The Retreat West (now WestWord) Microfiction competition is great fun!
Early in the month a prompt is given and submissions are invited with a one week submission window. The pieces previously had to be exactly 100 words, but these days it varies up to 150 words.
In November 2022, the prompt was 'Shine.' I encouraged the writers, many who were beginning their writing journey, in the writing class I co-facilitate with my great friend Carolann Copland in Knocklyon Adult Education, to submit to the competition and was thrilled so many of them took up the challenge.
I was lucky enough to win the People's Prize with my piece I Polished All Our Shoes on Saturday Evenings.
(When the content migrated from Retreat West to the re-vamped WestWord website last August, the winning stories of previous competitions did not migrate, so it is now available below).
I Polished All Our Shoes on Saturday Evenings
So we'd be shiny for Mass on Sunday. Mother placed newspaper on the scullery floor. She gave me two small brushes and tins of shoe polish, black and brown. She warned me to make them as spotless as my soul, so we could see ourselves in them. All I saw was the cow dung on my father's boots, the traces of coal dust on my mother's brogues, the mud on my brother's lace ups. When I polished my own shoes, I scrubbed at traces of semen. I polished and polished, but I could never see myself. I always saw him.
