This fall, in partnership with Colum McCann and the Aspen Writers' Foundation, we held our second short fiction contest and challenged contestants to beat ten of our favorite writers' short stories in 79 words or less. The winner is Kashana Cauley, a writer from New York City. Her haunting story and the nine other finalists are reprinted below.
THE WINNER
"Avenue B"
By Kashana Cauley
Five years after the oceans rose and incorporated Manhattan into their flow, I failed to rescue a girl. A storm pushed my boat onto Avenue B. I spotted her clinging to a raised front porch with her right hand. She reached out with her left and we threaded our fingers together for a second while rain poured down our faces. I blinked and she released my hand and dove past the water to her permanent spot in my head.
MORE ABOUT THE WRITER: Kashana Cauley is a Wisconsin native who lives in New York City. Her short stories have appeared in Juked and Midwestern Gothic. She recently completed a novel.
THE FINALISTS
"Humane"
By Angela Cummings
The dog's eyes indicated surrender, a succinct pleading for relief. There should be no delay – anymore. Two weeks went by before she could pick up the dog bed. Then, she moved out.
"No man will ever look at you like that," her bachelor roommate had said, when the dog was young, and she was younger.
But this beautiful man does (married man; married to another woman.)
Lay down. Stay. Come. We are never trained to love well enough (alone).
"In the Market for Heartache"
By Alex DeBonis
A store starts selling heartache, so I go. Ownerless, it's a bunch of gray slabs. Clerk about my height and half my age asks how many I want.
"I deserve nine," I say, and he begins bagging. "Left my wife and son years ago. Never missed them."
He stops, stares.
I lift a slab, which stays gray. "Won't my heartache turn colors?" I ask. "Like red for guilt?"
"Only wanting to feel guilty," he says, "won't turn it, Dad."
"Impact"
By Kenneth Gagnon
In summer 1983 my parents got divorced. I got super powers.
The meteorite hit the drainage ditch where I played; I rode my hand-me-down bicycle through a plume of silver dust and shit particles illuminated by the lonely, tired half-moon. Touching the bird's-egg-blue sphere nestled in the dry Hazelton soil, I saw the future.
Some gift; I saw was me in my grandfather's spare room, his hand on my shoulder. "It's alright. Tell me more about that space junk."
"To Do"
By Ivy Hansen
She made lists for everything. On the back of bank statements, the inside of matchbooks, envelopes from old Christmas cards. Grocery lists. Grand life goals. Daily to-dos she'd cross off with satisfaction: folded laundry, cut fingernails.
Rigby mocked them all.
"Find everything?" the checkout girl asks. He digs for money, pulls out a receipt with the crumpled bills. On the back:
1) Snoring
2) Onion breath
3) Sperm count?
He laughs uneasily and pays for the bread and milk.
"Neither"
By Daniel McGillivray
Derek had been my roommate for five months when he shot himself. His things were in our room, but I left them alone after the police were finished. His older brother drove down one afternoon to pack everything. We split the beer Derek left in the fridge and traded stories for a while, realizing that the man he knew and the one I knew were different. I asked, "Which one did it, do you think?"
He drank. "Probably neither."
"DEVILMENT AT THE COMFORT INN"
By Richard Rauch
Check-In:
Business trip. Hallway eye contact, backward glances, hints of smile. Restless night.
Next Morning:
Accidental rendezvous over coffee, leading on, leading to happy hour, elevator kisses, and Room 224…
The Aftermath:
…which was really overblown, except for the publicity. Naturally, Corporate got involved:
- Incinerate sheets, bolsters, dust ruffle, mattress, ficus.
- Pink slip House Dick.
- Exorcise residual devilment (discretely).
- Apologize to The Gideons.
Check-Out:
Perp walk. Taxi driver's smirk. Jovial quips through Security. Stewardess winks. Free drinks.
The End:
"Accounting"
By Courtney Sender
Ted was born looking forward to love.
He turned 12 looking forward to sex. He wanted love again at 25, found it at 26, forgot why he'd wanted it at 27.
At 33, he gained a son. At 50, the boy left for college. Diana left for good.
Laid off at 60, his father dead, he called Di.
At 61, she called back: "Ted, shit, Teddy, I just heard. Christ, why'd you…"
He had always looked backward at love.
"My Father's Study"
By Bob Thurber
On the only wall not supporting bookshelves he had hung framed fossils: sun-bleached bones displayed against black velvet. The room received no natural light; all windows remained shuttered on the outside, heavily draped within. At his desk each morning, beneath radiant blue light, he chiseled through rock layers delivered to him in crates. He broke open rocks to find creatures no bigger than his thumb, then cut and peeled back their dried flesh to extract perfect stone cold hearts.
"Picnic, Lightning"
By Casey Walker
A storm threatened, but I would show my boy the Tuileries. Only three, he babbled in French and Swiss German. He obsessed over butterflies. He groped me queerly. I was at my wits end.
Married at thirty, my world had fled: Paris was nothing like Dorset. My husband, forever on the Riviera, managed his hotel but not his child.
When lightning touched ground, I threw off my boy's hand. I ran for a clearing, holding my metal umbrella high.
