kids would say, ‘an absolute snack.’

 He carried on. ‘Right, you two are with Zoe, our wonderful intimacy co-ordinator. I want this production to sizzle. Forget it’s a middle-aged romance, I want to centre the passion.  It defines them.’ Peter became serious. ‘It undoes them’. A beat. ‘Ok, the rest of you guys with me. Rehearsal room three’.  He led the way.

 Again, the eye contact. He winked. I felt a flush creep over my face. How was I going to get through the weeks of rehearsal, and months of performances with this amount of sexual tension? Albeit middle-aged sexual tension, as our director helpfully pointed out.

 I’d have to deal with it. The last few years had been lean. A Christmas show that put the ‘pants’ into panto two years ago, and a dancing carrot in a supermarket ad last month. I wasn’t so much ‘resting’ as comatose.

 Zoe was speaking. ‘So are you ok with Anthony putting his hand here? After the kiss?’ She indicated my left boob. ‘Peter’s keen to foreshadow the asp scene’. ‘Ah! The pretty worm’, he responded. ‘What can Shakespeare be getting at?’ He looked at me. My knees jellied. Christ, he was hot. I giggled. But he didn’t let up. Teasing, then serious, like he’d conquer the world for me. Like I was his world. Zoe choreographed intimate moments while we locked eyes and souls.

 Peter stuck his head through the door. ‘How goes it, Zoe? So super having a husband and wife duo to work with. Makes all that sexy stuff so much easier.’ My love and I looked at each other. And grinned.

Thank you for making me smile. The characterisation is excellent. It’s lively clever writing with a great twist, which I didn’t see coming, thanks to the skilfully placed humour. Well done.

By Michael Hopkins

FIRST PLACE in the February Competition

 Charlotte slipped out through the side door, the music still thudding faintly behind her.  Someone inside shouted that it was midnight now, and eighteen balloons bobbed above the conservatory roof, bumping gently against one another.

 Anna was already there, standing under the apple tree with her jacket buttoned up.  She smiled when she saw Charlotte, the sort of smile that made room for her.

 “Escaping?” Charlotte asked.

 “Just for a minute.”

 They listened while the party sounds drifted and softened.  Anna reached into her pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes.

 “I’m allowed now,” she said lightly.  “You are too.”

 Charlotte nodded. 

“There’s only one left,” Anna said.

 “You have it, then.”

Anna shook her head, lit it anyway, and cupped the flame carefully with both hands before passing it over.  Charlotte noticed how thoughtful the movement was, as if this small exchange mattered.  She took a cautious drag and coughed.  Anna laughed, gently, and took it back.

Charlotte had kissed people before.  Boys from school, mostly.  It had always felt like something to get right.  Standing there now, sharing smoke and quiet, she felt calm, as if she didn’t need to perform or explain herself, as if this wasn’t about being wanted at all.

 They talked about small things, and when Charlotte handed the cigarette back, their fingers touched and stayed.

 “I don’t want to go back in yet,” Anna said.

 “Me neither.”

 Anna leaned in slowly, giving Charlotte time.  Their kiss was brief and careful, but it settled warmly in Charlotte’s chest, as if something she hadn’t named before had found its place.

 Anna smiled.  “I’m glad it was you.”

Charlotte was too.  They stayed outside until the cigarette burned down, the balloons drifting above them, and eighteen felt like a beginning they could share.

Judge’s Comments: Beautiful writing. I loved this clever story about coming of age and finding out who you are. There are so few words, but so much is said. Well done.

By Mike Sedgwick

HIGHLY COMMENDED in January Competition

 I survived thanks to the great storm. The flash burned some of my leaves, and the thunder shook my roots. The overshadowing beech split and toppled. Sunlight reached me through the gap in the canopy.

For aeons, the foresters left us alone. The squire left his house derelict, his garden overgrew, and the swimming pool cracked. As seasons passed, we grew, bore fruit and decayed. Suddenly, men in khaki arrived during the flowering season and set up bivouacs among us. They felled some of us for firewood. One quiet afternoon, a young man scratched on my bark, ‘Bert loves Evie,‘ accompanied by a heart and a hieroglyphic of three dots and a dash  · · · –. He added the date, May 1944. The next morning, the men packed up and left, leaving my scar to heal. The honey fungus moved in and devoured my heartwood, leaving a hollow to the delight of the woodpeckers. Over the years, the void enlarged; pipistrelles and owls moved in. Later, a family of hedgehogs took up residence.

Last spring, a man as old as Methuselah came searching. He scraped at my scar with his stick, rubbing off the lichen. ‘Evie,’ he called. ‘Here it is. I loved you even then, before you knew it. Bring the children to see.’

‘Grandpa, you were very naughty to hurt the tree,’ laughed the children.

‘Yes, it was naughty, but I wanted to leave a trace of my love for Granny in case I didn’t survive.’

Granny, Grandpa, and the two children joined hands around my spreading trunk and began to sing: “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.” Exhausted, they sat on my roots and enjoyed a picnic. This was my finest hour.

Judge’s Comments: In which the tree is the narrator, on whom a soldier carved Bert Loves Edie, in May 1944. It has echoes of D Day on the horizon – but I appreciated very much just being given a vague date to point me in that direction, and the Morse code hint which I have to confess I had to look up! A family dance at the end could be a tad schmaltzy, but is redeemed with the final phrase, for this reader. ‘This was my finest hour.’  Giving that to a tree was wonderful! 

By Rachel O’Neill

HIGHLY COMMENDED in January Competition

 ‘Come on! Just a bit further.’’ Mother grabbed my arm and half-pulled, half-pushed me across the forest floor into the woods that fringed our village.

 She stopped in a small clearing, cocking her head, listening. A huntsman’s horn sounded far off.

 ‘Can we go home? Please.’ I whined, my legs tired, and whipped by brambles. ‘Shush’, not angry, but anxious. She looked around and then up, into the branches. Did she want us to climb the tree? How? There was no way I’d be able to scale the smooth grey trunks.

 Dismissing that idea, she thought, her face tight with fear.  ‘ This way’. I followed as fast as I could. We were in the very depths of the forest, a small light filtered through the autumn leaves. She was listening again. I knew now to be quiet.

 We followed a small stream to a part of the wood I didn’t know. ‘There!’, Mum pointed, keeping her voice low. I saw a tree with its trunk split, hollowed out. ‘In there’. She pushed me into the gap, stood back and, realising I was all too visible, she swiftly gathered storm-fallen branches and squeezed in after me. I took small, shallow breaths. Mother piled up the branches to screen us. But screen us from what?  Wolves and bears would be able to smell us before they saw us.

 ‘Silly’, mother tried to calm me. ‘There are no wolves or bears. The huntsmen have killed them all.’  ‘Then why are we here?’ She saw that, though I was only eight, I needed to know the truth. ‘The men. They didn’t want to lay down their rifles and crossbows and abandon their sport’.’ But why are we hiding, mother?’  ‘The men passed a new law.’ She said, holding me tightly and whispering, ‘This season, they are are permitted to hunt…’ ‘Hunt what?’ I prompted. ‘Women’, she said.

Judge’s Comments: I thought this was a neat little story with great pace, which drew me in immediately and sustained intrigue right to the whiplash of that final word. A whole world is conjured in so few words. A mother has to find a place to hide in a wood with her young daughter, but hide from what? This is the unanswered question that hangs over the whole thing, weaving the thread that pulls the reader through successfully. The writer teases the reader with mentions of huntsmen, then the hint that all the usual prey have been killed – leading this reader to assume it was a case of ‘these two are being hunted for some reason – what have they done?’ – before the punch of the reveal in that final word. And then I get the awful realisation that hunting means to hunt to the death. It was not a twist in the tail in the negative sense, but a surprise all the same, and I asked to be surprised. Really nicely done. I can see a novel growing out of this scenario…!

By Philip Evans

SECOND PLACE in January Competition

I am a husk, hollowed out by neglect and relentless attacks on my very being over recent years.  My life is ebbing away even though, at 78 years of age, I might have expected to live considerably longer and to remain healthy until I am carried away by the sudden onset of a disease of the old.  Over most of my life, I have produced and raised several children, providing them with shelter and sustenance, working to protect them from harm and to ensure that they remain healthy and fulfilled in life, as I did in my younger days.  I have also provided support for many others in this interconnected world, doing what I can to help them give their offspring a good start in life and a secure future.   I have worked tirelessly for the benefit of the whole community and have been rewarded not only by seeing its various members thrive, but also by their gratitude for my efforts, often in the form of benefits in kind.

 Yet, my own children treated me with indifference in their youth, neglected me as they became established and have shown outright resentment and hostility as I have aged. They have undermined me at every turn, persuaded others to sever their mutually beneficial links with me and conspired to deprive me of the resources I have accumulated, no doubt for their own benefit.  It has been hurtful, exhausting and debilitating, to the extent that my health has suffered badly.  

 I’m happy that, despite my age, I can still give pleasure to others, particularly the young, by providing opportunities for fun and games.  But my own duplicitous family will soon learn the mistake they have made.  When I die, as I soon will, they will inherit nothing above others from me.  My entire estate will be left to the community with whom I have had such a mutually beneficial relationship.  My descendants will be left to fend for themselves.

Judge’s Comments: There were several pieces from the point of view of the tree itself in the mix, and of these,  ‘The Husk’ really stood out. I found it most thought-provoking, as the musings of the tree, looking back over its life, mirrored so much in our own lives -especially the sadness of having ungrateful children. The piece became a meeting point for nature and human.  It made me think –  we aren’t that different, in many respects. It can be read as either tree or human. I loved the steady voice, which fitted the subject well, and the underlying note of bitterness, all going towards the creation of a solid and memorable character – culminating in the final sharp message to the tree’s progeny. I was surprised at how emotional I found the piece – especially the way the old tree feels let down by its own children, despite enjoying the ‘benefits in kind’  and sense of belonging that come from its place in the wider community. I appreciated how the writer left me to interpret what these benefits were, and how to interpret ‘community’ here – so many different ways.  I appreciated too how the writer didn’t explain – allowing me to experience the world through the ‘eyes’ of the tree successfully.  Beautifully written and thought-provoking – congratulations.