The Pride Roars
Flash Competition 2026
Joint Second Place
Aiden Carthy Walks on Water by Karen Arnold
&
Liberty Lullaby by Anne Dorrian
Aiden Carthy Walks on Water by Karen Arnold
The claim first appeared after the Easter holidays, on the bus shelter, outside the fish and chip shop, some bold boy had even been hung upside down over the bridge to spray paint it above the railway line, drips of white emulsion spattering the spikes of foxglove and rusting tracks. So often and in so many places that even I lifted my nose out of my book for long enough to wonder what was going on, to assume it was another hurling match victory, or maybe something to do with football. I thought of Aiden Carthy’s black hair, the way he smelled of mint and cigarettes when the other lads reeked of Lynx or worse when we crowded onto the bus.
I didn’t hear him walk up behind me as I read the latest incarnation of graffiti on the wall of the boy’s school. I didn’t believe his invitation to prove it to me, looking around for the huddle of giggling friends who had bet their friend he wouldn’t talk to the geeky girl with glasses. No one was laughing. Aiden was serious. When I returned at four, waiting for him at the gate, the graffiti had been painted over with white wash, but the grey ghost of the words still floated beneath the white.
The footpath is dusty and littered with sweet packets. Pages from a discarded newspaper are picked up by the warm breeze and tangle around my ankles. Aiden Carthy holds my hand. We do not say one word as we walk towards the pond. The air is softer now. I breathe the damp, green air and listen to the noise of a hidden stream trickling down the slope. He parts a curtain of willow and reveals the water like a conjuror. Aiden asks me, am I sure I want to do this? I nod, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. I sit down on a fallen tree, it’s leaves rotting gently in the water. A startled moor hen panics and flusters out of it’s hiding place. While I am distracted, Aiden Carthy has taken off his shoes and his white school shirt and he has walked across to the middle of the pond.
His feet dip, ever so slightly below the smooth black surface of the pond, his toes curved slightly into the surface tension. I had thought it might be more of an angelic hovering, but he glides across the mirror of water leaving a faint ripple in his wake. His smile is so wide his eyes vanish into crinkles of tanned skin.
A shaft of sunlight hits him like a blessing. It illuminates him, makes the water that curls over his feet dance and sparkle. He gestures at me to join him and right up until the moment my feet touch the water, I believe I can do this, I can walk on water with Aiden Carthy. Right up until the moment I start to sink.
Karen Arnold is a writer and child psychotherapist. She came to writing later in life, but is busy making up for lost time. She is fascinated by the way we use narratives and storytelling to make sense of our human experience. She has won the Mslexia prize for flash fiction and has work in The Waxed Lemon, The Martello, and Banshee amongst others. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. Her first chapbook collection of flash fiction was published by the independent publisher Bridge House Publishing in September 2025
Instagram @karenarnold1287
Liberty Lullaby by Anne Dorrian
I take up a cup of milk for her. The floor creak. The curtains draw cos the mottle make you blind. I put sage in a jug by the bed. She lie, her breath small and quick. A fallen baby bird. I sit. I watch. Red cheeks, wet hair. The fever eat her. She sleep all the time now. And you got to ask, what did she do? What did she do that wasn’t right? She pray like us all. My throat goes tight, like tryna swallow rocks. Like when I walk behind Mom’s coffin. Dad says I’m strong. We live in the Free Times now. We thrive. We trust God. He makes no mistakes. I sure miss my Mom. She bled out giving birth to Liberty. Dad says it’s a woman’s great honour. How God intended. He don’t make mistakes. I said what if it feels like it and he said Flora you got to have trust. You’re the eldest, you take Mom’s place. Liberty’s four now. And she got the mottle. Burnin’ up. Breath like chased rabbit. Dad says it use to be called measles. In The Unfree times. Things were all wrong then. All out of order. Now, we good. He says people used to took all kinds of drugs to make them feel good all the time and not get sick. Made them crazy. You got to see, he says, a fever too is God-given. There’s no diseases now. Only people not living right. Used to be us people were shackled. Schools, hospitals, prisons. God and the nightwatch is all we need now.
I put down the cup. She won’t drink that milk. She fading. I put the sage under her pillow.
Someone whisper to me in church that it stop the mottle. Don’t tell Dad. I got to have faith. I
got to stop thinkin about them drugs people used to take. We in the Free Times now. We do
our own research and pull our own teeth. Her breath almost gone now. I bend down. I lie to
her in a whisper: we trust the Lord.
Anne Dorrian's stories have featured in Pithead Chapel, Flash Frontier, Trash Cat Lit, Fairlight Shorts, MONO., Pigeon Review, and others. She has written a novel and is querying agents and publishers. She currently lives in Germany.
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