Write-In 2019: 'Evening in the theatre' by Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

We made it to the movie, along with Simran fifteen minutes late- his planning. Sim took a seat at the far end leaving us alone in the nearly-empty theatre. He put his swollen left leg up on the chair opposite to him so that the blood circulation was not blocked. I told myself to look beyond this new illness for hope and happiness. I didn’t want to bicker. We sat closer. Intermission time and he was ready to go out. No cool drinks; no sugary stuff; you need to get your weight under control for this clot to heal and for you to stay healthy, I said softly without upsetting him. He limped out and Sim came to sit by me. Ten minutes later he hadn’t come back. I urged her to look out. Keep an eye on what he buys, I told her. Few seconds later father and daughter were back. You sent her to spy on me? He fumed. No, I denied flatly. I didn’t tell him Ma, Sim volunteered foolishly and shrank back when I gave her a piercing look. I cursed myself for the worrywart I was and kept quiet. He went back. Sim shifted to the front row. Could he be in some emergency? Did the clot move up and choke his lung? Was he lying unconscious outside, with strangers hovering around him? Shouldn’t we have come at all? The Dolby stereo drumbeat couldn’t match my heart beat. I called Sim but she wasn’t turning back. So this was how his life was going to end- my heart sank. Restless and pinned to the seat I kept looking at the entrance. Twenty frantic minutes later, he walked in and settled into the cushion chair, his leg promptly up. I heaved a sigh of relief.     

Write-In 2019: 'The Fate of an Ant' by John Wheway

Not easy for an ant to cross sawdust. Would it feel like when he clambered over boulders and rock to get to Adriana on the beach?  Or like some un-named mother on tv news, at risk of treading on a landmine, picking her way over girders, chunks of wall, smashed pavements, to rescue her child from a pulverised house? He’d been afraid Adriana would recognise him, not as her broad-shouldered hero, but a bookish youth, about to crash into the gap between two identities.

As a boy, playing alone, he’d kicked down ant’s nests, dropped lighted newspaper onto the fleeing insects, stamped on the one that might have got away.

Today’s ant, instead of skirting the shavings on the shed floor, went head first into trouble, antennae flailing, floundering for toeholds on its ramshackle progress to nowhere.

If he carried on whittling, more shavings would rain round the ant like bombs. Adriana, Libbie, Kath, Annie, Wendy – each time he’d recovered his life, another female would upon his world.  Devastated – though in the midst of life, distracted by hope, he’d have called that an exaggeration.

Love attained, enjoyed, neglected, betrayed, destroyed. In an elegant simulation, the ant was showing life’s absurdity.

Except here he was, still, accompanied by the shed door’s friendly creak, the sunlit curtain’s fluttering. He whittled, unconcerned about the result. He had his folding table, kettle, camping stove, a mug for tea. He had the power to drip boiling water on the ant, grind out its life under his boot. Would it be kind, or cruel, to put it out of its misery?

Instead, he tore off a corner of newspaper, scooped the ant up, whisked it outside, watched it scurry over a pebble and disappear into the grass.

Write-In 2019: 'Not flowers' by Jennifer Cousins

He was a big bloke to be carrying a bunch of flowers:
Incongruous somehow. 
Hard hat, hi-vis jacket, steel-capped boots:
looked like a lumberjack
but this was a city suburb, not the Rockies.

I called out: “Those are nice”.
He laughed; seemed embarrassed. 
But then I noticed they weren’t flowers at all.
He’d been trimming the chestnut trees by the park
 and had gathered a bunch of the golden-leaved twigs:
 really pretty they were - autumnal.

“They’re for me Mam”, he said shyly. 
“That’s nice”, I said.
“She’s dead”, he added.
“Oh”, I said.
“Hated me spending money on flowers – thought it was a real waste”.

He walked towards the churchyard.
In the distance I saw him bending;
stand a while;
then he returned my way.

“It’s her birthday”, he said.
“She was really pleased”.