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S W #00056

F L A S HW I N N E R S

2 0 1 3 2 Kerry Hood Charlotte Josephs Kathryn Clark Jennifer

Gryzenhout Chris Connolly Emma Viskic

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very Day by Kerry Hood

Every day, she dresses before sun is up; boils chai; scoops yesterdaysdhal onto a roti. Next, she takes a bottle of yellow oil and kneads it intoher forehead and shrivelled lobe, the greedy skin sucking salve into itscorrugations, lapping the lips and tight space below her nose. Amina isthirty-two.

Every day she walks through the empty compound, feeling hertwo sons asleep over the wall of the second enclosure and hearing anold man hurl spit across the grain earth. Every day Amina is sent to the

airport. She rides a blue-smoke moped. She pretends its a bicycle. Shelifts her feet and speeds down Red Dust Road past plastic bagsbreathing with flat striped lungs in the ditches.

She zooooooooooooooms. along the villas inthe Portuguese Quarter, feeling through her closed lids the bladeshadows of their shutters.

In the real world she must keep an eye open. She stands atDepartures, one hand held out, the other making a hunger sign. Shedoes this because she was once disobedient then punished by her

husband and mother-in-law with a colourless liquid. Her right eye isburned away. Pleated rinds of scar tissue make it impossible to smile,as if she would with her children hidden from her. They believe she isdead. Every day Amina puts an ear to her tiny window and hears themrunning breath-heavy from bully cousins. She beats her own headknowing theyll forget her.

Only, this day shes still in her room, the yellow oil a glassy lake onher face. Shes listening for the exact silence that means its safe.Shushing herself, she treads across the compound. Soon shes pushing

the moped along the road. Shes not going to the airport. The sun isalmost up. She must hurry. She has stolen her children.Shes been planning for a month, since the airport worker had

folded the note onto her palm. (Lately, porters and cleaners had beenstaring at Amina, whispering in packs). Now they suddenly appeared,moving forward from all sides. She panicked. Dropped the note. Saw itwas an address for Womens Refuge. Knew it would be impossible. Shewas on her knees. Someone brought her to her feet. The workers beganfiling past, smiling, filling Aminas hands until despite her baldness she let down her headscarf to catch fountains of notes, coins,messages of luck.

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The eldest sits behind Amina on the moped, his arms binding herribs. The little one is on her lap gripping her sari in his fists. All are open-mouthed, afraid, complete. The little one turns to stare at Amina. He

traces the ruts from eye socket to throat; lifts the corners of her defacedmouth. The eldest stretches up to her ear.We will have every day! he shouts over the throttle. Every day,

mumma! Amina nods. There will be every day to practise but just now she tries,oh she really tries, to do her first beautiful smile.

he Unexpected Arrival of the Black Guyby Charlotte Josephs

When I told him Id chosen him as the character in a story, he chuckledand dug his fingers into his bush-like hair. I could feel his right leg

vibrating against the table, sending splashes of my tea onto the woodensurface.Call it the unexpected arrival of the black guy, he said.

The sun had painted the sky orange and pink with wisps of white cloudwhen Lauras trip back to the University of East Anglia began. The walkto the train station wasnt a particularly long one, but that day it seemedto take hours. Lauras travel case weighed a ton, and even with the twoof us dragging it, the twenty-minute walk was verging on forty.

Fucking shitty wheels. Waste of money, this case, she cursed aswe dragged it over the icy ground. The case groaned in response; agritty ripping sound that tore through my eardrums and made mecringe. We were silent for a while, as the frosty wind ripped through ourcoats and scratched at our skin. Pulling my scarf up over my face, Igrunted and forced myself through the wind. The case gripped the earthas we heaved it up the curb and we heard a pop. The second wheelhad broken and my right arm was beginning to ache with the strain. Bythe time we reached the station, Id switched arms more times than I

could remember.

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I cant believe Im not gonna see our Gaz for six months and hehasnt even come to say bye, Laura sighed as we waited on platformone. The train left in ten minutes. He just sent me a text asking wherewe are. I told him what time my train was at yesterday. Hes at ours.

I sighed Thats shit and it was. Were pretty close, the three ofus. We even bought each other the exact same Christmas presents, justin different colours you know the saying, great minds.

The sky grasped our attention as we waited. Stars were beginningto crawl into sight as orange faded to blue. It matched my mood as theclock counted down to the departure of my twin. Looking over to her, Isaw that she was as miserable as me. She looked up and shrugged atme in understanding. We went back to watching the stars. The trainwaiting at the red light when we heard him.

LAURRRAAA, he called in his classic Tarzan expression. Hisbrown afro bobbed up and down as he ran, flailing his arms and legs inthe air like a clown. It was clear by the colour of his face red, ratherthan his natural caramel brown and the heaving of his breath that hedrun the entire way down from our house.

Bet you didnt expect to see me here.

he List by Kathryn Clark

I wake with the taste of burnt cabbage in my mouth. I never sleep in theday. It must be the tablets. The world outside has been silenced bysnow. Here, in the house, the light is pale green. Its like waking underwater.

I look at the clock. Time to go to school. I fill my pockets with sparegloves and miniature chocolate bars.

Cutting up the snicket and across the field, the snow goes over myankles. Mine are the only footprints. No one else has walked this way.When I get to the lane an old Land Rover rumbles ahead, churning thesnow to porridge.

At the school gate, I stop. The playground is crowded with snowmen,staring with stony eyes. The home-time hum is starting up. Parents

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coming to pick up their children pass by me with eyes turned away. Ishouldnt have come.

Laura! Laura! Sandys calling out to me. Shes waving as if wevearranged to meet. Swathed in a pink and red shawl, shes like an exotic

flower against the heavy sky. She hugs me; stands with her glovedfingers on my cheeks, like a lover staring into my eyes.We start to walk.Look at the snowmen, she says. Arent they amazing?I nod, but they scare me, frozen there, doing nothing, stuck, unable to

move until they melt away into nothing.We bribe her boys with chocolate to come away from the snowball

battle. Theyre flagging anyway, faces sore from snow and snot.Benji, the youngest, accepts my offer of dry gloves; then puts his

hand in mine. At his touch an arrow shoots up my arm and into myheart.These are Jems gloves, he says.I nod.Where is he? he asks.Hes with his Dad, I say.Do they live with their Dad now, him and Meena?Theyre sort of on holiday.Theyre missing all the snow, says Benji.

Sandy makes tea while I sit at her kitchen table. Her to-do list sits infront of me. I remember it, the list. In the middle between phoneplumber, Freddie new trainers, workshop plan, nit lotion, tax return, Isee my name, highlighted, starred, underlined. I take up her pen andcross me out.

I havent written a list for months. No need, once there was only me,once everyone was gone. Nothing I had to remember, except to takethe tablets.

I flip over the page to a new sheet and write:

To do list:

1. Get my children back

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Liminal World by Jennifer Gyrzenhout

An orange half-light pokes through the tent flap turning the insideaglow. He slides a lumpy red sleeping bag over our unclothed bodies,and the two colours twist and clash into a yolky dome above us. Theflap flutters with each puff of air as we cavort zealously. Utter chaos.Some coalition of nervousness and longing, of the cool draft seeping infrom outside, vying with the hot air inside, of being on the cusp ofdiscovery in this liminal world of tangled limbs and joints. His name isRichard and his breath plays a terse tune like that of a trumpet against

the point where my neck meets my shoulder. I move my legs in time,like an awkward child learning to dance on a crooked stage,haphazardly spinning pirouettes and fumbling for balance. The cricketschirp from behind the wings and the leaves in the trees rustleappreciatively.

Afterwards we sit outside gulping at the fresh, cool air, holdinghands. We watch the fronds of grass whisper as frogs jump and croakin the enigmatic night. Weve conquered a mountain, discovered asecret hidden in the depths of the deepest, darkest sea, a treasure

trapped inside a treasure chest and only we have the key. We think notof permanence but only of the moment as delicious as every juicy dropof a bright red strawberry on our tongues in the hot summer.

It is a good thing we do not yet know how quickly it will fade.

ooks by Chris Connolly

You look at her sitting there on the steel bench on the platform, tryingnot to look like youre looking but hoping she looks up and notices youlooking and looks back at you in the same way. She looks good moreimportantly she has that look about her and you hope youre lookinggood today too, but its been a long day and its windy your hair must

be all over the place so you look at your reflection in your phone, then

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look stealthily around to make sure no one is watching as you fix thestray hairs and hope they stay fixed.

You keep looking over, but shes absorbed in a magazine Itscalled Look, one of those glossy magazines that have celebrities on

the cover looking either too fat or too skinny. You think she has thebalance between too fat and too skinny just right. You look at thetimetable 3 minutes then back at her. She really is good-looking.

She looks up when she sees the train arriving and you try to lookcasual yet sexy sexy? How do you look sexy on a train platform? incase she looks at you, but she doesnt, she looks straight past you, andyou look to the heavens pleading for some luck, even though you knowtheres no one looking down on you because you dont believe in all ofthat.

The train arrives, and you dawdle behind as she looks for a seat.You get the one opposite her lucky and shes looking out thewindow with a dreamy look in her eyes. Maybe shes dreaming aboutmeeting someone. Maybe youre just what shes looking for. Thensuddenly she notices you looking and looks you straight in the eyes andsmiles. You blush and look away, then look back and smile a secondtoo late. Awkward.

She goes back to looking out the window; you must look like aneejit, blushing like a little girl. You look at her reflection in the windownow because you dont want to keep looking directly at her in case youlook like some sort of a weirdo Jesus, are you a weirdo? and yousee now up close that she really looks beautiful. Youre looking forsomething to say, some way of breaking the ice, but people dont dothat really, do they? It looks good in the movies, maybe, but on acrowded train in Ireland on a Monday evening? Youd look ridiculous.

You look at her through the window as she gets off at her stop she looks just as good from behind and see her looking for someone.Theres a man there, waiting for her. Hes good-looking. She lookshappy. Boyfriend. Just your luck.

You sigh and look at them leaving as the train pulls away, rootaround in your handbag looking for your make-up and wonder toyourself why youre always looking in the wrong places, wonder whyyou always pick the straight ones.

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ost and Found by Emma Viskic

I'm drinking hot chocolate with my daughters when I find my mother. Acaf is an unexpected place to come across a miracle, but there she is just tables away. Almost within reach of her unmet grandchildren.Something bright fills me and I stand up, heart open. The girls raise theirfaces towards me like expectant sunflowers.

Look, I go to tell them. Look, there she is: the one who gave youyour neat pink fingernails, your heel-digging stubbornness, your voiceslike larks. But the words lodge in my chest, unspoken. The woman is

too young, too short, nothing like my mother at all, really.Oh, I say instead. Dont worry. Its nothing.

Their heads lower to their drinks, I sit down and the world continues;the colours a little muted after the unexpected brightness. Not-Mumstirs sugar into her espresso and takes a sip. What a ridiculous mistaketo have madeMum never drank black coffee. And, anyway, shesbeen dead for twenty years.

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W R I T E R P R O F I L E S

Kerry Hood has written ten plays includingMeeting Myself Coming Back for Soho Theatre(published by Oberon Books, a Sunday TimesCritics Choice, British Theatre Guide Highlight ofthe Year, shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award, highly commended in London EveningStandard Awards); Caution! Trousers (for Alan Ayckbourn at Stephen Joseph Theatre); Talking forEngland (Ustinov Theatre Bath, shortlisted 2010 Adrienne Benham Award) and My Balloon BeatsYour Astronaut (Tristan Bates Theatre). She hashad residencies at Traverse Theatre Edinburgh,National Theatre London and most recently withWriters Guild at RADA to develop her new playThese Stretched-Out Streets .

Recent stories have been shortlisted/placed in TheBridport Prize, BBC Opening Lines, Mslexia,Lightship Publishing and Limnisa. People Like Herappears in The Bristol Prize 2012 Anthology Vol 5 .Of All The Whole Wild World was recorded live in2013 from Bath Literary Festival and broadcast onBBC Radio 4.

Tell us a secret! As a teenager, teachers made me choose betweencontinuing ballet or hockey following a term of meturning up to the former caked in mud from thelatter. I gave up ballet, stuck with tap dancing andmade the thrilling discovery that you can do a tripletime-step even with dirty knees.

Which short story would make a great film?Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'The HandsomestDrowned Man in the World' would make a great

(very short) film. It's bonkers and beautiful.

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Charlotte Josephs was born into a working classfamily in 1992. Her mother comes from a smallmining town in South Yorkshire and her father is aJamaican immigrant. She began writing at a young

age, at first to improve the "messy" handwritingthat her father criticized, and later to exercise herown imagination. Before writing, Charlotte used totell stories to both her twin and younger sister atbedtime. Charlotte is currently living, working andimproving her handwriting in France, but will returnto the UK to finish her degree in English Literatureand Creative Writing at The University of Hull.

Tell us a secret!In Primary School, my twin sister and I were placedin separate classes so that the teachers wouldn'tget confused. Whenever we had tests, we'd switchclasses so that she always did the Maths testtwice, and I always did the English test twice.

Which short story would make a great film?I'd love to see Margaret Atwood's I'm starved for

you made into a film

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Kathryn Clark lives in rural Gloucestershire. Shehas always written, but kept it to herself untilrecently. In 2011 she began entering short storycontests as a way of getting past the fear of other

people reading her work. So far she has beenhighly commended in several competitions andplaced second in one. In between houserenovations, the family business, two daughters, ahusband and an addiction to DVD boxed sets, sheis working on a novel for children.

Tell us a secret!Hardly anyone knows that despite looking like atypical middle-aged mum, somewhat soggy roundthe middle, and with couch potato tendencies, I ama black belt (2nd Dan) in Tae Kwon Do.

Which short story would make a great film?I would like to a film version of Alice Walkers:How did I Get Away with Killing One of the BiggestLawyers in the State? It was Easy. This is a veryshort story written in the child-like voice of a youngblack woman. On the surface it tells the story ofthe narrators youth, but throughout Walkerexamines issues of race, gender, segregation andcivil rights in America. It is a very powerful story,simply told with some harrowing content, and I feel,a hopeful ending.

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Jennifer Gryzenhout is from Canada and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She has also lived inJapan and Norway, teaching in internationalschools. She leads creative writing lessons for The

Writers Studio in Amsterdam, and is studying forher MFA in creative writing through the Universityof British Columbias optional-residency program.She writes primarily fiction and creative non-fiction,and most recently translated a TV documentary forchildren from Dutch to English. This is her first realwriting competition honour. She has put down andlooks forward to the day when she can sit in hernew writing room in her new house; to when shecan gaze over the Dutch polder beyond herbackyard and write, read and tend to her fledglingvegetable garden. In January, she began writing amonthly magazine column about the developmentof the garden. She is also working on a novel whenshe can find the time to put the words on the page.

Tell us a secret!Something that not too many people know aboutme is that I was once a hair model. They cut mybrown, mid-back length naturally wavy hair to chin-length, dyed it purple, spiked the top and teased itsideways

Which short story would make a great film? A short story that Ive always wanted to see turnedinto a film is The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. I would also welcome a modern filmrendering of Shirley Jacksons The Lottery.

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Chris Connolly was born in Dublin in 1983. HisLiterary Magazine, The New Guard Review, theIrish Independent, Cranng, WordLegs, TheGalway Review, Boyne Berries, the National Flash

Fiction Day Anthology 2013, and has beenbroadcast on RT Radio. In 2012 he was thewinner of the Canon Sheehan Perpetual Literary Award. His work has twice been shortlisted for theRT Francis McManus Award and the FishInternational Short Story Competition, and in 2012he was shortlisted for the Over The Edge: NewWriter of the Year Award and was a runner-up inthe Penguin/RT Short Story competition. He iscurrently shortlisted for the Hennessy XO Literary Awards. Every Day I Atrophy, a collection of hisstories from the website Outsideleft, was publishedby theSideCartel and is available on Amazon.

Tell us a secret!Sometimes, late at night when I'm driving alone, Iimagine I'm driving a bus...

Which short story would make a great film?The story I would like to see made into a film isPopular Mechanics by Raymond Carver.

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Emma Viskic is a Melbourne-based writer andclassical musician. Her musical career has rangedfrom playing with Jose Carreras to an audience of10,000, to a wedding where the groom demanded

to know where the fourth member of the trio was.She has always been attracted to crime fiction: herfirst play, at age eight, was a good, wholesomemurder mystery. A little more recently, her shortstory, The Hero, won this years Thunderbolt Prizefor Crime Writing. She has also had stories placedor shortlisted in the Scarlet Stiletto Award, theThunderbolt Prize and the Ned Kelly S.D. HarveyShort Story Award. Emma is currently putting thefinishing touches on her crime novel, ResurrectionBay.

Tell us a secret!I once walked into a theatre full of people whiledressed only in my pyjamas. Why? It's a longstory.

Which short story would make a great film?The short story I would most like to see made intoa film isThe Boat by Nam Le.

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