NYC Midnight 250-word microfiction, round one
Genre: Romantic comedy | Action: shovelling snow | Word: measure
This story didn’t place in its group.
Judges’ feedback:
What an original event. The visual of the racers shovelling snow and then Jamie taking a faceplant is amusing. How delightful and quite charming that the narrator abandons the race and joins him in the snow.
This is certainly a fun story. I think the reader will expect that the race is for dogsledding or something of the like and not a snow-shovelling contest, which will be a fun misdirect to catch the reader off guard when going through the story. Very interesting that simply explaining different words for snow would make one famous on Tik Tok. The funniest thing about that is I think the average reader of this piece would not even bat an eye regarding that as a complete possibility.
James Evan Mackenzie knows too many words for snow
The village green is white. Dozens of lanes are staked out with rope and red flags, fluttering in a Highland breeze. Every villager not in the race has turned out to watch.
Windblown flakes strike my cheeks like darts.
A shovel rests against his shoulder. ‘Spitters – would you say, Orla?’
It’s our best word for wind-driven snow, but I clock the Hollywood grin, and too many cameras click. If the paparazzi shout ‘Kiss her, Jamie!’ one more time, I’ll hit them with my shovel. We’re friends. That’s all.
Flindrikin. Snaw-pouther. There are so many Scottish words for snow. His TikTok about them launched his acting career. I devoured his videos, safe behind my librarian’s desk. The skinny boy who once pelted me with snowballs now makes dry drift sound sexy.
‘Don’t ACT with me,’ I retort.
The whistle blows. We pivot and scoop. We throw snow over our shoulders until three metres in, when Jamie lobs his shovelful in front of me.
‘Eejit!’ I fling it back hard. It strikes his face. He slips. Faceplants.
He’s a snow angel.
Not moving. He could suffocate! Snow-smoor.
‘NO!’ I stumble across the rope and heave him over.
He’s bearded in ice.
‘Not acting,’ he splutters. ‘With you, I can be me.’
He grins. His laugh is warm like a sinful measure of whisky.
I am a fluther: a confusion of snow.
Melting.
‘Me? Really?’ I drop next to him in the white stuff.
‘James Evan Mackenzie,’ I whisper. ‘Tell me more.’