Writing Contest

Congratulations to Kelsey Swanson, the winner of our 2015 winter writing contest. Kelsey has spent most of her life in Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs.  She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Illinois Springfield with Bachelor’s Degrees in English and History, and is currently working toward her Master’s Degree in English through Southern New Hampshire University. 

 

She would one day like to become a college professor; a career where she believes she will best be able to share her passion for British literature and history.  A graduate of the College of Lake County, she has been asked to return to lecture and co-teach various English courses. She has tremendously enjoyed sharing her love for literature.

 

A majority of her time has been spent writing novel-length works of fiction, but she has begun dabbling in writing shorter pieces over the last several years.  Some of her writing has been printed in various local and educational publications.

 

Kelsey currently lives in Grayslake, Illinois with her fiancé and their two dogs.  In her free time, she enjoys reading, trying new recipes, playing with her dogs, and managing the all-consuming planning process for her upcoming nuptials.

 

Kelsey's winning entry, "Lost Soul" appear below.

 

 

Lost Soul

 

He listened at the door. If he’d counted his heartbeats correctly, it was time for the guard to make his rounds.

 

            He ignored the snuffling and scratching of tiny nails sifting through the filthy straw in the corner of the cell and, instead, focused on the echo of the hard-soled hessians in the corridor.  This was one of the few fluctuations in the monotony that had overtaken his life.

 

            His bloodshot eyes slid shut and he rested his head against the heavy door.  He listened.  Step.  Step.  Step.  The rough-hewn barrier scraped a layer of grime from his forehead when he tilted his ear to listen for what he knew would come next.  The footsteps halted.  There were two tense heartbeats of silence and anticipation before the door to the cell adjacent to his rattled violently on its iron hinges.

 

            “Oy!” the guard’s booming voice reverberated along the damp stone walls, assaulting the lowly occupants.  “Food!”  The word came out on a belch sounding as if the guard had already drank his own supper.  Next came the scrape of a tin plate through the gap between the door and the ground, and then the clatter as the poor prisoner scrambled for the pathetic nourishment.  The steps continued closer.

 

            He sat back from the door and rocked onto the balls of his feet; his eyes fixed upon the growing, flickering sliver of light at the base of the door.

 

His breath slowed.

 

The footsteps stopped.

 

The door rattled.

 

The voice boomed and slurred.

 

The dented plate skittered beneath the door.

 

He’d learned over the last several weeks to catch the plate before it toppled and spilled its goods.  The plate’s sole occupant was a wedge of bread no bigger than his fist.  He ignored the suspicious spots of discoloration on the crust and sank his teeth into the dry, stale bread, choking down each mouthful and trying not to wince as it scraped his parched throat on the way down to his hollow stomach.

When he was finished, he wiped the crumbs from his fingers on the leg of his trousers – or what was left of them.  His clothing was what remained of the rags he’d been wearing when they’d shoved him head first and sprawling into this cell all those weeks ago.  The fabric was stiff with sweat and the unrecognizable substances smeared over every surface of the cell.  He was grateful his sense of smell had deadened.

 

His fingers and toes were pockmarked with punctures from his rodent bedmates, who were so kind as to remind him he was still alive on those rare occasions when he managed to drift off into a shivering, fitful sleep.  Brazen little demons.

The light emanating from the crack in the door faded as the guard – followed by the torchbearer – made his way down the line of cells.

 

This was when the darkness set in – not just the loss of light in the literal sense, but when the reality of his situation set in.  It was weightier than any moonless night, and so deafening that its roar drowned out the squeals of bickering rodents and the wails of his fellow prisoners.

 

New South Wales awaited him – a life of servitude, if he was lucky…if the damp chill in the cell didn’t infest his lungs; if the blisters from the shackle on his ankle didn’t fester and herald in fever; if the ship he’d been waiting for over the last several weeks wasn’t lost in a storm en route to his fate.  A penal colony in a faraway land of unknown dangers and struggles was his penalty for his crime.

He knew it was futile to bemoan his fate too greatly.  He’d learned long ago that God did not hear his wretched pleas for mercy, so why would He hear him now, entombed as he was in the bowels of the jailhouse?  He’d long been forsaken.  He was being punished for choosing theft over starvation.  He was already in Hell, just waiting for the fire and brimstone to engulf him.

 

He slid back across the cramped expanse of floor until his skull met the moist limestone of the wall.  Something skittered past his foot in a scramble of fur and nails.  He closed his eyes, though it was no darker than the cell had been.

Sobs echoed through the dungeon as someone allowed reality to push him ever closer to madness.

 

He began counting his heartbeats again.

 

One.  Two.  Three…