What is Past is Present Mini Competition Results
As with anything, a beginning leads, inevitably, to an end. Or does an end tumble back to the beginning?

What’s Past is Present was a fantastic mini-competition and was well received on the submission front and by the lit community. Before we begin, I’d like to say how much I appreciated the competition popping up in journals; the exposure for such a small contest was awesome, and truly delightful.

1st Place:
and in between forgetting by ~IfrozenspiritI

“He leaned out the window: I’ll sell you my soul! He shouted, and finally they looked up, finally they saw him, finally he saw him, Daryl, and he hadn’t a soul to sell them but he promised it anyway. There were no takers. There was only that awful emptiness waiting to be filled by his broken-record words: I love you, I love you, I love you I. Love you I love. You I love. You.

But instead he leaned out the window, the rim cold against his belly. He leaned out the window with nothing to sell. He leaned a little farther, and fell.”

What “an in between forgetting” has is the constancy of reflection, how writing in a journal can surface fragments of memory that are so consequential to how the plot rolls out. ~IfrozenspiritI’s writing is luscious, poetic and smooth. The narrator Daryl Hopkins is most affable, only in the mistakes he has made.

1st Place wins a 6 month subscription or print of value

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Honourable Mentions
Like Fire, the Cicadas will Rise by *dgregory

“George. It is of the line between adeptness and fallibility. We are all bound by your fate if by our capacities we only fail. That is the doing and undoing of the world. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Whilst “Like Fire, the Cicadas Will Rise” is potentially a longer piece, it still works in the short story form. The dialogue with tags worked exceptionally well. The description of George Weathers house was fantastic, obligatory to the moving of plot, too.

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The Simmering Pot by ~lulabelle72

“She tossed a handful of sugar into the pot, and watched the white sink into the red. "Your pa loves his sauce sweet," she said.

I stopped fidgeting, and sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. "Yeah, mama, he liked it sweet."

She looked up from the pot, a deep line between her brows. "Why you say things like that." It's not a question.”

There is such simplicity to this, set in the kitchen with an exchange between mother and daughter, but something is wrong. For such a homely setting, something is tense and therefore delicate about ~lulabelle72’s writing approach.

HM win a 1 month subscription

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Thank you to everyone who entered.
And I’ll be putting my critique hat on for the following entries, which are worth note:

Nouns in Present Tense

Vorn

The Train Graveyard


- amber