Scintillating Stories: Flash fiction collection

In this episode we read three wonderful stories!
The Academy of Avian Excellence by Elynor Kamil (Content warning: animal cruelty) 
Homecoming by Fenja Hill
Elsa’s Pig by Zusana Storrier

Includes music by Kevin Macleod (Evening Melodrama) 

Transcript

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Hello and Welcome to ‘Scintillating stories’

in this show we read short stories (and poetry) by a variety of authors.

Today we are reading three pieces of Flash fiction.

The First is by Elynor Kamil

Elynor is based in London, England, where she works as an IT professional by day, and writes strange and unsettling stories by night. As a disabled Londoner, she is grateful for places around the city where she can perch and gather ideas. 

Content warnings: Animal cruelty

THE ACADEMY OF AVIAN EXCELLENCE by Elynor Kamil

At this academy, the birds are educated even before they hatch. Once the eggs are laid, each is carefully moved to an individual nest by our highly qualified staff. These individual nests are built on speakers which play carefully selected music from around the world. These incubators are sealed in soundproof boxes to ensure that the chosen music is the only sound that the egg is exposed to.

Once the chicks hatch, they are given more complex pieces to listen to. As hatchlings, their minds are malleable and ready to absorb key information. They are taught the difference between good and bad music through a combination of tactical feeding and low voltage electric shocks.

Once the hatchlings’ downy feathers have grown, they are ready to advance to the nestling curriculum. Nestlings are moved to individual transparent cubicles to grow alongside their fellows. There are no lids to these cubicles, allowing chicks to benefit from the knowledge of their peers. Cubicle chicks are fed specially bred worms high in omega-3s to promote rapid brain growth and memory retention. Each chick is only given food when it makes an appropriately tuneful sound. Those which are not able to learn will unfortunately lose their place and be removed.

However, as a highly competitive academy, it is not long before an empty cubicle is filled once again.

The fledgelings that succeed and begin to grow their flight feathers are moved to a new classroom where they can begin their education in earnest. Our avian educators – themselves masters in their chosen genre – deliver our all-encompassing curriculum, ensuring that each fledgeling has a grounding in the nuances of every genre of music. Of course, it is important that these young birds are given time to socialise with and learn from their peers; and so, there are regular break times where fledgelings are free to discuss the previous lessons, start composing their own music, and even engage in playful activities.

Once the fledgelings are ready to fly for longer distances, it is time for their final fledgeling exam. The lucky and gifted few that are successful will be invited to the next stage in their education. As juveniles, they are given more freedom over their time. Many take advantage of our connections with prestigious institutions around the globe, and, with our support, spread their wings and travel to undergo placements at these academies. Those who choose to remain at home will benefit from regular concert exposure and mentoring from top musical talent. Any who cannot decide are removed. In this cutthroat business, there is no time for young birds who do not know what they want. They have no future in performance, and have proven that they cannot sustain a career.

At last, these juveniles will graduate into subadults, ready for their official debut. While many start with smaller stages, our alumnae network is there to support each student’s burgeoning career. It is not long before many of these graduates become the best adult birds in the business.

Any which sink into obscurity are not worth mentioning.

The second story is by Fenja Hill.

Fenja Hill is the self-published author of What I Did on My Holidays, a 2018 novella, and Nightwriting: A Collection of Short Stories, a 2022 multi-genre collection. Her stories have also been published in many anthological works produced by the Writers in Stone collective, including Driftwood (2019), Cuckoo (2021), Seventy Three (2022), and Lock and Key (2022). Her poem Traveling in the Back Seat was shortlisted for the 2022 Yeovil Literary Prize.

Homecoming by Fenja Hill

The pre-dawn silence is broken gently by the whisper of woolly slippers, shuffling through soggy autumn leaves. There is no rhythm to the sounds, which falter and pause for just long enough to allow a listener to believe they have stopped, before, hesitantly, they continue.

As Ivy passes number fourteen, she has a moment of confusion. There’s a swing set and slide in the garden. Haven’t Jessie and David’s children grown too old for such things? Surely, they replaced the play area with tubs of beautiful flowers. Ivy recalls a day when she hadn’t been feeling too well, and Jessie arrived on her doorstep with a bunch of lovely blooms, picked from her own garden. Ivy will pop round tomorrow and see what’s going on.

A cool wind circles her ankles and chills her neck, and Ivy pulls her coat closer. Why isn’t she wearing her warm winter coat instead of this ridiculous lightweight object, that might almost be a dressing gown? Perhaps it was a gift from Eleanor, who has been behaving very strangely recently. She has started buying the most inappropriate gifts and making up all sorts of fanciful stories about the job she does and her husband and children. Ivy knows perfectly well that Eleanor is studying at Exeter University and, while she may have a boyfriend, she certainly isn’t married, and children are a long way into the future. She thinks that perhaps, when she gets home, she might call the doctor and have a word about Eleanor. Ivy is beginning to be quite concerned for her daughter’s mental health. Perhaps the pressure of studying is too much for her.

Reaching her own house, Ivy’s cold fingers struggle with the latch, but she finally opens the gate. Rummaging in her handbag for keys, she is once more flummoxed. Why is it so deep? What on earth has she put in there? Then she laughs out loud, a sound that carries in the quiet of the morning, and that makes her smile as it comes back to her own ears. When did she last laugh like this? She must laugh more often; laughter is, after all, the best medicine.

Ivy knows now what has happened. She would be the first to admit that she’s been a little forgetful recently, and this is a wonderful example. A story to tell Eleanor when she sees her, something to laugh about with Betty and Mo when they have coffee together next week. Instead of picking up her handbag, she must have reached for her knitting bag. Instead of door keys, a notepad, pen and other trivia, all she will find in this bag is yarn, needles and a half-knitted bobble-hat. Ah, well, all is not lost; Ivy will not be not defeated by her silliness.

Suddenly tired, Ivy lowers herself onto the front step to rest, while she tries to recall where she used to hide the spare key, which she is certain will still be there. She is colder now, and her coat provides little protection from the wind. Looking down at her feet, she sees fluffy yellow slippers with the faces of chicks on the top. What on earth induced her to buy these? Where are her boots? This is more of Eleanor’s interfering, and it has to stop. And those people at the hotel, where Eleanor has paid for her to go for a break. Ivy doesn’t need a break. She doesn’t need people interfering in her life, waking her in the mornings, telling her to make herself at home, bringing her the wrong newspapers, and refusing to let her call Henry. She doesn’t want to make herself at home anywhere except in her own home. She doesn’t need anyone meddling in her life.

Her brief moment of anger seems to have cleared her mind, and she knows exactly where to look for the key. Struggling to her feet and following the path round to the back of her house, she is impatient to get inside and sit by the fire. Or perhaps she will make a hot water bottle and curl up in bed for a while; just until she warms up.

The key is still there, under the ugly stone goblin that Henry bought for her, all those years ago. There had been a spate of thefts from local gardens, and Henry bought it because, he said, nobody would want to steal anything so ugly. It occurs to her, briefly, to wonder where Henry is today; but he works away so often that she loses track. When she gets inside, she will check the calendar on the kitchen wall and remind herself of when he’s due home. She might make a lemon drizzle cake; his favourite. She will need a rest first, though.

Ivy lets herself into the house. There is a feeling of peace as she steps over the threshold, and she reaches up with her left hand to touch Henry’s cowboy hat, as she has done every time she has entered the house since they bought it. She laughs aloud for the second time, at the memory of this misguided purchase, made on their honeymoon in Colorado. He has never worn it since that holiday, but neither of them would dream of parting with it. This hat is home, it has become their anchor. 

Ivy walks into her sitting room. It’s cold in here but, just for now, she will sit in her favourite chair with her favourite blanket and rest. When she feels a little better, she will boil the kettle and make tea and a hot water bottle. Without removing her coat, she sinks into the chair, pulls the beautiful, rainbow-coloured blanket around her, and smiles. 

Ivy is finally home. 

Our last story is by Zusana Storrier

She grew up on benefits in rural Scotland before heading to art college at the age of 16. Her fiction often focuses on the ingenuity and tenacity of those assigned a low status by their fellows and has been published in the UK and North America, in anthologies and literary journals. She was long-listed for the 2021 Mslexia Short Story Prize and the 2023 JBA Debut Novel Award and has written podcasts for Pitlochry Festival Theatre. After living in five countries, on three continents, she now lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.

Elsa’s Pig by Zusana Storrier

Elsa didn’t name her animals, but if she had, the pig would have been given an old, old family name. A name which translates as serene, for even as a blush-pink piglet, the pig would follow Elsa with calm eyes, her trotters clicking gently on the bricks of the courtyard.

‘I will eat you one day,’ Elsa said, as she scratched the pig’s neck or sprinkled cool water over her back on summer noons, smiling at the pig’s rumbled grunts of pleasure. ‘You do know that?’

Elsa was sure the pig knew very well. I can see it in the stillness of her eyes. She’s no fool, that one. The pig knows.

On winter nights, Elsa brought the pig in before the tiled stove, where she stretched out her hams and snored softly. Elsa would sit beside her. ‘You understand, pig-with-no-name, that I will have to kill you.’ 

She gave the pig handfuls of her own food at mealtimes, but never pork, the meat of lesser pigs, pigs who would have lacked the wisdom to accept the workings of fate. The pig enjoyed apples and bread, and cinnamon cake especially. ‘Ah you like that, don’t you, my love?’ Elsa said as she fed her. ‘Eat up, and eat deep.’ Then she sighed. ‘For the day will come when I will be the end of you.’ 

Sometimes she took the pig’s head in her hands and looked into the pale, still eyes. ‘I can’t say I’m happy about it.’ But the pig only gazed back tranquilly. She’s made her peace. Yes, that’s it.

The pig snuffled at Elsa’s face. It was lined and grey and pressed into the debris of the courtyard. Maybe it had been bullets or maybe it was shrapnel that had killed Elsa, the pig could never decide, but she found herself thinking about it often as she roamed the forest floor.

Thank you so much for listening. 
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