Thanks to everyone who entered the November 30th online Flash Fiction Festival Day contest. Jude provided three picture prompts of optical illusions to choose from. Writers were asked to write stories in three paragraphs with the paragraphs linked using the figure/ground components of the pictures. One of the winning writers used the well-known young woman/old woman picture shown here and two used a picture of astronauts/moon (linked here, but not shown, because of copyright issues).

Congratulations to the winners, Cheryl Markosky, first prize and runners-up Laura Besley and Gill 0’Halloran. Their stories are published below.Thank you also to writer and NFFD Co-Director Diane Simmons, our resident on-line FFF judge, for selecting the winning stories and writing comments.

Diane said this about the entries:
“Jude provided three photographs of optical illusions: a dog/man in the woods; an old lady/young lady, and one with a skull/astronauts and moon/earth. She asked writers to choose one of the prompts and to write a triptych. It was interesting reading the variety of entries, with the astronaut/moon prompt by far the most popular. There were several stories vying for a place and I spent quite a while trying to decide on my final three.” Read in Full

We’re delighted to announce the winners of the Great Festival Flash Off Day which took place on October 26th. For the ‘Signature’ challenge, Jude set the prompt and asked people to consider the painting shown here to spark off ideas and also to recall bad or good haircuts they might have had. In addition, we looked at some great story examples. Thank you to Writer and Co-Director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK, Diane Simmons, who has judged many of the festival competitions. She says: “Thank you to everyone who sent in haircut stories. I really enjoyed reading them and had a good chuckle when I took some printed out stories to the hairdressers to read while my hair was being dyed. It took me a few minutes to realise that the hairdressers was a very appropriate judging place! It was an unusual theme which generated a wide variety of stories, with several stories vying for a prize.” Diane’s also made specific comments on the winners below. Read in Full

Big congratulations, Suzanne Greene, winner of the 2024 Pokrass Prize prompted by the photograph by Louella Lester, above. As well as here, ‘Something Like a Promise’ will also be published in the violet coloured Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, the final book of the rainbow series of festival anthologies, later this year. You can find out more about Meg Pokrass’s prompt and read her general comments about the submissions here. Meg’s comments about Suzanne’s piece are at the end of the story.

Suzanne Greene

Something Like A Promise

Lawrence and Emerald Pilcher miss their city friends so badly they invite them upstate for an orgy. It’s a great success. Okay, there isn’t much actual sex, but they’ve been partying with the same set since the 1960s and they’re used to disappointing each other. The important thing is they’re all envious of the Pilchers’ retirement idyll. ‘Oh, my heart!’ cries Buffy Blennerhassett. ‘All this beautiful wood!’

Lawrence describes the family who previously lived in the sprawling clapboard house. The father deserted them to become a resident Hermit for a tycoon with an English-style country estate in San Antonio. Then the mother turned into a statue on the kitchen floor and the children – all named after the kids on ‘The Waltons’ – had to feed her SlimFast from a watering can to keep her alive. Lies of course, but Lawrence enjoys testing his friends.

Next morning he sits scowling in the kitchen as the friends emerge, grublike, from bedrooms and sofas. Away from the metal pulse of the city they seem greyish, unthrilling. Buffy bounds in and kisses Lawrence on his bald patch. He jumps up and goes out back. He and Emerald have been planning to show their friends the path through the woods to the lake, but too bad. He hasn’t taken to nature as much as he thought he would after reading the blurb on his copy of ‘Walden’ but at least today the birdsong doesn’t scrape his nerves, and when he emerges from the trees the haze of sun on the lake offers something like a promise.

Lawrence walks to the end of the small fishing jetty and stares down into the sullen brown eye of the lake. He wonders how it feels to drown.

An ambulance siren pierces his thoughts. He starts to run towards the house, then asks himself why. Who’s the ambulance for? Buffy? Chuck? Jim? Any of them? No huge tragedy. Not at their age. It could be Emerald, of course. What would he do without her? Move away from here, for one thing. To the coast, maybe. They’d understand each other, him and the restless soul of the sea. For a while anyway. He slows right down. Poor Emerald. Maybe he’ll make more of an effort with her. Maybe he’ll clean up the house, trim back that darned creeper, let the light in. Maybe he’ll let the creeper flourish, swallow him whole.

Meg’s Comments:
“Something Like a Promise” is a story of a stale marriage unsuccessfully revived by an orgiastic reunion of old friends. The story is so perfectly strange, unpredictable, and original I reread it a number of times for the sheer pleasure of reading. Though slightly less haunted than the other entries, the author’s wildly original writing charmed me deeply as it is both darkly funny and masterfully told.

S.A. Greene writes short fiction in Derbyshire. Her work has appeared in lovely places including Janus Lit., trampset, Maudlin House, Flash Flood, Free Flash Fiction, The Phare, Ellipsis, and Mslexia. A lot of her stories have tables in them. Usually kitchen tables, but also dining-room and picnic. One story featured a blue sponge (as well as a dining-table) and it made the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist in 2022. She’s a Resident Facilitator at The Flash Cabin, and tweets at @SAGreene1.

This photograph by Louella Lester was on of the prompts for the Pokrass prize. Find out more about Meg’s promptand her general comments about the winners here. Her comments about Anika’s piece are at the end of the story

Anika Carpenter

The Best Friend I Ever Had

Read in Full

The photograph by Louella Lester was the main prompt for the competition Find out more details about the prompt and Meg’s general comments here. Meg’s comments about Susan’s piece are at the end of the story.

Susan Wigmore

LORCA THOUGHT THE DEAD IN SPAIN ARE MORE ALIVE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE; HE DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER

Three people have died in our house, my dead sister tells me when she moves back home. But she’s the most tragic. Italics spike her voice now as if I’ve grown stupid in her absence. Granted, the couple who died together in the back-room bed win hands down for romance, but they were old and died last century so don’t count. She says this while scrutinising the height chart in pencil marks made by our mother on the kitchen wall. She’s lost none of her competitiveness: hers stop at 4′ 10″. Sometimes we play Scrabble and I let her win because she’s prettier when she doesn’t sulk. This is one thing I’ve learned. Another is not to talk of smartening up the place, which sends her into a tizz and we have to batch bake to calm her down. But she’s not afraid of the dark any more. In fact, lights are such a bone of contention you’d think hers was a lone crusade to save the world, all the fuss she makes when I leave one on. She’s right at home with on-demand though and watches David Attenborough all night on iPlayer in the greyish glow of the screen. I lie awake in milky-blue moonlight and listen to the hills moan. In the morning, I find her slumped on the sofa. The teeth grinding is new. And her favourite film now is ‘The Amityville Horror’, which she watches by candlelight (for atmosphere, stupid). When I say she’s too young, she just snorts and tells me to get a life. She practises hiding sometimes even though she’s a dab hand already. Visitors are rare but one day a neighbour turned up as the plumber arrived; it was all I could do to cope with raffle tickets and dripping taps let alone a dead sister so I told her to make herself scarce. Now she ups and disappears for days just to make a point and I never know when she’s coming back. She gets shirty when I ask where she’s been and reckons I can’t have my cake and eat it. She says she’s cool with the whole death thing really, but I don’t believe her. Yesterday I found her trying on my bras, pushing up the buds of her breasts as if they’d fill the cups. I think she was crying.

Meg’s Comments
“LORCA THOUGHT THE DEAD IN SPAIN ARE MORE ALIVE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE; HE DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER” is a darkly surreal ghost story about the dynamics of a sibling relationship which, even after death, refuses to change or heal. This is story of a very deliberate kind of haunting and the author’s work with emotional observation about sibling connections won me over.

Susan’s writing has been published, placed or listed by Reflex Fiction, Oxford Flash Fiction, the Fish Short Story Prize, Mslexia, Retreat West, the Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize and The Daily Telegraph Short Story Competition. She won inclusion in the first Fractured Lit Anthology chosen by Kathy Fish, the Fish Flash Prize 2023 and the Globe Soup Short Memoir 2022. A flash non-fiction piece was shortlisted for the 2022 QuietManDave Prize. She is delighted her novella-in-flash was longlisted for the Bath Award 2024.

The photograph by Louella Lester was the main prompt for the competition Find out more details about the prompt and Meg’s general comments here. Meg’s comments about Philippa’s piece are at the end of the story.

Philippa Bowe

The House that Harold Built

Harold returned from the war with a star-shaped medal and only one eye. The house sighed with pleasure when he opened the door. But the next morning half the façade had disappeared beneath an army of ivy. Harold chopped and hacked but every morning it was back, greying boards shuttered in green.

Harold had built the house one board at a time. Built it from lumberyard offcuts and factory floor nails, stubborn determination and sheer love of it. Didn’t stop till it reached four floors. Plenty of room for kids, eh? brother Frank ribbed him. Harold knew there would never be kids, the right girl, for him. His nine younger siblings had produced enough to keep the world turning, he reckoned.

Harold made the house with lots of windows to let in the light and a big door to let in the nieces and nephews. Little Peggy was his favourite. She curled at his feet reading stories of odd creatures, a magical alternate universe. They made him chuckle and crept into his dreams at night. Peggy was the one he missed most when he left for the trenches.

Harold had left more than his eye in the Marne. The children’s laughter and shrieks set off his gloom and he banished them, even Peggy. He sat alone with the lamplight dimmed, letting the shadows in. Corners of the house crumbled with a whisper. He paid nephew Tommy to bring him his groceries. Tommy complained to his mum about the clanking weight of all the bottles of whisky.

Harold found he preferred the company of ghosts, their voices less strident than the living. He wanted to hear Jake cracking jokes, Jonno telling him about the riverbanks of his youth. Even Sergeant Major Harrington roaring at them. But most of all Albert. He listened to all their voices, aching for Albert, as the house creaked and groaned. He watched the fireflies dancing and glittering and didn’t feel the tears slide from his one eye into the empty glass.

Harold was still sitting when Peggy found him, glass in hand, single eye closed for good. The next day the house collapsed into a jagged-edged pile. After the funeral Peggy sat in the ruins reading her stories, waiting for dusk. When the fireflies came she sighed with relief. As they blazed and flittered over the pile, Harold’s chuckle rose off the pages of her book.

Meg’s Comments

In “The House that Harold Built” present and past merge as we’re thrust into a tragic story of a war veteran and shown is deepest loves and ruined dreams. The effect is surprisingly novelistic. Hard to accomplish with such a small word count.

Philippa Bowe is a flash fiction writer, poet and translator. Her work has been published online and in print, including by Ghost City Press, Reflex Fiction, Bath Flash Fiction and Spark2Flame. She is writing a flash novella, lives on a southern French hill and has become addicted to big vistas.

Many congratulations to James Montgomery from the UK who won first prize and runners-up, Jen Rowe from the UK and Dawn Miller from Canada. Jude set the prompt and the challenge was to write a multi-layered story in 400 words or under including some dialogue and reported speech. There was an excellent range of stories and thank you to all who entered and to writer and NFFD director, Diane Simmons, for judging and commenting. The painting,Eislaufkunst, 1929 is by Dörte Clara Wolff (1907-1996), known as Dodo, who was a German-born artist, illustrator, and costume designer. She studied at the prestigious Berlin Academy of Art. For another writing opportunity, The Pokrass Prize is open for anyone booked on this year’s in person flash fiction festival. Booking here

Diane’s comments and the winners’ stories are posted below, together with the writers’ bios Read in Full

Thrills! The sixth volume from the Flash fiction Festivals UK has now been posted to contributors. Hopefully the books will arrive soon! When they do, we’d love to see a picture of one in your location on social media. The anthology is available to buy directly from Ad Hoc Fiction and Amazon.

Within this book, there are over seventy stories from festival presenters. participants, winners from the January 2023 online Flash Fiction Festival and winners from the Pokrass Prize. There is also a section of Haibun. Five writers were inspired by the Haibun workshop led to Roberta Beary and Lew Watts. Many other stories were inspired by othere workshops at the festival.

Thank you very much to writer and co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK< Diane Simmons, for helping me to compile the anthology, something she has done for the past six years and to John at Ad Hoc Fiction for donating his time to produce another lovely looking anthology. Thanks also to Karen Jones, James Montgomery and Fiona J Mackintosh for their quotes about the festival on the back cover. We love the Indigo colour. Next year we complete the rainbow series of books with violet. But after that I daresay we will go with a pure white anthology, then maybe platinum and gold... We're looking forward to the Flash Fiction Festival weekend on 12-14th July in Bristol. Booking will be open this month and we have lots of really interesting workshops and panels = lined up plus readings, book launches, Karaoke and general fun and chats. Hope you can come! Jude, January 2023

Thank you again to Diane Simnons, writer and co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK for blind-judging our mini-contest from the November Great Flash Fiction Festival Day. Thank you also to everyone who entered.

The three brillant winning flash fictions, first prize by Marie Gethins from Ireland and the two runners-up, by Linda Grierson-Irish and Jane Salmons are posted on this page. All entrants had to create a piece inspired by the 1950s picture by British cartoonist and humourist, Thelwell, shown above. The stories will also be included in the next Flash Fiction Festival anthology out at the end of 2024 and other prizes include Bath Flash Fiction Award entries and books from the Ad Hoc Fiction shelves. You can read the authors’ bios at the end of their stories

Diane said this about the stories:
“I think that this was quite a tricky challenge, not just because of the constraints (mention of a garden implement, utilising the senses and a subject matter of unrequited love or simmering resentment), but because the picture Jude gave everyone as a prompt had several obvious attention demanding characters in it and it’s not an easy thing to avoid writing about the obvious. I was pleased though with the originality of many of the stories and it was a treat that many contained humour. I very much enjoyed reading all the stories – thank you to everyone who submitted.”
 
Diane’s comments on the stories:

First Place (Marie Gethins)
Homo sapien allotmentitus Observed

I loved the originality and the voice in this flash. I also very much enjoyed the humour and found myself chuckling out loud to the line that follows the men peeling away their heaviest layer of clothing, revealing white, long-sleeved shirts: ‘It’s unclear if this is a tribal mandate or perhaps driven by a recent M&S sale’.

Runner-Up
Out of Kilter (Linda Grierson-Irish)
Engaging from the first line, this is a beautifully written flash with a depth that warranted several readings. I loved the descriptions, particularly: ‘His voice the sharp-sweet bite of an apple, running with juice’. And the ending to the flash was just perfect.

Runner-up
Sunday Morning at the Hyperreal Gardeners’ World (Jane Salmons)

This flash was a delightfully original take on the prompt. I enjoyed many of the descriptions in it, particularly, A.I. Alan’s green fingers: ‘As emerald and plump as baby courgettes’ and loved the image of the robots snapping beanpoles, hurling dung and smashing green houses.
 

First Prize
Homo sapien allotmentitus Observed

by Marie Gethins

[SOUND OF HOEING AND SHOVELING, MAN GRUNTING FROM EFFORT]

Our story begins with a tantalizing glimpse of something very special: a local tribe of five working allotment males in their natural habitat.

A group of this size is unusual and without Albert’s local knowledge derived from extensive observation via his upstairs bedroom window, it would not have been possible to get this close. The Homo sapiens allotementitus is known for being fiercely territorial. Positioning ourselves behind two untamed specimens of buxus sempervirens, European boxwood, we have a good vantage point and can remain undetected.

[TURNS TOWARDS CAMERA WHISPERING]

The air is fragrant with manure and rotting compost. Sun begins to break through what has been an overcast morning casting the allotment in a penetrating glow. They are beginning to peel away their heaviest layer of clothing, revealing white, long-sleeved shirts. It’s unclear if this is a tribal mandate or perhaps driven by a recent M&S sale.

Some have invested in high quality tools. You can see by the frustration of this male on the left that he has an inferior hoe and will be expending significant energy over the next few months fighting invasive weeds in his vegetable rows.

[CAMERA PANS ACROSS THE ALLOTMENTS, STOPS AT MAN IN LOUNGE CHAIR WITH PIPE AND LARGE BOOK, ZOOMS IN]
Here we have the alpha allotmenter. Rather than using his patch for vegetables and fruit trees, he has created what is known as ‘the showcase lawn’. While the rest of the tribe toil over stony ground and leaf mould, he gives a display of dominance by relaxing on a sward created from grass rolls and heavy use of artificial fertilizer. We are able to discern through a window that the blue cottage behind him appears to be fully fitted with a kettle and pod coffee machine.
The alpha stands. What will be his next move? Observing such behaviour this close is unprecedented.
[TENSE MUSIC]
The alpha calling to the others. They approach. This is absolutely thrilling. A hold your breath moment.

[ALLOTMENT MALES MOVE TOWARDS THE LAWN, CARRYING SHOVELS, HOES AND ONE PITCHFORK]
Surrounding the alpha, the tribe moves to the cottage open door. Is this a challenge? They abandon their tools, leaning them against the side cottage wall and…they…enter…it appears to be an assembly of some type. We could be witnessing a rare event, a shift in the power structure.

[CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON BACK WINDOW VIEW INTO COTTAGE. SHADOWY FIGURES, INDISTINCT. SCRAPING SOUNDS, HISSING, RUMBLING, CLINKING OF CHINA, OPENING OF BISCUIT TIN LID]

Unfortunately, the tribe did not reemerge during our period of observation. While we gained great insight into the behaviours of this secretive troop, much magic and mystery remains and shows just how complicated these relationships between allotment males can be. Until our next venture into the urban kingdom.

[THEME MUSIC CRESCENDO]

Bio: Marie Geth­ins featured in Winter Papers, Bristol Short Story Award, Australian Book Review, NFFD Anthologies, Banshee, Fictive Dream, Pure Slush, Bath Flash Fiction Anthologies, and others. Selected for Best Microfictions, BIFFY50, Best Small Fictions, she edits for flash ezine Splonk, critiques for Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and lives in Cork, Ireland.

Runner-Up
Out of Kilter

by Linda Grierson-Irish

On the way to the allotment, I see a crow tearing into something dead in the undergrowth. I don’t interfere. I make a mental note to tell Branagán later. He’ll have a theory. Or two. “Don’t forget to clear the beans,” he’d said, by way of a goodnight yesterday evening. Wet leaves slithered my slippered feet on our wooden stairs.

Overnight, Bob’s Dahlias have browned and slumped. A dazzling frost can do that. I squeeze a wizened handful of florets; feel them yield, exhale. Boys at morning football practice high-five. It sounds like finality. I think, dead head. I think, weed, hoe, dig out the bolted spinach. I’m hiding in a heated shed, my lungs brimming. A man with clean fingernails, who plucked me from the hedgerow. Who shrugged at rain and didn’t walk away. And then, did. Weed. Hoe. Dig.

Lev’s strawberries bear cautious blooms, coaxed by a late, simmering sun. Out of kilter with the season. “Didn’t expect such coyness,” he’d said, that first time, “strapping lad like you.” His voice the sharp-sweet bite of an apple, running with juice. I hang onto the hoe. Its bone-hard handle steadies me.

The regulars arrive. We exchange nods and grimace against the chill. They clink and stomp and glower at the vacant lawned plot; an idle, manicured taunt in the midst of messy abundance. I’m the only one who didn’t want him to leave. Twelve months ago, to the day. Twelve months of forcing decay to twine its roots through twenty years of playful nurture. Above my head, sucked-out skeletons of unpicked runner beans swing as I tug. The morning crow sounds a cleaving echo. Dig. Weed. Hoe.

Later, Branagán will tell me that crows hold grudges. And sometimes desecrate their dead, but to be sure, he’ll grin, that’s not your typical behaviour. Soil clogs the treads of my boot soles. Bran will rub my smarting fingers. Berate me too brightly for not wearing gloves. As if he suspects my intent. For a moment, we’re back in a field in Letterfrack, our lips raw. The sky rained diamonds. My confession will drown in my mouth.

On the way home, I crouch beside the dead crow. Its eye has clouded. One wing points up, like a prayer, from its derelict hull. I smother it with leaves, sprigs of sweet lavender, pinecones. Until it smells like something that could fly again

Bio: Linda Grierson-Irish’s writing has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2023, shortlisted twice for both the Bridport Prize and Bath Flash Award, selected for the BIFFY50 list, and received two honourable mentions for Best Microfictions. She lives in Shropshire, UK.

Runner-Up
Sunday Morning at the Hyperreal Gardeners’ World

by Jane Salmons

Sprawled out in a candy-striped deckchair, Rick watches the A.I. gardeners at work. It’s like time travelling. To the past and future, simultaneously.

A.I. Alan has green fingers. As emerald and plump as baby courgettes, he plunges them into the rich, black soil; knuckles nestling on the top layer, like a stalk of Brussels sprouts. It’s 11.42 am. Time to plant his shallots.

“May I borrow your dibber, old chap?” he says.

“Certainly, squire,” A.I. Percy replies.

Doffing his flat cap, Percy hands over the wood turned tool. On his hands and knees, Alan begins boring a neat row of holes: three inches deep; three inches apart.

Calm and hopeful. Good gait and balance. Improved mental health.

Percy also has green fingers. He trudges up and down, up and down, tilling his ten-rod plot with a replica iron rake.

An hour in the garden is better than an hour in the queue.

For the past four hours, A.I. Diarmuid has been wheeling barrows full of manure. Through squinted eyes, Rick admires his rippling biceps and buff torso. It’s a backbreaking job, but this workhorse gets on with it. The robots are programmed not to complain. As Dairmuid heaps great forks of steaming dung onto each allotment, the gardeners chant, the right to dig the right to dig the right to dig.

In the large cold frame on plot four, A.I. Monty has nurtured a trove of prize-winning produce: peppery pink radishes, midget gem lettuces, rosettes of glistening spinach. No glimmer of pride marks his smooth, plastic face. Just the certainty of implanted memory.

Dig for Victory! Food is a weapon of war!

Rick yawns. It’s such a good feeling to be outdoors. Nothing to worry about. No stresses or struggles in this better-than-real world.

Trust between humans and machines

Trust between humans and machines

Calm and helpful

Food is a weapon of

A weapon of
The robots are malfunctioning.

Trust between
The right to the right to the right to

Black clouds scud across the cyan blue sky. The hologram oak trees flicker and fade. Rick shivers. It’s time to leave.

Food is a weapon of

A weapon of

Humans and machines

The robots are snapping beanpoles, hurling dung, smashing greenhouses with their hoes and spades.

Calm and helpful

Improved mental health

This is the past. This is the future.

The right to the right the right to

Bio: Jane Salmons is from Stourbridge in the UK. She has published two poetry collections, Enter GHOST (dancing girl press) and The Quiet Spy (Pindrop Press). Relatively new to flash fiction, her stories have been nominated for Best Microfictions 2023 and Best of the Net 2024. She has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and she won the Pokrass Prize for her story ‘Miracle Grow’ in 2022.