I’m dellighted to announce the results of the mini writing contest from the online flash fiction day on 11th January. Thank you to everyone who entered. Stories were prompted by this painting, A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling by Evelyn Mary Dunbar (1906–1960) and a few suggestions from me (Jude) to create some funny flssh. Some people stayed close to the picture, some introduced women in other scenarios. I agree with our judge, Diane SImmons, that those who didn’t win should send their stories elsewhere for a chance of publication. So many excellent stories submitted. Many thanks again to Diane,,our resident online festival competition judge and co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK for choosing this selection. Here are her comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entries to the competition. It made a wonderful change to read so many humorous stories. Some of the flashes made me laugh out loud and any that did automatically went into my shortlist pile. There were also several well written stories that I really enjoyed where the humour element of the challenge seemed to be forgotten, which was a shame – I’m sure that these stories would do well if submitted elsewhere.
First Prize:The Shape of a Winner
by Laurie Swinarton
Minutes ago, Cora Lambert held up broken arms, like surrender flags, and announced she can’t represent Bishop’s Hollow in the semi-finals of the Great British Topiary Shape Off and Daphne Tingle – member of the gardening club, bridge team captain and occasional shoplifter – can taste being Cora’s replacement. In the pebbledash village hall, under the flicker and buzz of fluorescent lights, she waits for the mayor to ask her. She downs a bottle of Corona then flays a grape and eats the innards. Grape skins are left behind like broken butterflies.
Daphne never set out to seriously hurt anyone. But she doesn’t want to be a loser. Decades ago, the girls in her PE class nicknamed her Deadweight Daffy. You know the type of girls. The ones with arms the size of oars, legs as swift as Shetland ponies. The ones who pinned athletic ribbons to their cardigans and stole cigar flavoured kisses from the men who worked at the carnival.
Now Cora’s announcement has created a hullabaloo. The mayor scratches her neck until it looks like she has a hickey. She whispers something to her bug-eyed husband. His eyebrows form exclamation marks then settle back down.
Daphne picks at a cuticle, thinks of her secateurs, imagines her hands snug in their worn, leather garden gloves, feels the weight of her shears as they twirl through a box hedge and transform it into an upward spiral before shaping it into the word WINNER. Her face almost bursts open, her body nearly extends itself like a climbing clematis seeking summer’s light. She’s no deadweight.
The mayor, who has IBS and too much paperwork, has a face that is sharp like a triangle. She taps her fingers on top of the microphone and, as dust rises, she declares the town will withdraw from the competition as there have been “accusations.”
And, for one second, Daphne closes her eyes and sees Cora Lambert’s tripod ladder folding in on itself like origami paper or a pair of collapsing binoculars. Her stomach turns sour; spicy fear pricks at her throat. She rifles through her tote bag: looks for Dramamine, an antacid, an escape. Instead pulls out glasses, an emery board … and a handful of steel bolts. Christ! She shoves everything back into the bag, pushes it away like it’s on fire. Her face blooms like a red azalea and she blows on her scorched hands.
Bio:Laurie Swinarton is a part-time writer and full-time tea addict who finds contentment buried in a book with a cup of lapsang souchong tea steeping nearby and Bach playing in the background. When not doing that, she can be found yelling out her window at loud cars. You can find her on Bluesky @laurieiswriting or on Twitter @LaurieSwin21
Diane Simmons’ comments
This flash about skulduggery in the Great British Topiary Shape Off competition made me smile from the first line, then laugh out loud at the phrase, ‘The mayor, who has IBS and too much paperwork…’ – a phrase that made the woman who was washing my hair at the hairdressers laugh too! I also loved the casual mention of Daphne Tingle’s shoplifting.
Runner up; A Pleasant Afternoon Spent Birding in Kent
by Erin Bondo
– after Evelyn Dunbar’s A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling
The orchard thrums with their varied pips and trills, with birds that’ve flocked here from all over. Loudest is the green woodpecker – there, with the red cap – her high-pitched tsiu-tsiu-tsiu-tsiu puncturing the thin winter air as she yaffles away at a joke only another Scouser would get. And that dunnock from Dorset – the wee plain thing, there on the right? – she’ll be warbling on again about some perceived slight: someone’s nicked her armband, someone’s nicked her hair brush, someone’s nicked her rations; somehow, someone’s always nicked her rations. And now that’s her chirping accusations at the shy West Country wren – it-was-you, Doreen, it-was-you!
Meanwhile, watch the magpie, a way up that tallest ladder. She’s a primper and a preener, sleek black hair in a high shine and pleasantly plump, all those extra butter rations no doubt. She’s trying to catch a glimpse of the Italian sparrows working the neighbouring land, she’ll make beady eyes at them on the way in from the fields, eyes that say meet me behind the garden shed at midnight – what Mr Magpie doesn’t know and all that.
And the yellow wagtail – there, on the left – she’s a plucky one, always chitter-chattering about her grand London debut once the males migrate back from the continent. Tonight in the dormitory she’ll put on a show for us, puff out her chest and waggle that tail like she’s Betty Grable in ‘Moon Over Miami’ until even the gloomy little stone-curlew cracks a smile – she’s gone a bit funny since that telegram arrived last week, the poor lamb.
But until the bell rings for tea here we’ll stay, churr-ing and chiff-chaff-ing away, making the best of this drab plumage, waiting for the day we can soar.
Bio: Erin Bondo grew up in rural Ontario, Canada on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabek and now lives in Scotland. She has been longlisted for the Welkin Mini prize and this is her first published flash piece. Find her on Bluesky @erinbondo.com
Diane’s comments
This was a clever and creative interpretation of the prompt that made me smile throughout and as soon as I’d finished reading, I went back to reread it. I particularly enjoyed the language in this flash.
Runner up;The Deadwood Stage
by Chris Cottom
The director doesn’t take to Terri, calls her a troublemaker, a Trotskyite. We call her the best thing to happen to collective bargaining since the Tolpuddle Martyrs.We imagine our awayday will be some ‘outcome-focused’ bonding in a boutique hotel, playing with giant Lego, a facilitator yelling ‘One more minute!’ like a demented gameshow host. Instead, we’re mini-bussed to one of the director’s other businesses, an orchard outside Evesham, for a ‘pruning immersion experience’. Terri’s eyes are fierce,
‘It’s a metaphor for redundancy. Deadwood. Geddit?’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘You’re pulling my wire.’
‘Wanna bet? It’ll be Lean Team on the left, P45s on the right.’
The pressure starts in the ‘Briefing Zone’, ie shed, with not enough wellies and raincoats. ‘Listen,’ Terri shouts. ‘It’s obvious they want us fighting like barn cats. Stand firm, girls! Remember your grannies telling you about Greenham.’
We troop out through the mud, we chop and lop, we bundle and burn.
‘Be brutal with any branches rubbing together,’ the instructor says. ‘Keep the healthiest, the one in the best position.’
Terri nudges me. ‘Told you. And he’s no farmhand. Management consultant, more like. Look at his fingernails.’
When we break for lunch – pasty and apple turnover – the director’s Tesla is charging outside the juicing parlour.
‘He’ll be inside, practising his squeezing-the-pips speech,’ Terri says.
People say Terri’s a toughie, lives in a throuple, loves to arm-wrestle. We say she should tell the director where to shove his awayday.
She takes my loppers, whips out a nailfile, sharpens them gleaming. I expect the Tesla cable’s first for the chop, but Terri yanks off her headscarf and barges into the juicing parlour, calling the rest of us to follow.
The director is Alan Sugar without the charm. ‘Come to negotiate, Little Miss Red?’
Terri stands silent, arms crossed, loppers aloft.
‘I’ll lay it on the table,’ he says. ‘Redundancies for half the firm. Or everyone goes on zero-hours contracts.’
Terri kicks the table over. ‘There’s a third way, shithead! Employee ownership.’
‘No chance!’
Terri jabs the loppers into his crotch. ‘One move and these beauties bite.’
We form our community interest company that afternoon. The ex-director calls Terri a thug, a terrorist. We call her our saviour, our chief executive.
@chris_cottom1,@chriscottom.bsky.social, chriscottom.wixsite.com
Diane’s Comments
This was an engaging flash, with an original take on the prompt. I loved the idea of a ‘pruning immersion experience’ and laughed out loud at the line, ‘The director is Alan Sugar without the charm.’
