2020 FLASH FICTION COMPETITION WINNER
SECRET LOCATION: A Souk, Morocco
Prize: £1,000
Finalists:
“Blue Eyes” by Ruth Barber
“It Should Not Leave a Mark” by Lakshmi Kumar
“Moroccan Delights” by Lauren Wesley Smith
“It’s the Eye that Eats” by FJ Morris
“The Magic of Roses” by Nicki Blake
and the winner is…
Nicki Blake
The Magic of Roses
“You have to help me!”
Above the line of her veil, Zhirou’s eyes - blue as Essaouira’s famous doors - are full of sympathy but there is a crease between them which suggests she has wrinkled her nose.
My father doesn’t make me cover. He trusts me to be modest and I’m lucky that I can go out unveiled, sit in the open and work, unlike Zhirou who is hidden out the back of her family’s perfume stall in the souk, veiled even while alone, toiling away while her brothers supervise the shopfront with its rainbow pyramids of perfume cubes.
“I’m not sure that I can,” says Zhirou. The crease above her nose deepens.
I don’t blame her. Even in this small space where the air is rich with the jasmine of the cubes she is unpacking, the notes of stale ocean and drying blood are discernible.
I remind myself again that I’m lucky. Some girls can’t even leave the house while I get to be by the ocean every day. Father unloads the catch, I clean it - gutting and filleting. When I finish my tasks, I leave work but work does not leave me.
When I was younger, I didn’t realise how the smell of the fish clung to me. Later, I discovered that as often as I washed my clothes and myself, as often as I warmed a perfume cube in my hands to smooth the sweet wax over my skin and hair, there was always a whiff that gave my profession away. Now I am more aware of it than ever, whenever I have to walk past Badr, the jeweller’s son.
Once, I watched from behind some tourists while he was making a bracelet - beaten silver filigree like fish scales, carnelian cabochons like fish eyes, tessellations amber and blood-bright jasper. He had clever quick hands, a handsome focussed face. After that I took the same route home through the souk every time.
“Please, Zhirou,” I beg, “You must know something.”
We are about the same age. We both work. But my people are of the ocean and her people - the blue-eyed, fair-haired Amazigh people - are from the mountains. They conjure fragrance from the land - from the earth, trees, and flowers. They have tree-climbing goats that shake down the oil-producing argan seeds. They charm honey from bees. They are magical so I’m sure she has the magic to help me.
“Well, I might have something,” she says, “Come back in a week.”
“Thank you!” I say, and I go to hug her but stop when she wrinkles her nose again.
I exit the stall out into dense network of paths. The jeweller’s shop is directly opposite. Badr is not smithing today, he is selling. He calls to the tourists, tempting them to photograph his wares so they will be more likely to buy. I lift my eyes and smile as I pass. I think he smiles back, but then more customers crowd around and his smile is for them.
When I return to see Zhirou, her blue eyes are bright with excitement and some other emotion I can’t quite interpret.
“Wait until you see what I have!” she says, “You know of the rose harvest, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” She must think I’m an ignorant fishergirl, but I’ve had schooling and I know things even if I only ever travel between home and the harbour. The Amazigh collect roses to make attar - thousands and thousands of roses to make just the smallest quantity. It’s very costly and most of it is sold to the perfume-makers across the water in Faransa.
“There’s only a tiny bit - if I took the whole pot it would be missed,” She is holding a little clay jar, twisting the lid open. Immediately the recess is thick with scent, the small space turning into a world of roses.
“Wonderful. Give it to me.”
Zhirou stretches her arm across the table, passing me the jar. As she does so, her sleeve pulls back exposing a bracelet to the lantern-light. The silver glitters like fishscales. The blood-bright jasper and orange carnelians glow.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want it?”
Her pretty eyes look puzzled.
“I do. Thank you.” I say, sealing the jar, knowing I will never use the contents now.
I thank her, make an excuse, and leave.
As I pass Badr’s shop, I stop to look at the jewellery just to be certain.
“Hey, pretty girl, what do you want to buy?”
He is beside me, a big salesman’s smile on his handsome face. A smile that is replaced by the wrinkling of his nose.
I take a sharp breath in. And realise that he smells of roses.
About our winner…
Nicki Blake is a Western Australian writer whose work focusses on identity, the natural world, and the interaction between people and their environments. Nicki's writing is informed by lived experiences of working with words and a heritage both European and South-East Asian.
Her short fiction has been longlisted twice for The Cambridge Short Story Prize, made the Official Selection for The London Independent Short Story Prize, and reached the finals of the Swinwriting Flash Fiction competition at their Emerging Writers’ Festival. She has won the 2020 Writing WA/Night Parrot Press “Flashing the Cover” competition as well as a Globe Soup Micro contest. Three of her short fictions will be included in Night Parrot Press’s next anthology, due to be launched in April 2021. Her poetry has appeared in both online and print anthologies.