The Morning Coffee Writing Competition was created in 2020 in association with Sonder Magazine to fundraise for the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. For those who aren’t aware of their services, the RCC offer a free, confidential listening and support service for women and men who have been sexually abused at any time in their lives. They also run prevention campaigns. Please do consider donating directly at https://www.drcc.ie/donate.
1st Place: ‘You and I’ by Niamh Busby
I saw you on the train yesterday. I haven’t seen you since junior school; since GCSEs and the endless clouds of Linx and stifling assembly halls. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to recognise you, to actually see you. Ten years can change people in many ways but you more than most, you who I’ve known at four and at sixteen, you who now wears vibrant orange trousers to rival only the orange curls poking out of a knitted black hat. This striking difference meant my gaze slid over you countless times on our morning train journeys, assuming…
Read More2nd Place: ‘When The Mugs Don’t Match’ by Abbie White
There was something extra-terrestrial about the blue in his veins and the unsymmetrical bruising of his hand. As a child it made me squeamish, awaiting his papery skin to pucker above the cobalt seams and sprout an inky blue that would stain our hands. As the years stubbed out the futuristic blue of his blood turned a sickly red and the reality of his illness settled in my bones until I moved with it in every action. He was not a colourful alien but a dying man. Although I no longer felt fearful of his peculiar veins; the dread of…
Read More3rd Place: ‘War’ by Mary Coleman
Galway’s pavements were melting. 99s in every hand and the air was thick with the smell of factor 50. Everyone was diving from the Blackrock tower, building sandcastles and talking about football. Everyone except me. It had been a few weeks since I’d had contact from any of the lads. And it would be a few more now that they were in the final. Maroon and white bunting hung in a zig zag across Shop St. It was the Wednesday before the final. I had taken to walking the streets in the mornings before the city woke up. I walked…
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