roy chapman ltd beaconflaSH 2023/24

Jane began writing flash fiction and short stories in 2020 after too many years of procrastination and is really thrilled to have achieved second place with BeaconFlash. She’s been highly commended by Writing Magazine and was a runner up in both the Derby and Lancashire Flash Fiction competitions this year and is so thankful for all the support and advice she’s received from fellow members of her writing group. Jane enjoys living by the coast in Bournemouth and hopes that one day she might at least write the first chapter of a novel.

My name is Spindley Spindley. A fat baby by all accounts, my birth name was Geoffrey; but as the years passed, I stretched upwards, not outwards.

     Spindley Spindley, the boys teased.

     And so, it stuck.

     The world, like me, has changed as I reach my hundredth year; I’ve grown downwards and a        little bit outwards.

     But as I sit in my fireside chair and wait for what is inevitable, I recall the day I became a     man.

Before I slept that night, I said goodbye to being nine. I knew when I awoke, I’d be the grand old age of ten and everything would be different. Although our family had little, like many others around us, my father taught us words. We’d no idea how lucky we were.

   ‘Yer never know lad, ye may get out of here if ye know yer letters.’ He changed the lad to lass when      he spoke the same words to my sisters, but I digress.

It was dark as Ma shook me, my tenth birthday had begun. My eyes watered as I stared at the candle’s dancing light which gave her face an eerie glow.

‘You’re a man now, son. You’ve to get up to work with your brothers and Pa. But there’s something for you downstairs.’

   There’d never been a present for me before, save a ride on Pa’s shoulders around the yard and, if times were good, Ma might bake a cake.

  I pulled on the jacket and trousers discarded by one of my brothers. They were too small, for I was already taller than them.

The fire was lit and as the embers glowed, I saw a small yellow bird inside a strange looking cage. Its eyes were dark and scared. Like mine.

   ‘Tis for you, boy,’ said my father. You’re to watch it like a hawk.’

My father explained the bird would be the first to smell the danger. Although I had a thin body, he knew my voice was loud.

   ‘Just shout, son if it lies down and go save yourself and the bird.’

After we’d eaten bread, we miners, as that’s what I was now, walked in ones and twos. Our lanterns shimmering in the dark. My stomach turned and turned as we sank deeper into the sweaty darkness of the mine, but the canary, he sang to me to keep me calm.

I’d never been so frightened in my life, and I’ve never been so frightened again. Not in the trenches, through illness nor whatever life has thrown at me. But the little yellow creature, he grew tired and one evening he held his feathers tight and lay down, for good.

  Like the little creature, who saved our lives more than once, I’ve done my duty and, as my eyes grow heavy and my body weary, I close my eyes.

  ‘Sing to me little bird,’ I say, ‘sing to me.’

Rachel has been a freelance costume maker for the last thirty years and currently

lives in South East London. She has worked in the film, TV and theatre industries on

productions such as Harry Potter, Sleepy Hollow, Britain’s Got Talent and, most

recently, the TV series The Great. She started writing in 2022 after attending a course at Arvon and has since occupied her spare time composing short stories. She takes inspiration from history books, urban and rural hiking, and overheard conversations on London buses and tube trains! She is currently working on a nonfiction book about her career and the trials and tribulations of the costume world.

I dive behind an upturned car that is covered with dents and debris. Relieved to find a moment’s respite behind this shield as explosions pierce the air, I’m showered with thick dust. The noise is interspersed with screams and shouts, and I’m shit scared. 

   I look to my right and am reassured to see Ben Munchausen sheltering behind a stone wall about twenty yards away. We exchange a glance, and he nods to me. Ben, or ‘Munch’ as he’s known in the ranks, is more experienced than me. He’s not a chatty type, but it’s worth listening to him when he speaks; his soft tones interlaced with Geordie humour.

   The gunfire rains on, and I can hear metal pinging off the underside of the car and the sound of glass shattering. Then, a slow, steady drone of a plane overhead. Seconds later, a bomb explodes, and the force knocks me on my back. When I open my eyes I look towards the stone wall. It is now splattered with blood, and a severed arm is stuck to it. 

   “You’re lucky to be alive, lad”, says the silver-haired man standing over me wearing a white coat. I have just woken up in a stark white room, and the doctor continues talking. I can’t absorb most of his words, but slowly, I realise that the severed arm I saw stuck to the stone wall was mine.

   My room looks onto the hospital garden, and I spend weeks watching a tree sway in the breeze. The birds chirp excitedly hopping between the branches and a bird table, doing battle over food scraps. It’s a squirrel, though, who usually wins the day’s meal.  He once ate a horse chestnut so loudly on that table that he woke me up. I’ve named him Ben Crunchausen, after my dead friend. A visit from Crunch makes my day, as squirrels don’t express horror or pity. Unlike one’s friends and family. 

   Eventually, when I get to leave my room in a wheelchair, I’m taken to the garden and left beside a table with tea and biscuits. As usual, Crunch is nearby today, studying my continuing efforts to hold the teacup in my left hand using the thumb and stub of my last remaining finger. I don’t kid myself that he’s come to see a wounded soldier. No, it’s the biscuits he’s after. 

   I admire his strategy. He is twitching patiently and knows I will be clumsy enough to drop another biscuit. I’ve been trying to get him to eat from my hand, so I wait with my arm outstretched, poised and ready. He climbs the table leg and stops at the top, staring at me squarely with his dark, shiny eyes. Edging nearer, he snatches the biscuit from my hand and sits on the table bold as brass, enjoying his snack. Leaving me to wonder if Crunch will be the only creature who doesn’t recoil from the sight of me.