THE PRIZE

The tests had been numerous and gruelling – a fifty mile cycle race which had weeded out the unfit followed by a pure maths exam.  Then the women were dropped in the middle of Snowdonia National Park and told to survive for three days catching their own food and finding water.  After that they were rounded up, each imprisoned in a dark room, unable to hear or see for forty eight hours or until they cracked.  Now only two women remained in the contest – Carly and Dawn, tired from days of stress, pain and sleep deprivation; they faced each other in the arena, clutching baseball bats.

 

Surrounding the arena were their supporters who screamed encouragement as Carly and Dawn charged clumsily at each other.  There was a crack as the baseball bats clashed.  The two women struggled in grim silence, their pale faces furious.

“They used to be such good friends,” Jodie sighed.
“Yes,” Claire responded, “until the competition.  They hate each other now.”
“It’s always that way, if you like someone first and something like this comes between you, friendship turns to hatred and well ...” Jodie broke off as Carly dropped her baseball bat.

With a yell of triumph Dawn swung her baseball bat into her rival’s stomach, Carly sank to the ground with a groan.  Dawn pushed her advantage, but Carly had had enough, she raised her hands in the surrender gesture.  Dawn had won.  Claire and Jodie groaned in unison, they had been supporting Carly.

“She’s going to be devastated.  All that effort, all that fight, she really wanted that prize,” Claire murmured, “I don’t know what to say to her.”
Jodie said nothing.  She watched Dawn’s supporters surround their friend and lift her on their shoulders, carrying her to the winner’s podium.  Carly’s friends melted away, disappearing from the side of the arena, distancing themselves from the loser.  Jodie went to where Carly knelt in the arena sobbing uncontrollably.  “I really wanted it, I really wanted to win it, the prize,” she moaned.
“I know, I know,” Jodie whispered soothingly, stroking her friend’s matted hair and kissing her.
“And if I couldn’t have it, I really didn’t want her to, but she’s got it hasn’t she?  She’s won.  I hope she’s happy,” Carly’s face was twisted with bitterness.  She and Jodie looked up to the winner’s podium where Dawn held her prize aloft.
 

The ugly tupperware cup filled with plastic beads was in Dawn’s hands now, out of Carly’s reach forever.  The coloured glass beads stuck on its sides with glue shone in the weak sunshine.

SMOKE SCREEN

In the winter we hid in the safety of our smoke screen.  We used to stand in the cold of your porch, watching the fag smoke curl upwards into the starlit dark.  We avoided the subject.

We talked about everything else instead – put the world to rights, laughed at my stupid jokes and your acerbic wit and criticised the digital obsessed world.  During pauses in our conversation, when it might have been right and proper to raise the subject, we played music and critiqued that.  To distract ourselves further one night, we went dancing and our antics made you believe that people thought we were crazy.  I just didn’t care, but then I never did care enough, did I?  We were safe in our bubble, we avoided the subject.

It turns out that all through last winter, you were waiting for your moment to raise it, to end things between us, to recede and disappear like our fag smoke disintegrating into night air.  Me, toking on my cig, laughing at your humour, all happy and secure, I had no idea.  I thought we could avoid the subject forever.

 Well, the Spring came, didn’t it?  The light revealed a fraudulent friendship and there was no hiding anymore ... You picked your moment then and I?  Finding myself unable to watch smoke curling upwards, I gave up cigarettes and got myself through the summer.  Now that the nights are drawing in again, I find myself wanting to stand on your porch and share a cigarette with you.