We invited you to tell us a story of a long winter's night in fifty words or less.
Here we present the winner and finalists:
WINNER
Streetlights sweat amber onto frozen sidewalks. Windows blink themselves tired. My breath ghosts the dark as I wander nowhere, pockets swollen with homesickness. From an open kitchen, cumin and fried onions drift out, and I am back in Kherva, barefoot on warm dust. Dawn finds me still walking.
Arya Patel
FINALISTS
The station breathes. The old woman holds the carrier on her lap. She combs her fingers through the empty air, again, again. “The sea is warmer,” she says. Wind swallows the tracks. Snow keeps falling. No trains. No light. Only her hand, still moving.
Milana Roldugina
The long winter night lasts twelve hours on the ward. Machines breathe. Someone calls for water. Someone doesn’t. I chart, check, return, again and again. By morning, the windows pale. Outside, the day begins. Inside, we hand the night to someone else.
Vaishnavi Pusapati
