Earlier this week, I announced the winners of the short story competitions I ran at Swanwick Writing Summer School. Here is the story which was awarded first place in the flash fiction competition for stories up to 250 words.
A Father’s Son
By
Terry Lowell
How do you tell your boy he’s not your son?
Do you do it with one brutal sweep of the sword, to cut through a Gordian knot of half-truths; or carefully, laying a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow as he grows older?
Perhaps we should have told him when he was small. Explained the concept of biological parents and how they are not necessarily the parents who raise a child, who love a child. But that would have opened a Pandora’s box and a slew of questions to release all the ills of the Earth.
How do you explain rape to a child? How do you tell them of the horrors inflicted on their mother by a vicious, hate-fuelled monster?
No. I am your father. One simple lie does the job. Until it doesn’t.
I watch him sleep, face jaundiced like a sixty-a-day smoker. Without the transplant my boy will die. The thought crushes my heart.
I am his father. He is my son. From the first moment I felt Amy’s stomach move under my hand. From the moment I held him, bloodied and screaming in my arms. From his first word, his first step, his first day at school. He is my son, but I am not his father. Not in the one single way that matters.
Not compatible.
He opens his eyes. Blinks. Smiles.
‘Hi, Dad. Are we good to go yet?’
My mouth is dry. I lick my lips. Take a breath.
‘Son…’
Terry’s story pulls at the heart strings right from the very first line. So much is revealed in so few words as we’re carried through the story. It’s a masterclass on how to make every word count. It feels as if Terry has placed himself into his character’s shoes to write this; we feel the character’s pain and anguish and we want everything to turn out okay. A beautifully written heart-wrenching story.
Esther Chilton 
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