Our January Flash Contest was based on Creativity Prompt #185 (provided by Molly Torinus, Stone Soup contributor), which challenged participants to write a story in which the protagonist explained COVID-19 to people in the distant past. What a way to begin the new year! Molly’s thoughtful prompt led to a surge of creativity; these stories took us on journeys to Ancient Egypt and Greece, invented time travel via carrier pigeon, and centered on ghostly interactions. We even received a play set during the end of the Black Death! While each and every story was a pleasure to read, we narrowed down our selections to the usual five winners and five honorable mentions. As always, thank you to all who submitted, and please submit again next month! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “What Are You Talking About?” by Audrey Billington, 10 (Hillsboro, IL) “Dear Jane” by Finoula Breen-Ryan, 10 (Bridgeport, CT) “The Warning: A Play” by Nova Macknik-Conde, 10 (Brooklyn, NY) “Old Answers” by Daniel Shorten, 10 (Mallow, ROI) “The Ghost of You” by Eliya Wee, 11 (Menlo Park, CA) Honorable Mentions “Covid-19 Explained to Ancient Egyptians” by Poorvi Girish, 8 (Fremont, CA) “Royally Messed Up” by Lui Lung, 12 (Danville, CA) “Dear People of the Past” by Zayda Parakh, 12 (Chattanooga, TN) “COVID-19.63” by Divya Srinivasan, 12 (Sammamish, WA) “COVID Time Travel” by Savarna Yang, 13 (Outram, NZ) Audrey Billington, 10 (Hillsboro, IL) What Are You Talking About Audrey Billington, 10 I was in the process of trying to beat my jump rope record when I saw it. I tripped over my incoming rope, catapulting towards the ground. With my arms crossed, I peered at the blue-gray animal pecking at bits of dropped popcorn. A scroll, small and white, was attached to its skinny legs. A scroll! That was unbelievable. Carrier pigeons were things of the past. Who on earth could be sending me a message using a carrier pigeon?! Curious, I left my jump rope lying on the ground and rushed towards the animal. Upon seeing me, it abandoned its station by the popcorn and let the paper drop out of its legs. “Thanks,” I muttered, unaware of the contents inside. An old-fashioned stamp was plastered on the paper to keep the scroll together. Even if the sender was determined to relive the past, they probably couldn’t find a stamp like that. It wouldn’t be cheap, anyways. The stamp appeared to be an artifact from the 1950s: monochromatic with a president’s face on it. Zig-zag lines blurred together. While still wondering how the sender could have gotten access to that stamp, I ripped the scroll open. Even though the whole scenario showed signs of a historical writer, the note surprised me much more than I expected. It was written in cursive! No one used cursive in 2022. The weirdest thing was that it was penned in ink. Not pen ink, though. Quill ink. “Dear Linda, I live in disorder now. Polio is just a terrible pandemic. I constantly live in fear. I don’t even want to have you over for a slumber party! It’s all too risky. I wish life would return to normal. I don’t want to stress over the idea that I might acquire paralysis. Why? Why must this happen to us? Can life not return to normal? Oh, Linda, it’s all quite terrorizing. I miss the old days. Oh, I miss them so much. Your friend, Susan.” The letter read. My eyes exploded. Polio? Linda and Susan? Paralysis? What did all of this mean? I toyed with the idea that it might be a prank, but I went against it. I knew from personal experience that pranksters couldn’t write that well. This was something more serious. I wasn’t exactly sure what to tell her. I brainstormed a selection of both dumb and serious ideas. Eventually, I settled on a few sentences that didn’t make me sound like an idiot. “Dear Susan, my name’s not Linda. It’s Jordan. I think you might be confused. Did you mean to send this to me? I’m assuming not. Also, polio? Do you mean COVID?? Please clarify. -Jordan, not Linda. P.S.: What year is it?” I threw the last sentence into my letter as a fun addition. Just in case time travel was real, I had to ask whether or not she lived in 2022. There couldn’t be any harm done. That night, I squirmed in my bed. I was unable to sleep. My anxiousness to see the reply from Susan was uncontrollable. I attempted to fall asleep, but my eyelids fluttered at a rapid rate. To my pleasure, the pigeon appeared in my driveway the next morning. Its eyes appeared to water at the assortment of fruits sitting in a woven basket. I took great happiness in providing my messenger bird with snacks. My heart was flipping over and over as I sprinted to retrieve the scroll from the bird. The fatigue caused by my unwelcome all-nighter didn’t cancel my thrill. In fact, it only enhanced it. I couldn’t believe my luck. A person who was possibly stranded in the mid-twentieth century was trying to communicate with me through letters! Anyone else would’ve deemed my situation impossible. “Dear Jordan, it’s weird not writing Linda at the top of this letter. I’ve never written to a Jordan. I feel as if you are the confused one. What are you talking about? Jordan, it’s 1955. The polio vaccine was released a few months ago. Do you not know what polio is? Are you unaware of the raging pandemic sending us into quarantine? What is COVID? A disease of your imagination? And yes, I didn’t mean to send this to you. I intended to reach Linda, my dearest friend. I have no idea how the pigeon gave the letters to you. It’s all so confusing! -Susan” I wasn’t sure whether or not the response excited me. For one thing, I could
time travel
Flash Contest #7: Time Traveling Characters From the Past. Our Winners and Their Work!
Weekly Flash Contest #7: Be a time traveler in reverse! What would happen if a character from the past arrived in the present? Choose a time period you like and know a little bit about, and write down at least 3 things that make it really different to now. Now imagine that someone your age and your gender has arrived in your house from that time in the past. Use your list of differences to write a story about what happens during the day you spend together. The week commencing May 11th (Daily Creativity prompt #36) was our seventh week of flash contests, with another record number of entries including one from our youngest-ever Flash Contest entrant! We had fun meeting time travellers from different eras from ancient history (even dinosaurs!) to the present (yes, some time travel was projected into the future–it’s complicated!), and it was even harder than usual to choose our favourites. We commend all of the entrants for their imagination, and for the creative ways they found to bring their characters from the past into life in the present using clothes, language and misunderstandings about contemporary everyday life to make them real. This week, we are announcing our 5 Winners, whose work is published below, plus 5 Honorable Mentions. Congratulations, everyone! Winners (work published on this page) Isabel Bashaw, 10, Enumclaw, WA Samson Brown, 12, Cary, NC Ava Shorten, 10, Mallow, Ireland Michela You, 11, Lexington, MA Xuyi (Lauren) Zheng, 10, Guelph, Ontario, Canada Honorable Mentions “The Time Watch” by Hannah Nami Gajcowski, 10, Bellevue, WA “Lace, Frills, and Clever Jokes” by Samantha Lee, 10, Thomaston, CT “Prehistoric Visitors” by Sean Tenzin O’ Connor, 4, Bishop, CA “Panic From the Seventies” by Lauren Oh, 12, Cary, NC “A Dose of Time” by Ella Yamamura, 12, Cary, NC Remember, we are running the Flash Contest every week during the COVID-19-related school closures and shelter-in-place arrangements. It is always based on the first Daily Creativity prompt of the week. The prompt is posted on Monday, entries are due by Friday, and the winners are chosen and announced the following week. Isabel Bashaw, 10 Enumclaw, WA My Weekend With Jane Isabel Bashaw, 10 My name is Isabel, and this weekend, the craziest thing happened to me. I don’t know where to start, but I’ll begin on Friday night, when everyone was in bed . . . * * * “Hoo Hoo Hoo . . .” I was awakened in the middle of the night by an annoying owl outside my bedroom. And since I was up, I decided to have a snack. I crept downstairs, so as not to wake anyone up. I grabbed two peanut butter cookies and a tall glass of milk, then I went back upstairs to eat at my desk. I munched on a cookie, then gulped down some of my creamy white milk. After I had finished, I clambered back in bed, and tried to sleep. But after five minutes, I was startled by a green orb hovering over my pillow. I leapt under my covers in fear. When I looked up, the green orb was shaking violently. I tried to move, but I felt stuck to my bed. Finally, the orb stopped shaking, and a girl fell out of it, and landed on top of me. “mff gt off of e!” I said, muffled under the weight of the mysterious girl. “Sorry!” she said, and climbed down from my bed. “What the heck?!” I yelped, rubbing my eyes. This girl looked like a pioneer. She was wearing a bonnet, a shabby dress, and was super tan. Her barefoot feet smelled terrible! “What is this house? It’s so pink!” said the girl, walking around. “It’s not a house, silly! Its my bedroom,” I said, eying her. “WOW!” She cried, and started jumping all over the place. I heard footsteps coming up to my room, and quickly told the girl: “get under my covers, and stay there. Be super quiet, too.” She obeyed me, and then I started jumping until the door swung open and my dad walked in. “What are you doing up here? It’s 4:00 in the morning, Isabel. Stop jumping around! You’ll wake the baby!” He looked around. “Who said wow?” I quickly came up with a fib. “I was singing a song! WOW! I am a star, la la la la WOW!” I sang, with an offbeat tone. Clearly my dad didn’t buy my act. He went up to my bed, and pulled up the covers, where the girl had fallen asleep. “What!? Did I say you could invite a friend over to play dress up in the middle of the night?!” he barked, then walked back to me. “Sorry Dad.” I whispered. “Just don’t wake anyone else up again, ‘K?” he said, his eyes softening. “Okay, ‘night dad.” I said. Then he walked out of the room, and the girl leapt out of the bed. “My name is Jane, by the way, and an hour ago I was in my log cabin, when this lady appeared in front of me and told me that I was allowed to go forward in time to see the future for 24 hours. I said okay, and the next thing I know I am falling onto a stranger’s bed, and that’s the whole story basically.” I was shocked, and not entirely convinced. “When is your birthday?” I asked, suspiciously. “May 23rd, 1845” she said in a split second. “I still can’t believe that this is just one room!” “Well,” I said, “I guess you can hang out with me for 24 hours. So, what’s it like, being a pioneer?” “Is that what people call us? Well, I sew mittens, hats, and socks, but I mean everyone does that. I also help mama stir the beans, and make cornbread. I churn the butter, and milk our cow Besie, and care for her calf Beanie. I also harvest crops from our garden, and I love to play
