Winners

Winning entries from our free weekly micro competition.

Fuji

When I knew Kay, she used to say she lived three blocks from Tokyo. That is, we lived three blocks from the train. Take the train all the way out to the airport, take a flight to anywhere. 

We would stand on the bridge over the expressway and watch the passing traffic. "One day, I'll leave," she told me. "Get on a jet, fly away. I'll walk down Harajuku. I'll watch the sunrise over Mt. Fuji, someday." 

She walked down Paris runways. Her face sold perfume and champagne. Now, I look for her in the lights of the city, watch the jets come and go. Who knows where she's living now? The trains run everywhere.
by
Voima Oy
@voimaoy
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to fuji@adhocfiction.com

Undelivered

They call us for breakfast in the half-light. Four more empty chairs today, Ma.

We scramble first around seven, back, refuel, rearm. They bring us sandwiches. We scramble again, then a third. At dusk, those of us who are left stay on readiness. They want us to fly at night now we are so few. Porter nodded off in his cockpit. When I do sleep, my mind still flies.

Peter presses his wedding ring into my hand. “Send her this,” he says. “I know I won’t be coming back.” 

I visit Harry. His feet are burnt, and his hands are burnt. His nose, eyes, lips. 

I watch Burrell nosedive into the waves.

We say we’re not scared, but who in England ever prayed for bad weather? We pray very hard. The sky stays blue as eternity. 

I will never send you this, Ma.

Glorious weather. That’s all I can say.
by
Sharon Telfer
@sharontelfer
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to undelivered@adhocfiction.com

New Bike - Louise Mangos

New Bike

Rachel zips up her jacket against the autumn chill. She slips one hand between Ronnie’s arm and his warm body.

‘This one’s the business,’ he says. ‘Full carbon fibre fork, tapered frame, lightweight aerodynamic wheels, eleven-speed electronic gear set. She’ll ride like the wind.’

Rachel smiles, and imagines him crossing the line in front of the Arc de Triomphe, crowds banging the boarded barriers with their gimmicky inflatable batons, his arms held high in victory, balancing on the slippery paving stones of the Paris street.

‘That’ll be at least ten grand,’ Ronnie continues.

The streetlight wobbles in a gust of wind, showering them with a curtain of hanging raindrops.

‘Yep, this one’s the real business,’ he murmurs.

Rachel walks to the van and slides open the door while Ronnie steadies the bolt cutters over the thick chain lock.

✉

Credits

fiction
&
artwork
by
Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com
@LouiseMangos

©
creator

There Are No Women In Our House -Retna Ningtias C Rehajeng

There are no Women in our House

There are no women in our house. 
Uncle Allen tells me that women burn
kind of like alcohol
but not in a good way. 
He says they burrow right into your stomach
right into your core
and make homes
out of bone dust and old food
and stay there.

There are no women in our house. 
Grandpa Walt tells me that women sting
with sharp nails and red lips
they'll kiss you my boy, 
they'll kiss you 
and you'll fall into a pit full of ghosts
and you'll feel like lighter fluid
and your tears will smell like gasoline.

There are no women in our house. 
There is no one to make our beds
or cook our food
or to clean up after us;
we have a hoot

but at night 
I hear them crying softly in their 
stained bedsheets.

There are no women 
in 
our house.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Iskandar Haggarty
@iskyhaggarty36

artwork by
Retna Ningtias C. Rehajeng
@oodega

©
creators

Doggy Paddling - Maria Herbert-Liew

Doggy Paddling

Blood red, it rose. It's not real, she tells herself. The pounding, pressing against her temples, but inside it's a deeper, lower ache. Heat agitates imagined slights. Why, instead, can't she see well-intentioned flashes of beauty in everyday gestures?

Rob calls it, "purse-missing-time", the jest not so funny as she scours her bag at the checkout and feels the cashier's eyes burning, burning. 

All this month's small failures pile into one: the misconstrued email, the dispute with her daughter's teacher, the cat throwing up on her favourite rug because she hadn't placed the rubbish fully inside the bin, and the complaint at the swimming baths when she doggy paddled into someone else's lane. She back splashes through each second.

It will dwindle. She clings to the thought like a person hugging an inflatable. Wait for the storm to pass. Breathe normally in the hiatus.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Shirley Golden
@shirl1001

image by
Maria Herbert-Liew
@MHL_tweets

©
creators

Ducks - Louise Mangos

Ducks

When the doctor came to ask why, Judy said, it was because of the ducks. She closed her eyes but their bodies were still there, wings flailing as they attempted to fly off the bitumen. 

The doctor said, sign here, on the dotted line, so we can give you some blood.

Judy said, there was blood on the dotted line. Blood and shit and – grey stuff. She doesn’t have words for the dying-crying noises the ducks were making; their wing-beats, thickening the air like clotted cream; the hot scent of tar and blood and shit that has settled in her hindbrain and thrown her off balance ever since.

The doctor said, something else must be wrong. People don’t slit their wrists because some ducks got run over. 

But they’re in here, Judy said, her hands fluttering around her head. They keep dying. I don’t know how to make it stop.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Eileen Merriman
@MerrimanEileen

image by
Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com

©
creators 

The Box

My father kept Ireland in a sealed tin under his bed. We weren’t to peek. Blue grass grew there and tall brush crops, a dejected wind beat ‘til that tin were fit to burst. The chocolate voice of a fiddle played dark tones, lonely tones and I saw a baby in tannin-stained rags dumped on a church doorstep in The Diocese of Kerry. I saw a jigsaw of boy-shaped pieces. A bearded man drank bitter in a welfare club, finger-painting surnames in spilt amber slops. An old woman with the same blue eyes as his, she shook her head, closed her door. I saw the man drunk, fallen in slant rain. The bride at his wedding put him in the doghouse, bent him, muddied him with blackberry bruises. Three babies got lost, small as your pinkie. My father kept Ireland in a sealed tin under his bed. I never peeked.
by
Rachael Smart
@SmartRachael
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to thebox@adhocfiction.com

Bright Lights - Michèle Karbassioun

Lest We Forget

In summer, Magda always has breakfast on her balcony overlooking Vienna’s St Stephan’s, and reads her home-delivered paper. She’s worked hard for the good life and now, recently retired with a good pension, she enjoys all the culture her adopted city offers: opera, concerts, coffee and Strudel at Demel’s, outside the tourist rush, of course.

Magda doesn’t like to dwell on the past. It’s the here and now she loves. But the news has been heating up in the wake of the recent heatwave. They’re lying on the train tracks at Bicske, screaming “not here”. 

“Not here.” The words slip from the page and morph into her mind. “My home is no longer here.” It is 1956. Magda is preparing to flee. 

Magda stares down at the buskers on St Stephen’s square. She kneads her fingers as a solitary tear drops onto her wrinkled hand.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Sylvia Petter
@Mblobs

art by
Michèle Karbassioun
www.mjk-art.com

©
creators

Butterfly - Kirby Wright

In the Hormone Doc's Parking Lot

95 degrees in August. I hate offices. A finch lands on the fence while mom resumes being poked, pressed, and prodded. Her hot flashes cooled with topical creams, blood ebbing at low tide. Insomnia battled with herbs, yoga, and Mantram.

Planks nailed side by side to kill views. Train whistle makes the finch vanish. Comings and goings synchronized, the SUVs taking turns blocking my breeze. Elders arrive with children steering. Histories unload. Women prepare to become ghosts, their albums destined for landfill.

A swallowtail sips from a blossom as a Lexus parks. Timber bamboo shadows the western edge of the lot. Patient canes her way out of the Lexus. She is the first woman without a companion. The wind turns the grove into a schooner with green sails, the leaves cracking like wet linen in a typhoon. The woman gazes up and smiles.

✉

Credits

fiction
&
artwork
by
Kirby Wright
kibs33.wix.com
Twitter@kibs33

©
creator

The Gulls

The Gulls

Hey lady hey lady hey!

Helen, in the elbow crook of the bay, and the boys in the boat crying for her, their voices high and hoarse on the evening air. The tide mouths the toes of her trainers and she ignores them, like they're more of the cawing seagulls, one and the same.

Hey baby, hey!

They're coming closer aren't they, steering inland, the beer slopping in them, threatening to spill out. The ends of their cigarettes bright as little suns. They go to war tomorrow, they sing. They wear their camouflage already.

Give us a kiss lady, give us a taste, go on. Come aboard for our last night of freedom.

She rests her foot on the side of the boat as it reaches her. Smiles, because it costs nothing, no other reason. Pushes them back out onto the dark sea.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Abi Hynes
@AbiFaro

image by
Zowie Green
www.zowiegreen.com

©
creators

My Wife's Perfect Pitch

My wife has perfect pitch: flush a toilet, she’ll tell you what key it’s in. So when she of all people said she thinks my voice is breaking again, in the other direction, there wasn’t much point protesting. Especially in my embarrassing new falsetto. It’s like one of those snakes in a can, leaps out when you’re least prepared. Since she spoke up, in her even, adult tone, I can no longer ignore the way my colleagues flinch when I’m on the phone to clients. I can’t unsee Des, at the next desk, whose right eye violently tics whenever my jaw drops to speak. 	
	My wife runs a hand over me under the duvet. She tries to make it seem affectionate but I know she’s feeling for smoothness that wasn’t there yesterday. Cups here, gently brushes her fingertips there. I moan a little, politely. The manliest moan I can manage.
by
Nick Black
@fuzzynick
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to mywifesperfectpitch@adhocfiction.com

recessive gene

Recessive Gene

Hokey Pokey ice cream starred with honeycomb the same colour as your freckles which are not freckles or kisses from angels but a spattering of love from when my elbow shook when I cooked you.

You came out like that, your name matching your hair as if you knew and sent me smoke signals via the agony of trapped wind.

Connect the dots, the exuberances of an eternity of ginger warriors; your MC1R gone wild with recession.

Your aunt and granddad and other great grandma you never met because they flew like moths in a candle, wild red and gone.

But this is love. Your dad and me. (Rr) x (Rr) equals you, (rr), curled up inside a morning book with your amber halo all tousled like so.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Jo Bradshaw
@JoBrdshw

image by
Jayne Morley
jaynemorley.tumblr.com

©
creators 

Baby Steps

Your eyes roll back into your head like an addict nodding out. I hold you close. You throw up. A milky stream trickles down my back.

Like a punch-drunk boxer, your tiny arms swing jerkily. Fists clenched, eyes suddenly screwed shut, cheeks puffed; you gulp for air before releasing the ear-piercing scream.

I’d heard it before, but this time it was different. Desperate. The hours passed. The screaming didn’t. It was an unusual sound. A shrill high-pitched note followed by a hoarse whine, like an old cam belt on a sick engine.

My eyes sore and red, I try for what feels like the hundredth time to hold you close. Your little head nestles into the crook of my arm, your ear placed on my heart. You give a final, forlorn yelp and drift off into a deep and blissful sleep.

Day breaks. Our journey together has only just begun.
by
Chris Nye-Browne
@thenye
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to babysteps@adhocfiction.com

Answering-Machine

I grew up in the countryside, in a bungalow the colour of corned-beef, sandwiched in between two farms. 

We had two dogs, part-lurcher, with bodies lithe as greyhounds. They'd hare across the fields, bobbing up and down in the long wheat. I still like to imagine the farmers shaking rusty rifles, shouting "Why I oughta..."

I told my friends at school I could make the dogs howl on cue. We had this old answering-machine, with a tape that went "Ka-tch, Ka-tch", before broadcasting the family rap:

"The Watson family are not home, so leave a message after the tone!"

I told my friends even my impersonating of the answering-machine made them howl.

I'd lied. The machine unsettled them but the reality was I had to take the lead. I'd bark, they'd bark. I'd start howling, then they'd start howling.

Then I'd sink into the couch, satisfied.

I loved my dogs.
by
Dan Vevers
@DanSmatterings
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to answeringmachine@adhocfiction.com

Paper Doll

Nancy makes perfect folds with perfect creases, though the paper is tattered and stained. She cuts along her dotted-line roadmap with a cautious hand; she wants to be perfect, too. The tip of her tongue is just visible, held between lips pursed in careful concentration. 

Her shoulders hover up around her ears, until the final snip, when she lets out the breath she’s been holding. 

A flick of her wrist and, like magic, a perfect family appears. They hold hands, these perfect people. She draws brown hair and eyes on the middle one. Brown hair and eyes like her own.

From downstairs, Nancy's foster mother shouts for her.

“Girl! You better not have my sewing scissors again. I warned you before, that’ll earn you a beating.”

Nancy tucks her new family beneath her shirt for protection and with the scissors held like a sword, she turns toward the stairs.
by
Corrie Adams
@corrie0521
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to paperdoll@adhocfiction.com

barely happy

Barely Happy

I loved my hair once. In the 1980's. Full of back-comb and hairspray and feather. Like Lady Di. It was my crowning-glory. At least that's what my mother said. It defined me.
	When I first shaved it off it wasn't for any noble cause. Or to draw the sympathetic looks one receives as a bald-headed woman of a certain age and status. I just did it. In front of the kitchen sink, with a draining-board full of dark green Denby. Reflected in the double-glazing that overlooked the herb garden. It was liberating. Like climbing alone and naked between crisp clean thousand thread-count bedding. And farting.
	Of course there was reaction. Speculation. Offers of support. Obviously I wasn't of 'right-mind'. Obviously. One doesn't just shave one's head. Does one? Not in my position. But in truth, I was the happiest I'd ever known.

✉

Credits

fiction by
Susan Moffat
@Suzie42Blog

image by
Jayne Morley
jaynemorley.tumblr.com

©
creators 

Intrusion

I wonder what it is my doctor reads.
 	I’ve never really wondered before but now that I’m here and we have a little time between us, I’m trying to distract myself. I don’t go to the doctors often, only when I’m sick – and by sick I mean only when in pain or when I feel like time or plasters won’t see the thing pass. 
This time she is investigating my rectum. I noticed a lump while shaving. If it had been there for a while, I couldn’t answer her. It never pained or smarted. It was only when I lowered the razor to trim around that area – anticipating sex - that I became aware of its existence.
For some reason I don’t want her to read the things I do. I hope she reads something flighty just to tell people she reads. I hope she plays tennis in her spare time.
by
Gareth Fox
@GarPublic
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to intrusion@adhocfiction.com

hopscotch

Hopscotch

She hops from one square to the next on the grid, oblivious of the eyes, which, as dark as a sparrow’s, trace her every skip. Pert bunches, hair the colour of gingerbread, bob in the dappled sunshine. Through gappy teeth, girly giggles ripple across the playground. 

Together, apart. Together, apart, she diligently avoids the lines drawn in chalk.
 
He’s been here before. Knows that the swing affords him the best vantage point. 

Above the hemline of her skirt the milky skin looks silken, and rounded limbs draw in his gaze.
 
He eases himself off the swing, flicks his fag on the ground and inches over.

'Time to go, Katie,’ he shouts. ‘Mummy will be waiting.’

✉

Credits

fiction by
Vicky Newham
@VickyNewham

image by
Jayne Morley
jaynemorley.tumblr.com

©
creators 

For One Night Only

‘Shall I squirt hairspray on your tights so that ladder doesn’t spread?’ I say.

‘Why did you tell me that, Becky? I’ll have to change them now – everyone’ll see.’

I roll my eyes. ‘They won’t notice that tiny thing. They’ll be focusing on your hair – it’s massive.’

‘Is it too much? I’m not used to all this.’

I pat the huge beehive, spraying extra hairspray on it for good measure. ‘It’s for charity. You never know – you might get a taste for it.’

‘Everyone’s gonna laugh at me. It’ll be obvious I’m miming.’

‘Everyone mimes here. You’ve been practicing for ages. "I Am What I Am." Shirley Bassey’s got nothing on you.’ 

I wouldn’t "sing" in front of any audience, but I don’t say anything.

‘Right. I’m ready. Let’s get it over with. Wish me luck, love.’

‘Good luck, Dad.’ I say, patting his back. ‘Knock ‘em dead.’
by
Libby Carpenter
@LibbyCPT
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to foronenightonly@adhocfiction.com

Unspoken

The secret hung like a thin veil between us – yet it was in my possession. It clawed at my throat wishing to reveal itself, but to speak it would change everything. Despite my best efforts, my eyes had already betrayed me. 

Like a hound on the scent of a fox, she chased my lies with her questions, desperate to trip me up and tangle me in a web of words. She picked at the edges of my inconsistency and stuck needles in my whimsical bubbles of fantasy. I knew that eventually I would beg her to share the burden that weighed heavy in my soul. But for now, I was determined to cling onto it. 

For my secret was as delicate as a silver thread in an ancient tapestry. To unravel it would destroy the very fabric of our relationship. 

I wasn’t ready for that.

Some things are better left unsaid.
Can You Illustrate This Piece?

1. Read the details here
2. Send your art to unspoken@adhocfiction.com