New Writers Flash Fiction Competition 2024 – Second Place
Instructions for an unswallowed life
by Jane Dugdale
- When the shambling undead crest the hill do not run – your knees are shot and there are
no puffs left in your inhaler. - Instead, with your whittling knife, sharpen brush handles and chair legs into jagged-tipped spikes to add to those barricading your garden.
- While sharpening, relive the day when the walking dead were just a tweet with laughingcrying
emojis; when the bristly store assistant said they didn’t sell body armour that fit
your plus-size measurements; when you phoned your parents only to have Dad joke
you’d be three courses, and Mum enquire if you were still seeing your therapist. - Know in your bones that there’s no good reason to return to your childhood bedroom –
your body is your most precious love and home. - When a flesh marauder evades the barricade and heavy foots through your vegetable
patch, pick up your sledgehammer. It’s time to attack. Your warm, doughy stomach and
delectable breasts will not be morsels for the braindead. - Remember to aim for the base of the skull. In this instance, the heart is redundant, and the
head is most vulnerable. - Protect your body. You owe it much: the accessible comfort it and food provided when
there was no other sort; the body clock that persists when you’re lost amongst the shoulds
and should nots of how to look, what to eat, and who to love. - Sidestep flailing arms and dodge gnashing teeth, and when you see maggots writhing in
bloated flesh, summon your swallowed furies. - Do not blink.
- Swing. SLAM. Repeat.
- Later, once this wave of decomposition has passed, place rocks on the fallen’s chests so
they cannot rise and the earth can reclaim them. - Then sit by the window and watch the hill, and tell yourself over and over that you will
not be small.
(click here for PDF version)
Author bio: Jane Dugdale is a researcher and writer. Her short fiction has been published by the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, Reflex Fiction, The Bath Short Story Award and NFFD. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and can be found on X and Bluesky.
(Twitter/X: @janeannedugdale | Bluesky: @janedugdale.bsky.social)