I was delighted to learn - genuinely delighted, like grinning-inside-delighted - to learn that a short story I have written won second prize in the 2025 Southland Arts Creative Writing Competition, which attracted entries from across the UK and possibly beyond. The theme was ‘Penning the Elements’. Here is my entry.
Minus One
One boy.
Two sets of goalposts.
Thirteen hours into the day.
I had left the house five hours earlier in t-shirt and shorts; a rare Northern morning. The type where clear blue skies teased out the growth of a June sun which wrapped its strength in the disguise of a warm breeze. T-shirt and shorts; Mr. Nuttall was experimenting with the idea of voluntary school uniform, knowing that there would be no catwalk fashion parade amongst his charge of under-11s. Not in this village, where poverty knocked on most doors. Eight o’clock, eight years old, and already I was walking the half mile into the village unattended by adults. In the sunlight, the pond by the old mill on the left hand side of the road, just after the railway bridge, glistened cliches in abundance. The long reeds in front swayed in hushed morning singalong to an old crowd favourite they shared with only themselves. Four cows, heifers all, grazed nonchalantly as I meandered schoolwards.
Those were the days. Just as we had sung along to Miss Reeves’ wonky piano playing in the morning assembly, those were the days. We thought they’d never end as well, just as the next line of that old Russian folk song anticipated. The summer holidays loomed ever closer. Six weeks of unadulterated joy lay ahead. These might, perhaps, be punctuated by a week by the seaside; adulterated joy that remained unconfirmed beyond snatches of hushed parental voices - “booked the week off”, “careful with money” and “train tickets” amongst phrases that wafted upstairs past bedtime on the tobacco smoke from dad’s pipe.
The second half of the summer term was when we were allowed to play on the school fields at dinner time. Unless it rained, of course, in which case we spent the time gazing out of the window mournfully whilst Shirley Jenkins, Kevin Fitzpatrick and Carl Norris fought over half-ripped copies of ‘The Beano’ and ‘Dandy’ (or, if they were really unlucky, ‘Whizzer and Chips’) stored in a cardboard box underneath the Art Cupboard for occasions such as these. There was no need for comics today. Not yet, at any rate. Instead, we sprang out of the dining hall full of excitement, joy and cold tapioca pudding, then bounded onto the school field through the cultivated gap in the hawthorn bushes that separated the lush green grass from the cold grey tarmac of the playground.
Twenty eight degrees centigrade.
Fifty minutes of play.
One hundred and fifty eight children.
This was the field on which, four months ago on a soggy Saturday morning, I had let the boys from Sacred Heart kick the ball beyond the desperate reaches of my muddy hands and into the goal on five separate occasions. Cause for celebration; the previous week Craig Runciman had conceded double figures against the same team. I didn’t bother cleaning my boots after the game, letting the mud crust deep around studs and leather to superstitiously carry the good fortune into the next game. The next game was lost 8-1. At least we scored, noted Mr. Nuttall in the Monday assembly. Whether he knew it had been an own-goal was never revealed.
Just past the entrance to the field, three dinner ladies sat in hard grey plastic chairs borrowed from Mrs Robert’s classroom, their tabards forming scant protection against the unforgiving curves of the seats. To their right, the goalposts that so often had provided a lonely frame for a goalkeeper bemoaning his much-breached defence. To their left, a clutch of girls excitedly foraging little white flowers with which to make garlands. Three dinner ladies, whose sole purpose appeared to be idly tying daisy chain headbands on demand whilst chatting about … oh, I don’t know; we never knew. We didn’t care either. Whatever the cause of their raised eyebrows and gasps of disbelief, it was nothing on the excitement of chasing a football between two pairs of jumpers or avoiding the outstretched arms of the person trying to pass on the curse of being ‘It’.
The sun dissolved quickly, via first breezy haze and then soft grey overcoat of cloud. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Grey skies were our bread and butter, up here in the industrial north west. We played on. The wind dropped. The air sucked moisture from the ground and hung it heavy around us. Christopher Thomas and Robert Francis pulled my attention away from the kickabout; we began to explore our own feats of strength. Christopher Thomas could do a handstand, and then walk on his hands. Robert Francis didn’t believe him. Neither did I. Christopher Thomas demonstrated, walking on his hands towards a small circle of girls playing pat-a-cake, before tumbling over, and catching Victoria Mullins in the back in the process. She ran to the dinner ladies, tears in full flow, whilst Robert Francis led a sprint away towards the goalposts at the top of the field.
The wind had now picked up, gusting wildly in sporadic intervals. A cool chill against the bare limbs of a boy dressed only in t-shirt and shorts. T-shirt and shorts, the only clothes fit for such a rare morning. That was five hours ago. Now, bare limbs sweated in humidity. An intermittent smattering of heavy rain drops, carried with them the unspoken understanding that proceedings may soon be interrupted by the call of the dinner ladies to head inside. The sky was a deeper shade of grey now, not that we were looking up. My eyes were fixed on Robert Francis; his on the white flaked-paint-covered steel goalposts. I don’t know where Christopher Thomas was looking as Robert Francis leaped up and grabbed hold of the crossbar, swinging.
Bang.
I didn’t know where Christopher Thomas was looking. I knew where he was standing. The light was so intense, brighter than any optician’s torch since shone at my retina. The heat seared, scorched, singed. My ears suddenly numb, then ringing. I knew where Christopher Thomas was standing. Only where he was standing he now lay, motionless bar the odd neural twitch. Through the whine in my ears pierced the screams of children. The strong arms of an adult scooped me up, carried me at pace, horizontal and confused. Everybody ran. The rain pummelled skin, clothing, grass and tarmac. I looked beyond my shoulder. Everybody running, except Christopher Thomas.
Volts: Three hundred million.
Odds: One in thirty three million.
Population: Minus one.
Text and image copyright John Hartley 2025.
