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Weekly Contest #297
8am, 17th May 1536The queen’s view was obstructed on all sides by the curtain walls of the White Tower. On the day they executed her brother, she could only hear the teeming crowds, and snippets of speeches, nobly delivered, from the black scaffold.To distract, Mary Z had suggested a game of piquet, a card game for two, which, although popular in France, was little known to England. But the queen’s first card had been the Queen of Swords, and although it hardly served as a prophesy, the game was abandoned without words.‘How long have we been...
Shortlisted for Contest #296 ⭐️
CW: As you might expect in a room full of maladroits, there is a lot of swearing in this piece. I ought to apologise, but I won't. In the lofty interior of a methodist chapel, (it doesn’t matter where), a woman called Simone lays out cheap bottles of wine and various cans of cider and lager on a trestle table, which has glittered blobs of dried glue and scratched graffiti on its surface. The booze is paid for by the weekly subs of the Maladroits Anonymous group. The chapel plays host to many diverse assemblies, and this is but one of them. ...
Weekly Contest #295
That Was ThenIt is hard to think what the consequences might be if word got out that the Witch-finder General did not believe in witches. Miriam Lyons, who had begged to have her skirts bound at her ankles to stop the shit from escaping, was a bad bitch, but no conjuror of spells. They ask, always, why he doesn’t burn them as they do in the kingdoms and palatinates of Europe. Blessed always quips that firewood is expensive and that hanging is cheaper. If they want a spectacle, he is obliged to disappoint. There has never been a sin...
Weekly Contest #294
If Birdie Lomax had paid any heed to her appearance, she would, in the music hall vernacular, scrub up well. But she’s tossing chicken scratch in the air, and the light of dawn is at the cruel end of the spectrum. Her hair, still more brown than grey, escapes a poorly-drawn knot at the back and flies in all manner of directions, as if in a mood to fall out with its neighbours. The farmhouse behind her is long and low, full of rooms she never looks in or clears out. Beneath these timbered beams lie cricket bats and exercise books, beds s...
Weekly Contest #293
A man died on the train today. I have never wanted to see a dead body, or to ease the passing of someone so close to the angels. I know how to do CPR, but I am wary of performing such an intimate and selfless act in the service of another.He was in the opposite aisle, one seat down and facing me. These are the people you study the most on a train, because to observe someone directly opposite you is so boldly confrontational. I have seen him before because we both favour the same carriage, although it’s ridiculous, because they’re all alike.I...
Weekly Contest #292
Two Years BeforeBetween fear and hope is where most people spend their lives. For the citizens of Graustadt, the balance is unequally applied. They may nurture a single flame of the latter, but are daily consumed by the former. In this linear dwelling place of half-timbered buildings, three-deep at most, the Florian provides the immediate focus. The river, in the slow march of time, has carved a V-shaped valley through the rock. The slopes are now densely wooded, and beneath their canopy, the grey wolves roam. It used to be called ...
Weekly Contest #291
‘What’s the deal with this bloke you sent me, Ron? I’ve got his resumé in my hand, and frankly it’s thinner than my wife’s skin. A corpse in Casualty, a rioter in Silent Witness, several ‘passers-by,’ and — oh! fucking stellar! A speaking part in an arthouse silent movie, for which his only verbal contribution was to say, “The End.”'‘I hear you,’ said Ron Lumet, agent to the stars. ‘But you have to admit, he is seriously handsome. The man’s a vision. Never seen anything like him. Not so much as an open pore.’‘Can’t be denied’ said Vinni...
Weekly Contest #290
A woman, slightly past her prime, drapes herself in a cardinal red wingback. Her Slavic features, or at least those details which constitute a recognisable face, are inscrutable. Only the eyes, dancing with malice, betray her hauteur. She wears a long string of pearls, which form a seeded rope between her sagging breasts. They are the only notable detail of the pose, for the woman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, is otherwise naked. At her left shoulder the sun forms a square of light on her already pale flesh. It lends an angularity to her ...
Shortlisted for Contest #289 ⭐️
(Staff Quarters): The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. Normally when I wake up like this, there’s a man by my side, or a man recently vacated, leaving a warm hollow in the mattress. Normally, when I wake up like this, I’m in an unfamiliar house belonging to man I don’t know. A man I don't recall meeting, but must have done. But this time it’s different. Normally when I wake up like this, it’s because the unfamiliar man has gone to work or gone to get croissants, and each time I wake up wandering where I am, I have a headache ...
Weekly Contest #288
A tall man stands in rainfall looking up at a dirty window in a dirty street. It is a biblical deluge and there is no other soul abroad. He buries his hands deeper in his pockets and flinches when a streak of lighting appears in the sky. It forks towards a downbeat hotel and is unmanned by a lightning rod on the roof. Ten seconds later there is an ionised charge of thunder. This too is biblical and fearful, like the galloping hoofs of the apocalypse. His daughter is here somewhere, and this somewhere is nowhere any father wants his daughter ...
Weekly Contest #287
Every nation has a class system whether they admit it or not. Most allow for the concept of meritocracy, but honestly? The lines are pretty firmly drawn. Unless you’re a savant, follow the money.The upper classes, everywhere, have earned the right to be penniless if that’s the way it goes. They can live in shabby villas with elbow patches on their jackets and tortoises roaming wild in their walled gardens, and no one judges them. This class are often referred to, in fond terms, as eccentric. The most colourful 'blue collars' are less fondly ...
Weekly Contest #286
From my spare room window, I can see Helen in the garden next door. She has her back to me, her feet planted wide apart with ham hock hands on beefy hips. She’s finally got round to dragging the Christmas tree outside, which she’s hauled on top of the brown bones of its predecessors. She’s breathless now, gulping in the still, cold air. Her sixth sense must feel my eyes on her, so she turns and waves. My friend, Helen, the ugliest woman in town. Helen of Troy’s beauty was such that it provoked men to war. Her namesake, the Helen in the ...
Weekly Contest #285
I remember sitting in an office in 2003, surrounded by colleagues, when a tune came unbidden into my head. I don’t know why I love you but I do … We weren’t hooked up to the internet then. In fact, we were still getting our wages in cash, delicious brown envelopes delivered to our desks each Thursday afternoon.I asked around the office: ‘Who sang that song?’ - and although everyone knew it, no one could name the performer. I went to the pub after work, asked around there, and it was the same story. A familiar tune, but no clue.A couple of da...
Weekly Contest #284
In the bible, angels don’t have wings. In fact, the moral imperative is that we should never know they are amongst us. The presence of wings would change behaviour, much like a grovelling employee before a CEO, or a plain girl who seeks the protection and the validation of the beautiful. An angel is in all things anonymous, and you will be judged in accordance with their opinion of you, and never the other way round. Of course, I am being allegorical, but isn’t that just what life is?*****Let me tell you about my mother-in-law, my ...
Weekly Contest #281
The tall man spent some time scanning the list of names on the white marble tablet, ignoring the usual spiel at the top of the pediment. A list of thirty two men of the parish. Men of Piccadilly. He heard the footsteps, the deferent, diffident tread of a clergyman, impossible to ignore in the empty sepulchral space. ‘In from the cold?’ a voice enquired. ‘In all ways,’ said the tall man. He turned to face the fleshy vicar, and knew at once that he had been a padre in another life. The extensive decorations, the comforting smell of s...
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