Competition Fifteen Winner: Here Come The Gulls by Emma Phillips
*****They caw caw so damned sure of themselves, circling the boys and jabbing at shoulders, their bitten down nails flecked with shades of summer sky and sea grey. Give us a chip, they squawk, and guffaw as if their hassle is funny. The loudest boy throws a chip in the air, so they flap their wings and dive to catch it, but only one has her eye on the prize and emerges with it in her beak, arms folded, triumphant. The rest of them cackle. Later, they’ll shriek she’s let herself down, but for now they line the harbour wall and shake their feathers provocatively. Go on then, their eyes suggest, chuck us another.
*****That evening, they’ll swoop on cheap drinks bought from a seafront shack, where the owner asks no questions if you pay cash. They’ll all get drunk on bravado, let the sea breeze and wandering hands of the boys brush over their puffed up chests. Passers-by will bray for a cull, bemoan their youthful excesses, stare as they peck at each other’s faces, the smack of their lips resounding with tuts.
*****Egged on by each other, the gulls will stare too; the sea’s relentless slap reminding the passers-by of all the quick kisses they never got back. Haw haw they call to each other with bubblegum spit, telling the boys they’d better head home to their nests before their mothers come looking. One of the boys offers to walk them and they screech their refusal to the wind, flocking together at the edge of the shelter. See you, they crow, as they soar into town we’ll be back.
Emma Phillips is a teacher from Devon. Her work has been placed by the Bath Flash Fiction Award and in Best Microfiction 2022, long listed by Reflex fiction and appeared in Blink-Ink, Popshot and Mslexia.
SUBMIT / MAILING LIST / COMPETITION / CRITIQUE SERVICE / BOOKSHOP / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / BSKY.SOCIAL / FLASH FICTION / DONATE / LINKS/COMPS/INFO
*
*
*
Tags: