firstwriter.com First Short Story Anthology

By JP&A Dyson

Every year, firstwriter.com runs an international short story contest. This chapbook contains the winner and ten special commendations from the firstwriter.com First International Short Story Contest, which ran from 2004 to 2005. The winner, Alexandra Fox, was awarded £200 for her moving story "Cradle Song for Isobel".

These stories were first published together in 2006, in firstwriter.magazine issue 8: Turning Leaves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JP&A Dyson
• Release date: Apr 4, 2012

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firstwriter.com

First Short Story Anthology

Published by firstwriter.com in 2012

Smashwords Edition

Copyright firstwriter.com and contributors

http://www.firstwriter.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system without prior written permission. firstwriter.com, the firstwriter.com logo, and the firstwriter.com oval are trademarks of JP&A Dyson trading as firstwriter.com

Foreword

Every year, firstwriter.com runs an international short story contest. This chapbook contains the winner and ten special commendations from the firstwriter.com First International Short Story Contest, which ran from 2004 to 2005. The winner, Alexandra Fox, was awarded £200 for her moving story Cradle Song for Isobel.

These stories were first published together in 2006, in firstwriter.magazine issue 8: Turning Leaves, where they continue to be accessible via http://www.firstwriter.com/Magazine/

If you would like to enter a story in this year's competition, please go to http://www.firstwriter.com/competitions/short_story_contest/

Table of Contents

Cradle Song for Isobel

By Alexandra Fox

Gray's Anatomy

By John Ravenscroft

The Teenager

By Bridget Livermore

One Small Step

By Toby Allen

The Death of James Chambers

By Tom Campbell

Partly Living

By Gervase O'Donohoe

As the Lean Tree Burst into Grief

By Susan Johnson

Boogie

By Heather Casey

Post Christmas Blues

By Brian Gray

Another Country

By Susan Watts

Album: A Story in Photographs

By Jane Greenwood

Cradle Song for Isobel

By Alexandra Fox

United Kingdom

I will not think of Isobel.

I’ll think of Jamie and his football match this afternoon, and how he’s missed so many training sessions that he doesn’t know if he’ll be in the team. I’ll think of keys left under doormats, peanut butter sandwiches with the jar open on the side, two-day shirts with grey lined collars, hair that needs a trim. I’ll think of his round questioning face that doesn’t dare to question.

But I’ll not think of Isobel.

I’ll think of Amy and the doors she needs to slam, the stamping up the stairs that starts, then stops half-way, the shouting swallowed into tight throat and twisted gut. I’ll think of the parents’ evening I missed this term, absence notes unwritten, homework unhelped, and all those lifts from other mums that I’ll never be able to return. I’ll think of how to pay for the ski trip in January and whether to mention that her blazer smells of cigarette smoke, and maybe I’ll even try to talk to her some time.

So I will not think of Isobel.

I’ll think of getting someone in to fix the hoover, buying bleach and new yellow dusters. I’ll consider having a good spring-clean, wearing myself out with the work of it, mindlessly scrubbing baths, and polishing and brushing those cobwebs from the cornices.

And I won’t think of her.

I’ll think of other people all the time. I’ll be fat and cheerful, coping oh-so-well. I’ll talk to the mum over there and say isn’t it wonderful that her little boy’s well enough to go back to the normal baby ward, and it’s a shame that he’s blind but he’ll still have a wonderful life, after all, he’s so loved. And I’ll put a quiet arm around the girl on the window-seat, lost in the bright-light confusion of bags and dials and beepings. We’ll look together at her scrap of a baby in the goldfish tank and I’ll explain in soft sounds because the long words of the nurses have passed over her head like a cloud in the wind and she’s so frightened. And I’m frightened too, but I will not think of mine.

I’ll think of the efficiencies of nurses, and the astuteness of doctors, and the acumen of consultants, but not of Isobel.

And I’ll think of buying some chocolates for the staff and bringing them in tomorrow when it’s over.

I won’t think of her.

And I won’t think of the tall shadowy man beside me, because if I think of his grief I might rip a tear through the strong sheet that hangs between us. If his sorrow spills into mine I’ll melt, overflow, dissolve and my whole self will turn into a salty liquid, slightly acid, and seep, seep across this scuff-marked lino and evaporate, till all that’s left is a dry white powder lifted by the breeze from the window.

I’m so lucky. I’ve got the two already. What’s this point-four but a statistician’s glitch? One-point-four ounces, lung function point-four of what’s needed, half a brain working, half-sighted, part-deaf, (wholly mine), fully, excruciatingly finger-tip aware of pain. That’s why I can’t think of her.

I’ll think about the priest, dear bumbling Father John in his creased stole with the fringing missing from the edge. I’ll see the fatness of his finger as he tried to mark a cross on a forehead that had no room for it, and I’ll try not to remember that he said, Isobel ... why not call her Mary? Save Isobel for the next baby. I’ll pray for you. There’s always hope.

But I looked at her and I could only think of Isobel.

I’m almost thinking of her now, as the clever fingers of the soft-eyed nurse unclip the wires, and I’ll breathe with her as the tube is pulled from the clinging of her throat, and she mews faint with the tearing of it. I’ll press my nails into my palms, and watch them take the needles from her neck, her scalp and listen to the suck of the electrode pads peeled from skin as thin as tracing paper.

And then I’ll think of Isobel.

As she is put into my hands, and I stroke her with my fingertips, so softly, round and round, painting my love on her. And I see that great black-haired hand come down over mine infinite in its gentleness, and cup her head. With my thumb I’ll feel her heartbeat slow, and the racking of her lungs as they try to pull the hard air into them. I’ll breathe soft, warm into her mouth and let her take her fill of me one first-last time.

I’ll wait, wait. Then I’ll put the empty body in the empty box, small, so very small, not half a baby, but taking with her more than half my heart. And in the years to come, through all the busy-ness of life, I cannot ever see myself forgetting her.

Table of Contents

Gray's Anatomy

By John Ravenscroft

United Kingdom

On a cold Shrove Tuesday morning three weeks after Henry Gray had been admitted to the hospice, God paid him a visit. He sat on the edge of Henry's bed and they talked for about fifteen minutes. They talked about life and death, about magic, about responsibility. They talked about Doreen. Eventually, God told Henry what he had in mind.

Afterwards, Henry listened politely as God tried to crack a joke. It involved hospital pancakes, suspender-belts, and a nurse called Edna. It could have been funny, but God's delivery wasn't up to much. Henry hoped he wasn't planning on touring the stand-up comedy circuit, because if he was his routine was likely to be embarrassing. Now if God were to try his hand at a magic act, like the one Henry and Doreen used to do in the old days – well, he had natural advantages, didn't he? The punters would come flocking. But comedy? No. Forget it.

Henry smiled in the right places,