by Russell Olson
Each year, the PGS Library sponsors a creative writing competition for pupils, parents, and staff. We’ve had 6 word stories, 12 word stories and as of November, our most formidable challenge yet, a 100 word short story. Though the word count was higher, there were no shortage of entries. The level
of creativity in the school community is remarkable and choosing the top three was a hair-pulling exercise. In the end, the judges selected the following entrants as prize-winners: Siha Hoque - Year 7; Christopher Cole - Year 10; and Ms Hart - Staff. Please help us in congratulating these champions.
Siha Hoque - Year 7
Cliffhanger
My eyes open and I see an impenetrable mist, so my hands search blindly. One hand meets cool, jagged rock and the other...nothing - I’m on a cliff ledge. The mist disperses, revealing a towering tsunami. Fear took my freedom of movement and adrenaline fights back.
Reluctantly, I dive. The numbing water engulfs me.
The sea looked forbidding, though deeper down it’s a wondrous world of colours. However, I shouldn’t stop; the cliff could collapse. I plough through waves that...rapidly soften?
My eyelids flutter like wings and I see my bedroom - a dream!
Why is there seaweed in my hair?
Sat aside the lonely street, a man in the cafe with a weathered sack, leather shoes,with holes and tatters, and his shirt hangs loose on his sunburned shoulders. In every dream, and blurred illusion, a vision caused by his selfish neglect, he would never have believed he would see again, blacks and
whites together in the cafe, free. From shackles placed by society, Police whom his face could not bear to see, camps and ghettos and silent screams, now blacks and whites ate together, free. Freedom from tortures, from being told, from a beating to greeting, finally, peace; change.
He couldn’t bring himself to do it. The painful memories of the previous attack, unexpected, unwarranted, exhausted his creative chasm and stopped him in his tracks. All that was left was an echoing void and a burning desire to retreat.
The island was remote, as far away from mainland as he could possibly get. He stood at the cottage’s entrance, the cool breeze caressing his bruised soul and rebounding off the lime-washed walls. In the distance, vibrating along the horizon’s edge, the selchie dived …
disappeared…
resurfaced…
closer…
Dived, disappeared, resurfaced, until, in the spray, he heard her gentle appeal.
“Believe.”
My eyes open and I see an impenetrable mist, so my hands search blindly. One hand meets cool, jagged rock and the other...nothing - I’m on a cliff ledge. The mist disperses, revealing a towering tsunami. Fear took my freedom of movement and adrenaline fights back.
whites together in the cafe, free. From shackles placed by society, Police whom his face could not bear to see, camps and ghettos and silent screams, now blacks and whites ate together, free. Freedom from tortures, from being told, from a beating to greeting, finally, peace; change.
The island was remote, as far away from mainland as he could possibly get. He stood at the cottage’s entrance, the cool breeze caressing his bruised soul and rebounding off the lime-washed walls. In the distance, vibrating along the horizon’s edge, the selchie dived …
disappeared…
resurfaced…
closer…
Dived, disappeared, resurfaced, until, in the spray, he heard her gentle appeal.
“Believe.”
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