1. A Bit Like Antony Gormley…

   By Anne Gilchrist

I sculpt everyone I know; acquaintances, colleagues, neighbours, into damp sandy effigies on the beach. The ones I know least are furthest away.

Inside my sandcastle, guarded by the deepest moat, I secret my children, husband and dearest friends.

Over time, sometimes falling out of favour or moving away, a few outlying figures dissolve into the waves.

I spy him, paddling at the water’s edge, oblivious to the danger, feet already crumbling. Wind whips away my warning.

High tide engulfs him.

I weep, sorely.

Flat, pristine sand stretches endlessly before me.

It’s time to hoist my spade and dig again.

2. It tastes like chicken

By Ruth Barber

The roasted lizard was a miserable meal, but five star compared to yesterday’s soup of boiled grass and twigs. John had caught it, unwisely sheltering from the mortar fire in our cabin, so we’d agreed he could have the head end. As I watched him begin to chew, I considered fighting him for it. He’d saved my life already in this war, but gnawing hunger strips away loyalty and decency. He knew it too, and held his food closer.

Gunfire cracked in the distance. How?

John licked his fingers. “They eat their own dead. I heard it tastes like chicken.”

3. Survival: It’s an Annual Affair

By Amanda Hurley

Telegraph wires resonate

unscored symphonies

a stave of hope to weary feet

homeward bound

we are muddened survivors

of a day’s long roaming.

Russet, the leaves

scent the forest with decay.

Nature has shed her skin of covering

a dance of foliage, dusted in wind

renewal is come.

There is change afoot in the world

and we are its only witnesses:

passive of its beauty

helpless to its renewal

guests at its rich buffet.

4. Food Chain

By Pete Armstrong

Heart thumping, body flattened behind a tree, the marten trembles, hardly daring to breath. She hears the soft crackling of leaves under the cougar's creeping claws. Her leg bubbles in pain, gashed open. She can still feel cat whiskers brush her fur. It was that close. A scent of fresh meat ghosts around her. She can sense her den and young across the clearing. A twig snaps. It closes in. Freeze or flight, life dangles while her kits whimper in their sleep.

A frog passes. The marten grabs, crunches, swallows. There is no time to tell the frog's story.

5. Streetwise

By Lauren-Wesley-Smith

Do what you must to survive,

But beware of the wraiths you may meet.

Don’t trust the ripples of dark city glass,

Or candies that melt,

Just a little too sweet.

Do what you must to survive,

Sharpen your claws in the throes of night

Boots splashing down in the city so slick

Those teeth grinning sharp

In the chill neon light.

Do what you must to survive,

Prowling about in low city thrum.

When grasping success, like smoke,

Let life’s victories roll off

your tongue.

6. Rigid With Fear

By Joe Reynolds

The rat-a-tat of the automatic weapons stopped, taking a breath while the boy soldiers experienced their first sexual encounters, a gunshot following each ejaculation. Didi scanned the room, her mother’s torn corpse bled beneath the shattered window; outside a weapon discharged.

She removed her clothes and crawled naked to the body, closed her eyes and grubbed amongst the entrails, wiping the blood and flesh over her own body, pushing the detritus around her groin. The door burst, a silhouette inspected the room. Motionless, her face breathing into the bosom that had once suckled her, stifling a cry, Didi waited.

The Globe Soup Writing Group chose ‘Rigid With Fear’ as their winner. Joe Reynolds wins £100! Congratulations to all our finalists and to our winner!