NYC Midnight

NYC 250 Microfiction Challenge – The Loving Dead

So my attempt at a romantic comedy, involving ‘riding a merry-go-round’ and featuring the word ‘decent’, didn’t get me through to the final round of the 2023 NYC Microfiction Challenge but it did get me an honourable mention in the penultimate round. This is the best I have done to date and I’m very happy with that.

I’m especially happy as, for the first time in the three years I have been participating in this competition, I nearly gave up. I was on holiday with some friends at the time the piece had to be written and the temptation to lie in the sun and drink rum was almost too strong to resist. In fact, I didn’t write anything until the evening and only submitted with an hour left to go.

One of my friends jokingly suggested I write a zombie romance and while I initially dismissed the idea as a silly one that was beyond my writing abilities, I suddenly thought why not? I scurried inside and spent the next hour tapping away on my lap-top. When I emerged later that evening and read it to them and my husband and they all laughed out loud at the end, I did a final edit and went ahead and submitted. Honestly, I was just pleased to have actually produced something.

Image my surprise and delight then when I received an honourable mention for The Loving Dead. Here it is for you pleasure and (I hope) amusement.

The Loving Dead

Eliza was riding the merry-go-round the day Jacob caught her eye. As she had for the seven years since the world died. Doomed to wander forever between the prancing carousel horses, hands brushing over faded, peeling manes and rusting carriages.

Her looks had been decent once. But now, soft curves were long withered and leathered. Summer frock, tattered strips of yellow gingham. Once-blue eyes, dirty grey and clouded. Plump, pink cheeks, sunken and brown. But she still had hair! A few surviving auburn wisps clinging precariously to an otherwise bare skull. And teeth too! Albeit a couple of tombstones jutting crookedly from her lower jaw.

Jacob was a carnie. For the same seven years he had circled the carousel, clothes gone to rags, coins rattling in the leather money belt that dangled from his wizened frame. Shuffling around and around, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. If she had been able to recall, Eliza would have remembered his twinkling green eyes, his jaunty smile, the tanned smooth skin of his muscled forearms below the rolled up cuffs of his blue plaid shirt.

The chances of Jacob passing at the exact moment that Eliza stumbled over a broken foot plate causing her right eye to pop from its socket, were next to nothing. But it hit his chest and bounced into the hand he raised reflexively to catch it. Jacob paused. Looked up. His eyes met her remaining one and the rest, as they say, was history.

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NYC 250 Microfiction Challenge – Corn

This year, the only NYC Midnight competition I entered was the 250-word Microfiction Challenge. It kicked off in November 2022, when 5,439 writers submitted their Round 1 assignments in 125 groups containing approximately 44 writers per group.

My challenge was to write a story in the Suspense genre that involved ‘getting lost’ and featured the word ‘sound’.

I wrote a story called Corn (which you can read below) and am delighted to say that it got me through to the next round by the skin of my teeth, coming in at 9^th in the top 10 places.

So, my Round 2 challenge, which came through last week, was to write a Romantic Comedy, that involves ‘riding a merry go round’ and features the word ‘decent’. This round places the 1,250 remaining writers in 25 groups of around 50.

Romantic Comedy is possibly my least favourite genre ever. Funnily enough though, I recently had a go at a Romance short story for a JAMS homework prompt, but it’s very much out of my comfort zone.

I spent most of the day getting absolutely nowhere and had almost given up when the seed of an idea formed in my head, and I decided just to have a go. I banged it out in a couple of hours in the evening. I’m not feeling very confident, but we will see … Better to have tried and failed and all that.

Anyway, here is Corn. I Hope you enjoy it.

Corn

The impenetrable forest of corn, taller than a man, loomed all around her. Watching with a thousand unseen eyes. Taunting. Waiting with malevolent patience to draw her into its depths. Envelop her. Suffocate her. Erase her.

Fear and panic jostled for control. Her mouth was dry. Her heart thudded in her chest. Fast, shallow breaths dizzied her. Which way?

The afternoon was hot and still. The cloudless blue sky a relentless dome of heat that raised a film of sweat on her skin. Salt and dust combining to sting her eyes and the bloodied scratches that criss-crossed her bare limbs. She had to keep moving.

Ahead, the narrow uneven path forked in two. Left or right? Right or left? Her mind a confusion of indecision. A dried-out husk of corn and a couple of withered stalks lay on the ground at the entrance to the left fork. Was there something familiar about the irregular shape they formed? Had she passed that way before?

The corn whispered.

Emma went right …

The corn is angry. Tendrils reach for her. Graze her skin. Snag her hair.

And then a voice! The thrill of recognition.

“Emma! Over here.”

She rushes towards the sound. Sobbing and gasping with relief. Throws herself into his arms.

He laughs.

She cries.

As they walk to the car she turns back and reads the sign at the entrance to the cornfield.

A smiling head of corn. Yellow and green and grotesquely cheery.

“Can YOU beat the Maize Maze?”

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Wet Paint

NYC Midnight 100 Word Microfiction Challenge 2022

It’s that time of year again. The NYC Midnight challenges for 2022 have begun. This year I’ve only been able to enter one – the 100 word microfiction challenge – as I have too many other things going on when the others take place.

Telling a story in 100 words is harder than you might think and is even harder when you have to write to a set brief under a tight timescale of just 24 hours.

In April, 6,973 writers were divided into 118 groups of around 59 per group and set their first challenge. Mine was:

Genre: Comedy

Action: Waiting for a Train

Word: legal

I was on holiday in Nice at the time and didn’t want to spend too much time sitting indoors on my laptop so I felt a lot of additional pressure with this one, especially as my partner was waiting for me to finish before we could get out and enjoy the French sunshine.

After many more “empty head” minutes than I care to remember, I came up with a little ditty called Wet Paint. I wasn’t particularly happy with it but when I read it to my partner and he laughed out loud at the end I decided just to submit it and hope for the best.

I’m happy to say that Wet Paint squeezed through to Round 2 at number 14 of the top 15 qualifiers in my group! This morning I have been writing my entry for the next stage of the competition. This time 1,770 writers were assigned to 27 groups with approximately 66 writers per group. My challenge for this round was:

Genre: Fairy Tale/Fantasy

Action: Popping a Bubble

Word: Bitter

It’s a little little encouraging that I wrote my first ever fantasy piece last month and it got great feedback from my peers! I’ll let you know how I get on at the end of July.

In the meantime here is Wet Paint for (I hope) your amusement and entertainment.

Wet Paint

The station was a riot of football noise and colour. Edgar’s brand-new England shirt was a white beacon in a sea of blue and white stripes.

He regarded the Greek sign on the empty blue bench. He couldn’t read Greek. His train was in fifteen minutes. He needed to rest.

Edgar removed the sign and sat down. It couldn’t be legal, not to sit on a bench. What was the worst that could happen?

The station was a riot of football noise and colour. Edgar’s brand-new, Greek shirt melted into the sea of blue and white stripes.

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From Venice With Love

Still in the game – NYC Midnight.

Last weekend I found out that I had done enough to qualify for the next round of the 2021 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. You might recall that in round 1 I came second in my group of around 50 writers with The Buttonologist and scored 14 points.

For the next round, I was given the challenge of writing a thriller, set in a canal, and featuring a headlight. It was M who came up with idea of setting the story in the canals of Venice and I used a recent fake news story, about Covid-19 originating in Italy, for inspiration. My story was called From Venice with Love and, while it didn’t score as highly as The Buttonologist, it came 10th in the group giving me another 6 points. This brought my total to 20 which was enough to place me in the top 5 of my group overall, and progress through to the next round.

You can read From Venice with Love at the end of this post.

My next challenge was to write a romance, set in a teahouse, and featuring a crane! I cogitated for a while then wrote a story about unrequited love in a Geisha community that featured the folding of 1000 origami paper cranes. We’ll have to wait until the 11th of December to find out if it takes me any further in the competion. It’s a big ask! Only 600 of the 4500 (approximately) participants made it through this far, so even if I don’t, I’m proud of what I have achieved so far!

From Venice with Love

“New research reveals that the novel coronavirus was detected in samples in Italy as far back as September 2019” (News International, 2021)

The boat’s powerful headlight illuminated a wide fan of water in front of them, momentarily bathing the ancient, stony-faced buildings, which disapprovingly witnessed their reckless passage, in harsh white light. The other boat was caught in the furthest edge of the beam. Ernestine could see the black headscarf and beige jacket of the woman with the briefcase standing in the stern. She was facing ahead, and she too was gripping the handrail as she was thrown from side to side by the violent twists and turns of the vessel.

Ernestine knew that the fate of the entire world depended on what happened in the next few minutes. She clung to the cold steel of the handrail as they bounced through the wake of the speeding boat ahead, each wave hitting the bottom of the hull with a terrifying thud. They hurtled through the network of canals that criss-crossed the old city in a way that would never have been possible during the day, when the waterways would be choked with drifting gondolas and other slow-moving pleasure crafts.

“Faster! Faster,” Ernestine pleaded with Marco, the lab night security guard, who was at the helm. “We can’t let them get away!”

“We’re at top speed, Signorina. We can’t go any faster.”

Then, a sharp crack echoed across the water, and she caught a whiff of cordite as something whistled past her ear.

“Get down! Get down!” Marco shouted. “Guns. They have guns!”

Ernestine dropped to the floor and curled into a ball, struggling to make sense of what was happening. What was she doing? She was a scientist for God’s sake! Not a spy, or a member of the militia! Just ten minutes earlier, she had been at her lab bench, working late as usual, when she had heard the tinkle of breaking glass from across the corridor. As she had gone out to investigate, she had seen a woman with a briefcase walking towards the front entrance but thought nothing of it. There were lots of people in the building at that time of night. It was part of the ethos of the place. High expectations that yielded equally high rewards were a strong motivator to burn the proverbial midnight oil.

The door to the sample bank was ajar. The hairs on Ernestine’s neck bristled and her skin prickled with alarm. The room was always kept locked. Only a few high-profile people had the access code. She cautiously pushed open the door and, when nothing stirred, she stepped inside and flicked on the lights. Her heart lurched when she saw the broken test tubes on the floor and the open fridge door. This too was always kept locked. Now her heart was racing, and her breathing was shallow as she looked inside at the empty space where the tray of experimental viral samples should be.

The image of the woman with the briefcase walking briskly down the corridor flashed into her head, and suddenly recalling things that had registered only in her subconscious, she knew immediately that it was her. The way she hadn’t turned her head but quickened her pace when Ernestine had entered the corridor. The smart briefcase. The black headscarf. The tailored beige jacket. Most of her co-workers dressed casually in jeans and tee-shirts and carried well-worn backpacks suitable for a daily commute on foot or by bike.

Ernestine ran down the corridor. She reached the front entrance just in time to see the woman stepping off the dock into a boat with its engine running. A man dressed in black was helping her aboard and another was at the helm. Ernestine shouted to Marco, who was sitting with his feet on his desk, scrolling through his phone.

“Marco! That woman! She has the viral samples! Quickly!”

Marco jumped up. Startled. Confused.

“But … chi? … come? She had a pass! Dio santo!” he muttered as he ran towards the lab’s boat moored at the other end of the dock.

Ernestine followed him. Once they were in the boat, she fumbled in her jeans pocket for her phone, considering calling the Carabinieri, but Marco looked at her and shook his head. He was right. Too many questions. The fallout would be disastrous. Not just for them as individuals but the for the organisation as whole. They were going to have to do this alone.

“They’ve entered the lagoon!” Marco shouted, snapping her back to the present. “Their boat is fast. They’re picking up speed!”

Ernestine got warily to her feet.

“It’s alright. We’re out of range,” Marco reassured her. “But they’re getting away.”

“Oh no! God help us.” Ernestine put her hand to her mouth. “God help us all.”

“It’s ok. They’re heading for the airport. It’s not too late.”

***

As Ernestine entered the terminal building, she was temporarily stunned by the bright lights and the crowds. She frantically scanned the space. A sea of heads. People moving in all directions. The soft rumble of luggage wheels. The collective murmur of a hundred voices. Cell phones ringing. Automated announcements in Italian and English ringing out over the tannoy.

Then, over by the departure gates, a flash of beige. The now familiar black headscarf. Ernestine pushed her way through the crowd, trying to keep her target in her sights. But the woman was moving further and further away. Ernestine felt as though she was wading through treacle. She finally reached the gate just as the woman passed through and out of reach. Her black head bobbed into the distance. Never looking back.

In desperation and dismay, Ernestine’s eyes ran down the list on the departure board. There were two flights about to depart. One to Paris, France, and another to Wuhan, China. Ernestine knew instantly which one the woman would be on. She dropped to her knees and wept.