7 DAY STORY WRITING CHALLENGE #5 WINNER

Prize: £500

Finalists

Historical:

Creshea Hilton

Joan El Faghloumi

E. M. Foster

Jay McKenzie

Epistolary:

Heidi Mitchell

Jenny Lee Young

Tony Warner

Romance:

Karen Darger

Paranormal:

K. L. Vincent

Finnian Burnett

Joel O’Flaherty

Dystopian:

Katie Holloway

Rachael Murray

Dustin Gillham

L. C. V. Swanwick

Humour:

Ameen Ahmad Opeyemi

Lisa H. Owens

Deidra Lovegren

Thriller:

K. Antonio

Christopher Bloodworth

Science Fiction:

Marie Martello Conway

Fantasy:

Rhonda Zappelli

S. L. Kretschmer

Crime:

Robert Burns

Mary-Louise McGuiness

Horror:

Emily MacDonald

Magical Realism:

Isabel Flynn

Dhevalence Moodley

Honourable Mentions and Longlist

An honourable mention means you just missed out on being a finalist. A place on the longlist means you just missed out on being an honourable mention!

Historical

Honourable Mentions:

Morgan Sciacca, Kim M. Russell, Rachel Korkos, M. M. Schreier, Erin Ferguson, Ben Brodie.

Longlist:

John Petrie, David Lontok, Kristina Harris, Elizabeth Liang, Jonathan Braunstein, Lindsey Williams, Tinamarie Cox.

Epistolary

Honourable Mentions:

Nathan Barker, Joanne Wescott.

Longlist:

Séimí Mac Aindreasa, Miruna Marin, Filip Chapman, Sara Fanella, Daniel Nathaniel III, Shabnam Younus-Jewell.

Romance

Honourable Mentions:

Britney Tracey, Rachel Smith.

Longlist:

Eileen Sceski, Emmanuel Rey Cruz, Mya Ellis.

Paranormal

Honourable Mentions:

Fletcher AI A Latagan, Bean Sawyer, Valeria Yarusova.

Longlist:

Tom Knowles, Dillon R. Morgan, Carmen Major, Lauren Wesley-Smith, Marilyn Caladine, Amy Radbourne, Kate Nye, Cat Zablocki, Amanda Hurley, Ronita Sinha, Laura Waldorff.

Dystopian

Honourable Mentions:

Christine Leaf, Sara Ray, Laura Varney.

Longlist:

Michael Forsythe, Amanda Fox, Jonny Thompson, Sarah Haggett, Austin Brinster.

Humour

Honourable Mentions:

David Patten.

Longlist:

Justin Rulton, Jan McEwan, Julia Tran, Rachel Kulp, Mary Lawton, James Hancock, Helen Dudley, Nimisha Kantharia.

Thriller

Honourable Mentions:

Adrienne Hertler, Sally Curtis.

Longlist:

S. K. Randhawa, Julie Staines, Lisa Van Galen, Stephen Penn, Viktoria Dahill.

Science Fiction

Honourable Mentions:

D. L Taylor.

Longlist:

Ben Wakefield, August Van Stralen, Katie Jordan, Jamie Richard Ogden, Gail A. Webber, Paul Harris, Hannah P. Simmons, Steven Lance.

Fantasy

Honourable Mentions:

Sydnie Hellman, Drew Smylie.

Longlist:

Peter Coupe, Raihaan Akram, Ezra Michaels.

Crime

Honourable Mentions:

Morgan Taylor, Caitlin Mazur, J. S. Savage.

Longlist:

Dayna Anieka, Ella Rainz, Lisa Ewing, Emma Claridge, Krishangee Tayal.

Horror

Honourable Mentions:

A. O. Henderson, Rose Esposito, Hana Johnson, Asher McMahon, E. D. Human.

Longlist:

Raeesah Chandlay, Saahil Poonawala, Kerr Pelto, Fiona M. Campbell, Armand Diab, Jessi Adams, Chris Haddlesey, Saim Khurshid Malik.

Magical Realism

Honourable Mentions:

J. C. Roskell, Nicole Connor, Bethany Lucas, Cindy Bennett, Josephine Queen, Judith Wilson.

Longlist:

Anusha Anwer, Philip Scrown, Maria Dean, Deryn Pittar, Lanie Benison, Jinny Alexander, Hadyn Sparkes, Cassandra Sachar.

and the winner is…

Dustin Gillham

Noah

(Dystopian)

When Noah is done bathing, he flings away the water under the scorching wall of the abandoned warehouse. There's a short rainbow from the splash. He fills the basin again, takes off his shirt, and splashes himself wet. He soaks and rinses and dries himself with a torn-up towel. Noah puts away a razor and brushes his teeth. He squats in the raw clay and looks about. A warm silence hangs over the foggy riverfront. Over the stained and leaning clamored shacks and over the empty lots and fields of colored sludge and over the cradled waste of the railway road, he observes the stone and mud of the river shore.  

Something that looks like a rat without a tail comes out of the weeds below him and crosses the open like a wind-up toy. It scuttles from sight beneath the warehouse wall. Noah spits and rinses his mouth. A vagrant witch known as Mother Darkness is going along front street towards the store. She's a frail and bent figure with a black cane, and she labors through the heat. 

Noah rises and collects his things and moves along the dry ground beside the edge of the warehouse and across the fields. He sees a large black cat that struggles between the weeds and pulls a short fish length. Noah shouts and waves at it. He hobbles along gingerly towards the stubble.  

When Noah approaches the cat, it squares up and hisses at him. It's a starved and hackling creature that postures down with a razor spine, holding on to the fish. Noah throws a rock at it. The cat's ears are cocked slantwise against its head and its tail jerks. He throws another rock that bounces off its stark ribs. The cat drops the fish and howls at Noah, still cocked on its bony elbows. 

"Damn you!" Noah yells. He casts about until he reaches for a massive clod of dirt, and he crumbles it over the animal. The cat squalls and scrabbles away and shakes its head. Noah retrieves the fish and looks it over. He rinses it in the river, gathers up his other fish, piles them in his washbasin, and moves on. 

The houseboat is nearly unendurable with the day's sun on the tin roof. He finds a clean shirt and puts away his trousers in a cardboard container with a heap of other damp clothing. He dresses and takes his shoes, socks, and towel out onto the deck. He sits and looks out into the rails with his feet trailing in the water.  

Noah dries his feet, puts on a pair of socks and shoes, and combs his hair. He wraps the fish inside a paper bag and ties it with a string, then looks to see if he's forgotten anything at the door and leaves. Small children lift their tiny palms when Noah reaches the street. He ignores them, climbs up from the river, and walks towards the city. Early in his life, Noah had found a shortcut from the river in the old gardens on the river bluff. It's a winding path with cinder paving that angles up behind old homes of blackened boarding and old porches, their rusted screening fallen down from the rotten facades.  

He passes under one high window, hearing a dull mutter of sullen oaths. Some form of witchcraft with evil intentions, he thinks. Noah no longer takes the main path, going the long way around by the streets instead. The curses are muttered from a new window. So large was the house the man shared with his blackened soul, and he could still watch the fishermen come and go. In his later years, the maleficent man had become confined altogether. He kept watch as an old man dimly seen in window corners. 

Noah proceeds through the market street with its share of derelict trucks piled with produce and flowers. It holds an atmosphere rank with country commerce. A smell of farming goods in the air tending off with a light surmise of putrefaction. Pariahs adorn the walkways along with blind singers, organists, and Psalmists with mouth harps.  

Past hardware stores, meat markets, and little tobacco shops is a strong smell of food in the hot noon like working mash. Mute and roosting peddlers watch from their wagon beds. There are flower ladies with bonnets that look like cowled gnomes with hands composed in their apron laps. Noah hears a cacophony of vendors and beggars and wild street preachers. They scream of a lost world and the impending flood with a vigor unknown to the sane. Noah admires them with their hot eyes and dogeared bibles. They are God's barkers that have gone forth into the world like the prophets of old. He stands along the edge of the crowd for some stray scrap of news.  

"And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every living thing that is in the earth shall die. So, ask yourselves, brothers and sisters, are you ready for the end of all things?" 

With this pronouncement, it begins to rain, and the flood comes. The nameless and the lands are scrambled and lost. 

Only Noah remains.

—

Dusk lasts longer than he'll ever be able to forget—a night like too many others. The sleeping bag is soaked, and the thistles need to be re-pulled. He lies on the ground. Edema in his legs. He feels like his feet will pop, and he cries in pain as he rubs and itches without relief. Noah tries to imagine God, but the pain makes it so he can't remember. The cold, wet earth above the tarp is infectious. It takes almost an hour to stop the trembling, but soon he sleeps. The thunder forces the rain downwards as the wind blows it at a sharp angle. It takes a while, but slowly it subsides, and he pulls himself to his knees even slower. The clouds make everything dreary and still, but he knows he has to move. Noah's cough grows to a booming crescendo, and he holds his mouth to dampen what becomes a suffocated choke. He reminds himself that dawn is a long time coming, but it will come.  

Noah stands within the hour and circles a tree he names Genesis. Many of them are given names, and this one is vast and bold. He opens his mouth. A subtle O at first. Then broader and broader. His cheeks begin to burn. His eyes glance at the East, and eventually, dawn approaches. He waits for the light of day. He starts to cough again, and it takes his entire being from bellowing out in hoarse groans. Noah tucks a handful of wet grain in the side pocket of torn army pants. The rest he carries in a rucksack. Noah tells himself that another day will do. Just a chance, he thinks. Pine needles drape his face, and his brain swims in his head. He's too weak to walk, so he slows to a halt. When day falls to the outer darkness, he unfastens the backpack straps. He lays out the tarp and begins to pull the thistles, but he gives up. 

At nightfall, tremors of terror make him scream and shriek. He covers his ears, and after a while, his screaming stops, and he laughs until he cries. His body shakes with tremors, and he stiffens and bites his lips. The seizure passes. 

Across a swamp and to the North, he views something in the shape of a small country farmhouse. Past all the trees and an abandoned logging road are cattails and willows—the swamp bearing the likeness of all things dead and decaying. There's a rocky framed wall, a rotting fence, and an empty mailbox. A small road leads to the house. Dead trees are strewn beyond, sitting silent and adorned with a shawl of hazy fog. He tries to rest, but his brain won't divert from the possibility of shelter, food, and resupply. 

He rises and moves out towards the swamp. He passes blackened and gross nobs of tree stumps to which none can be named because they're dead. The swamp grass rises to the level of his knees. He puts his foot in the farmhouse door and listens amidst the pale rays of notched light. He walks along cobwebbed rooms and dust-frosted halls. He hears nothing. He climbs squeaking stairs, and he is so weak that he's not sure he will make the journey beyond the final tread and riser. Noah shuffles to the last banister knob and looks out to a murky, gray, and dead world. 

At the end of the hall, he finds the room of a decaying old skeleton, and he sits on the bed with his head swirling and dizzy, and he no longer discerns where he is or where he has come from. The skeleton takes on the form of a being of light then subsides into flesh and bone and man. Noah's pain passes for a while, and for the first time in decades, he sees God.

"You guys are the same. All you ever do is talk about dying. Seems like a silly morale booster if you ask me."

"When you get older in life, you have to start considering it. Death and all. It's like a part of who we all are."

"Not sure I'm following. We are talking like obsessing over dying or dying itself. Those are two different things."

Noah can't catch his thoughts, and he remains lost between conscious and unconsciousness.

"Come again? I'd asked about the time, didn't I? I thought you were going to tell me what time it was?" 

The animated figure before him tilts his watch through dim ghost-like shadows.

"I can't see very good here."

"You want something to drink? I got some milk."

Noah pulls an old canning jar filled with green and blue mold from his rucksack.

"No, thank you."

He drinks a gooey sludge and considers the unexpected company.  

"I'm seeing around 7:48."

Noah wipes something like green moss from his upper lip and rubs his eyes. 

"We all gotta go sometime."

The conversation begins to muddy like the texture of the surrounding swamp. The glowing man sits in the chair by the table, still holding his watch in the palm of his hand.  

"I said we all got to go sometime. You get older, and you think about it. A young fella' like you."

"Why'd you keep me here?"

"You're Noah, aren't you? The simple fisherman who lived in a boat?"

"What's in a name when there's nobody around to speak it?"

"I just did, son. I was passing and thought I'd stop by to remind you."  

Noah leans back against the wall and sips the gooey curdles. He could feel the air in the cracks like cold wires. The apparition watches Noah, transfixed like a curious cat.

"If I'm going to cross that swamp tonight, I may as well start now. Keep going, Noah. That's all a man can hope to do."

"You take care."

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you weren't like the rest. I'm satisfied you ain't dead. The entire story carries one name, and it's yours. I'll look for you again when it's your time."

"Okay."

After a while, the shimmering figure heaves up his shoulders, sighs, and puts his watch away in his pocket. He rises and adjusts his cap.  

"The wickedness of men held no end, son. I kept you here for a reason. Take it for what it's worth. You won't know that reason in this life."

Noah doesn't get up from the bed, and just when the pain and loneliness returns, the memory raises his hand and goes out into the night, leaving a cobwebbed skeleton of rotting marrow and bone behind.