We interrupt your regularly scheduled Top in Fiction Recommendation Issue.
The contest is simple:
Write a story using The Holidays theme.
Story must be under 100 words in length (excluding the title).
The Judges: Miguel S. / Hanna Delaney / Erica Drayton
THE WINNERS
1st Place
Tradition by Sean Thomas McDonnell
Down the road from Kelly, a man is digging a hole in his backyard. It needs to be the right size. Kelly watches from her treehouse using the binoculars she got three Christmases ago. The man is weeping. The man is laughing.
The offering is heavy. Last year, he was stronger, and the year before that, stronger still. This year, he barely manages to carry it to the hole. He sings while he shovels; it’s the same song every year. Kelly knows the lyrics now. Maybe next year, she’ll offer to help. She sings along between bites of peppermint bark.
2nd Place
Reginald Clay of Character Cognition
After we cozied up to the living room fire we rambled to our seats around the dinner table. We were happy and we laughed. Abruptly though, a faint tinge of sorrow permeated our festive gathering, then we wept too.
We were hysterical, teetering between joy and anguish. I took a deep breath, raised my head, and saw your empty chair. The sight of it slapped me quiet. The silence bounced around the room, and each head turned to the place that was missing you.
I raised my glass and whispered, “to the ones who are gone, yet with us forevermore”.
Joint 3rd Place
FranB of Tales of Twilight
Dear Kids,
I regret to inform you that after twenty years of service, Christmas is cancelled.
This year I will not be making mince pies, Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, nor will I be traipsing around the shops looking for fun things to put in your stocking.
I will not be wrapping presents and on Christmas day I will not be peeling potatoes, faffing with brussels sprouts or roasting some unfortunate bird to destruction. There will be no bread sauce.
Instead, I will be lying on a beach sipping a cocktail.
If you have questions, ask your father.
Love Mum
Emily S Hurricane of The Eye of the Storm
Snowflakes are delicious. Like a cool whisper on the tongue, each unique pointed tip becoming nothingness in the heat of the mouth. Every molecule once held together melting apart, swallowed into flesh. Each one containing a universe, each universe containing a galaxy, each galaxy containing entire worlds never seen by a microscope and never to be discovered because the dying screams of every life form snuff out between taste buds as their universe is ripped apart. My gift to myself every Christmas is this pleasure. The eater of worlds. Because snowflakes are delicious.
Stephanie Loomis of Defaulting to Grace
It was in the last box, tucked behind a joist in the attic. An unopened box of tinsel, circa 1970. Jane remembered decorating the Noble firs of her childhood for Christmas. The lights first, then the ornaments, and finally, the awful tinsel. "One strand at a time!" her mother instructed. It was tedious. The effect was magical, more so than current garlands of stuff called tinsel. This pristine box was the real deal. Lead alloy foil and tin: no plastic polymers in this box of shiny poisonous blades. Jane sighed and added the box to the bag marked "Lead disposal."
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Honored. ❤️ Like, wow.
These are so beautifully written! From heartbreak to joy to tears. Well done!!!