Competition Book Titles
Lucy Vickery presents this week's competition
In Competition No. 2688 you were invited to submit a short story incorporating six book titles. A deceptively straightforward assignment, this one. It is trickier than you might think to weave titles into prose in a way that is both unstilted and inventive — without compromising the quality of the tale. There was no upper limit on the number of book titles used and many of you seemed hellbent on packing in as many as possible, which didn’t gain any extra points, I’m afraid. Commendations to J. Seery, Pete Ritchie and Geoff Muss. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. Frank McDonald scoops £30.
Attracted by the call of the wild ocean they made their way to tall cliffs from where they could clearly hear the sound and the fury of the waves below. On the road to their destination some young members of the party asked where they were heading, and why. No one answered. It was as though in the distance they saw a great light leading them home Whatever pains they suffered to get to the lighthouse would be of no consequence; the end was all important. There was no one on the beach to bid them farewell; no one to wish them a safe journey. They had each other and they had their iron resolve. Nothing else mattered. Out of the sea rose the red and the black giants of stone, waiting to catch them. One by one the lemmings jumped, as their bible commanded.
Frank McDonald
After the funeral, the big four—the vicar, the dowager, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot — convened at Bertram’s Hotel for tea and, in the inspector’s case, black coffee with a pocket full of rye. While the Dowager took notes, Poirot began to speak. ‘I am on the 4.50 from Paddington, so, let us set the cat among the pigeons, no? We have had a string of murders, each more absurd than the last, and every time we apprehend a culprit, another mishap occurs with similar false leads and preposterous red herrings. It is almost,’ he said, drawing a slim volume from his coat, ‘as if these murders have a common author.’ He examined the book before him. ‘And, my friends, they do.’ He gently slid the copy of Agatha Christie: an Autobiography in the direction of the ashen-faced dowager. ‘Your only mistake, my dear Agatha, was to write it all down.’
Frank Osen
Dreams do come true. Once upon a night-time a minor playwright called Sheridan Shaw-Thackeray dreamed that he would become famous and figure in an important fight. He felt happy on waking, because he thought highly of himself as brilliant wit and hero. Soon after, he retreated to a chalet in the secret garden of a country estate, there to be far from the madding crowd, to work on his play, and to free himself of a tiresome fan, Mary Barton, who had discovered his London address and sometimes ran him down there. He had said goodbye to all that, but was run down instead by a trooper during the re-enactment of a Jacobite battle organised locally by the old English baron who was his host. Shaw-Thackeray’s posthumous historical drama, Waverley, worked up from Sir Walter Scott, was the surprise hit of the next theatre season.
Margaret J. Howell
‘The Way We Live Now,’ said Mrs Dalloway to Lavinia. She placed the emphasis deliberately, distancing herself from the ‘we’ mentioned. They sat sipping tea in Mrs Dalloway’s drawing-room with its sash-windows and the portrait of a lady over the fireplace. ‘And the way gels dress.’ Both ladies retained the diction of a previous generation when discussing young women. Theirs was considered a friendship that had survived war and peace, and all those vicissitudes which inevitably occur wherever a family and a fortune link people. It was accepted that they were the oldest and dearest of friends; but, today, climbing the thirty-nine steps to her friend’s enviable flat, an uncharacteristically wicked thought had overwhelmed Lavinia. She realised she didn’t like Clarissa Dalloway much. She had never actually chosen her as a friend. The thought cut her as cleanly and surely, now, as that little silver knife sliced Clarissa’s Victoria sponge.
Josephine Boyle
Having pulled himself together after being outwitted by the miller’s daughter, Rumpelstiltskin decided to marry though, lacking height, he knew he must choose from among little women. For years he searched throughout the land but without success until, strolling one day through the secret garden, he spotted a woman as short as himself. So besotted was he by the stranger before him that, summoning all of his powers of persuasion, he begged her to wed him. ‘I will,’ said she, ‘but on one condition: first you must guess my name, which begins with D.’ Undaunted, despite having paradise postponed, Rumpelstiltskin rattled off every name he could think of from Daisy to Dulcibella. None was right and, defeated again, as he had been before by the miller’s daughter, ranting and raging he fell apart. ‘Oh, what a silly man,’ sighed the little lady. ‘He should have guessed I was Little Dorrit.’
Alan Millard
Something happened while driving to the office yesterday. A black dog sauntered out in front of the stationary queue, paused on the central reservation and nonchalantly lifted its leg against the signal stanchion. Flashes, sparks. ‘Stupid mutt!’ I hissed. Called Emma, my line manager. ‘Sorry, Em, running late. Held up outside Daventry.’ ‘Wow, that’s original,’ she crisped. ‘I had great expectations of you when you joined us, Luke.’ I explained the situation. The information was in vain; I could hear her not listening. ‘You’ve a ten o’clock presentation, just get your arse here!’ Hmm. Weapons-grade bad hair day. I let down the passenger window, leaned over to the adjacent driver. ‘Think that damn dog’s fused the control box,’ he said. So there we all sat, a cohort of fellow motorists, stranded at the lights which obstinately remained forever amber.
Mike Morrison
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