I entered the current NYC Midnight writing challenge, but failed to progress past the first round. You recieve an assignment and have 24 hours, and 500 words, to come up with a short story that satisfies the 3 specied elements. Mine were:
Fairy tale or fantasy, floating, overcoat.
I'm posting my entry, plus the required 1 or 2 line synopsis, to see what you think ahead of the judges feedback.
Above Flanders fields a World War One pilot faces death, only to encounter an unexpected ally.
My Sopwith was dying. A funeral shroud streamed from its bullet-ridden engine, smoke and spray reducing my flying goggles to a smear. I was a good pilot, talented, but the port wing strut was one turn away from failure.
Time to go.
My squadron had not issued parachutes as – apparently - they encouraged pilots to abandon damaged but still viable aircraft. So much for parsimony. I unbuckled, heaved my body up, kicked away from the edge of the cockpit.
Tore off my useless goggles, gave myself to the sky.
For a moment my overcoat billowed, holding me up like a leaf on the wind. The surrounding battle returned – the whine of aero engines, chatter of machine guns – but it was no longer real, immediate. Cloud whipped around me, drawing a curtain on the world, and then…
Stillness.
No sense of falling, of air rushing past. My coat remained inflated, as stiff as starch. The cloud drew back such that I was left inside a milky-white shell. An illusion, but one I prayed would last as long as possible. Maybe all the way to the ground.
The bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end.
Music. Four notes, as from a glockenspiel but softer- a celesta. Repeated, followed by a woodwind growl.
“You silly ass!”
A girl’s voice; light, trilling. I turned towards the sound, in mid-air, as easily as standing on firm ground.
The second bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end.
There was a spark in the cloud wall facing me. It pulsed; a glow then fade, but returning stronger each time. The light spread in tendrils from a central point, defining a shape, a form…
A face.
Tinker Bell. As clear as day, straight from the illustrated Peter and Wendy I’d read to my children as a distraction, while their mother lay in hospital.
The next bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end. One left.
She smiled; a smile to gladden the heart, even mine. “Do you think Fate so cruel as to deny a child both their parents? Love and loss pay dividends, you know, in the long run. Now, all you have to do is close your eyes. I’ll make the wish for you.”
I closed my eyes, heard a button pop.
Straw. Prickling my exposed skin, the feel of it under my collar. Blue sky above me when I looked, crossed by duelling gnats.
“I say, are you quite all right up there?” A woman’s voice, light, with an underscore of amusement.
I turned towards the sound, rolled, tumbled from the haystack to land, kneeling, at her feet. A nurse, pretty, God, so pretty. Somehow familiar but...
She held out her hand. “Jane Wren, but my friends call me Jenny.”
I took her hand, kept holding it after she helped me to my feet. “Flight-Officer Hoban Chance. My friends call me, well, ‘Second’”.
Fairy tale or fantasy, floating, overcoat.
I'm posting my entry, plus the required 1 or 2 line synopsis, to see what you think ahead of the judges feedback.
Above Flanders fields a World War One pilot faces death, only to encounter an unexpected ally.
My Sopwith was dying. A funeral shroud streamed from its bullet-ridden engine, smoke and spray reducing my flying goggles to a smear. I was a good pilot, talented, but the port wing strut was one turn away from failure.
Time to go.
My squadron had not issued parachutes as – apparently - they encouraged pilots to abandon damaged but still viable aircraft. So much for parsimony. I unbuckled, heaved my body up, kicked away from the edge of the cockpit.
Tore off my useless goggles, gave myself to the sky.
For a moment my overcoat billowed, holding me up like a leaf on the wind. The surrounding battle returned – the whine of aero engines, chatter of machine guns – but it was no longer real, immediate. Cloud whipped around me, drawing a curtain on the world, and then…
Stillness.
No sense of falling, of air rushing past. My coat remained inflated, as stiff as starch. The cloud drew back such that I was left inside a milky-white shell. An illusion, but one I prayed would last as long as possible. Maybe all the way to the ground.
The bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end.
Music. Four notes, as from a glockenspiel but softer- a celesta. Repeated, followed by a woodwind growl.
“You silly ass!”
A girl’s voice; light, trilling. I turned towards the sound, in mid-air, as easily as standing on firm ground.
The second bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end.
There was a spark in the cloud wall facing me. It pulsed; a glow then fade, but returning stronger each time. The light spread in tendrils from a central point, defining a shape, a form…
A face.
Tinker Bell. As clear as day, straight from the illustrated Peter and Wendy I’d read to my children as a distraction, while their mother lay in hospital.
The next bottom button on my overcoat burst free and hung there, tumbling end-over-end. One left.
She smiled; a smile to gladden the heart, even mine. “Do you think Fate so cruel as to deny a child both their parents? Love and loss pay dividends, you know, in the long run. Now, all you have to do is close your eyes. I’ll make the wish for you.”
I closed my eyes, heard a button pop.
Straw. Prickling my exposed skin, the feel of it under my collar. Blue sky above me when I looked, crossed by duelling gnats.
“I say, are you quite all right up there?” A woman’s voice, light, with an underscore of amusement.
I turned towards the sound, rolled, tumbled from the haystack to land, kneeling, at her feet. A nurse, pretty, God, so pretty. Somehow familiar but...
She held out her hand. “Jane Wren, but my friends call me Jenny.”
I took her hand, kept holding it after she helped me to my feet. “Flight-Officer Hoban Chance. My friends call me, well, ‘Second’”.
