This year, with the inaugural Blackwell’s Short Story Prize, Cherwell aimed to reconnect with its roots as a literary magazine in the 1920s, when our undergraduate contributors (including Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and W.H. Auden) showcased the best of Oxford’s creative talent. We received nearly 30 entries, and they were all of an exceptionally high standard. The judge Dr Clare Morgan, Course Director of the MSt Creative Writing at Oxford, offered the following praise to this winning story: “The assured grip on form and tone, combined with an acute eye for detail, swayed me, alongside a wry and self-deprecating humour“.
Was it after all of substance, she wondered, meandering towards Holywell Street, was it after all of substance: her notion that love inevitably came to inexplicable ends, and people somehow went past her; was she spiteful, or accustomed to finding that her solitude never ended more than temporarily? Come what may, in the winding streets of Oxford, in the comings and goings of tourists whose ghosts she felt acutely, admittedly not at this hour of the night on a Wednesday; only occasional weary professors and overworked students rubbing their eyes flowed around her, here, there, she continued to wonder. His memory lived not wholly, how inadequate, in her, hers she was positive less than that in his mind, after all it was but a brief meeting, covering the edges of her conscious in a way reminiscent of the fog draping across the tower of All Saints Church, which she could see now in her mind, even without turning her head ever so slightly in the direction. Still, what was she contemplating as she looked into Blackwell’s store front? What was she trying to remember, her eyes fixed upon the latest release and the newest of the endlessly creative displays, but those numbers in rushed scrawl across a hastily grabbed napkin?
More than the companionship she sought in those elusive digits, the hints of a three, the curly tail of a two, the impossibility of recalling the sequence after a dashed through seven, she hungrily pursued the sentiment in her mind, ruminated if like Proust, all it would take for the memories to return would be a familiar taste , for her the taste of the semi-sweet hot chocolate and the feel of the cardboard takeaway cup before the fogged up window of Jericho Coffee Traders. The moment played in her head, her impatience at the ever ostentatious conversations of the undergraduates, the affected indifference of their older counterparts while name dropping the latest big names in cinema, art, literature, the grandiose, I’m a big fan but they’re somewhat niche, counting down, anticipating the moment when the pink haired barista would turn her way and she could finally take her order, to go. A gust of coolness then, Oxford as ever windy in February, the door swinging open tentatively, she noticed, how could she not, a step in her direction, such a graceful movement yet somehow shy, and then the coat, the coat she saw first, a grey woollen trench, and the tattered copy peeking out of the pocket. If not for that tattered copy, none of this reflection now, but there it was, that pale off- white corner, the faint turquoise of the l and the f, the more assured dark of the a and the y, and then he shifted slightly, and her hopes were confirmed, it was indeed a copy of Mrs Dalloway, and how could it not be fate then?
How was it that the quote went? “Absorbing, mysterious, of infinite richness, this life,” she had muttered, and he turned around then, he couldn’t not have heard, in the narrow corners of that white High Street building, and gave a private nod directed at her, and asked what it was that filled her with “extraordinary excitement,” and then of course the decision was sealed, to ask what Peter had asked, so quietly, yet so earnestly, the drink was not to go after all. Thursday, four hours into the afternoon, and her day was brightened by the discussion of the great English tragic genius, and woe the bodies taken by the sweep of the tide, Ophelia certainly with her heart break and loss was worthy to be considered, and what of Dazai across the world? Lost in the discussion, with a stranger who was not a stranger so much as unexpectedly a kindred soul, she remembered very little of him, snippets of detail really, the dark brown eyes, the way they matched his coffee, the leather strap of the camera he had bought on a whim outside The Ballroom Emporium, and had she read Susan Sontag, and what was her own “arm of consciousness” and then just as abruptly the awkward apologies of staying until closing time, and the buttoning of her jacket, and the wrapping of her scarf and the frantic grabbing of tissue. Then, awkward tender silence, the sound of his pen scratching the surface, hers likewise struggling to find grip on that hastily seized tissue, after that exchange, the temporary brush of their hands, what a cliche to call it scalding, and yet, and then the walk back which proved to be so fatal.
If fortune had looked favourably upon her, it seemed she had exhausted fate’s patience the moment they exchanged those unwilling parting words, for the sky began to swiftly cause a tantrum, why was it that things in Britain closed at five, an hour was not enough, and her own, disastrously unsuitable jacket, her own fault for scorning modernity’s love for the waterproof really, she vowed never to look down on polyester again. The digits disappeared, or rather came together into an indecipherable mess, and since then it seemed so did her mind- pouring over the pages of her latest legal case, the names blurred into absurdity, the rationale became irrational, or perhaps irrelevant, “what was it all for,” how could it be she had in that brief instant cared about him more than she ever cared for justice? She should not have thought that, she went too far, Sally in the novel was positive, and she was too, “what a lark” indeed to have such feelings for an hour-long encounter.
Clearly this could not be described as more than a destined disaster, a defeated idea, a fiasco, a mocking of the young woman with a hardened heart who somehow gave way to sentiments, beside the novel was not the epitome of happiness either, so how could she expect a meeting that began over a shared love for sadness and tragedy to end in any other way? That novel- a constancy of feelings and sensations, the story unfolding in Clarissa’s mind, more than on paper- and what irony for her life to mirror it so closely, beyond fictitious revery nothing else had transpired, no further developments, chance meetings, engrossing conversations, assuredly solitude remained the fixed option. A role “one must respect”, which previously she had accepted, yet now the notion lodged unpleasantly in her throat, and somewhere in between the third and fourth ribs.
Third, fourth, again those ubiquitous numbers, certainly incorrect, she had never been much of a stickler for Freud’s belief of the subconscious, but ought she find a specialist, she was sure somewhere in one of Oxford’s winding streets and tucked away suburban areas, there would be a passionate believer claiming to recover the eleven necessary numbers for the small sum of at least a week’s worth of rent. Irritated she shook the idea off, glancing up again at the tantalising countdown from fifty one to forty eight, and took a step forward, she had been rooted here long enough, much in the style of Estragon and Vladimir, except she knew not even the name of whom she was waiting for, and with her dim reflection in the storefront, after a brief delay, gracefully, yet shyly, moved another. A dash of grey and a line of brown, and then in the window her own dark silhouette became starker still in the outline of a hesitantly approaching other, and if Clarissa’s darkness had been profound, hers abruptly became considerably lighter.
Winner: “The Ghosts She Felt Acutely” by Polina Kim
Runner-up: “Letter from the Orient” by Dara Mohd
Shortlisted entries:
“SPLAT!” by Sophie Lyne
“A Short Sharp Shock to the Skull” by Jim Weinstein (pseudonym)
“Rhonda May” by Matt Unwin
“Any Blue Will Do” by Kyla Murray
