Competitions Winners

Peacock (Inachis Io) by Danny Hughes

Echoes of wings up the hall, I wonder if it's a sparrow, flapping against the boards trying to reach the breeze through the broken window. Or maybe in this house, with crumbling plaster, bare uncarpeted wooden stairs and memories, it's a butterfly, dark red and yellow with a blue spot like an eye in the centre of its wings.

I remember hiding under a weeping willow, and through the long strips of green, seeing your outline hazed in the sharp sunlight. When I think of that moment, I can still smell the musk perfume on the sleeve of the arm you pulled me out with. And as we left the park that would never be empty again. I heard a hissing and tugged loose from your grip and saw resting on the petals of a yellow rosebush, a butterfly, red and yellow with a blue spot in the centre of its wings, you pulled me away towards the rusty archway and out of the iron gate.

I wondered what happened, why so many drunken nights and fights filled my teenage years. In a room with light blue tussled curtains, and a bright white padded silk quilted sheet, I last saw you. Surrounded by thick cream coloured candles burning behind red plastic see-through jars. I remember those days, an ashtray full with tanned stumps and in the groove, one cigarette replaced by another as all night long smoke made shapes towards the ceiling. I remember ash on a sticky coffee table, and half empty Martini and drained whisky bottles. I remember as I drifted from dream to life an uncle stumbling over a black plastic bag full with empty beer cans and on to the back kitchen floor. Another uncle trying to start a sing-song.

Was there love then, for anybody, or did everyone just sing, swallow and bear it. Did it slowly fade through the months, the years of struggle until there was little energy, even for living. Maybe I was looking for it in the wrong places, through words or emotion, instead of laughter and anger, maybe I just didn't understand. Maybe I was born too late, or lost in a field by a canal, daydreaming of the future, of escaping. But all I could see was conflict, sacrifice, bitterness and pain as I watched the people around me age.

There was a church along the lane opposite the park. semi-gothic, black with age or dirt or just dark sandstone, it loomed in the background of this new red-bricked town. From its tower, the ghostly lady in purple watched the whole town. And at night even from the farthest house you could see the shining cross above the hole were she sat. And below in rows along the grass, century old gravestones, coming alive in the tales and nightmares of children, through their lies of horror and violence or teenage gropes. Even then I knew that beyond this new estate there were other lives, other histories. We walked past it quickly that day the only time I remember being alone with you.

The wallpaper, in the front bedroom, is white with blue and canary patterns, not plain like then, even when I tear it, underneath it is not the same. I remember each morning, before school I'd sneak in, for dinner money, dipping my fingers into your purse, full with coins, the tips you had from waitressing the night before. Then leave in my uniform and pretend I was going to school. Outside the privets are overgrown, and chip and sweet wrappers and cans are thrown about the garden. I thought of how it'd upset you to see it like this. The small lawn was always tidy, like this house once was, neat and alive with tension. I forced open a window and ushered the sparrow out.

"Olwyn Hawke: Maiden of the Sea" by Christine Connor

The white gleam of a full moon flowed in through a window; its rays lightly touched the ivory skin of a young woman lying on a bed. Streams of tears had carved courses down her cheeks; her dark eyes were ringed red and sore. She turned on her side, a rustle like that of leaves accompanied her movements as the pale blue silk dress she wore creased and cascaded over the side of the bed like a waterfall.

She had worn the dress once before, on her 16th birthday, when she had bounced with exuberance and the vitality of youth, naïve to the harshness of the world and especially mankind. Ignorant of the cruelty, one could suffer at the hands of another. That was ten years ago - her dress still fitted her. Her long fingered hands ideally suited for piano playing brushed at the bloody stains that soiled her skirt. They were as old as the memory of her loss of innocence. Of the violence, she had met, from those she thought were her friends.

She cried most bitterly while the bed she lay on cradled and rocked her like a baby. For she had become a child of the sea. The snake like hissing of the waves undulating beneath the keel and the soft licking of waters caressing the prow sang her a lullaby. The flapping, crisp sails that stretched full mast pierced the diamond-studded sky above. An echoing voice of a man whispered her name. "Olwyn." But the woman, her tears subsiding chose not to reply. Her thoughts of the past she succumbed to the empty silence of the night.

Olwyn raised her head of long black curls from the pillow and surveyed her cabin. A writing table stood under the porthole and the fresh new pages of the ship's logbook lay open, awaiting the first scratches of ink to be scrawled inside. The history of Olwyn's ship, The Travelling Light was yet to be written.

Her bare feet, dainty like a ballets dancer's, crossed the woven rug that she'd brought back from her travels to Japan. She lit a candle, pulled up a chair and sat before her desk. The therapeutic smell from a luscious green plant, the only relic Olwyn wished to keep from her hellish expedition to the Amazon lulled her into a calming repose.

Olwyn took a quill in her left hand and drowned the nib in indigo ink. As she put nib to paper a heavy rap at the door disturbed her train of thought. "Come!" she said sharply, turning her head to the youth who entered her cabin with a cup and saucer in hand.
"Tea, Captain?"
"Thank you Joe. Tell Henry to make course for Monte Carlo."
"Yes, Captain." The boy close the door behind him and Olwyn returned to her log, she wrote, "…August 18th 1830. Finally left Greece today. Acquired a cargo of Olive oil. The crew in buoyant spirits hail the beginning of a new era..."