Category: Unicorn Challenge
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24 August: Grassroots
Grassroots Oliver dreamed of lacing up his boots and running onto the turf at his local football stadium, but the Fates had other plans. By age 5, it was clear that one leg was slightly longer than the other, and his uneven gait made it difficult to keep pace with other children. As he grew…
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9 October: For Unicorn Challenge
One Saturday Afternoon Dad’s sitting in his stressless chair.By the window.TV remote in one hand,an air gun resting on the windowsill. The gun is filled with buckshot. The gawd-damned deer, as he calls them because he says he doesn’t curse near kids, and I’m 6,are eating his raspberries. And the…
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30 September: For Unicorn Challenge
The Derelict Line to Turners Hill My feet have come to rest here,at the end of this dim lit lane, where fallen leaves, gold and red and brown,rain down like regal crowns, and however soft I treadupon this hardened path, I stop and look and listen for the 8:04,a train from a sky faded world,…
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2 September: A Haibun for Unicorn Challenge
And Here’s the Rub … Somewhere between the bridge over Rudder Creek, which Dad pronounced as crick, and the freshly pressed apple juice stand with that hard-to-miss red plastic apple on the roof, Mum starts telling Dad about the carny man who came visiting yesterday – he wanted to sharpen her knives, Mum said, and…
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1 August: White Horse
White Horse And he doesn’t even like horses. Moreover, he hates that he’s called the horseman without a horse. He backs away from its rising height over him. This white horse rearing up, its voice of thunder is a shockwave, and the guys are sitting over there on a railing watching the whole scene play…
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1 July: The Long Way Round
Queue Jumping We’re driving home, the rain is biblical, lashing down. The street seems slicked with resin, and we sit in a queue of cars, red taillights blurring as the wipers squeak across the windscreen. “At least we don’t have to worry about the hosepipe ban,” I say, “this rain will wash the car, and…
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24 June: Off Beachy Head
Off Beachy Head The sea is glassy and warm as if its skin’s been peeled away, and we stand at the top of a hill overlooking the sea. The winds of the world rock us as if a song is working its way out of our ears, some song that would stop us rocking, stop…
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17 June: Cuckoo
Cuckoo It’s been decades since I hearda cuckoo’s voice here,here in this pine grove withtrees long as telegraph poles. Can you smell that? It’s the scent of pine pitch,it awakens my childhood.Those summers were so hot,pine needles crunching underfoot. I believed fairytales were born here. Once upon a time.All stories start that way.All except for…
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9 June: for Unicorn Challenge (flash fiction)
The Rise of Crows She knew something was wrong in her head when they started perching on the windowsills, and on the roof and fence. Crows, thick as blackness on the overhead lines. One two three four … six twelve twenty on the clothesline. Like worry beads. Crows in the field crawing at the cows.…
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26 May: for 26.05 Unicorn Challenge
A Spar and Rigging Some days he wanted to stay. Other days he just stared at the bridge. Portree could do that to you. Summer turned it oddly condensed with holidaymakers. They filled every table and every bed. July. August. Like a restless meridian. He compared it to living underwater. An aquarium. And God disowned…
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