Fortunate Encounters (WINNER, JUDGES’ PICK)

By Claire Louise Marsh

“Why?” Jess wiped goop off her face. Who carries eggs around? Sadistic Barbie-wannabe, future burger technician.   

School sucked. Not just because of Penny’s egg-hurling. Next was double maths, with Freaky Fuller.  

Voo-woo-bang. 

A smouldering meteor-type-thingy, the dimensions of classroom 9F, had crash-landed. On classroom 9F. Flat-packing Mr Fuller. 

It cracked in two. Like, well, an egg. Gnome-sized orange aliens, six legs, two heads; hundreds crawled out. Screaming, students and staff scattered. They chased. 

Jenny froze, watching chaos befall.

Fighting over one morsel, three aliens with six mouths, chomping. Pop! Split apart, innards spilled. A pink dress lay shredded. RIP Penny.   

Between the Sheets (RUNNER UP, JUDGES’ PICK)

By Jay McKenzie

I wrote about you in a purple notebook when I was young. Described your crooked teeth, the peppered bridge of freckles straddling your nose. I couldn’t make you too perfect. They’d have guessed that I made you up: borrowed your smile from films, stole your poet-soul from stories. 

She whispers my name, I told them, and it’s music. 

When they found the book, my lies nestled inside, they jeered. Tore you from the pages, left you tattered on the floor. 
And now here you are, whispering my name from behind your crooked teeth, writing me in your purple notebook.

Hidden Treasures

By N. L. Buckley

Keen to shake her grief away, Hannah entered the antique bookstore her mother used to love.

She perused the shelves, her fingers tracing faded titles and a dusty tome caught her eye, its pages whispering tales of adventure and promise.

Remembering the stories her mother would read to her, Hannah bought it.

Weeks later, as rain pelted the windows, she found a letter tucked within the book in a hidden pocket.

Familiar writing stared back at her, the comforting looping script of the woman she missed so dearly.

“Dear Hannah, I knew you would choose this book one day….”

In the Beech Wood

By Rosemary Lux

Placing her basket of foraged blackberries carefully on the ground, Kerrie bent and stared at the plant. Otherworldly bloom floating in space against the beech tree’s trunk, sweet fragrance a hint in the dusk, just a single flower. She gazed, wide-eyed, burning the beauty deep into her memory.

“I searched for you so long. I’d given up.” She whispered, fearful she might frighten her discovery into disappearing. “You were just here all along.”

Kerrie sat by the ghost orchid, eating blackberries and watching moths dancing their response to the flower’s call as moonlight began to cast its glow.

Quest

By James Hancock

“It looked like an old battered bowl, so I threw it out. Sorry.”

“Dad, it’s my Viking drinking cup for the school play tomorrow.”

“Don’t panic. I’ll get you another.”

The promise wasn’t easy to keep. Nothing in the town’s market or antique shop, and I didn’t have time for anything online. Fortunately, $2 purchased a wooden cup from a local yard sale. A little small, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Such a plain thing. Who knew that drinking from it would cure infections and diseases? The Holy Grail was a fluke discovery which now fetches me $500 a sip.

Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills

By Barrie McDonald

The rush was in full swing when Jake set off for California to make his fortune. After staking his claim, panning became his life. Listening to stories of nuggets as big as a fist in the saloon fired him. Little came his way until a gleam in his pan caught his eye. Taking his precious find to the weighing room, he waited with bated breath. His crumpled face told its story. Iron Pyrites or Fool’s Gold was his prize. Officials questioned Jake’s bloodstained hand.

‘Oh, there’s glass in my section.’

That’s how Jake became a renowned Diamond miner.

Incomplete

By Miruna Marin

I hear the fan humming in the bathroom, the fridge growling, a sparrow fluttering by the window. The world, devoid of her polyphony, sounds incomplete. Where are you? I call her. The impossible thought of her somehow managing to leave the apartment brings my heart to my ears. Now all I can hear is blood throbbing, like she must have heard it in those first nine months. Then I remember the wardrobe where she likes to hide with her plushies. There you are! I hug her. I'm so glad you found me, I say. You found me, mommy. I smile.

Whispers of the Winding Streets

By Déborah Graziani

Wandering aimlessly through the streets of New York City I stumbled upon an old bookstore. The musty scent of ancient pages drew me in. Among the dusty tomes I found a vintage journal and discovered a forgotten haiku inside:

“Clumsy steps astray, 

Bookstore's whisper, chance embrace, 

Haiku's path revealed.”

Since then, that forgotten haiku became my guide to explore the world in concise verses. By a happy accident I discovered the transmuting power of poetry, a hidden treasure in the winding streets of life.

Wrong Number

By Marilyn Caladine

There was a missed call on my phone

When I was not at home

I phoned it back

“Hello, is that you Jack?”

A voice replied

“No, you have the wrong number,” I sighed

30 minutes later we were still chatting

His name was Stephen and he was into rapping

Just like me he liked, horses, dogs and cars

But best of all he was into guitars

He could have been my long lost brother

It turned out he was ... when I described my mother

Suddenly it was an epiphany

Or perhaps it was serendipity

Classic Love

By Séimí Mac Aindreasa

“Well, it was love at first sight, wasn’t it dear? That night, when chance brought us together, we just knew it was meant to be. Oh, our families weren’t happy about it, not one bit! They said it could never last at our age, it wasn’t right, wasn’t natural. 

But we persevered and look at us now: together five years so far, and still going strong. When I think back – imagine if you’d reached into that bowl and fished out some other guy’s car keys, would we have been so happy? I doubt it.”

Sam (86) & Elsie (79), Swingers.

Eureka

By Maria Achihaitei

The crown basks in the blaze of the setting sun. Pure gold –or not.

Numbers and figures dance on the scrolls scattered across the study. I squint, but they only seem to laugh harder at my inability to grasp them. Volume… complex, elusive volume…

It is high time for a break. The King can wait. My bath cannot. 

Goosebumps cover my skin as my tunic slides to the floor, but soon a wave of warmth washes them away, along with my concerns and days’ worth of sweat. 

Water spills from the tub. 

Cold forgotten, I leap out and start running.

A Lesser-Known Legend of the Old West

By David Klotzkin

“I’ll win,” Wyatt snarled.  “I was born lucky.”

Well, Amos had a pile of coins in front of him, and Wyatt’s pants and shirt and bloomers.  Wyatt had nothin’ in front of him and nothin’ on him, neither, just his handlebar mustache.   

“Aces and eights,” said Bart.

“Three queens,” said Amos.  

“Where’d my luck go,” Wyatt grumbled, while the barber shaved off ten years of growin’. 

The Texas Ranger burst in, wanted poster in hand, showin’ Wyatt dressed to the nines, mustache thick as a coon-tail.  

“Guldarnit,” said the Ranger.  “He ain’t here.”  

‘Cuz Wyatt had lucked out after all.

Peter Under Pressure

By Holly Grover Brandon 

Peter Johnson was well past his prime. 

His wife meant well, but nagged all the time. 

“You’re always tired; I miss the romancing.

We used to make love; used to go dancing.”

He knew she was right. He vowed to make changes. 

He went to a doctor, for it’d been ages. 

Blood pressure was high; cholesterol too. 

A prescription was written— the drug was brand new. 

Peter went home with pride in his posture.

His wife read the bottle of pills as he watched her. 

“Viagra?” she asked. Peter grinned. “Correct.

I believe we’ll enjoy this new drug’s side effect.”

A Lucky Break

By Moby Barker

Bouldering. Stupid hobby, especially when you’re self-employed. I fell fifteen feet and broke my arm in three places.  At first it was the pain. Not just in my arm but in my face where I’d slammed it into the stony ground; the gritty taste of earth and lichen. Then, in the ambulance, as the pain receded and realization set in. Weeks off work, client’s let down, no money. And the band, our first real gig; hard to play guitar with one hand. I guess I was pretty grumpy.

I fell in love with your smile as you bandaged my arm.

The Gifts of Rome

By Chris Morris

‘Next.’ 

Tim can’t keep the boredom out of his voice. Four years and £36,000. He’d hoped his archaeology degree would have him excavating treasure, not scanning rose-scented soap.

‘That’s ninety-nine pence.’

The grey-haired lady hands Tim a gold coin. He sighs.

‘Sorry, miss. This coin’s foreign. It looks…’

A bolt of lightning strikes Tim’s heart. 

‘Oh, goodness! Sorry, dear. I found it sticking out of the grass in Richmond Park. Looks like someone’s been on holiday.’

Tim examines the coin. Latin lettering. Early fourth century. Roman. 

Solidus!

Later, by the new blackthorns in Richmond Park, Tim finds another. And another.