A metallic river curves into the distance, blister-hot and crazed by September sun. Log-jammed juggernauts, coaches, vans, cars, lorries, vans, cars, cars ... All with somewhere to go, something to do … All wanting to do it now! Too late … This is Gridlock 3. This is Friday. This is the future. How far to Utopia?

Commuters, truckers, white-van men: smart-shirts, T-shirts, no-shirts ... Don’t look, don’t catch their eye. Above all, don’t smile.

Radios serve pre-packed music and stale slabs of news. ‘It’s hot – 27 degrees … Gridlock on the M25 … More on the hour ....’ More is less; more is madness.

Beyond the pebbled ditch is a brimstone field of bronchial weed and embittered hypertensive flowers. High above, vapour tracks are cut in a sky of angel blue. No angels down here. The Devil’s Messenger sits on a stunted birch: a yellow-eyed crow, looking for souls to snatch.

This is the world’s biggest orbital – or the longest car park, depending on your point of view. A blessed relief for the city centre – or a metal-clad concrete snake, voracious mouth consuming its own unending, excremental tail.

Somewhere the cameras; somewhere the experts, figuring the average vehicular speed to several decimal places. Nought point nought nought. Recurring, recurring … ‘Must be a software glitch.’ Life is a glitch, glitch, glitch.

Finger-tap, cheek-puff, eye-roll - yawn … For the enlightened few, there is mantra-comfort Aum … aumm … aummm … Re-incarnation would be good. How far to Nirvana?

Relax. Think green ... Think grass … Peaceful stuff, grass - never in a hurry. But it’s quicker than most things round here. Maybe a millimetre's growth in a good 10-hour day. Say 0.1mm per hour. Definitely quicker.

This is Friday. This is Gridlock 3. How far to Gridlock 4? Don’t ask. More crows are waiting … Keep hold of your soul.

Car-belch – Brrm-brrm – aumm-aumm … Aarrgh!

How far to Catatonia?

The Judge says:

It is an every day scene that is composed with considerable skill; filled with imagery that appeals, vivid vocabulary; a sketch that leaves a memorable impression.

It reminds me, although in a modern and different way, of Auden's Night Mail, with the engine and the words moving to the constraints of the terrain. Here, the stop start of the traffic is portrayed by short words, short nouns and short sentences. The daily repetition of the jam is looked at from various angles: concrete, inanimate, philosophic and socialistic. It has original metaphors such as " a metal-clad concrete snake..." and the tongue-in-cheek myth featuring the crows. I loved it.

Peter Rolls says:

I wasn't sure about doing a vignette: it sounded too 'literary' for me. But Segora had a useful definition: 'A word picture … The territory is somewhere between a poem and a short story.' Good, I thought: not too many rules. Let yourself go.

Some years ago, I did a poem about the M25, which ended:

I had a much longer story on the same theme. So I arranged for a collision of the two ideas. And from the wreckage arose Gridlock 3.

1930: born 7 May. Thus briefly a contemporary of Arthur Conan Doyle (died 17 July), although no meeting is recorded.

1942: Slough Grammar School. English report: ‘weak.’ Discouraged; spent time collecting train numbers.

1950-90: Civil Service photographer. Head of Printing, RAE Farnborough, Contributor to textbooks and technical journals.

I was late. Lateness was punishable. As I stumbled into the restaurant I saw our table empty. Oh God, I couldn’t go through it again. I collapsed into a chair and then I smelt it. A familiar, ancient, cloying smell. Perfume? No. Smoke? No. Hair oil. And then I knew. I must not tremble. Not even when I could see, clearly, vividly, the first time I ever smelt that smell.

I was seven years old sitting on Da`s knee helping him to blow out the candles on his birthday cake when the door opened. The two men who came in were all smiles and greetings but the sudden stiffness in Da, and Mam´s white face, frightened me. Da hugged me for a moment and passed me to Mam who hurried me towards the kitchen. The older man leant over me and I smelt his hair. He told his son, Eoghan, that I was a very pretty girl.

We never saw Da again. Mam said he´d had to go abroad to work, but she kept on crying so I stopped asking when he´d be back. Then Mam forgot to clean the house or make meals.

I was sixteen when Eoghan came for me. He was rich and had many friends who wanted to be nice to me. But when I went to live with him it wasn´t nice. And he told me all about the smelly man who took Da away. And what they did to Da.

That is why I have this little gun in my handbag. It was going to be for Eoghan but now, I think, I will have to use it for the smelly man. Maybe, if I am very, very clever I could use it twice.

The Judge says:

There is something integral to the piece that makes this one also stand out. Perhaps it's the simple, childlike voice, the eeriness of what's going on, what is left unsaid or the use of the personified odour - "the smelly man" - that leaves everything up to the imagination of the reader. These simple but effective devices make the piece linger in the mind.

***

Margaret Cornwells says:

My father told me that my middle name, Enderwick, was the surname of his Irish grandmother. I have always felt a great affinity for Ireland and the Irish.

I was born in India and sent "Home" to boarding school in England aged twelve. I became a Primary School teacher. My husband was recruited to work in Africa where we spent twenty-five years and brought up three children. Whilst living on the slopes of Kilimanjaro I started my autobiography and a novel/biography of Tanzania’s famous huntress, Margarete Trappe. Since retiring to Spain I have concentrated on short stories with the encouragement of our local writing group.

I heard it clearly – THUD - on the floor above. Edna had probably just dropped something. Still – as I emerged from early morning sleep - I resolved to go to see her; return the fancy crockery I had borrowed the week before.

But I didn’t go; instead I washed the things, put them in a bag and let them sit on the kitchen table. She had probably forgotten them any way.

Weeks later I knocked the bag off; nothing left but assorted porcelain pieces. I would offer to pay – take responsibility.

So I set off upstairs, a remaining pickle bowl cupped in my hands like an offering. But the stench on the landing halted me. I recognised it – the smell of the dead. I had witnessed it only once; a childhood memory of dad poisoning a nest of mice that nestled under our floorboards.

I ran to the door, knocked - no answer. I hadn’t heard her leave. In fact I hadn’t heard her for a long time. "Edna?" I said, "Edna! Edna!" Still no answer.

I threw myself against the door and it gave way.

There were her naked feet, twisted around the struts of a ladder: tumbled boxes, glass and crockery scattered around them. She had been looking for the things I had borrowed.

Even now, as I lie in the fusty darkness jerked awake by a ghostly thud, I stare at the ceiling in blinking pain, a blood-black stain growing on the white plaster. Like cloud formations it makes pictures, but only of crockery unreturned.

The Judge says:

An interesting story based on internal narrative and culpability. This gives it a different type of eeriness altogether. One can feel the scene and its cause recurring on a regular basis – what if?

Lynne Voyce -