The Word Cloud

The idea is to investigate a situation, paying attention to two or more of the senses – smell, touch, hearing, taste, and, finally, sight. Any situation – sitting on a bus, walking through a rain shower, devouring a low calorie fresh cream cake.

Write a piece – up to 200 words, one entry per entrant – transferring your experience of the situation to a fictional character. Write what someone might read if they randomly flicked open a book to the page where the character is in the situation.

You could even pick a situation that one of your own characters is going to experience. So, if your novel/story is in need of, say, a hot, steamy sauna scene - go for it.

To be judged on how well the character’s total sensory experience of the situation is conveyed.

Hope that makes sense!

the factory stood empty. Where the sounds of gurgling chocolate lakes, crunching sugar and a singing workforce would have filled his ears, now just the steady thump thump of the hydro pump remained, its liquid candy waterfall long since dried. He looked around, remembering how colourful it used to be, bright as rainbows. Not anymore. Giant machines stood like the skeletons of dinosaurs in a museum, the floor littered with boxes and broken fragments of toffee and honeycomb. He stood, as he always had, breathing in deeply through his nose, inhaling his life’s work. The vaguest scent of chocolate still lingered in the cold air, which was at least something. He noticed a box on the floor next to where he stood. He reached inside, his fingers finding the familiar, smooth wrappers, the slim shapes of the bars. He took one and began to unwrap it, feeling the thin, metallic paper beneath the outer layer and then the soft, slightly sticky contents. He broke a piece off, popped it into his mouth. And as the Fudgemallow produced its flavours of caramel and fondant and the sweetest honey, Wonka knew that it had been a mistake to trust the boy.

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It's a little over, but it's from my book and it deals with sight, touch and so forth.

There’s an art shop that I like to buy things from, but not things for work. I have other suppliers for that, serious paint people, where everything is mixed to order. Each colour expressed as an equation.

This is a different place, small. It smells of clean paper and white spirit and is run by an Asian family. The father has a splendid beard that curls up at the edges, his son, big, gentle eyes behind ugly glasses. I like it because you have to find things; you have to work at it. Sometimes this is what you want, not to be given everything; sometimes it’s better to find what you didn’t know you needed.

The paints have names. Far off words, which create visions of Zanzibar and the scent of pink satin. Vermilion and burnt sienna, rose lake and Prussian blue. You can contemplate titanium and flake white, jade and verdigris; the mood, that a sweep of the brush could pull, from umber to ultramarine.

I have always kept this place for something special. Like silk underwear found in a vintage store, you’re never sure if this is the lover. The lover worthy of un-doing black silk ribbon for, and teasing apart the pale green tissue. It may never be worn, because how can you ever know?

But today, my fingers touch the most delicious paper, thick and creamy. It needs watercolor, and pen and ink. I buy these as well and take them home like Christmas candy.

The van had had one careful owner and two reckless ones, the current driver being one of the latter. The diesel engine sounded like a cross between a rusty chainsaw and a narrow boat. The inside was not much better, the first thing someone normally said if they were foolish enough to get into the vehicle was, ‘What’s that fucking smell?’ The stench that permeated though the van was a mixture of several fragrances, cat’s urine being one of the strongest ingredients, closely followed by the vomit, excrement and other bodily fluids of many of God’s creatures with subtle undertones of rotting takeaways. Struggling, and utterly failing, to combat the smell were pine fragrance ‘Magic Tree’ air fresheners hanging from every protuberance in the vehicle adding their sickly sweetness to the unholy stench. Unholy, because no God worth his salt, would ever own up to creating such a nose shattering reek. On the passenger seat was a pile of paperwork consisting of several different forms and pads

A short scene from Darkened Glass

Pain seared through me like a welding torch. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t draw a breath. The blindfold left me in darkness and my brain with nothing to do but feel. Someone had slit open my belly; I could feel my intestines draped over my left thigh and puddled between my legs. Hope and her witches had eviscerated me in their search for my gall bladder and to take slices from my liver and heart. No doubt they had punctured my lungs in their attempt to reach it. That was why I couldn’t scream.

Or breathe.

I might be tied to the table or nailed to it as Hope had threatened. I couldn’t tell. My brain was overwhelmed by pain; it could no longer identify the individual sources.

A door opened. “Weaver, oh my god.”

I recognised the voice, Grant‘s. New feelings boiled inside me, feelings that masked the pain, giving me focus. Rage and hate came to me like twin lovers and I embraced them. I had trusted this man as I had trusted no one else, not even Devlin. He was responsible. Malice coupled with hate and rage fuelled them both.

He would pay.

Tears seared my skin. They coursed down my cheeks like lava down a mountainside and dripped from the edge of my chin, bouncing with a plip, plip, plip on the decrepit Chesterfield sofa. Paw dead? No – it wasn’t true. I closed my eyes but all I could see was black. The blackness accentuated the smell. I’d heard talk of the pervading stench of death, but none of that resided here. I could smell Paw and his unique essence of Scotch, fabric conditioner and Cuban cigars.

At least the sobbing had stopped. Instead breath came in sharp, staggered gasps. Each gasp stabbed at my lungs. I couldn’t swallow over the knotted fist in my throat, it tasted of blood. A snowdrift settled on my heart. Never had pain felt so raw.

Heat radiated through my hands. It trickled into my veins, melting the ice. My grainy eyes sought the source of the warmth. Sam smiled.

‘Talk to me Emmy. Please?’ He whispered.

‘Why?’ The word stuck in my throat.

‘Because – it’s dark in here and you sparkle when you speak.’

My heart ignited.

‘Okay.’ I sighed and the room lit with a fire like glow.

The May blossom can no longer compete, as the distinctive odour from the byre reaches me. I can pick out the peaceful clucking of the chickens above the twittering of sparrows in the hedgerow and the exquisite warbling of a robin perched on the five-bar gate to the lower meadow. But it’s the sweet smell of hay and straw mixed with cows’ urine and dung that’s so alluring, evoking memories of so long ago.

My city shoes crunch on loose stones on the farm track and the clang of a lid against an empty milk churn echoes off the tiles in the milking parlour. I hear the gentle chugging of the suction machines attached to full udders. The contented lowing of a cow is competing now with the sound of the chickens fussing amongst the farmyard detritus.

I breath in appreciatively as I reach the farmhouse. The robin watches me with a beady eye from across the lane and doesn’t miss a note of his ever-changing song. I thrill to the still-remembered roughness of the old oak door as it opens to my touch. I catch a whiff of the rambling roses over the lintel as I enter.

I’m home.

[200 words]

Bogota blues

The three of us dawdled on the cracked pavement outside Café con Leche, in the neighborhood of La Candelaria, near the Museo Botero. The sounds of salsa from inside the café permeated my ears.

‘Are you hungry?’ asked Juanita, swaying to the music.

I glanced at my brother. He was fiddling with his backpack. It was a hot day, and sweat stains were seeping onto his shirt.

‘A cold San Miguel, first,’ I said.

Tom nodded. ‘Sounds good to me. And a plate of tapas – tortilla chips and chili wedges.’

We found a table under the shade of an orange tree and squeezed in close together – at that moment, innocent intimacy.

Juanita’s eyes sparkled like green emeralds. ‘Bogota is beautiful,’ she said, her pert nose inhaling the air. ‘Can you smell the blossom?’

I smiled. So did Tom. We were captivated by Juanita; her graceful charm and sensuous looks fulfilled our youthful fantasies.

‘Paradise,’ I said, touching her leg with the tips of my fingers. ‘Everything is perfect. Just perfect.'

Those were the good times – the cold beers clearing the dust from our throats, the exotic paellas filling our bellies - until jealousy intruded and tore us apart…

My hands gripped the damp rock, although to be fair it was probably my hands that were damp. God knows the rest of my body was damp, I'd only put a clean T-shirt on an hour ago and already it was soaked through.

Lots of lovely sensory images: I enjoyed reading all of the entries and felt a reader’s appreciation of the quality of the writing. Well done everyone.

As to a winner: It came down to a photo-finish between Guero's, Noodledoodle's and Tony's – with Guero’s deliciously bitter-sweet tale taking top spot.

Thank you, Noel. Thank you so much. I’d also like to thank my wife and daughter, my friends and of course the members of this wonderful Academy for this fantastic award. Thank you, too, to Johnny and Penelope for their wonderful performances in bringing my characters to life, you really were….oh, hang on. Oops. Wrong acceptance speech.

Thanks, Noel! I enjoyed the competition, there were some great entries; Tenacity’s silk ribbons must have come very close, too…

July’s comp to follow shortly, then. Thanks again!

Congrats GD ( & Tony) well done! ;-)

Depends how much chocolate I have eaten...

Well done GD (and ND). Nice ones. Thank you Noel fo a good comp.

Good on you GD - deservedly made the top spot at last. And also Tony and ND - great entries and so very close.

Roll on July...