The 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Microfiction Competition was judged by:
- Sara Chansarkar
- Jan Kaneen
- David Rhymes
- Alison Wassell
The winning and highly commended stories can be read below and will appear in the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology. Thank you again to our four judges; their job is always extremely difficult and they carried out the task with great enthusiasm and attention to detail. You can read more about them here.
Congratulations again to all our prize-winning and highly commended authors, and to all those who were shortlisted. And, a big thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition and trusted us with their stories.
FIRST PLACE
Josie Turner
Frost Fair
Penny says there’ll be an elephant, a real elephant on the frozen Thames. No-one’s seen an elephant in England.
They are like dragons, Penny says. As big as Jonah’s whale. Covered in scales, with breath like bread ovens.
Won’t the ice melt? I ask. Penny laughs and says braziers burn all night on the river, and people skate around them to keep warm.
I think she must be mad. Dark-eyed Penelope, her wild hair like snowflakes. Her bare hands hotter than Hades. Her palms on mine.
She dares me to stand on the porcelain water, to risk the impossible.
SECOND PLACE
Leila Murton Poole
The Attempts of Arlo, Age 9, to Create a Shooting Star After Learning They Are Just Rocks Moving Very Fast
- Flings meteor sample across science classroom. Result: Broken window. Expects Miss Day to give him detention but she just sighs.
- Throws rock from car window when Mummy drives to her appointment. Result: Dented van. Driver honks but apologizes when he sees Mummy’s bandana.
- Catapults rock through bedroom window into night sky. Result: Damaged power line. Electricity surges and shoots sparks. Definitely counts. Success! Finally, Arlo makes his wish.
- Runs to Mummy’s room to tell her she will be okay. Result: Outside, a meteorite shower rains hundreds of shooting stars, painting the sky with light and hope.
THIRD PLACE
Chris Cottom
Sex, Sighs and Masking Tape
We decorate the nursery anyway, testing colours and resolve, dismissing over-the-moon magnolia but squabbling over little boy blue. After you splodge me in pumpkin-carriage orange I shrug off my shirt and let you stencil flopsy bunnies across my breasts. I smear your legs with beanstalk green and circle your heart in wolf-tongue red. Snuggled under a dustsheet, we debate Bo Peep pink or Brer Bear brown, Baa Baa black or Goldilocks blonde. When I wake, tearful again and crackly with emulsion, I coat your balls in snowman white, just as frozen, just as useless.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
(in alphabetical order by title)
Rebecca Field
Everyone Said It Was Pointless Trying to Date a Girl Obsessed With Marine Arthropods but I Had to Find out for Myself
That final time we met at the beach she told me that horseshoe crabs have blue blood and ten eyes distributed around their bodies and can grow to the size of dustbin lids and actually, they aren’t even crabs, they’re more closely related to spiders and when I reached for her hand she told me they don’t survive in captivity for more than two years before they just suddenly die and nobody has ever worked out why and her eyes filled up with tears and I knew then she’d never be into me no matter what I did.
Anne Howkins
Granny’s Biggest Handicraft Project to Date
She’s secretly knitting mum a new husband. She’s following this Australian woman on TikTok who’s crocheted a whole set of grandchildren because her daughter refuses to procreate now the world’s on fire. Granny ignored me when I said I hoped the woman was using flame resistant yarn. Granny doesn’t want more grandchildren, knitted or otherwise, she says mum needs someone to chat to and cuddle.
I’m warming to the idea of a stocking stitch father. One without sharp edges and a short fuse. One you could pull the stuffing out of and unravel when you’ve had enough of him.
Sarah Barnett
I imagine the Sun Changing Its Mind
After peeping over the horizon, it thinks better of it, slips back down, and we slide into yesterday, the air hits your lungs and sets a pulse in your heart, the car un-concertinas, skidding backwards you go, rainwater arcing down under hissing wheels, you twist and turn till you’re arrow-straight, speeding back to my drive and I’m yelling !ffo kcuf.
I imagine saying I’m sorry, that I don’t hate you, you’re my daughter. I don’t mind if you see him; it was only me he hurt. He loves you. I love you.
And you never get in that fucking car.
Sherry Morris
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
is the Meatloaf tune your brother and his bride choose for the closing dance of their shotgun wedding. At its raucous guitar start, they grab hands. Howl. Race to awkwardly gyrate before a smattering of Who’s-that? guests.
We shake heads from the sidelines. Snigger as they unironically shout-sing lyrics about a rise and fall relationship straight into each other’s faces—even the lines praying for Doomsday to arrive and erase their nuptial mistake.
Our smug-married smiles say they’ll never make it. You down your Glenfiddich, stumble to the bar, while I wonder what it’s like to share a favourite song.
Sudha Balagopal
Pearls on His Kurta
We slide
against algae-green rocks, bathed in the foam of the hurtling river
in mourning white.
We squint
because of the hot-bright sun, bubbles breaking against the bleach-pallor of our clothes,
then clutch each other before we slip the cover off the urn, second in two black years,
hush as Father's ashes eddy and blend into the swirl.
We sort
and don his shirts, floating like shrouded ghosts in the mirror,
all except his special-occasion ivory kurta,
folded next to Mother's precious jewelry box.
We strew
her pearls on his kurta, shudder-sigh as the colors meld, together,
they're one.
James Montgomery
Stars and Stripes, 1945
Tomorrow, we’ll dance to the devil’s piano.
But tonight, we’re a chorus line of brothers in arms. Skirts fashioned from flags. Mop heads for curls. The men double up as we gas about, putting on a show—till Sanderson’s turn. More himself in a dress, he finally surrenders, admits to loving a man through song: another soldier, away, fighting the same war. Some balk. Most hush. Because the truth is, he’s one of us—every stripe earned. And in these close quarters, his voice has a freedom we haven’t heard before. A quiet note of hope.
It sounds like home.
Suzanne Hicks
When we were young
we hung out in basements sitting on musty sofas, spilling beer while smoking cigarettes and weed, listening to Pink Floyd, and eating peanut butter sandwiches stuffed with mushrooms until we were tripping out so hard that we couldn’t stand being inside so we walked around our neighborhoods, seeking out places where we wouldn’t be seen in the dark as we looked up at the stars and talked about all the stuff teenagers do when they’re high as we searched for something to take us to another level, but eventually we came down except for some who kept searching.