The One I Thought Would Win (But Didn’t)
Rejection is part of writing. But it still smarts.
It Didn’t Win. I Still Love It.
I entered a flash fiction competition last month. It had to be under 600 words, and we were each assigned a random paranormal entity. Mine? A banshee.
Which I loved.
I sat with the idea for a while—what a banshee really is, what it might want, what it means to be the one doing the crying and what it means to be the one it cries for. And what came out was a quiet, ghostly little story about grief, connection, and something softer than most people imagine death to be.
I called it Before The Quiet Broke. I submitted it. And I was quietly sure—this one might actually win.
It didn’t.
Not first place. Not runner-up. Not even a mention.
And for a moment, I questioned everything. I know it’s good. It says what I wanted to say. It ends on exactly the note I intended. I’ve written plenty of pieces I’ve been unsure about—but not this one.
So I’m doing what all writers should do with stories that didn’t win: I’m sharing it anyway.
Because sometimes, the real win is writing something that sticks with you.
Here it is:
Before The Quiet Broke
Nana Nora hadn’t walked in eleven years. Not since the stroke. Not since the hard winter when all the pipes froze and her world shrank to the bed in the downstairs room with the fire and the frayed knitted blanket that didn’t warm her feet.
That night, the crying started.
Not sharp like a fox, but thin and sorrowful. It came on the wind. Somewhere between the river and the back wall of the garden. The kind of sound that finds its way through keyholes.
Nora stirred.
She hadn’t spoken in two days. But now she said, clear as day. ‘There’s a woman out there.’
I was in the doorway. I hadn’t meant for her to hear me. I never do.
She swung her soft, pale legs out of the ancient bed and pushed herself up like someone who’d always intended to stand, just hadn’t got round to it. Her nightdress hung off her bones, the collar gaping wide at one side. She moved with care, not fear.
‘She’s crying for something lost,’ she said. ‘But she’s young.’
Her old slippers were still under the bedside table. She stepped into them and shuffled past the crackling fire and into the hall.
I followed. Stunned.
The hallway was dim. The bulb had gone out weeks ago, and no one had replaced it. She moved past the sideboard covered in dusty framed photos, past the coat hooks with nothing left on them but a crimson woollen hat and a walking stick she’d refused to use because it made her look old.
The crying grew louder.
She reached the back door and stood listening for a moment with her head cocked like the blackbirds used to do in spring. Then she opened it.
Wind caught in her hair, what was left of it. Wispy, silvered, the smell of rose soap and sleep. She stepped out onto the stone and breathed in the cold night air. The crying didn’t stop.
I stood behind her.
She turned and saw me.
The whites of her eyes were yellowing now, but they were still sharp. Still twinkling like stars in the night sky.
‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘You poor girl.’
Her hand reached out and tenderly held mine.
‘You’ve been grieving a long time, haven’t you?’ she said.
I tried to answer, but no sound came. I think the wind took it away.
She nodded, as if that was enough.
‘You shouldn’t be alone in it.’
She came forward and pressed her forehead against mine. Then kissed my cheek.
‘You don’t have to cry anymore.’
And for the first time, I stopped crying.
***
In the morning, the carers found her in bed. Lying peacefully, one hand turned upward like she’d been reaching something in a dream.
They said she had a good death. Quiet.
And me—I left with the frost. But now and then, when the sky turns inky just before the dawn, and the wind blows from the west, the neighbours say they hear it again.
That thin, sorrowful sound by the back wall of the garden.
THE END
It didn’t place. But it still lingers.
Some stories are loud. Some demand attention. Some whisper their way through keyholes.
This one whispered.
And I’d write it again.
— H. J. x
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I’m H. J. Smith-Williams: novelist, screenwriter (in progress), and founder of the £1.5M Project—a year-long experiment to see how far words, wit, and stubborn execution can go.
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