The Panorama Flash Fiction Contest 2021 was set up to invoke a sense of community. In a time where we must stay far apart, writing can bring us together while conveying a wide panorama of human experiences.
1st Place: Drifting by Cormac Culkeen
jesus this wind is cold you can feel the North in it, all icy edges inside the neck and gusting numbness into the face even a hoodie won’t stop it. The night sky is a black loom and the stars are just hidden by the clouds and the moon lights their edges with silver. I can hear some shouting already and the roars echo back and forth as they wind down over the dank hills. I look at Alex lying beside me, and he looks at me, but it doesn’t reach to his eyes. He only came along because of…
Read MoreRunner Up: ‘First Home’ by Rhiannon Jones
‘She might look different from how she was when you last saw her,’ my mother said. ‘She’s lost a lot of weight since she’s been ill.’ ‘I feel bad – ’ I began, but my mother was saying hello to my grandmother’s neighbour Bruce, who sat outside his front door in a fold-out chair, his tattoos fading to blue. My mother knocked once, and pushed the door open. My grandmother looked smaller, her hair had thinned. ‘You look well,’ she exclaimed, with a glee that could only mean I had put on weight. When she stood, slowly as if trying…
Read MoreRunner Up: ‘Coins on the Tongue’ by Carl Kinsella
She complained often about a feeling of grime on her hands, and insisted that it was more than a feeling. That if she looked for more than a few seconds she could really see grains of silt embedded in the grooves of her fingerprints. It made her scared to touch her eyes, she thought it would make her blind. Sometimes I’d pretend to be reading or scrolling my phone and I’d watch her stare interminably at her hands. She would suck on her fingers in the hopes that her saliva would break up whatever was on her fingertips — even…
Read MoreCan’t find what you’re looking for? Use the search form to search the site.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive all the latest updates!