Short Story Contest Winners
Read our winning pieces below!
Hidden Pictures
by Mariah Goodson
Short Story
June, 1944. Normandy, France
A blink of an eye.
That’s how long a moment lasts. I’d never realized how fast those moments passed until I was the one who needed to capture every single one. If I don’t capture them now, who will? Thousands of moments and stories lost every single time I blink. It hurts to think about it.
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I lift my camera and snap a photo of a nurse running towards a soldier, disinfectant in hand. The tent is busy, too many soldiers and not enough nurses. I sit in a corner, almost invisible to everyone. It reeks of the sharp scents of rubbing alcohol and metallic blood. It makes me want to vomit, but if the nurses can stomach it, so can I. The wind rustles through the tent, blowing in the warm summer air and the distant sound of gunfire.
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A nurse rushes over to me, holding a crate of glass bottles that smash together.
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“Diane!” she calls out to me in her southern accent. “Take this over there, would ya’ dear?” She gestures over to one of the medicine cabinets but she’s distracted, glancing at a limping soldier who has just arrived. I nod and take the splintery box; she rushes away, going to help the soldier to a cot, only one other nurse to help her. Setting the crate down, I grab my camera and point it at the nurse. I already knew what I would title this one; Lonely heroes at the 42nd Evacuation Tent.
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I scan the tent, snapping a few more pictures before lifting the crate. I stand and see a nurse look up from tending to a soldier and my heart leaps into my throat.
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“Minnie?” I mutter softly. I shake my head; she can’t be here—Minnie’s at home in America with Mama and Papa. I feel a rush of sadness; I miss Minnie more than I thought. She annoys me to the ends of the earth, and we always bicker, but this distance reminds me of how much I love her. I wonder if she’s dancing now, I always love to see her dance.
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Minnie’s look-alike suddenly jerks backward and then leans in putting a hand on her soldier's chest.
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“Help!” she screams. “He’s not breathing!”
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Everyone looks up from their tasks. Minnie’s look-alike is desperately trying to listen for her soldier’s heartbeat and calling for help. In a rush, nurses swarm him and head towards the surgical tent. I drop the crate I’m holding and rush to grab my camera and follow them. The man is pale and appears lifeless, but I’ve seen miracles work here.
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When I enter the surgical tent, they’ve already started work, connecting the man to several machines and giving him shots filled with sharp-smelling medicine. I take pictures of the surgeons as they begin their work, rushing around holding serrated knives. I feel panic for the man at the operation table, unsure if he will survive. The surgeons wear thin cloth masks over their mouths, hiding their expressions. It feels like everyone is moving through water, not fast enough. My fingers shake on the camera. Breathe.
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All this pain and misery I have witnessed in these years, all the moments I’ve captured, they make me feel invisible, but looking at this soldier on the operating table, I understand. I may be invisible, but he would’ve been too, not until I took his picture. When people see my photos, they will see the soldiers and the nurses who have suffered here. I will make them visible.
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“Breathe,” I silently beg the wounded soldier. And he does.
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June, 1952. New York City, United States of America
Breathe.
All I can hear is my heartbeat. It fills my head and body. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. When I open them, I see myself in the mirror, dressed up and face defined by makeup. I almost look fake, with pale cheeks, bug eyes, and cherry-red lips. I slip my pointe shoes on and carefully lace them up, hoping that I can calm myself quickly.
Breathe. The door slams open and my head jerks up, almost slamming against the dressing table. Kathleen stands in the doorway gesturing wildly.
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“Minnie! We have to go now!” Her wide eyes look even larger with the makeup. She rushes off, the white tulle of our costume making her every movement, no matter how frantic, graceful. I finish with my shoes as quickly as I can and rush after Kathleen. We make it just in time and I stand in my spot at the back of the line of dancers. The velvety curtains brush my arm.
I hear the lilt of the piano as the soft keys are played. The pianist is a master, playing the song better than I’ve ever heard it before. The dancers at the front of the lines tiptoe out onto the stage, the light brightening their faces and doll-like smiles. I put on a smile, but it is far from fake. The line gets shorter and shorter and suddenly I’m standing on the stage staring into a dark auditorium. I know people are there, but I just can’t see them.
The soft tulle brushes my legs as I twirl around the floor. I pose in pointe and feel the old pain of blisters on my feet. Every movement must be silent, concentrated. A dancer rushes in from the right wing carrying a white banner that she leaps across the stage with. I stand holding a pose and quickly search the dark faces for my sister. The piano crescendos, about to release me from my standing position when I see her. Diane. She is smiling proudly in front of the audience, holding her ever-present camera. I dance my way downstage and prepare to leap. I glimpse Diane; she is holding her camera to her eyes.
A blink of an eye. I take a deep breath and sail into the air.
The Body Decays
by Isabella Ongodia
Short Story
Why do I have dead flowers on my windowsill?
They were living once. Last November, a gift on my fifteenth birthday. Pulchritudinous*, blooming white petals and thick, thornless stems. Lucky me, they came with a simple clear vase, plastic diamonds studded around the rim in pairs like models on magazines. Superficial and beautiful. I filled the glass cylinder with water, just past halfway, and placed the two blossoms inside.
Why do I have the dead flowers on my windowsill?
I’m not sure when they died, exactly, life has been moving faster and faster; it seems just the other day I’d decided to move the floral case to the ledge above my bed so I could watch those fake diamonds sparkle in the light. A week went by and I swear the water level didn’t go down. At first I wondered if I was drowning them, if it was too much water.
But though I wondered, I never did anything because, though it hurts to admit, a teenage girl in her prime -- surrounded by friends and extracurriculars and sports and books and school and money -- doesn’t have time to care. I glance at the flowers while cleaning my room the day after Christmas in the middle of winter break. The bright petals are displaying the same shade of white I see outside my window from the falling snowflakes, a more natural sort of glitter that makes me ashamed of the sticker-like sparkle I had once been so fond of. Now it’s too fake, too artificial. Too human. I avert my eyes and return to cleaning.
The next time I glance back, only thirty seconds, or so it feels- the glass is dry and the pale petals are gray and drooping. Dead. And I realize two weeks have gone by since I last glanced over at once blooming white, white, wildflowers on my windowsill. Dead. I wonder how can this be? Another glance outside tells me the branches of the trees are still barren and there is still snow on the ground, though patches of yellow-brown grass are peaking through. Dead.
Why do I still have the dead flowers on my windowsill?
I wasn’t sure what to do when it happened. The logical voice in my head -- the normal one, created by societal expectations and normalities -- told me to throw them out. They were useless to me now. Even the glimmering, childish, artificial diamonds couldn’t make up for this new eyesore, now. No one likes to gaze at dead things. It was tragic, and perhaps too soon, but they were clearly past their “prime”. Now there was only one thing to do.
But I couldn’t-- I couldn’t get rid of them. It felt like my fault. I lifted a hand to a floret** and brushed my fingers against the petals, once cool and silk-like, now dry and shriveled. An amaranthine*** decay. Something inside of me shriveled with it. They were horrible, my dead flowers, dust coating the bottom of the glass. I wanted to fill it, again, with water, to quench a polydipsia**** they could no longer feel--
as if that would change anything. All I could do now, was revert back to actions of previous (or inaction, rather), and avert my eyes.
Why do I keep the dead flowers on my windowsill?
I suppose, I am waiting for spring to come. To be reminded, cathartically*****, that things will live again. To prove that this part of me will die. All wounds heal with time, so they say, and I guess I need the seasons to change for my cuts to close.
But why, still, do I keep the dead flowers in the dirty, dust-covered glass with horrible, plastic, fake fucking diamonds on my windowsill, only a few paper petals still drooping from their blackened centers?
Because I have become them, and I don’t know if I will bloom again. Once drowning in water and now in dust. Tell me, when I climb down this stone-cold ledge from which I know I will fall and my vase will crack and shatter, in a silent crescendo no one will hear; will I feel it? Tell me, will my numbness break just the same as my glass casing? Will the pain flood through me like a violent river to quench my long-lived thirst?
Tell me; will my winter end?
​
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* Pul·chri·tu·di·nous; adjective; beautiful.
** Flo·ret; noun; one of the small flowers making up a composite flower head.
*** Am·a·rin·thine; adjective; (1) of or like the amaranth (an imaginary, undying flower) (2) unfading; everlasting.
**** Pol·y·dip·si·a; noun; abnormally great thirst as a symptom of disease (such as diabetes) or psychological disturbance.
***** Ca·thar·tic·a·lly; adverb; in a way that involves the release of strong emotions through a particular activity or experience for relief.
Two Men
by Gavin Tribble
Short Story
Daylight slowly bled into night, as a train cut through the final ray’s of the dying day. Men and woman ran in and out of the train cars, akin to waves rushing upon a coast. One of the people who came in wore peculiar clothes, and a heavy tan. At the ends of his lips a smile played, and his eyes, long since shot by a blistering sun, were sheltered by thick glasses. Taking his time to choose a seat, he finally settled next to a sharply dressed man with a bowler hat and a business suit, who looked rather annoyed that a person of such dress would sit so near to him. Then a whistle and amongst the clatter of the car jerking forwards, both tried to glimpse the other’s face without going about it in an obvious or brutish manner.
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“Do I know you?” It was the man with the glasses.
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“Yeah? Maybe.”
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“Glynn,” he said, introducing himself.
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“Myatt? From collage?” The well-dressed man said this with some bemusement, and seemingly relief that he wasn’t sitting next to any ragged drifter.
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“Who else… John right? It's been, what, ten years since we were roommates? Yeah, Yeah…” Glynn formed the second ‘yeah’ as more of a sigh than a word, “I suppose you went into business then.”
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“Eleven years, actually, and I went into banking. It is what I-well, we, went to college for.” John replied, still eying the gear that Glynn carried as if it would sprout legs and give him chase.
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“Uh-huh, I’ma go… Get a bite, it was good…” Glynn let his voice trail off, old college memories being knocked loose.
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“Perfect, I’ll grab some myself” John said, taking advantage of the silence.
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John set out to the dining car, followed awkwardly by Glynn. It wasn’t far away, and Glynn disappeared through the car door first. When John got to the bridge between cars, he paused, watching the blur of tracks rush by underneath. Closing his eyes, he skittered across the bridge. Glynn followed confidently behind. The dining car was nothing special, though it was the first train that Glynn had been on to have one. After ordering, both men picked their way to an open seat.
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“So, what did you do after dropping out of college?” John asked.
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“Went to India on my college money. I guess you graduated?”
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“Your parent's money, I finished with the rest of the class.” John mentioned this quite amicably, more of as a joke, though he certainly didn’t consider it one.
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“You ever visited India?” Glynn asked, trying to flee back to his very first escape.
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“I always wanted to. Didn’t we make plans to go?” John remarked.
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“Yeah, but I just couldn’t stay in school. Don’t know how you stood it. Anyway, if you still want to go, for not too much I could get you a tour there, don’t-cha think it’d be grand? Still know some people, and it could be nice for the wife.”
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“I’m still a bachelor.” John remarked sadly.
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Glynn barely let a moment pass before asking, “What about that girl, what was her name? E-som’thing?”
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“Elizabeth? What about her?” Suddenly saturated through John's voice was terseness, though well enough disguised that Glynn perhaps missed it.
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“You always liked her, hardly any secret, I almost asked her out for you. Left before I got the chance.” replied Glynn.
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“Oh, well, never asked her out.”
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“That's too bad.”
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A moment of silence passed between the two, even Glynn wouldn’t interrupt John's moment of sorrow.
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“Well, what did you do in India?” John asked, solely to fill the silence between them.
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“Not much, a few odd jobs here and there, married, divorced. Oh, but then I got to go to Africa, really fascinating stuff… but we’d be here hours if I continued, and I gotta get off soon?”
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“Oh, me? Nothing much. Got a job at the RBF, thinking of going into politics now.” John seemed quite proud of that last fact.
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“RBS it, uh, rings a bell?” Glynn asked, poorly disguising his ignorance.
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“Oh, it’s a bank.” John’s disappointment on the failed recognition was palatable, soon shifting the conversation, “What brings you here?”
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“Oh, I’ve been working with people in Africa, they sent me up here to get more funding from investors and whatnot.”
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“Oh… Why aren’t you taking a boat? I mean, that would much quicker.”
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“Supposed to, but get this, figured it out so I could sell the tickets and take this train here across the channel. I’ll get to pocket the change, then tell them something slowed me down.”
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“What?” John's tripped over his own voice, “That-that-simply wrong.”
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“It’s fine if they don’t know.”
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“But… But…” John said, sputtering at the thought of being near someone who would do such a thing.
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“Oh, it’s fine, uhh.” John paused, realizing that it perhaps could be wise to change topic, “Have, uh you have gotten out of the country, I mean other than now of course.”
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“Oh yes, no, I’ve gone all over like you wouldn’t believe” John started, though his mind still lingered on Glynns statement, “Paris, Berlin, even over to America. That last one was real terrifying, almost walked into their little civil war.”
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“But you didn’t”
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“No, no, hey before we-” John paused as the train slowly ground to a guttural halt. Someone called out that they had reached Calais, “before we go if you want I could properly set you up in England if you wanted to get a job. Very poor, but respectable at least.” this offer, born out of sorrow for Glynn, could hardly be considered a gesture of goodwill.
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Glynn moved towards the exit, “No, I can't, I’ll be needing to head back to Africa.”
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“Huh...” John tried more words to Glynn, but they were soon lost to the bustle of the train car. Luckily, neither particularly cared for the conversation.