A PANEL of judges from Wokingham Shared Reading group has chosen three of their favourite short stories written by local authors from Wokingham Writers group.
The stories were all entered into this year’s Wokingham Writers Group’s competition, adjudicated by established author Louise Morris.
While Louise Morris was making her decisions, so were the 15 members of Wokingham Shared Reading group, which is led by Fiona Dignan, with funding from The Reader.
The panal used a rigorous scoring system, along with discussion and analysis to prepare for their People’s Choice recommendations.
They agreed with Louise Morris’s overall winner: David Palin’s ‘Under Her Feet’, but made different second and third choices, awarding joint second place to both Rachel Parker’s ‘Harrier’s Escape’ and Tania Christie’s ‘The Flight’.
Wokingham Writers say they treasure the generosity of the readers’ feedback which is essential in any writer’s tool kit.
They share this story with the borough to thank Wokingham Shared Reading group for the hard work its members put into judging the competition, and to show how much they value people’s voices and opinions.
The Shared Reading group meets at the FBC Centre, Finchampstead on Mondays from 2pm until 3pm, and in Wokingham Library, on Tuesdays from 12.15pm until 1.45pm.
Sessions are free to join, and people can just drop in.
So, with thanks to Fiona Dignall for leading the People’s Choice panel, Wokingham Writers present Tania Christie’s ‘The Flight’.
The Flight
She sat right on the edge, her life flashing in front of her eyes.
She shuffled forward feeling surprisingly calm and comfortable as one might feel watching TV on the sofa after a day’s work.
A rock dislodged under her foot and tumbled down.
She listened out but couldn’t hear where it stopped falling.
It was as if it had vanished into thin air.
The hill in the distance peered at her incredulously from behind its veil of mist like a nosey neighbour twitching the curtain.
‘Mind your own business’, she’d say.
When her mum died a year ago, the world lost its meaning, her life its purpose, adrift at sea with no compass.
She looked around her taking it all in yet unable to make any coherent sense.
She remembered pouring a bucket of cold water over her head one scorching hot summer in her grandparents’ garden by the well when she was a child.
The shock and relief were still fresh in her mind.
How she had been afraid and startled in the beginning and overjoyed at the end, gasping.
How it made her scream with horror and pleasure.
She couldn’t believe she’d done it.
But she did.
And it was good.
Over in seconds.
One of those things that stayed with her forever.
Is that what life’s about?
Stand-alone, brief moments?
‘I doubt that. I doubt everything!’
Was it peer pressure?
She couldn’t quite remember.
She’d been alone for so much of her childhood that connecting the dots was not easy.
And yet the dots were clearly there.
She just needed to find them.
She suddenly imagined herself in a dark room, arms stretched out, searching and hoping for little landing lights to appear so she would know where to steer her plane and where to feel safe and nest.
Around her, seagulls had burrowed in the coarse heather cooing unhindered by her presence.
How long had she been there!
Below her feet a vast expanse of air.
Oh, to be a bird, she thought, to fly over and far and never ever stop.
Just fly…
She stood up.
Slowly opened her wings.
Leaned forward into the wind letting the current take her.
She glided over the abyss catching a glimpse of the glistening river below.
Her wingsuit wrapped around her like a bubble of hope.
